Life in the Age of Corona

A Daily Diary

Monday, October 26th, 2020

Virtual Conference

Today was my first half day virtual conference experience. All the other events I have joined to date were webinars or short two-hour slots at conferences. I was admittedly hugely impressed at the effort of the organizers and the user experience. I am full of admiration for the team and would love to understand the underlying technology as it was not just a series of zoom sessions.

Just like an in-person conference one first enters a lobby which provides directions. All sessions are held in the auditorium with chats reminding participants when the next discussion or pitch is about to start, Like at a life conference some sessions were live streamed in parallel, however, because they are now recorded one does not actually have to make choices, but can stream any missed panels on demand at ones leisure. The event also featured breaks for networking, either by visiting one of the exhibitor booths or arranging meetings via the attendee list and a chat function.

The visuals are super cool, giving the impression of a proper lobby or exhibitors booth. The upside of the virtual format is the ability to post questions in real time in the chat which are relayed to the moderator, so there is far more time to have participants’ questions answered. Not all events are live, some sessions have been prerecorded, but they were equally fun to watch. Certainly, I did not OD on Zoom.

The afternoon was sadly rather unproductive, more focused on teeing up loose ends before heading to the pool. In the evening the sun broke through for a short spell, so I went to ask EM if she was up for a walk around the Hood to check out the Halloween decorations just to find her almost in tears. She had a hard time focusing on work saying a million things were racing through her mind. She could not even deal with her favorite task – painting. So, I send her of to decompress a bit with one of her friends for a few hours. I have also promised to help fill in on the website again, so she can get that of her plate.

She is co-stressed about college applications. All the Americans are going mad doing this. I feel she is ahead of the curve as she has completed one application already and has a list of universities she may want to attend. The fact that the BF is not interested in a long distance relationship, does not help. I have encouraged her to let it rest until after she has spend time with the career councilors so she has more clarity which courses may be suitable for her. 

I shall reach out to my friend Sandy and ask if she can help EM with her actual applications once there is clarity what EM wants to apply for. We have set aside Thanksgiving weekend to do some of the application work. As to the BF, his university offers exchange programs, some of which are with the Universities she is interested in – if the relationship even lasts that long. I think she is feeling a little better now; I hope.

Today the US reports almost 9 million cases in total, while the world is at 43.2 million. Reported new infections (83k on October 23rd) have come down a little (59k October 25). As the virus continues to rage through the USA the administration has given up any attempt or pretense of attempting to be fighting the pandemic. The Covidiot in chief has decided to just let it run its course and pretend the pandemic is done.The moron in chief has not been to a Corona task force meeting in months and instead of listening to experts has surround himself with scientists who tell him what he wants to hear: pursue herd immunity; never achieved without a vaccine and unlikely to be a successful strategy given the risk of reinfection. And of course those scientists have no experience as virologists. It’s like asking a carpenter do fix your electric wiring because both happen to be handymen.

Accordingly, the atmosphere at the department of health is toxic for professional staff. Turns out that the political appointees are preparing to leave in droves as they fear the Moron’s re-election bid may fail. Good riddance, maybe then at least the scientist can do their work uninterrupted and provide the public with precise information in a timely manner and without the WH manipulating messages.

The more I read of and by him the more I admire Bill Gates. Below is a powerful excerpt from an interview with him by Policito: It's easy, especially in times like this, to fall victim to the idea that you can't control the world around you. As a result, it doesn't take much to feel like you have little influence over your own future. Except, that's not usually true. The most remarkable thing is that it's not often that difficult to turn things around if you know where to start. In an interview with Politico’s playbook on October 13, Bill Gates reminds us of that simple fact and it's just the message we need to hear this year. Gates was talking specifically about the pandemic--which is important--but the point he makes goes far beyond Covid-19. Gates points out that since a vaccine isn't likely to be widely available until next year, "all we have is our behavior." Specifically, he was referring to behavior that includes social distancing and wearing masks. "All we have is our behavior." That's a pretty powerful reminder that goes against our natural tendency to try and fix our circumstances instead of ourselves. It's a lot easier to blame external factors for the situation we're in, especially when those circumstances have seemed almost entirely outside our control for much of the last seven months. However, changing our situation could be as simple as changing the way we interact.

And that is precisely it, we can control our behavior and if ALL of us wear masks and practice social distancing, we could come a long way in combating the virus and returning to some sort of normalcy. The renewed outbreaks in Europe were predominantly caused by people stopping both of this.

Finally some good news: AstraZeneca has published results of its vaccine trials and it appears to produce an immune response eon both young and old adults.

Hoping we can return to life as we knew it.