Dear Daniel,
I'll grant you that I don't post here as much as I once did. It's not that I don't think of you each day, but I think I choose to take on enough that I am still very busy. This year, you will have been gone from the farm, and here on Earth for twelve years. Had you remained, in eight weeks, you would be celebrating your twenty-fourth birthday. Sometimes it hard for me to fathom that your friends are now employees and husbands. One of them is a soldier. Your siblings have also grown and gone out into the world. Almost all of the wonderful animals we had on the farm when you were still here, have joined you there. Please tell them all that I love them and that I miss them. I know that you see my Dad, but I know that you aren't together all the time now.
This week I am actually glad you aren't here on Earth. There is a new virus that seems to have originated in a city in China which incidentally has a level four biosafety laboratory. Originally, the information we were given is that it was a "flu-like" virus and that although it was creating problems for those who lived densely in China that it was unlikely to be a hazard to the rest of the world. Sadly, this particular coronavirus, dubbed COVID-19, has caused 3300 deaths there. Many nations feel that China has lost far more people, but that their communist regime will never be completely honest about the number of people who have died. The virus spread quickly and has killed many people in Italy, in Iran, and is now infecting Iceland, Luxembourg, Germany, the United Kingdom, selected spots in Africa and even Australia. Russia claims that they have relatively few cases. Of course, the United States is infected. Unprecedented actions are being taken to avoid a pandemic that completely clogs US health care.
Apparently, COVID-19 is a particularly pathogenic organism. Depending upon the dose of the virus one gets, one either gets an influenza like illness, or an interstitial pneumonia which has been causing rapid deaths, first in elderly people, then in those with a prior diagnosis of some kind, and now also in younger people as well. I don't know whether the virus has continued to mutate or whether younger people who received a significant dose of the virus were always destined to become ill in significant ways. The virus also has a potentially long incubation period which has allowed in to spread significantly before being recognized and allowing the patient to be quarantined. The person is exposed, then about five days later, a sore throat begins, and about a week later the virus replicates and moves to both the upper airway and the lower. Mucinex is therefore less than effective. Many people are mildly ill, but in a number of them, the alveoli swell creating an interstitial pneumonia and preventing the work of gas exchange on the cellular level. The mucus solidifies, and the patient with a 99% pulse ox all of a sudden is in distress with a pulse ox of 88%. Many of these patients require intubation and a ventilator. Even then, a percentage of them code and die.
Of course since your nephew is just a little tyke, and since he has cystic fibrosis, we are quite concerned about his getting this, and we are remaining at home as much as is possible. It IS a worry.
As I promised you, I am doing all I can to remain here and take care of the animals, your siblings, your dad and your nephew. I don't plan to go anywhere and I am being as careful as I can. Schools are closed across our state and 45 others. People are being asked to remain in their homes, or to work from home when possible. The Belgians are using some antiviral drug cocktails and adding chloroquine to it. (Yes, tell my Dad the same drug that made him so sick after malaria, may have some redeeming value for another illness.) The Z-Pak, Zithromax is also being given in tandem as it has a synergistic effect with the chloroquine. The world response to this pandemic is like nothing we have ever seen, perhaps since The Spanish flu which impacted your great grandfather as he returned from France in WWI. It may have impacted your maternal great grandfather also, but I will let you ask him about it. I am keeping my promise to you, though I have to admit that the possibility exists that I may join you. I am trying to remain here in order to help everyone else. Please pray for us. I know you often know now what is to be a bit faster than we do, but whatever it is, don't be sad. We will all be together again one day, and then none of the sad things that have happened to us will stop that day from coming. I love you and my Dad wider than the oceans and deeper than the seas, but then, I know you know that.
