Warp Speed

There is a famous Chinese curse; ‘May you live in Interesting Times!’

And this Time of Corona with which we have been cursed is indeed Interesting. Fitting that the curse is Chinese too.

The Chinese have been a very big part of the problem. Today The Special and I are heading to the Aile Sağlığı Merkezi in the ton to see if they can be part of the solution.

Yes, we are going to go and down our shots of Sinovac™  at the local clinic

My first step on the road to immunity was to log in to the E-Devlet portal. Here you can download the government’s health app E-Nabiz. Or E-Jabiz if you prefer.

Once logged in you are required to enter your data. Then you are offered the chance to have your risk of a heart attack calculated. You just enter a few more details about smoking, cholesterol level and systolic blood pressure level and Bingo.

“Why not?” I thought.

The times may be interesting but I am probably not going to get a better offer today.

After entering a few values in the appropriate fields, I was informed that I have a 15% of a cardy in the next ten years.

Oh well! I can live with that, if you will excuse the pun. The app did also recommend that I go to the cardiology check-up. I have decided to keep that for another day. Have to space your treats out in these locked down times.

I was tempted to whack the worst figures in to each field and see what recommendations the app’s algorhythm might come up with. Perhaps,

‘You have a 95% chance of a seizure in the next 24 hours. You should take an emergency appointment with an Avukat to make or update your Turkish will’

Or

‘Due to your poor lifestyle choices your chances of a terminal event or very expensive treatment in the near future is extremely high. Please return to your home country’

However uncertainty as to where the data might end up made me overcome any such playful impulses.

The Special, with that tendency to optimism I have noticed in the fairer sex in this particlar orbit, must have punched in some pretty impressive numbers on weight, height, BMI, blood pressure, lifestyle and so on. The app came back with

‘Your probability of any kind of cardiac problem in the next fifty  years is insignificant. You should visit a dating app and start the search for another husband.’

She should be so lucky                               

The app then brings up your medical history since 2017, when the system presumably went live for health professionals.

As somebody who boasts of good health and of  “hardly ever visiting the doctor”, it was quite a surprise to see there were 14 visits to hospitals or clinics logged in the 17 month period between my first event in October 2017 and most recent in April 2019.

If I estimate the Special as having the same number of visits (she is citing patient confidentiality so will not give me actual data) we end up with 28 visits to specialists or GPs in 17 months. Against which we contributed some 10,000 lira in SGK payments and small one off payments.

Do the Maths! We are net beneficiaries by a very considerable margin. No more grumbling about rises in SGK contributions Mr D. Although it is interesting (again) to note that we have not made a single visit in the last ten months! Maybe we do not need a health service. It just encourages illness!

To go back to where I was: Interesting Times.

Is it not interesting also to see how this global emergency has massively accelerated the pace of technological change? Vaccinations developed and approved at warp speed, so many processes moved online; for five years, in a different life, I was responsible for the development and use of Lambeth’s Online Learning Platform in its secondary schools. Compared to the fog I stumbled through for years , seeing what has happened in UK schools in just 12 months is extraordinary.

Then there is the rise of Zoom, the Global conquest of Amazon, the extraordinarily rapid transition to home based working, the move from city to country, from vacation to staycation and much more…

How interesting as well to see the differences between Asian Governments’ approaches to controlling the virus and Western ones?

Looming over us are huge questions of confidentiality of data, freedom of expression, freedom of movement.

As we clumsily stumble on into the age of connectivity and interdependence, commentators warn that this is just a little wake up call compared to the towering global challenge of Climate Change.

Interesting Times.

May they they be over soon!

Şerife