About ten blocks south of my apartment building the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) has been created. The East Precinct building, which the Seattle Police Department (SPD) abandoned earlier in the week after repeatedly saturating protesters with tear gas despite an announced tear gas ban by Mayor Jenny Durkan and Police Chief Carmen Best, is at the center of the newly created autonomous zone.
After a few days of celebration things are starting to heat up with Trump making threats, The New York Times posting a story on its homepage, and the SPD making noises that it wants its station back. (If you want to keep up with the latest CHAZ news from local sources, let me suggest that you follow Rich Smith on Twitter and you bookmark Capitol Hill Seattle Blog. Both are excellent sources.)
Even if Trump doesn't invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 and dispatch troops from Fort Lewis, it's likely, once things die down a little, that the odious Mayor Durkan will send in riot police a la Mike Bloomberg and Zuccotti Park nearly a decade ago.
I have yet to visit CHAZ despite living nearby. I am trapped in this cycle of going to the office and then recovering at home. My lungs have still not healed. If I am improving, it's in tiny barely perceptible increments. I did work four days in the office last week, and the one day worked last week from home was a full day, 7 AM to 5 PM. So that's good news. I couldn't have done it in May. Nonetheless I'm growing concerned that my lungs might be permanently damaged.
What's particularly worrisome is that countries are ending lockdowns despite rising rates of infection. The state of Arizona might run out of hospital beds in July. The principal rationale for locking down back in March was that COVID-19 could overwhelm and collapse the health care system. I don't see how that has changed. Furthermore, what about a testing regimen as we emerge from lockdown? Nothing of the sort. It's a tacit admission, at least in the United States, that government is unable to manage the pandemic.
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