Day 16: Saturday. Benign viruses.
This morning I slept in an hour or more, and went for my walk late, so I met a few more people. There were two old ladies who had solved the problem of staying 2 metres apart on a 1.5 metre sidewalk by not using the sidewalk. Since there are effectively no cars about, it becomes safe to walk down the roadway, and they were doing so, side by side but well separated. "Good distancing, I see!" But my lungs must be getting old: they begin to ache even when walking at full speed. Possibly jogging would be a more efficient gait at that speed, but I want to preserve my joints. You've heard of what the medics call "benign tumours", right? They're not actually beneficial, but neither are they malignant: they don't grow much and don't do significant harm. You've also heard that we have huge populations of bacteria in our guts, on our skins, and probably in other parts of our bodies, some of which are beneficial, and many more of which are benign in the