My Corona

I have been taking precautions since the last days of February. I live in Silicon Valley and this is my experience.

I am just like everyone else. Watching news thinking the world is going to end. I have been amazed at how little my life has changed. I am lucky. I have a tech job that is easy to work from home. I have had many years of working remote in the past so it was no big deal for me. I am also blessed with a beautiful wife that I can stay home with and cook with. We have never eaten so well.

At this point at the end of April as I am writing this I feel a little guilty. I’m still getting paid, I have little trouble finding food and toilet paper. That doesn’t stop me from being selfish and thinking about what it would be like to take it easy and stay home without any work. That lasts for about two seconds and I feel bad for all the people without work right now.

Before this started there were about thirty plus million people out of work from the 2008 mortgage bubble. At this point, the released number is that we have added twenty-six million more people out of work. The real number has to be somewhere close to sixty million. This is why the rich in Silicon Valley are headed to their bunkers in New Zealand. Even the preppers are talking about getting amo and heading to their bug-out sites.

This is why the government is throwing money at the problem because they don’t just want to be reelected in the fall but still want to be alive to see it. This is a worldwide issue. Too many people have been suffering for too long. I hope we see a real worldwide change for the better.

So like I said, I’m a tech guy with no real medical experience but I am an analyst of sorts and often have to figure out all the ways something can go south. This is my assessment.

Coronavirus is not a flu. Many doctors have said this. This is a version of a cold. That means it will not go away when the summer comes. This can be seen by all the cases in the southern hemisphere.

This virus is RNA based which to my research has very few tools against it. I can only find a vaccine for Yellow Fever which is not a cold-based virus but is RNA based. That is bad. So worse case we have to evolve our way out of this virus. That takes a long time but with modern medicine, it will not be as bad as it has in the past.

Modern medicine has anti-virals and viral inhibitors. We can block the virus from attaching to cells and we can also block the virus from entering cells. All these medicines require early use before the virus has taken hold. Not an easy thing to do with a virus that doesn’t show symptoms until your immune system goes nuts or a secondary infection takes hold. Hydroxychloroquine and zinc are an example. If you look at how you use this medicine with malaria it needs to be given weeks before, during, and after a mosquito bite. It might work for some people but it is hard to be effective.

It also looks like the virus attacks people with type A blood, people with high blood pressure, and some types of Asian people that have a special type of lung immune system that keeps them from having issues with cigarette smoke. There are also people that are at higher risk like the elderly, cancer patients and other major illnesses.

What can we do?

If you are high risk stay home. If you are sick with anything stay home. We should all wear a mask when we go outside. We should demand masks for everyone. With correct protection, I think a good part of the population could go back out. This would require companies to have clean air filtration in their buildings. This would require the return to offices instead of open-plan offices. We should also require businesses to let everyone who can work remotely the choice to work remotely from now on.

We should be very careful the next few years until we can reduce the fatality rate. Movie theaters should be closed and drive-ins brought back. We should look into building local farms in each neighborhood so our food is more local and the possibility of infection is reduced.

How do I feel about the future?

I’m not sure. Some days I forget that anything is even going on and other days I want to get in an RV and head for the mountains. It is a year that we will all never forget. If we help each other and move forward in a responsible and intelligent way we can all survive this. The analyst in me thinks we are screwed and headed for the dark ages but the optimist in me thinks we will see a recession and be back to new by 2025.

Stay safe and watch out for each other.