Paris COVID-19 Quarantine – Day 7
We are now on the seventh day of the quarantine and last week seems so long ago. A week ago the Trump administration was just beginning to wake up to the major problem that was already happening in America, the UK was in have a 'cup of tea mode' and New Zealand was still reachable without spending $2000 for a one way ticket (Not that we can go anyway).
Now the Trump administration is scrambling to rewrite history and look like it was doing something all along (beside senators selling shares before the crash) and the UK's cup of tea is sitting on the bench going cold. Meanwhile, New Zealand is now going into full lock down and, from a conversation I had this morning, people are fleeing Auckland to their holiday homes up North.
And now to Austria. It appears Austria has handled the entire event in an understated way. Repatriating citizens, communication, even providing residences for people in abusive relationships so they won't be stuck in lock down with their abusers. They have had 3600 cases, 16 deaths and 9 people recovered. Colour me impressed.
In the wider world of the Internet, streaming has been limited in quality by companies in order to preserve network viability and conference video calling (eg; Zoom) is going off. It looks like in the longer term the pandemic will have a wide ranging effect on the Internet with working from home becoming more normal or at least catered to in the same way that if the transactions systems go down shop workers have those old credit card style machines where they can still process electronic transactions on paper.
Speaking of electronic transactions. There has probably never been a better advertisement for pay wave before. You don't want to have to press the buttons a thousand others have pressed before.
One thing I can see being a problem though is the food supply's. Not because anyone will run out of food but because they must serve as transmission points with everybody gathering together in them. Even if the amount of people are limited in the store, as is being done in Monoprix down the road, there is still everybody waiting in line. So, ....solutions?
Possible solution
In the same way that New Zealand has a four level system laid out for the country I think there should be a wider system laid out around the world. There should be a centralised body to monitor possible pandemics, the WHO for example and at each stage of alert reached countries should start manufacturing and buying supplies. We knew we were going to need respirators along time ago, and masks. Now we have a situation where in places like the USA governors are calling for the Federal government to step in because the states are bidding against each other to try and buy goods.
A international ten point system should be implemented where 0 is no risk seen and 9 is full quarantine and food is only available in boxed form (eg; "I'll have a vege box, a meat box and a household cleaner, please.").
At each stage countries could start on their preparations buying supplies, travel health checks, financial system health checks, school closures, non essential closures, implementing laws based on the stage and then releasing those strategies/controls as the threat level reverses.
More Deaths
Unfortunately, there has been a massive increase in both new cases and in new deaths with 3800 new cases and 186 deaths. I wonder how much of this is because of the health workers growing steadily more exhausted as they try and fight the virus...
The End
It strikes me that this is going to go on for a while so I think this is the end for daily blogging. Instead I am going to go back to learning Java, HTML and Linux. A little education never hurt anyone. :)
