Tag: Covid-19

7 weird points about travelling again

There’s going to be more travel happening

After nearly 23 months without getting on a plane or leaving the UK at all, due to Covid, I’m back travelling. I had a trip to the US last month, and I’m off there again next week. For the past 10+ years, I’ve mainly worked from home, so not going into an office hasn’t been an issue for me, but the flip side of that is that I rarely get any chance to meet colleagues, partners and customers face-to-face except when I do travel. Before the pandemic, I was generally out of the country once a month – a schedule which suited me and the family pretty well, on the whole – so having nearly two years of minimal external contact has been strange.

I’ve blogged about travel before (see Travelling, keeping well, Travelling and the (frankly ill-fated) 5 resolutions for travellers in 2020) and I quite enjoy travelling, on the whole, though I’m not always good at it, and I don’t really enjoy being away from home (which I know is somewhat strange). As we move into a world where there’s going to be more travel happening, conferences move from virtual only to hybrid or in person and face-to-face business meetings become something closer to the norm, I thought it might be interesting to add some personal thoughts about some points that I’ve noticed, and which might be interesting to those considering travel or elicit comments from those who’ve already started in earnest (or never really stopped).

1. Regulations keep changing

Last month, when I went to the US from the UK, I needed a negative Covid test within 72 hours of arrival. That has changed, in the intervening weeks, to a test taken the day before. You need to be on the ball and work out the very latest regulations not only for where you’re going, but also for any countries through which you’re transiting. If you don’t get it right, you may be refused entry, or have to quarantine, which may be not only disruptive to your trip, but very expensive.

2. Masks are everywhere

This may feel normal now, but the default in most places is “mask on”. I’ve found myself keeping a mask on even outside, if I’m making a quick trip to a store or coffee shop from the office, rather than taking it on and off. It’s really worth packing a good supply of (quality) masks with you, and remembering to change or wash them every day: there’s a difference in wearing the same one a few times for 10 minutes each time to wearing one for several hours. You don’t want to wearing the same one for more than a day if you can avoid it.

3. Airlines have strange rules

Cabin crew are trying really hard, and it’s not their fault that there are new rules which you have to follow. One airline I travelled on last month had a rule that you weren’t supposed to spend more than 15 minutes unmasked to eat your meal. That’s difficult to abide by (particularly when the crew are serving different parts of it at different times) and really difficult to enforce, but I see what they’re trying to do. Stick with it, realise that the crew aren’t doing it to make your life hard or because they enjoy it, and try to have empathy with them. A major tip (whether in a pandemic or not): always be nice to the cabin crew, as they have the power to make life really difficult for you, or to ease the way in certain circumstances.

4. You’ll get paranoid about surfaces

Well, I did. While most of the focus on transmission of Covid is around avoiding airborne particles these days, I became aware that many, many people had probably been touching the same surfaces that I’d been touching, and that some of them were probably contagious. Luckily, many shops and places of work are making hand sanitiser available at the entrance/exit these days. I found myself using it on my way in and the way out. It can’t do any harm.

5. It’s quiet out there

I feel for retail and hospitality businesses, I really do. Getting out and about made me realise how quiet things still are – and a little nervous when I was in environments where it was a little more busy. Don’t expect to see as many people on the street, at the airport, in the malls. They’re unlikely to be empty, but things certainly felt abnormally quiet to me. Be pleasant and friendly to those who serve you, and tip well when you get good service.

6. Colleagues are making an extra effort

This isn’t particularly weird if you work with nice people, but I’ve noticed a trend for people to ask just a little bit more about each others’ health – physical and mental – both on calls and in person. I’ve also noticed more awareness of colleagues’ possible risks, such as elderly relatives or immuno-suppressed close family members, and offers to take particular care or implement specific measures to protect those they work with, whether asked for or not. Long may this continue.

7. Long-haul flights in a mask aren’t fun

Top tip? Buy a couple of “ear savers” for your masks if you’re using the type which sit behind your ears. These attach to the loops and then fasten behind your head, relieving the pressure on your ears. I may have a particularly large head, but I found that even twenty minutes of wearing a mask without one of these started giving me a splitting headache. I ended up fashioning one from pieces of an old mask to save my head until a colleague was able to buy some online. Even with this, I can’t say that it was fun wearing one, and getting sleep was much more difficult than it would normally have been. Beyond ear savers, I’m not sure what to suggest beyond finding a comfortable mask, and making sure that you try it out for an extended period before you travel.

15 steps to prepare for (another) lockdown

What steps can we be taking to prepare for what seems likely now – a new lockdown?

The kids are back in school, there are people in shops and restaurants, and traffic is even beginning to get back to something like normal levels. I’m being deployed as a CFR (community first responder) to more incidents, as the ambulance service gets better at assessing the risks to me and patients. And the colds and sneezes are back.

Of course they are: it’s that time of year. And where are they spreading from? Where do they usually spread from? School pupils. Both of mine have picked up minor cold symptoms, but, luckily nothing suggesting Covid-19. The school they attend is following government advice by strongly recommending that pupils wear masks in communal areas, encouraging social distancing and providing hand sanitiser outside each classroom, to be used on entry. Great! That should limit Covid-19. And it should… but the sore throats, coughing and sneezing started within days of their return to school. I’m no expert but it seems likely (and many experts agree) that schools will be act as transmission vectors, and that the rates of infection of Covid-19 will start rising again. And yes, the UK already has an R figure well above 1.

Apart from ranting about how this was always likely to happen, and that the relevant authorities should have taken more steps to reduce the impact) both true), what steps can we be taking to prepare for what seems likely now – a new lockdown?

Physical steps

There are a number of things that I’ve done or plan to do to prepare. Some of them aren’t because I necessarily expect a full lockdown, but some because, if I feel ill and unable to leave the house, it’s best to be ready.

  • get provisions – what do we need in for food and drink? We should obviously not go overboard on alcohol, but if you like a glass of wine from time to time, get a few bottles in, maybe a nice one for a special occasion. Get dried food in, cooking oil, and the rest stock the freezer. Oh, and chocolate. Always chocolate.
  • household supplies – remember that run on random items at the beginning of the first lockdown? Let’s avoid that this time: get toilet paper, kitchen roll, cleaning materials and tissues (for when we feel really poorly).
  • work supplies – most of us are used to working at home now, but if you’ve got a dodgy monitor, a printer in need of paper, or a webcam that’s on its last legs, now is a good time to sort them out there’s a good chance that these might become difficult to get hold of (again).
  • fitness preparations – if the gyms close again, what will you do? Even if we’re allowed outside more for exercise this time round, those warm jogging shorts that you wore in the spring and summer are not what you want to be wearing in the sleet and snow, so buy whatever gear you need for indoor or outdoor use now.
  • get a haircut – or get hold of some hairdressing supplies. Many of us discovered that we or our family members had some skills in this department, but better to get a cut in preparation, right?
  • books – yes, there are alternatives to physical books: you can read on your phone or another device these days. But I like a physical book, and I wish I’d stocked up last time. Go to your friendly neighbourhood book store – they need your business right now – and buy a few books.
  • wood – we live in an old house, and have wood-burning stoves to supplement our heating. Get wood in now to avoid getting cold in the winter!
  • pay the bills – you may want or need some extra luxuries later, as the weather sets in and lockdown takes hold. Get the bills paid up front, so there are no nasty surprises and you can budget a few treats for yourself later.

Psychological steps

Just as important as the physical – more, probably – is psychological preparation. That doesn’t mean that the steps above aren’t important: in fact, they’re vital to allow you to have space to consider the psychological preparation, which is difficult if you’re concerned or unsure about your physical safety and environment.

Prioritise – if you can, work out now what you’re going to prioritise, and when. Sometimes work may come first (barring an emergency), sometimes family, sometimes you. Thinking about this now is a good plan, so that you can set some rules for yourself and for those around you.

Prepare your family – this isn’t just about the priorities you’ve already worked on in the previous point, but also more generally. Many of us struggled with lockdown, and although we might think that it’ll be easier second time round, the very fact that it’s happened again is likely to cause us more stress in some ways.

Sleep – sleep now: bank it while you can! Sleep when lockdown happens, too. This was something which was a surprise to me: how tired I got. Not going out is, it turns out, tiring. This is because stress – which was a clear outcome from the first lockdown, and stress can make you very tired. So sleep when you can, and don’t just try to “power through”.

List what you can control and what you can’t – a classic stressor is feeling overwhelmed with things that we can’t control. And there will definitely be things that we really can’t – how long it takes, which of my friends get sick, issues such as that. But equally, there are things that we can control: when I stop for a cup of tea (or coffee, I suppose), who I call to catch up with on the phone, what I have for supper. In order to reduce stress, list things that you can control, and which you can’t, and try to accept the latter. Doing so won’t remove all stress, but it should help you manage your response to that stress, which can help you reduce it.

Be ready to feel weak – you will feel sad and depressed and ill and fed up from time to time. This is normal, and human, and it does not make you a failure or a bad employee, family member, friend or person. Accept it, and be ready to move on when you can.

Think of others – other people will be struggling, too: your family, friends, colleagues and neighbours. Spare them a thought, and think how you can help, even if it’s just with a quick text, a family videochat or a kind word from time to time. Being nice to people can make you feel good, too – and if you’re lucky, they’ll reciprocate, so everyone wins twice!

Be ready to put yourself first – sometimes, you need to step back and say “enough”. This isn’t always easy, but it’s sometimes necessary. If you begin to realise that things are coming unstuck, and that you’re going to have to disengage, let others around you know if you can. Don’t say “I hope it’s OK if…” or “I was thinking about, would it be OK for me to…”. Instead, let them know your intentions: “I’m going to need 5 minutes to myself”, or “I need to drop from this meeting for a while”. This won’t always be easy, but if you can prepare them, and yourself, for taking a little time, it’s going to be better for everyone in the end: you, because you will recover (if only for a while), and them, because they’ll get a healthier, more efficient and less stressed you.

3 open/closed Covid-19 contact tracing questions

All projects are not created equal.

One of the cheering things about the pandemic crisis in which we find ourselves is the vast up-swell of volunteering that we are seeing across the world. We are seeing this equally across the IT sector, and one of the areas where work is being done is in apps to help track Covid-19. Specifically, there is an interest in Covid-19 contact tracing, or tracking, apps for our mobile[0] phones. These aren’t apps which keep an eye on whether you’ve observed lock-down procedures, but which attempt to work out who has been in contact with whom, and work out from that, once we know that one person is infected with Covid-19, what the likely spread of the virus will be.

There are lots of contact tracing initiatives out there, from Pep-Pt from the European Union to Singapore’s TraceTogether, from the University of Washington’s PACT to MIT’s PACT[1]. Google and Apple are – unprecedentedly – working on an app together. There are lots of ways of comparing these apps and projects, but in today’s article, I want to suggest three measures which can help you consider them from the point of view of “openness”. As regular readers of this blog will know, I’m a big fan of open source – not just for software, but for data, management and the rest – and I believe that there’s also a strong correlation here with civil or human rights. There are lots of ways to compare these apps, but these three measures are not too technical, and can help us get a grip on the likelihood that some of the apps (and associated projects) may impinge on privacy and other issues about which we care. I don’t want the data generated from apps that I download onto my phone to be used now or in the future to curtail my, or other people’s civil or human rights, for blackmail or even for unapproved commercial gain.

1. Open source

Our first question must be: “is the app open source?” If the answer is “no”, then we have no way to know what is being captured, and therefore how it is being used. If the app is closed source, it could be collecting any data from pretty much any measuring device on our phones, including photo, video, audio, Bluetooth, wifi, temperature, GPS or accelerometer. We can try restricting access to these measurements, but such controls have not always been effective, understanding the impact of turning them off is rarely simple, and people frankly rarely bother to check them anyway. Equally bad is the fact that with closed source, you can’t have any idea of how good the security is, nor any chance to criticise and improve it. This is something about which I’ve written many times, including in my articles Disbelieving the many eyes hypothesis and Trust & choosing open source. Luckily, it seems that the majority of contact tracing apps are open source, but please be careful, and reject any which are not.

2 Centralised or distributed

In order to make sense of all the data that these apps collect, there needs to be a centralised[2] store where it can be processed, right? It’s common sense.

Actually, no. Although managing and processing data in one place can be much easier, there are ways to store data in a distributed manner, and allow the sorts of processing needed for contact tracing to take place. It may be more complex, but it also makes it much, much more difficult for governments, corporations or malicious actors to misuse this information. And we should be clear that this will be what happens if the data is made available. Maybe the best governments and the best corporations will be well-behaved by their standards, but a) those are not necessarily the standards that I or others will endorse and b) what about malicious actors and governments and corporations which are not “the best”?

3 Location or proximity tracking

This might seem like another obvious choice: if you want to be finding out who was in contact with whom, then the way to do it is see who was where, and when. GPS tracking – and associated technologies like wifi access point location tracking – combined with easily available time data, would give the ability to work out who was in a particular place at the same time as other people. This is true, but it also provides enormous opportunities for misuse, particularly when the data is held centrally (see above). An alternative is to use sensors like Bluetooth or NFC[3], to allow phones to collect information about other phones (or devices) with which they have been in contact and when. This is more easily anonymised – or pseudonymised – allowing information to be passed to the owners of those phones, but at the same time more difficult to misuse by governments, corporations and malicious actors.

There are other issues to consider, one of which is that these sensors were not designed for this type of use, and we may be sacrificing accuracy if we choose this option. On the other hand, many interactions between people occur indoors, where GPS is much less effective anyway, and these types of technologies may help.

You could argue that this measurement is not about “openness” in itself, but it is a key indicator to whether the information collected can be used in ways which are far from open.

Conclusion

There are many other questions we can ask about Covid-19 contact tracing apps, some of which are related to openness, and some of which are not. These include:

  • Coverage
    • not all demographics have – or use – phones as much as the rest of the population, including the poor, the elderly, and certain religious groups. How effective will such projects be if they have reduced access to these groups?
    • older devices may have less accurate sensors, or not have some of the capabilities required by the apps. What is more, there may be a correlation between use of these older devices with some of the demographics noted above.
    • some people rarely update the apps on their phones, so even if they load an initial version of an app, newer versions, with functionality or security improvements, are likely to be unequally distributed across the set of devices.
  • Removal – how easy will it be to remove the application fully, what are the consequences of not doing so, and how likely are people to do so anyway[4]?
  • Will use of these apps by mandatory or voluntary? If the former, there are serious concerns about civil or human rights, not to mention the problems noted above about coverage.

All of these questions are important, but not directly related to the question of the “openness” of the apps and projects. However, we have, right now, some great opportunities to work with and influence some really important projects for public health and well-being, and I believe that it is important that we consider the questions I’ve raised about openness before endorsing, installing or using any of the apps that are being created.

0 – or “cell”, if you’re in North America.

1 – yes, they chose the same acronym. Yes, it is confusing.

2 – or, I supposed, “centralized”, depending on your geography.

3 – “Near Field Communication” – the same capability used when you do contactless payment with your phone or credit/debit card.

4 – how many apps do you still have on your phone that you’ve not even opened for 3 months? Yup, me too.

Post-Covid, post-open?

We are inventive, we are used to turning technologies to good.

The world of lockdown to which we’re becoming habituated at the moment has produced some amazing upsides. The number of people volunteering, the resurgence of local community initiatives, the selfless dedication of key workers across the world and the recognition of their sacrifice by the general public are among the most visible. As many regular readers of this blog are likely to be aware, there has also been an outpouring of interest and engagement in software- and hardware-related projects to help, from infection-tracking apps to 3D-printing of PPE[0]. Companies have made training and educational materials available for free, and there are attempts around the world to engage and contribute to the public commonwealth.

Sadly, not all of the news is good. There has been a rise in phishing attacks, and the lack of appropriate or sufficient security in commonly-used apps such as Zoom has become frightenly evident[1]. There’s an article to write here about the balance between security, usability and cost, but I’m going to save that for another day.

Somewhere in the middle, between the obvious positives and obvious negatives, there are some developments which most of us probably accept at necessary, but which aren’t things that we’d normally welcome. Beyond the obvious restrictions on movement and public gatherings, there are a number of actions which governments, in particular, a retaking which have generally negative impacts on human rights and civil liberties, as outlined in this piece by The Guardian. The article lists numerous examples of governments imposing, or considering the imposition of, measures which would normally be quickly attacked by human rights groups, and resisted by most citizens. Despite the headline, which suggests that the article will deal with how difficult these measures will be to remove after the end of the crisis, there is actually little discussion, beyond a note that “[w]hether that surveillance is eventually rolled back will depend on public oversight.”

I think that we need to go beyond just “oversight” and start planning now for public action. In the communities in which I live and work, there is a general expectation that the world – software, management, government, data – is becoming more, not less open. We are in grave danger of losing that openness even once the need for these government measures diminish. Governments – who will see the wider intelligence-gathering and control opportunities of these changes – will espouse the view that “we need these measures in place in order to be able to react quickly if the same thing happens again”, and, if we’re not careful, public sentiment, bruised and bloodied by the pandemic, will quietly acquiesce, and we will see improvements in human and civil rights rolled back decades, and damaged further by the availability of cheap, mobile, networked technology.

If we believe that openness is a public good, then we need to think how to counter the arguments which we will hear from governments, and be ready to be vocal – not just with counter-arguments, but with counter-proposals. This pandemic is unlike either of the World Wars of the 20th Century, when a clear ending was marked, and there was the opportunity (sadly denied to many citizens of the former USSR) to regain civil liberties and roll back the restrictions of the war years. Nor is it even like the aftermath of the 9/11, that event which has impacted the intelligence and security landscape of the past two decades, where there is (was?) at least a set of (posited) human foes to target. In the case of the Covid-19 pandemic, the “enemy” is amorphous and will be around for decades to come. The measures to combat it – and its successors – will only be slowly reduced, and some will not be.

We need to fight against those measures which are unnecessary, and we need to find alternatives – transparent, public alternatives – to measures which may have some positive effects, but whose overall impact on society and human rights is clearly negative. In a era where big data is becoming pervasive, and the tools to mine it tractable, we need to provide international mechanisms to share and use that data in ways which do not benefit any single government, bloc, or section of society. We are inventive, we are used to turning technologies to good. This is the time we need to do it, and do it quickly. We can make a difference by being open, but we need to start now.

0 – Personal Protection Equipment.

1 – although note that the company is reported to be making improvements to at least one area of concern to some – routing of traffic through China.

Your job is unimportant (keep doing it anyway)

Keep going, but do so with a sense of perspective.

I work in IT – like many of the readers of this blog. Also like many of the readers of this blog, I’m now working from home (which is actually normal for me), but with all travel pretty much banned for the foreseeable future (which isn’t). My children’s school is still open (unlike many other governments, the UK has yet to order them closed), but when the time does come for them to be at home, my kids are old enough that they will be able to look after themselves without constant input from me. I work for Red Hat, a global company with resources to support its staff and keep its business running during the time of Covid-19 crisis. In many ways, I’m very lucky.

My wife left the house at 0630 this morning to go into London. She works for a medium-sized charity which provides a variety of types of care for adults and children. Some of the adults for whom they provide services, in particular, are extremely vulnerable – both in terms of their day-to-day lives, but also to the possible effects of serious illness. She is planning the charity’s responses, coordinating with worried staff and working out how they’re going to weather the storm. Charities and organisations like this across the world are working to manage their staff and service users and try to continue provision at levels that will keep their service users safe and alive in a context where it’s likely that the availability of back-up help from other quarters – agency staff, other charities, public or private health services or government departments – will be severely limited in scope, or totally lacking.

In comparison to what my wife is doing, the impact of my job on society seems minimal, and my daily work irrelevant. Many of my readers may be in a similar situation, whether it is spouses, family members or other people in the community who are doing the obviously important – often life-preserving – work, and with us sitting at home, appearing on video conferences, writing documents, cutting code, doing things which don’t seem to have much impact.

I think it’s important, sometimes, to look at what we do with a different eye, and this is one of those times. However, I’m going to continue working, and here are some of the reasons:

  • I expect to continue to bring in a salary, which is going to be difficult for many people in the coming months. I hope to be able to spend some of that salary in local businesses, keeping them afloat or easing their transition back into normality in the future;
  • it’s my turn to keep the household running: my wife has often had to keep things going while I’ve been abroad, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to look after the children, shop for groceries and do more cooking;
  • while I’m not sick, there are going to be ways in which I can help our local community, with food deliveries, checks on elderly neighbours and the like.

Finally, the work that I – and the readers of this blog – do, is, while obviously less important and critical than that of my wife and others on the front line of this crisis, still relevant. My wife spent several hours at work creating an online survey to help work out which of her charity’s staff and volunteers could be deployed to what services. Without the staff who run that service, she would be without that capability. Online banking will continue to be important. Critical national infrastructure like power and water need to be kept going; logistics services for food delivery are vital; messaging and conferencing services will provide important means for communication; gaming, broadcast and online entertainment services will keep those who are in isolation occupied; and, at the very least, we need to keep businesses going so that when things recover, we can get the economy going again. That, and there are going to be lots of charities, businesses and schools who need the services that we provide right now.

So, my message today is: keep going, but do so with a sense of perspective. And be ready to use your skills to help out. Keep safe.