Keeping calm and carrying on

[petrea_mitchell]

After all that drama about quarantining people on cruise ships and travel bans and so forth, it turns out the new virus has been circulating for weeks in the Pacific Northwest. Oregon's first confirmed case is in isolation at the nearest hospital to me; it's estimated that a few hundred people around here probably have milder cases and don't even realize it.

I figure that there's not much I can do except be more careful about hand-washing and putting my hands near face. I don't have much case to panic, as I'm under 50 and my underlying health condition is well-controlled. In fact, the way my last couple of colds have gone, I think I should be more worried about becoming one of the asymptomatic spreaders. At least I don't have any regular contact with sick or elderly people.

Game Storm is coming up at the end of the month, and the convention is still on, because they don't have any choice. (See this timely article for all the details on force majeure, but basically unless the US government starts actively discouraging mass gatherings, no fan convention is going to be able to afford to cancel.)

At work, thankfully we have no conspiracy theorists and no panic. All business travel did get cancelled, and we've been expecting that we'll all be told to work from home for a while at some point. We've been ordered to work remotely if possible on Friday as a test to see if the company VPN can handle it.

Comments

[athenais]

Yeah, it's here, it's impossible to contain, although that's no reason to stop trying. But I expect John to start working from home soon as SLAC stops holding meetings he needs to attend. Me, I have no choice but to be out and about during the day. I don't have a lot of contact with people, however!