Being on the Sidelines as Coronavirus Rages On

As a doctor who should be on the front lines dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, I have quite an unusual experience dealing with it; I have not been working at all for the past 2 weeks, and for this week as well.

Since February, an outbreak of conjunctivitis has been running its course throughout the family (including the infant twins), and earlier on it was bad enough with the other family members such that some were getting pseudomembranes and needing more invasive interventions by the ophthalmology team. It was realistically only a matter of time before I would be the one affected; you can’t quarantine your underage family members away.

And luckily or unluckily it was my turn 2 weeks ago. Interestingly despite the known contagiousness (and the potential disaster that would happen if the whole hospital got infected from me), I was not relieved until the afternoon. Let the story of how that came to be remain a backstory. My first son and I would not be the last people infected; that would be my 3rd child (the one with chronic lung disease), who just started showing symptoms yesterday.

Anyways, since I was first exiled, I have decided to stay in Melaka instead of Kuala Lumpur with my family. And since then I’ve gone to the ophthalmology department here twice. The first time my eyes were still pretty badly infected and there was no doubt that I was not fit to work. Two days ago I went again to the clinic. From afar the eyes looked good; but my vision was a bit blurry in one eye and on the slit lamp there were still problems in my eyes. So despite the fact that colleagues are stretched thin, I’m still kept away from work for another week.

Since the start of my sick leave, I’ve become a full time house husband, dealing with sending the kids to the nursery, school, etc. And now that this week is a school holiday anyway (on top of the COVID-19 induced partial shutdown), I’m also caring for the older kids at home. Luckily the nursery is still open for the twins, as the pressure is on them to continue; how are the mother healthcare workers going to work if no one is going to care for their children?

I did not have any opportunity to go to the gym for this period of time, even if I wanted to disregard the contagiousness of my eyes. Initially they hurt too much anyway. I could not tolerate any head down position; forget straining as that would probably pop inflamed vessels in my eyes. Now that the pain has subsided, gyms are now on an enforced shutdown. And the current climate in Melaka is literally inhospitable for physical activity; even at night the house here is too hot and humid (I’m barely getting enough sleep). With my baseline heat intolerance, there were times when I had to go into the car at night so that I could sit still without sweating.

The good thing about this personal ordeal is that I get a rare chance to be with the family for an extended period. This has also given me an opportunity to spend time on other side projects (like finally updating this blog. I wonder if when I return to work, would I need to self-quarantine myself away from my family for a very long time knowing that I’ve 1 child with chronic lung disease and 2 young twins.

Oh the mental conflict that I’m sure is present in every healthcare worker parent.

Lawsuits Gone Wrong

Anyone who follows American sports knows that there’s been a battle going on between the US Women Soccer National Team (USWNT) versus their own federation, the US Soccer Federation (USSF). The issue of contention was that the women should earn much more parity in pay as compared to the male counterparts; in general, women always earn less than men. But the USWNT has always been a dominant powerhouse for decades, and they have the most number of World Cup titles and just won the most recent one. The tournament was certainly popular internationally.

The federation and players have not been able to get on the same page, leading (like it always does in America) to a lawsuit. Here is where it gets interesting. Just have a look at the legal briefing, of which the language was written by lawyers without the federation having a look at it first:

“MNT players have responsibility for competing in multiple soccer tournaments with the potential for generating a total of more than $40 million in prize money for U.S. Soccer every four years. WNT players compete in only one soccer tournament every four years that has the potential to generate any prize money at all, and most recently that amounted to one-tenth of the amount the MNT players could generate.”
”MNT plays in matches watched on television by many millions more people than the WNT.”
”The average viewership for MNT matches over the first three years of the current WNT CBA was nearly five times as high as that for WNT matches, excluding matches in the Women’s World Cup.”
”As for the World Cup, when the MNT last qualified, the ratings for its four World Cup matches were watched by more viewers than all the WNT matches in 2019 combined, Women’s World Cup included.”
”In games for which U.S. Soccer holds the television broadcast rights (and therefore can monetize the ratings), the MNT has averaged more than three times as many viewers per game since 2017.”

Then the lawyers argue (again as per SI):

“He insists that men’s players face much more demanding working conditions and thus have fundamentally different—and, by implication, harder—jobs. He contends that men’s players encounter “opposing fan hostility” in road environments, particularly in Mexico and Central America, that is “unmatched” by anything experienced by women’s players. Stolzenbach stresses that the women don’t play in Mexico, Central America or the Caribbean when trying to qualify for tournament play. Further, Stolzenbach maintains that “science” confirms there are different levels of speed and strength required for men’s and women’s players. He insists it is not a “sexist stereotype” to recognize this distinction.”

The arguments are pathetic and discriminating, especially considering that the men’s team didn’t even qualify for the last World Cup, and has never reached a WC final. And at the moment, they’re bad.

And with that, the criticism has been so bad, from even people within the federation, that the president has been forced to step down after earlier making a public apology.

This is just as bad as Apple’s recent court battle alleging that the company doesn’t need to pay for store workers’ time when their bags are searched during off hours, because allegedly Apple Store workers don’t have to bring their Apple devices to work. What?

Coronavirus Has Hit Sports

There’s so many things to think about coronavirus. But the fact that it has finally hit mainstream international sports means that it won’t be going away. Initially one of the reactions was to play without fans in the sports arenas. But then athletes are now getting infected. Initially, just footballers (unsurprisingly) in Italy got infected. But today, it has finally hit NBA basketball right into the core, with a player infected, soon after making not so smart jokes (in retrospect) about the virus. Expect economies to crash.

Anyways, here’s a map showing the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. What’s interesting is the fact that despite the ease of international travel, the spread of the virus is not fully homogenous. Countries other than China with the highest number of infections (in descending order) are Italy, Iran, and South Korea. What fascinates me is: why? Only South Korea is truly next door. Does it have something to do with the climate? Genetic predisposition? To me the international public health control measures feel late (it’s always a balance); if it’s as easily infectious as it seems to be, I expected much more countries to have been affected already. And Malaysia, with its stream of mainland Chinese tourists, is lucky to not have as many cases. And no deaths. Let’s not jinx this.

What’s also (darkly) humorous is the fact that the Diamond Princess cruise ship is considered as a “country”.