A few days ago I got my first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.
I thought it would be harder to book an appointment, but it turned out to quicker than what I expected. It’s very fortunate that I live in a country where there is an unbelievable logistics to get people vaccinated as soon as possible. It is a true privilege for which I have to be very thankful.
HR
I’m going to stop posting about Covid-19, because I want to concentrate on other matters for my blog, however before closing my door on covering the topic, I wanted to provide a follow up on my previous entry.
I had mentioned that I believe the distribution of top cases and highest spreading per capita would change within the next couple of months. As I mentioned, I believe the US will keep leading the table for quite some time, maybe for the entire year. The other four spots most likely will belong to Brazil, India, Russia, South Africa or Bagladesh. My reasoning is simple: third world countries have yet to receive the first substantial bulk of cases that will bring their population into the beginning of an upwards statistical function of pandemics such as Covid-19. Due to their density, several access routes, location and lack of infrastructure to contain the virus, these are the most obvious targets. From there and on, the developed countries may fare better, which means that the rest of the underdeveloped world will be hit hard from those five countries I named. This is, Brazil will impact Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia and Peru; India and Bangladesh with both impact each other and impact Pakistan, Afghanistan and the mid-Asian region; Russia will impact, well, Russia; and South Africa will spread the virus all across Africa. I’ll also throw Mexico in there as well, due to its proximity to the US. That is what I foresee for second half of 2020. Needless to say, unless all those countries implement extreme drastic measures, their populations will face devastating consequences from a social and economic point of view. What may follow after these? Uprisings, political conflicts, protests… pretty much the standard of what history has shown us over the past 4,000 years.
Regarding America, I have to say that people have to start getting off Trump’s back. I may not have voted for him in 2016 and one of the reasons was that I truly believed that his argument of the media being against him was false, but now in 2020 I truly believe that the media is definitely against him. I can concede that perhaps his management of the situation may not have been the best, but to those people who criticize him I ask: “How exactly would have you handled the situation?” Given the amount of opinion makers, variables, economic and social factors, and all the other elements that you have to consider into this equation, I highly doubt there are 1,000,000 humans
out there who could have effectively managed this crisis in a flawless way.
Oh and one more question. To those people who say “How can a pandemic with 1% of death rate shut down the US?”, I ask: “Well, what is the percentage you would like to have in order to shut down the US? Also, given that percentage is greater than 1%, say for instance 25%, don’t you realize that before making it to 25%, you have to go through 1%, 2%, 3%… and so on?”
Anyway, that should be it for Covid-19 updates in my blog for now… at least for some time. I’m going to switch to other topics for the time being.
Stay tuned.
HR
It’s been almost two months since the pandemic was formally here in the US and the consequences have been outright devastating on all fronts. People are impatient, tense, afraid and a large feeling of uncertainty looms over our society. “What does the future hold for us?” Is the question that everyone wants answered.
First of all, I have to start my post by saying the it is almost impossible to predict the future. Everyone had plans for 2020 and I’m quite sure that most of those plans are now non-existent thanks to the pandemic. Who would have guessed that we were going to be in this situation in 2020? Nobody. So, to predict the future having understood there are so many unaccounted variables, is definitely not an easy task at all.
As of today, the United States, Spain, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom hold the most cases of Covid-19 in the world. I believe that three months from now, this top 5 ranking will drastically change -with the exception of the US-. European countries have been quite strict in their policies to face the spread of the virus, which combined with a robust healthcare system, may result in a successful slow down of the spreading. The US on the other hand, has somewhat of a decent healthcare system, however our policies regarding containment and quarrantine are questionable. I’m not saying they are bad per se, but I believe that because of the way the country functions, it is going to be very challenging to have the same results that Europe may have. This is one of those occasions in which strong leadership is needed, and unfortunately the US is suffering of too many leaders speaking at the same time. One voice speaking loudly and clearly, delivering a straight message is preferred. Personally, I don’t understand what is preventing governors and the federal government from achieving this as a goal. The worst thing is that politics is becoming a key factor of decision and even reasoning and providing judgement to implement a policy, which shouldn’t be the case. I roll my eyes every time I hear any of our leaders cite the constitution or local laws to excuse themselves as to why certain actions are or aren’t implemented.
You see, when our founding fathers created this country in 1776, I hardly believe that they had envisioned any provisions in the constitution, or any implications that derived from any of its articles and amendments on how to deal with the impact of a global pandemic hitting a country that would become 10 times its original size, and have 100 times its original population, which is composed of dozens of ethnic and religious groups, instead of the two, maybe five at most it had in 1776.
In fact, I have absolutely no doubt that as great as our founding fathers were, they never thought about it.
Stay tuned.
HR
Well, the title of the post says pretty much what I want to say.
After seeing so many events, projects and plans being put on hold due to the Covid-19 crisis, I believe it is fair to announce that the goal of publishing my book has been put on hold as well. I would like to clarify that by no means I can compare myself to the sizes of those events that have been cancelled or suspended. It’s just that I believe that it’s going to be difficult to promote, market and gain the attention of anyone in a time when it is clear that the priorities right now have to be focused on controlling this global pandemic and
preventing it from becoming a major global crisis.
I will use this time to revise the manuscript, conduct research and updates, and dedicate myself to brainstorm any ideas on the pending matter that I have, which is the book’s cover.
Stay tuned.
HR
The good thing about having three of my best friends being physicians is that I am able to get up to speed in medical matters fairly quickly and also from different perspectives: my best friend is an anesthesiologist, his wife is a gynecologist and I have a pediatrician friend who with I have been working over the last years, publishing a few statistical articles in medical journals.
Almost a month has gone by after I started to work from home and plenty of things have happened: events of all kinds have been cancelled, countries have gone into lock down and unfortunately, thousands of people have died due to Covid-19. Also, I can safely say that I have a firm understanding of what is at stake and I can give an unbiased opinion based on the facts.
As of today, it seems that the nature of this virus is to be very aggressive, which means that the use of masks and gloves must (not should) be mandatory. Every time I go to the supermarket I see about 20% of the people not wearing either of them. I have to admit that during the first days of March, I was one of them, so I don’t blame him because they may not be educated on the need of wearing PPE. I also underestimated the virus, meaning its strength and ability to spread, and more importantly, my ability to be infected by it. However, after speaking at lengths with my doctor friends, I was able to understand the nature of the situation, how the virus behaves, what does it do to people, how does it do it and what can we do to prevent becoming infected with it, or worse, infecting other people, as in people we care about. That is why rather than making fun or pointing fingers at people who are not wearing masks and gloves, you should first understand that maybe that person has not yet understood the magnitude of the situation, or simply has not been educated on the matter, which means a better approach would be you trying to educate him or her, so that they become aware and they are able to become part of the solution and not part of the problem.
To me things are now as clear as water, and it’s perfectly understandable why there won’t be any Ironman’s this year, or Burning man, or tennis events, or the Olympics, as it is quite evident that concentrations of large crowds are a key ingredient to spread the virus all over the world. Sadly, this will impact the global economy and most likely lead to a global crisis if mismanaged even by the slightest bit.
I trust our leaders and governments will act with ethics and responsibility.
Stay tuned.
HR
Over the past days I have been really focused with my tasks at work and I have honestly have close to zero time to watch the news and completely understand this whole Covid-19 pandemic. I only have the bare minimum knowledge about it, therefore I feel uneducated and unqualified to speak about it.
Things are happening a bit to fast and as you can imagine, I have zero connections with anything regarding the management of this crisis. Things seem to be taking a turn towards a very serious scenario and all I can say is that in these situations, speaking from your heart or with very little expertise is not recommended. I have read and heard mixed opinions regarding the use of masks, gloves and cleaning your clothes and shoes, I feel I have no context to follow.
What I plan to do over the next days is devote a bit of time to get myself educated on the subject, as it seems this is going to be a long term issue. I advise you should do the same.
Stay tuned.
HR
A few days after my previous update, we received word from work that we are allowed to work from home, which was kind of expected considering most of our stakeholders either already had gone into that mode or where about to do so.
This is going to be challenging as managing a portfolio of over 50 projects remotely with no face time with both your coworkers and clients, is something we at the office have never done before. I believe that with the current advancements in technology, we have plenty of resources to make everything work out. However I will definitely have to step up my game in terms of productivity and efficiency in order to prove that it is possible and that me and my team can bring successful results.
Stay tuned.
HR
Today I went into the city for work as usual and it was quite breathtaking to see the streets of Manhattan almost empty.
It seems like Covid-19 has arrived and we may have major stay at home policies implemented in the upcoming hours. I have yet to digest the situation as I have honestly not been following its development.
Stay tuned.
HR
I’ve been reading the recent news about this virus that is currently spreading fairly quickly across a few provinces in China, the Corona Virus 19. One of my co-workers has family in one of the cities that is under a lock down policy and from what he mentioned, the restrictions regarding travelling and even commuting in the city are pretty tight.
I’ve always talked with my friends who work in the healthcare industry about how humanity has gone to great lengths to evolve industries and technology, still has been lagging -if I may- in healthcare development. It kind of reminds me of how much money and resources were invested into the fraudulent company Theranos, and their useless technology. I wonder how much advancement could physicians and biologists make in their field, had that money absorbed by Theranos, been invested into true scientific research laboratories in order to develop vaccines and treatments for aggressive viruses such as this Covid-19 one.
Instead, what I’m wondering is what will happen to us living in the United States if a pandemic of similar proportions to the one currently spreading in China, would hit us, especially in such a highly-populated area as New York. Would be face similar lock downs and quarantine procedures as they do? Who knows.
Prepare for the worst and expect the best…
HR
Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén