The Good Doctor

Well, I'm getting quite an education from the ER doc in Surabaya. She tells me that they (the medical system) have now lost control of the virus there and that it has spread everywhere. Doctors and nurses at her hospital, including she herself, are getting sick. Indonesia, she believes, is in the range of becoming another Wuhan or Italy. Slow and incompetent government response has masked the scale of the outbreak. Sound familiar?

The statistics we receive from on high are inaccurate and based on very, very partial information indeed, as people are simply not being tested. 155 tests a day on a population of 280,000,000. And as she added, "That's insane." But Indonesia, as is readily obvious, is quite ill-equipped for handling a pandemic. Their medical systems, abilities, and supplies are relatively primitive and scarce compared to western countries or fully developed Asian countries.

The one bit of happier news is that she confirms and concurs with research that suggests that the coronavirus does not thrive well in hot tropical climates, with the caveat that those factors (temperature, humidity and sunlight) will only cut the virus's ability to grow in half--so it does not exactly kill the virus, per se.

At the end of April, she reminds, we will enter the month of Ramadan, where Muslims will traditionally be taking part in a number of community functions, including gathering in mosques. Yikes. Thoughts and prayers may be the worst possible thing at this time.

Similarly, I read this morning about a Christian pastor in Bandung (Java) who had infected half of his flock with coronavirus. It would not surprise me at all to find that he was "laying on hands" in order to confer the Lord's protection.

Goodness.

Well, at least Trump's big Easter gatherings were nixed by those in the know. Something to thank God for, after all.
 

Imigrasi Visit

Endured the dreaded Imigrasi visit yesterday, this year more dreaded than usual given the coronavirus situation. And here was an event fine-tuned to everything you're not supposed to do. A thick, shoulder-to-shoulder crowd consisting mostly of people from western countries, many of them new arrivals. No masks, by and large. People practically sitting on each others laps as they waited an hour and more for their interview and photo-taking event. Everyone using the same pen to sign their electronic documents. Government standard stupidity. And yet there's no choice. If you don't got your permit, you don't stay in the country. And as far as I could tell, no air-conditioning. Oh well, at least they didn't do the fingerprinting this year. Although they have added a new fee to the permit, and a pretty hefty one at that. Something about record of domicile. It's a fairly nifty tactic really, considering that many foreign residents tend to change residence from here to there on the island. Cha-ching!  

Long Distance Call

I got a phone call from my second wife this morning at 5 am (she's a little foggy on the time difference between Bali and Portland, Oregon). This was in response to a recent message I had sent asking about the coronavirus issues in the States. I wondered if the YouTube news stories I had seen were exaggerated or if things really were that serious.

It turns out that the reports I hear are not exaggerated. Cities are shutting down, store aisles are bare, toilet paper is gone, schools are closed, sparse traffic on the freeway even at rush hour. People are freaked out.

She feels, as I do, that there is a liberal pinch of paranoia in all this. And she is really not one to shy away from disaster tales and apocalyptic scenarios. In a way, I reckon, we have been primed for this sort of thing by popular fiction. We are not taken by surprise because we have seen this in the movies and television series. Now it is upon us. We are familiar with it. We are ready. We know our parts.

In fact, I was impressed by her level headedness.

Besides that, what is this virus, or any other, compared to simple old age, to poorly controlled diabetes, to being unable to buy medications, to the regular challenges of every day life? What is it compared to MS, to an incurable stomach ulcer, to daily fatigue and weakness and pain and confusion? We already have a virus. We all have the virus. It's called human mortality.

Survival

Normally these days I do a little bit of shopping every afternoon after coffee as it seems most convenient that way--the Starbucks and the market are in the same mall. I tend to buy just for the day at hand, something for dinner, something for lunch. In this way, I don't have to carry too much stuff on the bike with me, and I don't have to think ahead about what I might eat tomorrow or the next day and so on. No one to feed, after all, but for myself.

Yesterday, however, I found the market aisles jammed with shoppers, long lines cued up at the three open cash registers. It was not until later that I realized that these were people stocking up because of coronavirus (or coronavirus paranoia?). The rush seems to have been kicked off by Australia's two week lockdown, which was responded to by President Jokowi in Indonesia with a two week lockdown on Australian entry into Indonesia, and particularly Bali.

As a result, I bought no groceries and ended up just eating what I happened to have at home--which was fried eggs and toast. I was met at home as well by alarming messages from my ex-wife, who is in Australia at this time and unable to get out of Australia. "Stock up!" she wrote. "Canned goods, dried foods, spaghetti noodles, ramen, water."

This seems like a lot of trouble to me, and a lot to carry on the motorbike. I'm thinking of eating the dog if the situation becomes critical. Or the nearby vegetation (although there may be some competition involved).

I remember that back during the Y2K scare my second wife insisted on stocking up on survival items, including the purchase of a shotgun "to protect our home" from lawless marauders. We never did learn how to shoot that shotgun (which is likely fortunate, as we might not be here now if we had).

In any case, I find that whenever I do have "extra food" in the house, I tend to eat it all at once. I may, for instance, buy a package of cookies to enjoy during the week, but I end up enjoying them all in one day.

I'm not cut out to deal with pandemics, or with the concept of rationing. I was going to say that I suppose no one is--but, in fact, I'll bet you that there are those who are enjoying the ride, the whole scenario of looming collapse and survivalist struggle. Just like a TV series! Popular fiction come to life, infecting life, so to speak, with new meaning, new purpose, a goal, a game that can be won by the prescient and able few.

Sadly, I cannot get a shotgun, as firearms are outlawed in Indonesia. I'll just have to use my wits and bare hands. Wish me lock. I mean luck.

Heat and Coronavirus

An interesting article in today's Jakarta Post describes new research suggesting that heat may curb the spread of coronavirus. Specifically, Indonesia's tropical climate may prevent a major COVID-19 outbreak. It is found that higher temperatures may render the virus less potent and ultimately inactive. Something good, at last, about our damnably hot climate!