Hello Quartz readers,
Everyone loves a comeback story…but this isn’t one yet. Over the weekend, the WHO reported more than 183,000 new coronavirus cases in 24 hours, the largest single-day increase yet.
Fortunately, many of you seem to have lockdown figured out. A few weeks ago, we asked whether quarantine made you more interested in cycling: 42% said they already bike, and 22% are thinking about it. When we wondered about your coronavirus consumer habits, 36% said they’re hipsteading, 33% are overachieving, and 31% are screenheading. Reader Robbin even wrote in with a fourth archetype:
“Why not a Constructus Optimus, someone who decides to remodel their entire life…like replacing the laundry room with all-new stuff, completely renovating two bathrooms, installing a new home theater, switching out all the old lights for LED lights, re-painting the main floor and entire lower level, and creating a backyard kitchen on their patio—all at the same time!”
We know whose house we’re going to for the second wave.
Running in the right circles
During a pandemic, you don’t want to be Kevin Bacon. At least, not in the “six degrees of Kevin Bacon” sense.
The American film star is so prolific, the idea goes, that every working actor is at most six degrees of separation from him. Applied to Covid-19, the idea is more sobering: If you’re only six degrees removed from an infected person, a virus could reach you relatively quickly.
As communities around the world open up, there’s no way to eliminate all risk of contracting coronavirus. But Oxford sociologist Per Block and his colleagues came up with three kinds of social bubbles that could conceivably slow outbreaks.
1️⃣ Stick with your geographic community. Make small “micro-communities” pulled from your immediate block or neighborhood, to limit contact with those farther away. See very few people, but see them as much as you want. This way, if there is an infection, it won’t make it too far.
2️⃣ Stick to your existing network. Interact mostly with others in your immediate geographic community, plus a few exceptions. These might be the people you saw on a regular basis before the pandemic, like your family, childcare provider, or select coworkers.
3️⃣ Your nearby network plus some friends. Add to your network people who are like you in different ways: For example, if you’re back in an office, maybe limit contact to coworkers who live near you. Your circles might end up more geographically disparate, and it’ll be harder to keep track of your contacts’ contacts. Of the three, this approach may be the riskiest, but it still protects more people from infection than moving around freely.
Here’s how you can visualize your options:
Already, some governments have embraced these approaches. People in Canada use the “double bubble,” which allows two households to have close contact with each other, while Belgium encourages bubbles consisting of two groups of four.
No matter what tactic you choose, it’s important to create your group thoughtfully. You have to consider your needs, be willing to talk about your daily habits with the group, and decide in advance how you may want to scale up your bubble when the time comes.
And remember, no social circles have zero risk of infection. The most important bubbles continue to be the ones in your hand soap.
Pssst. Are all these judgment calls stressing you out? We’re bringing together experts on the science of decision making for a workshop on crafting strategy amidst ambiguity. Join Paul Glimcher, co-director of the NYU Institute for the Study of Decision Making, and others for a virtual workshop on Thursday, June 25 at 11am EDT. As always, these workshops are free!
Inside choices
When your Covid bubble starts comparing quarantine notes, you’ll probably find things in common. A detailed survey from the UK’s Office of National Statistics found that Brits’ day-to-day lives in March involved less travel and more sleeping than usual.
But the shifts weren’t all simple. Using our handy tool, you can explore how young people behaved differently than old, men differently than women, and those with lower incomes differently than those with added financial stability. Here’s some of what the data show:
- People over 60 spent almost no time caring for children.
- Those with lower incomes socialized and gardened more.
- Everyone gave up (just a little) on personal care.
Mise en scène
It’s a rainy Saturday morning in San Francisco, and two scientists are hauling a $90,000 robot down an eerily empty 16th Street. The 150-lb. cube of dull gray metal is crucial for running high-volume medical tests, but for now it’s perched on a plastic cart, with scrap cardboard taped to the top to keep it dry. To avoid sidewalk bumps, the scientists roll their cart down the middle of the road.
The machine is on loan, and headed to a third-floor lab space occupied by the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, a four-year-old research facility launched with a $600 million grant from Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropic LLC. The new lab, entirely focused on tackling Covid-19, illustrates the power of private philanthropies (✦) to advance scientific endeavors at lightning speed.
That’s also the speed at which you can read more by becoming a Quartz member. With 50% off your first year, it’s just 0.06% the price tag of a 150-lb. medical robot.
Harbinger of gloom
One of the world’s relatively successful countries at stemming the spread of coronavirus, Japan has had roughly 138 cases per million people, compared with 6,490 per million people in the US. But in the month since movie theaters started reopening in Japan, its box office has been extremely slow to rebound.
In the first full weekend after theaters reopened, May 23, the country’s total box office gross was $790,000—just 5% of the total over the same period last year. Sure, there were fewer films playing in theaters, and social distancing means attendance capacity is reduced. But the recovery is proving even slower than those caveats account for. On the March 7 weekend this year, the Japanese box office grossed $5.8 million on 13 films—none of which were Hollywood blockbusters.
Essential reading
- The latest 🌏 figures: 9,157,320 confirmed cases; 4,585,373 classified as “recovered.”
- Unfair disadvantage: Covid-19 has destroyed 41% of Black small businesses.
- Network trouble: Africans are finding Covid-19 misinformation on WhatsApp.
- Looking over your shoulder: The dangerous secrets our working-from-home photos reveal.
- Coolcoolcool: Cue a post-corona epidemic of contaminated waste.
Our best wishes for a healthy day. Get in touch with us at reply@qz.com, and live your best Quartz life by downloading our app and becoming a member. Today’s newsletter was brought to you by Katherine Foley, Amanda Shendruk, Nicolás Rivero, Adam Epstein, and Kira Bindrim.