Just wanted to do a post about the biggest news of the year, maybe even for the past decade — Coronavirus! Not going to add much, but just wanted to document a list of recent happenings. Someday (probably not for awhile!) it will be interesting to remember the start of 2020.
- The virus started in Wuhan, China back in December. China (of course) tried to keep it on the down-low, and that only helped for it to spread quickly and wide. One main doctor there who tried to get the news out was shut down. Now he’s dead from the virus. And also now China is saying it’s “racist” to say it started there. -face palm-
- The virus cases the disease, COVID-19
- Most that have died are the elderly, not younger children or people who are moderately healthy. They say those 60 and older should really watch out.
- SO MANY cancellations: major tech conferences over the past couple weeks, now cities are shutting down public gatherings for large groups of people. Keep hearing “out of an abundance of caution…”
- Universities like Harvard and Princeton are closing their classes, also telling students to not come back after spring break
- Big companies like Twitter, Google, Microsoft, others are telling their people (those who can) to work from home. Twitter’s telling ALL their workers.
- Stock Market is absolutely TANKING the past few weeks. My Robinhood account is crying.
- Travel companies like the airlines and cruise ship lines are majorly hurting
- People are buying up ALL the toilet paper… WHY?! Of course cleaning supplies like Lysol and wipes are selling out rapidly.
- Even new movie releases are getting postponed… It’s almost unimaginable how much money is being “lost” due to this thing.
- One upside, emissions are down and cities (like Beijing) have clean air finally
- New mantra: Cancel Everything!
As of just yesterday (3/11):
- Tom Hanks and wife have contracted it
- President Trump closed off flights from lots of EU countries
- The NBA will suspend their season (no March Madness)
- Capital closing off to visitors (Capital building in Jeff City did the same… protect the precious congresspeoples!)
As of today (3/12):
- NHL, MLB, Major League Soccer will also suspend now
- Disney’s sites closing this weekend, for a month or so
Here’s the advice:
- Wash your hands with soap
- Use hand sanitizer
- Don’t touch your face
- People who think they’re sick should self-isolate/self-quarantine, at least for two weeks
- We’re not supposed to shake hands… I’m fine with that
- Maintain social distancing… Also more than totally cool with that!
One great positive from all this, it’s a major boon for working from home!! At the office we had already started a WFH ‘program’ in the past couple months, and it’s looking like it will expand pretty quickly. Awesome!
Added in later days:
- 3/13 Biggest church in town cancelling services this weekend
- 3/14 Our church cancelled Sunday services (but will have online service to watch Sunday morning, nice!)
- US trying to “flatten the curve” of the coronavirus outbreak (isolation slows down the outbreak so hospitals can keep up)
- Pro: Everybody’s working from home (WFH) now, which is awesome!
- Pro: Many more thousands of people are seeing how “homeschool” works… some will hopefully think long and hard about taking this on full-time, many will see just see it as too hard for getting along with their kids. 🙁
- 3/17 Kansas is killing off kids’ school for rest of year
- Hollywood is basically shutting down (boo hoo), movie production is off, live audiences for shows a no-go, movie releases are being delayed, movie theatres are staying closed. It’s too bad this affects real people and real jobs, but will greatly show us how much we don’t really need Hollywood at all.
3/21: Been a week of social distancing/WFH/not going anywhere really…. and I gotta say, I love it! This is an introverts dream! Being told by the gov’t, work, new media, etc to Stay At Home is awesome! Look, I realize that there’s bad stuff going around and many people’s lives are getting up-ended in a bad way, some are losing income and even their jobs, a few (extremely few compared to the total population) are getting COVID-19 and some have died. I really don’t appreciate the politicians who are cranking this up and creating fear with the lockdowns and closing businesses, and saying it could go on for months (it’s almost like they /want/ to cause panic). My thoughts and prayers are for the people of the U.S. and the world for healing and patience through these troubling times.
But… it’s been great working from home this week! My team still has our daily huddle, we are all still getting our jobs done, we are still collaborating via Slack and Zoom…. WFH WORKS!! When we get to the other side of these present troubles, I bet there are many (not just where I work but across the country/world) who will want to keep this going (not 100%, I know, but maybe like 20-50%??). My kids: Also I have at least a couple college kids who are home (might get the third one home too) and I love seeing them more! I’m sure they aren’t liking the social isolation but it’s been great having them around to talk to more than usual. My church: Last week they recorded the sermon and we got to watch it here at home, and tomorrow we will get to do the same and also have communion time, and our morning class is going to meet over Zoom! We can still be a church family, even as we have more time with just our own families.
What I am wanting to learn in the weeks ahead is what are the beneficial societal impacts of all this social isolating, and the news media has not attempted to address this yet:
- What’s the nation’s murder rate? Suicide rate? I’d /have/ to think that those are going way down… less people are out and about (at all hours of the day and night) and everyone is spending more time at home as families. Of course, more time for people who are alone and suffer depression might have a factor, guess we’ll see.
- What will kids feel like about going back to school after all this time at home? Sure there those that love being in school, but that can’t be the majority, right? Will at least some kids see that they can “do” school while in the comfort of their own home? And home schooling in general, will there be a rise in families who pull their kids from public school?
- Less travel, less pollution: What do the freeways look like in major cities right now, esp. California? What do cities smog levels look like? We know Beijing’s air really cleared up at the height of their pandemic. Also, how much are people saving because they’re not commuting, not going to the store as much, not taking their kids to sports, etc.
- Theft, other crimes: Are these incidents going up, going down, staying the same? Drunk driving? Vehicle accidents in general?
That’s about all I can think of at the moment… might be adding some items later. This article by Matt Walsh (https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh-lets-stay-self-quarantined-forever) is also dead-on at the present. It’s good to question how our society is built, and unfortunate as it is because of the circumstances, this can all turn out for our betterment.
3/23 It all puts new meaning on Bette Midler’s From A Distance… “God is watching us… from a distance”! insert :rolling_on_the_floor_laughing: emoji 🙂
3/31 Many have lost jobs so far in the past two weeks (“Reduction In Force”), some are doing pay cuts, which became a little more poignant today. Still, for those what are just facing a Reduction In Pay, it’s better than that alternative.
4/2 Passed over 1,000,000 COVID-19 cases worldwide today sigh And this is only the beginning:
4/5 – It’s weird when you watch TV and see people all together in restaurants or at parties or stores, or see people hug, or shake hands (without then using sanitizer)…
4/9 – 17 million people in the US have applied for unemployment just in the past three weeks! And this whole shutdown is being predicted for weeks to come…
4/11 – Tired of all this getting called “home quarantine”… it’s not, that’s for people who have been sick or in a (possibly) exposed situation. THIS is a “government-issued stay-at-home order”, big difference. Also, quit calling it “homeschooling”, it’s more “Gov’t Sponsored Teaching-from-Home”, or “Emergency Remote Teaching”… there’s a big difference!
4/13 – Matt Walsh @MattWalshBlog: “This is house arrest. Not quarantine. Quarantine is for sick people or people who are known to have been exposed to a contagion. Locking healthy people in their homes, even if you have no reason to think they’ve been exposed, is by definition something other than a quarantine.”
4/20 – Amazing! “May delivery for the U.S. benchmark crude, West Texas Intermediate, sank to a new low of minus $37.63 a barrel by the close of the oil market Monday, a staggering level that essentially means producers would be paying buyers to take oil off their hands.” They can’t find enough places to store all the oil!
4/22 – I think we rode out that ‘curve’ here in MO about a week and a half ago:
4/30 – Over 30million (1/5 of the US working force!) have applied for unemployment in past month or so. Missouri to lift stay-at-home order this coming Monday (yes!). And funny logos:
And most appropriate:
6/19 – Okay, last update on this stupidly overlong ‘pandemic’…
-Still working from home pretty much full-time, only sharing going in each week with others in my group.
-The WHO might be full of smart scientist-y people but now they say they told people early on that masks did NOT work… just so people wouldn’t rush out and buy up all the masks that the health professionals needed. I understand (kind of) the logic, but they basically LIED to the public and then we’re supposed to trust them going forward? Fat chance.
-Our state and county have opened back up for businesses, but our city is still being restrictive (ugh)
-Protesting early on was poo-poo’ed because they said it would cause another surge in COVID cases…. Then the whole Black Lives Matter thing happened and suddenly it’s “just fine to protest… because it’s for a /good/ cause”. Brother.
-Vaccines are still many months, even years, away from being readily available. If they ever come up with effective ones, that is.
It’s time to get back to normal, the old normal. Yes, with people wearing masks when around others, and keeping hands clean and all. But a lot of things got overblown in the past few months. Yes, there will be another ‘surge’ in COVID cases as people get back out there. But really, EVERYone is going to be exposed at some point. We’ll deal with it.