Days Apart

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A Douglas County, Colorado couple in their 70s died within days of each other from COVID-19.

An Oklahoma couple married 45 years, died days apart. They texted each other “I love you” before going into coma.

In Jacksonville, Florida a mother and daughter died 19 days apart from COVID-19.

A Wisconsin couple married for six decades died from COVID-19 just 2 days apart.

A California couple married 35 years died from COVID-19, 11 days apart.

The wife and husband behind Seattle’s Kona Kitchen died from COVID-19 just days apart.

A South Carolina couple married for 66 years died days apart from COVID-19.

A Louisiana woman lost both of her parents days apart due to COVID-19.

An Atlanta, Georgia couple married for 49 years died days apart from COVID-19.

Three members of a Freehold Township, New Jersey family died days apart after contracting COVID-19.

Just as the United States is rolling out COVID-19 vaccines, the numbers have become gloomier than ever: Over 3,000 Americans died in a single day, more than on D-Day or 9/11. One million new cases in the span of five days. More than 106,000 people in the hospital. The U.S. recorded 3,124 deaths Wednesday, December 9, 2020 the highest one-day total yet, according to Johns Hopkins University. Up until last week, the peak was 2,603 deaths on April 15, when New York City was the epicenter of the nation’s outbreak.

 

No Exit

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A passenger died on a flight from Orlando to Los Angeles from COVID-19 a coroner confirmed. The man was seen by other passengers on the plane shaking and sweating and having a hard time breathing even before the flight took off. United Flight 591 diverted to New Orleans when the passenger died. Because medical professionals initially ruled the emergency as cardiac arrest, the flight continued on to Los Angeles on the same plane.

Contact tracers are trying to warn all the passengers from that flight. The story first came to light when the passenger @jobreaux seated in front of the man Tweeted: “The man behind me on this flight. DIED. OF COVID. MIDFLIGHT.” the passenger continued, “& we finna continue this flight. On the SAME CONTAMINATED ASS plane. Wet wipes *better* save the day this time. Bc I’m shook.” When someone asked her how she knew she knew the man had tested positive for COVID-19, she said the man’s wife had confirmed the fact while talking to the EMTs.

A passenger, Tony Aldapa who tried to help the man is now reporting COVID symptoms.   He along with a nurse performed CPR on the passenger to try and keep him alive as the flight was diverted to New Orleans to get the man help. “There were three of us that were essentially tag-teaming doing chest compressions, probably about 45 minutes,” During CPR, the bones of the deceased could be heard to crack as chest compressions were carried out before he started turning blue. Aldapa told CBS LA.

Aldapa said, ‘There was no mouth-to-mouth at all. We were doing chest compressions and they had him on the oxygen mask from the plane, then once we had a medical bag that is kept on board we used an ambu-bag which is a bag that you squeeze to give breaths, that’s what we used for breathing”. Aldapa is waiting for the results of a second COVID-19 test.

United Airlines claims the deceased passenger lied when he filled out a form before the flight saying he had no COVID-19 symptoms. The final weekend before Christmas saw more than 3 million travelers, according to TSA, which eclipsed any three-day total associated with Thanksgiving travel in 2020. The surge in new cases and deaths from all that travel will begin to be seen the first week of the new year.

Michael A. Mennello died from COVID-19

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Michael A. Mennello who co-foundered  the Loch Haven Park art museum that bears his name, died December 18, 2020  after a brief COVID-19 related illness. He was 87.

I once had the honor to sketch Michael in his home, Casa Bianca. I was working on a mural for the Mennello Museum of American Art and sketched people from life to be added to the wall. Michael wanted to be included in the mural  so he invited me to sketch him at home.

The visit was thrilling. He has such an amazing collection of Ash Can era paintings that were right in line with my love of art being used to capture everyday life.

In Orlando, Michael and his wife Marilyn whom he met in Winter Park, established the Mennello Museum in 1998 after donating 35 paintings by folk artist Earl Cunningham to the city. Marilyn died in 2006 leaving him bereft. A gold statue of her is in the Mennello Museum collection.

As I did this sketch Michael told me about a lavish holiday party that is hosed in his home each year. He suggested I should go to the event to do a sketch. There is a balcony overlooking the room where I could sit to look down and sketch the lavish spread. Unfortunately I never did that sketch. This year’s party was canceled due to COVID-19. Life is short but art endures. I was honored to have me Michael and to have seen his amazing art collection first hand. In 2018 Michael donated additional paintings and sculptures, valued at $8.75 million, to the Mennello Museum of Art.

The Mennello Museum of American Art is slated for a 20 million dollar a 40,000 square-foot expansion by architects Brooks + Scarpa & KMF. Michael Mennello said in 2019, “My late wife, Marilyn, and I opened the museum in November 1998. We were avid art collectors who had a dream to create an intimate cultural gem. Never in a million years did I dream I would be alive to see our museum become a global destination for world-class American Art for all to enjoy.” I am sure construction was delayed due to COVID-19 and unfortunately Michael didn’t live to see it open. Ars longa, vita brevis. His legacy of sharing art will outlive us all.

Santa Vaccinated

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Kids across the country are concerned that Chris Kringle, or Santa might not show up this year due to COVID-19.

Dr. Anthony Fauci was on the case.  “I took care of that for you, because I was worried that you’d all be upset,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said. “So what I did a little while ago: I took a trip up there to the North Pole, I went there and I vaccinated Santa Claus myself.”

“I measured his level of immunity, and he is good to go,” Fauci added. “He can come down the chimney, he can leave the presents, he can leave, and you have nothing to worry about.”

If you want to visit Santa at a local mall, that is not a good idea. To practice social distancing, there are virtual options and drive by options should you want to visit Santa.

My concern is weather every Santa in America will be moved to the front of the line to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Are Santa’s considered essential workers as Christmas approaches? There are rumors that the wealthy are hoping to jump to the front of the line by offering bribes. Tens of thousands of dollars are being offered to get a needle jab. Healthcare workers and nursing home residents, are first in line then essential workers and those with chronic health conditions, then, finally, everyone else. Since Santa is 1750 years old he is likely a nursing home resident and at the front of the line regardless.

A new mutation of the COVID-19 virus in England is more contagious and caused Prime Minister Boris Johnson to say, “It is with a very heavy heart that I must tell you we cannot proceed with Christmas as planned.” “There’s no evidence to suggest it is more lethal or causes more severe illness,” the prime minister stressed, or that vaccines will be less effective against it. Families will not be permitted to go to other households to celebrate this holiday season.

In America, as cases, hospitalizations, and deaths continue to increase, the safest way to celebrate the winter holidays is to celebrate at home with people who live with you. Gatherings with family and friends who do not live with you can increase the chances of getting or spreading COVID-19.

Warp Speed Vaccine Distribution Plan

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Operation Warp Speed immediately hit a snag just days into Pfizer distributing doses of the COVID-19 vaccine across the country. It is no surprise that the Trump administration would bungle the distribution pipeline.

Governors across the country were frustrated that the number of doses they expected was cut by nearly half in some cases, and they were left in the dark as to why for several days until a federal official took responsibility on Saturday December 19, 2020.

For several days governors tried to get answers about the distributions shortfalls. Lack of clarity from the federal government represented a huge headache for states as they scrambled to adjust their vaccination programs.  Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said Tuesday December 15, 2020 that Florida could receive less than the 452,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine that the state was expecting because of a “production issue” on the part of a vaccine manufacturer. DeSantis said that two shipments of the vaccine slated to be sent to Florida in the coming weeks are “on hold right now.”  Though the Governor pointed a finger of blame at Pfizer, the blame seems to rest on the Federal Government. Pfizer immediately sent out a statement contradicting the Governor. “This week, we successfully shipped all 2.9 million doses that we were asked to ship by the U.S. Government to the locations specified by them,” Pfizer said in an official statement. “We have millions more doses sitting in our warehouse but, as of now, we have not received any shipment instructions for additional doses.” Both sides have been accused of using the media to negotiate, and fingers have been pointed, in every direction.

Operation Warp Speed chief operating officer, Army General Gustave Perna, said that he overestimated the number of vaccine doses that will be available to states next week. Originally, the number was 7.3 million, but Perna now says only 4.3 million doses will be available. “It was a planning error, and I am responsible,” Army General Gustave Perna said, according to Politico. “We’re learning from it. We’re trying to get better.” Perna said the numbers differ because he failed to account for the time required to get all of the vaccine doses approved by the FDA to be distributed.

Pfizer’s vaccine requires the patient to be injected with two doses taken 21 days apart. Putting aside so many doses for second shots adds to the logistical nightmare of distribution. Florida was supposed to submit a detailed plan to the federal government about its strategy by Dec. 4, 2020 but that plan has not been made public despite numerous requests from news organizations. For now the Trump administration has basically decided to pass daunting task of distributing vaccines to individual states, a strategy it used to address the pandemic this spring that led to disastrous results. Distribution will likely continue to be a confused mess until the Joe Biden administration can begin starting January 20, 2021. Biden’s team appears to be regularly meeting with pharmaceutical executives without the Trump administration.

Cremating COVID

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In India protestors blocked the entrance to a crematorium fearing that the fumes might spread COVID-19. This notion is false. The intense heat of cremation would destroy any virus.

The World Health Organization (WHO) states that dead bodies are generally not infectious. Only the lungs of patients with pandemic influenza, if handled improperly during an autopsy, can be infectious. Otherwise, cadavers do not transmit disease.
Channel 7 News in Little Havana, Miami reported on thick clouds of black smoke billowing from a crematorium. Across the street the smoke drifted over outdoor diners. Though the smoke might not contain virus, it could contain harmful polyvinyl chloride, (PVC) plastics from body bags which can cause cancers. Bodies are being transported in thicker than normal body bags which might account for the black smoke. A crematory furnace has a second chamber which is supposed to super heat and burn off harmful emissions. For that reason most crematoriums don’t emit black clouds of thick smoke.
Surging Covid-19 cases leave cemeteries and funeral homes struggling to keep pace. Engineers in Bolivia have come up with a solution as pragmatic as it is macabre, a mobile crematorium. The 16 foot by 8 foot oven is small enough to fit on to a trailer, and is powered by locally produced liquefied petroleum gas, making it a cheap option for families who cannot afford a funeral service.

“We Want Them Infected”

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In newly discovered e-mails, Paul Alexander, a Trump appointee, urged top health officials to adopt a “herd immunity”. “Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk …. so we use them to develop herd … we want them infected…” Alexander added.

A maskless Santa exposed at least 50 children to COVID-19 in Ludowici, Georgia. Mr. and Mrs. Claus posed for pictures with the children and then tested positive for COVID-19 two days later. Some children were justifiably terrified, but many were forced to sit on Santa’s lap.

City officials have advised the children who were at the event to quarantine for 14 days and follow guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The event took place on the day Georgia reported a record number of new COVID-19 cases.

A 1918 Nebraska newspaper showed a stark contrast at the time. Nebraska was experiencing the ravages of the Spanish Flu which killed, 675,000 Americans. “In Gering, Nebraska, a department store arranged for a visit by Santa Claus in December, but hundreds of children were shocked when police arrested both Santa and the store owner for violating a local ban.” They knew how to knuckle down those days, unlike the soft, misguided, or genuinely evil officials of today.

Today the World Health Organization (WHO) claimed that Santa is immune to COVID-19, just as the infected POTUS declared himself immune since he caught COVID-19 and was injected with Remdesivir,  Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody cocktail, zinc, famotidine, and melatonin and dexamethasone a steroid. Santa must also be hyped up on steroids. Maria Van Kerkhove, who herself has two young sons said, “I can tell you that Santa Claus is immune to this virus,” She continued, “We had a brief chat with him and he is doing very well and Mrs. Claus is doing very well, and they are very busy right now,” she said.

Kraft Azalea Garden in a Pandemic

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For my Urban Sketching class at Crealde on Sunday, I had one student show up of the four who usually attended. We stayed outside and my first exercise was to have him sketch postage sized detail while studying a Rembrandt etching of a landscape. The goal was to fill in one postage stamp sized area and then move on to another adjacent area again focusing only on the detail in a small area.

This exercise stresses the importance of focusing on minute detail after the big shapes have been blocked into a sketch. When this exercise was complete, we decided to go to Kraft Azalea Garden which was about a mile away. I figured it would be a quiet bucolic scene for my student to capture.

I was wrong. When I got there I found literally no parking available. The park was packed to the gills. My student had already set up and begun to sketch, so I kept driving by and about a half hour later a spot opened up.

The Garden designed by Bertram A. Weber is located on Lake Maitland. There are some waling paths and this semi circular series of columns. Inscribed on the back of the structure is the saying, “Pause friend let beauty refresh the spirit.”

It turns out these columns are a very popular photo shoot site. As I walked into the gardens a husband was kissing his wife’s pregnant belly as she stood is a flowing white dress. As I started my sketch, a large mask less family gathered for their phot0 shoot. The grandfather or uncle showed the young daughters a series of fist bumps, hand slaps and hand shakes. He apologized to me for the scene but I shouted back that I likes the chaos. He laughed.Since I was the only person in the park wearing a mask, people thankfully did not approach to look over my shoulder. I also though ahead and leaned back against a large tree, so people could only approach from in front of me.

After their family photos were taken a wedding party moved in. The mask less photographer apologized for leaving her mask in her car and claimed she had been tested 3 days before. If that was the case, she would not know the results. Of course the wedding party were mask less as well and the photographer moved in close to adjust the brides veil. After this chaos another photographer moved in and shot a mask less husband wife and child. The child cried the whole time.

It occurred to me that a photographer would be the perfect super spreader. a 60 year old photographer in India caught COVID-119 at one of his wedding shoots. He went on to infect 30 of his primary contacts. The photographer did not voluntarily report for testing, but instead went to photograph a wedding. Because of this, three villages with a population of nearly 39,000, are now red zones. The photographer died from the virus. Contact tracers tested 500 people, all primary and secondary contacts of the deceased, and 213 were put in quarantine.

My student finished his sketch a half hour early and he had to pee, so he left. We joked about the possible fallout from this park outing two weeks from now. I stayed until the end of class and wanted to add more detail to this sketch, but I decided to get the hell out of Dodge as well. This quiet sketch outing had turned into a scene of absolute public indifference to the health crisis. At least each family has beautiful photos to remember the dead.

The Gift of the Magi

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In O Henry‘s short story The Gift of the Magi,a young couple at the turn of the century in NYC dreamed of getting each other magnificent presents for Christmas but they were short on cash. They lived in a humble eight dollar a month flat. Della only had 1 dollar 87 cents. It was hard to make ends meet on Jim’s twenty dollar a week job. As a couple they had two treasured possessions, she had her long luxurious hair and he had a golden watch.

It was Christmas eve and in Della’s distress she decided to sell her hair to get Jim’s present. Her hair sold for twenty dollars. She shrugged off the loss and rushed to get the perfect present. She found a beautiful chain for his watch. She knew he would treasure it.

When Jim arrived home Della worried he might not approve of her short hair. He was transfixed but his surprise became clear when she unwrapped the present he had bought for her. It was a magnificent set of combs with tortoise shell and gems.  She had dreamed of them every time she passed then in a Broadway shop window. She then gave him the present of the watch chain. He fell back on the couch and laughed as he had sold his watch to get her present. Though he had no watch for the chain and she had no long flowing hair for the combs, they loved each other dearly and embraced.

In a modern re-telling of the tale, I imagine the couple would share their love by staying home on Christmas and staying away from crowded family celebrations and holiday parties. They would share the gift of life as the hope of new vaccines might save them from the year long pandemic that terrorized their city and the entire world.

The first shots of the Pfizer vaccine were administered yesterday December 14, 2020 to nurses and doctors on the front lines. Moderna‘s Covid-19 vaccine as then found too be 94 percent effective at preventing symptomatic illness and appears to prevent the spread of the virus as well, according to documents released Tuesday December 15, 2020. So hope is on the horizon, but most people must face several more months of the worst of the pandemic before they can get this hope for a future life.

Disney Digital Brains

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Disney World in Orlando, Florida shut down at the beginning of the pandemic but re-opened as the cases spiked in Florida over the summer. Guests had to wear face masks at all times, except while eating or swimming, but enforcement has been a challenge.

Some guests would take off their masks for the photo opportunity. At first the parks refused to offer those photos to guests but that meant that guests who were wearing masks could not get a copy of the photo. To overcome that problem, digital masks were Photoshopped onto guests who did not wear a mask, allowed those in the photo properly wearing their face masks to get the photos.

Since this issue caused online discussion, Disney decided to reverse the policy and will not be digitizing face masks over guests’ faces any longer. Convincingly Photoshopping a mask onto a guests face is a challenge, and it comes off as a clear fake. My advice is that Disney Photoshop brains onto guests who slip their masks off. It might hide most of their face, but it makes them seem like they are capable of thinking and reasoning. The only real solution to the Photoshop conundrum is to escort any guest photographed without a mask out of the park. Better yet close the damn parks during the pandemic.

In September 2020 Florida Governor Ron DeathSantis signed an executive order removing all statewide restrictions. This executive order allowed the Central Florida theme parks to re-open. Disney invested $2.4 billion in COVID-19 related safety measures in latest quarter. It would be difficult or near impossible to contract trace COVID-19 cases back to Disney World. The infected person might have been infected at a restaurant off property, at the hotel, or on the trip to or from Florida. This is what allows the parks to function with immunity. Disney Land out in California remains closed because that Governor is working to keep his constituents safe.

Florida reported 11,699 new COVID-19 cases, the most since July, as the total deaths near 20,000. The Florida governor has been bragging about the first vaccines to be administered, but it will be many months before everyday citizens are able to be inoculated. Florida has the fourth most deaths of any state with 20,133, following New York (35,360), California (20,969), and Texas (23,911). The following months will be the darkest of the pandemic.