COVID-19 Chronicles: The Cuomo Staircase Mystery

Chris Cuomo’s story has caught my attention, even though I had never heard of him before this, because he and I got sick at the same time

His situation resonates with me, I think we are a similar type, restless, have to be working, unimaginable to quit reporting our experiences even when it should be obvious that it’s time to

GET SOME REST

In both of our cases, a strong argument could be made that trying to stay vertical and keep reporting may well have prolonged our battles with COVID-19

Another reason I identify with Chris Cuomo is that I understand the bloodcurdling horror of finding out you have infected your spouse, absolute worst part of this whole ordeal

The only thing that would be worse would be if I got my parents sick

As I’ve been watching his clips, I’ve noticed two things

One, that everyone involved keeps presenting with a different set of symptoms, just like my hubby and my friends and I did, and

Two, the staircase behind his head, the basement stairs

Now, the thing about an idea is that it’s just AN IDEA

Good ideas and bad ideas come from the same place, I’ve been saying that for 20 years, favorite joke

Ideation is my superpower, well, that and the whole ‘kill people with my breath’ thing

I respect my ideation skills as what they are, glorious, hilarious, potentially extremely dangerous

For instance I had the bright idea to write a filk of Tom Lehrer’s classic We Will All Go Together When We Go

THE NIGHT BEFORE I GOT INFECTED

Thought I was pretty clever, Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Ball (SNL reference)

Never trust what pops out of your brain, just write it down

Then figure out, is it a great idea for a song lyric, epic poem, novel, short story, article, meme, actual scientific hypothesis

I have no business making conjectures about the Cuomo household, I don’t know them, I’ve never been to their house

Although it is clear to me based on my childhood that all three of their kids could be taking turns doing chores, cooking, and doing laundry, my stepdaughter was extremely proud to learn to do her own laundry when she was 11, privacy thing for her, but in any case, no reason to expect the 17yo to do it all, geez man

Anyway, about that staircase

And I don’t mean The Staircase, no spoilers but I am Owl Theory 100%, and if you disagree I accuse you of being an intuition person, not a science person

There, I said it, you never know what hot takes I will put forward in my blog, I also think Lizzie Borden was guilty

But then I am an historian, not a trance medium, all I can do is review records

Anyway, about that staircase

The story goes that Chris and Christina Cuomo have been communicating down the stairwell, she leaves him his meals, uses gloves to handle his dishes

Took her 3 weeks to get sick so they were clearly doing a very good job with all that

They probably think they slipped up somehow on the cleanser front, didn’t scrub something long enough or something

I know how haunting it is to lie there with nothing else to do but relitigate every mistake you’ve ever made in your life, blaming yourself and listing off everything you maybe could have done differently

But I have a speculation

I think it’s pretty clear to everyone by now that the coronavirus is airborne

I didn’t get within 10 feet of the person who infected me, more on that in a bit

I think if C and C were talking to each other in that stairwell, one at the top, one at the bottom, they were probably facing each other

Young and in love, bless

One of the few silver linings of this illness is that it can bring out a whole new phase in a marriage, I told my hubby he has “tenure” now, I’ve never felt devotion like this to anyone else, I owe him my life

Wouldn’t surprise me if the Cuomos feel the same way, miss you so much babe

But that stairwell? Isn’t very long

What, maybe 12-15 feet? Any carpenters in the house?

All they would have to do is laugh really hard or project their voices enough, not very far for an airborne virus to travel

My advice here is very simply, when you talk to someone, both face the same direction while speaking and then turn to check each other’s facial expressions, turn heads again when speaking, like sitting next to each other in the car or watching a movie

We’ve been told all this time that six feet is the correct social distance, and we have mostly been trying very very hard to maintain that

Although from photos it is clear that a lot of people think 4’ = 6’

I don’t think it’s right, maybe for standing still, sure

But not if people are doing something to direct breath directly toward one another, such as talking, shouting, laughing, coughing, or sneezing

Remember I am a public speaker, also a musician, I know some LOUD people, also some who tend to spray when they talk

Did you see that super spreader case in the news, the poor choir in Washington State? So, so sad, I bet they sounded terrific that night, also projected very well

This is not about blame in any way, we are all fighting blind, this is a *novel* virus meaning we are still getting to know the enemy

The scientific method starts with observations, then guesswork

Which is then rigorously tested, hopefully vetted, published, attempts to replicate then find errors or avenues for further research, discard hypothesis or zoom in, get more data

For the first time in human history, we can attack a pandemic with big data and near-instantaneous communication, double-edged sword, for some reason pseudoscience travels 10x farther than the good stuff

This is why I’m sharing my personal experiences, because they serve to emphasize: stay home, coronavirus is uncomfortable, getting your loved ones sick is sad, this method is called “social proof”

Like if I got food poisoning and told you where I ate, you probably wouldn’t go there for lunch, this is why we have star reviews for everything

COVID-19, zero stars

The day I got infected, I sat at one end of the table and the person who tested positive sat at the other

She and the person who flew back to Chicago spent most of the meal talking across the table to each other, distance of maybe 4’, doesn’t prove anything, we will never know whether one of them got the other sick, which one, or if they both got it elsewhere

But my hypothesis is not disproved by this example

My friend and I turned to each other once, when friend in middle got up to use restroom, we talked for a couple minutes until she came back

“How’ve you been, I haven’t seen you in months”

“Oh, things have been crazy blah blah”

We had pivoted in our chairs to face each other directly, distance of 10’

Nobody will ever know, but I suspect this is the window in which I was exposed, when we were facing each other and raising our voices to be heard

My advice would be as I said above, when talking to someone with no masks on, face away from each other to speak, if hearing impaired better to text, then turn back to see each other’s faces. Or both just face forward

In combination with all proper social distancing and hygiene recommendations my advice can’t hurt anybody

Unlike a lot of the bizarre advice I have been getting in the past several weeks, more on that later

Be well my dears, I hope you find something to laugh about today, just not right up in anyone’s face