Category Archives: Health

Is It Possible That You Had The Coronavirus Earlier This Year?

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NHS Medics: We Aren’t Being Protected From Coronavirus – We Fear We’ll Infect Our Families

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Finding Comfort in Predictions

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On March 11 I wrote the following notes in my personal journal:

The coronavirus is currently in outbreak mode around the world. There are 125,865 known infections worldwide, with almost 81K in China. In the USA there are already 1281 infections, 7 of them in Nevada. But that’s largely due to severe under-testing.

I think the USA is in for a big reckoning, especially with Donald Trump being a complete idiot in his response to this, clearly caring more about the economy and his own self-interests than about people’s lives.

The death rate of this virus seems to be about 3-4%, a lot deadlier than the flu. There’s a good chance I’ll get infected at some point, but I’ll probably be fine. Many people won’t be fine though.

Within a matter of weeks, hospitals will be overwhelmed with patients since about 15-20% of the infected require hospitalization – for about 2 weeks. When the virus kills, the average is about 17 days till death.

This is a big deal for the planet. It’s about to become a really big deal for the USA and for Las Vegas. I doubt that enough people see this yet though.

In that same entry, I also made the following predictions as a way of wrapping my head around what I thought could be coming up:

  • The virus will spread quickly because the government response is severely lacking.
  • It will hit Las Vegas hard, especially because the Mayor is behaving cluelessly, attacking the media and defending the economics of the city more than aligning with the truth.
  • Within about 3 months, if not addressed massively and intelligently, around 1M Americans could be infected… and 100M within 4 months. But if serious countermeasures are taken soon, those numbers could be curtailed a lot.
  • Hospitals will be overwhelmed with serious cases sometime within the next month or two.
  • Many more live events and conferences of all sizes will be canceled, including sporting events, music festivals, and really anything with a substantial audience.
  • Large parts of the country (and many other countries) will go on lockdown, prohibiting unnecessary travel or public gatherings.
  • We won’t be able to go to our new fitness center at some point.
  • Lots more people will wear face masks and gloves and practice social distancing.
  • More and more people will get a clue about this with each passing week, realizing that this is real and serious.
  • Many doctors and medical staff will become overworked, and many will get sick themselves. Some will die.
  • Some people that I know will pass away this year, killed by this virus or its complications.

I often use my journal for writing down my personal predictions. I do this for a number of reasons:

  • Predictions help me wrap my head around what’s happening. It’s a way to get aligned with truth.
  • Sometimes my predictions are accurate, and sometimes they aren’t. Most of the time they’re mixed. By recording what I’m predicting, I can go back and review my predictions later to see how accurate I was and to ponder why. When I’m wrong, this helps me identify biases or mistakes and to accept that sometimes the future is unpredictable.
  • Even when predictions seem disconcerting, they’re actually comforting. They help me relax into acceptance and surrender regarding some possible futures.
  • Predictions are often actionable. If I gain some clarity about what may be coming up, I can better prepare for it, and I can help other people prepare too.
  • Predictions help me separate truth from power. I like to take a step back and consider what’s unfolding, separating from this from concerns about what I might be able to do about it. This helps keep me away from the trap of denial. It’s so easy to fall into denial when we merge truth and power, refusing to even look at truths when we’re worried about whether or not we can handle them; that’s when we fudge the data to fool ourselves.
  • Predictions help me discover when my mental models are good enough, too complicated, or too simplistic to be reliable and useful.
  • Predictions give me a base for assigning meaning intelligently, so that I can preserve and even improve my relationship with reality without resisting reality.

I felt that my third prediction from the top list was inaccurate since it was too much of an off the cuff estimate. So four days ago I went over the actual growth rate of reported cases in the USA, and I made more a detailed prediction of how I thought these numbers would unfold.

I shared the following post in Conscious Growth Club’s forums on March 20:

The USA is currently reporting 16,796 coronavirus cases. Based on the growth curve I’m seeing, I predict we’ll pass 100,000 cases in about 1 week. And I predict that we’ll pass 1,000,000 cases in about 2 weeks (from today).

If we move to total countrywide lockdown immediately, we can slow this, and we must. Each day we wait is a huge mistake.

Note that 1 week ago we were at 2247 cases, and 2 weeks ago we were at 319 cases.

Where we are today is still early, early, early game for the virus. If we don’t lock down right away, we’re looking at tens of millions of infected within a month.

Here’s a shorter prediction: I predict that we’ll pass 50,000 reported cases for the USA in just 4 days, sometime on Tuesday, March 24. This could happen sooner though if there’s a significant increase in testing.

Here’s the formula I’m using:

Infected on Day N = (Infected today) x e^( 0.288 x N )

So if we use today as the baseline, then this becomes:

Infected on Day N = 16,796 x e ^ ( 0.288 x N )

Hence our infected for the days ahead:

16,796 (today)
22,402
29,879
39,851
53,151
70,891
94,551
126,108 (March 27)
…
946,850 (April 3)
1,262,868 (April 4)

You can also plug in negative numbers for N to go backwards in time, which will show you that this tracks the historical data with decent accuracy.

This formula will be more accurate when the numbers of infected are still low relative to the total population. And of course a total lockdown can slow it down significantly.

Also note that these numbers work only for the USA since the growth rate for other countries is different. I think the UK rate is really close to ours though, so if you want to try some projections there, you could potentially use the same formula.

It’s been noted that the death rate may be more reliable for predictions than the reported infections, and I agree that’s true. I did this mainly as an exercise to help wrap my mind around what could be coming up.

So far the first three predictions were right on target, and we’re set to reach today’s prediction of passing 53,151 cases as predicted. At the time of writing this, we’re at 50,860.

While there may be a certain morbidness to this practice under the circumstances, I still find it useful and even comforting. It helps me see what’s coming up, so I can mentally and emotionally prepare for it as best I can. This includes going into personal lockdown two weeks ago, mainly to reduce the risk of further spreading the infection.

Sometimes I do this sort of practice in business. I make predictions for the months or years ahead based on trends that I can see today. Many people are doing this now by looking for business opportunities within the current crisis. While I do think it’s possible to take this too far, such as by buying hand sanitizer or medical masks and then reselling them for more, others are looking to provide genuine value in ways that people would appreciate during this time.

For instance, we can predict that many people will be spending more time at home in the weeks ahead. So they’ll be doing more cooking than usual since they won’t be going out to eat. So there will likely be extra opportunities for people teaching online cooking classes. Moreover, since veganism has been trending upwards as well, the combo of veganism and cooking classes could be especially good. Many people are free of the social influences that could otherwise prevent them from making such a lifestyle shift, so I would expect that a lot more people will experiment with veganism and vegan meals during this time. The opportunity is there. The time is there. And the objections are significantly reduced for many people.

I’ll make some current predictions regarding the coronavirus situation:

  • Veganism will increase during lockdown at a faster rate than it was previously increasing. More people will have time to make this kind of lifestyle change. More people are growing concerned about their health and immunity. And more people will have time to research this online.
  • Within 30 days, India will have the most coronavirus deaths of any country in the world. They’re currently ranked 31 with only 10 deaths right now. Italy, China, and Spain are 1, 2, and 3 right now. Partly I’m basing this prediction on India’s population size and population density, partly on their healthcare system, partly on their culture, and partly on their government.
  • Some well-known celebrities will die from coronavirus in the next 30 days, and there will be news stories about each one.
  • Someone I know personally will pass away from coronavirus by the end of May, possibly by the end of April.
  • The Vegas Strip casinos will still be closed 30 days from now. (This is longer than the planned closure.)
  • The USA will have rolling waves of coronavirus infections and deaths surging in different cities and states at different times throughout the year. Some individual states’ lockdowns will suppress it locally for a while, and they’ll eventually get it under control, but not long after they ease up their restrictions, they’ll have to deal with other waves and fresh surges, especially as people travel from other states and countries and bring the infections right back in. The countrywide response will be inconsistent for a while, a patchwork of different states applying different strategies.
  • Among Democrats and Republicans, the virus will infect and kill more Democrats first because it’s spreading in the bigger cities faster and sooner, and those places tend to have more Democrats. But in the long run, it will kill a higher percentage of Republicans as the infection inevitably spreads to more rural areas. Those rural areas typically have worse healthcare than the bigger cities, especially with respect to ICU beds, ventilators, and transit time to hospitals with ICU beds. Republicans tend to be older, and the virus is more deadly for older people. Women lean more Democrat than men, and the virus is much deadlier for men. Polling has shown that a much higher percentage of Republicans still don’t take the virus seriously and aren’t practicing social distancing, so it’s more likely to decimate their communities when it arrives. When you add it all up, there are a lot of factors suggesting that COVID-19 will be more deadly for Republicans than Democrats. One advantage for Republicans is that many Republican bulwark states will see this virus surge later in their communities, but if they’re wasting time on denial, that’s going to whittle away their head start and could negate this advantage.
  • Some lawyers will see a booming business in coronavirus related lawsuits. I expect there will be lots of lawsuits against businesses like Amazon or Costco as some of their employees get infected and die due to work-related activities. I imagine that Fox News will likely get seriously sued over this as well.

Time will tell. Under the circumstances, I would truly love to be wrong about the above.

What are your predictions about what’s coming up? You don’t have to share them, but I encourage you to just make some predictions for yourself in your own private journal. It can help you come to terms with your own thinking.

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Coronavirus Adaptations for Local Businesses

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In Conscious Growth Club, we’ve been discussing the coronavirus situation since February 26, and our discussion thread called “Coronavirus preparation” is now up to 325 posts and still growing. Perhaps a half-dozen related threads have been started as well, as members are discussing topics like self-care in isolation, immunity boosting tips, and sharing updates on what’s happening in different countries. So we’ve had some visibility on it this sooner than most, which gave us a head start on mentally and emotionally preparing ourselves for it.

Contrast this with various local businesses that haven’t been as aware of what’s coming up and were thrown for a loop at the speed and surprise of changes coming at them.

Let me share some local Las Vegas businesses how have been adapting.

Casinos and Hotels

The casinos and hotels are shut down statewide. So the Vegas Strip is shuttered. This essentially turns off the flow of money coming into the city.

The larger operations seem to be paying their employees for the next 2 weeks up to 30 days, but the smaller ones are already laying people off. I read that about 206K casino employees are out of work now.

This is going to crash the cities economy, badly enough that I think it will take years to recover. When we reach the point that the bigger casinos have to start laying people off, it will take them a long time for them to rebuild afterwards. And it will take a while to rebuild tourism to the city.

These larger operations don’t have a lot of good adaptations right now other than laying everyone off. It’s not like they can convert their large spaces to other social uses. They’ve had to turn off just about every revenue stream: hotel stays, gambling, shows, restaurants, night clubs, spas, arcades, etc. The entire resorts are closed.

Some local places have remained open 24/7 for many years, so they literally had to hire a locksmith to come over and install locks. They’d never had cause to lock their front doors because they had never closed before.

Additionally Cirque du Soleil, which has many shows in Vegas, laid off 95% of its global workforce, basically letting go of all of its performers.

Presently the casinos seem to be begging the federal government for bailout money, along with many other businesses.

Some resorts actually have to pay rent because they don’t own the land they’re on. The Bellagio is in this situation, for instance. So what happens when rent is due, but there’s no money coming in?

Fitness Studio

My local fitness studio has adapted to this situation quickly. They converted their in-person classes to online streaming classes. They provided all active members with access to a private area of their website where we can watch streaming classes online. Each day they post a schedule of classes.

Today, for instance, there are 11 classes include various forms of yoga, pilates, bootcamp, and barre. There’s even an indoor cycling class, which I guess is suitable for people who have exercise bikes at home.

It looks like they may stream a class live the first time and also record it. Or maybe they just record them all – it’s hard to tell. But they’re streaming on a schedule with only one class available at a time, and you cannot pause a video in progress, so it simulates the feeling of live classes. It’s less flexible though because if they’re recording these anyway, they could just make all recordings available at all times.

They must be in a tough situation though. Rachelle and I have each done a few of the streaming classes. They’re well done, and I like that this option is available so I can continue what I started in February in some fashion. But it’s not as good as the in-person experience at the studio.

This studio is part of a growing chain across several states, so they can pool resources to create the online classes. The ones we watched looked like they’re being recorded in Vegas though. Some people were wearing Vegas shirts in one video, and another was done by an instructor we know from our local studio.

This must be a tough situation for them. If the online classes are only needed for a few weeks, hopefully it will help members keep their memberships going and not cancel. But if this situation goes on for months, I think more people will conclude that they should cancel their memberships. I think people will find it hard to justify paying as much for online video workouts as they do for the live in-studio experience.

One issue Rachelle and I both noted though is that on some of the videos they’re creating, they’re clearly not practicing good social distancing. They have an instructor and several students on yoga mats within arm’s length of each other sometimes. That’s a concern. I think a lot of people are having a hard time noting just how disciplined we need to be about social distancing.

Rachelle and I stopped going to classes at this studio about two weeks ago. We were sad to stop, but we saw this situation coming a while before it began to unfold locally. Initially after we stopped going, the studio tried to adapt with fewer classes and more sanitation procedures, but I knew it wasn’t going to matter.

That’s a pattern I’ve seen a lot locally. Businesses are trying to incrementally adapt, but often by the time they figure out their incremental adaptations and announce them to their customers or clients, the situation has already moved beyond that.

Music Store

Initially the local music store where I take guitar lessons tried to keep their stores open but with more limited hours. Fortunately our Nevada Governor shut that idea down by ordering (instead of merely requesting) all nonessential businesses to shut down.

I did my last lesson there more than two weeks ago and canceled all upcoming lessons indefinitely, having a glimpse of what was about to unfold. I told someone at the store that I expected the store would be closed by the end of the month. I don’t think he believed me at the time.

During the past week, the store sent out a couple of emails announcing reduced hours for their physical locations and added the ability to continue lessons online, saying that the guitar teachers would follow up with their students individually about this. Their plan was to still have the teachers stream the lessons from the stores.

I knew this wouldn’t last long. A few days later the store had to completely by Governor’s orders.

I’m not sure if they’re going to try adapting to this now by letting their music teachers team and stream lessons from home. That seems a bit risky for them because they take a cut of the lesson tuition. So it’s like cutting themselves out of the loop, although they could still handle booking and billing lessons.

I like the in-person lessons, but I don’t think I’d want to do them remotely if given the options. There are other ways I could take online lessons that are more flexible. And I’d miss the face-to-face aspect.

Farmers Market

Close to our house they’ve converted the usual weekend farmers market into a drive-through version, so people can get fresh produce without leaving their cars. There’s a short video of it at the link below if you want to see how it works.

This seems like an okay adaptation at first, especially since the helpers wear gloves when they handle the produce and money. But the video still shows some examples of people not applying good social distancing as they move around the area, so while this may be better than going to an overcrowded grocery store, it’s still showing risky behavior.

An even worse issue is that when a local food bank announces that they’re giving away food, like in a parking lot, people swarm the area to acquire the food. These giveaways may be well-intentioned, but there’s a serious lack of awareness or discipline about the criticality of social distancing, which makes it easier for the virus to spread.

If we keep seeing this pattern locally, it’s just going to make the situation worse.

Strip Club

Vegas has a lot of strip clubs, and this situation puts many of them out in the cold. One local club quickly tried to adapt by offering drive-by strip shows. The idea was that patrons would stay in their cars, pay $100, pull up to a window, and a stripper would perform for them from a distance for 10 minutes. No touching allowed of course.

This idea generating some local press, maybe for its creativity or simply for its desperation, but was dead on arrival. The club didn’t have a chance to implement it before the it was ordered fully closed by the Governor, along with all other nonessential businesses.

Earlier today I learned that a strip club in Portland came up with a different idea. Partly as a joke, the club’s owner suggested on social media that they should convert to a food delivery service and have the strippers deliver food to people. Some people started to seriously inquire about the idea, so the owner decided to do exactly that. Now they have strippers with drivers (who also serve as security for them) taking food orders and delivering food. They say they’ll even deliver food to the coast (about an hour’s drive from Portland) if people are willing to pay enough for it. The name of the new service: Boober Eats.

Since strippers typically work as independent contractors, they’re not eligible for unemployment benefits. So while it’s to be expected that they may try to create new income streams, reporters have noted that the place in Portland isn’t practicing social distancing.

One source noted that while the owner is providing masks, disposable gloves, and sanitizing wipes, there are major problems present with social distancing:

But social distancing seemed to be a struggle for the women themselves. The club has turned into the headquarters for Boober Eats, and on Friday, it remained full of dancers, delivery drivers and members of the media. Some of the dancers greeted each other with hugs and took selfies together.

Source: Oregon Live

So there’s a genuine risk that this could become a coronavirus delivery service.

Problems with These Adaptations

These adaptations, while understandable, creative, and perhaps even admirable in some situations, aren’t without issues, especially when it comes to social distancing.

I think we’ll likely run into more local businesses trying to make similar adaptations, and I caution everyone not to ignore social distancing since it remains so critical right now.

Some of these problems can be solved with better attention to detail. For instance, we don’t not need lots of students on a streaming yoga video to demonstrate the postures. One or two would be sufficient, separated by a generous distance. And the Farmers Market could assign one person to one or two tables, so their paths aren’t crossing each other and they stay in their own zones.

The USA has now surpassed 42K reported coronavirus cases. Three days ago (on March 20) we were at 16K cases, and on that day I predicted that we’d surpass 50K cases sometime on Tuesday (tomorrow). Unfortunately we’re right on schedule, even slightly ahead of schedule.

My other predictions were that we’d reaching 100,000 USA cases on March 27 and that we’d reach 1,000,000 cases on April 3rd. Of course it’s possible that we may not do enough testing to achieve those predictions on the reporting side, but the virus is still showing abundant momentum to get there whether or not testing can keep up with it. Many experts suggestion that the true cases are likely to be at least 10x higher than the reported cases, so we could be looking at 10M+ true cases (or more) sometime next week. That can and will overwhelm many hospitals.

I’ve also noticed that this virus is moving socially closer. Last week I learned that a friend of a friend of a friend died from it. Then last night a friend’s niece passed away from it. More people that I connect with on social media have been reporting their own confirmed or likely infections.

Now imagine all of this being 25X higher sometime next week. And then it will flow right into 50X and then 100X without stopping.

If the adaptations seem reasonable, they aren’t. If they seem ridiculously strict, they may be just barely adequate.

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Can We Have Sex? Here’s When You Can (And Can’t) Do It In The Coronavirus Outbreak

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Trusting the Virus

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In November when I did four days of ayahuasca ceremonies in Costa Rica, the first night was really rough. About an hour after drinking the tea, I started feeling very strange, and this feeling continued to intensify. My body began to feel really heavy, and after a while I felt like I was mostly paralyzed and could hardly move. I couldn’t sit or stand up. All I could do was lie down.

It was reasonably cool in the room, but I was sweating profusely. Soon I started feeling like it was hard to breathe… like I wasn’t getting enough oxygen. I began to feel concerned. This was my first ever experience of this nature, and I hadn’t heard of anyone having breathing issues, so I didn’t feel prepared for that. I had the sensation like something was pushing down on my chest. So I started pushing myself to breathe harder and faster, which made me sweat even more.

The shaman’s helpers came over to check on me, probably because they could hear me struggling, encouraging me to try to relax and slow my breathing. But it was like listening to them through a fog. Mentally I was telling myself that I’d be okay, but my physical sensations were very confusing and unpleasant.

Meanwhile my mind was flooding with vivid, brilliantly colored fractal imagery at the same time I was trying to get my breathing under control. The feeling of discomfort kept increasing. I started wondering if I was going to pass out from not being able to breathe. What if no one realized what had happened in time? What if I died right there?

The worst was feeling so physically paralyzed, not 100% but maybe 90%, while trying harder and harder to get more air in. I was breathing really loudly and forcibly, almost like a woman in labor, yet I still felt like I wasn’t getting enough air.

But then when I feel really uncomfortable, disturbed, and concerned, I reminded myself to seek out my primary source of grounding, which is my relationship with reality. Despite the labored breathing and the psychedelic imagery, I found immediate comfort in remembering that relationship. And I reminded myself of the importance of trust in reality.

I didn’t know if I’d be physically okay. I hoped so, but it didn’t feel like things were okay in that moment. So I decided to trust on a different level that the experience was spiritually okay. In my mind I just began repeating: I trust you. I trust you. I trust you. I did my best to let go and surrender to my commitment to always trust reality. This included trusting that if it was my time to die, then it was my time to die, and fighting that wasn’t going to help.

This effort to lean towards trust started making me cry, not from desperation though. It was a feeling like I was linking up and opening a communication channel to some aspect of life that runs deeper than what I normally experience on a day to day basis. It felt like the tears were just my body’s reaction to what felt like an energetic response from reality. In some ways it felt like I was really just remembering that this channel is always there. It’s a similar channel to what I often experience while writing, but the frequency range was a bit difference.

Never in my life have I had to lean so far in the direction of trust before. Intellectually I can trust reality because I’ve reasoned out that it makes sense to do so. But it was something else entirely to lean into trusting reality when I wasn’t sure which way my body was going to go in the next hour. I didn’t have much control over my body in that situation, and even the contents of my mind were a bit out of control too, but I still had the ability to acknowledge this relationship with reality and to commit to trusting it no matter what happened.

Somehow when I leaned into trust, my body began to follow. My breathing started to ease up. My heart rate came down. It was still uncomfortable, but I began to relax into internal rhythms that felt safer to me. Soon I could tell that I was out of the woods and would be okay physically.

Afterwards I still had several hours of deep imagery and intense emotional processing to go through, including a storm of tears, but that was the easy part relative to the physical sensations. I still spent hours feeling semi-paralyzed and super dizzy like the room was spinning, so I needed help just to walk to the bathroom at one point.

And then I went through three more ceremonies in the next three nights. As you might guess, it took a lot of trust to drink the tea again after knowing what happened the first night. But I also felt that since I’d gone through it once and learned that trusting reality helped a lot, I was perhaps better prepared if I had to go through something similar again.

It turned out that each night was a different experience. I only had the labored breathing, profuse sweating, and semi-paralysis on the first night. The other nights were so different, with some of the worse nausea and dry heaving I’ve ever experienced, including retching over a bucket for more than an hour – quite the ab workout.

Overall that week was a physically difficult experience but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually beautiful. I may even go back again this November, but we’ll have to see if that’s possible.

For some time after that experience, I’ve been wondering about that night where I felt like I could barely breathe. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. I understand the purging aspect, which most people experienced during that week, some more than others. But I didn’t hear of anyone else struggling to breathe like I did, at least not among our group of about 40 people. And why did I have to endure that only on the first night? I saw so much evidence of rich meaning in other parts of the experience, but this part stood out to me as a piece that didn’t seem to fit.

At the time I decided to just trust that reality was giving me that experience for a reason, but I didn’t know why. It did help me appreciate life afterwards, and it also shifted my relationship with death. It reminded me that if death is approaching, it’s best to relax and do my best to trust reality rather than tensing up all over.

What I didn’t know or expect about ayahuasca is that it seems to leave a permanent trace effect behind. I feel like it opened up some kind of communication channel has never fully switched off or closed since November. Most of the time it’s muted, but it’s still present, and I can tune into some threads of information or energy currents that remain accessible.

As the virus situation has been escalating this month, I’ve been feeling this channel open up more, as if the ayahuasca energy signature is tapping me on the shoulder and trying to get my attention. I also keep hearing music looping in my mind that I heard during the ceremonies.

When I learn about people being on ventilators and struggling to breathe, this channel opens up more clearly, and it reconnects me back to the vivid memories of when I felt that I could barely breathe. I even feel some of the sensations in my body, like I’m acting it out again. Sometimes it becomes so uncomfortable that I have to pull my attention away for a while and allow my body to relax.

Meanwhile the reason why this is happening comes through clearly as well – empathy.

Whenever I think about the people who are struggling to breathe – and the many more who will soon be joining them – I can’t help but feel some of those physical sensations myself. I’m reminded of how terrifying that can be, and all sorts of emotions come up. And I have to keep surrendering to those feelings and reminding myself to relax into trust again.

Even though a virus isn’t a plant, this open ayahuasca channel is somehow showing me that plant intelligence and viral intelligence are connected. Maybe they’re linked via the energy patterns or intelligence of nature. I can’t really explain it. I just sense that this viral situation isn’t some random or chaotic event but rather that there is an intelligence behind it, and it’s part of the same intelligence that I danced with during the ayahuasca ceremonies.

These realizations have been guiding my behavior in recent days. On the one hand, I’m strongly motivated to encourage people to practice good social distancing, and I want us to move towards stronger measures faster and sooner, partly because I don’t want anyone to have to go through the experience of feeling like they can’t breathe. Knowing that more and more people will soon be gasping for breath brings up a flood of emotion, especially this feeling of connection to the fear and stress they’ll experience as they go through it. Putting my attention on this creates strong sympathetic sensations in my body.

And yet there’s this other aspect of trust as well, which has multiple layers to it. One part tells me that if people have to go through this experience, then it’s best for them to lean into trusting reality as much as possible, even going so far as to trust that it may be time to die. Mentally and emotionally resisting and tensing doesn’t seem like it would help, but letting go and allowing the body to respond with its own intelligence just might help.

Another layer, which might sound odd to many people, includes trusting the virus itself. This doesn’t mean trusting that it won’t infect me and running around risking people’s lives.

By trusting the virus, I mean trusting that it’s part of nature and part of reality, and so if I lean into trusting reality, that includes trusting the purpose of whatever this virus is doing. I can’t say exactly why, but I do sense that this virus has a purpose, both for us as individuals and for the world.

So while one part of me empathizes with seeing it as a threat and wanting to prevent harm, another part of me trusts that it’s not really here to vanquish us. When I look at it this way, even death doesn’t look like a form of harm per se, just a type of transition.

Because of this perspective, I feel that if I got infected, one part of me might want to frame the virus as an invader that I have to defeat in order to survive. But another part of me somehow knows that this level of perception isn’t accurate and that it would only fuel more tension and make the experience worse. It makes me consider that perhaps I should welcome the virus as a form of intelligence, to let it do its dance with my body and trust my body to respond appropriately. Maybe its purpose is to teach me something or to give me an experience that might actually be a precious gift.

So presently I don’t feel aligned with the “war on virus” frame that I’ve been hearing lately. To me that sounds about as ludicrous as declaring a war on kale. I don’t think the virus is declaring war on us. I sense no hostility or belligerence in its intention.

I do think the virus has a positive purpose to serve, and I don’t think that going to war with it acknowledges that purpose. I’m not 100% sure what it’s purpose is, but I’m pretty sure that it isn’t here to make everyone stock up on toilet paper.

I sense that this new virus is here to teach us something. I see its presence in the world as an invitation – a complex invitation with many layers to it, both individually and collectively. I know that I’m not the only one who’s considering this perspective right now.

Whenever I write a new blog post, I pick a frame and write from within that frame. This virus situation has many layers to it, which makes this an especially big challenge because no single frame can address the entirety of the situation. One day I may write from a frame that encourages social distancing, which may be a rational course of action within that frame. Another day I may write from a frame that suggests the rationality of acceptance and surrender. Some people may see these as being in conflict. I don’t. They’re just different lenses for viewing the same reality, and when we consider multiple lenses, we discover deeper levels of rationality that make sense across multiple frames.

Recognizing the value of surrender doesn’t make me want to abandon social distancing, for instance. I can and do practice both. I can do what I can to reduce suffering, even while feeling intense sympathetic emotion. And I can simultaneously accept and align with where this story wants to go without feeling like I’m fighting reality. What binds these together is trust. When we trust, life plays us like instruments.

I think a common objection to trusting reality is that it will make you passive, complacent, or foolish. I think that’s an irrational objection though.

If you consider this virus situation as an invitation for you, what kind of invitation do you think it is?

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The Elephant and the Virus

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With respect to the coronavirus pandemic, I am concerned about India. Given their population density and more than 1.3 billion residents, the virus situation there could soon make what’s happening in Italy and Spain look tame.

Earlier this week India was reporting only 129 infections and 2 deaths. Today it’s at 249 cases and 5 deaths. While those numbers may seem ridiculously low relative to India’s population, they appear to be starting out much the same as any other country.

While mathematical illiterates might dismiss these numbers as trivial, fortunately India’s Prime Minister and their National Security Council are paying serious attention to what’s happening elsewhere. Consequently, India has been on lockdown since March 18 and plans to continue through March 31. I think they’ll need significantly longer, but it’s good to see them taking this step.

India’s director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics, and Policy, Dr. Ramanan Laxminarayan, warns that India may have to deal with a tsunami of about 300 million coronavirus cases. He estimates that India has 70K-100K ICU beds in the entire country. Note that the total ICU beds in the USA are also estimated to be in this same range, and the USA is already on a path to overflow these beds in the weeks ahead but with a billion fewer people.

One of my concerns is that India may be severely under-testing. So I’d pay a lot more attention to the death count than to the infections reported and watch what that number does in the weeks ahead. When testing is weak, deaths are more likely to be noticed than infections, especially as more people who are struggling to breathe seek medical care.

If you look at other countries with death totals close to India’s, many are reporting significantly more infections. Austria, Denmark, Norway, Malaysia, and Portugal all report 3-7 coronavirus deaths so far, and their reported infections range from 1020 to 2491. Now there are lots of other countries with similar death totals but with lower infection counts closer to India’s, and by and large these are countries where testing appears to be very limited.

Since the death numbers are so low, they may not be significant right now, but this is something for people in India to watch carefully in the weeks ahead.

Note that just 25 days ago on February 24, Italy was at 229 reported cases and 7 deaths, which is very close to where India is today. Now Italy is at 47,021 cases and 4032 deaths – 5986 of those cases and 627 of those deaths in the last 24 hours – and still rising faster and faster. Also note that India’s population is 22 times the size of Italy’s.

That said, I am seeing solid evidence that India is being a lot more intelligent and cautious about this virus than many other countries. They’re way ahead of the USA, getting to lockdown much sooner. In the U.S. the inevitable lockdown is unfolding on a state by state and even city by city basis. California just went into statewide lockdown last night. Other U.S. states will soon follow. Slow-rolling a countrywide lockdown instead of going there immediately means more people will suffer and die, including more medical staff. This should be coordinated at the federal level like India has done. The leadership void at the top means that state governors have to step up now more than ever to help compensate as best they can.

Many countries are seeing their infections and deaths ramp up tremendously, and this will go considerably higher in the weeks ahead as we go higher up the exponential growth curve. In time this will reveal the price each country pays for underestimating this virus.

While practicing social distancing and going into lockdown are key steps that will save many lives, abundant testing is crucial as well to understand what’s happening and to know if measures are being effective or if more is needed.

One key risk I’m seeing in India is overconfidence. This is an easy trap to fall into when the numbers are still low and especially when you’re already in lockdown and practicing social distancing. While it’s commendable that India has implemented serious measures sooner than most, there’s still a potent risk of falling into the overconfidence trap by assuming that it’s enough.

Moreover, compliance can be a real problem too. In my home state of Nevada, we’re under partial measures for at least 30 days. The hotels and casinos are closed statewide, which hasn’t happened since President Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, and that was only one day of closure back then. As extreme as this may seem, especially for the 206K casino employees who are out of work now, we’re still just stair-stepping our way towards a full lockdown. Meanwhile it’s being reported that non-essential businesses remain open, including some restaurants and retail stores. Some businesses are still telling their employees to come into work, even where people must work in close proximity to each other, and the employees feel they have to show up because they don’t want to lose their jobs. Some will lose their lives because of it. So the existing directives aren’t being complied with yet. In fact, the Vegas police have been getting so many phone calls about these violations of the Governor’s order that they’re telling people to stop calling to report such businesses.

Even with really good government measures in place, the practical reality of this situation is that when we think we’re doing enough, it’s more likely that we’re being overconfident and not being cautious enough.

The challenge this virus presents is that in order to get aligned with its behavior and respond appropriately, we must consistently do more than we think is necessary, which is an uncomfortable place to be. When we think we’ve finally implemented what’s necessary and can settle in at that level because surely it’s enough now, we’ve succumbed to overconfidence, and the virus will make additional gains because of that, including overwhelming hospitals and medical staff.

So in this case, it’s good to feel like you’re overdoing it by being more cautious than you think is necessary. It’s also good to feel like you’re taking more social risk than usual to rein in sociopathic behavior.

The most caring and compassionate people I know are feeling very socially uncomfortable these days; they’re all getting some social blowback because they’re stretching themselves to do what it takes to save lives and reduce suffering. They can see plain as day that it’s the right response under the circumstances though. When they get overwhelmed, they do whatever they need to do to recharge, to accept reality, and to forgive, and they go right back into the fray. Heroes all of them. The people who’s lives they save may never know it, and the work they’re doing is largely thankless, but I want them to know that I personally appreciate and applaud their efforts.

Under current circumstances, the torrent of vitriol that was unleashed upon the Floridiot Governor for permitting spring breakers to crowd the beaches earlier this week was an appropriate response to sociopathic behavior. And it was effective. That Governor quickly caved to the onslaught of social and political pressure and shut those beaches down.

At the national and individual levels, we all need to stretch ourselves further into the zone of discomfort. For the next several weeks at least, we need to bid enoughness adieu and embrace the discomfort of toomuchness.

Perhaps India has achieved enoughness in their response, which may impress some humans but isn’t enough to earn the respect of this virus. This virus eats American enoughness for breakfast, Spanish enoughness for lunch, and Italian enoughness for dinner. And presently it seems to be developing an appetite for British enoughness at tea time. Along with the rest of us, India’s challenge is to push further into toomuchness and stay there for a while. Maybe they can teach this virus a thing or two about fasting.

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Virus vs Culture

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Some people may be surprised to learn that most viruses don’t have much respect for the following:

  • Optimism, blind or otherwise
  • Fearlessness
  • Mathematical illiteracy
  • Feelings
  • Opinions
  • Conspiracies
  • Spring break
  • Jobs
  • Economics
  • Lying
  • Denial
  • Ignorance
  • Irrationality
  • Insults
  • Politics
  • Excuses
  • Incompetence
  • Toilet paper abundance

Relative to human beings, who may be compassionate and understanding about some of the above, the behavior of viruses could be considered by some to be borderline rude.

For example, the recent coronavirus has shown a most unpleasant disregard for Italian culture and optimism, now claiming 3405 lives in Italy (more than 900 of them in the past 2 days) and infecting more than 41K. It seems particularly obnoxious in its treatment of Italian medical personnel, infecting more than 2600 of them so far. In response the Italians have opted to accelerate the graduation of thousands of medical students, so they can join the fight against the virus months ahead of schedule. So far the virus hasn’t revealed what it thinks about that when asked.

Many Spaniards noted how the virus treated the Italians and assumed it would treat them quite differently. The virus, however, seems to find Spanish bodies at least as hospitable as its Italian hosts, which may be why it proceeded to infect 18K and to claim 831 lives in Spain, promising more to follow.

The virus was nonplussed when Iran’s Deputy Health Minister denied its potential, even while he was coughing quite a bit due to being infected himself. Shortly thereafter, the virus proceeded to claim the lives of dozens of Iranian government officials. Presently it would appear that the virus considers more of the same to be a good use of its time.

Iranians have been sharing videos of bodies piling up and being placed into new mass graves – literally with a twist of lime. Iranian locals have shared that the bodies they’ve counted in certain limited areas exceed the official totals being reported for the entire country (currently 18K+ cases and 1284 deaths). Some estimate that Iran is heading towards millions of deaths, which may be impressive numbers for humans but not particularly so for the virus. It’s been said that in private, the virus considers the number 1,000,000 about as daunting as most humans would find the number 6. So not very.

Presently the virus is finding American culture most receptive to its propagation, having just finished its initial tour of all 50 states. So far it has infected 14K and claimed 214 American lives. It seems to be developing a fondness for American irrationality, although some say that it may be slightly disappointed that its initially pleasant spring break in Florida is being cut short.

Additionally the virus is warming up to the culture of Brazil, noting the welcoming words of Brazil’s President like “hysteria” and “fantasy.” There the virus is still working on its first 1000 infections, which it expects to surpass sometime this weekend.

The virus doesn’t seem to mind all the recent testing, having passed such tests nearly 250K times thus far. It considers the 10K lives it has recently claimed a modest achievement, while noting that reaching 100K from this point should take even less effort.

The virus has been quietly observing increased chatter about social distancing, which it considers a non-issue as long as the humans don’t actually practice it well. While normally possessing a rather reserved demeanor, the virus does appear to elevate its contentment slightly above baseline levels when humans spend more time discussing their economic concerns.

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The Stun Setting

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Lately I’ve been feeling like we’re living through a particular Star Trek: The Next Generation episode.

No, not “Contagion” – that’s about a computer virus.

Not “Thine Own Self” either, but that’s a good guess.

I’m thinking of “The Ensigns of Command.”

That’s the episode where Data, the android character, must convince a bunch of stubborn colonists that they need to immediately pack up and leave the colony they worked so hard to build. The human colonists must leave because thanks to a treaty, the planet where they’ve built their colony now belongs to an alien race called the Sheliak.

The Sheliak are all business and are coming to colonize the planet themselves. While they were willing to negotiate a lengthy and complex treaty with the humans to procure the planet, they otherwise regard humanity as a lesser species and would have no qualms about wiping out any human stragglers they discover upon arrival. The colonists are absolutely no match for the Sheliak.

The Enterprise must begin evacuating the colonists ASAP, and Data is beamed down to the planet to help them start packing immediately.

However, the colonists are very resistant to the idea of leaving, especially their leader, Gosheven. That isn’t surprising since Data did show up out of the blue to basically say, “Surprise! Now you must pack up and leave!” The colonists had been living on the planet for many years and sacrificed a lot to establish their thriving colony.

Gosheven tries to reassure everyone that there’s nothing to fear and that they’ll all be fine. He denies that the Sheliak are a threat (which sounds very much like the idiocy of saying “it’s just the flu” in our current situation). Others join him in their firm stance against fear. But are they being brave? Or just stubbornly irrational?

Here’s a scene from that episode where Data is speaking to the colonists, trying to get creative in convincing them to leave. Everyone in this scene other than Data is a colonist.

DATA: You know of the Sheliak threat. Starfleet wishes to evacuate you for your own protection. Yet Gosheven has decided otherwise. That is his right, and I will not waste time trying to reverse that decision. I admire your conviction in the face of certain defeat. Though doomed, your effort will be valiant. And when you die, you will die for land and honor. Your children will understand that they are dying for a worthy cause. Long after the battle is over, their courage will be remembered and extolled.

ARD’RIAN: Remembered by who?

DATA: Yes, that is true. There will be no one left alive to remember.

GOSHEVEN: (applauding) A valiant try, android, but what a low opinion you must have of us.

DATA: I was simply attempting to describe your inevitable destruction in a manner that would have an emotional effect.

HARITATH: And he describes it pretty damned well.

GOSHEVEN: Are you ready to follow this machine? Give up without a fight? He says we’re going to lose, but I think that’s just his cowardice talking!

KENTOR: What if he’s right and you’re wrong? Shouldn’t we consider that possibility?

GOSHEVEN: This colony exists because generations gave their lives for it. Many people died before we found a way to adapt to the radiation. And many more died bringing water to the desert. My grandfather –

ARD’RIAN: Is buried on that mountain. Well, who’ll be left to bury you?

GOSHEVEN: Have you considered what this evacuation means? Everything we have, we abandon. Everything that we have built turns into dust. Everything that we have accomplished means nothing. Well, I say no. You elected me your leader. Follow me now. I don’t think our chances are as hopeless as he says. And I’m willing to stake our lives on it. Any objections? Good, because here we stand.

ALL: Aye, We stand with you.

(The men slap Gosheven on the back, the women look worried)

DATA: Then here you die.

This episode reminds me of what we’ve seen in many people’s response to the coronavirus. We’ve seen it in Italy. We’ve seen it in Spain. We’ve seen it in France – throughout the week leading right up to the moment the French went into full lockdown yesterday morning.

And of course we’re still seeing it in the USA now.

How well does this approach work?

Let’s check a first-hand report from a doctor in Bergamo, a city in Northern Italy:

The results of the swabs now come one after the other: positive, positive, positive. Suddenly the emergency room is collapsing. Emergency provisions are issued: help is needed in the emergency room.

…

Exams, radiology always with the same sentence: bilateral interstitial pneumonia. All to be hospitalized. Someone already to intubate goes to intensive care. For others, however, it is late. Intensive care becomes saturated, and where intensive care ends, more are created.

…

And every reorganization of beds, wards, staff, work shifts and tasks is constantly reviewed day after day to try to give everything and even more. Those wards that previously looked like ghosts are now saturated, ready to try to give their best for the sick, but exhausted. The staff is exhausted. I saw fatigue on faces that didn’t know what it was despite the already grueling workloads they had. I have seen people still stop beyond the times they used to stop already, for overtime that was now habitual. I saw solidarity from all of us, who never failed to go to our internist colleagues to ask “what can I do for you now?” or “leave alone that shelter that I think of it.” Doctors who move beds and transfer patients, nurses with tears in their eyes because we are unable to save everyone and the vital signs of several patients at the same time reveal an already marked destiny. There are no more shifts, schedules.

…

Social life is suspended for us. I have been separated for a few months, and I assure you that I always have everything possible to constantly see my son even on disassembly days at night, without sleeping and postponing sleep until when I am without him, but for almost 2 weeks I have voluntarily seen neither my son nor my family members for fear of infecting them and in turn, infect an elderly grandmother or relatives with other health problems. I’m happy with some photos of my son that I regard between tears and a few video calls. So be patient too, you can’t go to the theater, museums or gym. Try to have mercy on that myriad of older people you could exterminate. It is not your fault, I know, but of those who put it in your head that you are exaggerating and even this testimony may seem like an exaggeration for those who are far from the epidemic, but please, listen to us, try to leave the house only for the essential things. Do not go en masse to stock up in supermarkets: it is the worst thing because you concentrate and the risk of contacts with infected people who do not know they are higher.

…

Oh yes, thanks to the shortage of certain devices, I and many other colleagues are certainly exposed despite all the means of protection we have. Some of us have already become infected despite the protocols. Some infected colleagues in turn have infected family members and some of their family members already struggle between life and death. We are where your fears could make you stay away. Try to make sure you stay away.

Source: Corriere della Sera (translated from Italian)

That was from March 7, when the death toll in Italy was 230. Fast forward just 11 days to today, and now there are about 3000 dead – 475 of them just in the past 24 hours. In that same time they went from about 5800 reported infections to about 36,000 now. And this is still speeding up.

Soon this will be the situation in Southern Italy too. France and Spain are quickly following suit. More countries are following just days behind.

Of the nearly 36,000 reported infections in Italy, more than 2600 are medical personnel. A number of doctors have already died from this virus while trying to save other people’s lives.

This is a glimpse of what we’re about to see in the USA shortly. Very likely by the end of the month, we can expect hundreds if not thousands of medical personnel to get infected as well, even as they work to exhaustion trying to treat people. And that will still just be the tip of the iceberg with so much more to follow. We are nowhere near the peak yet. In fact, we’re not at Base Camp yet. (Incidentally, Mount Everest is closed too.)

A full lockdown in the USA is inevitable – I’d say almost a certainty before month’s end at the rate things are going. The sooner we reach that point, the better. All 50 states have infected people now, with West Virginia being the last holdout to join.

Each day we’re seeing different cities and states making bigger and bigger sacrifices while the virus makes even bigger gains. We’re progressively locking down, and as fast as it seems, we should actually be moving even faster.

Yesterday night the Governor of Nevada announced the closing of all casinos, hotels, bars, and more statewide, joining schools which were shuttered on Monday. The Las Vegas Strip has gone dark. And yet as extreme as this seems, especially for a city that runs on 42 million tourists per year, it’s still just another intermediate step among more to be taken.

When a full lockdown does happen, and it will, it will likely endure for at least two months, and realistically we may be looking at well into the summer or beyond.

Some are projecting as long as 18 months of this kind of disruption (which may involve full and partial lockdowns), as there may be multiple waves of the virus.

When you see businesses announce they’re shutting down for 2-3 weeks, don’t believe that for a second. As I noted in Sunday’s post: This Will Not Be Over Quickly. When I wrote that post, the U.S. death total from the virus was 63 with 3300 reported infections. Three days later we’re at 8300+ infections and 133 deaths, so both numbers have more than doubled. And this is going to speed up significantly in the days and weeks ahead.

Meanwhile many people are still going out partying and gathering in large groups, such as was reported at the Clearwater Beach in Florida yesterday. Under the current circumstances and given what we see happening elsewhere, this behavior means more painful deaths for many more people, including the deaths of doctors and nurses trying to save lives. Not shutting down sizable human gatherings is ludicrous at this point. The sooner we take action, the more lives will be saved.

Let’s return to our Star Trek episode to see how Data eventually convinces the colonists to leave for their own good.

After his other attempts to convince the colonists to leave fail, Data goes to the colony’s pumping station for their aqueduct, which is the colony’s only source of water. He pulls out his phaser, first using the stun setting and then using a higher setting after he says his first line in this scene.

(The elders are on a raised platform to the side, and four security guards are in front of the pool. Data fires at them)

DATA: Stop. That was the stun setting. This is not.

(There’s a big bang, then energy is seen racing up the pipeline to the mountain)

DATA: I can reduce this pumping station to a pile of debris, but I trust my point is clear. I am one android with a single weapon. There are hundreds of Sheliak on the way and their weapons are far more powerful. They may not offer you a target. They can obliterate you from orbit. You will die never having seen the faces of your killers. The choice is yours.

KENTOR: There are other places, other challenges.

(The security guards recover from their stuns)

GOSHEVEN: I really was willing to stay here and die for this.

DATA: I know that. This is just a thing, and things can be replaced. Lives cannot.

That approach worked. The colonists, including Gosheven, finally agreed to evacuate. So they lived.

Data is an android programmed for politeness and manners. He’s one of the kindest and gentlest characters on the show. He’s willing to accept and befriend everyone as they are, like an android version of Mister Rogers.

And of course Data is very rational, so he starts by greeting the colonists warmly and offering them a rational explanation about what’s happening and why they need to evacuate – a sensible place to begin.

When that doesn’t work, he appeals to their emotions since he knows something about human psychology too.

And when that doesn’t work, he pulls out his weapon but still uses the stun setting initially. Now having good reason to conclude that this too will be insufficient, he quickly bumps it to a higher setting and demonstrates at that level as well. And then he immediately threatens to bump it higher still, to a setting which would effectively destroy something the colonists have been trying to protect. Fortunately he doesn’t seriously hurt anyone, but he does keep escalating until he finally succeeds. Moreover, he accelerates the pacing of his escalations to match the increasing urgency of the situation.

This is a rational approach, isn’t it? For a mission that’s important enough, keep escalating until you succeed, even if you must stretch your character to do so. Data had to stretch his character to succeed in his mission, yet he was able to do so while still honoring his rational core.

And we must continue to do the same. When the stun setting is ineffective, ratchet up your efforts more to help get people off the streets and to stay the fuck home.

Is it rational to continue using the stun setting if it isn’t working quickly enough?

Is it rational to avoid stretching our characters due to fear of criticism or social pushback, knowing by sticking to our comfort zones and refusing to go any higher, we sentence more people to death – including more medical personnel who will soon give their lives trying to save others?

Or is it rational to ratchet up our actions towards the stun setting and beyond until we achieve what’s needed?

If you’ve been trying to help people behave more rationally during this time, yet they’re still behaving irrationally, ratchet up your efforts and attitude, just as Data had to do to accomplish his mission.

This isn’t the time to get stuck at your personal stun setting. This is the time to do what it takes to save more lives and reduce suffering because the actions you take now can and will make a difference.

And lastly…

CLOSE THE BEACH, YOU FUCKING IDIOTS!!!

#closethebeachyoufuckingidiots

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Simple Stretches You Should Be Doing While Working From Home

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