Seven Weeks of Solitude

It's been more than seven weeks since I last left my home for any reason. (Technically, I did venture a few feet into the street to put out the trash.)

As bad as it seems to be cooped up for several weeks, it pales in comparison to spending a year out at sea. But, I can’t really complain since I have everything I could need or desire in my home and yard.

So, it was time for me to finally venture out. There's only so much sun I can get on my hammock.

Operation: Grocery (Prime Now vs Instacart)

I haven't left my home in more than four weeks. I can count on one hand the number of people I've interacted with, in real life. All of my face-to-face interactions have one thing in common, they bring me food, groceries, and other things to eat.

For me, it's not as bad as it sounds. I have gone days without seeing daylight, while under the ocean in a submarine. Plus, I spent a year out at sea and I've gone many weeks without standing on land or venturing more than 200' from my bed. So, I can sit still. I can be a human being instead of a human doing.

Since I work from home, I see my coworkers everyday in face to face meetings, online. And, like many others, I attend online happy hours with friends and coworkers on most days of the week.

Amazon Prime Now vs Instacart

The only thing I need, from time to time, is food. My best option is to have it delivered which has been working well with Amazon Prime Now and InstaCart. I've noticed a couple key differences between these two services.

I've been using Prime Now for several years. Amazon always seems to know what they have in stock, so what I order is delivered when I place my grocery order. However, it's been a couple weeks since I've been able to get a delivery window with Prime Now. So, I moved to an alternative, Instacart.

I've had a couple deliveries through Instacart. They don't always know what they'll have in stock, a couple days out. But they have a shopper who alerts me when they start shopping. Through the Instacart app, I can chat with my personal shopper regarding replacements. It works very nicely, albeit, Instacart is more expensive than Prime Now. 

The best part is that I can continue to add items to my Instacart order up until the moment my shopper begins filling the cart. That's come in very handy as I've realized that I've forgotten items in the days leading up to the delivery. More expensive, but more personal. That works for me.

COVID-19 Soundtrack

The purpose of a soundtrack is to pair the mood to events through music. My favorite composer of the late 20th century is Philip Glass. His compositions arouse deep, longing emotions. When listening, I envision a great hero reaching for the heavens but falling painfully short.

Until the number of active cases dramatically decreases, this will get worse before it gets better. What gets me through each day is the knowledge that there's absolutely no doubt this first wave will end by summer. At one point, either enough people have contracted COVID-19 so there are no new hosts to infect, or we contain it through isolation and quarantine. Regardless, each day puts us one day closer to the peak and one day closer to resuming social activities.

COVID-19 Soundtrack

Looking back at how much better off we were last week elicits Opening:
http://mobile.joemoreno.com/Opening.mp3

Thinking about this current week evokes Facades:
http://mobile.joemoreno.com/Facades.mp3

Wondering about next week feels like Closing: http://mobile.joemoreno.com/Closing.mp3



Here are all three compositions, just shy of 20 minutes, in a single track:
http://mobile.joemoreno.com/CovidSoundtrack.m4a

Good Digital Hygiene

In the past ten days, nearly the entire knowledge workforce has moved into a virtual environment. Now is the time to begin practicing good digital hygiene. 

I'm lucky to work for a small data analytics firm where our workforce of two dozen people work from home. We have no corporate office. How good are we at working virtually? World class. Earlier this week we attended our annual offsite retreat. Originally planned for Pennsylvania, we moved, at the last minute, to cyberspace without skipping a beat. We even had a virtual happy hour at the end of each day.

Digital hygiene goes beyond cybersecurity. Security is a subset of safety that deals with protection from a conscious attack. Safety deals with more. It deals with protection from anything and everything – it's about being safe from harm.

Single Points of Failure

With many Stay at Home orders going into effect, it's important to recognize and think about options for newly emerging single points of failure which had previously been redundant.

What if my Internet goes down or my wireless router breaks? I no longer have an option to go to a cafe or coffee shop.

What if my computer breaks? I no longer have the option of going to the library.

What if my phone breaks? I can't schedule an appointment at the Genius Bar. 

Take care of your technology so it can take care of you.

Happy Hour

Happy hour with friends, lovers, and coworkers. 

Getting the Message Across

The New Yorker published an article, yesterday about convincing Boomer parents to take the coronavirus serious.

I've had conversations with my octogenarian mother, but it's not really sinking in. My cousin and I have been discussing the same issue that our other cousins are facing with their parent's. It's the same response we're hearing from our parents, "We can't just stay at home. We need to go out" and "We get stir crazy if we sit home too long."

A number of memes have begun circulating to address this.

We're not asking you storm the beach on D-Day. We're just asking you to stay home and sit on the couch.

Do you really need to go out to buy such-and-such? Would you go out to get it in the middle of a hurricane? Would you go out to get it in the middle of a blizzard? We're in a blizzard right now where the snow is invisible and it can kill you.

For anyone to go in public either means infecting others or getting infected themselves.

The COVID-19 cases we see reported, today, in real-time, are actually from a about week ago since the virus takes four to 14 days to incubate. 

This past weekend, Italy updated their medical protocols so that people over 80 years old do not get a ventilator; instead, they get morphine. There simply aren't enough ventilators and there's no reason why that can't happen here once we run out.

What is Germany Doing Differently?

What is Germany doing differently with COVID-19?

If you know (and I mean know, not speculation), then tell me at on Twitter @JoeMoreno.

Germany: 7,272 confirmed cases with only 17 deaths.

France: 6,650 confirm cases with 148 deaths.

United States: 4,287 confirmed cases with 74 deaths.

Is Germany under reporting? Are they providing a different protocol for treatment? Or, are they simply a statistical anomaly?

Click to enlarge.

China has reported single digit new cases for the past few days. Their seemingly draconian solution was lockdown. As of this moment, I am only aware of one municipality that's done this in the U.S., which is San Francisco with a shelter-in-place order effective at midnight. The New Jersey governor is encouraging a statewide curfew going into effect 8 PM – 5 AM.

My Thoughts on COVID-19 (Coronavirus)

COVID-19 has a mortality rate about 40 – 60 times greater than the flu with a virus contagion rate greater than the flu. (Mortality rate for the flu is 0.07%. COVID-19 is approximately 2 – 3%)

A key difference between the flu and COVID-19 is that COVID-19 requires a higher rate of hospital stays. 1 in 5 people with COVID-19 require a hospital stay, the medium length of stay is two weeks. The flu, on the other hand, can typically be treated at home.

However, these statistics are based on reported cases of both the flu and COVID-19 and, for both, many cases go unreported. 

Conservative indications are about half a million deaths in the US, this season. That means someone you know will die from this. 

This will get so much worse before it gets better and I am not a doom and gloomer. Good luck. Hang tight. See you at the end of summer for the first wave. 

I cannot express how bad next week will be. 


I'm posting this so I came come back in a week, month, or year to see how today's expectations match the reality of this season's pandemic.