But how did she know??

On February 28th I saw things happening in China that concerned me greatly. I started paying more attention to what was going on with this virus they were talking about. By March 4th I was convinced that this thing could potentially become an issue. Perhaps even a pandemic.

On March 4th I started doing data tracking. (I am a data analyst and analytics specialist. Numbers are my thing) Pulling data from many sources, including health reporting organizations in China, health system reports of cases/deaths/recoveries. From that day forward I tracked and researched everything I could find and get my hands on. I tracked the patterns and consistencies with this virus compared to all other outbreaks in this century, including H1N1 and SARS. I read medical journals and reports from the current novel virus. I read articles from the doctors on the front lines. I listened to personal stories from people living in Wuhan and mainland China. At work every day I have a team meeting with people from all over the world. Italy, Spain, China, Finland, and Portugal, plus some in the US in NYC. I asked them questions about what they were seeing, what kinds of things were happening. I matched these stories up to other media sources to help determine what was more accurate than others. If news articles from china had stories similar to the personal ones I was hearing, and the ones I was seeing from Weibo (China's Twitter) then it was placed as a higher potentially accurate article, and if the stories didn't match, they went into a folder titled "likely untrue". (I also have Asperger's, and I'm really into patterns)

The more I saw and read, the more concerned I got. But I'm a "calm in the storm" person. I rarely freak out over things because I'm too busy analyzing all possibilities to be too worried until I know all the facts and I'm certain it's something to be worried about. (also an ASD trait). So, I just kept researching, comparing data, and tracking.

For a long time, I couldn't decide. I kept hearing SO many say "it's just the flu!". I kept seeing so much bull in the media that it was impossible to make a good guess that I was confident was a FOR SURE thing. I don't like to tell people about my research findings until I'm certain of the results. Even local doctors and medical professionals weren't taking it seriously. In my research comparisons with other outbreaks, I'd found more similarities between both H1N1 and SARS than any other viral outbreak. So, I used those models for comparing increase rates, death rates, etc.

I calculated potential numbers using these historical comparisons to other viruses, and the data from the current SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) infections and cases. I came up with three ranges of numbers. The best-case scenario, the worst case, and the middle ground. All 3 cases looked SO outrageously bad that I was like, "no way. This can't be accurate. My math is wrong.". By the following Sunday (Mar 8th) I had run these numbers 4 or 5 times. ALL my results were the same or very very close. I refused to believe they could be right. I just couldn't wrap my mind around them and how it could even be remotely possible. I figured there was a missing denominator I couldn't find and it was throwing them off and making them way higher than what was actually possible based on the current data.

I took Monday off from Covid research to clear my head. I figured I'd been staring at graphs and spreadsheets for five days and it was making my brain fuzzy and screwing up my ability to find logical data commonalities. By then, US cases had gone up to 26, Italy was quarantining their entire country (unprecedented!) and the cruise ships trying to dock in the US weren't being allowed to. Tuesday, I went back to research. We shot up to 1,000 cases here by then. I re-ran data, same numbers. So, I thought, Okay so this is for sure serious, how serious is the question, but I am comfortable telling MY people that if the numbers are even half what I was coming up with, we were in trouble either way. Soon experts finally had enough of their own data to produce real valid estimates. My heart sank when I read one of my favorite statisticians say her own estimates, and they matched my TOP numbers. My scenario 3, worst case. Liz Specht is a genius. I knew when I saw her numbers matching mine, this was far more serious than anyone was letting on. All of society was still saying "it's just a flu!" but more and more exhausted-looking experts were coming out saying "no. This is serious business". every one of those experts had their top worst-case numbers if we didn't curb it now. The no-intervention numbers matched mine exactly. Like, some were the literal same (96 million cases in the US).

I NEVER listened to mainstream media, or politicians, or US news. None of the people in my peer circles or family thought it was a big deal. The only people saying to stop and wake up and realize how potentially big this could get if people didn't take action now (like aggressive hand washing and social distancing) were the experts. And they weren't disagreeing, it was ALL of them. Saying the same things. "Watch Italy" crept up so many times. And so far, we've been 2 weeks behind them on everything.

A friend has a friend in Italy who is a chemist. She works for the pharmaceutical companies. Her words will haunt me forever. The stories she told me were awful. And she gave my friend a dire warning. She said "Sit everyone down you care about and tell them that this IS BAD" It's not a flu, it's not something to play with, and people ARE going to start dying around you if you don't do something to contain it now. By then it was far too late. We were letting people into airports by the thousands coming home from Europe. We were letting people travel freely with no screening, no temps being taken, no precautions whatsoever., American citizens coming home to our airports were saying how shocked they were that they weren't grabbed by the health officials and taken to bases like those cruise ship people.

My own military friends told me to prepare for something big. They couldn't say what, just "big".

My background in political activism told me exactly what they were talking about without asking or being told. I knew what to potentially prepare for and it wasn't good. Martial law has been one of my biggest fears for over a decade. And I don't think we will see the type of Martial law we see in the movies or have seen in History. It will be slightly softer, slightly different, and manipulated in a way where the majority of people are begging for it.  I think there are ways to achieve this without constitutional freedoms being violated, but I also know what the numbers look like if we don't stay home. The patterns I was seeing in the words of politicians beginning last Friday were suddenly different than what they'd been saying. Suddenly many looked concerned. Others didn't but still said to PLEASE PLEASE take heavy precautions and wash hands etc. I just shook my head because if you know anything about viral pandemics, you know that simple handwashing and air hugs only keeps the cases down to a level that hospitals don't get insanely overwhelmed and topple over. Stock markets don't crash with those kind of intervention methods of pushing hand washing and social distancing. BUT that doesn't mean the numbers are any less scary with those interventions, and it means that to TRULY make a big impact and contain it completely, we would need to come together as a nation and say "Okay, I will make this sacrifice for public safety".

If we'd done that even a week ago, next week would be a far more promising picture. But fact is we were too late, and we are STILL too late. Businesses still aren't closing. Just reducing capacity. People are still getting haircuts, gathering in bars and at concerts, etc. Even after all of yesterday's announcements from state health depts and state politicians, lots of people still don't get it. Even with all the schools closing, they still don't get it. People are rightly concerned about their jobs and feeding their families in this new world we're in right now, and I don't blame them. But even THOSE people didn't listen. They're still going to work, still at stores coughing and sneezing, etc. There are still a great number of people I'm hearing repeating the lines heard on social and national media 2 weeks ago. "It's just a cold virus!" "It's no worse than the flu!" "Kids can't get it so why close the schools??" People are getting haircuts, going for teeth cleanings, visiting B&B theaters, sitting in restaurants within feet of sneezing people in booths behind them. Like.. doesn’t seem like anyone cares OR they simply don’t understand what social distancing actually means. (this is a scientific medical term btw).

I socially distanced myself on March 4^th. I started wearing gloves in public amidst rolled eyes and look from people thinking I must be OCD or crazy. I started talking to my kids about not touching things and telling them it was a really bad virus LIKE a flu going around, but this one could make mom really really sick, because of my autoimmunity. I took many many precautions. What I learned about myself in the last 48 hours, is that as many drastic measures as I took, compared to the people around me especially, was that even I – the queen of “this is actually dangerous guys, listen” was not practicing diligent enough efforts to make SURE we weren’t exposed. Of course, then, I didn’t know that you could remain asymptomatic for 14 days before you know you’re sick. I didn’t know that while kids were at lower risk, they were still at SOME risk. I didn’t know that the virility of it could last 6 weeks after infection, even after symptoms are gone. I didn’t know that the age range wasn’t actually “over 80 it’s dangerous”, but that it’s actually hospitalizing anywhere from 10% - 30% of people in the age ranges of 14 – 80. (over half of those 81 and over are just dying). The more I heard, the more diligent I became. I started telling my coworkers and family and friends to stop messing around and take this seriously. They mostly all laughed at me or called me crazy, or a conspiracy theorist. They all told me that it wasn’t the virus I should worry about; it was the crazy people buying toilet paper. They bet me money I would never know someone who even got it, much less died. Well, mark my words, a lot of my friends are gonna owe me money after this if they survive.

Friday the ball was really set in motion. I saw some very concerning patterns emerging that told me this was the beginning of the hard part. Convincing people was no longer a concern, because it would be less than a week before they believed me. Through the last several weeks, a small handful of my circle DID believe me. I validated my experience and analysis and started taking bigger precautions. I started asking for advice. And helped me show others facts that at the very least made them question their adamant pleas of “Stop freaking out, it’s just a cold!”. Except I wasn’t freaking out. I was quite calmly saying what I’d been saying for weeks. Just nodding and shrugging to those who thought I was insane, or called me that, and went on with my day. I expected forced quarantines any day now in some areas and my timing wasn’t far off on when those started. (within 2 days).

Yesterday I self-isolated for my own health and safety and that of others. I requested to work from home and then came home and set up my home office. (Thank you, boss!) I put a no visitors sign on my front door to the chagrin of my fiancé who hasn’t yet lost his embarrassment of our drastic health measures, a luxury I gave up weeks ago. “But people can read it from the ROAD!” I am in for the long haul, and I expect nationwide measures coming VERY soon. I expect a great deal of drastic changes in our way of life. We have already seen some changes, but nothing like what is in store for us in the coming weeks. This isn’t some “end of the world scenario” or apocalyptic warning. I’m saying things are about to be tough for a while. Different. We will have to navigate through unchartered territories of this new way of life together. We are going to see the constitution stomped ALL over. But kinda hard to throw a fit about the constitution when everyone is sighing relief of promises of a trillion dollars. The press conference with the OH government heads and health department director was one of the most informative and honest I’ve seen so far. I suggest folding clothes or something while watching though, you will find yourself more focused on the ASL interpreter than listening otherwise. It’s hard not to wonder if she was his twin sister, or him in disguise perhaps? Joking, that’s my poor attempt at some quarantine humor. Or as we like to call it in our house “Solitary FUNfinement”.

Hey look, I’m gonna really hate saying I told you so. Frankly, as much as I LOVE being right when everyone else claims I was wrong, I’m actually really quite sick of being right about these things. The good news is, this WILL blow over. It will get better. It won’t “go back to normal”. We’re past that. Things are different. WE are different. This experience has changed us already. Seeing things we’ve never seen before. Witnessing things we’ve only seen in movies, things we never dreamed possible, like all the food shelves empty at WALMART of all places. That the one that got me the most so far I think. It’s one thing to know that is coming a few days before it happens. It’s a WHOLE other ball game seeing it in person. (if anyone saw the crazy redhead lady with tattoos pushing a cart around in fuzzy Eeyore pants and bright blue nitrile gloves with tears streaming down her face, heyyyyy).

I have been commended by many in the last 72 hours for my diligence in making them understand. My willingness to put myself out there when this is VERY out of character for me. My political days left me jaded, and since 2012 I haven’t really talked to anyone about my positions or my thoughts on politics. So the few friends who took me seriously from the beginning are my heroes. They validated me and acknowledged me the whole way. You guys are the real MVP’s. There were others who couldn’t wrap their brains around it enough to believe it, but they know me well enough to know that I only speak up with I’m certain I’m right, and when it’s really important. I didn’t use to be that way, but years of research and knowledge has made me that way because, with too many variables, it’s simply not possible to be totally accurate all the time. But with this, I’ve been right every step of the way. I’ve told my friends and family things that were going to happen mere days before it happened. 

Many things have happened more quickly than I first expected, but I also underestimated the power of social media when TP starts flying off of shelves too. After Friday, the bombardment of messages and calls was a bit overwhelming. People saying “okay wait a minute, I thought you were nuts but now the shelves are really truly empty! I didn’t think that could happen! How did you KNOW this would happen?” and people like my sister saying “I totally thought you were right on some things, but I was too stuck in my fantasy land of rainbows and happy unicorns to believe that some of the other things were even possible in America. But some of the warnings I gave prompted additional precautions that wouldn’t have otherwise been taken that they are now very thankful they did. One after another people messaged me asking how I was so spot on and so right about various events and news reports, announcements, and press conferences. One accused me of having inside info even. I was like yeh man, Dr. Fauci and I are ole pals” ::roll eyes::

IDK why with my background, credentials, education, and experience people who know me well are so sure I’m wrong, that when I turn out right it can't be because of my intelligence right? To be honest, I don’t even think it’s because I’m that extraordinary, because even though I do have a high IQ, and plenty of background to give me the experiences and knowledge for this kind of thing, but history also has a habit of repeating itself. It’s not that difficult to assess potential things that could occur when you’ve been worried about this very scenario a good chunk of your life.