Fwd: Coronavirus is exposing the U.S. healthcare system

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From: Flipboard 10 for Today <editorialstaff@flipboard.com>
Date: Mon, Mar 16, 2020 at 11:15 AM
Subject: Coronavirus is exposing the U.S. healthcare system

Plus, did America misjudge Bernie Sanders or did he misjudge America? |

Interesting stories worth your time.

Coronavirus is exposing all of the weaknesses in the US health system + vox.com / Dylan Scott The international response to the novel coronavirus has laid this bare: America was less prepared for a pandemic than countries with universal health… read more

From Bourbon Street to Miami Beach, America's party people ignored pleas for social distancing + washingtonpost.com / Meagan Flynn It was St. Patrick's Day weekend, and at party hotspots in New Orleans, you might not even know the novel coronavirus had just been declared a global… read more   Coronavirus Panic Buying Puts Grocery Workers and Shoppers at Risk of Infection  + propublica.org / Alexandra Zayas Braving grocery store crowds when you're already stocked up puts you at risk of getting sick or infecting others, including elderly workers and others… read more   The Coronavirus's Economic Effect On Sports Could Be Staggering + fivethirtyeight.com / Neil Paine The coronavirus pandemic has begun to shake institutions in the United States to their cores, and perhaps the sports world most of all. Although … read more

Did America Misjudge Bernie Sanders? Or Did He Misjudge America? + nytimes.com / Robert Draper On the afternoon of Saturday, March 7, Bernie Sanders stood in an empty conference room in a hotel in downtown Chicago, looking quietly agitated... read more   Bye Bye Bernie + politico.com / POLITICO MAGAZINE According to our experts, Bernie Sanders may not have won the debate, or the 2020 Democratic primary. But he changed his party, and Joe Biden, for the… read more   As the coronavirus pandemic grows, gun sales are surging in many states + latimes.com / KURTIS LEE and ANITA CHABRIA David Stone snagged a cardboard box of .223-caliber ammunition from the shelf and slid it across the glass countertop, offering his go-to sales pitch:… read more   How Coronavirus Is Destroying the Livelihood of Music's Behind-the-Scenes Workforce + rollingstone.com / Samantha Hissong Paul Klimson, a veteran audio engineer who's worked with artists like Justin Timberlake, the Roots and Eric Clapton, was putting together a docket of… read more   Charles Lindbergh's Real Nazi Ties Are At the Heart of David Simon's The Plot Against America + esquire.com / Gabrielle Bruney HBO's The Plot Against America , a miniseries from The Wire creators David Simon and Ed Burns, adapts Phillip Roth's 2004 novel of the same name,… read more   A dystopian reading list: books to enjoy while in quarantine + theguardian.com / Lois Beckett A good reading list for self-isolation requires several categories. You should read some of the brilliant pandemic novels that everyone is talking… read more

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The headspace I'm in right now

The electricity blinked off yesterday twice between 5 and 6PM. Not sure what that was all about but it had me thinking, "Did forget the pay the electric bill?" It was weird. I have an APC box for the computer, and the cable internet box seemed to be on, but not the computer. But that was yesterday. Everything was back to normal with the power restored at around 6:15PM.

I have a busted drainpipe underneath my kitchen sink. And I need more dry cat food. And onions. Maybe I should make a list.

Below is the link to the JHU COVID-19 map: JHU Coronavirus World Dashboard

I'm still reeling about the phone call from my new employer. I've gotta figure out a way to make some money.

I'm picking up, organizing, and cleaning my home until it's done or I can't stand it anymore, whichever comes first. I also want french toast this morning and the bread in the refrigerator is rye. Now, that's not going to work. It looks like I have to go to the store. It's Saturday morning at 6AM.

I have to figure out what store I'm going to and when it opens because their business times have become more limited due to the virus order.

I made a big pot of chicken and vegetable soup yesterday and some rice. Maybe I'll eat that for breakfast instead. I still need to rehab the area under the kitchen sink again. And I'd like to do that before the plumber gets here. The under the sink area is a rectangle. I have to find my tape measure - OK I found it. The area is 21 1/2 x 31 1/2 inches.

I looked for some contact paper, but it wasn't there. I guess I used it all up, so if I'm going to create a new water-resistant mat for under the kitchen sink, I'll have to at least buy contact paper. I can probably find a cardboard box somewhere to cut down to size. I thought maybe the box I used to bring home my stuff from work would be big enough, I don't know. More morning math!
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It's now almost 9AM and I've had a nice hot shower and while the water was heating up, I cleaned the slip-resistant mat that sits on the tile floor and surrounds the drain. Better than it was before, but not totally clean. In my humble opinion, that's probably what has kept me from not sick for all this time. Or again, maybe it's all an illusion.  Like this article that came out the other day:

Type-A blood is more susceptible to Coronavirus

What if all the Republicans in the US were Type A and the Democrats were Type-O?

The last day and what comes next

My last day at work was spent locating missing team reports and preparing them, monitoring the clerks I trained during the previous days and cleanout out my desk of a few things. A few managers came by to say thank you and good luck, and I also had to interact with HR to get my timecard signed and before leaving at the end of the shift I turned in my security card and clerk stamp. The last email was about the number of clerks opting to take the 10 days time off without pay offer. Of course, they would, right before CAP. Considering some clerks have been there for 20 or more years and their tenure, some already get three weeks paid vacation.

And then I was free. And it felt good. That was Thursday. And then this happened...

https://covid19.ca.gov/stay-home-except-for-essential-needs/

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/19/california-governor-issues-statewide-order-to-stay-at-home-effective-thursday-evening.html

"California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday issued a statewide order for all residents to ‘stay at home’ amid a coronavirus outbreak.

“We need to bend the curve in the state of California,” Newsom said, as he announced a statewide order for Californians to stay home.

“There’s a social contract here, people I think recognize the need to do more ... They will begin to adjust and adapt as they have been quite significantly. We will have social pressure and that will encourage people to do the right thing,” he said, in addressing how this order will be enforced.

Newsom added: “Home isolation is not my preferred choice ... but it is a necessary one ...This is not a permanent state, this is a moment in time.”

The stay home order is in place till further notice."

And I'm thinking what the hell does this mean for the new job I'm supposed to start on Monday. The governor just blocked me from working. And Friday, I get the call from the new job that says don't come in and I can't be trained or work remotely. I explain that I'm not sick, that I came from an office that is not sick and when I went to do their drug screen, they took my temperature and it was normal. Was their action one of a private employer trying to do the right thing to be in compliance with the state order as an overabundance of caution or a way to not have me board because their business is beginning to tank during such uncertainty? Either way, I told HR I quit my job on Thursday with the full intention to start on Monday and I'm ready to work. I'm also frustrated and I'm pissed off. It doesn't look like anyone will be hiring right now unless it's in a designated industry that mandated to stay open.

I'm going to have to apply for unemployment. Thanks, Governor Newsom. But the new job is not issuing any other paperwork for me, so I'm also going to continue to communicate to them in writing that I'm ready for work every business day until this order is lifted.

When is this thing supposed to end? Whether April 2 or April 7th, I don't know.

So you know how you generally stay indoors during a rainstorm and then when it's over, you go outside and the sky is so clear and bright the sunshine-it kind of hurts your eyes because all of the pollution has temporarily been kind of washed away? Yeah, I'm anxiously waiting for that day. The day that proclaims this stay-at-home order is lifted, and I can get back to work.

https://nationalmall.org/bloomcam

T-minus two days and the count down continues

So the day before I'm to leave, I was told that I needed to train a third clerk to work on reports during 1st shift.  The printer at the workstation nearest mine doesn't work so all of the training was going fine right up to the point where the batch sheet had to be printed and then the clerk needed to move back to the work station they normally sit at.

And here's where the training goes sideways a bit. The clerk nearest her butted in while I was training. An action that no one needed and after I was done, I had to go talk to the supervisor about it. And the supervisor divulged that the clerk was already talked to one about their bullying behavior on the floor and their inability to focus on their work and not what everybody else was doing. Fun, fun.

So the rest of the day for me was just working on Joe's report which, you could say, had become obsolete with one sentence from the site manager, but it gave me something to do between working on the two other reports.

I'm really looking forward to my long three day weekend for starting my new job.

The countdown begins. T-minus three days and counting...

Posted on a friend's Facebook page on 03/17/2020 because he's a coder in WA who's been virus sequestered by his employer and is now working from home until further notice:

Greetings from California! 
It's all doom and gloom at the federal contractor job having to be reminded of COVID-19, the need for ritualistic hand washing and social distancing (and here society thought that we internet nerds got social isolation all wrong-now it's a positive thing and considered self-preserving, HA!) on CDC signs posted every 6 feet or so. Today, my employer issued a proclamation that we can take 10 consecutive days off from work if we or a family member gets sick with no pay and without losing our jobs. I don't know if I should be happy or sad about that, to be honest, but I don't care all that much because Thursday is my last day. I start the new job Monday. Three-day weekend - here I come!

---end.

I like this photo I found on the internet of the path through the forest and the sunshine shining through. It reminds me to look forward and to stay positive because something better is coming on my journey through life.

I previously told my bosses boss, "I'm not staying for this (working on reports for less than I was making before and on a temp contract with no union safety net like the other clerks.) That temp contract ends on 5/02/2020 and I was not going to be one to be laid off yet again. I did two years as a federal contractor as of March 15th and it looks like that's maybe the end of the road for me there because having so many with tenure there precludes me from being retained. Whatever. It's not the end of the world for me and I'll be happy not having to deal with 430-some odd peoples germies all in the same office space every day handling their paperwork. It's literally an incubator of sickness waiting to develop at a moment's notice. Even though not protected from the coronavirus, I'm so glad that this past year was the first year I got the flu vaccine in September and I haven't got sick yet.

Was training two more clerks to work on the reports on the PM shift and one more on the morning shift. Was joking with the reports analyst, "So it appears that it will take three clerks to replace me." Heh. 

Turning Left or Right?

Driving towards Los Angeles, if you take the 22 West exit with the intention of going into Long Beach near Alamitos Bay, the first exit is Studebaker to the right and then you turn left. At the end of Studebaker, you come to 2nd Street. You can't drive forward anymore because there is no more road. It's a fenced-off field of scrub, weeds and random palm trees next to the San Gabriel River Wash that leads out to the Pacific. In order to continue your trip, you have to make a decision: turn left or right.

And I find this is kind of a parallel story to what my life is like right now. I worked in finance and in the mortgage industry. I  took a road that was different, working in the file room as a contractor/Supervisor for a year and a half at USCIS, but it was at the end of that organization's five- year contract, really due to no fault of my own and just shear decisions to retain those with the more tenure, I came to its intersection in the last week of  November of last year when I was laid off for a brief moment.  I have to think that it was my boss that saved me from the unemployment rolls temporarily for another 6 months due to others retiring and moving on to other more permanent roles at USCIS in Adjudication, Naturalization, and Asylum. (And I'm not convinced in the least that his subordinate was enthused about any of these changes/decisions in the least. Which is an entirely another discussion I won't get into now.) I thought I was going to go drive down a different road turning left or right which I was OK with, but I  also came to terms with the fact that I knew my health was paramount, so work gave me this shitty narrow path with a significant pay cut and what I find out now is crappier health insurance coverage (worse than I even had when I paid for it myself on the CA Healthcare Exchange) to keep traveling on their path. Don't think that I'm not grateful, I am, I just don't like what I've become at this point and I have no control over it. My boss does. Until the end of the contract or until I get a better job, whichever comes first.

It's the beginning of March and I want this to be over on my terms and not be laid off on May 2nd. I've been applying to jobs that pay more than what I'm earning now just to have the satisfaction and be able to say that," I'll be O.K... my new job pays more than this place", and to build up my self-confidence knowing that I've made changes mid-career and have come back from being jobless before and I can do it again.

At this point in my life though, I'm fairly cynical and retrospective about work which doesn't really help and the economy is one that has tamped down on hourly wages hard. I've sat on the other side of that hiring desk trying to figure out how well that candidate can fill the role. Do you pick someone with a degree who had never did the role before and train or do you hire someone with experience and pay for it? The decision is out of my hands.

And I'm wary about recruiters. The last time I got involved with one of those,  I took a job in Simi Valley as a federal contractor to Fannie Mae right after Countrywide defaulted and Bank of America was buying them but not before the credit crunch of Oct '08. It was a strange time to be where I was and watch it all happen.

I've been contacted by no less than three recruiters. None of the first two seem sustaining. The third one is intriguing, but can I make that hard left turn and continue on?