The Pandemic Of Sisyphus
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The Pandemic Of Sisyphus

Byrichard

We are in a pandemic where the only disease vector is proximity to others, so in theory this is one of the easiest pandemics to overcome, and end. In practice people are like cats, and getting them to self-isolate is like herding cats. Paradoxically if people were as hard to herd as cats, then the pandemic would have ended over a year ago and today we’d be doing something more fun.


During this pandemic we see that the numbers take weeks to make their way back down but they bounce back up very fast. We have gone from 100 cases per day two weeks ago to four hundred today. If I see the number of cases rising this is a reason to be more, rather than less cautious. This is a reason to do less, rather than more. This is a reason to spend as little time as possible in risky situations.


L’Office fédéral de la santé publique a fait état mardi de 483 cas supplémentaires de coronavirus en 24 heures.

L’immunité collective face au Covid-19 atteint désormais 67% à Genève – rts.ch – Info


In the 00s (zeros/2000s) Foot and Mouth was active in England. As a precaution we had to walk in soapy water with our shoes to avoid spreading anything. We were also asked not to go to the New Forest to avoid spreading that virus to the ponies and other animals. Back in those days they were trying to contain an epidemic.


Fast forward two decades and we are in week 80 of this pandemic, depending on what you use as a starting point. This means that we have had eighty weeks to learn about, get to understand, and finally to respond to and reduce the threat.


During this pandemic we have seen people fail to change their habits from one year to the next. This failure to change habits prevents life from moving on. Everyone is busy sabotaging the pandemic’s recovery.


Last night a politician actually said “Sorry” for lifting restrictions too soon. Politicians should react this way. Politicians should apologise, when an entire nation has to live in self-isolation for over a year, because their policies failed to bring a pandemic to an end.


La taskforce scientifique de la Confédération a alerté mardi sur une probable augmentation des hospitalisations à venir. Depuis le début du mois de juillet, le nombre de cas de contaminations liées au variant Delta double chaque semaine. Les infections ont particulièrement augmenté chez les 26 à 34 ans, suivis des 16 à 24 ans.

L’immunité collective face au Covid-19 atteint désormais 67% à Genève – rts.ch – Info


Since the start of july the number of infections from the Delta variant has doubled, this affects those from 16-24 and 26-34 and they expect hospitalisations to start going up soon.


We’re in a paradoxical situation, beccause if we self-isolate we’re silly not to enjoy ourselves, like everyone else. If we do not self-isolate, and everyone else does not self-isolate then we are providing the virus with a fantastic opportunity to spread.


The challenge during this pandemic, is not to take precautions, and to take a break from normal habits, it is seeing that others throw caution to the wind, and that there is no end in sight, not because we don’t know how to beat this virus, but because politicians always find a way to get the virus to spread again, through their incompetence. So far one politician has said “sorry”. All of them should.

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Another Pandemic Weekend Without Plans

Byrichard

Normally at this time of year, as the snow melts and the temperatures increase the opportunity for spring and summer sports returns. These sports are via ferrata, outdoor climbing, hiking and more. This year is different because although today is Friday no plans have been made for the next two days. There is a excellent chance that I will either hike or cycle alone. Usually I avoid cycling on Saturdays because that is the day when people are anxiously driving between their homes and their shops.


Walking feels like the safer option on such days. It’s usually on Sundays that I like to go for a bike ride, to range a little further than when I am on foot, and to enjoy different sensations. During this pandemic my favourite route is not possible because it crosses the Franco Swiss Border in two places and I prefer to avoid crossing the border unless it is essential.


At the moment the prospect of everyone being vaccinated, and of everyone being able to meet in groups of ten to fifteen to do via ferrata, hike or climb seems unlikely. It would seem that this is another year of relatively solitary sports. Hiking and cycling are good solitary sports because we often go at our own speeds anyway. These are also sports with almost no carbon footprint. You just walk out of your house and enjoy.


Scuba Diving, Climbing, Via Ferrata and other sports sometimes require a two or more hour drive to go to and come back from the activity location. With cycling and local hiking you burn no petrol, except for the rubber soles of your shoes but those wear out quite slowly. We’re speaking grams, rather than litres.


During my walks I often visit the old phone boxes that have been converted into libraries. I browse through the books. Some villages have a good selection of free access books. No one has thought to block access to them during the pandemic.


If I wrote a blog post for every walk or bike ride at the moment it would either be a clockwise or an anti-clockwise loop that always begins and ends in the same place. The main change are the crops, the animals and people I see, and the weather.


Yesterday I did meet someone in the physical world, for a walk, and I came to the conclusion that I much prefer to meet people for bike rides. The problem with walking with people during a pandemic is that you don’t have the freedom to walk into a field or patch of grass as you’re walking “with a person” rather than alone. You’re also working on set paths.


I like to walk along roads and other paths, and I like to change route as soon as I see people come the other way, or to climb up an embankment, or to choose a path between two fields. When I walked in Geneva yestreday I decided to take off my mask because I thought that there would be an opportunity to always be two or more metres from people but this wasn’t the case. If I was alone I would have put the mask on. In this context I didn’t feel as free to do so.


Cycling, during a pandemic, in contrast is excellent. The first reason for this is simple. You’re going at 20 to 30 kilometres per hour so whatever you breathe in or out is going to be diluted into the turbulence that is behind you. The second reason is that you’re on a road or path and the pedestrians you encounter are close for just a second or two, not even two breaths.


The other advantage is that you’re on some type of agricultural or normal road and there are usually not that many people on the same path so it provides us with greater freedom. People are cautious of bikes, but not of other pedestrians. Being on a bike makes us safe.


During my walks I often see people on bikes. Today I was surprised to see three women riding alone. Usually it’s two or three guys at a time, riding together and talking. It makes a nice change. Having said this the conditions today were unpleasant for cycling, a cold strong wind. These are the right conditions to make cycling cold and tiring.


I hope that Sunday will be good for cycling.


How far will we cycle in pandemic solitude? We will have to see.


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The Year-Old Pandemic

Byrichard

Thanks to the incompetence of leadership during this pandemic Switzerland went from a low of 21 cases per day in June 2021 to a high of 3600 or more over Christmas. This is really a shame. For a short period up to the 21st of June Switzerland really looked as if it would end the pandemic.


On the 21st of June the government made a mistake. It reopened society. The rational was that the pandemic would soon end and that slowly we could return to life as normal. Within a week or two the number of new cases started to go up again, but rather than go a step back until the number went back down the government went ahead with the next diminishing of sanctions.


Over time, we could see the number of new cases climb and climb and I really expected to see a peak within two weeks from the 1st of August. It came about three to four weeks later and that’s close to when the second wave was declared. Bad decisions continued to be taken until it was decided that people should have their Christmas and new Year. Two weeks after all the Christmas shenanigans were over tightening came back, and instantly the number of new cases went down.


We’re now a year into the pandemic with little chance of the pandemic ending anytime soon.


As I see it the government has two possible avenues. The first is to vaccinate everyone, but the drawback is that you need vaccines to vaccinate people, so for now this idea is on hold. The second idea, and this was definitely possible in June, and is still being proved by New Zealand, is that you can end the pandemic with proper government directives.


Last week Switzerland finally got down to just 1000 cases per day, which is excellent news, and with a little effort it looks as if the pandemic could end sooner, rather than later. Unfortunately the government decided to reopen society yesterday, so we are now condemned to go through another wave of infections and the end has been blown away by bad policy.


One weakness during this pandemic is that lockdowns and restrictions have been pictures as political rather than scientific. As a result of this people are guided by their emotions rather than their rationality. This irrationality means that people fail to see that the sooner the pandemic ends, the sooner normal life returns.


The more often society reopens, the longer the pandemic will last, and the longer the pandemic lasts, the more businesses will go bankrupt. It makes sense to have a lockdown like we had this time last year, for the pandemic to end, so that life can resume.


There is another cost to the pandemic. Teenagers are unable to have a normal university experience. Add to this that around 36 percent of homes in Switzerland are one person and this is a theoretical 36 percent (I don’t know the actual number of people) who might have gone without a hug, a kiss or a handshake for almost a year by now.


In the 21st century plenty of people live alone, and when you live alone during a pandemic it implies that you do not see many people. In fact the only person you see during the day is the cashier, if you buy food.


Switzerland decided to close petrol stations on Sunday, and my habit of seeing one person in the physical world per day was lost. I sometimes go three to four days at a time without speaking to another human being.


This pandemic is teaching us to live in absolute solitude, for days at a time with no contact, and weeks, months or even seasons without even a handshake or hug.


I don’t watch normal television anymore. If a podcast has someone speaking about relationships I pause or stop listening. I avoid films. I avoid certain topics in podcasts. I listen to very little music.


We’re in a pandemic, and we live in solitude. Normal people think “the pandemic will take two years to resolve, and it isn’t that bad”, but to people in solitude it is that bad. Solitude is fine, as long as it is not made to feel like isolation, and that’s why I changed my media consumption habits. I went to be comfortable in solitude, not distressed in solitude.


With how people behave, and how the government behaves, we are in for a few more months at best. Maybe the summer of 2022 will be less lonely.

How To Be A Realistic Optimist During a LockDown.

Byrichard

During the first lockdown in March I believed in the rationality and logic of others to help bring a pandemic to a close within a reasonable amount of time. Now that we’re in the Post-Christmas and New Year lockdown I feel that the likelihood of a normal summer is low. That’s why I need to write something satirical.


Ignore the Irrationality of Others


By believing that people understand how pandemics work, and by trusting that people will do their best to keep safe, and avoid any and all risks, to bring the pandemic to a close within four weeks we can think of the latest lockdown as a four week holiday.


Find a Solitary Walking Route


If you devote enough time to the endeavour you may be able to find a walking route that either allows you to walk for two hours without crossing anyone, or more realistically a route that allows you to walk at all times with at least two meters of buffer between you and the people walking the same path. When this route is found keep walking it, and find variants. Over the lockdown you will find variants and have a choice. Do you start by going north or south. Do you go west and if you go west do you go by the car river (motorway) or the water river? Do you walk along the agricultural paths or along the roads? Do you walk at night with a head torch or during the day?


Find A Study Goal


LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn, Coursera, Duolingo and Babbel can all provide you with opportunities to either deepen your understanding of work related topics, or expand your knowledge of a change of career. You can study cloud computing or public speaking or Microsoft Excel, or any of a multitude of topics. You can even find a learning path.


By learning and by following these courses you are forcing yourself to think of the future. It might be just one and a half hours into the future, or it could be 30 study hours in the future. The point is that you have a means of breaking from pandemic routine.


Start Playing with a Task Manager.


I don’t mean Windows Task Manager. I mean a tool like Microsoft To Do, Apple Reminders, Google Keep, Google Tasks, Things 3, Sorted or another such app.


Set yourself goals like “Study German” and “Read a book” and “turn the lights on when the sun starts to set” and “Do the weekend shopping” and even “vacuum the home”. It may seem stupid to set tasks that you would do anyway but it influences mood. I found that as I set goals, and got into the habit of completing them every day it encouraged me to set more ambitious goal. Study Pre-intermedia German course 2 lesson 4-5, and so on. It provides you with a goal to reach each day, and a senes of accomplishment when you tick off each goal. At the end of the day you can see “I did 7 tasks and even earned “karma” on Todoist despite it having no real world value.


Keep A Journal


We could easily tell people to write blog posts of their experience with a pandemic but the problem is that blog posts are public, and that by being public they are less interesting. It makes more sense to keep a journal. You can use One Note, Think, Journey, Day One, Evernote or the Notes app on iPhones. The point is to write at least two or three hundred words a day. It can be as ranty, as positive, as absurd, as rational, as happy, or as dystopia as you like. The point is to have a conversation through your fingers, with the screen in front of you, whether it’s a laptop, a mobile phone, or a clay tablet. You could even learn cuneiforms and write that way.


Avoid Series FOMO


During this pandemic one of the keys to happiness is to cut down on television series that remind us of pre-pandemic life. Series where everyone gets into a relationship, everyone falls in love, everyone gets married and more are to be avoided. If you’re living alone and self isolating in solitude the last thing you want is to spend your evenings being reminded of what is impossible during a pandemic. Watch documentaries, or people playing computer games, or reading books. Happiness stems from avoiding the reminders of the life that you would like to work towards if only a pandemic wasn’t consistently in the way.


A Regular Sleep Habit


During a pandemic it’s easy to go to bed later and later and later and later, until finally you’re living in a different timezone than your body. Set an alarm clock to wake you at the same time every day and attempt to go to sleep at a semi-regular time each day. Semi Regular = +/- 2 hours. ;-).


Dump FaceBook and Instagram


Although Facebook and Instagram were excellent places to keep up with friends a decade ago they are now no more sociable than a glossy magazine. Rather than feel good about how great you are at self-isolation and pandemic solitude you will be reminded that other people are still breaking the rules for their own pleasure. Instead of being angry with them just dump FB and IG and do something constructive.


Sometimes solitude and unhappinesss stem from doing rather than not doing something that you’re used to. If you see that FB and IG are making you feel negative dump them.


Develop a Sense of Humour


People from at least two generations grew up watching Alan Alda in the MASH television series demonstrate how to cope with unpleasant situations through dark humour. Some people might look down on this tactic but remember that we’re in a pandemic, and that because we don’t know when it will end we need to find ways to reset our ability to cope, and laughter is one such method. By laughing, or at least changing perspective we may be able to cope better.


And Finally


We are in the 21st century and although we may not be able to do things in the real world we can still get help. when listening to a podcast about psychology I think they mentioned Betterhelp. To the. best of my understanding this is the website they talked about. As I was walking I didn’t note down the name. The point is that this is online help, anywhere in the world. Whether you’re a textrovert or a videovert they should have a solution for you.


Disclaimer. I know nothing about this website except that I like the concept of IMing a counsellor.


If Self-Isolation Was Easy the Pandemic would be over


Remember that the emotional yoyo we’re going through is completely normal and healthy. If self-isolation was easy the pandemic would have ended within two months and we’d have been saying “what was all the fuss about, silly paranoid…” Of course this time we’re in a serious pandemic, so we need to find ways to cope, and even enjoy ourselves, as absurd as this may sound.


“Enjoy myself by myself?”


Yes, like Tomas in the Unbearable Lightness of Being


Like Rieux in La Peste


Like Dantès in the Count of Monte Cristo.

On the Prospect of Re-confinement

Byrichard

Today let’s comment on the prospect of Re-confinement. Plenty of people, when lockdown ended, decided that now was the time to start doing group activities, without masks, and without waiting for the transmission rate to get down to zero. As a prize they had a relatively normal summer, with good memories, stories and pictures to share.


Some of us were short-sighted and silly. We thought “Oh, if we wait another month then life will be back to normal and that’s when we can have an ordinary summer, rather than a summer running on fumes.


That decision resulted in us spending a summer in solitude, which in turn means that we never de-confined. We never went back to socialising and we never did things with people. We never shook hands, never gave hugs, never did group activites outside of our family circles, and even those interactions were limited.


Since March I have been in a car with someone without masks just once. That’s seven months of privation.


Others are protesting at the thought of being confined again, of not being able to go to the bar after 2200 or 0000. They’re complaining because they can’t meet in groups of more than five, or even ten.


I haven’t been in a group of more than five since the pandemic started.


If everyone had sacrificed their social lives from March to the first of August in Switzerland then we would be out of the pandemic now because the virus would have run out of people to infect.


By resuming life as normal we have gone from a low of eleven cases per day to 5950+ yesterday. In the Swiss press they’re writing about us being back to the same situation as we were in March, with hospitals in some cantons, very close to capacity, and in others getting there by Mid-November.


The challenge faced by governments is that they must respect people’s rights, but on the flipside people do not respect their responsibilities towards society. Governments are begging people to “wear the mask, this includes over your nose” and “maintain one and a half meters between yourself and others.” We see how little this is respected by how many new cases are emerging on a daily basis. People do not take their responsibility not to be a disease vector seriously enough so the pandemic that could have been over within two months, is now seven months old, with no prospect for an end.


People are appalled at the prospect of being reconfined but it is their actions that ensured that we would be reconfined. It is because they did not take a break from socialising during the pandemic, that the pandemic could last so long.


People keep saying that pandemics are complicated and complex, which they are, but they’re also simple. If people restrict their interactions to the bare minimum then the virus will not infect seven hundred people in a single day. There walk talk of one person infecting 115 in Switzerland. In a podcast, about another country, one person infected 6000.


Pandemics are unpleasant to live through, and it is for this reason that we should sacrifice all non-essential social interactions until the pandemic is over. The more seriously we take self-confinement, the less opportunities the virus has to spread, and the less opportunities it has to spread, the sooner the pandemic is over, and life can resume.


People want the pandemic to be over, but they’re expecting others to sacrifice, while they continue having their fun and socialising. Pandemics don’t work like that. Everyone must sacrifice, for life to return to normal, and for jobs to return.


The rules, during this pandemic are few, and simple.


  • wear a mask
  • wash your hands
  • Avoid hugs, kisses and handshakes
  • avoid groups of more than five
  • stay one and a half meters from people not in your household.


Are these rules so hard to obey, that they’d rather risk re-confinement than obey them? These are easy rules to obey. It would be a shame to be re-confined because these simple instructions were not accepted.


We go back to a question I was asked a few months ago. “Don’t you worry about being confined for two weeks?” “No, because for as long as the pandemic lasts I am self-confined anyway.” For me nothing changes, until the pandemic ends.

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Bullying Disguised as Satire

Byrichard

We’re in the middle of a pandemic. Some of us go without conversing with people in the real world for days or even weeks at a time. Is now the time to be offensive about people’s social media habits? For plenty of TikTok users, their only window into the social world is their phone.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apvLvTQWQwg&fbclid=IwAR0DJKCl6QsV3EnurNj9j4yEvBNu_pQcpsK025DTRdktUk41gVdquig0jts


Plenty of people are lonely, and in need of human connections. Social media is a great means by which to have moments of intimacy, to flirt or even just to have a convivial moment with someone else.


If we’re going to behave like bullies then it would make sense to comment on the people who do not wear a mask, and those who do not respect the two meter distance. How about all those people going to bars, restaurants and pubs where there is no respect for the two meter rule?


During a pandemic the behaviour that is harmful to society is that which spreads COVID-19, not instagramming or TikToking, or other. If people are dealing with the solitude of a pandemic by socialising online welcome, and thank them.


Their behaviour will cut the pandemic short, at least in some cases. Solitude is a positive, during a pandemic.


Never forget that just because you’re married, with children, or living in an apartment with others, that this is a reality for everyone. Remember that we’re six months into this pandemic and that some of us have yet to give a hug or even shake the hand of a stranger.


Pandemics are solitary affairs, so give “influencers” the benefit of the doubt.

The Slowness of Public Transport

Byrichard

Today someone something to the effect “If I go from here to there it will take me two and a half hours so it would require a car.” That’s what I have been saying for years. That’s one of the reasons for which having a sporty life, during the pandemic, is not possible, or at least requires a much bigger commitment.


Summer sporting activities are vulnerable because in times of pandemics car sharing is no longer possible, and is no longer advisable. If you’re in a car for an hour or two each way then the mask will not protect you effectively, especially if the windows are closed. Trains used to have windows that you could open. Now that they don’t their allure is diminished during such times.


The problem, during this pandemic, has been the same for months now. We don’t know where people were when they were exposed so we don’t know what locations are safe, and which locations are not. We’re stuck in limbo. We might have been safe for the entire pandemic, never being within a kilometre of the virus, but we have no way of knowing.


With fourty infections during the last two days is Switzerland back to Pre-21st of June numbers or is the lull simply because those who were most likely to be infected are now on holiday? Will we see a big increase in the number of cases shortly?


As long as that insecurity lasts summer socialising through sports is less appealing. People have also migrated to using Facebook to plan activities and a consequence of this is that if you want to dump Facebook, you have to be creative about finding other groups, and websites, to find activities to participate in.


Imagine an app like Happn or SwissCovid but for sports. That would be really useful. You would not have to spend hours on social networks, looking for opportunities and you would not have to be active about finding things. It would run in the background and if you spend enough time it could give you more info.


It’s like the flyby function on Strava. You go for a ride and you can see who the other cyclists were, that you crossed paths with. In theory, you can then start to plan group activities. We need apps to help us meet new people who live close by so that we can stop relying on cars, public transport, and social media websites.


As the pandemic has reset how we think of time and space we need to rethink how we use modern technology to connect with others. Do we really need to rely on American Social networks to connect with people in Europe? Do we really need to be so centralised?


With Apple Login it would be interesting to create apps that allow us to connect with others, without relying on websites with dubious moralities. With my learning of Ruby On Rails, PHP, MySQL, PHP and more, the opportunity to create such a service is growing.

2020 – The Golden Opportunity to Be A Recluse

Byrichard

2020 – The Golden Opportunity to be a Recluse. If you’ve ever wanted a reason not to be social then open society’s behaviour, in regards to the COVID-19 virus, has provided us with a fantastic opportunity to enjoy being reclusive.


During a normal Spring and Summer I would be driving to the mountains to hike, climb and enjoy via ferrata with people but this year those plans have been destroyed. This year we can’t share the same room as others to sleep. We can’t even eat within two meters of other people.


There are no handshakes, no hugs and no “bises”. This year if you live alone you’re without physical contact. This year, the more solitary you like to be, the stronger the appeal of such a year.


In a normal year if you were single or below a certain age you’d be pressured to go out and be social, rather than staying at home to work on projects, read books or otherwise be solitary. This year there is no pressure to go out on Thursday and Friday night, and there is no pressure to go out to do group activities during the weekend.


With its single minded desire to reopen too early society has destroyed any chance of a normal summer being possible. Until the 21st of June it looked as if Switzerland was three or four weeks away from the pandemic being over, or at least wonderfully under control. There was a brief window with just 10-20 infections a day.


Speaking as an idealist I believe that we were so close to Switzerland getting to tens of new cases a day but recently the seven-day average is back to 100 cases a day.


Silver Linings


Source: https://www.corona-data.ch/


One of the silver linings is that the number of ventilated people declined to zero for several days, the number of intensive hospital cases is staying low and finally, that the number of regular COVID-19 patients was in decline, until two days ago.


At its maxium number of active infections Switzerland was at 98 percent of ICU capacity. Two more percent and triage would have been required.


Depending on whether you work for the airport or think as an environmentalist Geneva airport expects to be at 19 percent of capacity this summer, due to so few people travelling at the moment. It’s great for the environment, but a shame for jobs.


Societal Self Harm


Speaking from a strictly theoretical point of view we have centuries of pandemics to look back on. We have books such as La Peste by Camus, to turn back to. In theory, we know what to do in the case of pandemics, and how to avoid them. We also know how to control them.


We know that in Medieval times villages would shut down to the outside world for weeks or months at a time. We know that ships were quarantined offshore. In some cases, places of infection were marked.


As we watch the current pandemic we get the impression that lessons were never learned. We get the impression that people never studied plagues and other epidemics and pandemics. We get the impression that people are flying blind. This is a shame.


It’s a shame because we are in the 21st century. We live in an age where we have thousands of hours of documentaries about plagues, disease and epidemics. We live in an age where people can get advice and information straight from medical health professionals. We live in an age where everything can be ordered online. We live in an age where being trapped at home does not mean having conversations has to stop. We live in an age where many of us are information workers.


In light of all of this it seems illogical that we would live through the worst pandemic in human history.


I have seen a lot of discussion about rights but responsibilities have been skirted. The responsibility to wear a mask, the responsibility to keep human to human interactions to a minimum, the responsibility to avoid people rather than expect them to make the effort to be safe.


The self-sacrifice of not going on holiday, the self-sacrifice of not going to sit in a park half a meter from others…


With everything that society, as a whole knows, it is a shame that the pandemic coalesced into such a serious problem because we had the tools and knowledge to ensure that it would be dealt with as swiftly as the epidemics we have already lived through, in our own lifetimes.


At its core Switzerland, until the 21st of June Switzerland was doing everything right, and to a serious degree it is still doing the right thing, with the number of ventilated people being at zero and the number of serious cases also dropping.


At it’s core my only issue is with having a third summer with limited opportunities to meet new people. As long as the pandemic is around it seems more logical to give in, and use dating apps, to meet new people, instead.


The Up-Skilling opportunity.


A few weeks ago I sad that I would try to create my own WordPress theme, but I overshot that goal by learning CSS and redesigning my entire website. I have learned to create a CMS from scratch using PHP and MySQL. Now I’m learning Ruby On Rails and it’s going well. Ruby on Rails looks like an intuitive framework to work with. I’m working on changing my career path.

The Pain of Optimism During a Pandemic

Byrichard

The pain of optimism during a pandemic can clearly be felt by those who were optimistic enough to believe that self-sacrifice during the pandemic would result in a summer free of the COVID-19 Virus in Switzerland.


We went from a moving average over seven days of one thousand one hundred and twelve new cases on the 25th of May to a moving average over seven days of 17 in early June.


Source: https://www.letemps.ch/suisse/coronavirus-88-nouvelles-infections-24-heures


The moving average so far, in July, is of ninety new cases per 7 days. That might not seem like much compared to other countries but it means that masks have become obligatory and that I feel the need to disinfect and wash my hands constantly once more. It also means that car sharing and group activities are ill-advised once again. (no pun intended).


In June I really believed that by July we would have a normal summer with zero new infections per day. When the Swiss government saw the leap in the number of new cases as a result of the 21st of June shift in phase it should have rolled back to the previous phase, and made sure to have two to three weeks of near zero infections.


An increase in the number of cases within six days of Switzerland shifting to the latest phase.


The failure to do so means that I see no reason to put summer tires on a car that will not be driven to the mountains for group activities that are no longer possible. The two-meter rule is impossible to obey in a car, and doing group activities where you stand two meters from people defeats the entire purpose of doing group activities.


Christmas Cancelled


After the cancellation of summer sports and group activities for single people imagine if it lasted long enough to scupper Thanksgiving and Christmas. Imagine if the people, who are least dependent on society being open were the next ones to lose an important season in their calendar. I would find this justice poetic.


The R Number


Source: https://labs.letemps.ch/interactive/2020/carte-coronavirus-monde/


When I write blog posts I often do some research, to see whether what I feel is backed up by facts and evidence. In so doing I come across interesting graphs and articles. I find the graph above interesting because it shows that the reproductive rate (R number) went positive on the 25th of May.


Source: https://labs.letemps.ch/interactive/2020/carte-coronavirus-monde/


According to the graph above Switzerland has the most virulent strain.


Justified Self-Isolation


The more you study the data, the more you see that self-isolation is justified. If Switzerland has one of the highest R numbers then this means that it is one of the places where it makes most sense to self-isolate because it is one of the places where you will most easily catch the virus.


Justified Solitude


I write a lot about solitude because it’s an integral part of my life. If you read books, watch films or television series relationships are always the topic of choice. This means that if you have any questions about living with people you just turn on the TV and find the framework you want to experiment with. Will it be the Big Bang framework, the Friends Framework, the Frasier Framework, or other.


For solitude you need to write your own code and programming language. You need to choose what is important to you, and what you want to achieve. Yesterday when studying Ruby I accidentally tried to run RB files in IRB and it took a while before I understood my mistake. Eventually I exited IRB and started running them through RUBY and the code worked once again.


I mention this because during the Pandemic I have enjoyed learning PHP, MySQL, CSS, Ruby, Ruby on Rails and more. It has replaced the Wednesday trip to the indoor climbing gym and the weekend hikes and Via Ferratas in the mountains. In June we would have expected that by July we’d have gone back to being social, but as conditions are not ideal more is to be gained from experimenting with new knowledge.


Relational Databases


One key skill, during this pandemic would be to learn how relational databases work, and how they can be implemented and used. Every bar, cafe, restaurant and night club needs to track who was where, when, and with whom, so that if a case of COVID-19 is detected, that all those that are at risk may be informed.


You would have one table for customers, a second for the day they visited and possibly a third to specify whether it was breakfast, lunch, dinner, or evening. With primary, and foreign keys. The data would follow ‘single-to-many’ relationships. The code could be written so that after two weeks the data is erased.


In theory an instance of the SwissCovid contact tracing app could be written and run in shops so that it gathers the same data as the app on our phones, and thus provide an automatic means by which to track people.


Swarm, Facebook Check in, and Google Latitude


These three apps track who was where, when, and with whom. If they were still fashionable, then contact tracing during this pandemic would have been simplified and there would have been no reason for every country to write a new app for every country, or trade region.


And now to go back to studying.

De-Confinement, In Name Only.

Byrichard

Until recently every time Switzerland moved from one phase to another the number of new cases per day increased slightly but with the latest phase the number of cases has increased by four or five times the number of new cases.


From March until mid June we could go to the shops with the recommendation that we should wear a mask but not the obligation. I wore a mask anyway. From Wednesday onwards masks will become obligatory for people visiting the shops, and on public transport. In theory the change is not that big. Wearing a mask to the shops and on publlic transport is not a dramatic change.


Until you consider outdoor sports, in the mountains, where car sharing is an integral part of event organisation. If a shop, with tens of thousands of litres of air is deemed to put people at risk of being infected by the virus then sharing a car with people not in your household becomes impossible.


The summer social season is now impossible. The Swiss government missed three or four opportunities to wait an extra two weeks for the disease to be eradicated from wild transmission before moving on to the next stage. Now, not only is the virus making a comeback, but the measures are stricter than at the peak of new infections in Vaud and Geneva.


Although the virus was almost eradicated from wild transmission in Switzerland the latest phase as ensured that the virus will be around until the end of summer.


For single people, like me, who do almost all of their socialising during the summer months, through summer sports this mistake in policy means that some of us will have another solitary summer, waiting until next summer to socialise.


I’m tired of getting hopeful that we will be able to do outdoor group activities, only to see the progress being nullified and voided, again, and again by the government saying “let’s open up more.”


The truth is that if I’m not driving to the mountains to socialise through climbing, via ferrata, hiking or other outdoor sports then I am not spending much money. I’m not buying petrol. I’m not buying drinks at café at the end of the activity, I’m not buying new gear.


When I walk locally I’m not using the car, I’m not going to cafés, I’m not buying new sporting equipment. I’m not buying snacks and I’m not buying funiculaire tickets.


The notion that we need to risk a resurgence of new COVID-19 cases to restart the economy is a deeply flawed one and we have seen, with every phase, that it makes things worse, at least temporarily. With the latest phase change months of sacrifice have been undone.


We’ve gone from 0-20 new cases a day to 160+ a day.


The graph is steepening again


We have gone from a moving average of 13 new cases per day to a moving average of 77 new cases a day.


For a brief window the virus no longer seemed to be out in the wild but “Le COVID-19 regagne du terrain” and now we’re back to anti-social pandemic mode. Socialising this summer is no longer worth considering.


In conclusion although we’re not in “confinement” we are confined. Until the 21st of June we could live with the hope that the pandemic would almost be over, and that we could socialise with people who like the same sports as us. Due to the government’s policy decisions those plans are destroyed, and we might as well continue studying new skills at home, and going for solitary walks, because nothing else is possible for as long as “economic recovery” gives the virus new opportunities to become virulent again.