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covid 19
Our foray to the local market
To anyone in law enforcement, do not be mislead by the use of the word foray in the title; Sacheta and I did not go to plunder the stores but the amount of preparation we did was extensive and the whole project felt like a campaign. Yes, we stepped out of the house after 40 calendar days to do a little shopping and to go to the automatic teller machine. Sadly, not everyone accepts online payments.
- We kept a bucket ready to put our used clothes in. That bucket had a little water and some detergent.
- We were wearing masks and I was naturally also wearing the vOICe
- We were carrying a bottle of hand sanitizer.
- I kept my eyes on the clock. We can only be out until 19:30 IST.
- We were carrying identity documents in case the police wanted to see them.
The walk to the market was without incident. There were plenty of people on the road and as we got closer to the market, there were a fair number of vehicles. There was no public transport and cab services like Uber were not operating.
The first thing different was the queue to get into the shop. We had to stand 6 feet apart from one another. There were painted circles on the road. Sacheta and I were able to stand together but I spent several anxious minutes staring in front of me, watching for changes in the scene. My ears and the vOICe both gave me clues to the change. This was particularly useful as we got closer to the shop. The staff and customers were coming out and we had to almost hug the wall to avoid touching them. I could see the scene change so was ready to move aside.
Things got even more interesting as we reached the entrance. The guard had an infrared thermameter and he refused to let me go because of me having a higher temperature. The thermameter registered about 103 degrees Fahrenheit I explained that I was wearing a camera and moved the glasses such that the camera pointed to the sealing The temperature was then in an acceptable range I think it was around 97 degrees F and I was permitted to enter. Moral of the story, beware if you are wearing the glasses. You may want to move them away from your forehead when you know your temperature is going to be measured.
The rest of the trip past without anything worth recording.
I did not sense any change in people’s attitudes. Social distancing is just one more thing that people are taking in their stride. Yes, the whole experience is strange because no restaurants are open and offline shopping is incredibly tedious with long lines. Not more than 5 persons are permitted to be in a shop at one time.
Some of you may wonder why I did not take my cane. For one thing, I needed my hands free. Moreover, it would have been one more thing to sanitize. The glasses stayed on my person and did not come into any contact with anything or anyone. Finally, the cane would usually not answer the question what. The vOICe though not 100% accurate gives me enough information to determine if I am approaching a structure or a person. A cane would not do that unless it came in contact with the obstacle.
Playing armchair virologist with SARS-CoV-2
I wanted to take a look at SARS-CoV-2. Finding a downloadable image was tricky but I finally managed. Those of you with organic eyes can skip the rest of this post because you can see the image. However, those of us who have to use synthetic vision are not too badly off either.
See the below article that walks you through a few different images.
This Is What The COVID-19 Virus Looks Like Under The Microscope
You will need the vOICe Learning Addition for Windows to see these images. I am going to be as screen reader agnostic as possible.
- Navigate to the article at the above link.
- Read the article and then use the quick navigation feature to navigate to a graphic of choice.
- Launch The vOICe and activate its client area sonification feature.
- Swap back to the article and navigate to the graphic of interest.
- Pay attention to the soundscapes. You will be able to hear the spikes that give the virus its name.
- You can also use the color filter feature to focus on specific parts of the image as you read the article and follow along.
If you want a clean image of the virus to examine, then as of this writing, here are the steps. These may change because they involve accessing the image from the home page of a site.
- Navigate to the article titled New Images of Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 Now Available
- Once you are on the page, save the full HTML page including images and scripts. You can do this from your browser’s file menu or if using Google Chrome, from the chrome menu under the more tools option.
- Navigate to the folder where the page has been saved and then to the folder called NIH_ National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases _ Leading research to understand, treat, and prevent infectious, immunologic, and allergic diseases_files
- In this folder, grab the file called Vero-Covid-19-24h-hi_i034-rk.jpg
You can load this image into the vOICe and run similar analysis and do whatever else you want to do. Try different color filters and play with the zoom and raster scan functions as a start.
If you want to see the image of our Sun’s corona for comparison, try the images at the following page.
What Is the Sun’s Corona?
You will have to use the techniques outlined to see the images. One thing that you will notice is that the spikes are significantly more dense.
Do let me know if you tried viewing any of the images and what happened.