It’s April now. Somehow it feels like it’s been months and months since mid-March when things really turned serious (or at least, became serious to people in North America), though it’s been less than 3 weeks. It feels like nearly a year since things otherwise turned upside-down in mid February.

There are more people back at work this week, many having taken a 14-day self-isolation period, or are continuing to work from home. It was getting pretty lonely, but I’m not sure I want to be around any more people than I already am.

I’ve been reading social media posts about people in quarantine, and it still all seems so surreal.

PPE and hand sanitizer is still in short supply. Hospitals are asking for donations of real PPE (eg N95 masks, and water-resistant gowns), though there is a growing social movement to produce DIY “PPE”, such as cloth masks. I’m not yet sure how I feel about that.

Most of them will be poorly made, in the sense that cloths masks are not a great barrier to begin with, especially not to droplets and viruses, and the less informed people will make crappy masks (even by handmade PPE standards), simply because they don’t know any better (eg making ill-fitting, single-layer masks, or unwashable masks made out of paper towels or something, rather than multi-layer fitted masks). Plus I suppose there’s potential risk of people slapping on a DIY cotton mask and then feeling safer than they really are, and thus taking more risks than they otherwise would.
That said, if someone if going to be an idiot in public, to be honest I would rather have a thin cotton level of protection from them than no protection from them, so I don’t know. ?‍♀️