Hunkered down

The Coronavirus has come to the U.S. and, like most other folks, I'm more-or-less quarantining myself.

Among other things, it was a good reason to dig out the thermometer I got a year or two ago from the Amazon Vine program. As you can see, my forehead registered 98.0 degrees, just like it has since I put new batteries in the thing.

The governor has advised all restaurants to go to carry-out only and no dining in for the foreseeable future. Consequently, my trip to the Lafayette Sam's Club revealed that the food court is closed and cordoned off. Likewise, all of the tables and chair at Starbucks are stacked in a corner and every order is to go. Suits me. I always get my mocha cappuccino to go anyway.

It's disturbing to find myself in a high-risk group for coronoavirus - 74 years old and a Type 2 diabetic. But I know a lot of other people who are probably more vulnerable than I am. For instance there's my next-door neighbor who has COPD and went to the hospital overnight earlier this week because he had trouble breathing. My list of vulnerable friends includes a woman who is morbidly obese and her heart patient husband, my insulin-dependent mother-in-law, several similarly elderly (!) members of the Indianapolis BMW Motorcycle Club, my ex-wife who is only a year younger than I am, the husband of a cousin who is a profoundly compromised heart patient who has spent months at the Mayo Clinic, probably all of the members of my high school graduating class, and on and on.

I was heartened today to hear reports of a possible cure in the form of an inexpensive malaria drug that is being tested in France. If it works, it could stop this nasty virus dead in its tracks before we find ourselves with a replay of the 1919 influenza pandemic.

In the meantime, I'm staying home as much as possible and checking my temperature several times a day.