First Blog

Keywords of the week. If you're following the world-wide struggle against the coronavirus together with the usual politics, here are some words you have heard often. Intensive care and ICU Comorbidity Morbific Exempt Suspend Stockpile Ventilator Respirator Incubator Loan/grant Death and Infection rates? Doubling time Susceptible Asymptomatic Reopening Infectious Bipartisan Conference call Infrastructure Pandemic Epidemic Flatten the curve Therapeutic Vaccine Cure Guidance (from the CDC) Elective surgery Exponential growth Logarithmic growth* Model assumptions SIR type model (Susceptible-Infected-Removed) Phenomenological model Inflection point* *This term is often used incorrectly.

A few weeks ago the keywords in society were well known.   Among them were, organic, green, carbon footprint, worker, shareholder value, new capitalism, social justice, healthcare, impeachment, big data, electric cars, and global.  The new keywords have changed to healthcare, quarantine, sequester, infection, risk, pandemic, survival, vulnerability, lock down, separation, work-at-home, coronavirus, school closures, work-place closures, isolation, and more. In just a month, the axis of the world has tilted from the direction of selective prosperity to a direction of possible depression and decline. Adjustment is difficult. Reconciliation is difficult. Acceptance is nearly impossible.