Madrid day 5
March 20
t's Groundhog Day...only the numbers change and they keep getting worse. This new and very confined life has patterns and habits firming up that lend a sense of comfort and predictability. Exercise, a morning catch up with media, a chore or two and then work...and maybe venturing into the outside world for groceries or medication. And of course meals, that now have taken on much more meaning because we share them together.
In the outside world, we now stand at 20,000 reported cases. Half have been hospitalized, 1600 treated and released. And we are assured that "winter is coming"...We are entering the part where despite all of our best efforts the numbers will continue to increase somewhat dramatically before they improve and level off.
Critical care beds are being added in hotel space in two well located venues and exhibition space generally used for trade shows can now handle 5,500... To put that in perspective there were 4,400 critical care beds in all of Spain before all of this. Protocols are being established as to how life and death decisions will be made by critical care providers...and no, chronological age is not the only criteria but it's a factor. Scary.
The numbers that you will be seeing in the US over the coming days and weeks will be much scarier for a host of reasons not worth restating. The point of this post is to share a bit of both what it feels like when this is happening and what we're trying to do about it. For us it starts with gratitude, that we are together and well and have so much to be grateful for... and then a leap of faith, that the best and the brightest here are doing all they can to help us navigate this crisis and that if we stay committed and connected to that effort it will get better.
Beyond that it's also having faith that the best and brightest on the planet are working at fever pitch to find a way out of this mess, beyond just mitigation, for all of us. It would of course be nice if our leaders were insuring that they're all doing this together rather than name calling and justifying more walls, but hey, you can't have it all.
Stay strong. Stay home.