Positive test. Feeling OK, but probably won’t. Please forgive me, but this may not be a priority till I’m through…

Short thought: It’s not even two months since I started doing this writing business on a regular basis, and I’m already taking a break.

That said, I think I’ve got a pretty good excuse. A Covid test I took on Saturday came back positive.

Right now, the worst of it is a moderate headache and a stuffy nose. But I imagine it’ll probably get worse. My primary worry is wife and daughter: they’ve both come back with recent negative tests, but that doesn’t mean I can’t infect them. So my life for the next week or two (at least) is the front room and the study. (I recognise I’m very, very blessed to have that much space available.)

I hope you’ll understand if I don’t prioritise this writing till this is over. I may write stuff – it might actually be therapeutic. But please forgive me if that idea slips down the back of the sofa. I may stick to the odd SIROTI – they’re fairly straightforward. Hope that’s OK.

Of course, this either means I’ve managed to catch it twice, or that godawful bug I had in March/April last year wasn’t Covid after all. I rather hope for the former; last time was horrible but relatively short. I could live with that again. In contrast, I’m petrified of long Covid: since I’m self-employed, that would be financially catastrophic for my family. Save us from that.

Fingers crossed, people. See you in a bit.

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Someone is right on the Internet: While we’re on the subject of The Bug: I’m not the only one to be staggered by Taiwan’s handling of this thing. I remember a headline in December saying – I think – that they’d just had their first new case in seven months. Not death. Case.

Total deaths: 9. Total cases: under a thousand.

Wow.

It’s a place which deserves closer attention. Not just because of that, and not just because – in TSMC – it has one of the most important and critical chipmakers for the world’s electronics. But for so many other reasons.

I won’t bother to enumerate them. I’ll leave that to Noah Smith, who knows far more about the place than I do.

All I can add is this: one of my good and dear friends, my ex-boss Hui Chen, is Taiwanese-American. And she’s been in Taiwan pretty much throughout this madness. The thought that someone I care about has been in practically the safest place on the planet is a bright spark in a dark universe. Thank goodness.

(Noah also knows a lot about Japan. This piece, about Japan’s interwar history of fascist coups which failed in the short term but which arguably succeeded in aggregate, is sobering when one thinks of the 6 January affair, and Trump’s recent acquittal.)

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