Donation: Penance for my own poor behavior

Dear Instacart,

I would like to pay for the delivery of groceries to people who are in quarantine (not isolation) in Seneca County, NY. I do not intend to pay for their groceries but only for the Instacart costs (i.e., shopping and delivery). Thank you for the responsible steps you've taken as a business. 

This is penance, albeit not recommended by any man-of-the-cloth, for my own semi-irresponsible behavior, as detailed in the linked Boston Globe article. I am still asymptomatic and feeling strong more than three and a half weeks later. (Ms Swineheart, please apologize to the women who checked me out and bagged my groceries on the 18th of February, if they were nervous after I left.)

I would like to prioritize, first, people entering into solo quarantine and, second, only "Forks Over Knives" or vegan food delivery. I am willing to donate up to $500.00 for this purpose. If this attempt to coordinate works well, we can scale it up in the Ithaca and Finger Lakes region or beyond. 

Perhaps obviously, I want the parties to this message (Seneca County Health, Green Star Food Co+op, Instacart, and Forks Over Knives) to respect the privacy of people who may need to quarantine in the county. I felt very vulnerable during that time.

If such an effort already exists or is happening, I would be happy to have Instacart put me in touch with the place to which such a donation should be sent, even if it is utilized outside of Seneca County. If this major problem is being addressed in some other way, perhaps the county health department is aware.

Many details need to be worked out. Notably, people arriving at a port of entry and headed to Seneca County for quarantine need to be informed that this grocery shopping and delivery option is available before they do their own shopping. I understand that most people in quarantine are probably not returning from abroad so we need to understand better the point at which these folks need to learn that this grocery shopping and delivery option is available. 

Forks Over Knives 🍴, if they choose to participate, should provide three or four menu options at different price points for two-week menu plans to Instacart and/or the county health department(s). Shopping lists that instruct which aisle products/produce would normally be found are easily generated by their current tools.

Let me know if you would be willing to cooperate with this effort to solve a systemic problem that faces individuals entering quarantine. I am confident that we could use GoFundMe or a similar platform to raise considerable funds for this worthwhile effort.

I know this message puts many of you and your employers on the spot, but time is of the essence to solve this critical problem during American Social Distancing Week One. Pardon the aggressive tactic that I am employing. I know the smallest county health departments across the state and nation are likely to be overwhelmed soon by the burden of caring for the likes of me. This is, I hope, one way businesses can partner to reduce the load.

Walk in balance,

Alexander Lee

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Walk in balance,

Alexander Lee

Sent from my iThang

Forks Over Knives Diet is The Bomb (You've Been Waiting For)

I have really been enjoying autonomy over what I eat. Before I left China, I sat the family down and we watched "Forks Over Knives"--the documentary (available on Netflix) that discusses, among other things, the lives and careers of two inspirational doctors, Dr. T. Colin Campbell, a nutritional biochemist from Cornell University and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, a former top surgeon at the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic. A spinoff of their website is a fabulous resource, replete with a menu planner that will allow you to choose dishes by category (e.g., dessert!) and then generate a shopping list by aisle. They also provide breaking nutritional news that underlies their philosophy, such as this week's: New Harvard Review Finds Little Evidence to Support U.S. Dairy Recommendations.

When Harry came home from bicycling around the island of Hainan and a couple weeks of living in the countryside with his dad, we also watched “The Game Changers”, a documentary on Netflix that tells incredible stories of how a vegan diet can improve athletic performance in professional athletes.

In my absence, 丫丫 has been reading Dr. Thomas Campbell's book in Chinese. Thomas M. Campbell II, MD, is the Medical Director of the University of Rochester Weight Management and Lifestyle Center at Highland Hospital where he works with individuals and groups to lose weight and prevent and treat illness through diet and lifestyle. He is also the son of T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D., who is the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University, project director of the acclaimed China-Oxford-Cornell Diet and Health Project, and coauthor (with his son) of The China Study.

The China Study is the most comprehensive epidemiological study of nutrition ever conducted. More than thirty years ago, nutrition researcher T. Colin Campbell and his team at Cornell, in partnership with teams in China and England, embarked upon the China Study, the most comprehensive study ever undertaken of the relationship between diet and the risk of developing disease.

Here are an assortment of dishes that I’ve made and devoured over the last three weeks. Not all of them meet the Forks Over Knives standard, but they are all vegan. PornHub is free for Italians; Americans will have to settle for my "food porn":

Cranberry sauce, pickled beets, almonds, and toast with red tea and cider.

Summer squash with quinoa, mixed dried fruit and nuts, and hard cider (with thermometer).

Apple. squash, mixed greens and pickled beets with box o' wine and puerh tea. 

Oatmeal with dried currants, chrysanthemum tea, and orange juice.

Curried quinoa, red peppers and squash with a side of salad greens.

Rice pasta with tomato sauce and salad with raspberries.

Seaweed rice cake sprinkled with pickled beets on mixed greens. Homemade dressing.

Preparing to Return: Broken Refrigerator, No Big Deal?

If there was ever any question or any question left about the competence of our gridlocked legislative branch to cope with this emergency, Senator Mitch McConnell has laid that to rest. Senator Lamar Alexander has indicated that they will not take up the COVID-19 bill from the House until after their recess. Meanwhile, the irresponsible language of those in the Grand Old (Wizard) Party is on full display, despite loud and clear objections from the head of the CDC.

Click here to hear the NPR Fresh Air story.

Today, I heard from an American expat living in Italy on lockdown, asking for advice, which I am reticent to dispense. Sadly, my most important piece of advice was not to follow the advice of the Department of State unless she understood the underlying reason for their recommendations. It was, I believe, a mistake for me to come back to the United States. I have no confidence in this Administration or its hyper-political appointees. The advice that I "should depart by commercial means" (Feb. 2) sent to those receiving alerts from the Department's STEP Program seems to be countermanded by most medical and public health experts.

As I prepare for departure and another two weeks of quarantine or isolation (I am asymptomatic now, but a lot can happen by Wednesday at noon, when I expect to land back in my city in China), there is a lot to think about:

• I may not see the kids for another couple weeks in an abundance of caution, as they go to live with their grandma during my quarantine (or isolation) period. 
• I will be asking for any guidance from the Chinese government about how to get from the airport to our apartment, what the arrangement should be inside my home (where the refrigerator has just stopped working!), and anything else I may need to know to comply with the government's mandated "concentrated or home isolation."
• Remaining safe on the flights is my partner's biggest concern and my parents, but I think the chances of getting something on my journey are maybe less than anywhere else I am out in public.

This is the guidance that I received from my travel agent, "According to the Guangdong Provincial Command for Prevention and Control, all outbound flights to Guangdong, airlines or their agents should inform passengers with a history of travel to 23 countries within 14 days at ticket sales and check-in procedures at outbound airports, after arriving in Guangdong, they will be placed in concentrated or home isolation for 14 days. The 23 nations are: South Korea, Japan, Iran, Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Singapore, the United States, Kuwait, Bahrain, Thailand, the United Kingdom, Australia, Switzerland, Malaysia, Norway, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Austria, Sweden, and the Netherlands."  The policy was set to go into effect at midnight on the 13th of March or noontime today Boston time. It is excellent that, unlike AirBnB, Dartmouth Coach, and the three rental car agencies with which I have had to deal (Budget, Hertz, and Enterprise), the Chinese government is putting the onus on the ticket sales and check-in agents to inform travelers of their responsibilities.

A visit to the Guangzhou Foreign Affairs Office, yielded little information beyond the reassuring latest figures for COVID-19 cases in Guangdong (as of 24:00, March 10, 2020), which some of my fiercest red-baiting friends will discredit as the propaganda of a totalitarian state, and "How to stay safe from COVID-19 at your workplace?". There is propaganda, of course, but the message sits well with me:

"GDTV World of Guangdong Radio and Television recently invited singer-songwriter Mike from the United States and TV personality Romeo from Italy, two well-known expats living in Guangzhou, to produce an a capella song titled "Let love go viral". The heartwarming tune calls on people from around the world to send love, not hate, to each other amid the COVID-19 epidemic," the site also reports. See the video!

I have been told there may be a five-hour observation period at the airport because people may have been taking masking drugs to avoid showing symptoms. I am not sure if that delay will happen in Beijing or when I get to Guangzhou or not at all, but I do not have sufficient time for that during my currently scheduled layover.  There certainly are reports of airport chaos as China imposes new quarantine rules for returnees.