Day 43. Saturday. Stable, not out of danger.
Yes, I've been lazy about this blog. On Thursday I got back on my bike for a short ride; that night I slept badly (which often happens when warm weather begins) and so took only a short walk on Friday.
The rates of new infections and deaths seem quite stable in the UK and USA, but in California both are climbing; reverting to towards the nationwide mean, though I'm not sure by what mechanism. The increase in deaths is odd, because the hospital statistics are not growing. Perhaps deaths in care homes are being counted better? That will be a material change in the near future: elderly people will be much more afraid of living in such crowded conditions. However, I remind you who don't have an old demented mother that if you ever do, she will also be at considerable risk in any setting where she can't be constantly watched over. My aunt was once found wandering along the street where she lived, in quite cold weather and not warmly dressed, unable to remember which front door was hers.
I and mine have adjusted quite well to life under lockdown, but for more extroverted people (including, to some degree, my wife), it must be hard. For people whose jobs have vanished, it must be a great deal harder, which is why keeping those graphs stable is not enough. Medical staffs are not overwhelmed by a rising tide of cases, but neither is their workload going back to normal, and indeed it will rise as soon as even a few normal activities are resumed. Any easing of the pandemic that we could have expected once all the super spreaders and their friends had been infected must be long past by now, so either they are still super spreading and making new friends (all too possible), or the virus is spreading by means of its own.
There is no agreement (that I've seen) on what we can deduce from the discoveries of early cases in the USA. I haven't heard any information about other illnesses and deaths back then being attributed to CoViD-19 in retrospect. The obvious conclusion is that such patients must have spread the virus, and in the first case also must have contracted it from someone near here who already had it and was spreading it, but there should have been quite a number of cases that would have been noticed by alert doctors as not just seasonal flu. After all, Li Wenliang noticed, and he had had nothing to alert him. So did all those cases have only mild symptoms? or take a very long time to incubate? More questions, few answers.
One piece of good news (not just from the White House, and so I credit it enough to repeat it here) is the UV light seems to reduce airborne infection, but that can apply only out of doors. It won't make going back to an office or factory or shop or restaurant any safer. In this area at least, it may make various kinds of outdoor work easier.
We're still working on holding the Sunday Assembly California and on building up experience of how to do these things online. That part frankly feels good, working on a team of bright, informed, co-operative people with a common goal.
The rates of new infections and deaths seem quite stable in the UK and USA, but in California both are climbing; reverting to towards the nationwide mean, though I'm not sure by what mechanism. The increase in deaths is odd, because the hospital statistics are not growing. Perhaps deaths in care homes are being counted better? That will be a material change in the near future: elderly people will be much more afraid of living in such crowded conditions. However, I remind you who don't have an old demented mother that if you ever do, she will also be at considerable risk in any setting where she can't be constantly watched over. My aunt was once found wandering along the street where she lived, in quite cold weather and not warmly dressed, unable to remember which front door was hers.
I and mine have adjusted quite well to life under lockdown, but for more extroverted people (including, to some degree, my wife), it must be hard. For people whose jobs have vanished, it must be a great deal harder, which is why keeping those graphs stable is not enough. Medical staffs are not overwhelmed by a rising tide of cases, but neither is their workload going back to normal, and indeed it will rise as soon as even a few normal activities are resumed. Any easing of the pandemic that we could have expected once all the super spreaders and their friends had been infected must be long past by now, so either they are still super spreading and making new friends (all too possible), or the virus is spreading by means of its own.
There is no agreement (that I've seen) on what we can deduce from the discoveries of early cases in the USA. I haven't heard any information about other illnesses and deaths back then being attributed to CoViD-19 in retrospect. The obvious conclusion is that such patients must have spread the virus, and in the first case also must have contracted it from someone near here who already had it and was spreading it, but there should have been quite a number of cases that would have been noticed by alert doctors as not just seasonal flu. After all, Li Wenliang noticed, and he had had nothing to alert him. So did all those cases have only mild symptoms? or take a very long time to incubate? More questions, few answers.
One piece of good news (not just from the White House, and so I credit it enough to repeat it here) is the UV light seems to reduce airborne infection, but that can apply only out of doors. It won't make going back to an office or factory or shop or restaurant any safer. In this area at least, it may make various kinds of outdoor work easier.
We're still working on holding the Sunday Assembly California and on building up experience of how to do these things online. That part frankly feels good, working on a team of bright, informed, co-operative people with a common goal.
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