Life in the Age of Corona

A Daily Diary

Tuedsay, May 5th, 2020

Beer Waza

A bit of a sad day today – at least as far as the weather is concerned. Grey and cold, which does not improve my mood generally. Since I spend almost the entire day on calls though it is just as well that there was no sunshine, so no regrets of not having been able to go on my daily walk at noon. But exercise we must, so caught up on my walk late afternoon. And instead of walking with EM, actually meet someone for a socially distanced walk in Little Falls Park. It was astonishingly busy, but a nice long walk. Despite the people some deer meandered along the Capital Crescent trail. 

And then the Aikidoka are having a beer waza in the evening which today will be preceded by some actual exercise and some weapons work. Given to all the other days so far this makes for an almost hectic social schedule!

Apparently, France has traced the first Covid-19 infection back to December 27th, 2020 which changes things completely. It means it is absolutely feasible for people to have had the virus in January already.I am beginning to have increasing doubts about the quality or rather reliability of antibody tests now. And my, would it not be nice to have unknowingly gone through the whole thing; even if it does not translate into long term immunization, which is something scientist have as yet to establish. Here is hoping that

a) I am done and

b) there is a lasting immunization given how the situation is evolving in this part of the world.

Based on surveys conducted up to 80% of the population fully support social distancing and would rather the economy stays closed. At least the majority of the population seems to have more sense than the leadership  which is planning to disbanding the Corona task force while numbers continue to rise and as death in the USA exceed 71k, accounting for one quarter of all dead. 

There are 3.6 million known cases today with a constant increase of 21k per day in the US. So at least there is a constant increase rather than an exponential increase.

Yesterday the world has come together and jointly pledged over $8bn (£6.5bn) to help develop a vaccine and fund research into treatments. The noteworthy thing is, that countries not only jointly fund research and commit to share results, but also pledge to provide access to potential medication across the globe so that poor countries can enjoy equal access with wealthy countries. Sadly the US abstained. Does that mean, if a vaccine was successfully developed through this joined effort, the US would be last in line to get access? In which case, I may be very lucky to also be German as I could then be immunized by my doctors there. In the midst of all the corona coverage other disease tend to be forgotten.

In the good news department: A disease human kind has been trying to eradicate for over a century is Malaria. Research results give rise to hope that Malaria might be completely stopped by microbe.

Now that would be truly amazing.