2. Flatten that curve, baby

Wednesday April 1 2020

Both of us are still working for now. The CPA Tax Office I’m temping at is considered essential, according to the DeWine Report. Other temps have been let go, just one other temp doing taxes for individuals and I’m doing the bookkeeping for small businesses. There’s only six of us in the office, while two others are working from home. No clients are permitted inside, yet we still handle their paperwork. We sanitize everything we can and our workstations are more than six feet apart. I don’t want to go in every day, even though I like the work. And we need this small paycheck.

Don goes into the car shop every morning and when he comes home he tells me how slow business has been. We don’t know how sustainable this is for the business and we’re afraid for his job.

Yesterday morning, I’m stopped in the parking lot by a client. He hands me his tax return, tells me there’s a mistake on it. What he gives me is a document and an envelope held by a paperclip. It’s wet. The ink has run on the document. I don’t want to touch it, never mind carry it into the office. I do, though. I give it to the tax preparer and then slather my hands in sanitizer. Holy shit, man. Could you have put it in a file folder or something?

This is the flatten the curve graphic shared since early March. It’s remarkably simple. If we shut down non-essential commerce, major sporting events, the Summer Olympics, schools and universities, libraries, and make people stay at home, we can slow down the spread of the virus.

We’ll likely still have as many cases and prolly a similar death toll, but these events will be spread out over several months so the heath care system isn’t overwhelmed.

But what isn’t his simple graph telling us? It doesn’t have a timeline. Or any numbers. And the health care system is already overwhelmed. If we’re doing our part to be in the blue section, where are we today on the curve?

A headline today states that Miami University is refunding tens of millions of dollars due to the pandemic. Multiply that by every university in the country and what do you have? An effen disaster in our higher education system.

The head tax preparer was out of the office yesterday. She had chills and a sore throat. She was back in today. I’m trying to figure out if I have a sore throat.

We need to blame someone for this invisible threat. Some go to the source and blame the Chinese, not just the country but everyone who represents it. There was a rumor on social media that COVID-19 was an acronym for Chinese-Originated Viral Infectious Disease and this is the 19^th strain. Not true and it’s an excuse to pin all the fear, anxiety, and anger on someone specific. People can be so bigoted.

7. Turdsday