Day 31. Sunday. Good things.

At the Farmers' Market, nearly everybody wore masks, and more vendors --  though far from all -- had instituted one-way traffic, moved their cash registers six feet apart, chalked markings on the asphalt, and so on. Some of the markings on which customers were to stand while waiting were clearly closer to each other than six feet, but customers mostly took care to stand at least that far from each other. I bought a generous quantity of snap peas and made sure to thank that vendor for coming to feed us.

So what did I do yesterday? Nothing; if possible, less than nothing.  Today? Not much either, but since two of us in this household celebrate Easter, we had a slightly festive meal, and I took my turn cooking it. Next Easter, I'll allow more time for the potatoes.

This morning fifty non- or less-religious people attended our first online Sunday Assembly. Well, fifty of their computers (or other devices) attended. It resembled the offline one quite closely, apart from one glitch where the recording of nature sounds would not play. So chalk that up as a success, and at least one person (she was assigned to my chat room afterwards) attended for the first time in years. One message that was delivered is that the nationwide responses to the pandemic show a high degree of solidarity, which we have been taking for granted. As always, I wonder how long it will last as the economic pain grows worse, but then, everyone is wondering about that.

As my first month of semi-quarantine ends, I'll take stock of what hasn't happened. There is plenty.

• Despite heavy buying of guns, civil order has not even shivered, except for one shooting in Bakersfield. Far from breaking apart in the face of disaster, people have come together and offered to help each other. This was also my experience after the Loma Prieta quake.
• There have been attacks both verbal and physical against people of Chinese appearance (and who had the brilliant idea of calling it the "Chinese virus"?), but no riots, pogroms, or even systematic discrimination as far as I've heard.
• Except in NYC, hospitals and emergency services have not been flooded with cases.
• There has been no serious hunger, despite reprehensible levels of "just in case" buying, no looting that I've heard of, certainly no food riots.
• Profit-making businesses have shown themselves quite unwilling to put lives before profits. I'm thinking especially of the NBA, which set an example to the USA, and doubtless was heeded more than just about anyone else could have been.
• Basic services such as electricity, water, and communication have not broken down, or even been rationed (except for Netflix, which, again, set an example).
• Even at Easter, religious leaders have chosen safety over sanctity.

Oh yeah, the charts. Solidarity is still holding (in some southern counties of California, it took much too long to take hold) and the doubling times are slowly stretching out. As yet nobody is talking about halving times, but except perhaps for Brazil and India, the rate of new infections seems to be level or declining. In Brazil, which seems to have the most block-headed President this side of Pyongyang, I don't yet know what is going on, and in India it is impossible to know.