Archive for March 22nd, 2020

More Of The Virus

Sunday, March 22nd, 2020

So yesterday was the first day I was entered in an agility trial that was cancelled. The AKC National Agility Championships were postponed (I was due to leave on Tuesday, but I decided I wasn’t going the day before AKC made the call to postpone). All future trials are cancelled/postponed. As of Friday, 100% of non-essential workers must stay home, animal hospitals are essential services (we don’t need a rabies epidemic on top of COVID-19), but we’re only supposed to see emergencies and urgent cases.

It’s surreal, people are in general being really good about social distancing (staying at least 6′ away from each other, no large gatherings, etc.), although young adults are predictably being morons and are half of the new positive cases. We don’t have tests available so the true infection rate is probably significantly higher than the numbers show (which hopefully also means that the severely affected/fatal cases are lower). I don’t want to leave my house, although I do have to go to work. Starting last Tuesday, we are not allowing clients into the building, they call from the parking lot and we go out and get their pet and videoconference the appointment if they have a smart phone.

I’ve become a hypochondriac, it’s a bad allergy season and every tickle in my throat makes me think I’ve got “it”. Watching Governor Andrew Cuomo’s daily briefings makes me feel better every time. He’s doing his damn job. He’s reassuring. He has a plan. He’s putting on a master class in what leadership is.

It seems like most people who get it (80-85%) can recover at home and be OK. I just hope that the social distancing and shutdowns have happened soon enough to keep our health care system from being overloaded. All that “flatten the curve” stuff is hopefully getting through to most people.

A week ago we said “have a nice day”, now we say “stay safe”.