"...to london, to pack up more things thence; and there I looked into the street and saw fires burning in the street, as it is through the whole city, by the Lord Mayor's order." samuel pepys diary 6 september 1665_________________so what protective measures did i take today? i did not set a bonfire in the street to cleanse the "ayre" of the plague...which was, seemingly, seen as a prophylactic measure in seventeenth century london...the smelling and chewing of tobacco as well, "this day, much against my will, I did in Drury Lane see two or three houses marked with a red cross upon the doors, and 'Lord have mercy on us' writ there; which was a sad sight to me, being the first of the kind that, to my remembrance, ever I saw. it put me into an ill conception of myself and my smell, so that I was forced to buy some roll-tobacco to smell and to chaw, which took away the apprehension." samuel peyps dieary 7 june 1665...i did not wear a surgical mask...i went to work and mixed with strangers ( difficult not to do in retail...i work in receiving and the public is not supposed to be on the dock, however they are still around and we do move through the store...touch surfaces...touch our faces...more on that in a bit )...i did wash my hands and i did use hand sanitizer ( i have had some since well before this whole business began )...i am told that covid-19 spreads primarily by touching infected surfaces and then touching your face...studies show ( i am told again, i have not sought them out ) the "average" person touches their face twenty-three times an hour...habitually...i certainly find myself doing it and only realize it consciously as i am in the act...i have some small experience in changing habitual behavior and it is a bitch...in the beginning...once you establish that you have a habit you want to change the challenge is to keep it in a conscious frame of reference...difficult since habits are not the product of conscious thought...so you have to stay on top of it until not touching your face becomes...an unconscious habit...takes time....the threat will likely have passed before the touching habit can be undone...so wash your hands a lot...
the new york times still shows far more states with reported cases of covid-19...
than the cdc...we have gone over the lag in reporting figures...still...
the cdc tells me there are ninety-nine reported cases...
while the times cites one hundred and ninety-nine...yesterday the cdc said eighty...the times one hundred and fifteen...could be the lag again...could be some distortion...( i just touched my face again when i stopped typing to gather thought...realized it as i was doing it)...someone may have an agenda...
the "biden bump" on the market was short lived as the threat of diminished airline revenues cranked up the panic again...greed hates loss and greed drives the machine...drives the panic as well i am thinking...peyps has quite a bit to say about the impact of an epidemic...he was in london ( being a responsible party at the admiralty while there was a shooting war on with the dutch ) for much of it and saw a lot of odd and somewhat disturbing things...the hope is that there will be no need to enliven this blog with apt quotations...still...i have been perusing the diary ( an abridgement...the real thing runs to nine volumes and is not cheap ) just in case...still cannot locate defoe...still touching my face as well...this could become a grind.
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