Pandemic Atlanta Lockdown - Week 22

Coffee with Amarula

I submitted a journal paper this week, which was dragging for quite some time. This week, I also successfully managed to swap my Tuesday with Sunday, thus shifting my weekend to Saturday and Tuesday. I may try this again later. There are more deadlines coming my way in the upcoming weeks.

Some Teledrama during the weekend

During the weekend, I finished watching a Chinese teledrama series The Disguiser  伪装者. It is included in Amazon Prime with subtitles. However, the last episode (episode 41) had wrong subtitles. Therefore, I had to watch that episode in Viki, with ads. A Twitter friend recommended Nirvana in Fire 琅琊榜 since I liked this drama. Nirvana in Fire seems to have an overlapping cast with The Disguiser. I may watch that one some time.

 

Parallels of COVID19 Pandemic and the HIV AIDS pandemic

The parallels between the COVID19 and HIV AIDS pandemic are becoming harder to ignore. Just like AIDS, COVID19 has also become a humanitarian crisis. No way we can solve this pandemic only by medicine. It is not going to go away. Due to AIDS pandemic, people got more used to safe sex with barriers, many minimized casual sex, others are like "fuck it, if I get an STD, I get an STD" and continue their risky sex patterns. Although there are some medicines that minimize the chances of getting HIV, no vaccine or no curative medicines.

Similarly, we will learn to live with COVID19. Follow some best practices (masks, avoid too much crowds, etc). Others will continue the life as they were before, like, "If I get COVID19, I get COVID19". There may be vaccines or even medicines. But nothing is going to prevent or cure 100%, I fear. So this is going to be a mixture of changes to society, economics, geopolitics, and international relationships, and not just medicine.

Somewhere next year, I think, the world leaders will realize this, and take mitigative actions to minimize COVID19 spread, while resuming life. We also come to the realization that this is the "new normal." A bit more thankful that we are not affected (yet). This is unprecedented (at least, in our recent generations), after all. Another interesting distinction to be made is whether this is to be called an on-going pandemic such as AIDS or an endemic disease such as yellow fever. The differentiation maybe a combination of science, politics, and several other factors.

For how long do we have to live with this new normal of fear is the question. Avoiding AIDS is easy. Avoiding COVID19 isn't. That makes COVID19 a more dangerous pandemic.

2020 Feelings... pic.twitter.com/iPebdZ6xRm

— Pradeeban (@pradeeban) August 14, 2020