A Corona Virus Blog
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.
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.
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.
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”.
It’s draft and my NY Jets selected Mekhi Becton, OT from Louisville. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Jets grab a few more O-Line bodyguards for Sam Darnold. This was a true sign of hope for the start of the Football season.
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.
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.
I am not sure which classifications were applied to COVID-19 prior to becoming a Pandemic or whether were applied.
Not sure how I missed a news report about a company named Biogen, who has been identified as the source of a coronavirus cluster in the states. They held an event on Feb 26-27, which accounted for 77 of the 95 infected people in Massachusetts, and countless people outside of the state.
After reading a few stories about business people getting infected at conference, or recalling Rudy Gobert’s positive notice, it occurred to me that wealthy, upper middle class and middle-class people are likely the reason this disease is spreading around the global. I don’t know any poor people who are traveling around the global for business, vacation, cruises, to visit their timeshare, or their vacation homes. The data scientist in me would love to see the data from Homeland Security to map travelers arrival into the U.S. and the spread of infections in a time-lapsed model.
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.
Not sure the cruising industry can recover from this event. They have turned in to giant floating Petri Dishes filled with older travelers. Gov. Gavin Newsom said that the thousands of passengers who will be leaving the ship won’t be heading back to their home communities. They’ll be transported to federal isolation facilities or taken to hospitals, if necessary. Crew members will be quarantined on the ship itself, which won’t stay in Oakland.
Coronavirus cases in New York surged by more than 4,500 on Saturday. The virus killed at least 15 more people in the city on Saturday, bringing the death toll to 60. According to Johns Hopkins University, there are more than 25,000 cases with 300 deaths. New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are asking people to stay at home.
