The Thrifty Rocketeer-- in the Year of the Virus

Well, it's another red-letter day.... er, month.... in the life.

I hesitate to use that expression, because many younger or non-Catholic readers may not understand the significance.

(Many Catholic families have a church calendar on the wall, where some High Holy Days are accented in red printing.  The idea is that you can't miss them or overlook a date.)

Hence, the expression, " A red-letter date". 

The way I use it, is to state the day is a very important day, and one that will be remembered.  Except in this case, it's not 9-11... or 11/23/63... but an on-going week upon week evolution of a fight against a rampant viral... er, virus.


I cannot tell you when I first heard about the outbreak in Wutan, China...but I recall concerns in the national news as it worsened.  About the second week of March, there were restrictions being announced and it was apparent that we were in for a wild ride.

Now, some say the US had indications or reports of this virus back in January...and some say we did nothing.  But it's hard to say what should have been done, when you don't know the severity.  If some people could see the handwriting on the wall, and started making preps, good for them.  But it wasn't until the ball got rolling that I realized there was a governmental playbook in play...and that these were calculated steps that were being taken.


I understand the science, and the theory of social distancing. In fact, social distancing may help some of us attack our build piles this weekend and in the weeks to come. (That is, if the wife allows sanding in the house, and building on the dinning room table... )

But the best demonstration of how this social distancing will help, came from two sources... the first, from an article in the New York Times, that shows four different simulations of 1) No intervention, 2) Attempted quarantine, 3) Moderate distancing, and 4) Strong distancing. As you might expect, the results of the experiment vary over time and with how many balls are included...but the startling thing is that each time you visit the web page, the results are different. That's because there's an element of randomness in every run.  To my utter shock, the second time I ran the simulation, the fourth condition resulted in literally NO FATALITIES, NO ADDITIONAL INFECTIONS, AND the virus being extinguished.  Subsequent runs didn't produce such good results, but UNQUESTIONABLY did moderate the impact and end the event.   

I was sold.  Period.
Washington Post Covid-19 Simulation



The second source was an article that reviewed what we could learn from Daniel Defoe's 1722 novel "A Journal of the Plague Year" which describes the impact on 1665 London when the author was only five years of age.  They, too, did social distancing...and those who survived, benefited by shutting themselves away from society for a time.

I just don't know what signaled the ringing of the bell that "it's okay to come out again".
What we can learn from "A Journal of the Plague Year" 

These two events are also recorded in children's playground songs: 
 "Ring around the rosie, a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we fall fall down."   
And, "Ollie, All yea in free"...indicating the end of the game and all are declared "free".

So all this got me thinking, that if this is the "Plague Year", we might do well to start journaling it.  That is, almost all we know about the 1665 Plague Year in London comes from Daniel Defoe.  

I think it would be very helpful if we  ALL started blogging, or more exactly, kept a Journal...of what it was like in the 21st century when we were faced with a pandemic again.  HOW did we feel, what did we do, how did we beat it, and how did we fail.

Future generations may thank us for the surviving record.

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