Risky

Am I looking forward to all the virus restrictions being lifted? Not at all.

Covid-19 will still be out there, and if a lot of people go back to how they used to behave, it will spread like crazy.

Why do I care?

My age happens to be 64, and the most recently published death rate for my cohort happens to be almost exactly 2.6%. Is that a small number?

Not if you happen to be male, which I am. The death rate for males in every age group is about 50% higher than it is for females. The 2.6% figure is for both genders together.

Doing the math for that turns the 64-year-old-male death rate into something like 3.12%. Isn’t that cheery?

Would you be willing to roll two dice if getting a pair of ones meant you would die? I wouldn’t, and that would be a significantly safer wager (a much happier 2.777% risk).

Let’s say the illness behaved like jolly, old smallpox. If you got that sickness back in the pre-vaccine days, and survived, you were immune forever. Covid-19 doesn’t appear to be that way at all.

There are a significant number of people who seem to have caught Covid-19 twice already, and it’s only been in existence for a few months. Experts are starting to say that immunity may only last for a few months, or a very short number of years at best.

How jolly does rolling the dice sound now?

“Step right up, roll the dice, and maybe your life will end. The prize if you win is immunity from future gambling for a while, but you will certainly have to roll a few more times at some point in the future. Step right up.”

No thank you.

My personal, cunning plan is to not get infected with Covid-19 anytime soon, and catch it as few times as possible.

That means for me, I will be a practitioner of social-distancing for a long time. I want effective vaccines and treatments before my force fields are significantly lowered.

Do I want to rush right out to a bar? How about going to a movie? Street fairs?

My only issue is with my primary hobby. Jiu-Jitsu requires crazy close contact with other human beings. Will it be off the table for a very long time? I hope not. 

What is clear is that for me training in a traditional class structure will be a no-no until Covid-19 is licked

Alternative training might just return sooner. That would look like training with a very restricted number of contacts perhaps as few as one.

Let’s say things lighten up a bit generally, but I can find a partner who is likewise unwilling to risk infection about the same as I am. Such a pair could train together while still keeping society in general at arms length.

All they would need would be a mat (I’ve got that), and a library of instructional video material (I’ve got access to tons).

Let’s say that Covid-19 gets controlled with vaccines and treatments in a year, or maybe two. Could I train with one person for that long? My answer would be yes.

The big trick is finding a willing partner who would not introduce significant risk. Such might prove impossible. It couldn’t be somebody willing to train with me, who also starts going to group classes. In that case I might as well join the group sessions myself.

Anyhow, for now I remain in my cocoon.