Life Under Lockdown (II)

So far, so good. There's been very little development here and the only things to report on are firmly of the first world problems variety. Netflix is supposedly limiting picture quality, but I haven't even noticed. We're in that kind of a crisis.

Yesterday I went to the shop for the first time in a week, quite expecting to find nothing but burning embers and half-dead corpses stumbling around, futily clutching for the last roll of toilet paper. In fact it was as normal as normal can be. Panic buying ? No sign of it, not even for toilet paper. Why exactly the rest of the world appears to think that this is something necessary to stockpile, and why the blazes the shops haven't put a stop to this, and furthermore why this isn't happening in the Czech Republic, is quite beyond me. I mean, it's not as if all the shops are going to shut, because that would cause starvation - it isn't going to happen because that would be far worse than the bloody virus. So what in the world is the point on stocking up when the shops are going to stay open ?

I'm told that there is some panic buying here - of flour. Apparently this is a memory of the old times when everyone baked bread at home, even though this is now comparatively rare. And I'm told that since they moved the hours dedicated for senior citizens, things are a little more empty, but that could be because my neighbour went three hours after the senior hours finished and they just hadn't re-stocked yet.

The senior citizen hours are, of course, a thoroughly good idea. Originally these were from 10-12, but they soon shifted that to be from 7-9. This is much more sensible since it avoids the elderly forming queues before 10. A silly problem, but swiftly dealt with.

The only unusual thing about the shopping experience was that everyone was wearing face masks, as required by the government. From what I've heard these are largely useless, but not in themselves harmful. I think it would probably be better if they government spent more effort on encouraging people to maintain a safe distance from each other - most Czechs are not at all touchy-feeling, but they tend not to care about personal space very much.

Anyway, these "masks" can be anything. So I used a neck warmer, which has proven effective enough for the brief evening dog walks. This was a mistake. Before I even got to the shop I had to remove my glasses, because I couldn't see a damn thing through the condensation. Inside, I quickly found I became profusely sweaty - well, it's supposed to keep me warm, for heaven's sake - and the thing needed perpetual adjustments. Apart from the fact I was able to stock up on supplies, it was a thoroughly lousy shopping experience and I didn't like it one bit.

(Oh, okay, and they happened not to have any honey so I got Nutella instead. Truly these are the end times.)

As for work itself, that continues more or less unimpeded. It's been unseasonably warm of late, so I've even been working outside. Lulu does not approve, but she doesn't get a vote because she's too small and fluffy. Even though the overhanging ivy causes me to get horribly itchy and sneezy, it seems worth making the most of this brief warm spell as temperatures are expected to crash back down to winter levels tomorrow.

I've been dividing my time between recoding FRELLED and reading papers. I've got the astropy WCS module working, so now I can figure out the coordinates of a FITS file pixel without having to roll my own like I did previously (cunningly combined with the datetime module to give sexigesimal notation). Galactic coordinates aren't cooperating yet but I'm sure I'll fix that with enough testing. And I've allowed myself to work on a side-project of making a nice 3D interactive map of the Galaxy - more of that over on the astronomy blog, hopefully next week.

What then of the virus ? It remains, frustratingly, too early to tell. Case numbers continue to rise, but so do testing rates. Since the quarantine measures haven't been applied for very long, my guess is it could be another two or three weeks before we can tell if they have any impact compared to countries which implemented them more slowly. So we continue to watch this space. For now, everything remains about as normal as it can get in this weird dystopian reality.