The Pandemic Report From Beam Avenue

It was my day off yesterday but I have been looking at a “need maintenance” light for the past four days. I had to leave the house for car maintenance. Given the pandemic status this would be a whole new trip. Even though Minnesota does not have a lot of cases at this time, they are increasing and there is an identified COVID-19 case in a town 5 miles away and a neighbor four houses away with direct exposure to coronavirus in the workplace. My secondary goal during this trip was to take a look at social distancing and the other practical suggestions to contain the spread of this virus.

Beam Avenue is a busy thoroughfare that connects Highway 61 on the west and White Bear Avenue on the east. My Toyota dealer is on the west end of Beam Avenue and 1.5 miles away a popular shopping mall sits on the corner of Beam Avenue and White Bear Avenue. St. Johns Hospital is about half way down and the photo was shot from the sidewalk. Average vehicle traffic in this area is about 17 to 18,000 vehicles per day.

I don’t generally set up appointments for vehicle maintenance. I wait until the light goes off and then I typically drive in and wait. Even though the wait takes 1 to 2 hours, the accommodations for customers at this dealership are excellent. A comfortable waiting area, free cookies, and free coffee. This waiting area is generally very congested due to the high levels of work done at this dealership. It was going to be a challenge to see if social distancing was possible or not.

I pulled into the service area and was greeted by one of the service managers. He took me over to his desk and we started going through all the details. I told him I needed a new battery in my starter fob. He took it from me, pried open, installed the new battery, blew the dust out of both halves of the fob with his own breath, snapped it together, and handed it back to me. We talked about the purpose of this visit specifically oil change and tire rotation. He offered to sell me a new service plan but I told him I was thinking of trading in my current RAV4 for a new one. He asked me what my timeframe was and I told him:

“I want to see this coronavirus thing pans out.”  He smiled at that.

After deciding the course of action he told me it might take one to two hours and I headed into the customer waiting area. I have probably seen more customers there at other times but it was packed, everyone was eating cookies and drinking coffee, and there were few open seats. There are study carrels along one wall. That is where I typically sit and do computer work while I wait. I decided it was a bad idea because there is no expectation that these surfaces would be sanitized. The same would be true of the padded and more comfortable seating in the middle of the waiting area. Appropriate social distancing was not evident and in fact I counted 16 people in the service area that were probably within a 10 foot radius of me. I decided it was a good time for a walk.

Beam Avenue is not the ultimate walking course. There are numerous pedestrian crossings just to get to the main sidewalk on the north side. Several large businesses have entrances across that sidewalk. It was an opportunity to see how many motorists never stop or even slow down when making a right-hand turn at a red light or stop sign. Costco motorists seemed more prone to that maneuver. The problem with the walkway is the intensity of traffic and the associated noise and exhaust fumes. That might explain why during the entire 3 mile walk I did not encounter a single fellow pedestrian. The traffic at 3 o’clock on Friday afternoon was as intense as I have ever seen it.

I got to the mall and walked through the main entrance. All the entrances and exits to the mall had pneumatic sliding doors and that is clearly a plus in terms of virus transmission. As I walked further into the mall those benefits seem to diminish. I came across children who were swarming all over free plastic playground equipment. I also saw kids jammed into moving seats wearing some kind of virtual reality goggles that appeared to be simulating a Star Wars battle. I did not inspect all of this equipment but hand sanitizers were not apparent. The kids all looked like they were having fun - it is probably hard to think about social distancing when you are a parent of young children.

When I got to the food court I was surprised that the tables had been thinned out. It looked like there was about a 60% reduction in the total number. As a result there was roughly 10 to 12 feet between most of the tables-the suggested social distancing interval. The other notable change was that even with fewer tables, there was hardly anybody eating at the food court. There was one long line of what appeared to be high school students who had not been seated. There is also visible housekeeping staff with sanitation equipment and they appear to be interested primarily in the food court area.

The men’s room was disappointing. With all the emphasis on handwashing there should be an expectation that any facility will be adequate for that task. In the men’s room, 40% of the soap dispensers and 60% of the faucets were not working. One of the faucets was totally gone. There was a paper towel dispenser that was empty and two air hand dryers. I had time to discover that I needed to go from sink to sink but if there was any crowding - I am sure it would affect the number of people adequately washing their hands. I headed out the door and back to the Toyota dealer.

When I got back - social distancing remained a problem. The service manager met me in the cashier line and reviewed all of the billing. There are two cashiers with six people in two lines and we were all about 1 foot apart. Nobody was coughing or sneezing. I was able to pay and leave in about five minutes.

On the way home I had to pick up some milk and bread and stopped at one of the major grocery store chains in the Twin Cities. The parking lot was packed. I decided to shop without a cart and avoid any cart contamination. There were hundreds of people in the store many of them very old. The store was well-stocked and the only thing that was missing was the toilet paper and paper toweling. A woman in front of me laughed very loudly when she turned the corner and saw that there was about a 50-foot section of shelving completely empty where these paper items had been. I grabbed the milk and bread and headed to the self-checkout line. Six people in line again to get to the touchscreen checkout computer. I checked out got in my car and used a liberal amount of hand sanitizer. I had also used outdoor gloves to negotiate doorways at the car dealership.

On the final drive home, I was thinking about how social distancing was absent in most of the scenarios I encountered. Vehicle and foot traffic were heavy and there was plenty of congestion.  What will it take to get people to stay home and out of public spaces? Some commentators have said that inconsistent messaging is a big part of it. Declaring a pandemic a political hoax one day an actual public health emergency the next day doesn’t work. Today I read three different conspiracy theories on COVID-19 as a bio weapon that was either deliberately used by the United States or China or inadvertently escaped the Chinese bioweapons lab. None of those theories appears to be consistent with what really happened. I was watching a celebrity news program and saw a caller say that the only time he took the pandemic seriously was when he learned that Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson had contracted the virus.

I started to think about why I take it seriously. I worked on two different Avian Influenza Task Forces about 15 years ago. It was a significant effort. One of the main concerns was surge suppression or preventing emergency departments and other resources from being overwhelmed by people who thought they had the disease. There is actually a program called Psychological First Aid where mental health professionals train volunteers to counsel these people and direct them away from emergency departments. I was a trainer for this course. In our meetings there was always a vague discussion of what would actually happen in hospitals if they were overwhelmed by patients with avian influenza.  In some of those discussions we would see a PowerPoint slide of a pallet loaded with Tamiflu at some Air Force Base. We were reassured that in the event of a local epidemic- that medication would be made available. The specifics about negative pressure rooms, ventilators, workflow, and manpower requirements were never really discussed. The current strategy for coronavirus of slowing the infection rate by social distancing and quarantine was also not discussed. At some point it was apparent to me that if avian influenza pandemic occurred, we would be making it up as we went along. I had studied several of these epidemics and had concerns about surge suppression especially in a highly infectious situation.

There appear to be some common errors that are made along the way when considering that pandemics are not only possible but likely. The first one is analyzing the situation according to a particular political bias. This is a very common mistake these days even though it clearly doesn’t work. Contradictory information in addition to those political biases amplifies the problem. Independent of political bias, it takes the ability to imagine that a pandemic is possible. That approach can be historical, biological, medical or mathematical. Any one of those disciplines can provide the necessary knowledge base. There are concerns today that in the era of social media dynamics – every one is an expert at the rhetorical level. The signal of real expertise is lost in the noise of grabbing for celebrity and the associated benefits. Self-selection leads to all of the adherents of a common belief isolating themselves in one little area on the Internet. That leads to the expected cognitive biases but also the illusion that life can go on as a member of an isolated group with no role in greater society.  Pandemics directly confront that denial.

I did see some bright spots on Beam Avenue today, but not many.  Vehicle and foot traffic is heavy and social isolation is a problem in high congestion areas. If people are expected to wash their hands frequently – washrooms need frequent attention and repair. The focus on cancellation of mass sporting and entertainment events is useful, but day to day sources of possible contamination need attention – especially when there are clearly identified cases and exposures in the area.

People need to stay home unless travelling to congested areas is absolutely necessary.  It is the best way to prevent the severe measures being taken in some countries right now and get through this.

George Dawson, MD, DFAPA