Day 45 Over 3 Million Infections Worldwide

While still reporting deaths in the hundreds, New York and New Jersey are eyeing May 15th as a target date for reopening parts of their respective states. I’m not sure how bowling alley’s will fair, but I suspect that the Jersey shore crowd is ready to hit the beach. As for me, I think I am going to hold off on my next haircut.

Day 44 Still Cleaning My Attic

It’s raining and I am back cleaning up my attic. Today’s chore, going through a box of documents from 1999. What a wonderful trip down memory lane of the early part of my career. I scanned in the notes from the CEO congratulating me on a job well done, the performance reviews, awards and bonus letters. Someday, my grand kids may stumble upon old grandpa’s digital war chest and they will get a glimpse of the person I was.

Global COVID-19 cases are nearing 3 Million and the U.S. is closing in on the 1 Million mark for infections. Over 16,673 New Yorker’s have passed away due to COVID-19 as of 2 p.m. Sunday. New Jersey COVID-19 related deaths rose to 5,938 people.

Day 43 It’s Not Raining Today

It’s finally time to break out the lawn mower. The grass definitely needs to get trimmed, but I need a workout. I have the mower charging. Yes, I have a cordless mower, which I love. Its super quiet and environment friendly. Whether you are a “treehugger” or not carbon dioxide is a “bad” thing for you and the environment. The are so many new choices for electric mowers and battery options increase their range. One new mower has made the short list for my next purchase, Robotic Lawn Mowers. These robots are a little pricey, but they may save my back! And anyone who has hurt their back can tell you, that makes it priceless.

The U.S. nears 1 Million infections

Day 42 Cleaning Out the Attic

After 42 days, I have finally reached the clean out phase. Today, is attack the attic day. At a quick glance, I see car seats, toys and more toys, random house ware, etc. My kids are older now, so I will let them sift through toys and let them select a few special items. But the rest will go in to the trash. Normally, small appliances, toys, sport equipment would find its way into the next garage sale, but I don’t see those happening in the near future.

My goal is to toss at least two large bags of “STUFF”.

Day 40 What is a Pandemic?

It seems like the world was caught off guard by the first modern day pandemic to spread to every corner of the world. COVID-19 was identified as a Pandemic on March 11th (https://72inapart.com/its-a-pandemic/) by the World Health Organization (WHO).

This made me think what is a Pandemic? and What was COVID-19 prior to being classified as a Pandemic?

So, what is a Pandemic? A pandemic is used to describe a disease that has spread across many countries and affects a large number of people. The data scientist in me needs to quantify what “many countries” and “a large number of people” means. How many countries need to have a disease before it becomes a global emergency? 5, 10, 25, 50 … Is a large number of people 100, 1,000, 10,000 ? I couldn’t find the answers, the CDC nor the WHO specify how many countries or how many people need to be affected in order for something to be declared a pandemic.

March 11th 2020

When the WHO declared COVID-19 a Pandemic on March 11th, there were 126,000+ COVID-19 infections globally and 114 affected countries. So maybe the answers to what qualifies as a Pandemic are when a disease spreads to greater than 100 countries and greater than 120k people (infected).

According to the CDC, here are the stages diseases travel on their way to being labeled a Pandemic.

  • Sporadic, Where a disease is happening infrequently and irregularly.
  • Endemic, Due to the geographic location the disease is constantly present.
  • Epidemic, Sudden increase in number of cases and is more than what’s expected for an area.
  • And Pandemic, A disease that has gone Global = COVID-19.

I am not sure which classifications were applied to COVID-19 prior to becoming a Pandemic or whether were applied.

2.6 Million Infected – +800k in the U.S.

Day 10 Hey Siri

Apple’s Siri voice assistant now provides coronavirus advice. “How do I know if I have coronavirus” or “Do I have coronavirus?” It seems useful.
Not sure what happened to the website Google was going to launch. But the CDC launched “Clara“. A self-checker to help you identify whether you have corona-related symptoms.

In New Jersey, COVID-19 cases soar to over 2,800, Gov. Murphy Vows to enforce stay-at-home order.

Italy Goes into Lockdown

Millions of people in Italy have been placed on lockdown in an attempt to stop the spread of the new coronavirus amid the global outbreak of COVID-19. If this serves as a warning, will the US experience the rapid spread of this disease.

The global death toll passed the 4,000 mark and the spread is not slowing in the US. Washington state has now at least 22 deaths linked to the coronavirus.

3/9/20
3/8/20