Covid-19 diary: Part 26

By Matthew E. MillikenMEMwrites.wordpress.comMarch 10, 2021 Some months after the novel coronavirus pandemic put a damper on most day-to-day activity, American states began rolling out Covid-19 apps for smartphones. I have the North Carolina and New York apps, because I’ve split my time between those two states over the last year. All of these apps […]

Covid-19 diary: Part 25

By Matthew E. MillikenMEMwrites.wordpress.comFeb. 27, 2021 There are clear signs that on a national level, the novel coronavirus pandemic is beginning to ease. This may largely be due to the fact that the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s holidays are behind us — holidays that, thanks to ill-advised celebrations, helped make December the month with […]

Covid-19 diary: Part 24

By Matthew E. MillikenMEMwrites.wordpress.comJan. 30, 2021 My 10-pack of mask extenders arrived this week, and I’ve tried one out for the past four or five days. I’d say my experience with the extender I’ve used has been mixed. The type I purchased consists of a black plastic strap that’s smooth on the inside. The outside has […]

Covid-19 diary: Part 23

By Matthew E. MillikenMEMwrites.wordpress.comJan. 29, 2021 I have tried to be careful since mid-March 2020. I have largely stayed at home, either my own or my parent’s. I’ve generally limited outings to solo outdoors walks for exercise; shopping for food and occasionally some hygiene or health-related items; donating blood; and making a small number of […]

Covid-19 diary: Part 22

By Matthew E. MillikenMEMwrites.wordpress.comJan. 24, 2021 As mentioned yesterday, I’ve grown concerned about the potential of accelerated Covid-19 spread thanks to mutations in the novel coronavirus. These new variants include the B.1.1.7 strain, which has been detected in 52 nations as of mid-January, and which inspired lockdowns and bans on travel to the United Kingdom, […]

Covid-19 diary: Part 21

By Matthew E. MillikenMEMwrites.wordpress.comJan. 23, 2021 The United States diagnosed its first case of Covid-19 on Jan. 20, 2020. The disease was found in a man who had recently traveled from Wuhan, China, to his home in Snohomish County, Wash. (Some sources, including The New York Times, date this case to Jan. 21.) However, it’s possible […]

Cheeps and Chirps for Dec. 31, 2020: Covid-19 pandemic edition

By Matthew E. MillikenMEMwrites.wordpress.comDec. 31, 2020 This largely wretched year has almost reached the end. Celebrate the best and worst — but, alas, mostly the worst — of December 2020 with my microblogging about the event that defined these past 12 months: The Covid-19 pandemic.

Covid-19 diary: Part 20

By Matthew E. MillikenMEMwrites.wordpress.comDec. 8, 2020 I went for a Covid-19 test on Tuesday, Dec. 1. After making an appointment through a website for a national pharmacy chain, I pulled up to the window in the drive-through lane of the nearest branch right around 10 a.m., as instructed. I briefly spoke to one of the […]

Covid-19 death count, part 4: Comparing Covid to recent U.S. respiratory pandemics

By Matthew E. MillikenMEMwrites.wordpress.comNov. 26, 2020 Infectious-disease outbreaks of the scale of the Covid-19 pandemic are extremely rare — fortunately. This is, however, at least the fourth pandemic that spreads through the air to have killed 100,000 or more Americans since the beginning of the 20th century. You’ve no doubt heard of the first item on […]

Covid-19 diary: Part 19

By Matthew E. MillikenMEMwrites.wordpress.comNov. 25, 2020 On Thursday, President Donald Trump did something that’s been increasingly rare for him since election day: He made a public appearance. In fact, he made two of them. Around 12:30 p.m., Trump entered the press briefing room to speak for a minute about the stock market, which had just […]

Covid-19 death count, part 3: Comparing Covid to American wars

By Matthew E. MillikenMEMwrites.wordpress.comNov. 20, 2020 More than 36,000 American soldiers, sailors, marines and fliers died in the Korean War, which lasted from 1950 to 1955. Counting only U.S. military fatalities, this was the fifth-deadliest war the country has fought. Covid-19 has killed more than 6.8 times that number of Americans. The first U.S. deployment […]

Covid-19 death count, part 2: Comparing Covid to the deadliest U.S. military campaigns

By Matthew E. MillikenMEMwrites.wordpress.comNov. 18, 2020 In the fall of 1918, Gen. Robert Lee Bullard commanded American soldiers in a campaign that would become known as the Meuse-Argonne offensive. The battle began on Sept. 26 and lasted more than six weeks. Fighting was often fierce. Bullard later described some of the abysmal conditions his soldiers […]

Covid-19 death count, part 1: Comparing Covid to the deadliest U.S. disasters

By Matthew E. MillikenMEMwrites.wordpress.comNov. 16, 2020 Author’s note: I updated a paragraph toward the end of this post on Nov. 23 after realizing that I’d made some erroneous calculations. Additions are indicated by boldface highlights and deletions are indicated by strikethrough marks. MEM I remain astounded both by the enormity of Covid-19’s impact on the […]

Covid-19 diary: Part 18

By Matthew E. MillikenMEMwrites.wordpress.comOct. 12, 2020 To paraphrase Winston Churchill, I think that speaking to other people face to face is the worst way to deal with someone else, except for all the others. Text messaging is all right, I suppose; so are different forms of text chat, although I can’t remember the last time […]

Covid-19 diary: Part 17

By Matthew E. MillikenMEMwrites.wordpress.comOct. 8, 2020 The human species is amazingly flexible; we can adjust to almost anything. That’s even true when we’re subjected to disasters such as the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic. We don’t just learn to endure — almost inevitably, we grow inured to accept the suffering. This is even true for millions of […]

Covid-19 diary: Part 16

By Matthew E. MillikenMEMwrites.wordpress.comJune 29, 2020 At some point in 2021, there will no longer be any cause for anyone to fear the novel coronavirus. If, that is, the promised Covid-19 vaccine materializes on schedule, can be manufactured to scale and is distributed efficiently. And if the number of reactionaries who refuse to be vaccinated […]

Covid-19 diary: Part 15

By Matthew E. MillikenMEMwrites.wordpress.comJune 27, 2020 Last month, I wrote the following paragraph about my May 5 trip from the New York metropolitan area to North Carolina: One feature of this brave new world is that electronic highway signs now carry public health messages. A number that I passed displayed variations of “Stay home. Save […]

Covid-19 diary: Part 14

By Matthew E. MillikenMEMwrites.wordpress.comJune 15, 2020 I returned to Durham on June 9. On Sunday the 14th, I walked around part of the Duke University grounds for the first time since my return. It was a sunny late spring afternoon and the temperature was in the high 70s. I came to West Markham Avenue, the […]

Covid-19 diary: Part 13

By Matthew E. MillikenMEMwrites.wordpress.comJune 11, 2020 I was a busy boy on Monday. It started in the morning with a visit to the grocery store, I believe my sixth such errand since March 15. This is still an arduous experience for many reasons. You have to wear a mask, which will probably never be entirely […]

Covid-19 diary: Part 12

By Matthew E. MillikenMEMwrites.wordpress.comMay 31, 2020 One of the problems with having a scatterbrained lout like Donald Trump lead of the free world is that he does so many mendacious and malicious things that it’s virtually impossible to keep track of them all. I realized recently that my catalog of the inadequacies and missteps of […]

Covid-19 diary: Part 11

By Matthew E. MillikenMEMwrites.wordpress.comMay 27, 2020 Lucky, my parent’s lovely aging yellow Labrador retriever, has a chronic condition that requires regular veterinarian visits. After a 14-and-a-half-day stint in Durham, N.C., I drove back up to my parental unit’s house in the greater New York metro area on Wednesday, May 20. The trip took about eight […]

Covid-19 diary: Part 10

By Matthew E. MillikenMEMwrites.wordpress.comMay 26, 2020 The United States has started to reopen after around two months in which vast swathes of the public have been strongly encouraged to stay home. I’ve looked on this partial return to normalcy with major misgivings. As of Tuesday evening, according to data kept by The New York Times, […]

Covid-19 diary: Part 9

By Matthew E. MillikenMEMwrites.wordpress.comMay 7, 2020 I traveled up to my parent’s home outside New York City on Sunday, March 22. I traveled back down to my home in Durham, N.C., on Tuesday, May 5. It was time to check on the place and see, among other things, what was happening to the accumulated mail. […]

Covid-19 diary: Part 8

By Matthew E. MillikenMEMwrites.wordpress.comApril 30, 2020 I traveled up to the greater New York metropolitan area on March 22. Since then, I’ve been out of the house on numerous walks with the family dog. My Parental Unit takes this responsibility most of the time; less often, the two of us go, and every so often […]

Covid-19 diary: Part 7

By Matthew E. MillikenMEMwrites.wordpress.comApril 22, 2020 It was overcast and breezy with the occasional light drizzle when I set out for Shoprite to get some much-needed groceries on the afternoon of Thursday, April 9. I took a scenic route to the store and arrived right around 3 p.m., which is when I was supposed to […]