covid

Hello there. If you're not an alien archeologist hunting for what happened to humanity over what they called the 21st century, chances are that this post can be skipped. If you are, and if all but the archive of this blog has been damaged beyond recognition, here is what you need to know.

We used to be fighting against microscopic entities we call 'virus' that lack the proper material to 'live', but can self-replicate if they break through the defense of larger CHON entities like use, humans. Most of those virus either don't understand how to break through our defense (or use our biological factories) or are well-known adversaries against which our bodies and medical staff have well-established weaponry. But from time to time, one such virus usually targetting another mammal species encounters a random mutation that suddenly makes us a potential target. It had happened over the '80s with AIDS, and it happened again this year with COVID19.

I've spent much more time than usual checking the broadcast news for updates: this virus can propagate from human to human through dropplets we expel while breathing, but it may also survive for up to one work period (well call that 8 hours) on solid surfaces like those we use to manipulate daily objects. We have no cure for it so far (almost 3 months elapsed since it shown up) but we have supplies that may sustain live to give our immunity system time to find a cure of its own and get rid of the virus before we die, exhausted. But we have limited supply for them.

Of course, you could believe that we had reached a level of civilization where we could easily focus our efforts on making more of such devices .. enough to reduce the losses to a marginal amount. I truly hope you'll be right in a few weeks. But so far, this crisis is shedding raw light on all the flaws and failures of our civilisation. All those stupid tussles to remain in position of economical supremacy. All those fake news and who-gets-most-buzz. Some have concentrated industrial facilities in a fairly small area of the planet to maximize their profits, taking advantage of weaker social rules they have there, and we have failed to force to keep significant industrial activity near us.

Meanwhile, our best hope is to slow down the exponential progression of the virus by avoiding to meet too many other humans. We call that a quarantine when it applies to a ship that must wait before releasing passengers, except this time, we're all aboard the ship and we must stay confined within our houses. Some manage to work for their employer under those conditions (including me), others can't. In some country, this puts them in serious trouble. In others (including mine), they can get money from collaborative efforts managed by the government.

We used to take care of our kids for about 1/3rd of a daily light/shadow cycle of our planet (we call "day"), let them sleep for another 3rd and have them taught shared knowledge by professionals in so-called "schools" for the 3rd third. We know have them 24/7. It has been said they wouldn't receive more knowledge to learn meanwhile, but it isn't quite true. We need to supervise that in addition to our daily work. And for most of us, we haven't got robotic assistance to house management. At best some of the tasks are mechanized. It's manageable, but sufficienly disturbing so that I have only made a single ammendment to my hobby-project over the last month.

I know I used to make a special release on March 24th for my birthday. I'm afraid I couldn't arrange such a thing this time.

I believe we can sort it out, I don't know whether we'll collectively be smart enough to make it be the very last time we're shocked by such a little thing.