May month. Leap year. We sit at home. The second month we are self-isolating. The head of the family, without going to the service, continues to work remotely. Children at a distance like “self-study” without going to school. The spouse is torn between the baby, who was successfully born at the end of February, and the other children who are not too eager to be schooled at home.
The world around us is not very much like being caught in a severe pandemic. Transport (metro, trains, buses, taxis) runs smoothly. Chain grocery and alcohol stores, all kinds of banks are working properly.
You look out the window, especially in the evening: people are walking en masse, like on self-isolation. Kiosks owned by migrants, all kinds of shawarma, beer bars, some other establishments are quietly working, like "closed". At one of the beer bars I saw a brightly devil-may-care notice: "On May 1, the bar is closed." Apparently, the inscription means that both before May 1 the bar was working properly, and after May 1 it is going to serve customers just as well.
Kiosks owned by migrants, all kinds of shawarma, beer bars, some other establishments are quietly working, like * closed *. Photo: Sputnik / Handout via Xinhua / Globallookpress
Across the Moskva River, within sight, hundreds of migrant workers-builders live in temporary hostels, everyone continues to work somewhere, like there is a dangerous epidemic around. Hundreds. Although who counted them there, maybe thousands.
Not a type, but really closed to people, perhaps only temples. But this, of course, is completely different …
Sudden non-viral problems
Promotional video:
All of a sudden, I had to interrupt the writing of the article. The electricity went out …
As it soon became clear, electricity was cut off not only in our apartment and not only in our house, but also in the neighboring ones. Water stopped flowing for electricity. Everyone - both hot and cold. Apparently the pumps that pump water are just as powered by electricity as our elevators and our kitchen hobs. There is no electricity, no water, and life on our 19th floor, regardless of the epidemic situation, goes into a "stricter isolation" mode than before.
Young children, as the most curious, start asking their parents: "How are we going to cook dinner?", "What are we going to drink?", "How can we live without cartoons?", "What if someone got stuck in the elevator?" My wife and I become “semi-official propagandists” and reassure our children that everything will certainly be fine. The electricity will be repaired, the water will be connected, and people who are stuck in the elevator will be saved.
Indeed, after three hours our regime of "tough self-isolation" began to gradually weaken. The electricity was turned on. But instead of water, something indigestible, rusty and not drinkable is still flowing. But you can already write.
The following news also appears: “Some of the construction projects in Moscow will resume on May 6 - the order of the head of the Moscow construction complex, Andrey Bochkarev.” Photo: Sergey Kiselev / AGN * Moscow *.
While there was an unforeseen "tightening of the regime," we on the 19th floor wondered if all this spending on digital technology, developing tracking codes and other rapidly developing Internet control technologies was too important compared to establishing an uninterrupted supply of electricity and water supply, as well as the introduction of alternative systems for supplying this power supply, which people really need every day. In a situation of developing urbanization, an increase in the multi-storey level of our homes, difficulties with water supply and avoiding gas stoves in kitchens, instead of tracking citizens, it would be more important to establish timely notification of people about emergencies or emergencies. With an explanation to people what happened and when the breakdown will be eliminated. This is much more relevant,than buying expensive copters to police us or imposing ubiquitous fines ranging from parking fines to self-isolation violations.
Big cities are becoming more and more dangerous places to live. Dangerous not only in the sense of an epidemic or technogenic, but also in the sense of human freedom. Freedom of personal life, protection of personal data, freedom of religious conscience, freedom of personal home, freedom of movement, etc. All this cannot be solved within the framework of megalopolises, which easily "turn" your house into one of the not beautiful days into the house of your "self-isolation" …
Epidemic news reports
One way or another, we are all now following the news related to the epidemic. Some of them raise questions from non-specialists like me.
For example, here are some news taken straight from the feed, flavored with my bewilderment:
"The increase in new cases by days on May 4: the number of cases today (10 581) is at the level of yesterday's record (10 633)."
Why, as soon as quarantine measures were introduced, did the increase in incidence begin to grow wildly? The regime of "self-isolation" for all was introduced on March 30th. There were only a few people who died on March 29, and, in my opinion, one and a half thousand were infected. Now they are under 150 thousand. Did the quarantine measures work as desired, without stopping transport? Or is the effectiveness of such quarantines in megacities in principle limited? Or did hundreds of thousands of tourists who returned from fifty foreign countries and were not very “self-isolated” played a role here?
It turns out that "50.6% of patients with coronavirus detected in Russia per day do not have symptoms - headquarters." As a rule, such infected people are not hospitalized, as evidenced by the following news: “The number of confirmed tests for COVID is growing, but the number of hospitalizations remains at the same level. Moscow manages to reduce the risk of the spread of the virus - headquarters."
Until recently, there was not a single infected person in my environment, even far away. The other day, two of my daughter's acquaintances, whom I have not seen for several months, were diagnosed with a coronavirus. Their temperature rose and did not subside for several days, they called a doctor, took them to the hospital, did a test, he confirmed the presence of the virus and damage to 25% of the lungs. And what? They were sent home to be treated on their own. How to be treated? Drink plenty of water …
I am sure, as someone who does not understand anything in medicine, that doctors who already have two months of experience fighting the epidemic know what they are doing when sending people home … But then I don’t understand why the presence of coronavirus is not dangerous for their families? And 25% of lung damage by this virus is as easily treated at home as ARI or ARVI? Or, as an old anecdote: "A treated cold goes away in 14 days, and not treated in 2 weeks"?
The following news: "Those who died in Moscow in March-April: 2018 - 22 613, 2019 - 20 065, 2020 - 22 244" confirms the above?
Are the Moscow authorities strange or know more than we do?
The Moscow authorities themselves are acting very strangely. On the one hand, almost every day there is news that the mayor and his officials are developing digital technologies to control people, and they threaten that, if something happens, they will introduce these tougher regimes.
On the other hand, the following news appears: "Some of the construction projects in Moscow will resume on May 6 - the order of the head of the Moscow construction complex, Andrey Bochkarev."
One of three: either at construction sites, where migrant workers work, the virus loses its strength, even without reaching its peak in the rest of Moscow, or the authorities are not sorry for these newcomers, and they act on the principle of Gogol's Strawberries: “If they die, then and so they will die, "or there are very thrifty business people who somehow managed to" interest "Moscow officials in their activities.
There were many oddities in our world even without the coronavirus. But with him they became somewhat more convex, or something. For example, before the May holidays, according to the monks themselves, in the Holy Paphnutiev Monastery in Borovsk, all of the inhabitants were suddenly asked to sign a paper, even before any tests, that they were already infected with the coronavirus. An equally strange case occurred with my acquaintance with his daughter and young granddaughter, who at the beginning of March had a sore throat and were in the hospital. And already in early April, they came to their home to analyze a test for coronavirus, since for some reason a record appeared in their medical history (March) that they had a coronavirus, and not a sore throat.
I would like to understand all this. Get answers to many questions - both global and quite private. No one insists on anything without a proper thorough search for the truth. But an investigation into the emergence and course of coronavirus in Russia and in the world is necessary.
PS Water, by the way, as there was, and there is already half a day. Municipalities should still do their own thing, not digital policing.
Author: Smolin Mikhail