HinesSight

Oregon looking good on the COVID-19 front

Today there were some positive mentions of how Oregon is doing in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

This should encourage Oregonians to keep on with physical distancing (better term than social distancing), as hard as this is on both people and businesses.

In the White House coronavirus briefing, Dr. Birx, the White House coronavirus coordinator, praised Oregon, Washington, and California for the good job they're doing. 

I recall that she was referring to cases per 100,000 population, but that figure depends on the amount of testing each state is doing, which varies a lot.

Deaths per 100,000 population as of April 7 show that Oregon and California have a low rate of just 1 death per 100,000 population. Washington is at 5 deaths per 100,000 population, but much of that seems to be due to the deaths of 26 residents of a single long term care facility as of March 11.

Ari Melber interviewed Oregon Governor Kate Brown on his MSNBC show this afternoon. She had nice things to say about the Oregon spirit of working together that is making a difference through her Stay Home, Save Lives order.

And the projected total coronavirus deaths for Oregon has dropped significantly since I first wrote about the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) model that has become the most widely cited approach to forecasting the impact of the pandemic.

Partly this is due to changes in the model's assumptions, as more data comes in from around the world on the outbreak. However, almost certainly another factor is how well Oregonians are practicing physical distancing.

This is the current April 7 total death forecast for Oregon through August 4: 171 COVID-19 deaths.

This was the forecast as of March 30: 469 COVID-19 deaths.

In the current forecast, the 171 deaths are reached on May 25, then level off with no additional deaths through August 4. Maybe this is unduly optimistic, but we all could use a healthy dose of optimism right now.

Perhaps this points to June 1 as being a date when Gov. Brown's Stay Home, Stay Safe order could begin to be relaxed.

Until new deaths drop to zero for a week or so, it's difficult to see this happening. Deaths lag new infections by about three weeks. Thus if Oregon stops having COVID-19 deaths, that's a sign physical distancing has been working well for almost a month.

NEXT DAY UPDATE: On the 11 pm news last night there was a mention that Gov. Brown wants to see no deaths for 10 days before she starts relaxing the stay at home order. 

Of course, until a vaccine is widely available, likely coronavirus outbreaks will continue to occur, so I suspect that we'll be seeing masks worn and the six feet rule followed by many Oregonians through at least the end of 2020.

But hopefully restaurants and bars can reopen considerably sooner, albeit with initial restrictions on how many people can be seated at one time.

In this COVID-19 era, let's worry less about online ads

My wife, Laurel, has become a quasi-expert in how to use Zoom for online meetings. She's paid for an account that allows for unlimited meeting time, rather than the 40 minute limitation on the basic free plan.

I've taken part in one of the three meetings Laurel has hosted. Zoom works well, though since people are new to it, typically the first part of the meeting is filled with "can you hear me?," "unmute yourself," and other sorts of how does this work talk.

And since we live in a rural'ish area with crappy DSL, our broadband connection is slow, which creates problems with Zoom. Connecting an ethernet cable directly to my wife's computer from the Century Link wi-fi device helped somewhat.

I've never been much concerned about online privacy. I use my laptop a lot. I enjoy being on Facebook and Twitter. I accept that when I buy something, or search for an item on Google, online ads will follow me around the internet like a puppy sniffing dog treats in my pocket.

Plus, I've stopped using an ad blocker. In part this was because an increasing number of web sites that I liked to visit would present me with a message along the lines of, "We notice you're using an ad blocker. Please turn this off. Online ads enable us to keep on doing what we're doing."

But Laurel has found that some of the people in the groups she's arranged Zoom meetings for are hyper-sensitive about not having any ads directed at them, or sharing personal information with Zoom.

My attitude is that this is the price we pay for a quality online experience. Yes, I was an early user of the internet and fondly remember when everything was free. Even now, many people still believe that they shouldn't have to pay anything to surf the web.

That didn't make sense to me before the COVID-19 era, and it makes even less sense to me now. We've all become much more dependent on the online world, since most states (like mine, Oregon) have stay-at-home orders and closures of schools, restaurants, bars, and other non-essential businesses.

So a main way we're staying connected to those who aren't our live-in family is the big wide world of the internet.

Sure, phoning is fine, but I really enjoyed it when my daughter and I did the FaceTime thing on our iPhones a few days ago. Being able to see how they've set up their Orange County home for my granddaughter's online learning, plus how cute their fairly new dog has become, was great.

Nothing online is free. It costs either time or money (usually both) to offer content or a service. I've been blogging for seventeen years, so I know how much work it takes to maintain my three blogs. 

I've never had ads on them, but that's because my online writing is a labor of love, not of money. Most web sites, including Zoom, have to bring in money one way or another. That's a fact of life. If we want to enjoy the benefits a web site offers, we have to be willing to pay one way or another -- either directly, or by having ads presented to us.

This is no different than the two newspapers delivered to our box every morning. My wife and I pay for a print subscription to the Salem Statesman Journal and the Portland Oregonian. There also are ads in the newspapers, which I mostly ignore. I understand, though, that without those ads, there wouldn't be a newspaper. 

So it makes no sense when people are adamant about not having ads shown to them online. That's akin to getting upset because their daily newspaper or weekly magazine contains ads even though they've paid for a subscription. 

Yes, I get why having online ads track you around the internet can be annoying. I used to think this was an invasion of my privacy. With additional thought, though, I realized it is no big deal. Where's the harm in having Facebook present me with ads for shoes after I just bought a pair of Allbirds online? (great wool shoes, by the way; I just got another pair).

I'm grateful to companies like Zoom for the services they're providing during the coronavirus crisis.

It costs money to do that. If they want to present ads to me while I'm using their service, great. Thus my advice is, let's turn off our ad blockers and accept that seeing some advertisements is the price we need to pay for keeping those companies in business.

Oregon forecasted to have 469 COVID-19 deaths by August

Tomorrow it appears that the Trump administration will discuss the models they've been using to predict the course of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.

But a Washington Post story about the coronavirus modeling says that a University of Washington researcher, Chris Murray, independently has been preparing forecasts for both the United States as a whole and each state that came up with similar results as the Trump administration model.

Debbie Birx, the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, said that federal scientists reviewed a dozen different models for how this pandemic might play out before constructing their own. Using techniques learned from tracking HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, she explained, “we went back to the drawing board over the last week or two and worked from the ground up.”

Simultaneously, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, led by professor Chris Murray, was doing something similar. “When we finished, the other group that was working in parallel, which we didn't know about, IHME and Chris Murray ended up at the same numbers,” Birx said in the Rose Garden on Sunday evening.

...The government is keeping its own projections private, but Birx twice said that people can study Murray’s work to better understand White House considerations. “If you go on his website, you can see the concern that we had with the growing number of potential fatalities,” she told reporters.

Naturally I was eager to check out the website maintained by Murray and his team at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). While COVID-19 is ugly, the website is a thing of beauty. Clean, clear, easy to understand. (With one exception that I'll talk about below.) And it's going to be updated daily. 

Here's the forecast for Oregon deaths. The solid line is actual deaths; the dotted line is the projection. You can see that the death projection becomes almost flat by mid-June, which is good news. 

However, the forecast has a large 95% UI (Uncertainty Interval, which is the same as a Confidence Interval). That's the light brown shading on either side of the dotted line. This is what I didn't understand at first, until I clicked on some of the dates and saw that, for June 15 as an example, the projection of 466 deaths by then had a range of 112 to 868.

I'm assuming this range reflects how strongly Oregon engages in efforts to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. A web page describing the methodology seems to indicate this, though it isn't crystal clear from my admittedly brief reading of the IHME site.

The estimated excess demand on hospital systems is predicated on the enactment of social distancing measures in all states that have not done so already within the next week and maintenance of these measures throughout the epidemic, emphasizing the importance of implementing, enforcing, and maintaining these measures to mitigate hospital system overload and prevent deaths.

Here's more good news for Oregon from the IHME model.

The forecast shows that our state will have enough ICU beds to meet the COVID-19 demand on the peak resource use of May 3, along with enough hospital beds under even the worst projection. But the caveat is, obviously, that ICU and other hospital beds also are needed for patients with different problems. So it's good that our hospitals are planning ways to handle non-COVID 19 patients in various ways.

By contrast, here's the scary forecast for the state of New York. Yikes! Peak hospital resource use is soon, April 9, when 11,070 ICU beds would be needed, with just 718 beds available, producing a shortage of 10,352 beds. I don't know if this takes into account the hospital ship that has been sent to New York, or the hospital bed capacity being constructed as rapidly as possible.

Lastly, here's the total deaths forecast for the nation as a whole. The peak number of deaths is on April 15, after which the curve begins to flatten out. The 95% UI for August 1 is between 39,174 and 141,995 deaths, with 82,141 deaths being the projected number. All of those numbers are super-scary.

That said, I was strangely reassured by poking around the COVID-19 projections on the IHME web site. There's something about solid scientific analysis that is grounding in a time of dangerous uncertainty. The human misery is absolutely real and can't be ignored.

However, I felt better knowing that researchers like Chris Murray are working hard to provide policy makers at the local, state, and federal levels with the best possible information needed to get us through the coronavirus crisis. 

I just wish there was a toilet paper availability forecast so I'd know whether I could modify my "two squares per poop" rationing sometime soon. 

How to strengthen your immune system -- advice from New Scientist

When I got the mail today and plopped the current issue of New Scientist, a British magazine, on a table, almost right away my wife started reading the cover story, "You're only as young as your immune system."

(Online version has different title, "How to fight infection by turning back your immune system's clock.")

That's the effect of the coronavirus pandemic. Suddenly almost everybody is concerned about their ability to fight off the virus, especially people over 70 like my wife and me, along with those with compromised immune systems and/or underlying health conditions. 

It's a good cover story. So good, and so timely, I'm sharing a PDF file so those without a New Scientist subscription can read it in full.
Download How to fight infection by turning back your immune system's clock | New Scientist

Below are some excerpts from the piece. I've focused on advice (in bold, for emphasis) on boosting our immune system that almost everybody can follow.

Sure, it may not be possible for someone to strengthen their resistance to infection in time for that to make a difference in how their body would respond to the coronavirus, but now is always an excellent time to start improving our immune health. Here's the excerpts:

WASH your hands religiously for 20 seconds, sneeze into your elbow, avoid touching your face, stay 1 metre away from all other people and, as a last resort, self-quarantine for a week with only your emergency rations for company. If you want to avoid getting the new coronavirus, all of these are a good idea. But ultimately, one of the most important things standing between you and a deadly bout of covid-19 is your immune system.

We know that the immune system gets weaker as we age – which is a key reason why those over the age of 70 are most at risk from the disease. But what is becoming clear is that when it comes to immune health, age is just a number. Some people have an immune system that is effectively significantly older or younger than they are.

“Some 60-year-olds have the immune system of a 40-year-old, some are more like an 80-year-old,” says Shai Shen-Orr, an immunologist at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. The good news is that there are some simple ways to turn back the immunological clock. Because even after the threat of this virus has passed – sooner or later another one is going to come along, and none of us is getting any younger.

...If you are younger than 60, in good health and don’t have too many bad habits, then your immune system is probably functioning well enough to keep you safe from almost any infectious disease, including coronavirus.

The bad news is that as we age, our immune systems gradually deteriorate too. This “immunosenescence” starts to affect people’s health at about 60, says Janet Lord at the University of Birmingham, UK. The older you get, the weaker your immune system becomes, and the more likely you are to get seriously ill or die because of it.

...Beyond genetics, the team found that smokers have a much older immune profile than non-smokers of the same age. It’s unknown if this is reversible. But if you don’t want to prematurely age your immune system, it would be best not to smoke.

...One key approach to keeping our immune age down relates to the fact that as we get older, some of our immune cells start to misbehave. This is especially problematic for a class of immune cells called neutrophils, the most common type of white blood cell. These form part of the innate immune system, the body’s first line of defence against infection, and are the border force of the immune system, patrolling tirelessly through the bloodstream on the lookout for harmful bacteria.

...What are these miracle drugs [that boost neutrophils]? Statins, the ordinary cholesterol-lowering drugs already taken by millions of people. Turning to real patient data from the University of Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth hospital, Lord found that people admitted to hospital with pneumonia were much less likely to die if they were already taking statins to lower their cholesterol.

Another class of immune cells that begin to misfire as we age are T-cells. These are pivotal in the adaptive immune response – the more targeted part of the system – but are blunted in two ways by immunosenescence. As with neutrophils, their internal signalling pathways go awry, and they are also inhibited by inflammaging.

But there may be a simple way to undo this damage. According to Dayong Wu, a nutritional immunologist at Tufts University in Boston, the answer is vitamin E. ...Wu recommends people over 65 routinely take 200 international units (IUs) of vitamin E. “It may help immune function. It doesn’t hurt,” he says.

...There is also a drug-free way to rejuvenate your neutrophils: exercise. In 2016, Lord and her colleagues measured exercise levels and neutrophil migration in 211 older adults.

“Those doing 10,000 steps on average had neutrophils as good as young adults,” she says. She emphasises that neutrophils aren’t antiviral so won’t prevent you catching coronavirus or help you beat it, but they will protect you from the real danger, which is pneumonia. “Usually what carries people away with these [viral] infections is secondary infections,” she says.

...Exercise has other immune-boosting effects too. “Active skeletal muscle is anti- inflammatory and stimulates macrophages,” says Lord, who goes running every day. “Skeletal muscle is a profound immunoregulatory tissue in the body and keeping it going by physical activity really will have a lot of benefits for health. Exercise benefits all ages.”

Asked what one thing she would recommend to strengthen your immune system, she says: “Increase your step count to 10,000 per day.” In the face of the new coronavirus, it is more important than ever to find ways to stay active – even in lockdown or isolation, which isn’t going to be easy.

...Vitamin D, meanwhile, appears to do the same for the innate arm of the immune system, especially among people living at latitudes where there isn’t enough winter sunlight for their skin to synthesise the molecule. A 2017 review of the evidence for taking vitamin D supplementation concluded that it prevents upper respiratory tract infections. About 1000 to 2000 IUs should be safe and beneficial, says Wu, but people shouldn’t go higher than that because big doses actually suppress T-cell function.

...A third supplement with good evidence for immune-boosting powers is zinc. “It is very effective for viral infections,” says Wu. Though he adds, “be cautious, the effective window is narrow and an overdose will suppress your immune system”.

...What you eat will also matter to your immune system – now is the time to look after your gut flora. There is good evidence that probiotics can enhance the immune system, that poor gut health is a cause of premature ageing and even that a healthy microbiome can reduce your immune age.

...Even if a fasting diet isn’t for you, simply keeping your weight down can have immune-boosting effects. According to Bonnie Blomberg at the University of Miami in Florida, being obese suppresses the immune system to a similar extent as being immunosenesced. 

...None of these interventions is without sacrifice. But if you want to stay alive and well for as long as possible, looking after your immune system is a no-brainer – especially now the new coronavirus is being called the biggest threat to public health since the 1918 flu. “The age of your immune system is a critical component of your lifespan,” says Shen-Orr. “Think about what the system is supposed to do!”

Why we can feel good about living in Salem during the COVID-19 pandemic

It's difficult to maintain a positive attitude these days, given the constant reminders of the COVID-19 outbreak here in Oregon and just about everywhere else in the world.

(Except Antarctica. So far.)

So I thought I'd dredge the corners of my mind for reasons we're fortunate to be living in Salem right now, rather than somewhere else.

Of course, I readily admit that some of what follows is by no means unique to Salem. But since I'm not in those other places, but here, I'm including those bits of positivity anyway.

(1) Just the right size. I'd hate to be living in a super-dense city, like New York. Practicing social distancing and avoiding surfaces that could have the coronavirus must be much more difficult when millions of people surround you. It'd also be worrisome to live in a rural area that is a long ways from hospitals and doctors. Thus Salem seems to be in a sweet spot, size-wise. Large enough, but not too large or too small.

(2) Marion County ranks #4 out of  36 in ability to hospitalize the elderly. Since I'm 71, and my wife is about the same age, we're in a high risk COVID-19 group. The Portland Business Journal ranked Oregon's 36 counties on how equipped they are to hospitalize their elderly population, using criteria such as the number of ICU beds per 1,000 people 65+. Pleasingly, Marion County ranked #4. Multnomah County is #1.

(3) Volunteerism is strong here. As elsewhere, admittedly. But people in Salem seem eager to make lives better for others by volunteering their time, money, and energy. Since my wife is a long-time Willamette Humane Society volunteer, along with many others, I know that "others" definitely includes dogs and cats. Today the Statesman Journal is reporting that Salem Health is looking for volunteers to sew 10,000 masks for health care providers. I bet they'll find those volunteers. 

Salem Health is asking for volunteers to sew nearly 10,000 mask kits for nurses and other care providers. 

Salem Health staff have created and bagged mask-making kits — enough for nearly 10,000 masks — that include surgical paper fabric, instructions and a bag for the finished product.

Those interested in helping need a sewing machine; white thread; scissors or a rotary cutter; and a yardstick, straight edge or cutting mat.

(4) Grocery stores are doing their part in difficult times. Whenever I go into a grocery store in Salem, I'm impressed with how energetic, positive, and helpful the employees are. They're working long hours under tough circumstances. I wish there was a tip jar at each check-out line so I could do more than just say "thank you for what you're doing." And many, if not most, stores are offering seniors and those with compromised immune systems a chance to shop during the first hour after opening. Much appreciated. 

(5) We aren't in India. A few days ago Prime Minister Modi announced that all 1.3 billion Indians are supposed to stay in their homes during a 3-week total lockdown. (I wrote about this on one of my other blogs.) Wow. And that lockdown happened with just four hours notice, leaving very little time to look for essential supplies.

Gov. Kate Brown's "Stay Home, Save Lives" executive order is mild by comparison. And Salem has plenty of pleasant places for walkers and runners to exercise. I'd go crazy, or crazier than I am already, if I had to stay in my home for three weeks. 

Governor Brown issues Stay Home, Save Lives order

Good news. Governor Brown has issued an executive order in response to Oregon's coronavirus crisis. It lists businesses that must be closed and contains excellent advice for social distancing. 

Have a read.

Grocery shopping in Salem in the Coronavirus Era

Here's a report from the front lines of people venturing out to do some grocery shopping in what I've come to think of as the Coronavirus Era. 

By "people," I basically mean me. But I'll start with a second-hand report from my wife, Laurel, who headed out in the morning in a (futile) search for toilet paper and facial tissue.

Laurel was staring at the completely empty shelves where toilet paper used to be at the south Salem Fred Meyer store. A man walked up and said, "Wow, what happened to the toilet paper?" Naturally she said that it was a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

"Oh, that's a scam," he remarked. Which left my wife speechless, because she missed an opportunity for a snappy comeback. Like, "Dude, you've been watching too much Fox News."

So it's disturbing that there's even one person in Salem who doesn't understand how important it is to take the outbreak seriously, which means social distancing and taking other precautions to avoid being infected with COVID-19, for the good of both yourself and other people. 

I headed out to do our main weekly grocery shopping in the afternoon, following Laurel's return. Though she struck out on paper products, Laurel was successful in getting bread and some other must-have's.

Since my wife has asthma, she wore a mask and gloves when she goes into stores. And since I both fear and love my wife, which happens after thirty years of marriage, I was pleased to obey her command that I also wear a mask and gloves.

I found an N-95 mask that we'd gotten during the Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster in 2011, when some low levels of radiation were projected to reach the United States. Since I'd never tried it on before, my first reaction was, Wow, this isn't very comfortable. Yet many health care workers have to wear a mask for a lengthy time every day.

Pulling into the Trader Joe's parking lot, I also found myself thinking that I was going to look kind of strange with my mask and gloves. But that thought didn't last long, being replaced with the realization that whatever helps keep me and Laurel free of the coronavirus is a good thing, strange or not.

And I then noticed that there was a line of people waiting to enter Trader Joe's.

To reduce the risk of social contagion, friendly employees were letting a shopper into the store only when someone left the store. It only took about ten minutes for me to reach the head of the line, where I asked a question spurred by a sign that said it was only possible to buy two of any item.

"Um, I like to have your small container of yogurt every day, so I need seven to get me through the next week. Would it be OK to buy that many, or do I need to get one or two large containers of yogurt?" The reply was, "Don't worry about it. You should be fine."

Which I was.

Trader Joe's also had put green tape to show where people were supposed to stand when waiting in line for a cashier. And once my groceries began to be rang up, there was another piece of green tape where I was to stand during that process. So only when I had to put my credit card in the reader was i close to the cashier, which makes a lot of sense.

When I got back to my car, I could hardly wait to lower my mask to chin level, in part because I quickly realized that wearing dark glasses with the mask on made my glasses fog up. Some health care workers must wear glasses, so there's got to be a trick to combining a mask with glasses that I'm not aware of.

Fred Meyer was my next stop.

All went smoothly there. I ended up getting more than was on my list, because as I wandered the aisles I'd see something that we use regularly, like coffee filters, and think that I should get some in case there's a shortage in the future, even though we don't need that thing right now.

Not a great idea, since this is how shortages happen -- people fearing that a shortage is going to happen. But understandable, especially given the desolate look of the aisle where paper towels, facial tissue, and toilet tissue usually grace the shelves. Zero. Nada. Zilch. 

But hey, I've got plenty of coffee filters! And, yogurt. Sadly, neither of which are suitable for wiping my butt.

My final stop was Lifesource Natural Foods.

All seemed pretty normal there, aside from the change to the bulk foods department. Now you can't put bulk stuff in a plastic bag yourself. Instead, two Lifesource employees were doing that in an efficient manner. I only needed salted mixed nuts, so getting them was quick and easy.

Yesterday my wife and I had less positive results with our first attempt to order groceries online, then pick them up outside the store. Laurel ordered quite a few things that were shown at being available at the Sunnyside Roth's. But by the appointed time to pick them up, every item but paper towels wasn't available. 

(At least paper towels are closer to being toilet paper than coffee filters and yogurt.)

Same thing happened with some hand sanitizer that i'd optimistically ordered from Lifesource after seeing it available on their web site. I got an email saying that the order had been cancelled, since that item was out of stock. Some friends of ours have had success with local online ordering, though. So I guess it depends on what you want and how much in demand it is.

We're appreciative that so many stores are earmarking an early time for at-risk people to come in, like at 7 am. Being over 70, we might take advantage of that at some point. Especially if toilet paper continues to be in such short supply. It was good to see that Fred Meyer is only allowing people to buy one item of paper products like toilet paper. 

But when there is zero available on the shelves, one is a very lonely number.

I'm not wearing gloves because of cold, but of old (COVID-19)

With fairly warm weather coming to western Oregon next week, I want to explain why I'll be wearing gloves when I go grocery shopping, enter a coffee shop, or am in other public places.

As should be obvious, it isn't because I'm cold, but because I'm old -- and thus more susceptible to the nastier effects of COVID-19, or coronavirus. My wife, Laurel, is in the same situation, except a bit more so, since she has asthma and COVID-19 attacks the respiratory system.

Today Amazon delivered four pairs of these oh-so-trendy gloves that Laurel ordered for me. (Via Amazon I'm also getting some gray gloves with no markings, though I do like the two-tone look of these gloves.)

Laurel has been using similar gloves during her many years of walking dogs at the Willamette Humane Society.

So she's got a routine down that we'll be using until the COVID-19 epidemic in Oregon slows down markedly. Namely, have several pairs of thin plastic gloves available so the ones that have been used can be washed with a load of laundry, then reused.

The reason wearing gloves makes sense to us is that COVID-19 can linger on surfaces for hours, and we don't have a very big supply of hand sanitizer. Thus our plan is to put gloves on when we go into a store or other public place, then take them off before getting back into our car.

It'll be important to not touch the fingers of the gloves when taking them off and putting them back on, but I've been practicing how to do this.

Wearing gloves will give us some increased peace of mind when we're out and about. 

Some Googling revealed that in general, public health experts haven't been advising people to wear gloves, just as they haven't been advising the use of masks. But that advice has focused on thin disposable medical gloves.

And gloves are not recommended either: "This isn't something the general public would be wearing," said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. "I don't think they're going to do anything but give people a false sense of security, waste time and create more demand for something that's unnecessary, just like masks."

While disposable gloves are frequently worn in medical settings, they won't be as effective in day-to-day life.

"Latex gloves can rip very easily," said Adajla. "They're not designed for going out, running up stairs, doing things in daily life. They're not very durable when it comes to pumping gas or anything ... They're going to get holes. They're not meant for wearing during activities and daily living. Even as a physician, I have my gloves rip all the time."

OK. But what my wife and I will be wearing are lightweight garden gloves, which, as noted above, we'll be washing and reusing. Sure, we'll look like old people worried about getting COVID-19, but here's the thing: that's exactly who we are!

And we're not alone. Today I asked the dozen or so members of our monthly Salon discussion group if they were comfortable meeting during the COVID-19 outbreak. Only one person said they were, so we're going to cancel our March meeting and see how it goes come April.

It's a risk vs. return thing.

Yes, we enjoy getting together and talking about all sorts of interesting subjects. But as I said in an email to the group, it wouldn't be worth it if someone got seriously ill from attending a meeting, as unlikely as that might be. (Plus, it's going to get more likely as the disease spreads.)

Lastly, here's a right-on post that a Facebook friend, Susann Kaltwasser, wrote today. Susann makes some excellent points.

It occurred to me last night after watching all kinds of shows with interviews of experts, mayors and governor dealing with the pandemic that here in Salem we are focusing on the wrong things!

We are worried about toilet paper and handiwipes and masks. And we worry about the crowds in the grocery stores and if school is going to be closed and how will we get to work.

But while we are worrying about the little things like staying safe and our jobs, who is worrying about the big things?

Things like ....is Salem Health (hospital) going to have enough beds to accommodate all the sick patients who have the virus and can they keep them separate from the rest of the patients in the hospital?

Do they have enough equipment to treat hundreds of people who might get ill at the same time? Respirators? ICU equipment?

What will happen to the people who are ill, but not so ill that they need to be in the hospital? People who if they stay at home will just infect the rest of the family need to be kept in isolation. Where will they stay?

What do we do about children who live with their grandparents, because they do not have parents? And then the grandparents get sick?

When will we begin testing people in Salem and then what do the rest of us do, because right now the authorities are not even telling people what city they live in?

Seattle has taken some strong measures out of necessity, but do we want to have thousands of people become ill before Salem begins to take precautions?

Our City does press releases, but where is the face of the "City"? Where is the leadership? What are they doing to help calm us now, so that when things get really bad....and we need to assume that they will...that we do not have panic (assuming that it has not already begun)?

Are we all alone and have to fend for ourselves? Do we think our president is going to save us? Is washing our hands and avoiding people all we should be doing?

This is what other cities did and it did not stop the virus...it is just placating and delaying the inevitable. But can we learn a lesson and do some more proactive things to lower our curve?

I'll bet that you have more questions. When are we going to take this situation serious and begin to actually ask the right questions?

My thoughts about the coronavirus outbreak

Yeah, there's other stuff going on in the world right now other than the coronavirus. But since my mind is filled to overflowing with thoughts about this rapidly evolving tragedy, I figure I might as well do a brain dump into this blog post. So in no particular order...

(1) Feel for us old folks, America. My wife and I are both over 70 by a year or two. So we're doomed! If we get infected. Well, maybe not mortally doomed, though this is possible, but likely we'll suffer more than younger folks. Yet the empty shelves of hand sanitizer, both in stores and online, face young and old alike.

I completely understand why a 30-something parent wants to stock up on hand sanitizer to protect their children and other family members.

But just as public health experts are saying everybody at low risk should wash their hands regularly to reduce the chance they could pass the coronavirus on to someone high risk -- like my wife and me -- maybe it makes sense to reserve some supplies of hand sanitizer for those with compromised immune systems, other serious health problems, and the elderly.

(2) Trump supporters need to wake up. Last night Trump gave a speech designed to reassure a worried nation. It had the opposite effect. Which isn't surprising, because Trump can be guaranteed to tell lies, falsehoods, and half-truths at every opportunity. His failure to mobilize the federal government in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak has made a bad situation way worse.

Other countries have tested vastly more people than the United States. Thus our country is flying blind when it comes to knowing the real extent of how many are infected with the coronavirus. The lack of testing kits is a clear case of presidential malpractice. Unfortunately, those who will become seriously ill because of our Idiot-in-Chief won't be able to sue him. We can vote him out of office this November, though.

(3) Investors are acting wisely. It's painful to see the stock market crashing. But a (small) bright spot is that investors are recognizing with great clarity that the crap Trump has been spewing about the coronavirus outbreak can't be trusted. This morning I read a great Bloomberg piece that explained why the market crashed after Trump's speech to the nation.

Basically, the reason is that Trump's ideas for bolstering the economy were feeble and made little sense, while what is needed to calm the markets is a strong, fact-based, scientifically sound approach to dealing with the coronavirus. Other countries have done this with considerable success. Until the Trump administration changes course and admits it is on the wrong track, the stock market is gong to keep saying, do something different.

(4) Life does seem a bit sweeter. Quite a few years ago I read a piece in Parade magazine by an Iraq war veteran (if I recall correctly) that contained a gripping line: "We all need something in our life that can kill us." Of course, that would be life itself. But what this guy was getting at is that life feels more lively when we know it could end at any moment.

I've been dealing with pretty severe pain in my right leg for about a month. But today was sunny here in Oregon, and it's supposed to rain tomorrow. So I got out my DR Field Mower with the lawn mowing attachment and attacked the grass in our large rural yard. As I was mowing, I kept thinking, "If I were to die from the coronavirus soon, at least I'd leave behind a good-looking lawn."

Somehow that was comforting. It got me focused on the here and now, with a dose of there and then. Namely, the prospect of my eventual death, which obviously isn't a matter of "if" but "when." Sure, it is unlikely that the coronavirus will do me in. But something will, one day, and it felt good to be reminded of how precious every moment is, given that we can't be sure how many moments remain to us -- a lesson that the coronavirus outbreak is teaching all of us.

(5) Sports... who cares? Today it was announced that March Madness, the NCAA basketball tournament, won't happen this year. Likely the rest of the NBA season is headed for the same outcome. I was looking forward to watching the Oregon teams in the tournament, but this was a wise decision by the NCAA.

Let's imagine that just one person in the whole United States contacted the coronavirus and died as a result of March Madness. Would that make the tournament worthwhile, a whole bunch of basketball entertainment in exchange for one death? I don't think so, because there isn't any way to weigh the value of a single life versus millions of satisfied fans. Sports are just a small part of life. Life, on the other hand, is life.

(6) Our health care system is teetering. What's deeply concerning about the coronavirus outbreak is how it is going to cast a spotlight on the shortcomings of our health care system. Democrats in Congress are correctly proposing ways to ensure that everyone who needs medical treatment gets it, whether or not they have insurance. But this should be a permanent given, not an add-on in a public health emergency.

Also, I'm feeling mildly guilty about my days in the 1970s and 80s when I was a health planner here in Oregon. One of our jobs was to regulate hospital and nursing home expansions and purchases of expensive medical equipment like CT scanners. The goal was a lean health care system with little excess capacity. 

But now it looks like a lot of excess capacity would be highly desirable. Likely hospitals are going to have to choose between treating seriously ill coronavirus patients, and people with equally serious other problems, such as heart attacks. Bill Gates and others have been warning that a global pandemic was coming. It's too bad that our nation's leaders didn't take those warnings seriously.

(7) Seniors, the homeless, and other vulnerable people deserve to be Job #1. Most Americans are going to get through the coronavirus crisis just fine. Yes, we might have to ration our toilet paper and hand sanitizer, along with finding other things to do than watch sports. But mostly hidden from our view will be many other people who will suffer much more.

Reports already are coming in of seniors who are afraid to go shopping because they might be infected. I hate to think of elderly people sitting at home, isolated and fearful. The homeless also are going to be affected by the outbreak. How do you "socially distance" -- keeping six feet away from other people -- when you're living on the street, or in a homeless shelter?

Then there's those with lung, heart, kidney, and other health problems. My wife has asthma. She likely would be at greater risk than I am from the coronavirus, since it attacks the lungs. And there's millions of other people in this county in a similar situation: having to deal with an immune deficiency problem, or some other serious medical condition.

I just wish we had a president right now who could speak as Joe Biden did today. Compassionately, competently, caringly. The coronavirus could be a way for our county to come together and face this problem as one people, bound together by a common enemy.

It still could happen. But not because of Donald Trump. Rather, in spite of him.

Apple can't tell me why my MacBook Pro Touch Bar stops working

OK, of all the problems in the world right now -- which includes the coronavirus pandemic -- having the Touch Bar stop working on my almost brand-new 16 inch MacBook Pro ranks fairly low.

But it's still irritating.

That black strip at the top of my keyboard is where the Touch Bar is supposed to light up. offering all kinds of nifty shortcuts, along with basic controls like changing the volume and brightness.

For three years the Touch Bar on my 13 inch MacBook Pro that I bought in 2016 worked perfectly. However, the keyboard had the dreaded problem where you press a key and nothing happens. In my case, the space bar had the problem, which seems to be the worst possible key to go screwy.

So one reason I bought the 16 inch MacBook Pro when it came out last year was to get the old style "scissors" keyboard. Little did I know that I was trading one irritating problem for another.

The Touch Bar worked fine at first. But then it started to become non-responsive. Naturally I Googled this issue and found that for quite a few years people have been complaining about the Touch Bar not working. If I restarted my MacBook Pro, the Touch Bar would come back to life. 

However, almost every day I'd have to do that. So I decided to phone Apple support.

The first time I called I was told that I needed to reinstall the operating system. I told the support person there was no way I wanted to do that. I had an almost brand new computer. I'd installed every update to MacOS Catalina. I hadn't modified the operating system in any strange way. And like I said, my old MacBook Pro's Touch Bar worked fine for three years under another operating system.

So for a few weeks I keep on restarting my computer every day.

Eventually that got old, so I phoned Apple support again last week. This time the person I talked with said that she needed to contact a supervisor. After being put on hold for a while, she led me through two approaches to resetting Systems Management stuff, one of which is described in this web page about the problem. 

That took some finger dexterity, but I managed it. In fact, I managed it twice, since it didn't work the first time, and it didn't work the second time. At least, not for long.

So at the moment I'm changing the volume via the little sound icon at the top of my MacBook Pro's screen. The fingerprint sensor works when I need it, like when 1Password has to open, so I haven't suffered much from not having a functional Touch Bar. And I can always restart my computer and get it back temporarily.

At some point I'll phone Apple support again, assuming the coronavirus doesn't do me in first (I'm 71, so at high risk). It just seems crazy that there isn't some simple keyboard command to restart the Touch Bar when it stops working, especially since this seems to be a longstanding problem for many users of Apple computers.

Apple used to make computers that were virtually trouble free.

Now that iPhones and iPads are Apple's main interests, I've gotten the clear impression that the MacBook Pro is an afterthought by comparison. Things just don't seem to work as smoothly on my MacBook Pro as I've been used to during the many years I've used various models of the MacBook Pro -- which are still ubiquitous in coffee shops.