Keeping this personal, the one neighbor I talked to daily is dead from Covid-19. No funeral, no memorial service: if the cemetery is open to the public in September, I plan to visit her grave. She had throat cancer and Parkinson's, but she died on a ventilator breathing pink foam, so there is no rational doubt as to what killed her.
For myself and my family, I can't complain. No deaths, no crippling infections, and most of us are retired so only one has lost his job. Instead of substitute teaching in Chicago, he will be driving a school bus
if the suburban schools reopen (and that's a big if).
My stepson and his family had quite an adventure. They left Guangzhou two days early for their Lunar New Year "golden week" vacation in February. Ironically, those were the two days in which five million vacationers left Hubei before the Chinese government locked down the province. So they (stepson & family) spent five months living in a hut on a beach after the Philippine government locked down their island. Fortunately Negros is the cheapest place in Southeast Asia and the Pacific for a long vacation, and its beaches are among the nicest. Now they are in Ho Chi Minh City and just out of quarantine this week.
If you don't have a special job that overrides everything else, Vietnam is a better place than China for an American to live and work, especially Ho Chi Minh City which is — how shall I say it? — somewhat Americanized. Of course everyone is upset about the pandemic there, because they've just had their big second wave. After closing borders and handling the first outbreak very well, most people agree that they reopened too soon. The Vietnamese went on holiday in August and there was an outbreak in Da Nang. Their government locked down the city, rounded up 80,000 vacationers, tested them and shipped them home if they tested negative. Now it has spread to Hanoi and the Central Highlands: they have 1,044 infected, 707 recovered, and 34 dead.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/viet-nam/
Vietnam is a small country with a big population, 97 million in the UN's estimate for 2020. The USA has 331 million in our estimate, so to translate Vietnamese statistics into their American equivalents, you multiply by 3.412. The US equivalent statistics would be 3,562 infected, 2,412 recovered, and 116 dead. They had taken extreme measures to prevent this outcome. At one point in March they had 80,000 quarantined in Army camps in Vietnam's historic battlefields i.e. the boonies. They curtailed civil liberties which were already curtailed. Their government's rationale is if they let the virus burn through their population uncontrolled, they wouldn't have a country left. Looking around today, I'd say they got that right.
That substitute teacher is substituting, not driving. He substitutes by remote learning every day, either from home or by driving to the school and doing the remote from there. Yesterday he drove to a high school in our neighborhood and we saw him for lunch. He said he needed to change his direct deposit and he wanted a school's clerk to do it. I believe him, but I think he was getting bored at home. He said there was a skeleton crew at the school. He saw the principal and the office clerk, a few security guards — no Chicago cops — a few maintenance loafers, and a half dozen teachers. Some of them didn't bother masking. Well, teaching an empty classroom and walking to the toilet, I wouldn't bother either!
Last update from 2020:
My wife became ill 12/5. On 12/6 she seemed a little better but was running a low fever, and I called a fire department ambulance. Our closest hospital surprised me by letting me stay with her in the ER for 7 hours until she was admitted. I helped the ER nurse with her a nasal swab test which came back negative. On 12/7 she got a
real Covid-19 test, a throat swab which goes to an outside lab. Not knowing what to do, the hospital discharged my wife on 12/8. The throat swab came back positive on 12/10. Only 72 hours, nice work guys! Obviously she should have stayed in the hospital, but I am convinced that 48 hours on oxygen and an IV stabilized her. The hospital mailed us a $20 finger pulse oximeter with an instruction booklet, addressed to my wife by her first name only. They told me to care for her masked and wearing protective clothing, keeping six feet distant at all times.
Jawohl, mein Führer!
One thing you should understand (if you have managed to miss it up to now) is that Covid-19 is extremely contagious. It is a close second to measles, which only wins the derby by staying active on surfaces an extra 24 hours. So caring for someone infected at home, if you have a couple of HAZMAT suits and a couple of servants to help you, is safe enough if you follow proper procedures. Otherwise, count on catching it yourself. By 12/15 I was obviously ill. The symptoms were like influenza B, each symptom less distressing but more symptoms. Our closest hospital is a 312 bed non-profit teaching hospital. By 12/15 they were at 87% capacity with 4 ICU beds free, 85 Covid-19 patients, and accepting no more of us. On 12/26 I did a drive through test in their parking lot, a throat swab by one technician supervised by one MD, both wearing HAZMAT suits. It came back positive in 24 hours! If you have a choice between testing drive through and in a hospital or clinic, I recommend drive through. Eat nothing beforehand. A throat swab is a 2 minute test of your gag reflex.
Our relative the substitute teacher is waiting for the bomb to drop. The Chicago Public Schools has scheduled reopening in stages: January 11, pre-kindergarten and Special Ed "clusters." The clusters are closed classrooms for the most severely afflicted, kids who shouldn't be in the public school system but are. Everyone else goes back February 1. In school and remote students will be in the same classroom: even magnet schools aren't equipped for this, but the teachers are supposed to be creative and deal with it.
CPS has refused to negotiate the new reopening schedule with the Chicago Teachers Union, as required by law. No one is big on the rule of law nowadays, including our Mayor the former Assistant U.S. Attorney. The Illinois Educational Labor Relation Board (IELRB) has scheduled a trial before an administrative law judge on January 26.
It may interest you to know that Chicago is without a Superintendent of Schools, and has not had one in 25 years. Typically a Superintendent of Schools has years of experience as a classroom teacher, followed by years as a school principal, followed by an EdD in school administration. In 1995, the General Assembly turned CPS over to Chicago's Major Richard M. Daley. Richie wanted his budget director Paul Vallas for Superintendent. Unfortunately Paul was not qualified even for substitute teaching without a lot of remedial classwork, so he became the CPS "CEO," a title unheard of until then.
I've been talking to my stepson every week about his job in Vietnam, and I've learned more. He and his family flew from Manila to Ho Chi Minh City in a chartered flight for foreign skilled workers. They all had to test negative for Covid-19 before the flight. That was no problem, $40 at a Manila hospital. The real problem was his FBI criminal background check, which you need to work in Vietnam. That came through 10 days before his flight (2nd application). When they deplaned in HCMC, they were met by health service workers in HAZMAT suits who drove them in a van to their quarantine hotel, which I would describe as the world's largest Super 8 Motel. All entrances but the main entrance were locked and sealed with barrier tape. The hotel staff were friendly and happy to see them. Without their government takeover, the hotel would have closed and they would all be living with relatives trying to sell stuff on the street.
While quarantined 14 days, my stepson and his family were each throat swab tested for Covid-19 four times. If you test positive in Vietnam, you go into a Covid-19 hospital until you test negative. What are Covid-19 hospitals? When a hospital admits its first Covid-19 patient, the other patients are removed and it becomes a Covid-19 hospital. I wonder who thought of that. It must have been someone with a degree in epidemiology.
I have videos of his cab commute to work. Most of the traffic is antique Honda motor scooters rebuilt with cheap Chinese parts so they barely run. About 90% of the scooter drivers are masked. The ones without masks should be cited and fined, but the traffic police can't be everywhere. The Vietnamese call them "yellow dogs" because of their khaki uniforms. Traffic police don't get much respect anywhere.
They went to a mall theater to see
Wonder Woman 1984 for their youngest child's birthday. It was my stepson's Christmas break and they went to an early matinee on a weekday. There were about 30 others, all Vietnamese because there are no tourists. No special seating, but people sat with the groups they came with and not next to others. Everyone was masked of course. Except for the face masks and no tourists, life goes on as normal. Many people wear face masks in public during Vietnam's flu season, April to September.
On December 1, Ho Chi Minh City had its first local transmission of Covid-19 in 89 days. A 32 year-old man visited his brother, an airline flight attendant who was home quarantined after returning from working a flight to Japan. The flight attendant tested positive November 30 and so did his brother two days later. When you jump in without delay to control things, you can trace contacts and stop outbreaks from spreading. The 32 year-old's 137 contacts were located and placed in a quarantine hotel, and the international school where he worked as a teacher was temporarily closed.
