Monthly Archives: March 2020

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Silver Lining

Taking Coronavirus Seriously

It’s a Saturday. Normally I would have simply headed out to the nearby Fort Funston or one of the many natural reserves with my wife and our dog Watson in the morning for a good hike. Today, however, I tuned in for President Trump’s Coronavirus Taskforce press conference a bit, I watched New York governor Cuomo’s press conference and California governor Newsom’s video address on Youtube in addition. Coronavirus infection is still trending up in many parts of the world (China and South Korea are a few exceptions). Except for its ferocious infection and higher fatality rate, we still know little about this Nova Coronavirus. We have witnessed China experiencing 81000+ confirmed infection with 3200+ deaths, and getting it under control. Now, we are observing 27000+ confirmed infection with 340+ deaths in a short few weeks and still trending up, it will take an idiot to not see that we are not doing something right!

Thank god, California, New York, and many other communities are now on a “shelter in place” or “stay home except for essentials” order. Dow losing all its gain which President Trump trumpeted on and on up to this point, helped to send the biggest shock wave across the establishment. Nonetheless, it’s our disease control professionals, healthcare workers, and State leaders like Newsom and Cuomo, who deserve a loud shout-out! They took the initiatives, they took the matter in their own hands to protect their citizens!

Three-Prone Approach

We stay safe for you, You stay home for us!

Sincere message from some doctors and nurses working overtime to take care of infection patients in the face of shortage for basic protection supplies such as face masks and ventilators

Given the current state of understanding on the Coronavirus, a three-prone approach taken by many State and City governments make perfect sense. This three-prone approach actually bears many similarities to the layered-defense approach that we use in dealing with cybersecurity problems .

First, reduce person to person close contacts. Since the virus is known to spread primarily via air droplets and surface contacts, and that we do not have the most precise understanding and detection of when an infected person is contagious, “social distancing” gives us the best bang for the buck! That is why majority of the businesses have adopted a work from home policy (my company DiDi Labs started this policy on March 6). That is why many restaurants closed their dine-in services. That is why citizens in California and New York are practicing “shelter in place” or “stay home”!

Second, since we still need to live our lives and we still have life-essential services and interactions going on, we need means to more accurately identify high-risk individuals timely and apply tighter restrictions on their contacts. That is why we need to quickly ramp up our screening test capacity and improve our test accuracy. Again, we heard governors Cuomo and Newsom loud and clear. We have seen their actions significantly increase the test availability to their citizens. Finally, we are seeing the federal government getting their acts together, and enlisting private sectors support. Virus does not discriminate, we need a united effort in our United States to win the war against the virus!

Third, as we all have seen and many experts have predicted, a lot more people will get infected, and many with compromised immune system or other complications will die, unless we have timely and effective treatment! Again, we are seeing great effort to increase ventilator supply to the hospitals, thanks to the forceful “cry” from the health care professionals and local officials. We are also hopeful that some of the existing antiviral drugs can be repurposed for fighting this virus. FDA and other regulatory bodies should be commended for taking extraordinary steps to expedite the process! Of course, all of us, the good citizens, should understand that this process, along with the new vaccines, will take longer time to come. We should seriously practice “social distancing” in the meantime!

Seeing, Believing, and Acting

Now, let me share some perspectives on “silver lining in the cloud”.

I believe firmly that with some common sense, some care, and some effort, we will overcome this challenge soon. My technology training taught me to be thorough and precise while my entrepreneur experience taught me to be patient and to seek opportunities. Let’s see if a couple of photos can help you follow my dry, technical, and maybe naive perspective better.

Although we are under the cloud of Coronavirus, people are practicing “shelter in place” in California statewide. At the same time, they are still trying to stay healthy physically and mentally by exercising outdoors, here at Fort Funston with their dog friends. They were courteous with greetings but observing 6-foot separation. On this sunny day, the silver lining in the cloud is abundant and clearly visible.
On this same sunny day, from the hilltop at Fort Funston, you can see Golden Gate bridge clearly standing with strength. We can appreciate the blue sky highlighting the graceful red bridge. A few patches of cloud still bring with them the silver lining. It takes the effort to be at this particular place to capture this moment!
If you made the effort to be at the twin peak in the evening of this clear day (Thursday March 19), you could appreciate the silver lining of the cloud with a warmer tone. You could appreciate the light reflecting off of the cloud onto the city of San Francisco. You can imagine how beautiful the city will be at a different moment and with a different cloud cover! It takes more effort to imagine and patient to wait, in order to witness another nice day!

As my thoughts wonder, Sunday has rolled around. We were experiencing thousands of case increases in a matter of days. It’s high time that we heed the “shelter in place” orders and fight the virus spread together!

There are plenty of silver linings in this Coronavirus pandemic. Neighbors are offering to watch and help elderlies; Food delivery businesses are adopting “contactless” delivery schemes to reduce chance of infection; Consumers are planning take-outs during “shelter in place” because they care about the livelihood of workers in the restaurants; People are organizing donations, in kinds or in cash, to help solve the supply shortage of health care workers; More efforts are in motion to help all those impacted to get back on their feet!

There are also plenty of opportunities for our positive strength to show, and humanity to shine! We have seen businesses quickly adopt “work from home” policies, and employees quickly adapting to working from home to remain productive; we have seen our networking infrastructure got stretched and capacity expanded quickly; we have seen remote working systems such as Zoom experiencing rapid expansion and rising to occasion; not to mention innovation and development improving our ability to test and cure Coronavirus infections!

Most of all, it’s a humble feeling to realize that this virus pandemic is forcing us to think about what humanity means! Humanity must sustain and prosper, but how? Humanity needs to transcend physical boundaries and sustain through test of time! It may require us to think more long-term? It may require us to sincerely seek “win-win” collaboration? One thing is clear for now — we need to work together to win this battle with Coronavirus! If we can all act with responsibility and with care, practice social distancing and with kindness, we will triumph! You can find good information on the development and tips for protection against Coronavirus on this John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center site (https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/). Love and peach for the world!