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Guys, under normal circumstances, I think this thread would be a great idea for injury advice and so on. This is not normal circumstances this year. Real talk. The coronavirus is a problem. If you're in the UK, your government's "we're planning to sit back and see who dies" response is a problem. If you're in the US, your government's response is an even bigger problem. (And it's likely to get worse, not better.) They're actively steering the car off the cliff. I hear ya that this feels overblown. It does. Everything feels normal. But I do trust data, and data tells me this is my risk perception that's at fault. I don't have experience that matches any idea of this risk or this government response. The other issue is cultural. We tend to calculate risk in terms of "me and my loved ones", not in terms of community statistics. Like voting, our actions form a part of community statistics that has a much broader impact than our individual vote. You will never know if you were necessary to the problem or the solution when the coronavirus hits your community. You will only know which you voted for. So. Numbers. It's generally accepted that 60-70% of the population will get the coronavirus. For most of them, it won't be too bad, maybe bad bronchitis. But the fatality rate is high. On the conservative end, based on current US response, we're looking at about 1% of the entire US population in the next 12-18 months. On the less conservative end, we're looking at 2-3% of the US population. (In contrast, if we'd emulated measures taken by South Korea, we'd be looking at projections more like 0.4% of the population, 5-10x fewer people. So community management helps.) I don't know about you, but the idea of 1% of the population dying in the next year - let alone up to 3% - is a little mindblowing. I'm not sure I can wrap my head around that. Here's one of the big differences in outcome, when it comes to fatalities: You're probably going to hear more and more about flattening the curve, because, unlike previous crises, there is no top-down crisis management effort to accomplish this. Some states are stepping up, some businesses and universities, but mostly it's now on us. Two more posts following: one on taking care of yourself, the other on taking care of your community.

Greetings, fellow rebels! I'm Riviera16, writer, artist, ninja-in-training, and space/physics geek. I'm a huge fan of Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, LOTR, GOT, and many others. Currently I'm in the process of watching Babylon 5. I love cosplay and wish I could wear my costumes all the time, wherever I want, whenever I want. I play D&D 3.5e and 5e and am currently in three campaigns and am working on running one. I first heard about NerdFitness from my dad and have been reading emails/articles for a while but only now am actually getting on the forum. This is my first challenge and I'm excited to see where I can go over these next few weeks. But first, a little bit about how I got here. The Backstory: I started following NerdFitness 2+ years ago. Back then I pretty much sat around the house 24/7 and barely did anything active (with the exception of some swimming in the warmer months). Weight hasn't been an issue for me, but muscle weakness certainly has. It had caused a number of injuries for me (an otherwise healthy older teen/young adult) and I was sick of it and decided it was high-time I do something about it. I'd known about NF for a little while at that point and had been reading the emails Steve sent out and the free workout/guide articles. They inspired me to start learning more about fitness and how to build strength. I started exercising at home, but wasn't really getting anywhere. Then my dad and I got together and joined a gym, and suddenly it was like a whole new world opened up for me. There were so many more things I could do there than at home. I did few months of personal training sessions to help myself get started, then moved on to working out on my own. Over the next year I watched as I gradually went from being barely able to do a bicep curl with a 1lb dumbell to doing 0.5 bodyweight assisted pullups. It felt great to be making progress, slowly but surely, and having new milestones to look forward to. The Latest Episode: ...Then the coronavirus hit. The gym closed and I was stuck at home. We have some basic workout equipment at home, a few dumbells and some resistance bands. It was enough for me to do a full workout, but with far more limited options than I was used to. In other words, it got boring fast. I'm the sort of person who craves newness and excitement and I can't stand excessive repetition and monotony. One of the things I like most about the gym was the wide variety of exercises you can do. Doing something different every time I worked out was part of what made it fun for me. Without that, workouts became a chore and it became harder and harder to actually get myself to do them. I've looked for new things to incorporate into my workouts and have had some luck, but only some. I'm still trying to find ways to make my workouts more interesting, but in the meantime I know if I want to stay on track I need something more than interest to get me through. Having come such a long way already I really don't want to lose momentum or set myself back. I know from experience that I need accountability in a situation like this or sooner or later I start slipping. So, I decided taking on a challenge like this would be a great way to stay on target! My Main Quest at this point is to keep building strength with the hopes of one day doing full bodyweight pullups, over 1x bodyweight barbell squats, and (more importantly) learning/doing parkour and/or martial arts (All while avoiding more injuries, because injuries suck.). Basically, I want to be a butt-kicking ninja action hero in real life. My specific goals for this challenge are: Do a strength workout 3x per week. Do a lighter workout at least 1x per week (yoga, jogging outside, late night dance party, etc.) Learn 1 new exercise every week and do it in a workout. I'll be focusing on achieving these goals over these next few weeks, but if I'm inspired I might try a little more. Who knows? I'll keep track of what I've done in follow-up posts and I look forward to seeing where these coming weeks take me.

Coronavirus We start this challenge with a public information broadcast. The COVID-19 pandemic has already caused over 22,000 deaths, there are almost 500,000 confirmed cases, and it is growing exponentially. For selected countries, I'm going to post the growth-rate, for the previous seven days, and a four week projection of that growth rate. I'll update the numbers each Monday of the challenge. Daily growth rate Why is the growth rate so important? It tells us where we're going. Changes in the growth rate also tell us where we are on the sigmoid curve of the pandemic. Unless there's a steady decline in the growth rate, then we know we're still in the middle of this. As explained on the Sciencing web site, the seven day growth rate can be calculated with the equation g = 7th root of (C2/C1) where C2 is the number of cases yesterday, and C1 is the number of cases 7 days prior. It's the 7th root because we're dealing with a period of 7 days. For instance, the number of confirmed cases worldwide, yesterday, was 468,868. Seven days prior, on the 18th, it was 218,358. g = 7th root of (468.868/218,358). This gives us 1.115. Seven-day growth rates | Region | Cases growth rate | Deaths growth rate | |--------------+-------------------+--------------------| | World | 1.115 | 1.131 | | Italy | 1.111 | 1.141 | | US | 1.331 | 1.318 | | UK | 1.204 | 1.239 | | Netherlands | 1.177 | 1.296 | | South Africa | 1.295 | 0.0 | Projections You can get a prediction of the numbers at some point in the future by using the equation C1 = C0 x g^n where C0 is the number of cases (or deaths) at day zero (I'll use yesterday's numbers), g is the growth rate, and n is the number of days after C0 that you want to predict. | Region | Cases as of yesterday | Cases after 1 week | Cases after 4 weeks | |--------------+-----------------------+--------------------+---------------------| | World | 468,868 | 1,004,557 | 9,879,771 | | Italy | 74,386 | 155,414 | 1,417,375 | | US | 66,117 | 489,282 | 198,289.032 | | UK | 9,667 | 35,455 | 1,749,175 | | Netherlands | 6,431 | 20,124 | 616,622 | | South Africa | 709 | 4,331 | 986,733 | | Region | Deaths as of yesterday | Deaths after 1 week | Deaths after 4 weeks | |--------------+------------------------+---------------------+----------------------| | World | 21,209 | 50,206 | 665,998 | | Italy | 7,503 | 18,890 | 301,462 | | US | 947 | 6,543 | 2,157,652 | | UK | 465 | 2,084 | 187,693 | | Netherlands | 357 | 2,192 | 507,701 | | South Africa | 0 | 0 | 0 | I haven't bothered with a 12-week projection because the numbers just become silly. Bear in mind that the 'Cases' mentioned here are only confirmed cases. A rough estimate is that 10 times as many are infected as have been confirmed. You can see that, at current growth rates, COVID-19 would sweep through the whole US population well within 4 weeks. You can also see that the US has the potential drastically to increase world-wide figures. Conclusion It's right that governments have compared this to wartime. This disease has already caused too many deaths and will cause a heartbreaking number more. There is only one way to change its course, and that is to reduce those growth rates. That will happen in one of two ways. Either the population will become saturated with infections, and the virus will find it more difficult to find an uninfected host, or all of us have less contact and the virus is presented with fewer uninfected hosts. You might have the disease and you wouldn't know it for about a week. You can see from the above figures just how much difference a week makes. I'll leave you with the following graphic: Stay at home and save a life.

Hello Rangers! I have a new side kick! Q was born 5 weeks early, surprising the heck out of us, and spent 1 week in the NICU. Today's his actual due date. Pregnancy was absolutely miserable, and got worse as time passed, and I'm SO DAMN GLAD to not be pregnant anymore. Baby's been pretty darn good so far, and not nearly as troublesome as other Q's out there... And he's much cuter (obvi) Plan-- Body: Shower daily, plus Exercise, at least one of the following PT exercises at home, and at the office once weekly Yoga via the studio's zoom classes, and possibly on my own Dance via the studio's zoom classes, as long as I scale it and don't hurt myself Barn - groundwork just to start Yardwork - lots of leaves to rake, sticks to pick up, and need to prep the raised beds for vegetables Walk outside when the weather is decent (+/- stroller and Q) Mind: Meditate - Headspace or general mindfulness Gratitude Read (currently The Calculating Stars and An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth) House chores Soul: Connect with friends and family Do something creative Play with my oracle cards This is all just variations/extensions of my routine for the January and February, so it should be doable. Mr Vibrant went "back to work" today - but he's working from home for at least the next two weeks, probably more. I'm on maternity leave until June, and am giving myself through the summer to determine if I'm for real going back to work or if I'm going to stay at home with my side kick. Also plan: check in here at least twice a week, don't just skip out like I've done with most challenges. Report on good food choices. Share arts and cute baby photos if requested. Also also plan: keep mental health in check during social distancing and all this shit, by doing the above. Edited to change out exercises