Fine

I am not sure what it is but I am not able to work these days. I mean it's not like I have work work, which may be part of the problem, but I did keep myself busy so far with something or the other. Like writing a book. Taking courses but these days I am unable to do so. It's not like I don't have the inspiration to do work, especially with the book. It's just I can't form sentences to write what I want to write. The flow is missing, which is ironic as I can write a blog post about not working. Like this one. 

Part of me wishes I was employed at the moment. Earning your salary is a powerful motivator. Although it might be just the present environment that might be doing this. Who knows? I just don't want to sit in front of my laptop, staring at the screen, doing nothing. Any solutions?

Exit Startegy

Of course, I am talking about COVID-19. With the number of infections in the world crossing 2.5 million and race being on for developing a vaccine, I wonder if we are focusing on the right thing. I mean, it will take about 12-18 months to develop a vaccine. The virus has infected 2.5 million people in the last 4 months (it started spreading outside China in Jan). With the rate of contagion being highish, how many will it infect in the next 12-18 months? As per my calculation, we will infect the entire population of the world in about 7 months since the start in January at the current rate of spread. We are already in month 4.

(Data source: https://www.kaggle.com/sudalairajkumar/novel-corona-virus-2019-dataset#time_series_covid_19_confirmed_US.csv)

Even at a slower rate of infection, the entire world will be infected in 288 days. So, again, what's the point of a vaccine?

 

(Data source: https://www.kaggle.com/sudalairajkumar/novel-corona-virus-2019-dataset#time_series_covid_19_confirmed_US.csv)

Well, we don't yet know how bad the re-infection would be. By re-infection, I mean people who have already gotten better from COVID-19 infection may get re-infected. How bad this re-infection would be? Will it be better or worse than the first infection? Only time will tell. There is also a possibility of the virus mutating itself with time. I don't know if the vaccine will be effective in that case. Would we need to reinvent another one?

 Also, I can't imagine it will be possible for us to be in lockdown for the next 12-18 months. Economic costs need to be balanced. There will be lives and livelihoods lost that will start to mount up soon. So lives lost due to Coronavirus need to be balanced out with lives and livelihood lost due to lockdown. 

The point of the lockdown, in the first place, was to flatten the curve so that our medical sector can cope with the number of additional people getting sick. The keyword being "additional". Without turning down existing patients or other patients. Minimize the collateral damage as well as damage due to COIVID-19. We have been building new facilities all over the world. Is it enough? Do we have enough supplies? And most importantly, do we have enough medical staff to deal with this? Are we prepared? 

The next question is have we flattened the curve? Is it enough?   If not, then do we know when we would have done so? 

Again, this needs to be balanced with Economic costs, social unrest, and collateral damages. We don't want to keep focusing on one problem only. We have multiple problems. We need to find the best solution that help with these multiple problems. 

PS: 1. These are back of envelope calculations although I don't think they are too far from actual rates. 

2. For India:

With the actual rate (ignoring initial days), we will reach 1.3 billion in 161 days from January 22, 2020. The date would be 1st July 2020.

This is 33% less rate than actual. We reach 1.3 billion in 222 days from 22 January 2020. That will be 31st August 2020.

Discipline

I jumped 'B' and 'C', I know. But guess what? I think I lack the 'discipline' to follow through a challenge/routine. To be honest, it felt like I would be writing for the sake of writing while having nothing new to share. That wasn't incentive enough, I guess. To write just to write.

I may have done this ten years back. Heck, I think I would have jumped through hoops last year too. I just feel too old to be jumping hoops anymore. Either that or I have jumped through too many hoops without any expected results. I just don't see the point of jumping hoops anymore, for anyone or for anything. Nothing works even if you keep jumping hoops. So what's the point.

Either way, yet another project in the past few months that I am not following through...

Apocalypse #AtoZchallenge 2020

Really? Well, that's what few people claim this to be. I mean I know we are not in a normal situation at the moment (no, I don't use abbreviations. That must show my age but I don't care). I am not sure it is as bad as an apocalypse. Things are bad. Yes. More than half the world population is in some form of restricted movement scenario. We are watching counters for infected people and deaths go up and up. It's scary. However, the death rate is 6%, unlike ebola with up to 90% death rate. The issue we are facing is the speed at which this is spreading, hence the movement restrictions. So can we not make it something bigger than it already is?  

P.S.: 1. Well, I am late to the AtoZ Challenge but better late than never.

2. I managed to write the entire post without mentioning Coronavirus by name. Pretty sure you understood what I was talking about anyway. Goes to show we all have associated apocalypse with Coronavirus. That or nothing else is going on in the world that comes close to apocalypse at the moment.   

Book Writing

So I am writing a book. A book of Economics, to be precise. No, I am not an Economist per se. I took one class in Economics in 9th grade. I am a Geophysicist (I have a Ph.D. to prove that one) by training and some kind of analyst by profession (I think. Well, I really hope so). 

So I am writing a book of Economics. Because I find it fascinating. Because I think I may have a different point of view. But I don't know if that point of view has been worked on before. If they already have some fancy term for it.

Yet, I am writing a book. And I plan to publish it. I think it's a good idea. Well, sometimes I think I am in over my head on this. 

Yet, I enjoy writing the book. Well, most of the time. So I am going to write that book and publish it on Kindle. I will let the market forces do their job.

PS: How do you figure out that your book is done? I mean I can keep writing and keep adding something or the other to it. How do I know wits time to stop and publish the book?    

Would I?

With all that's going on with Coronavirus I am very sure this is going to sound highly inappropriate. I don't know if it's the fear or hope but part of my brain keeps thinking about how would my body will react to the virus. Most of the time, I am confused that it will be mild. Why? Because I don't think after 2 years of all this drama, my life will be as anti-climactic as that. The other part- the one with fear- is scared that it might just be that...

Lockdown Life

So we have been under lockdown for more than two weeks now. Being an introvert, I thought that this wouldn't be a problem. And to some extent it isn't. I don't have any craving to go out as such. But the days I have gone out for essential shopping, I feel a bit more down. The usual bustling and the noise, I kinda miss it. Even though absence of usual bustling and noise is a good sign. Still everything seems to be empty. I can't really explain it, it's just not a nice feeling. It makes me feel slightly more worried about the current state of things. It just gets real in a way that staying at home doesn't.  

That being state of things I think I need to find an outlet to rant. I have been ranting on WhatsApp quite a lot recently, which isn't the best option. So will try ranting on the blog instead for next few days. Don't mind me..

P.S.: I miss my blog friends. It's not very motivating to write a post when no one is reading and commenting. Although it is good for my ranting session. At least, I will not  be bothering anyone..