So trying to get that straightened out, I talked to a nurse (for my regular doctor's office/clinic) and I got entirely swerved by this exchange:
(me): By the way, when are you going to reopen for regular patient walk-ins? (I noted the specialist's office was open under Maryland's phased reopenings. In part, I knew they wanted me to do some blood work at my next visit.)
(nurse) (confused): We never stopped seeing patients.
(me): I know you guys have been been seeing patients for things like broken bones or serious health ailments. I'm talking for routine visits.
(nurse): We've never stopped seeing patients.
(me): That's not what your website says. It talks about televisits except for more urgent matters. (I checked the website before making the call
(nurse): I know... We thought people would feel more comfortable during the pandemic with those options, but we never stopped patients from coming in.
I'm just totally floored by this discussion. I had had at least 2 prior phone calls with nurses talking about extending prescriptions until they were ready to accommodate routine visits.
At any rate when I went to the specialist, I mention having a hassle getting my routine med prescriptions filled, and she told me she could renew them. It turned out they could do the blood work down the hallway. (In all they wanted 3 blood vials and a urine sample.) But still: it took about three-quarters of an hour before the nurse was ready for me. I didn't see a lot of people in the waiting room. I know long waits are more the norm than the exception. It was just that I had arranged an early visit to avoid overlapping regular work hours.
I really don't have any anecdotal observations from Maryland; I don't really eat out although the state does allow limited sit-in capacity. I did a couple of Google local searches, and most restaurants, including fast food, are still not showing dine-in; maybe a fifth are showing a dine-in option.
I normally don't discuss politics in my journal posts, but I want to make a number of short points:
- Apparently NYC leadership is not allowing its contact tracers for COVID-19 exposure to proactively ask if they participated in post-Floyd protests. They're applying an undocumented resident-like "don't ask" position on the theory that those questioned will lie and provide unreliable information. This is an unconscionable double standard because by any measure mass gatherings are breeding grounds for spreading infection. Now to be honest, if you're protesting, you may not be able to identify hundreds of strangers you encountered, but it provides some information about sources, and other protesters may need to take action if they think they might have been exposed.
- Trump notably made headlines suggesting that testing was leading to higher infection counts and maybe we needed to slow testing. As I recently tweeted that's pretty stupid; it's like some guy refusing to go to a doctor for fear he'll hear bad news. Well, bad news doesn't go away; it may develop into worse news. Information is what we need to contain the disease. But Ron Paul pointed out an interesting observation: the government is doling out cash to hospitals in part based on COVID-19 head counts, so there's a perverse incentive to test people with little overt symptoms. We really need to look at relative positive rates. Earlier rates were focused on people with identifiable symptoms. Increased counts of infected are expected in the sense that a large percentage of infected show no overt symptoms. That by itself doesn't mean that the infection is spreading, but holding the rate of testing constant, we should not see rising percentages of infections.
- Face mask mania continues to spread on Twitter (before I recently deactivated my account). The left-fascists are shaming politicians and everyone in a store pushing back against face mask policies. Let's be clear: as I pointed out sometime back in a journal post, I ordered a mask (actually 2) from one of my sisters even before Hogan started his mask fiat; I have constantly worn them since getting my masks, and that won't change in the near future. I myself do not pose a risk; I've only rarely left my apartment for grocery runs and occasional medical visits. So mostly my face mask helps mitigate exposure from others in close proximity. And keep in mind that probably 90%+ of face masks I see others wear are not industrial strength that, say, medical personnel wear. Now you can argue maskless people are freeloading off the face masks worn by others, but really your own risks are marginal if you're protecting yourself, and this is all too paternalistic. Yeah, I can just hear a left-fascist say, "Dude, I don't want to pay for your medical expenses!" But you don't know it's because of not wearing a face mask; maybe you've touched an infected surface and unknowingly infected yourself by touching your face, not washing diligently. Or maybe the mask failed to stop the virus, even if you wore one. Do those hospital costs count?
- Finally, and I think this point was recently made by Tom Woods and others, the fear-mongering in Texas and elsewhere is being exacerbated by not understanding things like historical utilization rates. The power-seeking left-fascists are hyping things like Texas Children's Hospital opening beds for COVID-19 patients, and you see furious bleeding hearts pointing out that many children there have compromised immune systems, etc. It's gotten to the point that Houston hospital providers felt it necessary to debunk the hysteria. Not every COVID-19 patient visits the ICU, and utilization rates during ordinary times can range say from 70-90% (e.g., when my late Dad was treated for sepsis). Let's point out that Texas' cities are facing nowhere near what we were seeing in NYC several weeks back. Most Texas hospitals indicate they can handle the patient load under current circumstances.
Entertainment Notes
- Hallmark's two core channels are starting their annual "Christmas in July" two-week cable holiday movie breaks, first starting with HMM (in-process) followed by Hallmark Channel in mid-July. Check your local listings; the schedules may vary on weekends, but it looks like 6PM-midnight EDT or so on weeknights for HMM. One of my gripes is HMM seems more mysteries programming than movies, although I recently caught the end of Hallmark's 2014 flick "In My Dreams", featuring American Idol singer Katharine McPhee. This is an all-time favorite, a fantasy love story where the perfectly matched couple first meet in each other's dreams.
- Finally, the return of major league sports, in particular major league baseball. Players report tomorrow, and opening day is roughly just over 3 weeks off. I do not particularly enjoy watching reruns of games. No doubt some players will opt out, but it's about time. I don't know the specifics of COVID-19 policies, e.g., capacity constraints, but I'll probably report in a future report.
- WWE notes: of course, the biggest news is the apparent retirement of The Undertaker (Mark Calaway). I'm somewhat surprised, because I thought they would have been hyping a retirement match and/or doing it in front of a live audience, but WWE had been hyping a multiple episode series, and you could read the writing on the wall. It's interesting to see how they're rebuilding Lashley into a full-nelson monster, and I think it's all aimed at an eventual program with Brock Lesnar. The reemergence of Ric Flair as a mouthpiece for Randy Orton is interesting, and there are some rumors that they may be setting up for a Universal championship reign over McIntyre. There are also rumors of Roman Reigns going over Braun Strowman over the weeks to come. They also have booked Sasha Banks and Bayley, current tag team champs, into the inevitable program over Bayley's belt. The Seth Rollins cult faction is creepy; I'm mildly surprised they didn't do an NXT/Nexus angle on Rollins after he dissed all the current talent there. Still, the storylines are better than they've been for a while
