Home alone or as we MS’ers like to say …The Usual

Home Alone ☹

Well, hands up who saw this coming…..

What, No One …..???

It’s been a disconcerting, incredible, even unbelievable week to reflect on …to say the least. While the world reels in the acceptance that there is a new villain doing its rounds in the form of COVID-19. It’s impact has been felt around the world…markets tumbling, schools closing, Aussies buying a year’s supply of toilet paper ….I digress already.

Sadly as an MS patient I /we know all too well that with a weakened immune system we are much, much, more vulnerable to picking up infections, flu, hayfever…the only thing we cant pick up is small things off the floor …MS humour right there 😊 !

No surprises then that the MS community is on a heightened alert as we prepare for the next who knows how long, I even have increased my Nespresso reserves to 100…150 capsules…who knows what could happen if I run out !

In fact …let’s go …I need one right now ! Ok …159 capsules left….

That’s the music for the morning (U2 …Happy Birthday Adam Clayton), and really enjoying the different mix of Ordinary Love …

Lilly-Pug …Not so much…tooooooooooooooo loud she barks !

With the buzz around the virus the masses have resorted to staying at home or at least trying to carry on working from home. This has prompted almost my entire feed to start commenting …that and the Aussies hoarding toilet paper …I will let that one rest now 😊

Along those lines, here is Seth Godin’s take on the whole stay-at-home, self-imposed isolation trend

Stuck at home

A friend told me that she was dreading a possible quarantine in response to the worldwide health emergency.

“But you work at home,” I said. She agreed with me, but made it clear that when it was her choice, it felt different.

The first job is taking care of the people around you and helping others get their health back.

After that, we have choices to make. Choices about how to spend our time, how to connect and how to view the change to our lives.

What if we committed to watching less Netflix, not more? Fewer news updates, fewer YouTube videos, fewer digital distractions.

What if we decided to find a way to connect with people who need us, to lead people forward, to weave something generous for the community?

And what if we chose to learn something? All the time not spent commuting or in meetings–a chance to dive deep into the work of McCoy Tyner, or to understand how probability works.

Even as we retreat from physical interaction, there’s a huge opportunity to actually connect, to learn and to understand.

Panic is a choice, and so is productive generosity.

The great divide…Dali inspired art by me for a change !

Another post, seemingly related by Mark Manson…yes him (but this is  a clean version 😊 )

“Welcome to a special coronavirus edition of MFM, the only weekly newsletter that refuses to cancel its flights and believes eating fruits and vegetables is more useful than wearing a face mask. Each week, this newsletter breaks down three ideas that usually revolve around social psychology, cognitive biases, and some light philosophy.

This week, I’d like to use coronavirus as a case study to talk about the difference between systemic risk and individual risk, why some people are way more worried about this than others, and what sorts of cognitive biases are influencing us all.

So get your hand sanitizer ready. This is going to be a long one.  

(Note: If you enjoy these newsletters, even when they aren’t about coronavirus, please consider forwarding this email to a friend and suggesting they sign up here. It’s free. And almost as useful as a hospital bed… almost.)

The Real Reason to Stay Home – A few weeks ago, when I wrote about coronavirus, I made two predictions given the data. First, this thing is going to spread across the planet and it’s probably inevitable that most of us get it at some point. Second, that it’s probably way less deadly than the numbers coming out of China originally made it appear.

Both of these ideas seem more and more likely to be true with each passing week. China was underprepared when the outbreak occurred and has since taken drastic measures to curb infections. Also, in the vast majority of cases (80+%) people have only mild symptoms, those akin to a regular cold or flu. In fact, the symptoms for many are so mild, that it’s now suspected that large numbers of people who have the virus aren’t aware of it.

What we’re seeing now is an increase in quarantining—people staying home, working from home, conferences and events (i.e., SXSW) cancelled, flights cancelled, towns and neighborhoods put on lockdown. All of these things seem drastic in the face of what amounts, to most people, as just a really strong flu going around. As such, it seems the majority of people are blowing this off as yet another case of the media overreacting to nothing.

Amazingly, I disagree. And I say this as someone who has recently written a 30-page article criticizing the media for overreacting to everything. So, it’s not every day I admit that a panic is, well, probably not a panic.

What’s important to understand is that the point of the quarantines isn’t to prevent us all from getting sick. The point of the quarantines is to slow the spread of the virus enough to prevent overloading the healthcare system.

Roughly 10-15% of people infected need to go to the hospital. Right now, epidemiologists are saying we can expect anywhere from 40-70% of the world population to be infected in the next year. Let’s say that’s an exaggeration and go with a more conservative 30%. In the US, that means roughly 110 million people getting sick. And of those 110 million, 10-15 million (or more) might need a hospital bed.

Yet, the US only has 924,000 hospital beds… in the entire country.  

So, while staying home, from an individual risk perspective, seems unnecessary and an overreaction, from a systemic risk perspective, it’s the only prudent thing to do. The more people who go out and about, the faster this thing spreads, and the faster this thing spreads, the more the hospitals get flooded, and the more the hospitals get flooded, the more people die unnecessarily.

It’s that simple.

So no, you and I aren’t going to die. Hell, we might not even get sick. But we might get others sick and that might cause others to die. So… Yay

A quick change of tempo…and check, I have a few months of music stored ….all set.

Quick check again…either I need to ration the beans or brave the supermarket…

158…..

Without waxing on forever …the fingers are warm and flowing (No there’s nothing “extra” in my coffee! I promise)

Here’s the last word from …who else.

Take us away Seth …

Uncertainty, risk and change

When the world changes, it’s easy to feel stressed. That’s because stress is wanting to do two things at the same time–stay and go.

When we’re surrounded by people who are also seeking control over an uncontrollable situation, it magnifies those feelings.

It’s okay, probably even helpful, to begin by clarifying the emotions that we’re feeling, especially when we’re apparently talking about something else. Panic is never a useful plan, and it’s even worse if it seems to be about something else.

People rarely say, “I wish I’d panicked more.”

Day by day, step by step, the present becomes the future, and we make the best decisions that we can.

Stay safe, don’t panic …and please …Wash those hands !

Please.