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From Conde Nast Traveler.
How Clean Is the Air on Planes?
Apprehension about aircraft cabin air predates the current coronavirus crisis.
Answer not very clean.
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From the Boston Globe:
Venturing out?
Here’s how to reduce risk of COVID-19 infection, according to the CDC.
Click here.
Life continues
This was May 20. Our four baby Robins left us a a couple of days later.
The nest lay empty for a few days, while we agonize “She’s abandoned us.”
But no. Yesterday look what we spied. Our Mother Robin is back.
Seven and counting. She’s on her way to making ten babies this season.
It’s incredibly exciting. Life goes on.
Love this
Staying alive
Yesterday, my 92nd consecutive tennis game this quarantine.
Keys to staying alive:
+ Daily exercise.
+ Eat in moderation (whatever that is)
+ Regular naps. Twice a day is perfect.
+ Cash in bank. Today’s stockmarket can give us heavy agita. Don’t play it. Don’t panic. But don’t have next month’s living expenses contingent on whether Amazon goes up or or down a few shekels (which it will).
The big change. The big message.
The BIG lesson so far is Diversification huge sense.
+ Residential rents are being paid country-wide and are largely up to date, except for New York City, which lags. Working with tenants is key.
+ Construction projects are difficult, because banks are skittish. But switching from condo to rental may help.
+ No one knows what might happen to offices. Some people say people will work at home. Hence they’ll need less office space. Others say they’ll need more space to accommodate social distancing.
+ An amazing number of people are looking for solid real estate to buy. Unsolicited offers are springing up — even in the middle of this virus mess.
+ There’s the usual collection of stocks to stay away from — energy, airlines, cruise lines, most retailers, etc.
+ Debt is becoming a serious issue. Too much debt. The number of so-called zombie companies is spiking and could soon represent more than one in five U.S. firms, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. What it means: “Zombies” are firms whose debt servicing costs are higher than their profits but are kept alive by relentless borrowing.
+ Rich large tech companies see today as a great opportunity to expand. Read Sunday’s cover story:
The Economy Is Reeling. The Tech Giants Spy Opportunity.
Many companies are retreating. But Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft are placing bets to get even bigger.
Click here.
Today in quarantine
I’m playing tennis in an hour. Then, for breakfast, eating a bagel with too much delicious cream cheese. I’ve put on four pounds. Two of my more intelligent friends have each lost 10-12 pounds.
I’ll read and study. The weekend’s review Richard Haas’ new book, “The world. A brief introduction” has the following paragraph:
Another big theme is the widening gap between the desire of governments to guard their sovereign prerogatives and the inescapability of global problems that can be addressed only through shared sacrifice and the empowerment of international institutions. The “Vegas rule” — what happens in a single nation stays there — “does not apply in today’s global world,” he quips. Greenhouse gases, economic downturns and extremist ideologies, to name just three examples, respect no borders and defy the best efforts of nations to insulate themselves.
The same goes for epidemic diseases.
Stay well.
See you tomorrow — Harry Newton
I got as far in that Atlantic article as the author’s contention that a current surge in southern hemisphere cases proved “heat is clearly no impediment to its dissemination”. Like, if you don’t know that right now is fall-winter (aka, “flu and cold season”) in the southern hemisphere, please don’t try to science me! Sometimes all the polysyllabic words in the dictionary aren’t enough to disguise a lack of knowledge and thoughtfulness.
(I’d expect an Aussie to have caught that, Harry!)
Here’s the deal: we can hole up until if and when there is a vaccine (previous record for fastest vaccine development: 4 years). Or you can go about your life with reasonable precautions, accepting the fact that you are probably going to get it, but that if you are reasonably healthy it is highly unlikely you will die, and when 2/3 of us have had it, it will have nowhere else to go (aka herd immunity). Shrug. Not what we want to hear, but life ain’t fair and the virus don’t care.
You would find “Plague” by Dr. Judy Mikovits a compelling read. Also, her second book, “Plague of Corruption”. These are well documented tomes that will be very difficult to put down.
D. H. De Vore