I walked the dog earlier in the morning than usual. I was working on the puzzle of coverage at my day job. These were not normal times, any person on the team could get sick. They could be amongst the 20% hospitalization rate or 2% casualty rate. How did you plan based on that?
It reminded me of a story I had read of a great wave that decimated an island. It started with the water drawing back, leaving a quiet surreal peaceful feeling.
People walked out to the places that used to be covered in ocean. Fish and other sea creatures floundered on the sand.
The thing I remember, which may or may not have actually been in the story, was that it was too late at that point for the people exploring. Unbeknownst to them a ‘wave’, or really a towering wall of water, was hurdling toward them.
It would be pure luck if they survived.
Perhaps they could notice the water and anticipate what was coming and try to increase their odds by going uphill or securing themselves to a heavy object. Or even better, They could’ve listened to the stories of the people before them. And took actions based on those stories
I’ve been listening to those stories. Stay safe.
There is truth to these stories. Maybe not all, but enough to take heed.
Seems like a lot of people wandered into the ocean too far. These not be normal times. Stay safe.
The case count makes me think of two things
1. The book Black Swan – if you ever wondered what a black swan event was, now you know.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory
2. The story about the chessmaster:
As the story goes, when chess was presented to a great king, the king offered the inventor any reward that he wanted. The inventor asked that a single grain of rice be placed on the first square of the chessboard. Then two grains on the second square, four grains on the third, and so on. Doubling each time.
The king, baffled by such a small price for a wonderful game, immediately agreed, and ordered the treasurer to pay the agreed upon sum. A week later, the inventor went before the king and asked why he had not received his reward. The king, outraged that the treasurer had disobeyed him, immediately summoned him and demanded to know why the inventor had not been paid.
The treasurer explained that the sum could not be paid – by the time you got even halfway through the chessboard, the amount of grain required was more than the entire kingdom possessed.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2011/11/17/the-seduction-of-the-exponential-curve/#69e6e4202480
Hi constantreader, Thanks for the link. If I had extra money, this is the time to invest (assuming you pick a company that survives).
And thank you for the story. It is true that the numbers seem low in some places and it is hard for us/me to imagine the numbers getting to the levels that hot spots had.
I was talking to my hubby and he brought up the fact that many people won’t take it seriously until they actually know someone who was sick or who had died from it. Until that point it seems like a someone else problem.