Last Tuesday I started self-isolation in Casa Solar, the name Brad and I gave the Barcelona apartment we share. On Saturday the Spanish government made self-isolation the rule. Saturday I finished shopping and took a 45 minute walk. Yesterday no time outside except on the huge terrace. Today it’s dark and rainy, so I probably wouldn’t be outside much anyway.
Brad left a little over a month ago to secure a Spanish visa, the no lucrativa visa I have, and sell his San Francisco house. When he left, neither of those seemed particularly risky. The Spanish government approved Brad’s visa last week. He’s supposed to hear tomorrow from his broker about offers on his house. With the markets tanking and travel restrictions changing frequently, it’s hard to know now whether Brad will be able to conclude a sale and to return. In theory, he returns May 1. At least that’s the reservation he has.
Airlines are cutting back flights. For instance, American is cutting back international capacity by 75%. Frederick called Saturday to say he was flying from Germany to the US the next day. The airline told him he might be the only passenger. That can’t last long. Passengers arriving to the US over the weekend were greeted by a new policy that everyone had to self-quarantine for 14 days, most at home and few in government facilities. No warning, no information on the flights. The policy changed and thousands of people were stuck getting through customs, which didn’t seem to know the new process. Of course lots of people probably infected while waiting in line to clear customs. No one wants to get on planes with folly like this.
Self-isolation is weird. I’m having lots of conversations. I chat with people all day long. The chatting starts with locals and, as the time zones wake up, moves across the Atlantic to the east coast around 2p local and then to the west coast around 5p local. I also chat on the “dating” sites. Nothing can come to fruition, of course, since everyone is isolated. I read a post yesterday that the Italian government is forbidding threesomes and orgies. It was amusing, but really none of the men I’ve met here wants to meet up for sex until this is over or under control. I don’t know if I can wait until 2021.
So isolation is physical. I tell people I feel like I’m practicing to pilot the International Space Station solo or to fly to Mars. I’m plenty busy every day, but I never actually see anyone. Last night at 8p local, the whole of Barcelona stepped out on its terraces and opened its windows to applaud all the people working to save us from Covid-19. I was talking with Leslie, who could hear the applause over the phone. I was touched by the simplicity of the gesture and the togetherness it created, even at distance. I cried a little about that.
I should be getting more done. That’s what everyone says, me included, with all this time at home. But it’s difficult in the face of uncertainty to concentrate and organize. I’m lucky to get in two hours of writing. I feel guilty I’m not writing four or six hours. But there’s news and new chats and things I need to do, like laundry or cooking. It’s important to check in with everyone. It feels good when people check in with me. Kiko did, and I was really surprised. Some people seem born to check in. Ruben and Laura seem to know just the right time.
It’s like AIDS on steroids. During AIDS, I’d find tidbits of information about gay men dying. It was mentioned occasionally in the local papers, but more often in gay rags like the Bay Area Reporter. Just snippets at the beginning. I heard things from friends on the soccer team. Eventually there were books on the immune system and lengthy magazine articles. Organizations formed, political and health. It all took years. If you need a reminder about how poorly the Reagan administration responded to AIDS, here’s one.
With Covid-19, the world has changed in that month since Brad departed. There are new graphs every day or so of mortality. Here’s one example:
Information like this took months or years for AIDS. We’re two or three months into Covid-19 and Financial Times has these amazingly useful charts. Others have other amazing charts.
I’ll point out that Spain, where I’ve been living since the first day of the decade, has the steepest mortality slope. That’s a bad thing. On a log scale, that’s a really bad thing. About ½ of reported deaths are in Madrid. Barcelona is ⅕ or ⅙ of Madrid in mortality, at least right now. That’s scary, especially reading the reports from Italy right now where the healthcare system is so overwhelmed that people over 80 are simply turned away. Spain’s rules aren’t as rigorous as Italy’s, so I’m concerned that Spain won’t turn the corner soon enough. But who knows? It’s hard this early in to know for sure how much is necessary to reduce the rate of infection.
I’ll also point out the US is on a great trajectory in this graph. I don’t think it’ll hold. US reporting has been bad. The federal government completely blew the opportunity to get a lot of test kits out early, enough to manage containment of the virus. It’s still way behind. South Korea, whose curve is flattening the way a country should want, is testing something like ten thousand people a day. The US has done something like ten thousand tests total over all time. So, I think the US trajectory is the result of bad measurement, not the result of good results.
Maybe the most embarrassing part of the response was a news story yesterday that Trump is trying to buy a German scientific company so the Covid-19 vaccine they’re developing can be used only in the US. I didn’t believe it at first, even though the story came from a respected source. Then the proposed deal was confirmed by the German government. The news indicates Trump is, as always, using his position as president to make money for himself. It’s obscene. I can’t believe I’m writing this, but it’s worse than Reagan’s response to AIDS.
Speaking of money, I sold over half my stock holdings last week, on the day I started my self-isolation. My broker said, given the US government’s lack of coherent response, he wouldn’t try to talk me out of it. Of course I’m worried about money, but not panicked at this point. My resources were a little thinner than I would have liked when I moved here. I could start social security payments now, but it’s to my advantage to wait for 2-⅓ more years for a higher payout, assuming, of course, the US government will be able to make payments in 2-⅓ years. It’s hard to imagine I don’t have enough cash to make it 2-⅓ years and hard to imagine social security going bust, but no one knows how hard this will be on the economy. Will the dollar tank? How long will a recovery take? Is it a depression? No one knows for sure. Spanish factory workers stopped working today. If their management didn’t ask them to, they did anyway. Who knows how long? How do free markets function in catastrophes?
Speaking of money, I also realize how disadvantaged people can be without technology. As one example, after I washed my wallet by accident last month, I switched to Google Pay. I now make almost all my transactions with my smartphone. If not that, then a contactless credit card. With smartphone payments, no physical contact, no signature, no touching money, paper, or pen. It’s a small thing, but cash is a possible medium of viral transmission. Using a smartphone means I don’t have to consider cash very often when I’m figuring out decontamination. My friends without smartphones or without smartphone payments are at a small disadvantage. Is it as bad as sex without condoms during the AIDS crisis? Probably not, but no one knows.
COVID Diary BCN 