As of some time last night, I have novel respiratory symptoms. I'm basically fine but it feels safest to act as if I am infected.

My lungs hurt, and it's not the tightness I associate with mild asthma symptoms, or the tired muscle ache / burn I associate with a bad cough (whether asthma or viral). Not badly, but pretty much continuously. I'm coughing a bit but not severely, and I don't feel feverish. I have a slight headache and sore throat, but that could be just about anything including stress. I am somewhat distracted but I've been able to get on with useful work today.

I'm probably being over-cautious, but I feel like the balance of probabilities points towards suspected case. So this morning jack and I activated our self-isolation plan. We've divided up the house so that I "live" upstairs and he stays downstairs apart from using the bathroom. We have separate towels and we're cleaning metal bathroom surfaces constantly. jack has taken on food prep for both of us and he's leaving me plates of food and cups of tea and retreating to the bottom of the stairs.

And we're preparing to avoid leaving the house at all until it's more likely that we're not infectious than that we still are. We have plenty of supplies, and we managed to get an online supermarket delivery order in by virtue of going on the website just after midnight last night, which was fortuitous timing. It's going to suck, more so if my symptoms progress beyond the almost ignorable level, but since we can do this I think it's the right thing.

The most likely (and in some ways comforting) narrative I can come up with is that I picked this up when I had to attend a dental appointment two weeks ago. I had very mild symptoms (including a tell-tale sore throat) within a few days of that surgery, which in retrospect I can imagine might have been the first phase. And now, 12 days after the first symptoms, I have potential lower respiratory tract symptoms, so hopefully this is the second phase. That's comforting because it suggests my source of infection is a necessary medical appointment rather than either something frivolous I did, or just being unlucky even though I've stayed at home except for exercise for ten days now, and jack has been doing minimal necessary shopping with careful social distancing. And if I picked it up at the dentist it's unlikely I infected the dentist or any of his staff or patients. Also, if my guess is right I'm probably approaching the end of the infectious phase.

We are really not sure how long we should maintain full isolation at home. UK guidelines say 7 days from start of symptoms (me, today), or 14 days from contact with a symptomatic person (Jack). But I suspect this is not entirely adequate especially as it's much less restrictive than the WHO advice. If my symptoms don't get any worse than this and jack doesn't get sick at all, which is definitely the brnach of the timeline I'm hoping for, I won't know whether I've actually had Covid. Currently we're thinking that if nothing changes we'll start interacting with eachother again after 7 days, but not go outside until we're more confident the incubation period has passed; I think the safest is 14 days from the end of symptoms but we might not be able to sustain that.

Send hugs and support to jack, please? He's doing amazingly in a somewhat scary situation.

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I'm doing basically fine but continuing to be careful.

I still have the same single worrying symptom I had on Thursday, sore lungs. I don't otherwise feel ill, feverish, tired or anything else, so I'm really second guessing myself over whether isolation was the right choice.

The last few days have been mostly pleasant though stressful for jack who's handling everything on his own and worrying about me getting seriously ill or possibly infecting him.

Friday was 19 days since the government started taking action. I worked in my new upstairs den (previously jack's den.) We had a weird date where jack brought me up a tray with the Shabbat ritual things, I made kiddush sitting at the top of the stairs and he sat at the bottom, and we ate dinner in parallel but at a distance. And then we played Potion explosion over Steam, which worked pretty well.

The weekend was ridiculously lovely, and we were both good and only sunbathed and exercised in our own garden. Saturday, day 20, I went to virtual shul, which on only the second iteration starts to feel almost normal. Bigger than usual congregation, including some of the people who are usually strict about not using electronic technology on Shabbat. And in the afternoon I attended the second half of wildeabandon's Stardust readthrough which was generally satisfying and companionable. And I had a long phonecall with ghoti_mhic_uait.

Sunday, day 21, had slightly fewer online social commitments. We had a lot of time in the sunshine in the garden, remaining carefully distanced. cjwatson came by to wave to me from the street while I looked out of an upstairs window like some ridiculous fairy tale princess. We video chatted to jack's university friends; it's been a long time since the original trio got together since one of them lives in Croatia and has two small children. And I did my online chevruta just like the previous week, slightly sheepishly admitting I was Skyping from bed because I was isolating for basically no reason. And I had a long conversation with cjwatson in the evening.

Since today is day 22, and two weeks of lockdown, it's now been a whole two weeks since I last interacted directly with anyone other than jack. jack has also not left the house or allowed delivery people to come close to him since I got the weird symptoms on Thursday, so five days so far.

I now know eight people who have pretty clearly been through a bout of coronavirus, and 21 who like me are being careful because they have suspicious symptoms.

Thanks to everyone who made nice comments on my last post, I really appreciate all of you.

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Still basically fine, but this one is a bit whiny.

I'm losing track of everything I'm trying to count. This is:

Less frequent posts since time hardly exists any more.

5 weeks of pandemic life (yesterday).
4 weeks of lockdown and since I last interacted with anyone except jack.
19 days since I thought I maybe had symptoms.
13 days since I ended internal isolation with jack. He hasn't had any symptoms at all.
5 days since I last had symptoms I was significantly worried about.
3 days since I returned to occasionally leaving the house for exercise.
Also, day 12 of the Omer.

So, healthwise: I had about 5 days, 2nd April to 7th April, when my lungs hurt. Just continuously, not affected by taking deep breaths or posture or anything much else. I didn't have any other symptoms whatsoever. After that I had like a week of thinking I was better, except that the soreness returned intermittently. So I really wasn't sure when I could start counting to the end of isolation; the UK guidelines say 7 days from symptoms appearing, but everywhere else counts from the end of symptoms, and the symptoms were so minor and tailed off so gradually that I don't know where I'd place the 'end'.

On 16th April I had a weird episode of dizziness, much worse than I'd ever experienced before. I pretty much had to lie down for a couple of hours. I had no other symptoms, no tiredness, no fever, just plain vertigo. I looked it up on the internet as you do, and articles from before Covid-19 suggested that sometimes people get post-viral labyrinthitis, whereas more up-to-date information suggested dizziness might be a Covid-19 symptom. I don't know. If my lung soreness was in fact Covid-19 then I got the dizziness two weeks after symptoms appeared, which seems implausibly long.

We decided we could start going out from Sunday 19th. We're still staying away from shops and avoiding other people. It's a bit arbitrary but it is over two weeks since I first worried, and 5 days since I had even the vaguest trace of symptoms (except the dizziness which might or might not be relevant).

So, the rest of the bank holiday weekend when I was sad that I didn't get to do Easter family time with OSOs. I did in fact enjoy some restful time with jack. We played Gloomhaven and unwound a bit from work and Pesach. And we managed to get in some remote Stellaris with cjwatson; it pretty much Just Worked even though we last played most of a year ago and had a really old version of the game. We used Discord for voice chat and it was pleasant and companionable.

Two and a half days back at work, then I had to take an afternoon off to be dizzy, but I was fine by Friday. The lovely Reform Movement started up broadcasting again after a break for the festival, and I attended a couple of seminars (but haven't yet got back into the habit of attending communal morning prayer).

This recent weekend I had deliberately not made too many social plans. I had a nice date with jack on Friday evening. OSOs virtually joined me for the Saturday morning service, and I listened in to their church service on Sunday. The latter feels much less like being together because it's just a broadcast, whereas our service has a Zoom congregation and is a bit more interactive, but I still wanted to support my partners. We also managed a couple of nearly spontaneous games of online bridge using the Trickster Cards site, a matter of just sending a text saying, do you feel like playing and pretty much starting a game with minimal faff. The first was with my mother and brother who are quarantined together, and the second was with OSOs. And I've had a couple of phonecall dates with each of my non-domestic partners.

Going out for the first time after self-isolation was weird. We decided that we could justify going for a short drive to reach a place more pleasant and less crowded than Cambridge city. We went to Waterbeach in order to look at the river, but decided against walking along it because the path is too narrow. It was the most amazingly gorgeous day, just perfect spring weather. And during the three weeks I stayed at home the world has become gloriously green. There were a few people about enjoying the weather but it was far from crowded. We walked in a little nature reserve and it was really lovely.

But I found it emotionally hard. I was anxious about getting too close to people, I was anxious about getting in trouble for having fun and not moving fast enough. And I was really struggling with feeling sad about this perfect spring that we're mostly going to miss, and not knowing how many more seasons will just flow past while we're all stuck indoors, and the people who won't make it through quarantine to enjoy the outdoors again.

Today was a bit better, I returned to my pre-symptoms habit of walking across very quiet north Cambridge suburbs to OSOs' house. And we chatted with them on their doorstep and me more than 2m away in the street, and that made me feel better. I was a lot less angsty about going out of the house the second time than the first.

Last few days I've had fairly obvious hayfever but otherwise feel fine. There are 7 people known to me personally who have had pretty clear cases of Covid-19, and 26 including me who have had suspicious symptoms.

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Keeping on keeping on.

7 weeks and change of pandemic life. That's a lot of weeks.
43 days lockdown, and no significant interactions except with my husband. Though 26 days since I gave up internal isolation and I have been interacting normally with him within the house for those 3 1/2 weeks.
18 days since I decided that any novel symptoms I had were mostly gone. I've had very occasional returns of the lung soreness, but very briefly and mildly to the point I'm not sure I'm not just deluding myself. During these 18 days I've been going out occasionally for exercise and fresh air, and jack has visited actual shops a couple of times to pick up things we needed faster than internet delivery could manage.
And day 27 of the Omer. I'm still not expecting plague lifting by day 33, though I know some countries are starting to relax some restrictions.

New lockdown activities: sfred and djm4's extremely moving partnership ceremony over Zoom on 25 April. It was exceptionally well coordinated, with a congregation of around 200 people. And even though the couple had initially told us the socializing part would be postponed until after the Reconnection, actually after the ceremony we just unmuted everybody and there was this amazing buzz of congratulations and people being pleased to see each other and little kids shrieking, just like at a real wedding.

Collaborative crossword solving with seekingferret. That was really fun, despite silght technical issues with Discord. I am not at all experienced with American-style crosswords (and sometimes was thrown by specifically American clues), but I contributed only a little less than my fair share.

Teaching three different Hebrew school classes over Zoom. The new ones, for my actual local cheder where I am formally employed as a teacher, are going less well than the established one with two boys from Stoke plus my partners' daughter. Some of the children are struggling because they've suddenly switched from "screens are evil and rot your brains" to "your entire education is now on screens (so good luck working out how to operate a smart phone!)". Others are just too young for online teaching to work well; my youngest class is Yr 4 which means some of them are not quite 9 and still need direct personal interaction from a trusted adult to hold their attention. I feel even more sorry than previously for people who are trying to teach infant school or even kindergarten online. And the most tech savvy kid is also the worst behaved; right now the set-up is such that I don't have moderator privs and it took her about 10 minutes to work out that she could grab the screen from me, and scribble rude drawings over my worksheets, and there's not a whole lot I can do about it technically.

Talking of people for whom tech is a barrier, I've also been involved in the community welfare programme, trying to help someone who really has no idea how to access the internet short of buying a computer and full broadband subscription. Not someone particularly ancient either, and never thought they would be the kind of person who receives welfare. But at least open to the idea that pandemic life will be better with an internet connection.

Zoom crafting, hosted by pseudomonas. He has a very good theory that it's nice to gently hang out with people, but while doing something rather than having the whole social event focused on chat. Definitely less exhausting than purely conversational Zoom parties, but still feeds my extrovert energies. I have added a few rows to my rather long-abandoned Möbius scarf project.

IRC. Slack is ok, Discord is ok, even Twitter is bearable if you curate your feed carefully. But it turns out that working with a flow of text based conversation in a window is just really soothing to my emotional state. I don't have to reply to or even read everything, but just knowing my people are there, and if I do want to join in the conversation, I can do so on a full-sized keyboard, is just brilliant.

Our veg box person, Cambridge Fruit Co. has now teamed up with a cake shop (and a butcher's, if you like that kind of thing), so we now get a random selection of cake with our random selection of fruit and veg. This week: avocados, a swede and a mango. Also new to our online shopping rotation: v expensive bread flour from former hipster café Stir. It's leading to perceptibly better breadmaker bread, and cheap bread flour isn't very available anyway, so for the moment it's worth the extra money.

Today I feel kind of physically miserable. I think it's mostly menstruation-related and not outside the range of normal for me. But emotionally mostly ok, I'm doing better at finding a balance between getting enough connection, and getting drained by too many video calls, or worse, arguing with people who are Wrong on the Internet because I'm starved of social connection.

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Посетитель нашего сайта с ником raner прислал нам небольшой подарок.
Подборка замечательных фото его супруги.
Вот ведь, пока остальные сидят в карантине и страдают от безделья, некоторые умело радуют себя и окружающих.
Спасибо им большое за такое человеколюбие.
Тем более, что, как мне кажется, фото более чем достойные.

Гитарист группы Queen Брайан Мэй попал в больницу с «разорванной в клочья» ягодицей. Музыкант пояснил, что получил травму в момент «чрезмерного увлечения садоводством». Ему пришлось пройти обследование, чтобы выяснить, насколько он повредил мышцу. Мэй заявил, что ему потребуется время на восстановление.

(in-package #:cl-pestilence)

;;   This is _not_ a simulation. It's just a game. And any resemblance
;; to any world, real or imaginary, is entirely coincidental.

;;   You can copy/paste this post in its entirety into a Common Lisp
;; REPL and play around with it if you like. I'm documenting it where
;; possible, but it's just a small toy to poke at for the moment.

;;   I've been thinking a lot about asymmetric multiplayer games and
;; <gestures wildly to world at large> all this.
;; I'm not actively _trying_ to model it accurately, but it's probably
;; obvious what's been consuming my thoughts lately.

;;   Let's get right into this. I'll explain as I go, and tie a few things
;; together neatly at the end. I hope. Regardless, there will absolutely
;; be a repo sometime fairly soon.

;; A place can be tagged arbitrarily, and can contain occupants.
;; They also collect points.

(defclass place ()
  ((tags :initarg :tags :initform nil :accessor tags)
   (occupants :initarg :occupants :initform nil :accessor occupants)
   (points :initform 0 :accessor points)))

(defun place? (thing)
  (eq (find-class 'place) (class-of thing)))

(defun place (&key tags occupants)
  (make-instance 'place :tags tags :occupants occupants))

(defun gen-place ()
  (let ((tag (pick '(:apartment-building :house :cottage
		     :office-building :factory :store
		     :cafe :lounge :theater))))
    (place :tags (list tag))))

(defmethod details ((place place))
  (format nil "====================~%~a {~{~a~}}~%~{  ~a~^~%~}~%"
	  (first (tags place))
	  (rest (tags place))
	  (mapcar #'details (occupants place))))

(defmethod show ((place place))
  (format nil "~20@a ~5a [~{~a~}]~%"
	  (first (tags place)) (points place)
	  (mapcar #'show (occupants place))))

;; A peep goes places.
;; They have
;;  - their daily routine (a list of places to visit)
;;  - their todo (the part of their routine they still need to do;
;;                they are currently at the first place in this list)
;;  - their health (a number from 0 to 100)
;;  - a list of plagues
;; Finally, they _also_ collect points.

(defclass peep ()
  ((routine :initarg :routine :initform (list) :accessor routine)
   (todo :initarg :todo :initform nil :accessor todo)
   (health :initarg :health :initform 100 :accessor health)
   (plagues :initform nil :accessor plagues)
   (points :initform 0 :accessor points)))

(defun peep? (thing)
  (eq (find-class 'peep) (class-of thing)))

(defun peep (&key places)
  (make-instance 'peep :routine places :todo places))

(defun health->string (health)
  (cond ((>= health 90) "@")
	((>= health 80) "0")
	((>= health 70) "O")
	((>= health 50) "o")
	((>= health 30) ":")
	((>= health 1)  ".")
	(t "☠")))

(defmethod details ((peep peep))
  (format nil "[~a ~3d [~{ ~a~^ ->~}]]"
	  (health->string (health peep)) (health peep)
	  (mapcar
	   (lambda (place) (first (tags place)))
	   (routine peep))))

(defmethod show ((peep peep)) (health->string (health peep)))

;; A world is a list of places, occupied by peeps. The world we start
;; peeps in also determines their routine.

(defun gen-world (&key (num-places 20) (num-peeps 100))
  (let ((places (loop repeat num-places collect (gen-place))))
    (loop repeat num-peeps
       do (let* ((routine (loop repeat 5 collect (pick places)))
		 (peep (peep :places routine)))
	    (push peep (occupants (first routine)))))
    places))

(defmethod details ((world list))
  (format nil "~%~{~a~}~%" (mapcar #'details world)))

(defmethod show ((world list))
  (format nil "~%~{~a~}~%" (mapcar #'show world)))

(defmethod all-peeps ((world list))
  (loop for place in world append (all-peeps place)))

(defmethod all-peeps ((place place))
  (loop for o in (occupants place) if (peep? o) collect o))

;; `tick!`ing a world means moving every peep through their routine once.
;;   We `tick!` each peep, then `tick!` each place until all the peeps are
;; done. Then we reset their routines.
;; You can think of this as a turn in the game.

(defmethod tick! ((world list))
  (let ((peeps (all-peeps world)))
    (loop while peeps
       do (setf peeps
		(loop for p = (pop peeps) while p
		   for res = (tick! p)
		   if res collect res))
       do (mapc #'tick! world)
       do (format t "~a" (show world)))
    (loop for p in (all-peeps world)
       do (setf (todo p) (routine p))))
  world)

;; Don't worry about the details of how to `tick!` peeps or places yet.

;;   Ok, here's where it gets a bit darker. Although we _did_
;; foreshadow this in the definition of `peep`. And also in the title
;; of the accompanying blog post.

;; A plague is another living thing.
;; It has
;;  - a host (a peep that it's infecting)
;;  - a signature (a token representing its lineage and strain)
;;  - health (how well it's doing inside its host)
;;  - virulence (how likely it is to spread to another host)
;;  - efficiency (how efficient they are at feeding)
;;  - reproduce (a function that returns a new instance to push into a new host)
;;  - and a strategy (a function, possibly closed, that takes
;;    itself and its host peep and mutates)

;; Plagues do not collect points; they score differently.

(defclass plague ()
  ((host :initarg :host :initform nil :accessor host)
   (signature :initarg :host :initform "SIG" :accessor signature)
   (health :initarg :health :initform 10 :accessor health)
   (virulence :initarg :virulence :initform 10 :accessor virulence)
   (efficiency :initarg :efficiency :initform 0.2 :accessor efficiency)
   (reproduce
    :initarg :reproduce
    :initform
    #'plague
    :reader reproduce)
   (strategy
    :initarg :strategy
    :initform
    (lambda (plague peep)
      (feed! plague peep 30))
    :reader strategy)))

(defun plague ()
  (make-instance 'plague))

;; Plagues can `feed!` on peeps or plagues. To feed means to
;; take away some of the targets' health and add some to your own.

(defmethod feed! ((self plague) (peep peep) (amount integer))
  (decf (health peep) amount)
  (incf (health self) (* (efficiency self) amount)))

(defmethod feed! ((self plague) (plague plague) (amount integer))
  (decf (health plague) amount)
  (incf (health self) (* (efficiency self) amount)))

;; Plagues can also `infect!` peeps by `reproduce`ing into them.

(defmethod infect! ((self plague) (peep peep))
  (unless (infected-by? self peep)
    (let ((child (funcall (reproduce self))))
      (setf (host child) peep)
      (push child (plagues peep)))))

(defmethod infected-by? ((self plague) (peep peep))
  (member (signature self) (mapcar #'signature (plagues peep))
	  :test #'string=))

;;  `tick!`ing a plague causes it to weaken and also carry out its strategy.
;; This models the background effect of the immune system of its host.

(defmethod tick! ((plague plague))
  (decf (health plague) 1)
  (funcall (strategy plague) plague (host plague))
  plague)

;;  `tick!`ing a peep means moving them to their next place, and also
;; `tick!`ing any plagues they may have contracted. Also, peeps are
;; resilient; they heal a small amount each time they tick (to a
;; maximum of 100).
;;  If a peep dies, they no longer move. And their plagues probably
;; won't do well. Peeps like to go places. They score points for each
;; place they go to.

(defun dead? (thing) (>= 0 (health thing)))

(defmethod tick! ((peep peep))
  (unless (dead? peep)
    (let ((location (pop (todo peep))))
      (incf (points peep))
      (setf (occupants location) (remove peep (occupants location)))
      (push peep (occupants (or (first (todo peep)) (first (routine peep)))))
      (setf (health peep) (min 100 (+ 5 (health peep))))
      (mapc #'tick! (plagues peep))
      (unless (empty? (todo peep))
	peep))))

;; `tick!`ing a place causes it to score for each `peep` present. And it causes
;; any `plague`s on present `peep`s to try to `infect!` other nearby peeps.
;; Places also lose points for each dead peep they contain.

(defmethod tick! ((place place))
  (incf (points place) (length (occupants place)))
  (loop for peep in (all-peeps place)
     if (dead? peep)
     do (decf (points place) 2)
     else do (loop for plague in (plagues peep)
		do (loop for victim in (remove peep (all-peeps place))
		      if (>= (virulence plague) (random 100))
		      do (infect! plague victim))))
  place)

;;  So, now we've got the basic framework of the game in place. There are three
;; players in this game: places, peeps and plagues.
;;   A plague player automatically loses if they are completely cured, and
;; automatically wins if they manage to kill everyone. That's fairly simple.
;;   A place player wins if they manage to cure the plague. They automatically
;; lose if all the peeps die. Also, fairly simple.
;;   A peep player is trying to survive. If they manage to make it some numer
;; of turns before dying, then we have to score the game instead of declaring
;; an outright winner regardless of game state.

;;   A peep player's score is the total number of points plus remaining health
;; on all of their peeps, minus the number of active plagues on said peeps.
;;   A plague player's score is the total number of health of their plagues,
;; with a multiplier equal to the number of places fully infected by
;; their plague.
;;   A place player's score is the total number of points in their places.

(defun score (world)
  (list :peep (let ((score 0))
		(loop for p in (all-peeps world)
		   unless (dead? p)
		     do (incf score (+ (health p) (points p)))
		   do (decf score (length (plagues p))))
		score)
	:place (let ((score 0))
		 (loop for p in world
		    do (incf score (points p)))
		 score)
	:plague (let ((score 0))
		  (loop for victim in (all-peeps world)
		     do (loop for p in (plaguesvictim)
			   do (incf score (max 0 (health p)))))
		  (loop for target in world
		     if (every
			 (lambda (victim)
			   (not (empty? (plagues victim))))
			 (all-peeps target))
		     do (setf score (* 2  score)))
		  score)))

;;   I think that's all I've got for now. This is definitely an idea I want
;; to run with. At the moment, it's just a tiny, in-repl proof-of-concept,
;; and not particularly fun, but I'm going to try developing it further with an
;; eye towards turning it into an actual web game playable from this site.

;; As always, I'll let you know how it goes.

(defun pick (lst)
  (nth (random (length lst)) lst))

(defun empty? (lst)
  (null lst))

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Greetings on the First Day of the Writing of the Book of the Law! Due to the ongoing economic impact of the Coronavirus pandemic, the International Supreme Council of Ordo Templi Orientis, in consultation with the Grand Lodges, is implementing the following measures to …

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