A lot of things go through your mind when you're stuck inside for a long time.
"Has anyone ever gone insane from hearing the same bird call over and over ... and over?"
"Why do I have so many cans of beans? Is that why I live alone?"
"Chocolate comes from a bean. Ahhh, that's why I have all these beans!"
"Who decided that the guys thumping their stereos are essential? Is it to keep those of us working remotely without caffeine awake?"
"Pants: fun to say, not so much fun to wear in quarantine."
So yeah, still weird and goofy after several weeks of isolation. No change there ... except maybe that it's more likely than before to come out at random moments.
Unfortunately, one thing hasn't seemed to have changed: The perpetually offended remain so.
They're offended by opinions with which they disagree. They're offended by facts that don't support their ideas of reality (actual reality doesn't care about alternate realities, by the way).
And some don't seem all that sure of what they're offended by, but by God, they are offended!
An online commenter last month took great offense at my using "covid-19" to refer to the virus that reportedly originated in Wuhan, China: "Interesting a word nerd like Miss Brenda would use the colloquial names when referring to the Zika virus and Ebola but prefers using the scientific term for the Wuhan virus (covid-19). Reckon why?"
I told the commenter (one I prefer not to respond to because of his wanton disregard for truth, but occasionally do to fight misinformation) that I refer to the novel coronavirus by its common scientific term, covid-19, as do the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Remember, I worked on the news side long before I was in opinion, and the tendency on the news side at most reputable outlets is to use the terminology employed by WHO and the CDC.
Ebola, first identified in 1976, was named for the river near where it was found. Zika is named for the Ziika Forest in Uganda where the virus was first isolated in 1947. Both of those names are well-established and are how WHO and the CDC refer to them.
Newer diseases tend to be named for biological components rather than where they originated or who discovered them. Having a common nomenclature avoids confusion across the medical world, so the older diseases' names are often still used. We could try to get rid of those names, but as Vishesh Khanna, M.D., a resident physician at Stanford, told Stanford Medicine's Scope blog, "There are certainly examples where eponymous disease names are so inculcated in medical vernacular that changing them to a pathology-based name might not be worth the effort." Those would include diseases like Alzheimer's, Hodg-kins and Crohn's.
The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses named the new virus "severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)." That's a mouthful, and WHO chose covid-19 as the common scientific name because, while the novel coronavirus is related to that which caused the 2003 SARS outbreak, the two are different, and using SARS in the name could promote confusion. Covid-19 stands for "corona" (co), "virus" (vi), and "disease" (d), and 19 for the year in which this particular virus became active.
It does not, despite a meme being circulated, stand for Chinese-originated viral infectious disease, with 19 standing for it being the 19th virus to come out of China.
Every time you hear a loud thud coming from the center of the state, it's probably my head hitting the wall when I see something like this. I've got a pretty good bruise brewing right now.
Is it politically correct to refer to covid-19 rather than Wuhan virus? Maybe, but if the medical experts refer to it as covid-19, that's what I and most media members will call it. Take offense if you want to, but I take my cues from science and facts, not politics.
I know, nerdy. I'm OK with that.
A lot of us hoped that this quarantine would have quelled some of the hyperpartisan rancor that's gone on for the past few years, but have been disappointed.
So it's little wonder that I've spent a lot of time watching Netflix and Disney+ (well worth the $69.99 a year, in my opinion). I've also been reading stories about people who have persevered and not let quarantine dampen their spirits, such as Great Britain's "Golden Girls" who planned to spend the quarantine together laughing, drinking wine and watching Netflix (though one had to self-isolate before it began due to a recent pneumonia bout).
There's also the Virginia man and his daughter who decided to buy groceries for people who had lost their jobs in the pandemic, ultimately paying for groceries for at least 30 people in line at a supermarket in Baileys Crossroads in late March. And the British man living in Madrid who raised money for 36 children's charities affected by covid-19 by livestreaming an eight-hour cycling challenge in quarantine.
Here's hoping those little spots of light peeking through the clouds spread. Sunlight would be a good thing right now.
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Assistant Editor Brenda Looper is editor of the Voices page. Read her blog at blooper0223.wordpress.com. Email her at blooper@adgnewsroom.com.
Editorial on 04/08/2020