COVID-19 Index
By Richard Bruce BA, MA, and PhC in Economics

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Surviving & Enjoying COVID-19 Isolation

The number one activity of Americans and probably the rest of the human race is media. Sleep is number two. A number of years ago I asked several high school students if this was a good reflection of their life. Most said yes, but a particularly clever student said, yes, media is number one, but what is this sleep that you speak of. The isolation we are suffering through in the COVID-19 crisis does little to interfere with our number one activity media consumption, and if you can avoid worrying it does not interfer with sleep.

Media consumption is often seen as a negative but media includes the glories of music and art, comedy, drama, mindless action adventure, news that we need to fulfill our civic duty of informed voting, and life long learning and education.

Beyond that the Internet allows us to challenge ourselves with effectively unlimited games, quizzes, and puzzles, that test our knowledge, logical thinking, and quick reflexes.

Be Creative

We also have ample opportunities to be creative. You can write web pages. On your web pages you can have jokes, poetry, short stories, or novels. You can also express your opinions, share your recipes, tips on your hobbies, and an endless list of other topics. You can draw pictures, create objects of art, photograph them and put them online. You can write new lyrics to public domain tunes, sing, or play public domain music with instruments and upload the results for the world to enjoy. If a work was copyrighted before 1925 it is in the public domain. You can create a vast variety of videos and put them up on YouTube.

Socialize

Furthermore, you do not need to be socially isolated. You can phone friends and relatives. On the Internet you can get free long distance phone calls through Google, Skype, and no doubt many other services. These phone calls can be audio only or video and audio. You can gather the family for a video conference with Zoom, Google Hangouts, and many other services. You can learn about your friends and relatives through Facebook and many other social media. You can keep your friends and relatives informed through the same social media.

If you are feeling charitable and what to help others you can phone those friends and relatives who are feeling lonely and isolated. This should make you feel less lonely and isolated and people feel better when they help other people.

On the other hand if you are feeling argumentative there are plenty of places to argue on the Internet, Reddit is a favorite of mine. The challenges of an online debate are somewhat like the challenge of the unlimited games, quizzes, and puzzles mentioned above.

Reddit is also a good place to get questions answered. If I do not find the answer to a question on Google I find a relevant subreddit and ask there.

Use the Outdoors Safely

For most of us it is reasonably safe to exercise outdoors. We need to stay away from other people, and use personal protective equipment if we can not stay far enough away. Sun light kills the virus in minutes and the wind will blow aerosols carrying the virus away in seconds. The average wind speed over land is about five meters or 16 feet per second. If the virus remains airborne it is likely to be lifted up into the atmosphere far above your head and of no danger to anyone.

Longer trips in a personal vechile to a wilderness area near where you live can also be fairly safe. As usual you want to keep a good distance between you and others, but wilderness areas are places with lots of space and few people. If you are going with others, including your family, it might be best to keep the car windows open so if someone is infected and does not know it the virus will not be concentrated in the car.

An Opportunity to Grow in Faith

For the religious there is prayer, and for many others meditation or thinking. In addition to direct access to the almighty there is a basically unlimited supply of religious music, preaching, religious art, religious reading and access to you fellow believers through phone, video phone, video conference calls, etc.

Many religious people think COVID-19 or at least the isolation is a plot against religion. I prefer to see it as a huge opportunity to use the Internet to build up the faith. We can form on line religious groups many of which may continue to bear fruit after we find the vacine or otherwise defeat COVID-19.

Enjoy and Make Good Use of the Isolation

The Internet gives us effectively unlimited opportunities to enjoy music, fiction, learn, challenge ourselves, be creative, socialize, and serve man and God. Let us make good use of the these opportunities.

And remember until you have read all or at least most of my deathless web pages on this site and watched all or most of my videos on my YouTube channel, which is richleebruce, of course, you have no excuse for being bored.

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I currently have more than ten pages on my COVID-19 index page.

My web pages on tips for better AM radio reception were number one on Google for about a decade and are still usually in the top three for the words AM radio reception. So apparently I am pretty good at inventing practical suggestions and organizing other people's suggestions. So perhaps I have something useful to say about COVID-19 also.

If you want to tell me how terribly wrong I am, or other wise contact me, you can do so several was. This is a link to my contact information.