Tag: covid19

Changes from the last day or so:

• Australia and New Zealand have closed their borders
• China reports no new domestic cases
• Italy's fatality count surpasses China's
• For the first day in quite some time (at least it feels that way) the stock market stayed relatively stable throughout the day. The DJIA closed up 0.95% rather than the 5+% swings we've been seeing.

Overall today has been a calmer day. Fewer dramatic events in the news. Hopefully the situation essentially stabilizes (at least in terms of sweeping changes, the case count is going to keep climbing quite rapidly as testing rolls out).

The daughter of some of our friends is symptomatic, but won't receive a COVID-19 test because there aren't enough tests so she doesn't meet the strict testing criteria (known contact with a positively-tested patient, dangerously symptomatic with no other known cause, or symptomatic and in high-risk group). It may just be a cold or the flu, or a million other things, but without testing one doesn't know--which is stressful to their family. Jess, Heather, and Corinne interacted with them at the library last Thursday, so it's also a tiny bit stressful for us.

I'm trying to keep a consistent routine to provide some structure to my own days. My alarm still goes off at 7. I get up and eat breakfast then take a shower and get dressed. I check in on work and take care of anything that my team is waiting on from me to keep them moving. Then I take a walk.

Since I'm not driving in to work I don't have commute time to keep up with the two daily podcasts I listen to. So a walk gives me a chance to stretch my legs, get out of the house, and catch up on podcasts. Then it's back to work until lunch. After lunch is more work until the end of the day.

Once I'm "home" it's time to try to help entertain Heather and Corinne and figure out dinner. Dinner and bedtime for the girls. Then a couple of hours of reading, TV, or games mixed with some time on the stationary bike or some sit-ups/pushups/other exercise.

I ran across this meme yesterday which describes my life well:

Aside from working from my closet and going for a walk my daily routine is pretty much the same.

Yesterday's post covered "flattening the curve." The action to reach this goal is "social distancing." Minimize physical interactions as much as possible. If you can't avoid people, keep a 6-foot minimum distance. In practice this means when I go out for a walk and meet someone coming the opposite direction on the sidewalk one of us steps out into the street so we can pass by each other without getting too close. It's....odd.

Back on March 3 (2 days before the Lab announcement about a presumed case on site) we had my friend Thomas over for an evening. We played the board game Pandemic. We lost. Badly. I'm not taking that as a sign on how things are going in reality.

And what's a pandemic without a little stress eating. We have cake from Corinne's birthday, of course. Last week I made brownies. For Pi Day I made a cream-cheese pie, and last night I made brownie pudding.

And now for something less exhausting. I decided I'll try to take one picture during each of my daily walks that brings some calm. Today's entry is this fairy house on our neighbor's tree:

In the last day or so:

• Kansas closed schools for the rest of the academic year.
• California Governor says CA schools are likely to be closed until the Fall.
• U.S./Canada border is closed.
• European Union borders are closed.
• Federal Government now advising that this will likely last into the summer.
• The Navy is deploying their hospital ships to the east and west coasts.
• The military is preparing to deploy field hospitals and has released some emergency-stockpile medical supplies.
• At least 7 more CA counties (Yuba, Yolo, Napa, Solano, Sutter, Mendocino, & Santa Cruz) joined the shelter-at-home directive, I'm having a hard time tracking them all.
• The U.K. announced schools will be closing at the end of the week.
• Congress has passed its 2nd crisis-relief bill.
• Trump has invoked the Defense Production Act giving the federal government the authority to force companies to act as instructed to ensure the production of critical goods and services.

We picked up school packets for Heather to work on. They were arranged outside under the awning. Jess picked one up yesterday morning, in the afternoon a rare thunderstorm rolled through and dumped hail and rain. Presumably they got everything inside before that happened. (I took this picture today on my exercise walk.)

We'll need to start trying to create some kind of daily/weekly schedules for the girls so there's a modicum of structure and expectations. Having every day be a free for all is just too draining.

We celebrated Corinne's birthday yesterday (I'll put up a separate post with details). She isn't really aware of the gravity of the world's happenings, so she just had a great day. What could be better than opening presents after lunch and eating cake after dinner?

The stock market continues to free fall. Losing all gains since the end of 2016. There have now been 4 days within 2 weeks where the 7%-drop "circuit-breakers" kicked in to pause trading.

Alameda county is now reporting 31 confirmed cases. Which follows the curve of doubling every 2-2.5 days despite the isolation measures. Which is probably mostly due to finally testing people that have been infected for days already rather than a reflection of new cases.

The new national mantra is "flatten the curve." Which is describing the curve of the graph of infections vs time and the goal of preventing it from spiking (which would overwhelm medical infrastructure) and instead to keep the infection rate to a dull roar that can be managed effectively.

All of this and there are still people who think it's nothing and they shouldn't have to inconvenience themselves by staying home.

This will be my office for the next 3 weeks (or much, much longer):

Cobbled together from spare equipment kicking around the house, with a 50-foot ethernet cable because the Wi-Fi signal in my closet is spotty. This is why nerds can't get rid of extra electronics, we might need it!

I took a break from work to have lunch. Catching up on the news I see Canada has closed its borders, Spain has nationalized its hospitals, and Alameda County (where we live) along with 5 other counties in the SF Bay Area have been placed on lockdown for 3 weeks. "The order limits activity, travel and business functions to only the most essential needs."

The order defines essential activities as necessary for the health and safety for individuals and their families. Essential businesses allowed to operate during the recommended action include health care operations; businesses that provide food, shelter, and social services, and other necessities of life for economically disadvantaged or otherwise needy individuals; fresh and nonperishable food retailers (including convenience stores); pharmacies; child care facilities; gas stations; banks; laundry businesses and services necessary for maintaining the safety, sanitation and essential operation of a residence. In addition, health care, law and safety, and essential government functions will continue under the recommended action.

From the Press Release

From the text of the order (https://blog.serindu.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/health-officer-order-shelter-in-place-20200316.pdf):

• "All public and private gatherings of any number of people occurring outside a household or living unit are prohibited, except for the limited purposes as expressly permitted in Section 10."
• "All travel, including, but not limited to, travel on foot, bicycle, scooter, motorcycle, automobile, or public transit, except Essential Travel and Essential Activities as defined below in Section 10, is prohibited."
• "...the Health Officer requests that the Sheriff and all chiefs of police in the County ensure compliance with and enforce this Order. The violation of any provision of this Order constitutes an imminent threat to public health."

Not helping my stress levels.

I'm not writing this because I have anything particularly interesting to say to the wide world today, but perhaps someone in the future will find it interesting to hear my first-hand account of these days.

I try to maintain at least a basic awareness of world events, so likely the first time I heard about this new respiratory illness spreading through China was from this NPR article: "CDC To Screen For New Strain Of Coronavirus At 3 U.S. Airports" - Jan 10, 2020.

That article contains statements such as, "Chinese authorities say the virus does not transmit easily between people.", "It's a serious-enough infection, but not like SARS or MERS", and "Frieman says his concern level for this outbreak is 4 out of 10. Signs point to an infection that's not very lethal and doesn't spread easily between people."

Meanwhile, we were in the middle of impeaching/trying Trump, Australia was on fire, Hong Kong had been protesting for democracy, and the world was still dealing with a massive refugee crisis. Not to mention Trump had just had an Iranian general assassinated, Iran accidentally shot down a passenger jet, and it looked like war could break out at any time. And the Democratic Primary for this year's presidential election was in full swing. A new "flu" in China that wasn't very contagious or dangerous didn't have a large impact.

News stories started popping up more often over the coming weeks, but it still was a side-issue. Probably not going to affect my life. Nothing to worry about.

I probably started actually paying attention on March 5 (Thursday) when the Lab sent out an email that an employee had been sent home with a presumptive case of COVID-19 (pending testing). The Lab closed that building for cleaning and sent home 23 other employees who had been in contact with the person. They began advising those who could work from home to do so. Two of my team members chose to work from home the the rest of Thursday and all day Friday.

There was still the question of whether that was an overreaction or not. But the Lab has epidemiologists, virologists, micro-biologists, physicians, etc. on staff. They presumably knew better than other companies about an appropriate response. So I started paying attention.

Work strongly encouraged working from home and began processing mass approvals for property passes (to take computer equipment off-site) and VPN access.

I worked from home the next week (starting Monday March 9). On Wednesday (March 11) I went to volunteer at Mathcounts after school, as regularly scheduled. That evening the school system cancelled all extracurricular activities. On Friday (March 13) they cancelled school for the next 4 weeks (the 4th week was already Spring Break).

Every day the news was filled with the continuing collapse of the stock market; how many new cases and deaths were cropping up around the country and world; and what countries were shutting borders, closing restaurants, quarantining provinces, etc. It was a week that felt like a month.

We watched as the exponential growth curves started exploding around the world and more personally around California--cases doubling every 2-3 days. At the beginning of the week Alameda County had 2 known cases from travelers that had been quarantined. The wife of one of those cases caught it and 2 became 3. Alameda County was stable for days, but by the end of the week it was 9 and this morning (March 16) it's 18. And we know these numbers are low because there aren't enough test kits available to test everyone that should be.

South Korea is performing ~20,000 tests a day. The U.S. is hoping to reach 4,000/day by the end of this week. We're woefully behind on gathering the needed knowledge to respond properly. So the only real choice is to shut down everything that can be; which is probably what the missing data would say to do anyways.

Oh, and that's all ignoring the part where panic buying cleared out stores of all rice, pasta, toilet paper, frozen foods, beans, canned goods. It really doesn't help that every part of this is exactly how the post-apocalyptic stories all start. We know that's not the situation we're really in, but people internalize the fear of those stories and act on it in reality.

For me, it's mainly been a constant, low-level, background anxiety which makes it difficult to concentrate on tasks, enjoy entertainment designed to distract, or sleep particularly soundly. I've been trying to cope via daily walks, riding the exercise bike, and other exercise to try and burn off some stress.

We know the worst is still to come. We're way behind on testing and we really don't know what the situation is going to look like in one or two more weeks. If people take the social distancing protocols seriously we may be able to manage the tide; if they don't we're probably going to see the healthcare system be overwhelmed. But we just don't know.

And if everything goes perfectly from here on out we'll still be looking at a major economic catastrophe at the other end of the medical catastrophe. Yesterday (Sunday, March 15) the Federal Reserve did an emergency rate cut. The new target for the federal funds rate is 0.0-0.25%. They also announced $600 billion in quantitative easing. These were essentially their last-resort options during the 2008 financial crisis. On that news the stockmarkets promptly dropped 10%. We have a long way to go with this and the Fed is basically out of options to respond.

It's been 10 days and it feels like it's been 6 months. 2020 is going to be a very long year.