well, then

This blog would be remiss if it did not have a post concerning the COVID-19 virus.

Looking back on this blog ten years from now, I would have certainly liked to have read what my own experience of all of this was.

A quick summary - in late December a doctor in Wuhan, China, found a disturbing instance of pneumonia; by January it was being called the Novel Coronavirus and had infected 1000s in that city. By the end of January, China locked down Wuhan and other cities in an effort to slow the spread. Amazingly, they built a number of emergency hospitals in about 10 days.

In February it got a new name, COVID-19, and other countries became infected with the first hotspot outside of China being in South Korea. This cancelled the World Cup Championship of Short Track Speed Skating, which I believe was the first world class sporting event to be cancelled. Soon after, Iran, then Italy also had outbreaks. Subsequently, it spread worldwide and by early March the World Health Organization called it a Pandemic. Depending on the local health care's ability to provide the intensive care to the worst cases of COVID-19, the death rate seems to be between 0.5 and 3%. The low end was in places where virus tests were free and abundant, and that hospitals had the breathing assist apparatus in the numbers required by the infections. The high end was in places where the virus tests were in short supply and where hospitals had greatly insufficient supplies for ICU care.

The known symptoms of this virus are a fever, coughing and also respiratory problems. Most cases are mild with 80% of people not requiring hospital care. It seemed that the virus would run its course, at least in terms of infectiousness, by the 14 day mark.

It started to have an effect here in Quebec at about that time (early March); March 10 or 11, the authorities here said that anyone entering into Quebec from any other nation is to voluntarily self quarantine or self-isolate, for 14 days. If you happen to be a health practitioner, teacher or daycare worker, that 14 day self-isolation was mandatory. Publicly employed persons who had to do this would continue to get paid during this time. For privately employed people who would have to self-isolate, the Quebec government encouraged those companies to show some compassion and pay the employees. The Quebec government is prepared to step in financially if needed.

As of this posting, there are 21 confirmed cases here in Quebec, all of them considered 'travel-related' infection rather than 'community-infected' infection. The former means the person got the virus outside of Quebec and came in with it, the latter means that someone within Quebec infected someone else.

Yesterday, it was announced that all schools, public, private, primary, secondary, CEGEP, University, all of them would be closed for the next two weeks, with the potential for it to be longer. Before this announcement had been made, C-ling's school had already decided to close for those same two weeks, however, they (the school) planned on having an on-line version of the classes during this time through the school's use of Google Classroom. In this way, though the rate of teaching may not be the same as it would have been had they been in school, it does mean that there is a much lower chance of the students having to put in extra days at the end of the school year. For G-bot, the first of the two weeks is his school's March break, so he is technically only missing one week (if the school closure comes to an end).

I went grocery shopping on Thursday evening and I had never seen so many people at the store as there was. For me it was just a normal grocery run, but others had baskets full of food and other supplies. On the news they talked about this happening all over the province, and in other jurisdictions too. The supply chain for almost all of what is in these grocery stores is not, for the moment, being interrupted, so there is no reason to be hoarding. With respect to 14 day self-isolations, most grocery stores do food delivery now, so the order can be delivered and just left outside the door. There is also quite a lot of talk about anxiety about this getting out of hand. If we are all sensible about this, and take things one day at a time, I think we should be able to pull through this.

With respect to work, the CEO of my company encouraged us to work from home; this is inline with what the provincial government is asking us to do. The whole reason for increasing the amount of social-distancing, or social-isolation, is to do what is called flattening the curve. If a hot-spot outbreak were to occur where hundreds or thousands of people get infected all together, this would overwhelm the already at-or-exceeding capacity hospital's ability to care for all of them. By reducing the opportunity for the virus to spread using social-distancing, it means that the rate of infection would be much lower, and that at any given time, the number of infected individuals remains within a manageable threshold.

Given this idea of social-distancing, the government has decreed that any gathering of 250+ people is to be cancelled or postponed. Globally, this policy (though the threshold number has varied) has also been applied. The NBA, NHL, MLB, F1, Nascar, March Madness, and many other sporting leagues or events have all been suspended, cancelled or postponed.

I had bought tickets for V-8 and I to go to the Olympic Stadium to watch a pre-season MLB game between the Yankees and the Bluejays - yesterday I received an email from the ticketing agency saying that my ticket would be refunded.

I had paid for a cabin on the Cruise To The Edge that was to take place starting March 27. CTTE successfully negotiated with NCL that this cruise would still take place, all that I paid would still be honoured, and the cruise is to be rescheduled for either the fall of this year or as late as the spring next year.

I had volunteered to be a Field-Reset person at the Festival de Robotique that was to take place April 9-11 at the Olympic Stadium; this has been postponed to May 27-30.

Today I came in to work to catch up a bit on the course I am preparing and I was going to go to the gym; however, the YMCA has also closed for the same duration that the schools are closed. I had also planned to go see a couple of movies (Knives Out and The Invisible Man) and at least for today, it seems, the cinema is still open.

This week the kids are with my ex and so I can come to work; I've decided that tomorrow I'll take a night bus in, in the morning, so that I am very much socially isolated from any other transit taking people, and then I'll come home in the early afternoon, at a time of day that transit users are lower compared to the rush hour.