Still improving. Only v. minor congestion in nose and chest remaining. Back to normal sleep patterns too.

Last day of iso today, but snuck out for a short pre-dawn walk. I’m still iso when there’s no-one around at 6am and it’s 4°C.

15min walk, fresh air, nice sunrise and back home.

Continuing to improve. Only minor nasal congestion and occasional cough left. I also have a low tolerance for work still, but not sure whether that’s a covid fogginess thing or just a very low tolerance for meetings while still not 100%.

Keen to get outside and do some exercise again, even if it will just be walks for a couple of days. One more day in iso.

Feeling much better this morning. Definitely turned a corner. Still a bit congested and have a bit of a cough, but at least starting to feel somewhat normal again.

Morning heart rate dropped 10bpm & HRV has overshot up on the upside, but no longer depressed.

It is a weird pattern on the rMSSD readings. A big hit on the 8th which must be when it gets into my system. Then two relatively normal days before taking another nosedive on the 11th when I tested positive and it’s been gradual improvement from then.

Does this mean it takes your body two days to muster defences before launching all out war on the invaders?

Definitely the sickest I’ve been in 15 years or more, but given illness for me only means an annual head cold or two, that’s not saying much. Clearly the vaccinations are doing their job and hopefully that means no long-term complications.

The only downside is that they’re now saying with the latest variants that I can be re-infected in as little as a month!

Back to mask wearing!

Getting better, I think. I’m feeling better this morning than I was yesterday, and sleep was better last night as well, so hopefully this means I’ve turned the corner.

Still pretty tired though!

Watching the Tour and Rafal Majka is continuing to ride despite a positive test. Low viral load apparently, but I can’t imagine doing any exercise, let alone riding a Tour stage. Can’t understand why you’d keep him around if he’s positive either - surely you’re just asking for it to spread to rest of the team members?

Still on a downward slope. Now adding chesty cough to the mix. Sleep is still terrible, waling up every 90mins and was wide awake between 2.30am and 4am before dozing for another hour or two.

Feel OK during the day, but pretty lethargic still. Will probably take another couple of days before trying to do some work again.

Downturn today. Headcold. headaches and general fatigue. Haven’t had the flu for years, but feels like the flu at this stage.

Went to sleep last night, then woke up thinking I’d had a great sleep only to find 30mins had passed. Woke up every 90mins after that too.

Tested positive this morning, via RAT test. Jacqui tested positive via PCR on Thursday, I tested negative via PCR on Friday. However, woke up with a very slight blocked nose this morning, so figured I should check and sure enough, there it was. The dreaded second line!

I’d seen research which suggested morning HRV was a good predictor of Covid infection, registering two days before a positive test. Sure enough, looking back at my data, Friday morning was my worst ever rMSSD score.

I got a PCR test that morning but it came back negative. Too soon as it turns out.

Anyway, will see how things go from here. So far, very mild blocked nose and what feels like the beginning of a sore throat.

Am in isolation at home for 7 days. Recommendations from other people who’ve had it is a minimum of 10 days rest.

Was detrained already anyway.

CTL 20.9

Some good points for consideration here in 50 Ideas That Changed My Life.

Preference Falsification: People lie about their true opinions and conform to socially acceptable preferences instead. In private they’ll say one thing. In public, they’ll say another.

Part of the explanation for how Trump got elected when every poll said he was going to lose. Now that he’s been in power for 4 years, I wonder if the polls will be more accurate as his supporters are more confident about expressing their true opinions?

Via Negativa: When we have a problem, our natural instinct is to add a new habit or purchase a fix. But sometimes, you can improve your life by taking things away. For example, the foods you avoid are more important than the foods you eat.

Yep.

The Paradox of Abundance: The average quality of information is getting worse and worse. But the best stuff is getting better and better. Markets of abundance are simultaneously bad for the median consumer but good for conscious consumers.

A precise summary of the Internet. If you put in the effort, you can find world-class information at your fingertips. If you let the information come to you, you get dross.

In How Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park is rebounding from war, National Geopgraphic takes a look at conservation efforts which include the local community, protecting wildlife by improving the lives of local farmers and families.

Circumstances were just as grim on the lands surrounding the park. About 100,000 people lived in what planners now call the buffer zone—mostly families growing corn and other subsistence crops, barely able to feed themselves, their children shorted on education and health care. When the soil tired and the corn failed to thrive, the farmers would cut forest, burn the slash, and try again on a new patch.

Good, long read with Bellingcat founder, Eliot Higgins, about open-source investigations of MH17 and Syrian chemical weapons and what’s been learned about disinformation in the process.

Mirrors my belief that education is going to be crucial in the future, to equip kids to sort the wheat from the chaff…

You have to develop young people to consume media in a more critical way. To understand that, basically, an internet service provider is the gatekeeper to all the information in the world. If you start off on the wrong foot, the algorithm starts pushing you deeper and deeper into nonsense. If you aren’t equipped to respond to that, then you are going to get sucked into disinformation.

…and that that can be an agnostic process.

On the political question: we believe in democracy, we believe in the truth, we believe that people who do bad things should be exposed and ideally, punished, and that innocent people should be protected. That’s where we are broadly, politically. As much as I’ve criticized Trump and the Republicans here, I don’t see myself as being anti-one political party or another – if they’re telling the truth and being straight with the public and not screwing people over. But when they start going outside of that, when they start lying, when they start spreading disinformation, whoever they are, whatever they do, that’s going to be of interest to us and we’re going to go after them.

It’s about teaching kids/people HOW to think, not WHAT to think.