Tuesday, February 11

I've lost 5KG since the quarantine started. I wonder if I can lose 5 more and slim up for summer.

Another broadcast warns the virus can travel through water pipes as SARS did in HK in 2003. People are covering sinks and drains. I'm caught between hard science that's trying to catch up and helpful ideas that may not be accurate.

A smashed avocado mixed with very garlicky hummus is a quick guacamole-hack and goes down well with a couple of boiled eggs and toast. A sizzling piece of raisin bread burns my hand, and I drop it on the floor. I hate wasting limited supplies.

Dr. Zhong, the Chinese epidemiologist who discovered SARS in 2003, releases a troubling study. The incubation of 2019-nCoV can last as long as 24 days, although this was an outlier and one out of 1000 patients studied. The other significant thing was that half of the patients tested do not have a fever when they seek treatment. This has implications for testing standards. I hope we can adapt and overcome. 

We're sitting around bored when a mischievious sunbeam drops by. We jump up in excitement. Children chatter, and basketballs dribble against concrete. A booming voice on the loudspeaker yells in Chinese, "go inside, it's not safe, go back inside your homes!" Soon it gets quieter. That precious sunbeam is so enticing!

We grab two chairs and go sit on the upper parking garage, by ourselves. Xiaolin salsa dances in the sun, and I play Shadowrun on my phone with a professor from France. Some people walk by with a little grey cat, but they keep a respectful distance. On the street below, a man smokes a cigarette and then hands off a package of masks to a grateful woman through the gate.

We head home after a couple of hours, and I shower and put on clean clothes. I make a peanut butter, honey, and pickles sandwich. I'm not sure what took me 40 years, but it's all kinds of crunchy goodness.

The bean sprouts I grew fry up nice with some spicy chilly peppers, alongside fried potatoes, rice, and lentil soup for dinner.

I'm looking at Canadian publishers. I enjoy spending my days writing and not sure if I'm ready to return to the hectic classroom. Will it feel safe? If factories are ok to open today, why are we looking at March for school? Will I be standing there with goggles and a mask teaching a bunch of students in bubbles?