*Bringing this blog back to life, but this time, it's my personal anthropological diary. I am sort of forced to write it, thanks to our Anthropology methods lecturer, but it is great practice and habit to have. I have on and off written diary the past year, much less so in the last month or so, because of increased duties. So an official excuse to pick it up again is welcome. I have decided to make it public, too, if I can't hang out with people IRL, at least this lets me do it virtually.*
Tallinn, Estonia.
I have a confession to make. This is definitely not my Day 1, it's my Day 4.
The government just called for a state of emergency and news of people raiding supermarket shelves is all over social media. This is not my reality. I did the stocking up a couple of days ago. I ordered my wares through my regular online supermarket on Tuesday and I could see I wasn't the first or the only one to start preparing. The delivery time was already increased from a maximum of a few hours to a whole day.
I did order double the amount of goods and mostly imperishables. Not because I thought I wouldn't be able to get anything later, but the years I spent with my Italian family have made me cautious - I stock my cupboards (but never so that I have to throw it away) and I expect the worse from people themselves, and I start at the first signs of trouble.
I took an 8-week online course on epidemics around 5 years back from a popular educational platform, I had my reasons for it, but not directly related to epidemics. It turns out now, that it was actually a very useful course. When they announced on the news that the number of infected (and diagnosed) had risen from 17 to 27 overnight yesterday evening, I dug out my notes and logged in again to rewatch some of the videos from that course syllabus. My prediction, based on very basic calculations that we learned, a few academic sources, and the 27 infected people of 12th March that by midnight of Thursday, the number of diagnosed would be minimum of 40. And from there it will jump to 70ies and in a matter of hours to over 100. Just before midnight, the news stated 79 cases. I was off, but I knew the spike was at hand. Hell yeah! to free online courses.
There is no way with our non-existant immune response to this novel virus, with its base infection rate of over 4 and a relatively long latency period (5 days minimum) that this will be gone in a few weeks. Nah, this will stick around for months. Social distancing is our only option for keeping the rate of infections mild, make no mistake, we will be having this virus sooner or later, but we must remove as many people from the pool of susceptibles as possible as fast as possible.
Yesterday, I bought my cat his food and litter for a month. I brought some wares over for my sister and daughter. I told my kids 'soon the schools will be shut down'. And that we would have to learn to live with each other because I am pulling my family out of the pool so we slow this infection down. This was met with severe teenage protests and wailing from a six-year-old.
Then I disappeared in academic articles, journalistic reports, and editorial analyses for the whole evening. It was exhausting but eye-opening. I stopped caring about news several years back and hence had forgotten what a worm-hole it is. Just before midnight, the government announced a state of emergency.
This morning, we slept in. Lea didn't go to school. Loore went to kindergarten. Her pleas made me take her, she so wanted to play 'one last time with her friends, before she is abandoned with her family she so much hates' (she ought to have her own stand up comedy gig). I had to get to the office, so I took her and then took my car to town. I am not taking public transport from Wednesday.
I had meetings, fully aware of this not being a responsible course of action. I still feel a bit guilty about this. After lunch, I headed to the kindergarten for Loore and then came home to continue working remotely all evening. That is going to be the hardest part, working from home with all the family members at home all the time. Tomorrow morning we must get this sorted. It's past midnight. I better get to bed.
Tallinn, Estonia.
I have a confession to make. This is definitely not my Day 1, it's my Day 4.
The government just called for a state of emergency and news of people raiding supermarket shelves is all over social media. This is not my reality. I did the stocking up a couple of days ago. I ordered my wares through my regular online supermarket on Tuesday and I could see I wasn't the first or the only one to start preparing. The delivery time was already increased from a maximum of a few hours to a whole day.
I did order double the amount of goods and mostly imperishables. Not because I thought I wouldn't be able to get anything later, but the years I spent with my Italian family have made me cautious - I stock my cupboards (but never so that I have to throw it away) and I expect the worse from people themselves, and I start at the first signs of trouble.
I took an 8-week online course on epidemics around 5 years back from a popular educational platform, I had my reasons for it, but not directly related to epidemics. It turns out now, that it was actually a very useful course. When they announced on the news that the number of infected (and diagnosed) had risen from 17 to 27 overnight yesterday evening, I dug out my notes and logged in again to rewatch some of the videos from that course syllabus. My prediction, based on very basic calculations that we learned, a few academic sources, and the 27 infected people of 12th March that by midnight of Thursday, the number of diagnosed would be minimum of 40. And from there it will jump to 70ies and in a matter of hours to over 100. Just before midnight, the news stated 79 cases. I was off, but I knew the spike was at hand. Hell yeah! to free online courses.
There is no way with our non-existant immune response to this novel virus, with its base infection rate of over 4 and a relatively long latency period (5 days minimum) that this will be gone in a few weeks. Nah, this will stick around for months. Social distancing is our only option for keeping the rate of infections mild, make no mistake, we will be having this virus sooner or later, but we must remove as many people from the pool of susceptibles as possible as fast as possible.
Yesterday, I bought my cat his food and litter for a month. I brought some wares over for my sister and daughter. I told my kids 'soon the schools will be shut down'. And that we would have to learn to live with each other because I am pulling my family out of the pool so we slow this infection down. This was met with severe teenage protests and wailing from a six-year-old.
Then I disappeared in academic articles, journalistic reports, and editorial analyses for the whole evening. It was exhausting but eye-opening. I stopped caring about news several years back and hence had forgotten what a worm-hole it is. Just before midnight, the government announced a state of emergency.
This morning, we slept in. Lea didn't go to school. Loore went to kindergarten. Her pleas made me take her, she so wanted to play 'one last time with her friends, before she is abandoned with her family she so much hates' (she ought to have her own stand up comedy gig). I had to get to the office, so I took her and then took my car to town. I am not taking public transport from Wednesday.
I had meetings, fully aware of this not being a responsible course of action. I still feel a bit guilty about this. After lunch, I headed to the kindergarten for Loore and then came home to continue working remotely all evening. That is going to be the hardest part, working from home with all the family members at home all the time. Tomorrow morning we must get this sorted. It's past midnight. I better get to bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment