I got struck down with an absolutely nasty virus before the New Year holiday.  At first I thought it was covid, but it was not -- it turned out to be influenza.  It felt like being run over by a truck, and was certainly worse than covid.  Many many other people got this too.  The scientist in me couldn't help but wonder why we weren't doing lockdowns over the flu but we certainly did for covid that was a less severe virus. 

Despite being sick as a dog for nearly two weeks, my body cleared the virus and it ran a series of fevers and coughing to do the job.  To say the least, my immune system has gotten a serious upgrade in the last year.   Paradoxially though, the effect of all the previous lockdowns was to reduce peoples' exposure to viruses in general.  Then when the flu hits, it hits real hard.  Mix in a toxic brew of horrible air pollution, rapidly changing weather, and very high demands of work and life -- it proves this city is not liveable especially as you get older.  This is really no good,  but hopefully these bike trips will reveal some sort of solution to all this debacle.