About This Coronavirus Thing

So, as we sit here at Sac State on a lovely cool but sunny morning, most of the "civilized" world is going ape-shit over this new strain of Coronavirus which emerged from China late last year. And of course to some degree it's warranted; I mean the World Health Organization did a press briefing last Thursday in which they mentioned total numbers of reported cases and deaths world-wide. And if we can believe those numbers, they would put the mortality rate of this new disease at around 3.4%. And that's pretty high, actually. 34 times higher than the common flu, which typically has a mortality rate of 0.1% each year. But of course this disease - this virus - is relatively new. So it's a bit early to predict these numbers, and even more difficult to say for sure how many people actually have had the virus. It does after all present with symptoms typically associated with the flu, and most cases are relatively mild. Still, people ARE dying. Mostly people who are elderly (over 60) and/or have an underlying respiratory condition.

Of course, this has wreaked havoc on the economy and the cruise line industry in particular, as several ships have had outbreaks with dozens affected (and a handful of deaths after being back on land). Several ships have been quarantined upon returning from their voyages, due to fear of the virus potentially spreading, and several more have been denied entry to various ports. Mostly island destinations in the Caribbean.

Meanwhile, the stock market continues to crash. As of this writing it is down over 1900 points (7%) just today, and their have been similar drops for most of the last two weeks. So for anyone who has their own IRA's, or stock in cruise lines - ouch. Like really, ouch. It will rebound, I'm sure. But non one knows for sure when that will be.

In the meantime, over the weekend the Elk Grove school district decided to close all 67 of its schools this week, because one family in their district was under quarantine for possible exposure/infection. I mean, come on, closing the ENTIRE district? People have gone a little nuts. Meanwhile, anonymous posters on online internet forums have suddenly become infectious disease experts, and are dictating (to anyone who will read their posts) how people should respond to this situation. Should we be alarmed? Should we cancel all of our public outings? Should we ignore this because after all, 20,000 people have died from the common flu anyway? Who's to say, who's to say.

Meanwhile, folks - particularly older folks - are scared to cruise and are cancelling trips. And for many, it's not even the fear of catching the virus per se, but the fear that one person on board might exhibit "flu-like symptoms", and then they shit the whole cruise down and quarantine everyone. It happened to the Diamond Princess in Japan, folks trapped on board for two weeks. It happened to my beloved Grand Princess last week as she steamed back towards San Francisco from Hawaii, because someone on the previous trip came down with the virus after the fact and subsequently died, and those people have still not disembarked (they are scheduled to start taking people off in Oakland today, where they will all be tested before allowing them to re-assimilate into the population).

It's getting crazy out there. Now I'm waiting to see if Sac State does anything, as it's currently business as usual. My guess is that in the next couple of weeks they may start restricting public events, such as sporting events and our music events. So that would be fun. But we will see...

In other news, I was walking along the streets of downtown Sacramento today enjoying a cup of hot chocolate before heading into work, and I actually talked to someone on the street. A nice woman who works as an engineer for the Department of Water Resources. Imagine that! Me, a dedicated introvert, conversing with a stranger on the street. Crazy times, crazy times.

All right, time to go wash my hands again and get back to work...