The revolutions continue. Right now, the eastern European country of Belarus is weeks into street protests and strikes against the long and corrupt rule of Alexander Lukashenka, the main ruler Belarus has seen in the post-Soviet era, after he defeated Vyacheslav Kebich in 1994 and started a power consolidation right up to 2020, and perhaps no further. He rigged the election in early August, but Belarus is having nothing of it.

August 16th protests in Minsk

Belarusians are singing songs and filling the streets and getting shot and even hung trying to call a foul on election that wasn’t free and fair. Neither were the other elections since Lukashenka came to power, but they are tired of it, tired enough to, as so many have said to western reporters hanging around Minsk and Zoom, lose their fear. People who can’t find their fear anymore are revolutionary indeed.

Lukashenka wandered around waving an assault riffle, demonstrating that he doesn’t know how to properly hold a gun, calling the protesting Belarusians rats, and generally getting on his melodramatic manbaby.

This is ridiculous…

…manbaby bullshit

He is often called the last dictator of Europe by people who don’t want to acknowledge that both Russia and Turkey exist in Europe as well as Asia, or that the EU has its own tin pot dictator. But Lukashenka does live up to the classic bastard and tin pot dictator: murdering opponents, hating women, and trying to spread delusional fears of invasions from the west, as if the EU and NATO were going to roll tanks into Minsk any day now.

Spoiler: they are not.

Belarus has a slightly smaller population than Michigan. Crowds of up to a couple hundred thousand people have filled the capital of Minsk, and smaller but sizable crowds filled other cities. Their demands are in the “Enough of this shit” category, but they’re probably settle for free and fair elections, and maybe not getting beaten and locked up quite so much.

The once loyal manufacturing sector is defecting from Lukashenka, in response to failed economic policies and a Covid-19 response that makes Trump look cautious and moderate. This is key, and a sign of deep changes in Belarus. Strikes are sweeping through key industries, reminiscent if not exactly the same as they did in ’91, when the USSR was falling over.

From Global Voices:

Workers at state-owned industries have joined the protest movement, staging public meetings, walk-outs, threats of work-to-rule actions, and strikes. Researcher Volodymyr Artiukh points out that there have been reports of protest activity at “at least at least 70 industrial, trade and service companies as well as in the educational, medical, and media sectors” since the election. “Almost all of these are state-owned enterprises and/or publicly-financed organisations,” he says.

These were Lukashenka’s supporters for decades, but Belarus is changing. Close to a third of the people are young enough to have never really known anything but Lukashenka’s rule, but they can see how the rest of the world works, and they clearly don’t fucking love his nonsense.

That one, that’s Belarus. I’m not even pulling a John Oliver on you, it’s not Transnistria or something.

Belarus borders Ukraine and Russia on its east, and three EU nations – Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania, on its west. Traditionally and culturally Belarus is more closely tied to Ukraine and Russia than its western neighbors, and that’s not terribly likely to change, even according to local pro-democracy activists guesting on various media shows. Belarus wants to stay Belarusian, which is almost Russian, but not quite, and definitely European, but not any other kind of European. They’re not going to want western Europe to sweep in and save them, Belarusians have known western Europeans to long to want that. They’re not likely to want Russia to come and and be in charge, since they seem pretty keen on having their votes counted. All evidence is that Belarusians want to save themselves, and not have any other governments meddling in their affairs. Given how bad most of their neighbors have meddled over the past thousand years, you can’t blame them.

After enduring decades years of post-Soviet strong man rule, they are joining the Green Revolution, OWS, the Umbrella Revolution, Euromaidan, the Ethiopian protests, The Puerto Rican anticorruption protests, The Chilean Spring, and the on and on of the last years (and years to come) in saying No More of This Nonsense. What ties the Belarusian protests to all these others is how tired people are of systems that just don’t work for anyone but those at the very top. And they can see the petulant normality of those people at the top now, more than ever in human history, they can see how hollow and ridiculous it all is.

August 23rd protest in Minsk

And they can see each other now, too. They know it’s bullshit, just like you know it’s bullshit, and now they know everyone else knows it’s bullshit too. That’s when you start to lose your fear.

It feels like there’s often so little we can do to help in this slow moving planetary collapse. But there are those little things: showing up for a BLM protest with water bottles and masks, contributing to a Belarusian strike fund or a medical gofundme that shouldn’t have to exist. We watch our plastic usage and trying to cut down on driving and beef. It feels like a thousand little things that don’t do anything, but they do, just like these little revolutions. They are the seeds of better worlds. Like most seeds, most will never germinate, but without so many, you could not hope to see the shoots of these new worlds. They are not uncomplicated worlds, not easy worlds, but worlds we get to (have to) cultivate rather than have them thrust upon us by incompetent, petulant men.

There’s not a lot of obvious common ground between Americans and Belarusians, or Chileans, Iranians, Ethiopians, and so on. Except perhaps a sense that the globe should be a fair place, and that it should be free. And that our home should be managed and nurtured like it, and the beings who live on it, matter.

My work for Emptywheel is supported by my wonderful patrons on Patreon. You can find out more, and support my work, at Patreon. Thanks to Opit for research and language help.

Images thanks to Homoatrox/CC BY-SA and Ruslan Sereduk/CC BY-SA

I’m supporting the Belarus Solidarity Foundation, more about that here.

There’s no second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, and there never really was a first wave. Like generals always fighting the last war, that’s a metaphor we lifted from the 1918 Flu Pandemic. Whether it was a good metaphor then or not, it’s not a good metaphor now. In a way, there isn’t even a pandemic, not in any functional sense. There’s just thousands and thousands of local epidemics, breaking out, dying down, and breaking out again. Because of this, we’re on edge, trying to judge our actions, trying to judge our risk, trying to understand what’s ok in the Fog of Disease. Deciding we don’t care, deciding we might be wrong again. Losing our damn minds. This is not something most people have to deal with.

But there is a group of people who do deal with the ups and downs, the sudden changes in freedom and pain all the time: people with chronic and remitting diseases. In a way, a pandemic is just the moment where society has a relapsing and remitting disease, though it’s not just Covid-19 itself, it’s also the economic and social impact, and how everything changes without warning.

I know these feelings well, I have several diseases that come and go, and I have dealt with them all my life, even before I knew what they were. One day I may be mostly ok, and the next, unable to get far from my bed. I might have weeks of freedom, then suddenly be barely able to get around my house. I have a partner, and a daughter, and many friends who have all come to understand that there are bad times and I can’t control them. I can influence them, but all my promises and all my plans are contingent.

What I have learned in the process of 40 years of dealing with incurable and unpredictable illness suddenly applies to the whole damn world, so here goes.

I call the process Climbing the Mountain, partly because I can’t climb a mountain. The Himalayas are right out.

I have a disease called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS) which causes my joints to skitter around in unpleasant ways, and when I was young I had a number of amazing party tricks my physical therapist has banned me from ever doing again. But I can show you one with my thumb doing things thumbs aren’t supposed to do, which has also been voted by one party of friends the least gross. When I was young I was a gymnast and a dancer, which is a mixed bag for EDS kids. You’re likely to damage your body, but you also get used to using and living in a damaged body, which can be a real blessing as you get older.

The first part of Climbing the Mountain, and for many people the hardest, is accepting what is. Just that: accepting what is, right now. There’s something bold and great in rejecting what is and doing what’s not possible, at least in stories. And there is power in rejecting the idea that what is can’t be changed, because it always can be in some way. But without accepting what is, you can’t make wise choices on how to change it.

I can’t climb a mountain. We can’t stop or cure SARS-CoV-2, at least right now. We can’t just go back to life as we knew it. One of the things you have to accept with chronic illness is that what was normal is gone, and it’s never coming back.

Let me say that again: What was normal life for you, from birth to 2019, is gone. It’s never coming back. Ever. What’s in front is unknown, confusing, distressing, painful, and not what you know as normal, and all you can do is go forward to climb a mountain you can’t climb.

I have PTSD, which some clinicians classify as cPTSD, but for the sake of clarity I’ll just call it fucking awful PTSD. Sometimes I can’t get out of bed because my brain is torturing me. One of the things I have PTSD from is an episode of activities done to me as a child in a clinical setting that many years later the US government would call “enhanced interrogation techniques” when done to Iraqis. Also, I have lost many people I loved. I have been homeless, stalked, and beaten. I have been hounded and harassed. I come by my crazy honestly. I have nightmares most of the time, and mornings just aren’t a thing I can do very often. When you’re looking forward into an abyss and feeling weak, it’s easy to write yourself, the world, or both, off. But just accepting the limitations makes you stronger. I pick my weak times and distract myself. I don’t try to be strong in the morning, when I’m waiting for the howling ghosts in my head to die down. But I’ve learned that they will.

This is the time I am preparing to climb the mountain. I eat a bit, do something nice, look after a plant, look at something pretty. NatGeo social media accounts are great. Food posts, nature, ceramic art, are all how I un-doomscroll in the morning, when I’m waiting for the screaming demons of last night to fade away.

For everyone, for you, now, it’s the same. You need a method of un-doomscroll to let dread and sadness pass. Nature Instagram, Paleontology podcasts, Bird YouTube. It’s all great.

Then, the climbing.

I am currently training to do a half-marathon. It’s something I’ve been doing on and off for about four years. Obviously, as my doctor and physical therapist would tell you, I should not run a half marathon, and it’s not my real goal. My real goal is a full marathon. 15 years ago when I got to my first physical therapist and was diagnosed with hypermobility, I couldn’t walk. “I’d like to do martial arts and parkour one day,” I told her. She gave me a look I can’t fit in words and replied “Let’s get you walking and see if we can get you back on a bike.” We did both of those, but it was long and hard and painful and I cried a lot. I still cry a lot, which is ok and kind of my thing.

I have had to start and stop my marathon training more times than I care to count, because I don’t care to count at all. I need every day to be new, because I can’t control where it goes. I listen to my body, and my reality, and let that guide me. I didn’t learn this with EDS originally, I learned it with my first chronic condition, childhood-onset IBS. I learned that sometimes I could do anything I wanted, and sometimes I couldn’t leave the house without throwing up and shitting myself. It’s a lot better than it was, because I’ve learned it. I’ve accepted it. Not at once, but eventually after a lot of failure and pain and gross bodily fluids. I did eventually accept it, I listened to it, some have said I gave into it. “You let these things define you and limit you,” I’ve been told by so many able-bodied people who I think just didn’t like what I represented: Working with a thing you can’t control, and can’t beat, taking over your life.

There’s a thing you can’t control, and can’t beat, taking over your life right now.

Working with that kind of thing means being mindful in the moment. Can I eat this? I ask myself, and if the answer is no, I don’t. Sometimes that means missing out, and sometimes it means pissing off friends and being a damn inconvenience. “How is the bathroom situation where we’re going?” “What kind of food is available, can I bring my own?” And the most dreaded and annoying: “I have to leave now. Right now.”

For you now, it’s the same. “Can I go there?”

“Is this way of eating out ok?”

“Do the government guidelines make sense?”

“How does this damn thing work and why does it keep changing?”

This is all the discomfort of climbing the mountain. You learn, you fiddle with it, and you let it change. You accept the change. You update how you live, knowing you’ll update it again.

But there’s the fun part too. Figuring out how long I can run/walk (called Jeffing in the running world) when I’m training, and learning to be an excellent cook in the process of understanding my relationship with food. But neither of these make it all better. Not training or cooking, or therapy for Major Depressive Disorder or medications for PTSD gets me to the top of the mountain. It’s like I keep telling you, I can’t climb to the top of the mountain. We can’t just make this go away. We won’t, and we can’t. It just is.

But, I can climb. Almost every day, in some way or another. And when I fall, and I will inevitably fall, I will land higher on the mountain than I would have if I hadn’t been climbing.

That’s the trick. Right there.

Everyday you accept what is and work with it. Everyday you exercise your mind, body, and spirit. When you fall, and you will fall, you won’t be as low on the mountain. And you can climb a little higher until the next fall.

I know it sounds sisyphean. But it’s just impossible, not meaningless. It is, in fact, the most meaningful thing we can do. It’s just the little bits of impossible things you do every day when there is no such thing as normal anymore.

Here is how you climb a mountain you can’t climb: Accept what is, accept that it will change without notice. Learn how your life works, and what is possible. Figure out what you can do today, do it, and maybe if you’re lucky, a tiny bit more. Love things, even when you hate them.

Be completely quiet sometimes. Cry. Look at pretty things. Try to rest.

Try again.

Accept what is. Learn. Move. Rest. Climb. Fall.

Accept what is.

My work for Emptywheel is supported by my wonderful patrons on Patreon. You can find out more, and support my work, at Patreon.

Last week the breaking news in international political/media drama was the Russians hacking vaccine research in Europe and America, and on Tuesday the DOJ charged two Chinese hackers for hacking what Politico called “hundreds of millions of dollars worth of intellectual property and trade secrets” about vaccines for a deadly virus that is currently ravaging humanity.

Right now the world is working on a lot of vaccines, as well as treatments, for and research about the virus. We’re not just trying to end it, we’re trying to pull the virus, and ourselves, out of the fog of war that we’re in right now. Some of that research is ending up as trade secrets and intellectual property, the modern legal equivalent of what was once the secrecy of alchemists.

Russia and China are not rich countries the way the US is, though they are spending their blood and treasure on medical research and treatment just like the rest of us. Journalists and experts, particularly in cybersecurity, have blasted their efforts at hacking European and North American corporations as a kind of greed and cheating when it comes to the vaccines research process.

This all makes sense, from the perspective of the absurdity of the present moment. As Misha Glenny, a cybersecurity reporter who went on the BBC’s Newscast to blast the Russian effort to get medical research data said, “They’re just trying to get a vaccine on the cheap as far as I can see.”

Of course they are. It’s a fucking vaccine for a disease that’s causing a global pandemic.

Before we talk about how important it is to motivate biotech firm Moderna to work on a medicine that could save millions and put the planet to rights again (at least in this one way), let’s talk about where we are right now.

As of this writing, there have been 15 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 600,000 deaths. It’s clear there will be millions of deaths before the pandemic is over and millions more maimed from the inside by the disease. There is also the suffering of families and communities as folks bury some of their loved ones and support loved ones who will suffer with the long term effects of Covid-19 for years or decades. There is no global public health infrastructure or even much in the way of public health standards around the world.

Most people can’t get good quality care at the best of times, even though we have the ability as a species to provide it several times over. It’s normally bad and it’s all much worse right now. Pediatric vaccination rates has fallen through the floor the world over, and it could be that millions more children die of preventable diseases than adults of Covid-19, just because Covid-19 has wrecked public health infrastructure so badly. And with economic downturns around the world, there’s no money to pay for routine care which could cost more lives than the disease itself, again.

But there’s reasons things are shut down. The thing about a respiratory virus like SARS-CoV-2 is that it’s so aggressively transmissible that no one is safe until everyone is safe. Despite how much we all hate each other, if Russian and Chinese people can’t vaccinate against both Covid-19 and Measles, we will all pay, in blood, and treasure, and the kind of grief that takes generations to mend.

Will those generations care about Moderna, GlaxoSmithKline, or Sanofi’s Q4 2020?

No, they will not care. They will be as mystified by what we’re doing now, by what we’re valuing now, as we are by the people in history who drank mercury trying to live forever, or attached leeches to George Washington until he died of blood loss, or any of the other stupid things we did that killed people or actively spread disease over the millennia.

We still live with the biological and cultural trauma of the Black Death, and our whole world order was configured by Smallpox. But still, we are ghouls and deatheaters, asking about intellectual property rights when someone is using hacking to try to save lives, for once.

Why is any of this, any of this at all, still a secret? Why isn’t all the data and research being published and collated and poured through by the scientific community the moment the data is collected? Why are we still such ghouls when it comes to public health?

Why do children still die of Measles? Why do 10 million people fall ill with TB every year? Why, in fucking 2020, do people die of fucking Consumption?

We could stop all of this.

But we think health should be a profitable business, like it’s making fancy handbags or golf clubs or something.

We don’t think voting is something you should pay for, or that only the well enough off should be governed. We don’t think streets should turn a profit, or that you should pay a monthly fee to maintain your human rights. We don’t even think you should pay firefighters to save your house, especially since it’s going to set the rest of your city on fire. But we think Chinese people or Russians or you should pay for a vaccine, even though if you can’t, it’s going to set the rest of your city and then the world on fire.

It’s evil, it’s madness, and the fact that it’s just the way things are doesn’t make it even the tiniest bit less absurd. And my colleagues in the media would do well to point that out, and not just leave it to comment sections below their articles and Trevor Noah.

My work for Emptywheel is supported by my wonderful patrons on Patreon. You can find out more, and support my work, at Patreon. Thanks to Ryan Singel.

“We could wrap this up right now,” a police officer said over the scanner traffic that I was listening to as I walked along Mission Street in San Francisco. It was late on the night of June 3rd, and I had joined a protest group walking south on Valencia Street in San Francisco’s Mission District. The group was loud and a little rowdy, but not destructive. 30-something people trailed down to 20-something people — counts are always a little abstract in a group like this. We made a couple turns and walked back north, along Mission. “We could wrap this up…” the officer had said, and then the radio chatter moved smoothly onto the tactical part.

I was listening to the police scanner while walking with the group. When I do this, I often notice a disconnect between the police and the people on the ground, and sometimes between the police and the police on the ground. In this case, there was some panicky talk of the protestors building a barricade and setting it on fire after we turned onto Mission Street. I spun around to figure out what I’d missed. This didn’t seem like that kind of protest. Loud and rude for sure, we were hours after curfew and this was the proud hood crowd more than the carefully-stenciled-signs-of-unity crowd. But, not violent, and not even vandalous. From looking over the street behind me, I couldn’t see what the police were talking about. I did spot a newly-emptied trashcan on the sidewalk, but not in the street. No one was near it, much less ready to set fire to the mess. I’m not a fan of littering, but I’ve watched people build burning barricades across streets, mostly in France, and this wasn’t that. This was someone kicking the trash over.

The reason for kettling and arresting this group given by an officer on the scanner was the curfew violation. It was late, and there were “about 25” of us, an officer said over the radio. It gave me a sense that the police were done and wanted to leave. “We could wrap this up right now…” and they laid out a plan to bring in officers on both sides, close in, and arrest everyone. I ducked onto a side street and circled around to different sides of the area now blocked off by police, and tried to take pictures of the arrests. (I did not get many, Julian Mark of Mission Local got the best images while being detained.)

These three things, curfew, the hour, and something about fire, became conflated later into a nebulous story about lighter fluid, when the cops were tired of following 25ish shouty people cussing at them, but not doing much else.

None of this was extraordinary. Whatever problems are inherent to a protest situation, they are deeply compounded by police forces, and, to a lesser degree, protestors, all being very sure about what the other side is doing and thinking without having much real knowledge or insight.

I’m willing to say after more than a decade of doing this work that those arrests took place because the police were tired and wanted to go back to the station or home. But to get there, they really had to work up some other reason, whether they were aware of it or not. Police are mere humans, and subject to mere human follies. Protestors are too, but everyone knows that. Protestors look like a mess, even when they’re not. The police are the ones who dress alike and larp¹ being Perfectly Coordinated Machines of Order, instead of tired humans who just need to pee, damnit. This underlying humanity is scant comfort for those being arrested, maybe even less so for the one protestor that night who was taken away in an ambulance. When you’re supposed to be the perfect passionless embodiment of state violence, but you’re just a petty and tired as anyone, you can end up being a right bastard without knowing how, or that, you got there. This is what lies behind the sentiment ACAB: All Cops Are Bastards. It’s not a personal statement; it’s just what happens when role play gets out of hand, and in our society, the role play is always out of hand.

The other human bias police often suffer from in these chaotic scenes is that vigilance for the extraordinary generally leads humans to perceiving extraordinary things, whether they are there or not. Back on June 1st, when San Francisco was just getting started on its larger and more raucous protests, I was tracking people around the SOMA District (South of Market, a major dividing street in the city) protesting police violence. Scanner chatter was high, and the largest group was at the base of the Salesforce Tower, the tallest (and newest) building on the San Francisco skyline. There was talk of crowbars and vandalism, and the back-and-forth was working itself up into urgency. I started to run towards the tower, a few blocks away, because I know where this kind of talk usually leads. But another officer got on the radio. He was on the scene, and things were fine. “This is a peaceful protest,” he said repeatedly. “Don’t antagonize them.” He talked the chatter down.

I stopped running, which I appreciated, and made my way over towards the building more slowly, taking some pictures along the way. The chatter became tense a few more times, but the original officer kept talking them down. “They’re peaceful,” he said repeatedly, and something like, “We have them,” as in he and the other officers on the scene were able to handle it. Another officer said there was vandalism, and the original officer said “Very minor” and again, “Don’t antagonize them!” He expressed the tension of someone who was talking his friends out of doing something stupid, which as it turns out, he was. In the end the Salesforce Tower was fine, and undoubtedly better than it would have been if the police had clashed with thousands of protestors at its front door. Cooler heads prevailed.

We who attend or cover protests have a saying which we often don’t say aloud because of the accusation of bias: “It ain’t a riot ’til the riot cops get there.” This isn’t universal, but it’s more common than most people think, including the police. Even well-meaning cops are in a system where they’re looking for something to do violence on, and looking for things hard enough makes humans tend to see what they’re looking for. It’s hard to understand what’s happening in a mass of angry people, but it’s violence much less often than you’d think.

I have seen actual riots that are riots from their very first moments, torrents of anger and grief that become a violent backlash on the physicality of society itself. But I’ve never seen a protest get much beyond turning over trashcans and spray painting things without police provocation. But that form of escalation is so baked-in to the dance of police and protestors now, I can’t imagine police can see it the way I do. The police look for trouble, they invariably find (and create) it, therefore they know there’s always trouble to look for.

Sometimes cooler heads prevail, sometimes there’s proportional responses, or no responses, and the crowd moves on without much damage, or the people drift off and go home tired at the end of a long day of exercising their First Amendment. On those occasions, protestors are often praised as peaceful, but not by me. I expect most protestors (except maybe the French) to be largely peaceful by default.

Instead, I’ve come to praise the cops more over the years, though it’s damning with faint praise. I praise them for not crashing hard into a crowd because a kid got out a can of spray paint. I praise them for just letting people walk it out late into the night, until everyone gets to go home and sleep. I praise them for not jumping at shadows and petty slights, for not getting frightened in the fog of protest and turning violent. Good cop, don’t hit anyone.

Honestly, the fog of war effect and confirmation bias are not just police problems, they’re human problems. They are the mistakes Homo Sapiens always make, and everyone including me, and you, would likely have the same errors of perception if we were suddenly part of a police force. As long as the police and people are other from each other, human biases towards the other will defeat our unity and progress.

The most heartening thing I’ve seen is police who took a knee, Kaepernick-style, against police violence. But I don’t believe police violence can be meaningfully curbed until the police are no longer a separate force from their communities, both sides lost in fogs of human bias.

1. Larp stands for live action role play, a style of gaming involving dressing up and playing roles in a group.

My work for Emptywheel is supported by my wonderful patrons on Patreon. You can find out more, and support my work, at Patreon. Thanks to Ryan Singel.

You’ve seen the scary pictures of Antifa. You’ve seen them in images from the Battle of Seattle, Occupy Wallstreet, Oakland FTP protests, outside the G20, and many more moments where a reporter nervously says to camera “Things are getting out of hand at this protest.” They’re the omnipresent Left Boogyman, ANTIFA! They break windows! They menace police! They probably do other violent and bad things!

Or maybe you’ve seen them, who knows. Protestors don’t wear uniforms or make it clear who they carpooled with.

I have known many of society’s ne’er-do-wells: a myriad of drug dealers, Venice crack den regulars, Portland gutter punks, DC tweakers, straight edge punks with more scars than skin, body modders, tattoo fiends, seattle protestors, Food Not bombs, hackers, phreakers, freegans, and yes, quite a few Antifa, as well as Black Bloc. Let’s get Black Bloc out of the way first, since that’s usually who gets mistaken for Antifa.

The initiation for Black Bloc is pretty complicated, follow along carefully. 1) You show up in all black with you face covered, then 2) You throwdown with the police line.

Congratulations, you’re Black Bloc.

There’s not a particular affiliation required, except that you don’t want to be identified while fighting with the police, and you’re there to throwdown. Plenty of Black Bloc attend protests just because they want to fight someone and fighting the police is safe in a weird way. It’s very exciting, you’re probably going to lose, you might help someone, and the police aren’t really going to get hurt. Also you’re probably going to engage is some light property damage, especially if the police take too long to form a line for you to fight. For a few of the Black Bloc I’ve met, it’s definitely the healthiest way they have to get out an excess of aggressive energy. Possibly they shouldn’t be like that, but they tend to be in the demographic that doesn’t have health insurance so I figure it’s a reasonable substitute for mental healthcare, which this country isn’t going to give them.

Some of the people who do participate in Black Bloc are part of a wider political affiliation coming out of post-war Germany called Antifaschistische Aktion, shorted to Antifa. They arose to oppose Fascists, the real, sign-me-up-for-the-one-party-state kind, rather than the nudge-nudge-what’s-wrong-with-a-little-genocidal-nationalism kind we have now. Antifa is one of the myriad of responses to post-war politics that made it not cool to call yourself a fascist by the end of the 20th century.

It’s worthwhile to note that most Antifa don’t do Black Bloc. Black Bloc is the kind of thing most people age out of pretty quickly and their knees age out faster. But most people don’t age out of not liking Fascism, because Fascism is awful.

Antifa tends to be leftist, though it’s not very pure about it. Some of the Democratic Socialists of America people who roll with Antifa would look downright right-wing in much of Europe, because of their willingness to compromise in the American political context on things that would not be OK in most of Europe, like expensive education, universal healthcare, and access to guns.

I’ve chatted with Stalinist Tankies who are Antifa, and registered Democrats. The thing that brought them together was being vaguely left, vaguely anti-capitalist, and strongly disliking Fascism. The other thing they all had in common is their inability to organize anything larger than local groups. Most of the Antifa groups I’ve known met up in, and to some degree lived in, squats. In Europe, those were actual squats. In America, it’s usually some crap but large apartment the one with rich parents or a tech job was renting. Honestly, most of them are trying to be good people, and all of them are dealing with difficult personal lives, in my experience. Which – no hate. Having that in common is usually how I met them.

Antifa is the perfect foil for someone like Trump. They’re small, but not too small. They’re amorphus and misunderstood. They like to take up space and be loud. They are not actually dangerous at any meaningful scale. They do punch above their weight a lot of the time, but they’re not good at translating that into expanding their base. They’re not politically powerful, and no one speaks up for them. In fact they have so little power that they can’t defend themselves from organized rightwing slander. Some of them are misguided, some of them are incredibly well-read, quite a few of them end up as academics or working in NGOs. This makes sense, they don’t want to be part of the business world they see exploiting the global poor, but they do want to grow up and participate in society in meaningful ways.

It’s likely that Trump constructing them as The Enemy is the biggest boost American Antifa have had in years, and good on them. But make no mistake, Trump’s slander is meaningless drivel and Antifa are mostly fine, if bad at doing dishes. I mean, seriously, dudes. Do the damn dishes.

Bad roommates often, fucked up kids sometimes, overly abstract academics, and window breakers, sure. But terrorists? Nah, that ain’t it.

My work for Emptywheel is supported by my wonderful patrons on Patreon. You can find out more, and support my work, at Patreon.

Everything is changing, and in the face of that, America is failing. Over 90,000 souls have paid for our failing. Millions more are living in terror for their livelihoods and their families. But Covid-19 isn’t a technology problem, or a science question, or a supply chain issue, or even a question of doctoring. This challenge is public health, and that is something we’ve been failing at for a damn long time. Not completely, but for most people the American health system is a nightmare, and interacting with it is among Americans’ greatest fears. Without addressing that fact, anything else we do can’t succeed, not in the models of countries like South Korea, Germany, or the overlooked best of all pandemic responses, Vietnam. (Not only did they aggressively treat, trace, and quarantine every case, but they did wonderful and meme–worthy public communication from the start)

California Governor Gavin Newsom, who reacted quicker than any other governor to shut down the state of California, saved innumerable lives. Now he is opening many shops for curbside pick up, and relaxing other measures. “This is a very positive sign,” he said, “and it is happening for only one reason: The data says it can happen.”

But with testing capacity still lacking in the state, (fewer than 1 in 20 Californians being tested) the data says no such thing, and it’s even worse in most of the country. We are not ready to open. The history of fighting epidemics from Ebola to AIDS to antibiotic resistant TB is very clear. To stop an epidemic: catch every case with testing, trace every contact, and make sure the ill and their contacts can and do isolate safely, and be treated promptly if they fall ill. That last part is key, and each of these epidemics have borne  out that treatment is important to both preventing transmission, and creating a unified populous for fighting the epidemic. Without all of those elements, the only thing stopping Covid-19 burning through the world is staying home, staying distant from everyone else – the isolated life we’ve been living so far in this pandemic.

Sars-CoV-2 is an infectious respiratory virus with a as-of-yet unknown but presumed small infectious dose. One person missed, one popular guy or woman about town doing essential work can start the whole cycle again within days without ever so much a cough or a headache. One party full of invincible young people or one pre-symptomatic nurse can begin another train of transmission that can eventually sicken or kill thousands.

The decisions that determine the course of an epidemic, all epidemics, are personal decisions. They happen millions of times every day in all kinds of contexts around the world. They happen when a kid stays in, or sneaks out a window. They happen when a community of faith cannot bear to be apart and tries to find ways to cope. They happen when people are balancing the need for health and comfort against the proclamations of some local official who is now a soi-disant disease expert. They happen when a doctor with unexamined bigotry passes over caring for a black patient in favor of a white one, or a rich man over a poor woman. They walk the balancing line between top-down power, community consciousness, and the choices each person makes about who they care about and how they enact that caring. On this score, in this pandemic, America has one terrible failing that rises above all of its others: its unwillingness to provide treatment to the sick.

There are a lot of bad and desperate ideas in America right now: immunity get-out-of-jail-free cards, Bluetooth contact tracing apps, incoherent partial re-openings, and going wild and pretending it’s all going to go away if we just can get a haircut.

The idea of certifying immunity status would be terrible. If you wanted something like that to work, it would have to convey no immediate benefit to the person being certified immune, and certainly not convey the benefit of being free and able to earn a living for yourself and your family. It is the ultimate moral hazard arising out of an immoral and unjust system.

How would you punish people for defrauding this system? Incarceration and fines would only drive more disease. And people faking immunity is the best case problem a health system would face. The worst is people intentionally getting the disease in order to be allowed back into society, and spreading the virus, even knowingly, because they are desperate. What will you do to the people using this system to get ahead in life? Covid-19 parties are inevitable, because people are people, but what happens when they become a condition for public life? Not only will it drive the poor to risk death while the rich sit away safer in their homes, it means that the level of disease will persist in semi-permanently trapping everyone who doesn’t want Covid-19 and can afford to never go out.

Bluetooth apps do not contract trace. Tracing is an intimate process, a long empathetic conversation with a person who understands your community and seeks to understand and hear you. You have to trust a contact tracer, you have to feel like the people who you name and place in their system will be cared for, protected, and treated, should the worst come to pass.

Bluetooth can’t tell if there’s a wall between you. It can’t tell how windy it was between you and that other person, or if you were stuck in traffic next to them for a half hour. An app can’t tell that you left your phone at home that one time. It cannot tell you of someone who went to the emergency room suddenly, phone lost and forgotten, only to be admitted for a week. It cannot tell you about someone who died alone at home, without ever being tested at all. It can tell you about neighbors you never see or speak to, but it can’t tell you it’s them, so you sit, wondering who it was, wondering if it was real, and what to do now.

Tracing a disease through a community is a human conversation. These are things only humans can do. This is a human job, and a job for those who are trusted by their communities, that speak the language, that know about the things that happen in the neighborhood.

Contact tracers don’t just question people. They mostly are there to listen, and to listen carefully, to safeguard people’s secrets and hopes as well as their shame and their double lives. They need to not just speak the language of those affected by the disease, they need to speak the culture. In the largely Spanish-speaking immigrant neighborhood where I am sheltering-in-place, I take many walks. And in those walks, I have seen hundreds of informational flyers, but almost none in Spanish – more failing.

We know that we need more testing and contact tracing, and we know we need people to quarantine to slow this disease, but before all that, we need to treat the people who are most at risk as human beings. In the long term, everyone’s fate depends on that.

If you want people to stay home and be safe, it has to be financially and logistically possible. People who are doing the right thing have to be supported and cared for. If you want people to seek medical care, it must be available and not cost more than the patient can reasonably pay – which means nothing for the poorest people.

Using police powers to enforce public health is also fool’s game. Any use of police powers must be rare and only for the most unusual situations — no one should be able to look at those situations and say “That could be me there.” The racist enforcement we’re seeing now defeats the goals of public health and endangers everyone, not only spreading the disease to the victims of these arrests, but preventing the populations they come out of from cooperating with public health investigations. Incarceration or fines only threaten to spread disease as wells as deepen poverty and resentment. Diseases, all diseases, feed on poverty and resentment.

Even with some as yet un-obtained insight into immunity status, we won’t know for years how long immunity lasts, or how strong it will be from person to person. We still need to understand how the virus is likely to evolve, and how it affects its victims long term, before we can say much about what the elusive goal of “herd immunity” would really mean.

The simple fact is: a million tests a day, a hundred million, won’t make a difference if the people most likely to get the virus don’t want to be tested because they can’t afford to test positive.

The unspoken problem with engaging with a testing regime is why do it when you can’t get treatment, or afford it if you could get it? Why go to the doctor when that risks destroying your family’s future? We want to test, trace the contacts of every case, and isolate everyone infected, and thus reopen the economy, but without the treatment piece, this idea fails the most basic part of epidemiology: universal participation.

The way we get out is not immunity passports or herd immunity, it’s not test test test, it’s a whole system of health that cares for the whole population. The things that have worked the world over, from Germany to Vietnam, always begin and end with universal access to healthcare. Not just testing, tracing, isolating, but the most important part of public health: treatment. But doing that requires a public health system with the public as the beneficiary, not a small percentage of those who can afford it with ease.

If you want people to work together to get out of this, the people coming forward need to know that themselves and their people will be tested and treated with dignity and mercy. They need to know that going to the hospital with Covid-19 doesn’t mean going bankrupt, giving up on dreams of educating their children, taking care of their parents, or facing deportation. They need to know that they will be treated on the basis of their illness, not their skin color, class, sex, or any other distinction the virus doesn’t respect. Biology doesn’t care about social distinctions. The virus doesn’t either — it is a simple machine that responds to the environment it finds itself in. It’s we who create more susceptible bodies through stress, ill health, co-morbidities untreated in a failed healthcare system. But the virus is not prejudiced, it only seems so in statistics. It will kill rich men in good health, and spare prisoners.

Not everyone is going to be prosocial, but when incentives are right, and peoples’ needs are met, overwhelmingly people do the right thing. There’s always exceptions, and those exceptions become news, but rarely are those the people who tip the balance. People well cared for and informed, educated and competent, will act for the best of their communities and loved ones. This in turn creates the kind of healthy communities that break the chains of transmission. If we concentrate on building healthcare capacity and supporting communities, many of the antisocial people will disappear into them, looked after by their own people. There will always be exceptions, but no one can tell you what to do like Grandma can, especially if Grandma can also see to it you get healthy food, a good education, and most importantly right now, medicine when you’re sick.

America’s health disparities, and the likelihood that Covid-19 could follow other coronavirus immunity patterns could mean that we’re doing this again every couple of years, even as other places in the world begin to recover. Our inability to treat, based on our desire to make medical treatment profitable, will doom us to cycles of disease until most susceptible Americans have died, and others who remain are maimed by the potential long term consequences of this disease.

Even with a vaccine, access in our current system, as well as the poison of antivaxxers, could doom the effort to control the disease. If we chose to do nothing to help or treat the victims of Covid-19, our commitment to denying healthcare to all could potentially keep chains of transmission alive for decades. With universal access to care and aid for isolation, we could break that chain in the next few months. But as we have currently constructed what it means to be American, that would be impossible. The choice this country faces is whether to change as a country, or possibly cease to be out of our commitment to inequality.

My work for Emptywheel is supported by my wonderful patrons on Patreon. You can find out more, and support my work, at Patreon. Photo thanks to Becker1999, and more thanks to Ryan Singel

It’s a complicated time, and we’re all emotionally worn out.

Here at emptywheel we’ve covered the current pandemic’s scientific side in some depth. (see Jim White’s look at the origin of the virus, Rayne has done several very good updates on the science, politics, and misinformation,
and I’ve gone into the mechanisms of the disease and how it compares to other pandemics )

But we haven’t done as much for the overtaxed, overwhelmed reader who just wants some pretty pictures and gentle talking heads to make Covid-19 make sense. Even those of you who voraciously keep up with Marcy’s intricate political  and media analyses might like to give the emotional roller coaster a break, and still feel like you have some frickin’ idea what is going on.

The Modeling

Nothing is more calming yet informative than 3Blue1Brown’s soothing and surprisingly clear explanation of epidemic models. This 3Blue1Brown explainer uses SIR, a mathematical modeling system for epidemics. While simplified, it can give you a sense for how more complicated models work, and why policies like social distancing and contact tracing are important and effective.

SIR stands for:
S = the number of susceptible individuals
I = the number of infected individuals
R = the number of removed individuals (removed here means no longer infectious, and includes both immune and deceased.)

3Blue1Brown is also one of the most pleasant-to-watch Youtubers of all time. Even when you don’t have any clue about the math he’s describing, it all comes together and you feel smarter by the end. “It’s the mental equivalent of ice-skating,” my daughter says, “You’re a little bit worried about falling over, but it’s nice.”

But why did this happen?

The why us and why now question is lurking in the back of everyone’s mind, and SciShow comes through on it. SciShow has a long and storied history of well-researched and approachable science education, and their video tackling the zoonotic source of Covid-19 (and other viruses) in bats keeps in the tradition. Bats have evolved different approaches to having a mammalian immune system, which makes them better at handling some of the viruses and worse at handling other pathogens we can overcome easily — this is why their viruses can be so rough on us. We have a lot to learn from them, but we should probably stop disturbing their habitats if we don’t want to keep catching novel viruses from them.

The Medicine

If you’ve heard a lot of terms and you don’t know what they mean, Dr. Hope’s Sick Notes goes through 26 of them with clear and non-technical definitions. Dr. Hope is an NHS doctor who teaches and works in an English emergency department as well as a YouTuber. (His ongoing Covid-19 vlog is great, but more stress inducing than the videos featured here.) He gives easy explanations of complicated concepts with handwritten flashcards, a nice soft focus, and some comforting quiet background music. At the end he hands it over to Dr. Sonia, an anesthesiologist at the same hospital, defining some of the more hardcore technical terms we’ve been hearing in the media, but with equal calming friendliness.

Dr. Sonia appears in our next video as well, as an avid AFOL (Adult Fan of Lego). Dr. Hope and Dr. Sonia discuss how the ICU and ventilation really work, demonstrating with a detailed Lego model built by Dr. Sonia in her day off. It goes over all of the scary terms and procedures and why and how they’re used, but with Lego, so it’s fine. My daughter confirmed this too.

There’s a lot of questions about immunity, herd immunity, and the potential for re-infection, and a lot of misunderstanding about what any of those terms mean. Dr. Seema Yasmin breaks it down on a spectrum from life-long immunity to HIV (The worst). Where and how Covid-19 might fit into this is yet to be found, but she lays down the situation and puts it in context.

And Finally, Something of Less Value

Watching night shows, comedy news, and Youtubers adapt to filming inside their houses has been some hits and a lot of misses, but there’s a few amazing hits. These aren’t so much information about Covid-19 as a few gems life in quarantine has generated. Relax, it’s what everyone’s therapist is suggesting we do.

Stephen Colbert interviewing fellow Daily Show alumnus John Oliver is somehow both unbearable and ten minutes of comedy gold. I wish all late night interviews could be like this, but I also think that would kill me.

Kate McKinnon takes to a spare bedroom to reprise her role as Barbara DeDrew, trying to get you to adopt a cat, any cat, all the cats, from Whiskers R We.

Last but not least: what would you say to yourself, if you could travel back to January?

Please feel free to add your own calming and informative, or just funny contributions in the comments, BUT NO STRESS INDUCERS!!!11!!!!!

Um, am I doing this right?

My work for Emptywheel is supported by my wonderful patrons on Patreon. You can find out more, and support my work, at Patreon. Thanks to H.alhajji for the featured image.

Update: Peterr clarifies the difference between food bank and food pantry, etc., here.

(Hey, I know that complaining about politics is our jam in Emptywheel comments, but can we keep the ones on this post to mutual aid and resources for now?)

The time of Covid-19 is different time, and we have to meet it with different commitments.

This pandemic isn’t just killing people, it’s putting people out of work, and driving the precarious into being the marginal of society. What many people need right now, even more than medical care, is food. At the same time, food banks are losing their donations while serving more people than ever. This need is immediate now, but it’s also going to last much longer than the quarantine itself. The world will be reeling from this for many years.

I try to support and lift up people doing good and vital work every month, but this time is different. I’m committing to support the food bank local to where I am now, for the minimum of two years, and one that I would especially exhort you to consider doing this yourself, in the opening hours of this era of need.

The history of pandemics isn’t just a history of disease and death, it’s a history of the breakdown of logistical systems, of economic hardship, and of tremendous working together and mutual aid. It’s a time of social upheaval, but also times of social innovation. Epidemics wreck nations, and birth public health systems. They teach us fragility, and we fall silent at the end of the lesson.

Everyone is going to have a lot of time to think about their place in the world in the next months, at least, I hope you all do. Many of us will be touched by tragedy, and some of us will be crushed. Some of us will be able to give to institutions like food banks, and some of us, some of the people reading this, are going to need them.

I hope that you and your people emerge unscathed, but I also know not everyone will. The history of plagues is surprisingly full of generosity and honor. And we’re going to need a lot of those qualities in the coming years. In that spirit, I’m committing to a monthly donation to the SF-Marin Food Bank, not in one lump sum, but for years to come.

America is not a kind country, and the need is tremendous here, and it will last years after Covid-19 has largely passed. Please join me in making a two or more year commitment to supporting a local food bank, if you can.

If you can’t, and you find that you need a food bank, don’t hesitate. They are there to help you, and we all need you back on your feet.

Here’s a directory of food banks in America, one for Canada (Thanks, Mary R!), and another one for the UK. If you know of other directories or food banks, please leave them in the comments. If you decide to support a food bank, please also leave that in the comments.

These days we’re drowning in information about the pandemic, but without much context for understanding the virus causing it. With a never-before-seen virus, the best place to get that context is from looking at the history of previous diseases, and by understanding what they’ve done to our biology and society, as we try to figure out what this one does to our biology and society.

One of the first and most important questions is how Covid-19 infects people, and this disease is pretty damn infectious. Not as bad as diseases like Measles, Mumps, and Rubella, but worse than most flus. (The most infectious diseases tend to become the diseases of childhood because you’re born, and BAM! you get them, they’re so infectious.) Transmission is measured with the R₀ (“R-naught”) we keep seeing in news stories, measuring how many people one infected person will infect in a given time period. But it’s not a number that just exists without context — lowering that number is why so many of us are staying at home, trying to figure out how we’re going to pay the bills right now. But without the social distancing, Covid-19 is more infectious than anything most of us have experienced in our lives.

What makes Covid-19 infectious has a lot to do with how well the particular virus that causes it, SARS-CoV-2, survives in the world, along with how good SARS-CoV-2 is at finding the kind of cell it uses as a host and then invading it.

To contrast Covid-19 with the most recent nasty pandemic, AIDS, it is much more likely to spread and much less likely to kill those it spreads to. HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is a delicate virus, despite causing a nasty disease. HIV dies if you blow on it.

The only fomite (the word for inanimate objects that can pass infections) that transmits HIV in the normal course of life is a needle full of HIV-infected blood, and that’s not easy to accidentally infect yourself with on your way to a restaurant. Other than direct blood transmission, it has to be transmitted person to person through intimate contact.

HIV is also good, but not great, at finding and infecting its target cells, and it happens to use the same kind of cells that Yersinia pestis, better known as the plague, and one of the worst pandemics ever, likes to invade. (This fact becomes very important in the story of contemporary civilization, hold on to your hats.)

So the limits to HIV spreading come from how hard it is for the virus to survive when it’s not in an ideal environment, and how hard it is to invade certain immune cells, its host of choice. This is why it is much easier to catch it from needle/blood transfer than anything else, and why some sex is more likely to transmit it than other sex is. For all the gay plague talk, the absolute safest sexually active group in the AIDS epidemic was lesbians. (I guess God loves lesbians the most?)

HIV is not passed via the respiratory system. The entrance to the respiratory system is the leaky liquidy parts of your face: eyes, nose, and mouth. This is an extremely important point. If HIV was transmitted that way, if it was a little hardier and could live in droplets you expel from your face, everything, and I do mean everything, would be terrible.

This isn’t because a respiratory infection couldn’t do what HIV does – there is a respiratory version of the plague that’s completely horrific. Pneumonic plague is in that category of diseases so bad that they burn themselves out by being so horrible and deadly that they run out of hosts, if not for the fact that it has other ways to spread, namely fleas. (Y. pestis is the worst.)

So while HIV is terrible and has cost the world immeasurably, it’s not the plague. Also, because of the plague, HIV is considerably worse at infecting immune cells in populations that were genetically impacted by the plague. HIV uses a receptor on immune cells called CCR5. The “receptor” here is a little protein lock that opens up a cell. A bit like a tiny door with lock and doorknob. Seven hundred years before HIV came around, Y. pestis, despite being a bacterium rather than a virus, was using the same CCR5 to get inside immune cells. It killed somewhere around half of Europe and came back and kept killing for hundreds of years until the human genome declared FUCK THIS and mutated CCR5 out of service in a portion of the population, a portion that then had the chance to have more kids.

This is why despite having similar chances to spread, HIV is less prevalent in European populations that went through that plague-induced genetic narrowing than in sub-Saharan Africa, which was probably never seriously afflicted by Y. pestis in the way Europe, western Asia, and North Africa were. This made them far more vulnerable to HIV, with the tragic results we see now.

To bring it back to our current bug: SARS-CoV-2’s infectiousness is closer to pneumonic plague than HIV in infectiousness, but also different because there’s no insect vector.

This little bugger can hang on in the environment. SARS-CoV-2 can survive for days on common surfaces like steel or plastic. It survives for four hours on copper. Copper is basically the Purell of metals. That’s not good.

SARS-CoV-2 is very good at accessing and infecting its target cells, which are generally surface tissue (epithelial) cells with ACE2 protein receptors, analogous to the CCR5 that Y. pestis and HIV use. Anything with that ACE2 receptor will work for SAR-CoV-2, but lung cells are the tissues they most likely encounter when someone breathes in the virus. It’s harder for it to get to those same receptors in your intestines from your nose. But it’s entirely possible that for the people who do experience intestinal symptoms like diarrhea, SARS-CoV-2 got to those ACE2 receptors as well.

You can think of the ACE2 receptor as a little locked door on the surface of the cell. In order for the useful things that the cell makes to get out, or for the cell to get a useful thing it needs to get in, other cells will come by with the key that fits into the receptor and unlock it.

A coronavirus is a small ball of fat and protein covered in lock picks, which in this case are little “spike” proteins that fit into the ACE2 receptor and open the door for the virus’s RNA to come in.

That’s it, that’s how it works. It’s amazing how much, when you get biology down to the micro level, bodies work like legos and tinker toys, but wet.

The thing about this virus, which makes it more infectious than the flu or even classic SARS or MERS, is that the spike protein on the surface of SARS-CoV-2 picks the lock of the ACE2 receptor very well. As soon as it hits it, it locks in. That means fewer viruses are needed to infect a person.

That, along with how well it survives and travels in droplets, is what stopped the world.

The good news is for most people Covid-19 doesn’t do much. In many cases, it does even less than the flu or a normal cold. It’s good news for people who get Covid-19, but not great news for a planet trying to find and isolate asymptomatic cases. You win some, you lose some.

There are two kinds of immune systems at play in responding to anything that threatens the body: the innate immune system, and the adaptive immune system.

The innate is your first level of defense, looking for and eliminating baddies like SARS-CoV-2. But the innate system isn’t where you get immunity. Immunity comes from a process where the innate system reacts to a novel bug it has never seen, and learns about it. Then a certain kind of innate immune cell, called a dendritic cell, presents the shape of a coronavirus, or whatever other nasty pathogen the body is fighting, to the T and B cells of the adaptive immune system, which then go all Terminator and hunt down and kill whatever is shaped like the thing they got from the innate system.

That process is what we call acquiring immunity, and it’s why no one can, by definition, be immune to a novel virus, including this one. Immune is not the same as showing no symptoms, even though many people, including journalists, keep using those terms interchangeably. That is a dangerous mistake, so let me repeat this: the only people on our beloved blue-green world who are immune to Covid-19 are those who have had it and recovered from it, and we’re not even sure how immune they are. So why do some people seem immune?

Covid-19 seems to have some way of calming down some innate immune responses (mechanisms which seem work strangely in children, that’s still unclear). It doesn’t usually win against the learned immune response in most people who get infected, who clear out the virus and become immune. Of course, this isn’t how it goes for everyone… but thankfully for most of us, it’s mild to asymptomatic.

The problem is with the virus calming the innate immune response is that the innate immune system is what gives you symptoms. Viruses don’t give you fevers and headaches, coughs, aches, and the desire to stay in bed, your immune response does that.

Without those symptoms infected people spread this very hardy virus all over until the immune system catches up with making them feel sick. We don’t know how long asymptomatic carriers shed virus this way. It could be a day, it could be two weeks.

In the end, it’s likely most of us are either going to get Covid-19 or get a vaccine. With this much global spread, the disease is headed to be the next coronoavirus to be endemic in humanity (the common cold is caused by other coronaviruses between 15-20% of the time).

Endemic means this is a disease the floats around the population, with pretty much one infected person infecting one more person (R=1). Many endemic diseases in history are nasty, like Smallpox, which in its prime regularly killed a third of children in Europe.

Endemic diseases can also flare into epidemics, when they encounter a large group of people without immunity, and then calm down again once they’ve done their damage. Diseases going from epidemic to endemic don’t just change our lifestyles and our societies, they change us at the genetic level, and we change them back.

We see that with the HIV and plague connection, and with European explorers accidentally (mostly) wiping out the vast majority of the new world, for whom the Smallpox virus was, like Covid-19, novel, and consequently far more deadly.

I hope we get the vaccine, and the news is good there, so far. SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t seem to be a fast mutator, unlike HIV, which has dodged all of our attempts to vaccinate for it.

Covid-19 might be treatable with some kind of antiviral medications, which would be nice, but that needs to go through trials first before any more unscrupulous doctors and incompetent politicians make up things about malaria meds, and people start eating fish tank cleaner en masse.

But in general, this is a bit like plague-level nightmare transmission, but with novel influenza lethality. Not great, but it could be much worse. At its most terrible, Y. pestis could kill up to 80% of its victims. (Y. pestis is the worst.)

How long we stay immune is another question, and we are far from answering it.

There’s two factors at play – one is that some immunity (like Smallpox) is for life, but for some other diseases, the adaptive immune system forgets about them after enough time passes. The second factor is how much the virus changes as it mutates going through hosts. The more people it infects, the more chances there are for the virus’s genes to drift as it reproduces. That makes more chances for it to become different enough that the body has to learn about it again, which unfortunately gets done by getting re-infected. It’s early days, but so far SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t seem to be prone to drifting.

SARS-CoV-2’s apparent genetic stability is some of the best news we’ve had for beating this disease in the long term, but it’s still early days. When bugs become endemic, they tend to lose some of their virulence as well. Killing your hosts isn’t very adaptive for a parasite, and dying isn’t very adaptive for us. But that is generations away.

For now, keep washing your hands and staying home for everything but essential work, store runs, exercise, and medical care. This is going to be very hard for everyone, but humanity will get through it together.

My work for Emptywheel is supported by my wonderful patrons on Patreon. You can find out more, and support my work, at Patreon.

(My friend Meor and @rafi0t have traslated my Covid-19 FAQ into French for the francophones out there- QN; Ed: for those who missed the English version the first time, it is here.)

1. Vais-je mourir?

Oui, malheureusement, tout le monde meurt.

2. Non, je veux dire est ce que je vais mourir du Covid 19?

Ah, ça! Probablement pas. La plupart des personnes touchées et malades présentent des symptômes assez mineurs. Par mineur, comprends que ta vie ne sera pas en danger direct, mais ça ne sera pas non plus une expérience très agréable. Selon les estimations actuelles, 80% des cas sont mineurs, 20% nécessitent une intervention médicale et quelque part entre 0,7% et 5% peuvent causer le décès ou s’en rapprocher suffisamment pour avoir une lumière brillante pointée dans leur direction.

3. Tu parles d’une expérience de mort imminente pour 5% des gens?

Non, je parle de l’éclairage d’hôpital, il est tellement lumineux et désagréable! Ça me donne mal à la tête à chaque fois. Ne peuvent-ils pas utiliser des ampoules aux teintes plus chaudes?

4. Je pose les questions ici.

Soit. Désolée, continue.

5. Est ce que beaucoup de personnes devront être hospitalisées?

Il semblerait. La plupart des personnes de plus de 70 ans et des personnes souffrant de problèmes de santé auront besoin de ce qu’on appelle des «soins de soutien». Ils sont dits “de soutien” car nous n’avons pas de remède ou de traitement direct contre ce virus. Ce que nous pouvons faire c’est maintenir la personne en vie pendant qu’elle se bat pour créer suffisamment d’anticorps, tuant ainsi les virus en balade en son intérieur. Concrètement, cela peut signifier un supplément d’oxygène, une surveillance par le personnel de santé, voire carrément un respirateur pour le patient.

6. Que faisons-nous à propos du trop grand nombre de personnes devant se rendre à l’hôpital en même temps?

C’est précisément le scénario cauchemardesque que nous essayons d’éviter, en mettant en oeuvre ce que les épidémiologistes appellent le ralentissement, pour réduire le taux de personnes qui se rendent à l’hôpital. Pour ralentir la propagation du virus, tu peux te laver les mains, nettoyer les surfaces autour de toi (plus de détails bientôt) et éviter de te rapprocher des autres personnes à l’extérieur. Mais les maires, les députés, les administrations scolaires et les autres autorités en charge de ces espaces où de nombreux gens sont proches peuvent faire beaucoup plus : en annulant les événements, en encourageant le travail à domicile, en fermant les écoles et les universités et en limitant le nombre de personnes autorisées à se rassembler ainsi que leur proximité.
Chaque endroit où le public se réunit devient un lieu où le virus passe d’une personne à l’autre. C’est essentiel car, si nous pouvons ralentir la propagation, la file d’attente pour les si confortables lits des soins intensifs sera équilibrée dans le temps et tout le monde ne se précipitera pas sur des respirateurs comme c’était Black Friday version santé.

Voici un excellent graphique expliquant ce que nous essayons de faire avec toutes ces distanciations sociales et le lavage des mains, en particulier le lavage des mains. Ai-je mentionné l’importance de se laver les mains?

La courbe en pointe correspond à des infections sans aucun contrôle, la courbe lisse et plus lente est ce que nous essayons d’accomplir en retardant la propagation.

7. Pourquoi n’avons-nous pas de remède? Je dois souffler dans les bronches de qui à ce propos?

Écoute, nous vivons dans une telle époque des merveilles, de duplicité politique et d’inepties qu’on pourrait se dire, dès que’un mauvais événement arrive, “Il ne peut que s’agir de négligence ou de malveillance”. Le fait est que la nature peut toujours nous botter le cul à tout moment. Ce n’est la faute de personne, c’est le genre de chose à laquelle les êtres humains ont dû faire face bien avant que nous soyons… humains.

8. Il doit bien y avoir quelqu’un sur qui crier quoi quelque chose?

Ne t’inquiète pas : Il y en a! Les autorités comme les personnes les plus banales peuvent faire beaucoup pour ralentir la propagation de cette maladie et rendre le traitement plus efficace.
Sur le plan personnel, tu peux crier après tes enfants / colocataires / parents / etc. de se laver les mains pendant 20-30 secondes plusieurs fois par jour, avant et après être sorti, avant de préparer la nourriture, d’utiliser les toilettes, de toucher de la nourriture, de se toucher le visage, d’éternuer, de tousser, de cracher ou de jurer…

9. Attends, jurer?

Oh, ça ne peut pas faire de mal.

10. Ah. ok. Continue.

Tu peux aussi nettoyer régulièrement les surfaces touchées fréquemment – pense poignées de porte, de tiroirs, comptoirs, interrupteurs, claviers, boutons, robinets … la boite de pétri ambulante qu’est ton téléphone portable, regarde simplement les espaces qui t’inquiètent, publics ou privés et pense aux endroits que les gens touchent, où ils toussent, éternuent ou qu’ils lèchent.

11. LÈCHENT? Tu sais quoi, je ne veux pas savoir. Avec quoi dois-je tout nettoyer? Alcool, eau de javel, feu?

Toutes ces choses fonctionneront, mais honnêtement, le savon ou les nettoyants de surface de base sont très bien. Les lingettes désinfectantes sont idéales pour un nettoyage rapide et pour les téléphones portables, mais tu peux aussi utiliser un nettoyant ménager habituel, vaporisé en bonne quantité puis bien essuyé avec de l’essuie tout, y compris ton téléphone portable dégoûtant. Le savon (détergent) est nickel aussi. En fait, c’est souvent mieux que l’alcool ou le peroxyde d’hydrogène. Il faut se souvenir d’une chose, ce coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, a un seul brin d’ARN et quatre protéines spécialisées toutes soutenues par une bi-couche lipidique qui maintient le paquet ensemble. Le fait d’avoir une enveloppe virale lipidique le rend sensible aux détergents…

12. Tu peux arrêter de nerder?

Pardon. Si tu mets du savon sur le virus et que tu frottes un peu, il éclate, puis il disparaît.

13. Wow!

N’est-ce pas? Tu peux bien sûr y mettre le feu, y verser de l’alcool ou autre produit de ton choix, mais il suffit de quelque chose qui dissout la graisse et de quelques petits va-et-vient. Et là, tu peux imaginer ces minuscules petites boules hérissées éclater et déverser leurs minuscules petites tripes partout. C’est une chouette image. Ça donne envie de tout frotter.

Le gel hydroalcoolique fonctionne de la même façon, bien qu’il soit moins efficace que du savon ordinaire. Il y a toutes sortes de produits de nettoyage, mais ce bon vieux savon fait parfaitement l’affaire. Tu ne veux pas non plus utiliser des produits qui dessèchent et provoquent des gerçures dans la peau – toute tâche sanguinolente est un point d’entrée. Cela pourrait également signifier que tu devrais te procurer de quoi garder tes mains douces, souples et exemptes de trous superflus.

En bref, et très sérieusement, lave-toi les mains avec du savon et de l’eau et ne te touche pas le visage. C’est à peu près la meilleure chose que chacun puisse faire!

Voici une vidéo de Baby Shark avec des danseurs montrant la bonne technique de lavage des mains, et en voici une autre. Internet regorge de ce type de choses…

14. D’accord, mais revenons à la partie où je vais crier sur des gens à ce sujet.

Bien sûr. Le virus se transmet d’une personne à l’autre par les microgouttelettes que nous toussons, éternuons ou même expirons. Cela inclut potentiellement nos larmes, nos crachats, notre sang et nos affaires dans la salle de bain. Ça fait beaucoup de moyens de transmission interpersonnels, et cela signifie que nous devons nous tenir éloignés les uns des autres pour ralentir la propagation de ce virus.
Tu peux alpaguer les responsables locaux et autres organisateurs d’événements pour faire annuler ou reporter les rassemblements impliquant des contacts assez étroits entre personnes, y compris ceux qui concernent des enfants. Les écoles, les conférences, les services religieux et d’autres annulations d’événements publics sont déjà en cours et elles devraient se multiplier. Tu peux alerter avec véhémence les autorités locales à ce sujet!

15. Qu’en est-il des tests?

Oh, tu peux crier à plein poumons à ce sujet!
Les tests, en particulier aux États Unis, ont été ridicules. Le dépistage généralisé est l’un des meilleurs moyens de cartographier et donc de contenir toute épidémie, notamment lorsque de nombreuses personnes (en particulier les enfants) semblent présenter des symptômes bénins, il est encore plus important d’avoir des tests largement disponibles.
Idéalement, les tests devraient être accessibles à tous au sein d’une zone infectée. La Corée du Sud a effectué des tests, la Chine a rendu une grande partie de ses tests obligatoires.
Dans la plupart des cas, si tu as le virus, il te suffit de le savoir pour que tu sois confiné chez toi jusqu’à ce qu’il passe. Mais si tu ignore être porteur du virus, tu peux le répandre, ce qui est exactement ce que font de nombreuses personnes qui se sont vues refuser le test aux États-Unis, en Australie, au Japon et bien d’autres pays. Tester uniquement les personnes les plus malades confirme leur propre situation, mais ne renseigne pas sur la façon dont le virus pourrait se propager en ce moment. Les personnes très malades ne se promènent plus vraiment en toussant. À certains égards, il est moins important de savoir si les très malades ont le virus que de connaître les malades qui marchent encore, peuvent en être atteints… et le transmettre!
Quelle que soit la cause du retard des tests aux États-Unis, l’excuse n’est pas assez bonne.

16. Covid 19 est-il la faute de Trump / Mitch McConnell / Nancy Pelosi / Jay Inslee / Gavin Newsom / Rush Limbaugh / Etc.?

Honnêtement, au moment où nous sommes, peu importe le ou les fautifs. “La maison est en feu et nous devons l’éteindre.” comme dit l’adage. Nous pourrons découvrir qui blâmer quand ce sera réglé. L’urgence est de commencer à tester le plus largement et le plus rapidement possible et de transmettre ces informations aux différentes communautés pour les aider à prendre des décisions basées sur de bonnes données, et de façon compréhensibles.
De plus, pour être prudent, ne lèche pas les pangolins que tu rencontres.

17. Comment puis-je faire en sorte que mon oncle / ma mère / mon enfant / moi-même arrête de FLIPPER COMPLÈTEMENT à ce sujet?

Si tu lis ceci, tu n’es probablement pas un professionnel de la santé travaillant en première ligne de la réponse ou un administrateur qui planifie la logistique dans ta région. Tu n’as donc tout bonnement pas besoin de connaître les dernières nouvelles et spéculations sur Covid 19. Ce qui vaut vraisemblablement pour ton enfant, ton conjoint, ton cousin ou ton chat. Informé c’est bien, mais noyé dans l’information et paralysé émotionnellement c’est mal.
Choisis un moment de la journée pour recevoir tes nouvelles sur Covid 19, puis … arrête.
Si c’est vraiment nécessaire pour toi, vas-y et vérifie deux fois par jour.
Si des gens en parlent autour de toi, parle de la bonne procédure pour se laver les mains et du nettoyage des surfaces jusqu’à ce qu’ils n’en puissent plus. Personne ne veut parler autant de nettoyage des mains comme des surfaces, sauf moi, peut-être.

Si tu as affaire à un être cher qui pique une crise, mets en place une activité : un jeu de société, un film, quelque chose qui procure une pause. Débranche accidentellement ton accès Internet pendant un certain temps. Si tu as le sentiment que tu dois faire quelque chose, nettoie la maison, cela ne peut pas faire de mal. Imprime des affiches sur le lavage des mains et place-les dans les salles de bain que tu visites. Varie tes activités et surtout parle d’autres sujets. Le monde tourne toujours, il y a des livres à lire et des films à regarder et des choses à faire : avoir peur de Covid 19 n’est pas ton travail à plein temps.

18. Est-ce l’Apocalypse Zombie?

Non, ce n’est qu’un énième virus chiant qui cause une mauvaise infection pulmonaire. Il y en a beaucoup, mais parce que celui-ci est nouveau, pour nos organismes comme nos chercheurs, nous n’avons aucune immunité. Ça va être difficile et triste pendant un moment.

19. Tu vois ce que je veux dire. Ce virus… Est-ce l’état profond ou une arme biologique échappée d’un laboratoire maléfique du gouvernement? Est-ce que le virus SARS-CoV-2 sera joué par Dwayne «The Rock» Johnson un jour, quand la vérité sera révélée?

Oh Seigneur, OK, tu gardais cette question pour la fin. Permets-moi de te dire à quel point ce genre de chose est aussi ennuyeux qu’inévitable.
Ce nouveau virus appartient à une famille de virus appelés coronavirus. Ils ont été découverts dans les années 1960. La plupart d’entre eux provoquent des symptômes du rhume courants. Ce sont des virus à ARN génétiquement similaires, mais tu peux presque les considérer comme de simples machines pour injecter de l’ARN dans certaines cellules qui en font ensuite involontairement des copies. Mais rien de tout cela n’est très précis, et les erreurs pénètrent constamment dans la prochaine génération de virus à ARN, c’est ainsi que nous nous retrouvons avec de nouveaux virus. C’est à peu près aussi malveillant que des Roombas qui se reproduisent: un peu malveillant certes, mais aussi un peu stupide. Les nouveaux virus émergents provoquant des épidémies sont inévitables, ils se produisent non seulement depuis plus longtemps que l’humanité, mais avant même que nous soyons des animaux.
Et non seulement la création d’une arme biologique virale qui tue principalement les personnes âgées et les personnes immunodéprimées est impossible avec la technologie actuelle, elle n’est pas non plus particulièrement utile.

Ce n’est pas le seul nouvel agent infectieux que nous verrons, ce n’est même pas le seul que nous ayons vu ces dernières années – SRAS, MERS, SIDA, H1N1, Ebola, SARM, ce sont tous de nouveaux (plus ou moins) agents infectieux contre lesquels nous nous battons. Alors que nous perturbons les habitats et envahissons les grottes des chauves-souris, les virus et les bactéries qui ne sont pas déjà allés dans notre corps finiront par tenter le coup. La plupart d’entre eux échoueront et nous ne saurons jamais rien de leurs tentatives, dans notre corps, à la recherche de quelque chose sur quoi s’accrocher. Mais de temps en temps, l’un de ces minuscules salauds cochera les bons numéros du Loto. C’est la raison même de l’existence des domaines scientifiques et cliniques de l’épidémiologie. Nous avons tendance à l’oublier, en pleine époque de techno-merveilles, mais la nature est toujours le boss de fin.

20. C’est déprimant et un peu décevant.

Je sais. Peut-être pouvons-nous demander à Dwayne Johnson de jouer le Dr Tedros Adhanom, chef de l’Organisation mondiale de la santé (OMS) qui démonterait les gens refusant de se soumettre à des tests et exigeant que le public soit autorisé à rentrer chez lui et à pratiquer la distanciation sociale.

21. Okay, c’est une idée terrible pour un film. Et soit, ce n’est pas un complot secret du gouvernement. Si je ne suis même pas un zombie, comment savoir si j’ai Covid 19?

Les symptômes à surveiller sont la fièvre, l’essoufflement (difficulté à respirer) et la toux.

22a. Whoa attends exactement ce que je-slash-la personne qui lit ceci à côté de moi a! QU’EST-CE QUE JE FAIS MAINTENANT?!

Tout d’abord, calme toi. Ceux-ci peuvent être des symptômes courants de la grippe, et heureusement, la grippe (avec son taux de mortalité beaucoup plus faible) est encore plus courante. Mais si tu te trouves dans une zone de transmission ou si tu as récemment voyagé dans une zone où une épidémie s’est déclarée, cela vaut la peine de se faire dépister si des tests sont disponibles. Si tu es malade, ne vas pas à l’hôpital ni chez le médecin, tu mettrais d’autres personnes en danger. Appelle ton médecin ou la ligne d’urgence dédiée et dis-leur pourquoi tu penses que tu pourrais avoir Covid 19.
Si tu es très malade et que tu devras te rendre à l’hôpital, appelle une ambulance et préviens les que tu soupçonnes une infection par le Covid 19. Ainsi, ils pourront se présenter avec le bon équipement pour assurer ta sécurité et celle des autres.

22b. J’ai un nez qui coule et un mal de gorge et je me sens généralement un peu merdique.

On se calme. J’ai ça aussi, c’est un rhume. C’est pourquoi cette FAQ est si tardive.

23. Est-ce que tout cela disparaîtra quand il fera plus chaud?

Eh bien… c’est difficile à dire. Version courte, la réponse est non, mais c’est peut-être possible? Cela dépend en grande partie de la façon dont le virus du SRAS-CoV-2 survit sur les surfaces, et il ne survit pas aussi longtemps sur des surfaces chaudes, ou n’aime pas être frappé par les rayons UV du soleil. Cela pourrait, en théorie, réduire l’infectiosité globale de la maladie, mais nous n’en savons rien pour l’instant.

24. J’ai une très bonne assurance maladie, ça veut dire que je suis cool, non?

Oh, désolé, mais pas cette fois. Le principal problème est de savoir si nous pouvons ralentir le virus suffisamment pour nous assurer que les lits d’hôpitaux et les services qui y travaillent ne sont pas pleins et débordés lorsque tu en auras besoin.
Quelle que soit la qualité de ton assurance maladie, si les hôpitaux n’arrivent pas à traiter suffisamment rapidement les personnes malades et que l’épidémie est en expansion, tu vas devoir attendre… et les conséquences peuvent être douloureuses. Ai-je trop parlé de se laver les mains?

25. Pourquoi les enfants sont-ils immunisés? Pourquoi ne souffrent-ils pas comme nous tous?

Compliqué, mais allons-y. Les enfants ne sont pas immunisés : ils attrapent le virus dans le même délai et l’ont probablement aussi longtemps que nous les adultes. Ils ne semblent tout simplement pas avoir beaucoup de symptômes. Si tu mets un coton-tige dans leur nez, tu pourras détecter le virus, mais ils ne présentent pas de signe de maladie. Quant à savoir pourquoi… Ils pourraient avoir très peu d’activité virale et ainsi répandre le virus comme de minuscules et adorables Mary Typhoïde partout sur leurs grands-parents. Il y a beaucoup de choses que nous ignorons encore totalement sur ce virus ou ce qu’il fait dans le monde. C’est nouveau, c’est difficile à gérer. De nombreux articles sortent, de nombreux scientifiques se ruent sur toutes les données dont nous disposons. La recherche sur Covid 19 est peut-être l’une des seules choses à voyager plus vite que le virus en question, mais il reste encore beaucoup à comprendre.

26. Quelle distance sociale dois-je pratiquer?

Cela dépend en partie de toi. Si tu es plus âgé, immunodéprimé ou à risque élevé, tu devrais probablement te préparer à rester à la maison pendant quelques semaines si le virus arrive en ville.
S’il est déjà en ville, évite les foules et les transports en commun bondés. Travaille à domicile si c’est possible et prépare toi à la fermeture des écoles.
Si tu es malade d’une autre maladie et que tu dois sortir, c’est le moment de porter un masque, un masque chirurgical est très bien.
Lave-toi les mains et ne te touche pas le visage.
Si tu es touché par le Covid 19, vraiment, ne sors pas. Essaye de te faire livrer tout ce dont tu as besoin jusqu’à ce que tu te rétablisses.

27. Une fois que j’irai mieux et que j’aurai vaincu le virus, je serai un super-héros invulnérable au coronavirus, non?

Eh bien, euh, il y a plus d’une souche du virus, et nous ne savons pas si avoir survécu à l’un d’eux confère une immunité générale. Jusqu’à ce que nous le sachions, tu devrais faire encore attention.

28. SÉRIEUSEMENT?!

Oui, nous en saurons probablement plus bientôt, mais comme je le répèté, c’est nouveau, nous sommes tous en processus de compréhension.
Pardon.

29. Il semblerait que je vive avec quelqu’un qui a le virus et que je doive m’en occuper, ou cette personne est dans une catégorie à risque et je m’inquiète de le leur transmettre.

Cela dépasse le cadre d’une FAQ sarcastique, mais je vais essayer.
Si tu vis avec une personne vulnérable, tu dois t’astreindre immédiatement à l’éloignement social, l’auto-isolement et suivre les mesures de sécurité.
Si tu prends soin de quelqu’un, c’est exactement la situation dans laquelle tu as besoin d’équipement de protection individuelle comme des masques N95, des gants, etc. Attention : tu dois ajuster les masques correctement. Les tutoriels Youtube sont tes amis.

30. Dois-je aller à l’école? Travailler? Puis-je quand même sortir manger? Ou obtenir la livraison? Je ne sais pas comment faire bouillir de l’eau…

Cela dépend en grande partie de ce qui se passe et de là où tu te trouves. Il devrait y avoir des annonces locales sur les écoles, le travail et les rassemblements qui aident à guider tes décisions, mais tu devras peut-être être plus prudent en fonction de ta propre situation de santé.

En ce qui concerne la préparation de plats, un repas cuisiné va tuer le virus, mais il serait bien que les personnes travaillant dans les cuisines commerciales portent des masques et se lavent beaucoup les mains. Si tu sors, ne vas pas pas dans un endroit bondé. Tu veux entre 1.5m et 2m entre chaque personnes, avec une bonne ventilation. Si tu reçois te fais livrer, assure toi que tes aliments sont chauds et traite les sacs et contenants comme s’ils étaient contaminés – lave-toi les mains, jette l’emballage, lave toi les mains à nouveau.

31. Que fais tu à ce sujet, toi, hein, Quinn?

(Version originale: Oh, mets mon argent là où est ma bouche, hein? (C’est une idée terrible, l’argent est presque toujours contaminé, alors j’utilise autant que possible ma carte de crédit)
—
Oh, faites ce que je dis pas ce que je fais? Mais je parle beaucoup, tu as vu…” Alors, je suis actuellement à San Francisco, où il n’y a pas (encore) de crise médicale mais nous avons une transmission communautaire. L’école de ma fille est toujours ouverte, ce qui me déplaît, mais pour l’instant elle s’y rend. Quand j’avais des symptômes de rhume, je portais un masque. Je vérifie régulièrement ma température, tout comme mes colocataires. Je me lave beaucoup les mains. J’essuie les surfaces très sensibles avec du détergent plusieurs fois par jour.

Ma fille et moi prenons des multi-vitamines. Certaines personnes pensent que le zinc peut aider, ou la vitamine D, ou C, ou quoi que ce soit, et honnêtement, personne ne le sait – c’est un nouveau virus! Ce dont je suis sûr, c’est que les carences aggravent la maladie et qu’un apport en multi-vitamine ne peut pas faire de mal. (Sauf que les hommes biologiques ne devraient pas prendre de vitamines pour femmes en raison du fer qu’ils contiennent.) Je sors encore et je fais quelques activités, mais je ne fais pas la queue ni ne m’approche des gens. Je suis allé à Safeway, j’ai vu des lignes et je suis sortie aussi sec. Je marche généralement pour me déplacer, mais je prendrais plutôt un tram presque vide. Je fais toujours des courses et je vois des gens promener des chiens. C’est bon, tant que nous restons bien éloignés les uns des autres. Quand je reviens… devine : je me lave les mains.

32. Où puis-je trouver des informations fiables et moins sarcastiques que cette FAQ?

L’Organisation mondiale de la santé dispose d’un site d’information sur ce nouveau coronavirus

L’Université Johns Hopkins gère également un excellent site informatif

… Ainsi qu’un tableau de bord indispensable pour suivre la progression du virus.

Worldometer (Worldometer appartient à une société appelée Dadax) est un très bon agrégateur avec une belle section sur les coronavirus.

En francais, Le gouvernement a une très bonne FAQ (moins marrante, mais plus complète.

Et le site de la santé publique a aussi beaucoup d’informations.

Recherche également des informations locales du lieu où tu te trouves. En espérant que les dirigeants des administrations locales sont ceux qui les connaissent le mieux.

Ai-je mentionné que tu devrais te laver les mains?