May 22, 2020 -Friday - SIP Dispatches- Mutterings about Masks

There has been much chatter about "control" when people discuss the issue of wearing masks in public - the government wants to control us, I'm in control of what I do, this is a free country. To me this whirlwind about "who's in control" is the result of the weak leadership from the top, the sense that no one really is in control of the situation, and we all have to fight our own way through it. There is no sure hand, no good brain guiding us through, with all our best interests at heart.

Although, who ever is in control of a pandemic?

But true leadership can steer us through the morass. Look at Angela Merkel in Germany, Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand, leaders who were re-assuring, who made hard, thoughtful,  science-supported decisions and and pulled their country together, rather than splitting it apart. The virus was treated in those countires as a public health issue, not a political issue, as the current resident in the White House has done.

I sure don't see that wearing a mask as bowing down to a fascist government, as I have seen folks state on social media - that's viewing mask-wearing as a political issue. Wearing a mask is a health concern issue; it gives me a way to control not spreading the virus to others. It is a way I can assume some responsibility for not letting the virus travel beyond my sad sack of bones and flab, out into the environment and onto others. And I welcome the opportunity to do something about this. It's an act of compassion, a gesture of altruism for the good of all that I can easily and willingly do. 

Rebecca Solnit saw our willingness to shelter in place as acts of altruism for the larger society,  writing about  "the great withdrawal – the empty schools, shops, streets and offices. And that withdrawal is itself altruism in action – a withdrawal carried out by billions for the benefit of their communities, as well as their own safety. In the initial phase, we withdrew from the spaces we share out of solidarity: we moved apart to come together. We intentionally produced, in the form of business and school shutdowns and staying home, an unprecedented economic calamity as an alternative to accepting mass death."Way We get Through This" The Guardian

In the same way, wearing a mask when in public, protects others more than it protects ourselves. Anyone can be an aymptomatic carrier, never succumbing ot the disease but capable of transmitting it. Most folks can transmit Covid-19 for days before they even show symptoms. An it seems, for a long time after. IT only makes sense to kind of assume that we might be carrying the disease on any given day and  do whatever we can to avoid transmitting it to somewhere else.

So as we begin to open up some of our business and services, we have to consider the likely incidence of transmission. Church services are in the business of getting folks close together. So how will they make it work? Seating at every other pew?  Several services? Masks at all times? No  more Communion?

Napa is allowing some sit-down restaurants. - They do have a lot of outdoor seating available. I still won't go there. I'm not interested enough.

Hairdressers? Haircuts? Not for me, thanks!

May 21, 2020 - Thursday, SIP Pandemic Journals - Smiles and Smizes, Emergence, Vaccine?

Reflecting on the impact of not being able to read our full faces. Will we have to develop cute sign-languages to convey our appreciation for our fellow humans? Can we learn to communicate without visual cues from our mouth?  Smiling just with our eyes "smizing"/ Remember the eye hug?

A Bay Area Without Smiles

How The Bay Area will Emerge from Coronavirus Sheltering
These are the most important steps. . It will be a matter of tracking down known cases and all the contacts. We have to learn how to live with this disease for quite a while, maybe up to several years, before a vaccine is developed and ready to deploy. 

Contact Tracing
Thinking to apply to be a Contact Tracer - it would feel like worthwhile work, that I would be contributing something. Of course, only if it was all or mostly online and by phone. Not sure I'd be ready to do face-to-face work.

See, errr, I mean, listen to this podcast, where Dr Stephen Thomas talks about the process of getting a vaccine through trials and to the public. Social Distance Episode 50 Is There a Vaccine Shortcut?

May 20, 2020 - Wednesday - SIP Chronicles Ravens as Chefs de Cuisine

In the front yard is a birdbath made of concrete, a shallow moat set upon a pedestal and anchored by a granite-grey frog with blank eyes. Set about halfway between a struggling ash tree and a small pear tree on what we sheepishly call the front lawn, it's been attracting the attention of three ravens lately, who have been treating it as their soup pot  - or gravy boat, depending on how you look at it.

Over a week or so, back in April, I noticed them flying in with wide crusts of sandwich bread, big heel ends of sourdough loaves, hunks of French rolls, leaving them to soak in the warming water, coming back to sip and sup a few hours later on the soggy chunks. Once, I saw a raven take a softened piece and hide it in the shadow of a big fieldstone, covering it up with some leaves and twigs from some nearby mulch. 

The ravens also love to snag mussels out of the marsh and bring them up to the top of a nearby power pole, dropping them so they smash on the sidewalk below. They've been doing this since forever, the sidewalk below the pole constantly littered with pieces of black glossy shells. Then, for reasons I don't quite fathom, they began bringing the broken shellfish over to the birdbath, dropping the meat and guts into the trough. Then they'd tug and tussle with the globby meat, steal chunks from each other, take the dripping bits up into the big limbs of the ash to gobble them down, leaving the little strings of intestine and holdfasts and broken shells in the rough trough of the birdbath or on the dirt and new mulch under it.

This wasn't so bad when the birdbath was dry - just bits and bobs here and there, mostly empty shells. But as spring warmed up and  I began keeping the birdbath filled with water on a daily basis, I realized that the ravens would let the mussel meat steep in the shallow water, let it stew all afternoon in the sun. Sometimes along with some hunks of bread. Like a fancy French restaurant. Or a section of a wasps' paper nest. like a hipster French restaurant. Once or twice, I saw the remains of newly-hatched nestlings, tiny clawed feet, minute grey down-feathers left to simmer and stew all afternoon until the ravens returned to slurp and sup. Like something from a forager's raw-food menu.

At first I thought this was an anomaly, just some odd behavior, but as it became a regular routine, I realized these ravens were cooking, they were chefs de cuisine, harnessing solar power to make their soups and stews. In the morning, I would sluice out the remnants from the concrete trough, like a bouncer hosing down a bar at the start of a new day, flushing out shells and tiny feathers and holdfasts and grey strings of intestines. It would be comical, if it weren't also rather gruesome.

May 19, 2020 - Tuesday SIP Dispatches - Drumpf is Taking That Stuff?

So, today I heard the craziest thing.  Something I  thought at first was parody or published in poor taste in The Onion. What I heard was that  President Drumpf said he was taking hydroxychloroquine on the regular. Like daily.

What an unadulterated fool.  Has he finally lost what little mind he was born with? 

There are so many things wrong with his statement that one wonders where to begin.

But first, I sincerely doubt he's even taking the stuff. Drumpf is a convicted and compulsive liar. He would find it easy to say he's taking it, whether he was doing it or not.  And by lying about it, he has the best of both worlds. He bolsters the use of it (and we suspect some kind of monetary gain - or point of pride) AND he avoids dying from it.

Of course, his TrueBelieverFollowers won't be so lucky.

It's so irresponsible to pretend this is a valid treatment - how many of his True Believers will demand this treatment, to their own detriment? How many more people will die because of this idiot-fool?

During medical trials, hydroxychloroquinine hasn't proven to be effective - or any more effective than a placebo - in treating the disease. In fact, in some cases, it was worse.

The side effects of the drug can be lethal, as it can result in irregular heartbeats, especially in older, overweight men with heart disease.

There could be dancing in the streets?

It was never understood to be a prophylactic - unlike a vaccine, it won't prevent the disease. It's only suspected usefulness was to shorten the course of the disease.  Is Drumpity trying to tell us he has Covid-19?

By his actions, he's taking the drug out of the hands of the patients who need it. It works well, with close consultation and oversight by a trained physician, for malaria, lupus,  rheumatoid arthritis.  Now those patients find their supplies threatened and treatment sometimes delayed.

His doctor simply said Drumpf could take it if he wanted to? Really? What kind of a doctor says that?
Is he certifiably nutz?  (Drumpf and/or the doctor).

Look for Drumpf to be back-tracking from this statement in the next couple of days.  With the usual supply of lies.

Holy Toledo, Bat-Poop Crazy Man. 

Most measured source reporting on this event from The Guardian: Trump is Taking Hydroxychloroquine 


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/19/trump-hydroxychloroquine-covid-19-white-house

May 18, 2020 - Monday -SIP Pandemic Journals - Starting the Engines

And so we begin. The sound of saws stir the land, smacking hammers keep the back beat. White construction vans prowl the streets, landscaper's pickups park in front of gardens.

We may be heading back toward something that resembles commerce, but I find myself reluctant to rejoin the fray. My part-time gigs could be resurrected - or I could let them go. Not sure I'm ready to mix and mingle with society just yet. With the increase of travel and commerce, comes the increase of the chance of coronavirus infection  -- unless we are diligent about testing, contact tracing and isolating discovered cases.  All things the Fed Gov't should be supporting, so we can have faith when entering a store or bar or other venue. I thank the stars that our Governor Newsom, among other staunch and ethical State Governors, is implementing those necessary steps.

Some links with info about contact tracing, how it works, what states are prepared, how the Federal Government can help, not hinder.
Contact Tracer Training in California
Contact Tracer is Virus Sleuthing
First Person Accounts of Being a Contact Tracer
NPR - What We've Learned About Contact Tracing Capacity




Links
Cal Matters   https://calmatters.org/health/2020/05/california-coronavirus-contact-tracing-training/
STATNEWS.  https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/18/coronavirus-contact-tracer-sleuthing-stress-veering-off-script/
Tech review  https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/05/10/1001534/first-person-america-covid-19-contact-tracer-experience/

NPR  https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/04/28/846736937/we-asked-all-50-states-about-their-contact-tracing-capacity-heres-what-we-learne

May 17, 2020 - Sunday SIP Journals

May 16th , 2020 - Saturday SIP Pandemic Journals - Rebecca Solnit and "The Way We Get Through This"

Rebecca Solnit writes about the role of mutual aid in times of communal trouble and she offers some solace and hope.  At least to me.   "One of the most striking aspects of this global crisis is how many forms of aid and solidarity there are. These new forms of generosity we are seeing – organising, networks, projects, donations, support and outreach – are numerous beyond counting, a superbloom of altruistic engagement." (Solnit,   "The Way We Get Through This"  The Guardian 14 May, 2020)

Green Plant, Blue Tile

Mutual aid is community support; it's coming together to help each other in times of crises.  It's what we do in order to get through. It's that well of generosity that gets us through tough times, that defines us as human. Think of the millions of volunteers in the World Wars rolling bandages for hospitals, of the Victory Gardens or gathering scrap metal in WWII.  Things ordinary citizens did to help out the national efforts in time of war.

These days of the pandemic, it's the home-crafters sewing millions of face masks and donating them to health care personnel.  It's sharing sourdough starter and recipes when no one could find yeast. Swapping puzzles for entertainment during our stay-at-home orders. Shopping for the more compromised in our neighborhood; putting teddy bears in our windows to give kids something to search for on their walks.

Green Tile, Green Plant

And it's the artist in our neighborhood who leaves these artful tiles around for folks to discover - I've seen several all over Santa Venetia. A walk becomes a treasure hunt on the path of distractions, with the balm of gratitude because someone had the kindness to gift us with a bit of beauty.  An uplift to the day. A reminder that not everyone is a nut job; that humans really can be generous towards their fellows.

Blue Wolf - to aid in the evening's howling

.










Solnit, Rebecca, The Guardian  "The Way We Get Through This"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/14/mutual-aid-coronavirus-pandemic-rebecca-solnit

May 15, 2020 - Friday. Pandemic Journals- Beginning the Slow Return

 lovely tulips in the evening sun

Today, May 15th, the USA approached 1.5 million cases of Covid-19 and almost 90,000 deaths from the virus. While is seems the rate of transmission has slowed, it hasn't stopped yet.

In Marin, we've kept our metrics steady with under 300 cases and 14 deaths by some pretty drastic staying at home actions. The low number of cases and the fact that the deaths have not risen lately makes it look to some like it wasn't such a big deal after all. But those numbers are so good because we performed the correct protocols, stayed home, stayed masked and thus starved the virus of new territories and sources to continue. Not that it's gone completely; it's still lurking about.

And let's be honest, our demographics helped us a lot here, too  -- we have a deep sector of the population with adequate financial resources,  plenty of professionals who can work from home and many who are already retired anyway. There are many small markets for supplies, and delivery options aplenty.  Our county began restrictions even before the State of California fully required it, which was just about the earliest  of them all.

Now the talk is that beginning Monday, May 18, retail shops can offer curbside services, construction requirements have loosened, gardeners, too.  No haircuts, mani-pedis, or dentists quite yet. With this loosening, of course, come nervous fears of an uptick of infections and cases. The hope is that we have learned the lessons of physical distancing, wearing masks, washing hands. We'll see. I am in no rush to get out into commercial life. I will sit a lot of this out. I'll chose to go for long hikes at less-populated parks rather than sit in a movie theater; I'll get take-out from a delish food-truck rather than sit in a confined space for dinner; I'd rather hang out with my granddaughter than play bingo or go to a bar. 

Meanwhile, New Zealand is beginning the process of economic recovery. Their method of shutting down hard and early protected them from the worst ravages of the disease -- and they used the time they gained from the shut-down wisely, testing widely and using contact tracing to isolate cases before they could spread any further.  We didn't - all the hemming and hawing from this Administration is going to cost lives once again that otherwise could have been protected.

From SF Chronicle

May 14th, 2020, Thursday. SIP Chronicles: Bacon Bits

From the Department of Bacon Bits, a collection of small remarks and important connections.

Rain, rain, rain.

Another Socially Distanced birthday - three of us, marking out a triangle  in camp chairs 8 feet apart in a tidy garage, hiding from the rain, sharing space with a very neat woodshop bench.  It's a joy to be able to speak face-to-face, even if we can't touch or get close. Once again, sensory gifts in this time of physical deprivation: wine, chocolate, books, a richly-scented candle of rum and brown sugar.


ND Writes
My friend writes about the challenges of being an Echocardiographer in the Time of Covid-19; she has stories from the front line. 

May 13th, 2020 - Dispatches SIP- Taking A Moment

Another coldish day, thick low grey skies, wind that combs the branches of the peppertree into slanting swags of green fronds and brittle pink pepperberries hanging over the backyard fence. Every so often it drizzles -but not enough to matter, just enough to wet your whistle.

I may go down to my friend's pond, walk the circumference two or three times, listening for the sweet lyrics of the song sparrow, the warlbling tunes of the finches, the guttural croak of an egret, so incongruous of its elegance.

May 12th, 2020 Tuesday - CHronicles of SIP

The anxieties pile up and threaten to freeze me, immobilize my will. Action is the antidote -- and so, I have re-activated the Petaluma Postcard Pod, which had been in a slow-down, a hibernation the past two months. Yep,  climbing back in the saddle and getting geared up for the 2020 election.  With this new campaign, I've already distributed 400 addresses to my writers, ready and eager to bring about change in November. 

Have to do something or I'll go booger-nutz. Writing postcards ticks off a whole bunch of boxes: contacting voters reminding them to vote is a sound strategy for 2020; it's a physical, tangible action, which helps the stress-related cortisol to drain away; we're buying plenty of stamps from the USPS which might help support them. We hope. We love the post office-- it's an emblem of civilized society to have a functioning, reliable, federally-supported post office system.

Okay, off to write cards!

May 11, 2020 - SIP Chronicles - More Bacon Bits: Just the Facts, Man.

Check out these two sites:

One, by Dr Erin Bromage, (Microbiology and Immunology) offers a detailed look at how this virus moves within enclosed spaces. This knowledge will help us understand the risks we face as businesses and offices and restaurants open up. It's quite precise, with charts and graphs.
The Risks Know Them  Avoid Them
by Erin Bromage from his blog
https://www.erinbromage.com/

Another one is from this article in SF Chronicle today about UCSF Students who host a site  debunking various myths and misinformation about the virus:  COVID-19 FactCheck

Bookmark 'em, Dano! Both are worth returning to.

May 10, 2020 - SIP Chronicles - Mom's Day

Mom's Day 2020 - Zooms and Quiet Times.

Heather Cox Richardson wrote about the origins of  Mother's Day and it's not quite what I thought.
Her essay opens this way:
"If you google the history of Mother’s Day, the internet will tell you that Mother’s Day began in 1908 when Anna Jarvis decided to honor her mother. But “Mothers’ Day”—with the apostrophe not in the singular spot, but in the plural—actually started in the 1870s, when the sheer enormity of the death caused by the Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War convinced American women that women must take control of politics from the men who had permitted such carnage. Mothers’ Day was not designed to encourage people to be nice to their mothers. It was part of women’s effort to gain power to change modern society." 
Mother's Day by Heather Cox Richardson

.... and it's quite a story.

You're welcome.
Happy Mom's Day - and  Persistence is Resistance !

May 9, 2020 - SIP - Hmmmm

(Under contruction)

May 8 2020 - SIP Chronicles - Cattitude?

Last year, our cat disappeared for three nights, returning l mid- afternoon on this date in 2019, lethargic and injured. A visit to the vet revealed severe trauma - animal fight and bite or else hit by a vehicle. I spent about 10 days nursing him back to health - he wouldn't eat, wouldn't move, could barely pee. But I syringed food and water into his mouth, slept with him at night and dragged him back into our house when he thought he should hide under the neighbor's deck.

I think back to that time: what a demanding, insecure  experience it was, not knowing if he'd make it, existing in a state of anxious caring. And I think back to what has happened since then - the upheaval of moving out of our house of 25 years,  wildfires returning to Sonoma County, evacuations from the Kincaid Fire, power outages meant to control the potential fires. The sense of a State of Emergency that hung over the West Coast all fall. And  now the Pandemic.  Sheltering in place with husband, grown duaghter, and this same cat, who has some  residual effects from the trauma -- pain in the hindquarters at times, and damage to the optic nerve that leaves his pupils at slightly different sizes.

What does the cat know of our troubles? His meals still arrive at regular intervals, he watches the birds in the back yard, he patrols the little transit alley beside the house and sleeps in the garage most of the day. For him, almost every day since mid-May, 2019, has been a better day.

I can't say that about our country, right now.

But I do try to adopt enough cattitude to enjoy what I can of what we still have: the sun across the lawn, the walks around the quiet neighborhood, the quietness of the streets, the tasty meals we make, the letters I attempt to write,   because after all, what else are we going to spend out time on?


And you know what?  We will have  mail in ballots in California in November, yes!
Thank you, Newsom!

May 7th, 2020 - Thursday - SIP Chronicles

Why Weren't We Ready for the Coronavirus?
by Ali Khan in the New Yorker, May 11, 2020 issue.
(Discussion under construction)

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/11/why-werent-we-ready-for-the-coronavirus

May 6th, 2020 - Tuesday SIP Chronicles

Knitting is my go-to activity these days, the clicking of the smooth, bamboo needles masking the ticktocks of time. Right now, a soft, wooly, dark turquoise hat, thick and squishy, is growing off the round needles in as circle of comfort: a watch cap kind of hat, meant for winters, not the quickly approaching summer.

By the time I'm done with the hat, we might be starting to shake off this enforced hibernation and the hat will have fulfilled it's purpose, a threaded glide from the Time Before to the Time After.

May 5 2020 - SIP Chronicles - New Yorker

"April 15, 2020 A Coronavirus Chronicle. 24 hours in the epicenter of the pandemic. "
A powerful collection of experiences from one day near the height of the pandemic in New York City. 
From the  New Yorker, May 4th 2020 Print edition.

May 4, 2020 - Monday -SIP Journals - THings Will Get Better

According to Newsom, we must continue to stay home but ... things are loosening up. Some construction can begin again, especially outdoor construction or on sites without residents.  And some retail - if they can do curbside pickup.  Social distancing rules still in place. Restaurants are take-out only; no sit-down or sit-in service.

Still.
Idiots out on the beaches in So Cal - 3,000 arrested in Huntington Beach, I heard? 
 And of course, protests in Sacramento.

That said, today, construction trucks were definitely around the area. The house across the street,  having been quiet for more than a month even though in the middle of a remodel, was visited by a small crew wearing masks and a white panel truck.

May 3, 2020 - Pandemic In Place Journals

Some hope now, with new orders from Newsom about how we will  open, return from this hibernation.
Some dismay, too.

May 2, 2020 - SIP Journals

Can't fix stupid.
Got.To.Vote.Them.Out.

Haiku Under Construction. 

May 1, 2020 -Bacon Bits from SIP Chronicles

(Under construction)

April 30 2020 _ Dipatches from SIP

(under construction)

April 29, 2020, Weds - Dispatches from Shelter in Place. Animated Cats

Today I need a break from all the news, all the events. No more radio, no more checking the News App, no more tv, no more talk about it.

But of course, that is all our species around the world can think about.

Time to take a walk. Time to play with animated cats. Neko Atsume.

From the game NekoAtsume

April 28, 2020 Tuesday - Dispactches from SIP - Socially Distanced Birthday

Carol hosted a Socially Distanced Birthday Gathering for our friend Gail. Three of us sitting outside on a shaded patio, 8 feet apart, no hugs, no shared cake with candles to blow out.  Some slices of delicious banana bread and large strawberries on paper plates. We each brought our own beverage -- coffee or iced tea. The day was warm and sunny; the shade welcome. The birthday presents were a sign of the times:  a bar of lovely yet strong soap, chocolates for sustenance, a bottle of lovely wine and a hand-sewn mask, made from a sassy pattern, fit to wear out to a party. Should that ever happen.

Hooray for New Zealand — they’ve declared  the end of community spread of coronavirus. Yahooiee! A tiny bright light at the end of a long and treacherous tunnel! They did it by severe  and early lockdown, lots of tests, two week quarantine for anyone coming into the country - all the things the scientists say to do - and few of which we did, due to our ill-prepared President who wanted this to just go away - and still wants it just to disappear, with out much effort on his part, it seems to me.  Well, it's not gonna just go away and we're not returning to any sort of normal.

There's no going back -- just forward into an irrevocably altered world, at least for the foreseeable future.

April 27, 2020 - Exhaustion in the Time of Coronavirus - Dipataches from SIP

I'm so pooped - and yet I'm doing pretty close to zilch all day long. Not teaching, barely writing, sometimes knitting. Can't focus on reading. My brain seems beat up. Walking, at times, is about the only thing I'm capable of.

It doesn't seem right, though, this tiredness, given the lack of activity or duties.  I mean, all I'm required to do is Stay Home. And yet most everyone I talk to reports this same sense of exhaustion. Sure, everything takes longer  - washing hands, standing in lines to get into stores, sense of rushing through any kind of shopping in order to minimize contacts, unpacking and wiping off groceries and delivered items.  All the washing and wiping of door handles and counters and light switches. The anxiety itself wears on us, too, I think, burning up mental energy.

But Kella Hanna-Wayne thinks it's even more subtle than that. In her article Why Does Everything Feel So Hard Right Now? she writes that being unable to reliably predict the future adds its own burden to our brain and psyche, draining our energy. Even more importantly, all our automatic-pilot sort of routines are gone, the things we did without thinking too much, our habits that allowed us to save mental energy for other tasks.  Routine things like going to the store are no longer simple. Our mornings are no longer dictated by the same automatic pattern of rise, shower, eat, commute to work. We aren't getting the kids ready for daycare - even if we are WFH, it hardly matters what we wear, when we get up, if the kids ever get out of their jammies. We have to think about everything again  - when to get up, how to procure supplies, where we can actually walk. We have to come up with new patterns and routines, almost daily, as the restrictions and requirements shift quickly.

 No doubt by the time this is over, the new behaviors will be routine and we'll have to re-learn new patterns.  I'm tired just thinking about it.




https://medium.com/invisible-illness/why-does-everything-feel-so-hard-right-now-if-nothing-is-wrong-e16230a99a80

April 26, 2020 - SIP Chronicles, Day Whatever - PODCASTS!

Yes, I am way out of order on the days and way behind.. I'm going to post as best as I can and then carry on forward. So some of these  will be "Under Construction" while  I tidy up the prose. And not all will have pictures.  Or complete thoughts. Or complete sentences.

Two podcasts to consider.

Social Distance
Two writers from the Atlantic magazine team up to discuss the Covid Pandemic via phone calls in NYC in real time starting with the shelter in place orders issued in mid-March.  I came to the podcast five weeks late, and began listening with the first episode posted on March 13, 2020. I  find it both fascinating and, of course, already dated. How could it not be?  Things have been moving so fast. Just tracking the advice about masks over the past month and a half will make your head spin.

One of the podcasters, Dr James Hamblin,  is a medical doctor who reports on medical topics; the other, Katherine  Wells, is podcast producer.  This is an informed yet friendly conversation between friends that covers all the questions we have.  I think the podcast highlights the growing realizations we experienced as the enormity of the pandemic dawned on all of us.  While Dr Hamblin certainly understood it from the beginning (he had already been writing about the virus), his partner in the podcast, Katherine Wells, suffers from the bends, in a way, as she had just returned from an engrossing work assignment that had her not quite tuned into the new realities.  We get to travel with her as she taps into experts to get a handle on the unknown.

I find the sound information  and clear view of the issues re-assuring, even if somewhat terrifying at times - and with the rapid sequence of events, the podcast almost has the feel of a historical-doucment already.

The Way We Live Now -  Hosted and created by the well-known writer Dani Shapiro. this is a  fascinating day-by-day release of interviews with folks as they endure the pandemic and how they find ways to cope.  Began April 14.