I recently reflected on my inpatient and mental health clinic experiences in Kurtz-Gradient: Do Long Inpatient Hospital, Some Notes on Hell, DRM_ARCHATXTR.exe (Dream Architecture), and Some Notes on Land's Notion of Capitalist Efficiency and the Process. Synthesized - the inpatient and mental health clinic setting is an uncanny, surreal, horrorscape where the limits of the human, and therefore the inhuman, is brought to the forefront.
In my general entry on epistemological errors The Minor Science of Caninepistemology / Doggypsychiatry, as well as my series on COVID and epistemology Viral Epistemology, Viral Epistemology II: Quaternary Park and The Human Security System, and Viral Epistemology III: Science, the Death of God, and Mike Pence, I commented on the media reporting of the scientific understanding of COVID. Synthesized - the virus is by its nature a surplus beyond reason, science, and human control, one that deals with Nietzschean complexity, chaos, and chance.
Today I will synthesize both my experiences in the psychiatry setting and epistemology - not unlike how I started to do with Canineepistemology - to provide an anecdotal account of COVID.
As I argued in the above entries, things are always more complex than they appear. Some will be exposed to COVID, not get it; some will be exposed to COVID, get it, and be asymptomatic and recover; some will be exposed, get it, be mildly symptomatic, and recover; some will be exposed, get it, be severely symptomatic, and recover; some will get it, be asymptomatic, and die; some will get it, be mildly or severely symptomatic and die. Some will attend high risk ares and not be exposed, some will attend low risk areas and be exposed, etc. Some will have compromised immune systems, or generally be at higher risk, and not catch it - or catch it and recover; some will have healthy immune systems, or be at lower risk, and catch it - or catch it and die.
Molar statistics map well onto populations, but do not map well onto individual cases. Chance and chaos - random variation of nature, surplus of code - rule in this domain.
For instance, I was recently appointed to the inpatient hospital ward to train the staff. In talking with the supervisor there I learned that 3 residents with incredibly compromised immune systems (literally near death in many ways) had contracted COVID, recovered, and returned to inpatient (and additionally, spread of COVID was quickly prevented from going beyond the 3 patients by - so it seems - sanitation, mask wearing, and quarantining). This of course goes against what we would assume - cramped quarters, locked doors, compromised immune systems, etc. - surely COVID will spread like wildfire and kill with certainty. The reality is is that these units are cleaned deeper and more often than other places, and traffic from the outside is limited as much as possible, so if there is a population of COVID negative patients, they will likely remain COVID negative. However, I have no way of explaining how these very physically and mentally ill patients did not simply die. I may not know enough about their treatment or care.
What is more interesting is that several adolescents in the inpatient attempted to intentionally catch COVID in order to be discharged from inpatient, and all of them failed. 3 or 4 kids could not catch this stupid virus in a confirmed exposed unit even by licking the door knobs and floors. Strange.
On this note, I've been around high risk or exposed populations since the start of the quarantine, and have only ever tested negative. I know of only three people - all of which are once or twice removed (friends of friends) - that have contracted COVID, 1 of which was in her 90s and recovered without impairments, one of which was in her 30s and recovered without impairment, and one of which was in her 20s and recovered with slight shortness of breath. Considering men are significantly more likely to catch it than woman, and older people are significantly more likely to be effected than younger, this is all strange as well.
Even though it's ripe with its own epistemological fallacies - my sample size is too small, I have no method, blah blah blah, etc., - I find it interesting to highlight how abstract molar statistical models often do not map onto intuitive personal experiences. I do however believe that through wearing a mask, using hand sanitizer, and not touching my face, I have done some things to lessen my risk of catching the virus.
Anyways, I think this is a lot of words to say I am surprised I and many of the people I know and work with aren't simply dead...
