Tuesday April 14 2020

People are asking when things will get back to normal, they don't understand that this event will fundamentally change "normal" for years to come. For the next several years there will likely be no large gatherings of people. What will this mean?

• No sporting events
• No music festivals
• No concerts
• No conventions
• No trade shows
• No universities
• No schools
• No Black Friday
• No malls
• No amusement parks
• No Renaissance Festivals
• No tourism
• No hotel stays
• No beaches
• No public pools
• No gatherings in the park
• No movie theaters
• No cruises
• No fairs
• No class reunions
• No large family reunions
• No big weddings
• No big churches
• No airplane flights
• No public transportation

We will still be able to work. Many people will be able to work remotely. The manufacturing sector is already moving to increased automation. Companies that were delaying moving to more automation might as well implement it fully now. They have time to do it that way the will be ahead of the game when the come out of this. People will have to maintain a distance in the workplace, they will be screened for temperature when they come to work and a sanitation crew will have to come through at the end of each shift. Of course increased automation will mean fewer workers.

We will eventually be able to go to restaurants and have small gatherings of people. As long as there is plenty of distance between the customers and there is extensive clean up afterwards. It will probably be expensive.

We could probably still do some technical training as long as there we limit the number of students on campus. I suspect it will be mostly online with some long lab sessions to complete the lab work on campus limiting it to 8 or less students at a time for at least awhile.

Grocery shopping is problematic. Online shopping will greatly increase.

I think that people will start to buy small electric commuter vehicles that cost less than $5000. We will see if that pans out! I actually predicted that a while ago but I did not see how it could come to pass. Now it could be possible. People will not need cars for long trips any more so they could get by with a small vehicle.

It will be a particularly difficult time for musicians and professional athletes though.

Eventually some of the larger events will start to come back but it will take time. It may take as long as 3-5 years. Of course I am probably wrong. Most of my predictions about the spread of the virus are way off. The social distancing has seemed to work. The spread of the virus has greatly slowed.

I heard a report about all the food that typically goes to restaurants is having to be thrown away. Obviously people will still be eating the same amount of food, maybe a bit less, it is just that they will be eating the food at home now instead of going out to eat so this food needs to be redistributed to the people who are at home.

It was cold today. The cold is expected to continue until next week. I put plastic and blankets over the plants in the green house and Laurie told me not to open it up until it warms up. Hopefully something survives. I cleaned the snow off the solar panels. They should be producing power now.

I wore my new cloth mask I made out of an old T-shirt while getting the garbage and mail today. We spray the garbage and recycling containers with 409 before touching them.

We had squash and Texas hash for dinner last night and lunch today with mozzarella cheese on top and some Sriracha sauce with tortilla chips. We had black beans and rice mixed with some chicken for dinner. Laurie was able to preserve some fresh cilantro by freezing it inside ice cubes.

I spent some time making a county map color coded by the number of cases of Covid-19 but then I saw they had the same thing over at Johns Hopkins and they did a better job than me and it is much easier so here is theirs:

Number of deaths today were 2407, it had been going down a bit but there was a sudden jump today. Not sure why.

Wisconsin is increasing at about 4% for the past few days. Not sure if the in person election has had an effect yet. The liberal judge won the supreme court in Wisconsin, maybe that was a backlash to the Republicans forcing the election to be in person. There was an increase in Wisconsin deaths, but that would be unlikely to be related to the election.

Here are the new maps:

Not sure what the US map will do when everyone is over 5000. Not much change except Hawaii went over 500.

The next states to hit 5000 should be:

North Carolina	4816
Missouri	4388
Alabama	3803
Arizona	3702
South Carolina	3439
Wisconsin	3428

Probably tomorrow or the next day for North Carolina and Missouri. The others are further out. Wisconsin is getting close.