So how’s everyone doing?

Yes, the COVID-19 pandemic has had me cooped up in my house since last Tuesday, working from home doing my job as best I can. In some ways, I’ve been quite productive without the interruptions that I would have in my office. But, as a volunteer manager who suspended our entire volunteer program until further notice, there are limits to what’s available for me to do. Next project: clean up our database of 4,500 volunteers. After that, work on writing standard operating procedures for what I do (at the moment, it’s all in my head).

Here in California, restrictions were slowly tightening until our governor came out with the stay at home restrictions last Thursday. Fortunately, I saw the writing on the wall about a month ago and began slowly stocking my pantry and freezer over time. I’ve got a good 2-3 weeks’ supply of food (lots of chicken breast and soup on the menu), but I’m about out of fresh produce and bread, so I have to figure out what I’m going to to about that. Head to the store myself and risk exposure, or order groceries online for delivery for the first time?

At the start of this COVID-19 pandemic, I would describe myself as concerned, but certainly not panicked. I’m certainly not panicked even now, but my level of concern has increased considerably.

I spend more time on Twitter than I should (don’t judge me), and the first-hand accounts of what it’s like to have COVID-19 are frightening, to say the least. That has made much more cautious about going out now than I was at the beginning of this (hence the possible online ordering of groceries).

I’m lucky enough that, even though it appears that I have recurrent prostate cancer, I’m not taking any medications or treatments that compromise my immune system. Still, I’m in that over-60 years old higher risk group. Minimizing risk just got a lot more important to me.

Speaking of risk groups, in my copious amounts of spare time, I’ve taken the daily San Diego County COVID-19 updates and plopped them into a spreadsheet to make graphs. (You know me. I gotta make graphs.)

The media and experts talk about how COVID-19 impacts the elderly more, but I was surprised to see that, here in San Diego County, many more younger adults have tested positive for the virus. Granted, the sample size is small compared to the global data; still, it was revealing. It was also revealing that men are infected at nearly twice the rate of women. (You can draw your own conclusion as to why that is.)

Even with all the social distancing we’re doing here in California, I’m guessing that we’re still a good two to three weeks away from “flattening the curve” (especially seeing as there were so many boneheads out on the beaches and in the parks this weekend violating the social distancing/stay-at-home order that the city decided to shut them all down!). I expect these restrictions will last a while longer. Fun.

So that’s about it from here. I hope that you’re doing well and that you’re taking appropriate precautions for your own situations.

Stay well. Stay healthy. Stay sane. Stay home!!

—Dan