Laying Low

I skipped walking today; I didn't want to be "that" person who is spreading the disease if I think I have a higher likelihood of having it. Although I am very conscious of physically distancing myself when I walk; most of the walkers I see are over 60 and there is even one that is over 90! And several have comorbidities. Like Wendy; when I was talking to her on Friday I stood downwind so if I was asymptomatic I would be less likely to pass it on to her. I do not want to be responsible for spreading anything to any of them.

Fifty-six minutes before sunrise.

The Potential Most Favorite Roommate had left a message for his boss, letting her know he might have been exposed. She asked him to get tested, if possible. He contacted his PCP's hotline and found they are not testing unless people are symptomatic. The latest information says about 60% of people are asymptomatic so it seems like people who have had a close contact should be tested to make sure they are not unknowingly spreading it. If anything, a mutation where the vector is asymptomatic but able to still infect others is a very good improvement for the virus! A Silent Killer, if you will.

Fortunately for me, The Roommates did a grocery run on Thursday so a lot of their favorite prepared food is still available. For breakfast this morning they requested Chobani yogurt, a chocolate chip muffin, and an eggwich.


While The Roommate Who Likes to Wash Dishes was putting the used breakfast paper goods in to the rubbish can, I also had him begin to load it up with things to go out for tomorrow's rubbish pick up. Since the door was open for longer than they had seen it yesterday & last night, Keala and Luna tried to get in!

After breakfast The Potential Most Favorite Roommate texted that he was, "...going out side too to smoke". I replied, "Bad idea. Smoking slows down cilia in lungs which help keep pathogens out of lungd (sic)." He never came out to smoke; instead he texted, "Would it be okay if I work on replacing water faucets", then , "Water valves*" This is part of the work they had started last Saturday; now that Lyle had fixed the main valve, we could turn off the water to the house so they could finish this part of the project. They waited until DT & I finished lunch and successfully changed the valves.

For lunch I had a chocolate chip cookie with peanut butter and cheese plus a handful of dry roasted macadamia nuts; DT had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich first. Then he made an interesting meal that he said he developed in graduate school so he wouldn't have to boil water. He took a package of ramen, split the dried noodles in half so he had 2 noodle wafers and lightly moistened them. He then sprinkled the flavoring packet over them, added sriracha sauce & a slice of cheese, and ate them like an open-faced sandwich or a large cracker.

My lunch today.

Lightly moisten the noodles.

Sprinkle with flavoring packet.

Add cheese and desired condiments.

DT and I compared our close contact experiences with The Roommate Who Likes to Wash Dishes. His doorway is immediately opposite The Roommates' door so he passes them in the hallway. He also spent 30 minutes in the car with them when they went out to dinner last week; I was in quarantine for my inter-island flight so I did not join them. Then this past Tuesday we had a house dinner when I made the chili; he sat at the kitchen counter right next to The Roommate Who Likes to Wash Dishes. I was about 8 feet away in the wicker chair. So he has had more close contact time than I have had, though still not for 10 minutes or more at a time on a daily basis. And yes, I know, it only takes one episode to transmit the virus, but the more frequent chances you give it, the more likely you are to have a positive outcome.

For dinner I made the keto-friendly Hearty Beef Stew with Cauliflower & Mushrooms and coleslaw that I have made before. I didn't have everything I needed for the stew but because I was minimizing my excursions, I made do with what we had available.

The stew; there were less chunks because I had no portobellos or cauliflower chunks.

Coleslaw & stew.

Casey sent me a text asking if I was available tomorrow to do an MRC support service shopping & delivery tomorrow; I texted and told him the situation with The Roommate Who Likes to Wash Dishes. Then I went to take a shower. When I checked my phone later I saw that Susan had called. I called her back and had a very enlightening conversation with her. She is a retired public health nurse and had also talked with a COVID-19 contact tracer; she asked me a bunch of questions. Based on the most current guidance, she said close contacts that occurred within the 48 hours prior to the positive person becoming symptomatic are those that the health department is putting in to isolation. Since The Roommate Who Likes to Wash Dishes had seen The Co-worker about 10 days prior to him becoming symptomatic The Roommate was well outside that 48 hour window. So we're in the clear!

Susan also told me they had not developed a protocol for what a volunteer should do if they found out they were potentially exposed to COVID-19. She said they are using this experience to develop a protocol to add to their volunteer training.

The Roomba was having a problem this evening; it was flashing red. When I pressed the button to get more info it told me to, "Empty the bin." When I did it was fairly empty, so I checked the dirt disposal bag; it was totally full! I put a new bag in; it should work a lot better tomorrow!

The very full dirt disposal bag.

Tropical Depression Boris is no more. It doesn't even show up on the radar as a remnant low.


A city bus driver tested positive last night; TheBus immediately notified other employees with close contact. Then notified all of their 1000 other employees & implemented their plan; they said this was not unexpected. They are still not sure how the driver was exposed since they had a lot of safeguards in place prior to this. And I think it shows; in 3&1/2 months this is the first in-service driver that has tested positive; they had one that came back sick from out-of-state who did not come in to work until after he tested negative. Roger Morten, president & general manager of O'ahu Transit Services, also showed the proper & improper way to wear a mask; I'm glad he did that to put wise asses on notice that they can't do that to get around the mask requirement. They have put more buses on the busiest lines so riders needing to use buses for essential trips can still maintain proper distancing. Impressively, they have about 1000 bus operators & about 330 para-transit drivers and this is the first in-service operator that has tested positive. He said prior to the pandemic, they had about 200,000 daily riders; at the start of the pandemic ridership dropped to about 58,000. Currently, ridership has increased to about 82,000 or about 42% of normal.

He said this was a chin guard and not acceptable.

He said this is the proper way to wear the face mask while on the bus.

There was a big spike in positive COVID-19 cases today; 23 people on Oʻahu, 2 on Kauaʻi, and 1 each on Maui & Hawaiʻi island tested positive, bringing the total known cases up to 899. A 17-person cluster on Oʻahu was associated with a funeral; another 6 cases on Oʻahu & the 2 on Kauaʻi were associated with known clusters. The 1 on Hawaiʻi island was from out-of-state travel. This probably means there will be more calls for support services from MRC. There was 1 new hospitalization but no new deaths.

The number of tests per day has been slowly increasing.