Day ten of Orca in Switzerland – The New Normal

Day ten of Orca in Switzerland – The New Normal

Byrichard

Today I’m getting to grips with the new normal. The new normal is queuing like people did before self-checkout and other technology. We also need to queue to get into shops and you either need to take a trolley or a shopping bag if you want to buy things. No more baskets as they are harder to disinfect and keep clean.


“Pardon me, miss, but you can’t use these trolleys, you need to use those trolleys. This is the column of trolleys that still need to be disinfected.” That’s the scene I saw when I went to the shops around lunchtime. That’s a mistake you only make once during a pandemic.


Normally I go to one shopping centre that I need to get to by scooter rather than by foot, to avoid food being out of the fridge for more than 15 minutes. As pandemic measures have been added I am now considering another shop that is smaller and with a smaller maze when getting into the shop for food.


There is a visible change in the streets and on the motorway. You see that traffic density is decreasing and that the number of people walking are lower. People are settling into a new routine, a new way of life, a new culture. Pandemics do force society to adapt to new cultural norms.



As you see from the Swiss weather app the level of air pollution has gone down as people go from a routine that required a car for almost everything to a routine that no longer requires the car. There is no need to commute to socialise and there is no need to commute for work. Train services have been reduced two or three times as demand declined, and then declined again.


We are going back to a “village” life. We are walking locally and people are discovering the routes that I have walked for two or three years by now. If Google or Strava show a heatmap of walking patterns I am sure that we would see that people are living within a six to ten kilometre radius of home, where leaving the house for walks in the sun is still allowed.


France, England and Spain are forcing people to stay home now, so life in those countries is going to shift in the next three or four days. There is a lag from the moment the restrictions are put in place and the moment when people have no opportunity to flout the rules.


Traffic did not decline in a single day. It took a few days. The motorbike groups that we saw during the first week have stopped and so have the columns of cars. Petrol stations now seem to be quiet. People are driving less, so refueling is less frequent.


I have walked 276km of the 298.8 kilometre walking challenge for this month and I’m tired. I’m happy that the goal is now just 3.1km a day. I can reach it by walking to the food shop, shopping and walking back. when the challenge is finished I will probably revert to using the indoor trainer.


At the start of quarantine, I thought that I would cycle a lot but advisories came out saying that people should avoid activities where they could be injured and I injured myself cycling last spring, so I’d rather avoid the same injury when there is a good chance that the wait in a hospital may be time-consuming.


I was wrong to think that this would be over quickly, and now that I see we are in it for a while I will adapt my goals accordingly. Things I thought I could get away with not doing will now be done. This includes looking for work again more than anything else. My other daily goals are going well. Writing a blog post is consistent, studying German is on day 197. My daily walk is still going and finally listening to podcasts in German is still going.


Quarantine is about developing habits and keeping to them, and then adding new goals as you go, so that despite life being strange (link to the game by that name unintentional) we continue moving forward. Who knows, we might even start to thrive.

Day Nine of Orca in Switzerland – Not Our first Epidemic, but the most severe.

Byrichard

This is not our first epidemic. In the 21st century I saw the actions to spread Foot and Mouth from spreading in South West England. Dartmoor was closed and precautions were taken to protect animals. We also lived through the BSE crisis, i.e. Mad cow disease.


From 2002 we had the SARS outbreak and that was our first taste of a pandemic. During this time we disinfected our desks before every shift and at the end of every shift. We washed our hands and then we disinfected them. We built the habits that we would then keep for life.


In 2007 and from 2013 to 2016 and from 2018 to present we have had Ebola outbreaks. We have also had a number of plague outbreaks.


In 2009 We had the Swine flu Pandemic.


COVID-19 is at least the third such pandemic this century. During SARS we should have picked up all of the habits and protocols that would be required to cope with the current pandemic. What strikes me about this pandemic is that we knew about China for a month or two and we knew about how badly Italy was hit very quickly. In light of this, we not only knew that this strain was virulent, but that it was very close.


Europe might be stabilising. (source )


In theory, everyone should have known the protocols to follow. Avoid big groups, wash your hands, avoid public transport and more. If people had followed the lessons we learned from SARS and Swine Flu then we could have seen the flattening of the graphs two or three weeks ago, rather than now.


When I saw the graph this morning it made me happy for the first time in days. A flattening graph means that people are following appropriate measures to stop the spread, in five European countries, for now. We still have to be very careful.


This channel 4 video explains why this virus is so dangerous and the one below explains how to deal with social isolation. I am currently reading Pandemic by Sonia Shah. It explains R numbers in more detail.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uL5sqe5Uk8


Day Eight of Orca in Switzerland – Herded like Cattle

Day Eight of Orca in Switzerland – Herded like Cattle

Byrichard

Today I was herded like cattle at the shops and walked along the edge of a field I had never walked along before.


At the shops they put tape up, like a maze to force people to walk a certain circuitous route. The circuitous route would be fascinating if the shops were full but they weren’t so it was a hindrance. The issue is not walking. I love walking. The issue is that you get stuck behind people and people then get in closer proximity within the shops. It’s impossible not to with so many blind corners and alleys.


Some of the aisles are still empty. No sauces for those who know how to heat, but not prepare food for example. Sell by dates are long for most product as a result of how fast they are being sold but paradoxically microwave food is not selling fast. I saw that one meal was just two days from being beyond it’s sell-by-date.


At the moment my motivation to go for walks is declining because so many others are doing the same. As so many people are walking it means that it takes a lot of effort, either to slow down and walk at their pace, or conversely just to choose a different route than usual.



Today’s walk took me along the strip of land between the motorway and fields. It’s a strip along which I would usually never walk, due to the possibility of being told not to walk there, the chance of getting muddy shoes, and because I wasn’t familiar with it.


Today I did walk along this path in an attempt to be as far away from those who do not take socially distancing seriously enough. It worked. I saw two men trimming the vegetation you see in this image but no others. Three hundred meters closer to the week you could see groups of people crossing paths.


Washing hands is essential, and staying home is important but going for walks and getting some daylight is important and so is respecting the two-meter rule. If contagion continues, because people don’t follow the rules then the rules will be tightened. Today in Mulhouse they have a curfew from 2100-0600. The less seriously people take measures, the more restrictions will be put on us.


I’m thinking of going to a different shopping center, rather than go through today’s experience again. I think I was shocked. By shocked, I don’t mean surprised. I mean that I had a physiological and psychological response.


Usually, I wouldn’t be this open but I see this series as blogs as a documenting of life during the pandemic. It will be interesting for future historians, i.e. our nieces and nephews to read about how we felt about the experience.

Day Six of Orca in Switzerland – Stricter measures.

Byrichard

Today’ I’d like to discuss stricter measures. Coop and Migros both have online shops set up for home delivery but the system is overloaded by people ordering at the same time. They don’t have the truck fleet or staff to cope with the demand so I suggest a better solution.


Both Digitec and Galaxus allow people to order online and choose which shop they want to pick up their purchases. This idea is relevant today because Migros, Coop and other shops are now forcing people to queue outside shops before being allowed to go in and make their purchases.


Queuing, whilst keeping shops from getting crowded inside, will increase the risk of propagation of the virus outside the shops. People have a tendency not to stand with the minimum of two-meter distance separation. The larger the crowd the longer the queue, and the longer the wait the higher the probability of contagion.


If we could shop online and request distribution from a specific point the time we spend at the shops would be cut down to a minute or two and it would have the added benefit that we would not even need to go into the shop. I don’t want to go to the shops at all if I need to queue but there is no choice.


The system they put in place yesterday will result in more, rather than less hoarding and increase the amount of time people spend in proximity to others.


Vaud has flattened. Source


Having said this the graph for Vaud has flattened but I don’t know whether this is because they ran out of test kits or whether they have failed to update the figures at the time when I wrote this blog post. I hope the worst is over for this Canton.

Day Four of Orca in Switzerland – Exploring the Trail Less Travelled
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Day Four of Orca in Switzerland – Exploring the Trail Less Travelled

Byrichard

Today is Day Four of Orca in Switzerland and I saw that the Canton in which I live has the most active cases of COVID19 so my motivation both to go to shops and to go for walks has taken a hit. At the same time I don’t know whether it’s COVID 19 that is having this effect or the fact that I walked a theoretical 197.2 kilometres since the start of this month for the March Activity challenge.


All I have to do now to complete the challenge is walk 7.8 kilometres a day for the next ten days and I’m done. Easy goal. I’m impatient for this challenge so that I can return to cycling, no matter whether it’s on the indoor trainer or outdoors.


Exploring The Trail Less Travelled.


Today I went off exploring the trail less traveled. I walked towards an Ingress portal and then I took a right turn and walked along a trail. I could have taken the road and crossed a bridge to get to the portal but the muddy path is an excellent option because it keeps me away from people.


The path wasn’t too muddy but I did have to scramble over a tree that had fallen to the ground and avoid slipping on mud. I captured the portal, full deployed and then I went off exploring.


A nice little hidden waterfall just 30 centimeters high.


I love walking along this river because you would never believe that you’re so close to Eysins and Nyon. If you stood quietly you could probably hear both. It’s nice because it’s secluded but it’s also nice because you could imagine children playing by this river on a hot summer’s day.



I walked beyond the waterfall but at this point the path becomes more challenging. I could have gone across and towards Nyon but I chose to go down towards the river. The river, is less full of water than it was a few days ago when the rain was heavy so I could sneak a little further than on previous explorations.


The layers of rock strata, and trees growing up around them


The image above shows a safe bit of cliff but there are moments where you feel that it’s precarious. Erosion is slowly eroding the soil away and trees are falling forward, into the valley. I wouldn’t recommend exploring certain segments on a rainy day.


During the quarantine, the message is to stay away from people. By exploring snickets in forests you achieve this goal easily. No dog walkers, no families on a walk, no one.


Quarantine can be boring, and it can be lonely, especially for those of us living in solitude who still have the fortitude to endure loneliness for society at large. Exploring is a nice way of living in the moment. It’s a way of finding things to write blog posts about, but it’s also something to show others, once solitary people, are once again allowed the company of another human.


Staying Local


During this pandemic, I am trying not to use the car and I use the scooter as little as possible. I try to stay within walking distance for everything. My logic is that by traveling further I would come in contact with more people and I might bring the virus from an infected region to one that was clear of the virus.


At the moment we know which Cantons are affected but we have no idea of whether villages or towns are clean. If we knew that villages or towns were clear of the virus we could go into reverse quarantine. Rather than keeping people isolated, we could keep them insulated. By this, I mean that shops, handshakes, and social life could be restored. Of course, this is unfeasible.


Before I stop writing for today I did see people start to wear masks, and gloves, attempting to isolate themselves from the risk of contagion. I’m still washing my hands, and simply staying home when not on a walk, and washing my hands as soon as I get home.


What is your pandemic footprint. Mine, is just two at this moment in time.

Day One of ORCA in Switzerland

Day One of ORCA in Switzerland

Byrichard

During the weekend I thought that being in self-isolation would be a pleasant and enjoyable experience. The sound of cars is diminished. More people are walking and going for bike rides and the level of pollution could decline for at least a few days or even weeks.


On the flip side I saw that the shops were crowded and that people were panic buying. People are panic buying because they’re afraid that the shops might have to close down if the virus spreads too extensively in Switzerland. This behaviour is irrational because there is no plan to close food shops. Spain, France, and Italy have all decided to keep shops open during the crisis whilst restricting all other activities.


People are afraid without understanding the Corona Virus. In the food shop I saw a number of people all crowding around the same aisles. I saw several groups of people walking in close proximity to each other. All the behaviours that we were told to avoid are not being avoided.


By standing in such close proximity to each other these individuals are precipitating the spread of the virus. The fear that the shops will have to close, is going to occur because they ignored the first rule of self-isolation. Avoid close proximity to others.


Have you ever been sat at a desk and breathed out and seen a piece of paper move as a result? If you have then keep this in mind. The problem with Corona Virus is that it is spread through the air and by touch. This meanss that if you’re within someone’s exhalation airspace you’re running the risk of contamination. It works both ways, so if you want to avoid contaminating others avoid being too close to them. For more information the CDC has a page about the transmission of Corona Virus.


As I walked away from the self-checkout I pulled out my bottle of hand gel and rinsed my hands. I poured a small quantity into the palm of one hand, put the bottle away and then rubbed until the gel was dry. In the last two days I read that this is the proper way to use hand gel. I then drove home and washed my hands as soon as I got home. It’s a shame that I couldn’t get pasta because a packet can last me for weeks. I consume rice at a much higher rate.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgylp3Td1Bw
Switzerland is 9th in the Corona Virus league


One or two weeks ago I thought that by not going to two events I was being overly cautious. I didn’t go because I thought that risking catching the virus was not worth what I would gain at the two events. I even considered sitting in the back, where it would be less likely for someone to cough on me.


Lent


This year when people ask you what you gave up for Lent you’ll be able to say “Social interaction. I went into self-isolation to stop the spread of the Corona Virus. It wasn’t always joyful but at least we’re doing our best to eradicate this strain of the virus.

Outdoor Sports and Pandemics

Byrichard

In theory, pandemics are terrible for your social life because you go from socialising in bars, pubs, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, and cafés to having to stay home like an indoor cat or a fish in an aquarium.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrHkKXFRbCI


For people like me, the thought of not being in crowds of 50 people is not worrying in the least. I love summer sports where we’re never more than 20 or so people anyway. The biggest hit to my social life comes in Autumn and winter when we shift from outdoor sports like cycling, climbing via Ferrata and others to indoor sports like drinking in a crowd and other less vibrant activities.


Events are being canceled left and right. The Geneva traffic jam show (Salon de L’auto, officially) is canceled. Polymanga has been shifted to August, the Giro D’italia is suspended, and more. Schools are out. Office workers are finally allowed to work from home. Pollution levels in China and Italy are going down.


À cela s’ajoute la fermeture des lieux de divertissements (cinémas, théâtres, musées, centres de jeunesse, centres sportifs, centres de fitness, piscines, centres de bien-être, discothèques, pianos-bars, boîtes de nuit, clubs érotiques).

Source


The debate people were having about whether indoor climbing was safe or not is now moot in Switzerland. The answer is “nowhere is open”. It’s going to be an interesting month. I should go out and gather footage with the 360 camera. This is a historic moment. It’s worth documenting.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fqw-9yMV0sI


SARS was a memorable event and COVID19 will be more memorable. I think it’s the first time I’ve lived through a serious pandemic.


Cycling, hiking and other less sociable sports are still possible. In theory, so is swimming in the lake. We can enjoy these sports.

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A Homemade Electric Car – Youtube Video

Byrichard

On one side of the Channel, you have people like Colin Furze building fun machines that have the fatal flaw of having an internal combustion engine. On the other side of the Channel, you have people like Marc Gyver building an electric car with easily bought components. The video below shows the construction process without talking, and without music.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FIznSec7BA


For about 2000 Euros, with bike parts, and the right skills, you can build your own cars. You have four powered bike wheels to power the car, two solar panels on the roof to generate 200W and a charge time of two and a half hours for a range of 20 kilometers and a top speed of 50 km/h. The range is perfect for when you need to do things within a short distance.


Four young people riding the electric car.


Within the video, you see quite a few shots of four people sitting in the car at once. I especially like this because it illustrates that young people are not limited to protests, skipping school and more. With the right skills, they build their own electric car to get around, even if it is on private property where it’s legal.


The project discussed above was uploaded seven months ago and since then he has made a car with a body, indicator lights, a windscreen and more. It looks like the cars you see in old films and cartoons. (Some of the cartoons are old). It is slowly getting closer to being road legal.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Smo1q9MbSg


What I love about these homemade projects is that they show that self-driven cars still have a future. With electric cars, we can still do small journeys without ecologists being mad with us for combusting fossil fuels.


Electric Car Adventures


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4ulkuEIDA8


If we go off on a tangent of electric cars then you have electric cars like the one above. It’s designed so that you get the pleasure of driving a car, but without the internal combustion engine. There is an entirely new niche of projects to be thought up and programs like The Grand Tour and others could play with these devices.


For years I thought that Top Gear, Motortrend TV, and The Grand Tour were outdated and old fashioned, bound for the video archives of culture. With electric bike technology plenty of new opportunities are being created for electric cars, and in the process for our pleasure.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo3JzateMM4


An interview with the creator.


I love this concept. I love the concept of young people, rather than owning conventional cars like my generation have used, owning or renting devices as we see in the video below. Too often we watch news and current affairs programs about environmentalists and the future and we think we’ll be trapped on trains and in buses with no scheduling freedom. With these machines we preserve the freedom that we’ve been used to for years, but with technology that is sustainable.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB_yqSuaEFE
“Where we’re going, we don’t need rails”


The future of exploration is on foot, by bike and for those who want to cover different distances by Swincar. Cycling and walking are great when you’re not in the middle of a heatwave like we’ve experienced for two or three summers. In a heatwave, vehicles like this are nicer. As you’re rolling over earth, grass or stones you’re cooler than if you were on the tarmac. Because you’re outside you have the breeze. I would like to play with one of these.


The Negative side


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zWpyiLOutk


There are a few concerns with these machines. The first is that they still need to be parked somewhere and these take up as much space as a car. The second concern is that these vehicles can go anywhere but this doesn’t mean that they should. If they go on hiking paths, if they go on slopes, on skip pistes, and in other places then they’re going to come in conflict with other users of the same area.


We see a shot where these vehicles are beside horses, but if you have cycled near horses you’ll be told by the rider to make noise so that horses know you are there.


Off-Roading without the Carbon Footprint.


I enjoyed watching Dirt Every Day and programs like it but I never saw myself as ever trying offroading because of the carbon footprint. I’d rather hike, cycle or climb. I am tempted to play with the electric version. No need to worry about planting a forest after each outing.

Banning Traffic from Cornavin

Byrichard

Although this article is two years old La Tribune de Genève wrote again about it and it appeared in my Google Newsfeed. I am not opposed to making cities pedestrian because I love to walk more than I like buses, trains, or other forms of transport.


I actually do like trains. When I lived in London I liked to take the tube everywhere. I wish someone had encouraged me to try cycling in London because I would have used a bike to get everywhere. I already walked instead of using buses.


If the square in front of Cornavin becomes pedestrian then this will be great for when we walk in Geneva because it means that it will no longer be one of the rare places where we really have to stop and wait for the light for pedestrians to turn green. On frequent Geneva walks it’s one of the most frustrating places. I often skipped the lights by going underground through the galleries. I’m sneaky when it comes to such things.


One of my reservations about blocking traffic through Cornavin is that it is one of the rare routes from Vaud towards Place Plainpalais without getting stuck on the Autoroute de Contournement. It will reduce traffic through the centre of Geneva but force a traffic increase on other roads.


I rarely go to the other side of the lake by car because of how terrible traffic is and I’d be even less likely to go to the area around Plainpalais after that route is blocked.


In my opinion, if you want to dissuade people from using cars, and if you want to reduce traffic the best method is to make public transport more appealing. I use the scooter and walk rather than taking the bus because buses are once an hour and the walk is 20 minutes whatever the departure time from my village to Nyon.


If we take the car to Geneva one of the best routes, depending on the time of day, is via Cornavin, and if that route is removed then the time it takes to get into Geneva will be even longer, and so will the time to get out. When I walked around. Geneva’s centre I saw that even more cinemas have been closed down. Only small cinemas remain, and even some of those are closed down.


After spending around three and a half weeks in Geneva I came to the conclusion that I wanted to have the scooter, not because I was too lazy to walk from Paquis to Meyrin or from Paquis to Carouge but because if you’re shopping for food and you want to get things to the fridge within 15 minutes walking speed is sub-optimal. I also believe that shops in the centre of Geneva have a mediocre selection of products and that because of this people are forced to range further, with a car or other form of transport, to avoid exceeding the 15 minute time between shop fridge to home fridge.


If you want to reduce car use you need to make everything available within a 15-minute walk. Beyond fifteen minutes the duration is too long. I don’t trust buses and trams so I used the scooter.


The last time I cycled with shopping I fell and broke my arm so I’m less inclined to do that again. I was using an old bike and I think the brake jammed, but it demonstrated why it might be safer for me to keep using the scooter. I think a cheap bag with side bags would be just as effective.


I went off topic but I think that making squares pedestrian is not enough. Geneva needs to ensure that people no longer need cars to get from A to B. Cycling needs to be made safer and finally public transport, and especially trains, should be increased so that you never have to wait 20 minutes or more for a train to get in or out of Geneva. I think that placing a pedestrian square there is illogical unless you pedestrianise the streets from the lakeside to Cornavin. Imagine walking from Cornavin to Perle Du Lac without stopping at a traffic light, or from Cornavin to Place Des Nations or Place Plainpalais. That would make taking the train into Geneva appealing if it was possible every ten minutes.

A Windy Day In Geneva

A Windy Day In Geneva

Byrichard

They announced that it would be windy today and it is. Windy days are fun because the lake goes from blue or green to English Breakfast tea brown. The waves crash against the walls and spray the promenade that goes from the Pont Du Mont Blanc to the Jardin Anglais. For now it’s getting things wet. With the right wind and low temperatures it could be great for the taking of photos.


A wave splashing over the wall
The Lac Leman when it’s the colour of English tea on a windy day


When I was taking pictures and videos my fingers got cold enough for me to try to warm up again on the exercise machines by the Bain de Paquis. It was cold enough to get cold while taking pictures and video.


Despite this cold some eccentric people still went for a swim. This, despite the waves, the wind, and the windchill. I saw two people swim, and then a third person swim. I then saw a group arrive for their Sunday swim.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf1JoTPAAGQ


As I walked to where the people go to set off I thought they would miss their swim in light of the conditions. I’m surprised that some people went for a solitary swim in such conditions. I’d prefer to have someone just in case I need help.