One of our neighbors has it.

Four of them actually out of a family of Five. Right next door on Sores and Boils Lane here in Stars Hollow.

Does this bother me?

I must say the primary topic of conversations with my Therapist recently has been my Anxiety instead of my Depression (it hasn’t gone away, it’s just less dominant in comparison) but it’s centered around the fact I’m truly dependent on a steady supply chain of Cheetos and Beer here in Mom’s Basement.

Anxiety attacks mimic some of the symptoms which makes it much, much worse.

So I’m now in weekly with an option for more and an offer of ‘Medication’ which, unless it’s a steady diet of Happy Pills or total unconsciousness for the next 2 or 3 Months, is not going to help.

Not that this is going away in 2 or 3 Months, just that you might be able to get better care because you won’t be one of Thousands. You’ll probably qualify for a Vent (120+? It was a good Life. Yes, but I’m not done with it yet.).

Does this bother me? Or even that I have repeated myself? Repetition is a Rhetorical trick.

And, not proximately. I’ve actually been far closer.

My Activist Brother’s Boss was striken 2 or 3 weeks ago and is recently relieved of his Medically Induced Coma (they do that so you don’t rip the Vent out because they’re horrible). My Brother’s job, because he’s the lowest fish in the feeding chain, was to mask and glove up and bring him his Laptop after he’d already moped around the office for a Week or so.

The Boss, not my Brother, had attended a Funeral and several others were victims so probably that.

On the other hand there’s not much ‘Social Distance’ however hard you try.

Wash your hands! Don’t touch your face!

I also know ER Physicians who have definitely been in contact with positive cases and they’re ok so far because you spend 4 Years washing your hands and not touching your face just to be a Doctor at all. Sing ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’ twice or do the same with ‘Happy Birthday’, there’s your 20 Seconds of scrubbing. Don’t forget your nails and wrists.

So, next door.

Because we have no studies that show the extent of exposure in the General Population we actually have no idea how Communicable and Fatal this is. In the U.S. we’re only testing people sick enough to go to the Hospital which is… pretty sick. On several levels including the gross abdication of responsibility on the part of the Government.

I feel bad for them but I don’t imagine aerosols are wafting down the street.

And if they were what could you do? When I think of parallels I think of Gas Attacks in The Great War, Bhopal, Chernobyl. Of course I lived through the Spanish Flu, Tuberculosis, and Polio too, none an automatic death sentence.

‘Someone in our building has it’: Covid-19 fuels tensions at apartments and condos
By Michael E. Miller, Wsahington Post
April 20, 2020

Although most Americans have retreated to single-family homes, about a quarter cannot. For the nearly 70 million people in multifamily buildings, isolation is often impossible and tensions are unavoidable.

Shared spaces are suddenly sites of possible contagion. Each ride in the elevator could mean exposure. Each trip to the laundry room could bring contamination.

Some buildings have responded by restricting access, increasing cleaning, installing sanitizer dispensers and adding plexiglass at front desks.

But the new rules — or a lack of them — have left many residents angry or afraid.

“There is no quarantine if you live in public housing,” lamented one resident of Highland Terrace, located in the poorest part of the nation’s capital.

In New York, one co-op stirred controversy when it barred a doctor who was staying at his brother’s place while treating patients with covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

In Miami, condos that were slow to shut their swimming pools drew widespread ire.

And in one Washington condo, residents worried about catching the virus from a neighbor gave her pads for her dog to pee on so she wouldn’t go outside.

As the pandemic spreads, more buildings are informing residents when one of their own is infected. But the announcements often contain few details, sparking debates over whether privacy or public health should come first.

As the pandemic spreads, more buildings are informing residents when one of their own is infected. But the announcements often contain few details, sparking debates over whether privacy or public health should come first.

At the Watergate East, Peterson said she feared the meeting — at which residents would vote on a $3.5 million loan for a new heating system — would turn the wealthy co-op into a cluster of infection.

“This was too dangerous,” she told The Washington Post. “It was outrageous.”

Ok. In Wisconsin Democrats crawled over broken glass to vote on a State Supreme Court Justice. I find your lack of faith disturbing, you do not recognize the power of The Force. On the other hand, a Heating System? That’s what’s got you all worked up? At North Lake we get into petty disputes about when you can Water Ski (pretty much any time, but don’t crash into my Dock asshole or expect any sympathy if you do).

To continue-

Carole Buncher was on her daily walk in Northwest Washington when she asked her exercise partner the question that was increasingly on her mind.

“Do you even know someone who has the virus?”

“Someone in our building has it,” Susan Lesser replied.

The septuagenarian stroll came to a stop.

Buncher, who lives three blocks from Lesser, was outraged that her friend had not mentioned the case in her building before the walk.

“Who is it?” she recalled asking.

“I don’t know,” Lesser said.

“That’s crazy,” Buncher replied, putting several more feet between her and her friend.

Later that weekend, Buncher, a retired analyst at the Government Accountability Office, posted a message on the Cleveland Park neighborhood mailing list.

“The co-op building in the Van Ness complex has reported that a resident has tested positive for the coronavirus,” she wrote on March 28. “Management is not releasing the name nor location (i.e., floor) of this resident. They are citing privacy and guidance from their attorneys as the reasons for withholding this information. I question whether privacy, which may have applied during, for instance, HIV testing, is an appropriate reason to withhold this information.”

Buncher was expecting a flood of support. After all, information on who was sick could prompt others to get tested or go into quarantine.

Instead, she got “a small firestorm,” she recalled.

“Naming names is a hideous suggestion,” one person responded.

“Stop the ‘us versus them,’ ” wrote another. “For all you know you’re going to be the ‘them’ tomorrow morning. We all choose to live in [an] apartment/condos.”

In a city full of attorneys, lawyers soon chimed in on the email thread to warn that disclosing the name or apartment number of a covid-19 patient could put landlords, co-op boards or condo associations at legal risk.

Within the co-op, people began wondering who had leaked word of the infection.

Lesser emailed her neighbors to say she was the one.

“It was current information,” she told The Post when asked why she had mentioned the infection to her friend. “What the hell else are we talking about?”

Lesser, a retired clinical social worker whose nephew died of covid-19 days after the controversy, said she was proud of how her co-op had handled things.

At the Van Ness Apartments, a stone’s throw away in the same complex, Kara Harkins said she thought her building had handled things all wrong.

She had received an email from the property manager on March 27 saying that “a resident or employee” had contracted the virus and was in quarantine.

“Please be assured that we are taking the necessary preventive steps for containment,” the email said. “This includes intensive cleaning of common-area spaces of the property.”

Harkins, a programmer who is also on the tenants’ association, pushed for more details.

“Have you asked the person where they went?” she replied. “Are we safe doing our laundry?”

She got a curt response, she said.

“The safety and security of our residents is our primary concern,” Marty McKenna from Equity Residential, which owns the building, told The Post. Staff regularly cleaned “high touch” areas, including laundry rooms, which were safe to use, he said. But privacy issues prevented him from sharing details on the coronavirus case.

And, rightly so. Name and shame someone who is merely sick through no fault of their own?

What kind of heartless bastard are you? Want to bring back Yellow Stars too?

Nonsense about how hard this has hit Upper West Siders like my Uncle the Vice President at Chase Manhattan Bank. Crap, everyone left for the Hamptons and you’re not quite rich enough for your own Dacha? Sucks to be you, my Uncle has one on Shelter Island (it’s a pain in the ass to get to).

Moving on-

Although the coronavirus has sown the same fear in all kinds of multifamily buildings, it has hit the poorest the hardest.

At the Park Morton public housing complex in Northwest Washington, the approximately 250 residents don’t have laundry machines in their buildings, according to Shonta’ High, resident council president. With some nearby laundromats shut down, High said, she has taken to washing her clothes in a bucket.

Residents have long complained of poor conditions, including the stench from a decomposing body in an apartment earlier this year, she said. The coronavirus has only made things worse.

A spokesman for the D.C. Housing Authority, which operates buildings where about 12,500 people live, said that it had increased cleanings of common areas to twice a day, plus deep cleans on weekends, and that maintenance staff continue to perform emergency work orders.

At Highland Terrace in Southeast Washington, Markina Hall’s refrigerator and toilet had recently broken, leaving her family of five with one toilet and no fresh food. Neither could be fixed during the pandemic, she said she was told.

“So I’m going to the store literally every other day,” she said.

She often comes home to dirty masks and gloves hanging on the railings, she said.

“There is dried blood on the walls,” she said.

Hall’s husband lost his job at a fast-food restaurant and her GED courses were canceled. The only member of the household who still has a job is her 21-year-old son, who washes dishes at a hospital.

“He’s hands-on,” she said. “I’m terrified.”

If any of this seems like acceptable behavior to you, I invite study of Camus’ La Peste. The Universe does not care. We owe it to ourselves (and others) to be compassionate.