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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.

7 November 2020. COVID-19 infections rise to over 100,000/day this week. Some hopeful news from ferret studies (well only six ferrets, divided into 2 sets, two with the spray and one without in two cages) at Columbia University: a nasal spray containing a lipopeptide that matches amino acids in the spike protein which seems to have protected the ferrets given the spray, while the other two got sick. A non-toxic, stable, nasal spray that is effective would be wonderful. SUNSHINE: Biden has won the Presidency, horns are honking, and messages are congratulating from around the world -- Brazil, Israel, places with their parallel politics. It is bright and warm outside this fall day. Much work still to be done: the two run-off senate races in Georgia will determine whether Democrats can control the Senate. The good news includes that 130 black women ran for Congress in this cycle, and ninety percent of black women voted for Biden. Also six native American Indians are elected to Congress and many others down ticket. There is now the first Native American superpac, "Seven Generations", named for the motif in American Indian thought of caring for the world seven generations ahead. Re. COVID-19, it is reported that 376 of the counties across the U.S. with currently the highest rates of infection voted for Trump -- whether they will make the connection between denying the need for social distancing and mask wearing and their infections is unclear (one thinks of the classic Festinger et al., When Prophecy Fails). People like their beliefs, and their anti-heroes. One can only hope that we can figure out how to deflate the folk-hero trappings of Trump, and stifle that virus before it propagates any further. CONSTRAINT. Meanwhile life with COVID teeters between a delicate normalcy and constraint. We had dinner this week with a good friend in her late seventies (no longer so old), recently widowed, living alone, and one symptom is extreme fear of infection. She invited us to her apartment, inside, noting that while we were not the first to accept such an invitation, other couples had turned her down on grounds that they were trying to be hyper-cautious (in part she speculates due to worries of their grown kids who bombard them with worries about their safety). We wore masks inside except to eat and drink, were not allowed in the kitchen, stayed six feet apart, sat at the far ends of a long table, set dishes down to be retrieved by the other party rather than passing directly. As she pointed out, being alone without a companion, means she needs to be extra cautious as there is no one to provide help in the first instance. Not that she does not have many friends who check in on her. One of her single friends with whom she speaks ever three or so days, who is immunocompromised from cancer therapy, has it even more fraught, and is dependent on food deliveries which often come with items she has not ordered (because they did not have what she ordered and substituted a different brand or similar item, without knowing if it contained something she could not have). BUT of course, we all agree, we are the lucky ones, roofs over our heads, good food, health care, etc.