40th Day of Quarantine

5/1 - 929 active cases in Australia - 14 new in the last 24 hours
5/2 - 899 active cases in Australia - 16 new in the last 24 hours
5/3- 889 active cases in Australia - 18 new in the last 24 hours

   Today marks the 40th day of quarantine, which is of course the traditional length of plague quarantines in early modern Europe, giving rise to the word itself. I believe the word on the street here is that they're going to give it at least two more weeks and see where we're at at that point. In the nearest large to me, Geelong, there have been no new cases for ten days now. Meanwhile in the US: The US just reported its deadliest day for coronavirus patients as states reopen.

   Winter is setting in here. It's been frigid the past few days (in the 40s fahrenheit). More people seem to be out walking then there were before quarantine, albeit everyone is very bundled up against the cold now. The general store in my little village changed hands mid quarantine and now carries a lot of staple groceries, allowing people to avoid going into one of the bigger towns. My tourist-based sales locations were all annihilated early in the pandemic, but it actually caused me to, in desperation, throw out two assumptions that had apparently been holding me back: (1) that new sales locations can only be established by going in in person; and (2) its prohibitively costly to ship honey therefore the immediate area is my only possible market. I emailed literally every single whole or organic food place in Melbourne asking if they were interested in carrying another line of honey, nearly half a dozen wrote back, and as long as I'm delivering to multiple places its cost effective for me to drive down there (it's about two hours from here). As such I think my sales are now better than they were pre-pandemic, and when the tourism-based places finally do re-open I'll be at double where I was before. My visa future is still extremely uncertain though.

   At this point everyone's developed new habits and I think certain things will never go back. No I don't actually mean the meme about "we shouldn't go back to normal because normal was broken." ...yes, it was, but the big things, environmental degradation and lack of health care and income inequality, those blights I don't see changing sadly. But I think there will be more telecommuting, meetings by videoconference, and grocery delivery services.

   Anyway, I think we're on the home stretch here in Australia. It might be awhile yet before they lift quarantine but the worst is over. In the United States I think the worst is still yet to come -- I think all these premature liftings of social isolation are going to lead to a tsunami of new cases.

   And by some miracle Venezuela doesn't seem hard-hit but it could still be coming down the line there so I'm not going to jinx it by declaring they've made it through. So FAR it's been good though.