CoViD-19 and I

I've missed two days, and have an excuse for one of them. On Wednesday afternoon my second son came home, and I realised that I had been a little bit anxious. I hadn't seriously doubted that he would be all right in the end, but the way home might have been difficult. In the end it was easy; the aircraft had plenty of empty seats and even the baggage claim was not crowded. His suitcases were also heavy, especially as his roommate had departed in a great hurry and left some things behind. There was some hand sanitiser and a box of disinfectant wipes left in his room (?), and he had the sense to bring them home. First son cooked a celebratory salmon for us while I finished work. We stayed up some time after that, while his brother related what a stressful week it had been. The numbers from China aren't final (nothing is), but they report no new infections, a total of nearly 81,000, and over 3,200 deaths, with 70,000 recoveries. That ratio is not reassuring, especially f...

This morning I went southwards, rather than northwards, for my morning walk. I saw about five other people, most of whom were walking without dogs, and a few cars. Then came stretching exercises, which I think are important at my age, and best done with muscles that have warmed up. I also do some push-ups; not very many, because I can't do very many, but working on that. Even with exercise, I don't have a colossal appetite for breakfast. So get down to work. New guidance from my employer on working at home suggests dressing as if to go the office --- nonsense, say I -- and actually turning the video feed on during meetings so that we can see each other's ugly faces, which I agree with. Much though I'd rather see beautiful or handsome faces, it does me good to see and hear that the people I've spent so much time with are still there and still human; to gossip a bit. The one who was the undisputed clown of the team has, unfortunately, been shifted to another project...

I've heard back from my other neighbour that they are doing all right. This has been a relatively normal (by recent standards) working day. The announcement of the the Bay Area's "shelter in place" reached me about 15:00. It seems fairly sensible, or perhaps just bows to reality. People can still go jogging, just not in groups. The boys have moved their flight dates up. Let's be glad that there are so many vacant seats! Discussed with my wife whether we should ask the boys to take extra precautions when they get here. They've been widely exposed over the past week, to a population that has a low rate of infection so far. Read some proposals that seem to make sense. Since people are going to have to stay at home, make some great entertainment available online or even (gasp) on TV. Stage some NBA games or something, using players who have tested negative. I hear that the Berlin Phil has made its catalog available, no paywall. Guarantee treatment to medic...

Last night I read several more chapters of World War Z  and it was none too easy to fall asleep. This morning I went to the Farmers' Market, arriving shortly after it opened, and found roughly the normal crowd of both vendors and customers. Most wore no protective gear; the vendors, in any case, come largely from less affected parts of the state. I wore gloves while making purchases, but not for any reason I had thought through. I was careful to buy no more than I expected to eat over the coming week. If other people were hoarding, I didn't see it. Most of what is sold here is perishable, but can last weeks in the fridge. The Sunday Assembly held a team meeting by video, for the first time. That part went smoothly after the first ten minutes or so of people getting used to the app. No-one had trouble installing it -- ten years ago would have been different. We took it for granted that an indoor Assembly for next month was off the table, and mulled whether to hold an outdoor...

It's now a full week since I stopped commuting. I have no cough. We are short on thermometers, and certainly not desperate enough to try and buy one (imagine how many are left!), but I expect I was not infected at work. Yesterday my wife and I discussed the tactics we'll use once the boys get home. The main thing is to wash hands carefully when re-entering the house. Within the house, we'll use ordinary hygiene, plus washing hands for every meal (which was our routine when the boys were young), until or unless someone shows symptoms. I've contacted my neighbours, who are elderly, and asked them to get in touch if they need anything brought to them. Speaking of which, we have a tradition of eating out on Saturday afternoon; today, we shall bring food home from a local restaurant. I assume that they go to some lengths to keep the food safe anyway, but it is much harder to keep tables and counters free of virus. I've found out the  reasoning  behind the UK governme...

In the beginning, the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people angry and been widely regarded as a Bad Move. - Douglas Adams The only way to cope with something deadly serious is to try to treat it a little lightly. - Madeleine L'Engle (or earlier The first kick I was given towards treating CoViD-19 as deadly serious came from  Liz Specht , to whom I was referred by  Marginal Revolution . (If you're at all like me, you will love MR.) People who work with me at RSS also posted links to some articles, including epidemiology and information about how long the virus survives on various surfaces. A key fact caught my eye: one of the most effective means China found to slow the epidemic was to shut public transport down. (They can do that in China, just by saying so.) Since I was commuting by train and bicycle, this made it clear that simply getting to work was putting me at risk. Being at work wasn't great, but it seemed bearable. There are surfaces everyone...

My older son, a History major, has decided to keep a journal, because undoubtedly history is being made. This pandemic is much worse than SARS or MERS, both of which stayed safely confined to countries I had never visited. While I hesitate to say that it is worse than Ebola, because the latter is far more lethal, it has spread wider and touched the lives of far more people. So I'm starting to keep a journal too. I wonder what it will turn into. You all know how we heard about a novel coronavirus in Wuhan, the stringent quarantines imposed by the Chinese government, and its early spread outside China.  About the only good I can see in that is that the graphs showed the true meaning of the word "exponentially", which has been widely misused over the past few years to describe anything unusually rapid. You all know how the Chinese made the virus' genetic code available and statistics about its spread; you have read the analyses about the difference between the number o...