I just got back from a two and a half-hour walk at dusk. I had no plan to go for such a long walk. It was elongated because I ended up taking a detour to see calves just as they were being fed. They’re quite excited about getting some food. They were very happy to get their daily milk, as you can see from the image below.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
I’m writing for future generations now. As I looked at the stats for the most recent posts i see that readership is low. I’m tempted to start writing about something else as a result. In two or three weeks if we’re still seeing low numbers of new cases I might.
The biggest change since two days ago is that when I went to the shops I saw that InterDiscount and other places are open. Restaurants are open too. I saw some people in these places but without counting.
Inspiration to write usually comes from meeting people and having conversations but it’s at least 58 days since I met someone new and had a different conversation so it’s hard to explore new ideas.
The CSS front page I’ve been working on for the past three or four days is almost ready to be shared. I still need to tweak three or four things. I’m happy about this. When I replaced the time I spent on social media with playing with CSS I gave myself a great opportunity to learn two or three new skills. I was afraid that I would be confused and lost but so far I’ve found the opposite to be true. I’ve found it relatively easy.
The biggest challenge is getting the content to be desktop and mobile-friendly so every experiment I run has to look good on both. So far this has been a good experience. It’s something that I haven’t done, possibly since social media came along, and distracted us. It’s a shame that social media didn’t grow in quality of conversations but it has benefited my drive to learn something new.
We have to keep upskilling, and upskilling by working on a website is good, because we learn skills that others can see and assess within seconds. The more time I spend tweaking the first page the better it will look, and the more knowledge I will come away with.
See you tomorrow for day 59. We’re just two days away from two months without being within two meters of another person.
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
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.
Today I woke up and instead of cycling up to see this view and have a meal I decided to do the opposite. I would walk down. Two or three summers ago I walked up and they took four or five hours. Walking down is much easier.
One or two bits are steep and my shoes lost traction. It wasn’t serious or life threatening. The ground is soft and the gradient is simply steep.
I went from around 20 degrees and cool at the top, with the feeling that I should wear an extra layer to warm up. As I descended i walked from a cold season to warm.
I miss walking in the mountains. I haven’t done such a walk in at least a year. It’s nice to be away from cars and other machines. It’s nice to be in the countryside/mountainside, in nature. I didn’t spot or hear any wildlife this time but it might be because I’m louder when I’m walking than when I’m cycling. I did see two or three people cycling up. I saw one person heading up with an electric bike. It’s amusing to see, because they’re going much faster than you would expect on a bike to go. It looks out of place to see a bike going up those roads so quickly.
During this walk I realised how good it would feel to walk for several days or weeks in a row. I don’t think that it would be wise to do so during a pandemic but I do think that it would be pleasant to do in the near future. In Europe you can walk either with, or without a tent, depending on the route. You could walk far without having to carry a few days of food with you. We’ll see.
Coping with solitude is one of the challenges that we, people who live alone, are going to become familiar with. It’s 65 days since I’ve had skin to skin contact, sixty-five days since I’ve given or received a hug. It’s sixty-five days since I’ve had a meal with anyone.
Happiness, whilst entirely and easily accomplished, is all about adjusting our goals and aspirations to remain positive, and even find happiness. As it’s lunchtime, and it’s Tuesday, I should be going to get food for the upcoming week but I don’t have the positivity to do that at this instant. I’m writing this blog post because I have found, on more than one occasion, that writing helps me organise thoughts into a positive context.
I’m still working on the future.
Today I finished the Linkedin Learning course on Essential CSS and I started the course on CSS Essential Training. I’m still moving forward and I’m working on being able to apply for a different set of jobs. I have already studied for 102 minutes and my weekly goal is just 120 minutes so I’m reaching that goal with speed.
According to the Productive App, I’m on day 69, with 69 “Total perfect days”. I’ve “done” 354 tasks so far with an average of 5.1 a day. With Duolingo, I have a 252-day streak of studying a new language every single day, with no “skip the weekend” or other cheats. I’m still moving forward.
Avoiding Reminders of What We Can’t Achieve.
During this pandemic one of the easiest ways for me to be happy and stable, is to avoid reminders of what I don’t have. By avoiding people who are not walking alone, by avoiding seeing families together, by avoiding romantic comedies, and by avoiding specific television shows, I can feel content with the life that is possible for a single person, living alone, in between jobs, not to fall into a negative feedback loop.
Happiness, is about being happy with what we have, and what is possible.
Driving to the mountains with a group of strangers to go for a hike, to go climbing or to do via ferrata is not possible. Even if we did go to climb on the Via Ferrata that are open we would have to respect the two meter distance, wear a mask, gloves, and then disinfect at the end of the activity.
With those limitations we might as well continue with our pandemic routine.
During this pandemic I get comfort from people doing things in solitude, like the horse rider in the image above. I was walking towards the horse and its rider and it seemed spooked so I stopped, and let it walk by. I went into the meadow between fields to give it more space.
Moments like this feel good, because they’re experienced between two individuals. I am not reminded of the solitude that I am currently unable to change. The person might not go back to solitude, but I draw strength from seeing other people dealing with solitude.
Thru Hiking, which is a topic I’ve been reading, and listening to podcasts about, is about spending hours, weeks, or even months in solitude with one’s thoughts.
I love hiking with people, and I look forward to when hiking can resume being a group activity. It is a pleasant way of starting new friendships although this pleasure will have to wait a few more weeks.
Réfuges, in the mountains, are re-opening and these opportunities are slowly coming back. I look forward to when things are back to normal. I look forward to when we can start to do group activities.
I knew I’d feel better, after writing this blog post and I was right. I do.
It might seem strange that I’d rather not meet people who are not alone through this, but it’s a coping mechanism, which is why I’m on day 65 of solitude, and ambitious, rather than the opposite.
Today during my walk this afternoon I surprised a cat on some stairs and I moved patiently. It brushed up against me so I started to stroke it. During this pandemic the only living things I have had physical contact with are cats. During a pandemic, if you’re not living with people, you are very limited.
Yesterday I did go out for a bike ride with a group of people, virtually. Before the ride I was feeling really down, and negative. After the ride I was feeling refreshed and relaxed. For the first time in three weeks I was able to do something physical without having to avoid people, worry about routing or anything else. All I had to do was pedal to the limit of my motivation and endurance.
If we went into full lock down then I would treat it as if we were in winter. I’d train hard, on the indoor trainer, so that when we are finally allowed more freedom in the outdoors I’d be fit enough to explore new routes.
The Shopping situation
When I went to the shops they were the emptiest I’ve seen them in a long time. I didn’t even need to queue to get in, although I did have a brief moment of over-exaggerating my steps as I was behind people walking slower than me. Everyone, or almost, walks slower than me, so that’s not a criticism of the people ahead of me. It’s good for you. You can use entirely different muscle groups as you behave in an eccentric manner. Even the self-checkout was empty, just one other person.
Of course in the process I forgot to buy plain rice so now I’m going to have to cook with wild rice today. I think playing the COVID-19 lottery, by going to the shops once a day, is risky enough. Wild rice is meant to be healthier anyway.
A Slow Down In New Cases
According to the figures I see, and articles in the press, it seems that the Pandemic has reached a plateau and we may be able to feel optimistic about the end coming in two or three weeks. Of course we have to be wary. With good weather more people are going out to enjoy the conditions, and the likelihood of another flareup is high if people are not careful.
Having said this I saw a tweet that the Canton De Vaud judiciary is going to start work again today, I saw that a shop selling coffee was open again and that a pet shop was open again too. These could be seen as signs, that more people are optimistic that things are improving.
Societal Change
I see that people are discussing whether society will have changed when this is all over and I believe that it will not have because of two key reasons. The first is that the wealthy, those with the power to effect change, will not have suffered like those that do not have the power to effect change. As a result many things will remain the same.
The second factor is rate of infection. When China was infected every other nation on earth had the opportunity to react, but as we see, after Italy was infected, no societies changed. Switzerland, France, Spain, The United Kingdom and the United States did not change.
It took governments saying “stay home, and self-isolate” for people to take action. To me this is a clear sign that the societal change people idealise is just that, an ideal.
Update: Victorian England was afraid of germs and diseases, which is why they wore white gloves and tried to keep their homes clean. The problem is that the paint they used to cover their walls was poisoning them, as was makeup and other elements of everyday life.
Side Effect
I have seen the headline in French and English that according to some people, the earth is less seismically active than usual. As none of the reputable news services have written about this story I am seeing it as just a curiousity, rather than something serious. It’s more likely that with less traffic, whether cars, trucks or planes, that seismometers, may detect less background noise.
In theory now would be the perfect time to have the LHC running, as there is less background noise.
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