[nycfem]

While COVID-19 is trending down in NY, we still have 370,000 cases reported (and keep in mind at least 80% don't get reported) and we have 30K deaths in NY. The affect of the protests, which I'm in no way dissing, which are very active in liberal NYC also would seem to have an obvious impact on opportunities for contracting COVID. I still NEVER go outside (each of us have gone out one time in the past few months). I still sanitize everything to the Nth degree, do everything with tedious care. Just this week I had 3 friends with COVID. And the symptoms are just horrible. Last night I called a messenger to deliver my oximeter (I ordered a new one) to my friend on the other side of Central Park, living alone, who has COVID. He said his chest feels like it's filled with broken glass and that it's so painful to breathe, that breathing in and out feels like breathing through shards of glass. He also has aches, pains, fever, no smell/taste, and extreme back pain making it hard to walk. He went to the hospital, had a very painful test that still hurts, and was told to go home and to come back if he starts to have true difficulty with breathing, not just painful breathing. I gave him the oximeter to monitor for silent hypoxia. I find myself in such a chronic state of anxiety. NYC will open on June 8th but I think a lot of people will still stay inside given how prevalent it is here. It can't be ignored when so many of the people who one knows locally have it. I think NYC is opening because our economy is falling completely apart, and it is thought this will help (Presumably, of course, it will.). I just wanted to check in again and say thanks, everyone, for the community here and the caring between all of us. It is a horrendous time in the world.