The stock market bounced back a bit today which did not surprise me too much as I thought yesterday’s drop was pretty irrational. Nothing too shocking in the news, although a few places are moving towards more severe “shelter in place” style declarations like San Francisco and, it’s rumored, New York city perhaps in a few days.

Managed to convince the in-laws, after several days of arguments, to cancel their trip to Bahamas. They both asked my wife if they were forgiven after the sometimes intense Facebook arguments, and she told them “no”. She is still pretty irritated over the whole thing, but glad at least that they cancelled. Hoping they heed the other advice because, Florida, in general seems insanely blithe over the whole thing. She told my wife that the “sun kills the virus down here in Florida” and saw pictures of hoards of people sunbathing on the beach in Clearwater today.

I talked to a colleague from my former employer and glad to hear that everyone there seems healthy and they have more or less told everyone to work from home. Most from my former team had been largely remote for years anyway, but glad to hear the company being proactive about it. Certainly not true at all US companies, as Twitter is full of stories of bad actors whose firms could easily handle remote work but have a Jurassic mindset about the whole thing.

Around the world, the issue in China seems to have eased, although they just expelled reporters from several major newspapers, so hard to know for sure. Northern Italy is in the very position we hope to avoid with our shutdowns and ‘social isolation’. Their hospitals are overrun and they are being forced into harsher and harsher choices about who will get respirators and intubation. Also heard their morgues and funeral homes are getting severely backed up. It’s a horror I hope we don’t see in places like New York where I fear they acted too slowly.

Wife made some orders from some local shops in Frederick to try and support them during the crisis. I’m a little uncomfortable with the idea of ordering food for delivery just yet, but maybe after a week or two we might be able to get a better idea of the impact of our efforts on “bending the curve” of the virus spread.

We took a walk around the neighborhood with the family after dinner. We were a little more careful this time about maintaining distance from anyone else also walking around, but it’s been good to be able to do that and get some fresh air an exercise. We did see a group of 6-8 kids bouncing together on a trampoline in the neighborhood, so we continue to be horrified by people’s indifference to the whole thing.