Tag: SARS-CoV-2

Pandemic Diary, November 21st, 2020: Foreigner, Pebbles Flintstone, and Worn-Out Can Openers

I have learned, over the years, that my subconscious sends me messages through song lyrics. At that precise moment when I become aware that I have a particular song running through my head, the lyrics usually have some sort of meaning—something that I’m not consciously thinking about, but which my subconscious is trying to tell me.

For example, this morning (feeling distinctly unrested after a fitful, disturbed sleep filled with nightmarish dreams), I was thinking about the fact that I have not had a dental checkup or cleaning since the pandemic started. And at that very moment, I became aware of that the Foreigner song, Cold As Ice, was running through my head. And, at the exact moment that I became aware that that song was playing in my memory, the lyrics were:

Some day you’ll pay…

—Foreigner, Cold As Ice

Sometimes, I have to spend a little time puzzling out what my subconscious is trying to tell me, but not today! It’s rare that I get such a clear internal message, but it does happen.

Of course, I have recently been listening non-stop to the Spa music stream on CalmRadio.com. Ironically, I first learned the existence of Calm Radio when it was playing as the background music stream in a Second Life store, while I was busy doing a little virtual retail therapy! It was so soothing (even the commercials were soothing!), that I purchased a subscription when the pandemic started, an additional tool in my anti-anxiety arsenal.

And, of course, I now become aware at times that I have an instrumental song from Calm Radio’s spa channel running through my head—but alas, there are no lyrics to puzzle over to figure out what it means, though! When it does happen, I usually take it as a signal from my subconscious that I am feeling stressed out, and that I need to listen to more Calm Radio, or do something else to seek some inner peace.

Along with dentist appointments, I have also cancelled regular sessions with my hairstylist. My hair is now at an irritating middle ground: long enough that my bangs hand over my eyes at times and even touch my nose, yet still too short for a proper ponytail or man bun!

So, among my online purchases from Walmart, I ordered a set of two plastic headbands, which will at least keep my hair back and out of the way in the interim. I may yet decide to attend my next virtual work meeting in Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex, or Zoom rocking a Pebbles Flintstone look!

I have now worn out not one, but two manual can openers since the pandemic started. It is now a frustrating struggle to get a can of soup open for supper, spending several minutes going back and forth between the two worn-out, dull can openers, trying to get a tin open! I ordered two replacement can openers in my last grocery pick-up trip to Walmart, but I still have to dig through the bags of groceries I unceremoniously dumped next to my kitchen table to find them. I did a cursory initial search, but no joy. (I might have accidentally left them in my car, or perhaps Walmart screwed up my order. If I cannot locate them today, after unpacking all my groceries properly, I will place an order for replacement can openers via Amazon, and make do with what I have until they arrive via Canada Post.)

Oh, and I am not going on strike this year. The latest proposal from the university administration was approved in a ratification vote by members of the faculty union. Whew! So I have one less thing to worry about, at least.

Meanwhile, the coronavirus pandemic is going rapidly from bad to worse here in Manitoba, and all across Canada (except the Maritime provinces). The town of Steinbach, which last weekend held a now-infamous anti-mask rally which I blogged about here and here, has been especially hard hit. CBC News reported yesterday:

Manitoba health officials say there are 438 new COVID-19 cases Friday and listed nine more deaths, including a man in his 20s, bringing the provincial death toll to 207…the man in his 20s is the youngest person to die of the illness in Manitoba.

…

A record 281 COVID-19 patients are in hospital, with 43 of them in intensive care.

The 10-day test positivity rate in the Steinbach health district is at 40 per cent, and there have been 24 Steinbach deaths since the beginning of the pandemic, Roussin said.

Winnipeg’s test positivity is at 13.7 per cent.

“When you’re looking at something like 40 per cent … this is a very concerning number,” Roussin said.

With a population of just over 21,000, the Steinbach health district has among the most COVID-19 cases per capita in Canada.

In recent days, Roussin and the premier have both chastised the 100-plus people at a Steinbach protest against the provincewide code red restrictions on the weekend.

Protesters at the anti-mask rally in Steinbach last weekend (source: Austin Grabish/CBC)

Meanwhile, there was an arrest at an Alberta Costco, where a covidiot refused to wear a face mask. Another shopper captured it on their cellphone, and a second covidiot posted the video to YouTube, with the statement “Costco has gone full Nazi” in the video description.

One commenter tweeted this response to the arrest, expressing a sentiment to which I subscribe wholeheartedly:

It’s weird that the same people who want to be able to shoot trespassers on their farm property think that Costco stores shouldn’t have the right to tell people that they have to wear masks on Costco property. Pick a lane.

Stay healthy and stay sane!

Pandemic Diary: November 19th, 2020

Today is officially Day 249 since I began working from home for the University of Manitoba Libraries due to the coronavirus pandemic. I am still on holidays this week; I “go back to work” on Monday (while remaining in self-isolation in my apartment).

Today, the Manitoba government added further restrictions to those already put in place on November 10th, when a province-wide, code-red pandemic lockdown was announced. The new rules ban any gatherings at private residences and restrict retail sales to essential items only.

What is considered essential? Well, according to the “enhanced restrictions” document released by the Manitoba government today, essential items are:

 food, beverages and food preparation products;
 personal care products such as soap and dental care products;
 health-related products such as prescription drugs and vitamins;
 mobility or assistive devices;
 baby and child-care accessories such as diapers and formula;
 household cleaning products, safety devices, batteries and lightbulbs;
 outdoor winter apparel such as jackets and boots;
 personal protective equipment for the workplace;
 pet food and supplies;
 postage stamps;
 cellphones and cellphone accessories;
 parts and supplies for all types of motor vehicles and watercraft;
 major household appliances;
 hunting, fishing and trapping supplies;
 tools and hardware;
 materials for home maintenance, repair or construction; and
 property maintenance products such as shovels.

Non-essential items refers to any good and products not set out in the orders. This includes jewelry, flowers, perfume, consumer electronics, sporting equipment, books and toys.

Also, the document takes great care to note that “liquor and cannabis stores may continue to open and sell products” (you don’t want to have to deal with people going through withdrawal on top of everything else that’s going on, I guess!). And it looks very much like there will be no Black Friday sales in Manitoba next weekend.

CTV News reports:

New restrictions in Manitoba will limit the number of people allowed to gather in private homes to further halt the spread of COVID-19.

The enhanced orders, announced on Thursday by Premier Brian Pallister and chief public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin, will take effect on Friday, Nov. 20th.

The orders come one week after strict public health measures were put in place to get Manitobans to reduce their contacts. Roussin has made repeated pleas for Manitobans to stay at home and has warned of stretched hospital capacity in the province.

“Despite that, we saw people gathering at rallies, we saw crowded parking lots at big box stores, we saw people continue to go out for non-essential items — so we are left with no choice but to announce further measures to protect Manitobans to limit the spread of this virus,” said Roussin.

Under the new orders, gatherings at private residences, including homes, cottages, and other vacation properties, are restricted, and nobody is permitted aside from the people who live there. There are some exceptions to allow for child-care, health-care and home-care services, tutoring services, construction, repairs, and emergency response services.

…

The new orders also prohibit people from gathering in groups of more than five people at any indoor or outdoor public space. This includes the common areas of a multi-unit residence with the exception of a health-care facility or critical business that adheres to public health measures.

The new rules also allow for people who live alone (such as me) to have one person from outside their household visit their home. If I were pressed to choose, that person would probably be my best friend John, but we communicate regularly using Face Time on our iPhones, and I am satisfied with that.

Yesterday, I went and did my grocery shopping on the Walmart website, and first thing this morning, I donned an N95 facemask, got in my car, and drove to the grocery pick-up parking spaces at the rear of the my neighbourhood Walmart store, where someone wearing a mask wheeled out a cart with bins, and loaded up the back of my car, and I drove away. Thankfully, the Shopping Cart Gods smiled upon me, and there was a wayward shopping cart in the vicinity of my apartment, which made for only two trips ferrying my groceries between my car and my home. I am now stocked up on enough food to last me at least two months. I have also just had all my prescription medications renewed for another three months and delivered from my local pharmacy to my doorstep.

I have zero plans to set foot outside my apartment, unless it is to throw out the garbage or to go for masked, socially-distanced walks in my neighbourhood. As I barely leave my apartment as it was, the latest restrictions will not affect me very much. It does mean that I not be able to visit my mother and stepfather in their seniors life-lease condo, but I did pay a visit to see them the day before the Nov. 10th restrictions came into effect, and it was good to see them (again, socially distanced).

My mother wants me to commit to coming over for supper on Christmas Day, which she considers an iron-clad tradition, but I only told her that we would have to wait and see what happens between now and then. The way things have been going lately, I will not be surprised in the slightest if I spend Christmas alone in my apartment. At our face-to-face last week, we discussed Christmas presents. Mom usually gives me gift cards, but she worries that she will land up buying me gift cards for stores that will go belly-up because of the pandemic. We agreed that cash would be an appropriate gift instead, which relieves my mother of at least that one worry.

At the moment, as I write this, I am sitting in a Zoom meeting, my microphone and video muted, listening to my faculty union executive report on the results of the most recent round of bargaining with my employer, the University of Manitoba. This virtual meeting will be followed by a ratification vote over the next 24 hours by the 1,200 union members: professors, instructors, and librarians (again, this will be conducted securely, remotely, and online). So the results of the ratification vote will not be known until late Friday evening. There exists the possibility that I will be out on strike come Monday.

I am learning—trying to learn— to become more comfortable with all the uncertainty swirling around me, and I am working, every day, all day, to make sure that I do not allow my circumstances to drag me back down into the bottomless black pit of clinical depression. Some days I feel as if I am drowning.

So I take naps, and go for walks, and sit cross-legged in obliging patches of warm sunshine on my bedroom carpet. I go hide out in Second Life, or Sinespace, or Sansar, and find places to visit, and people to talk to. I take my antidepressant and anti-anxiety prescriptions, and I talk with my psychiatrist on the phone, and chat with other safe, supportive people, both in real life and in my many virtual worlds. I binge watch shows on Netflix. I read books. I cook. I clean. When I cannot sleep, I brew a pot of black coffee, get up and sit in front of my computer, and I blog.

I do whatever it takes to get me through the day, one day at a time. That’s really all I can do, all that anybody can reasonably ask me to do.

Tomorrow will be Day 250 since I started working from home, and it will be a day much like today, with its uncertainties, fears, and worries. I will get through it.

Dr. Tom Boellstorff’s Research on Virtual Cultures in Pandemic Times: You Can Take Part in a Survey About Your Use of Animal Crossing and Second Life

How are you using virtual worlds during the coronavirus pandemic?
(today’s styling credits for Vanity Fair can be found at the end of this blogpost)

Wagner James Au, of the long-running virtual worlds blog New World Notes, reports on a timely research study being undertaken by Dr. Tom Boellstorff, a professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine:

The study is led by my pal Tom Boellstorff of UC Irvine, who’s easily among the most preeminent academics with a focus on virtual worlds. (He’s the author of Coming of Age in Second Life, among many other related works.)

“I’ve been conducting various research projects in Second Life for almost 17 years now,” Tom tells me, explaining the genesis of this study. “A couple years ago, I completed a study of disability in Second Life, and after that wonderful research experience moved on to some other projects (I’m actually finishing up a book on the Intellivision video game system from the early 1980s, which is great fun!) But then when COVID-19 hit, I decided to return to Second Life to see how COVID-19 is reshaping online interaction. I was lucky enough to get support from the National Science Foundation that means I have three wonderful graduate research assistants. Until next April we are conducting research in both Second Life and Animal Crossing. It’s a wild ride, setting up research with very little warning, but it’s been a great experience for all of us.”

(I have written about Tom before here, here and here on my blog. You can watch Draxtor Despres’ full hour-long documentary about Dr. Tom Boellstorff’s earlier research on ability-diverse users of virtual worlds, Our Digital Selves: My Avatar is Me, on YouTube. I can recommend this film highly! Drax did a great job.)

According to the webpage describing the research project:

This research project is about how COVID-19 is reshaping online interaction. As many have noted, what we call “social distancing” is really physical distancing. Due to the pandemic, an unprecedented number of people have been socializing online, in new ways. Better understanding these new digital cultures will have consequences for COVID prevention: successful physical distancing will rely on new forms of social closeness online. It will also have consequences for everything from work and education to climate change.

We are a research team using the methods of anthropology to study online social interaction. Anthropologists use in-depth qualitative methods, in particular participant observation, interviews, and focus groups, to understand culture—the meanings, practices, and relationships that make up the “common sense” of our everyday lives. People often think of anthropologists as people who travel to “exotic” or “remote” cultures, but the methods and theories of anthropology can be used to study culture anywhere in the world. That now includes online cultures.

Our research takes place entirely online, focusing on two virtual worlds: Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Second Life. We work as a team in these two virtual worlds to understand how people are using virtual worlds in the wake of the pandemic. Central to the project is that there is not just one way to be online. Virtual worlds are places where individuals interact with avatars in online environments. They have different characteristics than social network sites like Facebook, streaming websites like YouTube, or chat programs like Zoom, though they share some features with all of these. Better understanding how people are using virtual worlds in the wake of the pandemic might provide innovative strategies for preventing viral transmission, by forging new forms of social closeness in the context of physical distancing. It might also help us better respond to the transformed social lives we are all destined to encounter in the wake of COVID-19.

Among the preliminary research findings is the following:

At least some of the time, virtual worlds can be a way to be alone, not a way to socialize. Due to the pandemic, many people are living with family members and roommates, and have less privacy than before. Virtual worlds can be places to get away from this. In other worlds, the pandemic has led not just to social distancing, but what we might term being “socially packed.” Virtual worlds can provide a different kind of “social distancing” to counter this loss of privacy.

Here’s the Animal Crossing: New Horizons survey and the Second Life survey. Each survey should take 10–15 minutes to complete. If you play Animal Crossing or use Second Life, please take part in the surveys!

Vanity Fair is wearing:

Thank you to Wagner James Au for the heads-up!

Pandemic Diary, November 17th, 2020: Silently Judging You

Today is officially Day 247 of me working from home from my apartment for my university library system during the pandemic. Or, in this case, not working, as this is my final week of holidays before I go “back” to work. Of course, since I am still at home when I “go to work”, all my days are starting to blur together: weekends, weekdays, holidays, working days. A couple of days ago, I actually had to stop and ask myself what day it was; I had forgotten it was a Sunday!

Social VR and virtual worlds such as Second Life have been my godsend, an opportunity for me to socialize while I remain stuck at home, with Manitoba stuck in a province-wide code-red pandemic lockdown. I now go for days at a time when I never leave my apartment.

This morning I loaded up Vanity Fair and went over to Muddy’s, where I fell into conversation with a man standing by the side of the dancefloor. I was doing what I usually do when I am in a club, right clicking on avatars and reading their user profiles, and he had such hilarious, sarcastic snark in his profile picks about all the things that drive him crazy in Second Life, that I had to instant message him, and we struck up a conversation. (I myself have a list of pet peeves in Second Life.)

And he was wearing a group title which I found quite amusing, so he very kindly invited me to join his private SL group, so I could sport it as well:

Silently judging Vanity Fair is wearing the November 2020 group gift from Graffitiwear, the Autumn Sunrise dress, which comes with a HUD with three different patterns

My recent blogpost, Making Plans on What I Want Done with My Possessions (Virtual and Real) in the Event of My Death, got a surprising number of views, and sparked some interesting discussions on the many Discord servers of which I am a member. I have now identified six people (three in my real life, and three from my social VR/virtual world communities), all of whom will have each other’s name and contact information, in case of any emergency involving me. I now need to draw up a Google Docs document with a list of my wishes and requests in the unlikely event of my death (COVID-19 or otherwise) to share with these six key contacts.

I have also called and emailed again the lawyer whom my financial planner recommended, in order to get the process started on drawing up a will, a financial power of attorney, and a healthcare power of attorney, and I have finally made contact (she apologized for not getting back to me sooner).

Manitoba’s premier, Brian Pallister, is currently taking a nosedive in the opinion polls for his handling of this public health emergency. The coronavirus pandemic is currently raging out of control in the province.

New COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people over the past seven days, showing just how bad Manitoba is compared to the other Canadian provinces (source: CBC)

The biggest newspaper in the province, the Winnipeg Free Press, has been savage and unstinting in its criticism of his performance lately (and frankly, Brian deserves it):

In response to a question about whether he is doing everything he can to control what is, right now, arguably the worst COVID-19 outbreak in any province, the premier actually congratulated himself for bringing in the most stringent pandemic restrictions in the country.

But Pallister should have known that having the harshest virus–control measures is not an accomplishment worthy of applause; it is evidence Manitoba is now teetering on the edge of a public–health disaster.

Outside the “Atlantic bubble,” Pallister crowed, Manitoba is now “leading the country” in pandemic restrictions.

Pallister made this perverse claim citing a story by award-winning Globe and Mail columnist André Picard from last weekend that did, in fact, note that Manitoba currently has among the “toughest restrictions” in the country.

But Pallister should have known that having the harshest virus-control measures is not an accomplishment worthy of applause; it is evidence Manitoba is now teetering on the edge of a public-health disaster.

Bragging about having the toughest pandemic restrictions in the country is like standing over the smouldering remains of a house that just burned down and bragging about how your firefighters have trucks with the best water pressure in the country.

…

As case numbers increase expeditiously and the body count rises alarmingly, he has drifted further away from any suggestion that he or his government played any part in the current mess.

When he’s not overstating his province’s restrictions, he’s claiming (without any hard evidence) that Manitoba is the most generous province in terms of economic supports for businesses. And, after that, he lectures Manitobans on “not being the weak link” in the battle to control the novel coronavirus.

When Pallister is encouraging people to limit their contacts with people outside their households and to wear masks in all public places, he’s certainly not wrong. He’s just the wrong guy to be delivering the message, because he simply doesn’t seem capable of admitting that his government has miscalculated badly on both the magnitude and timing of public-health orders.

…Our low case numbers and deaths in the spring and early summer were clearly more a result of luck than competency. Now that we’re in a real pandemic crisis — one that registers on an international scale of severity — smugness and hubris should be set aside in favour of more decisive responses.

Pallister is quick to rage against any allegation that he or his government are to blame — even partly — for our current predicament. However, before he indulges in another grand mal bout of self-congratulation, he should close his eyes and try to visualize how that plays among the families of all those Manitobans who have died in the current outbreak.

Yes, Brian, like many Manitobans, I am (not so silently) judging you. As far as I am concerned, the next provincial election cannot come quickly enough.