COVID-19 and Essential Services:

A Reminder of What's Important

As we get used to the "new normal" of living with the specter of the novel coronavirus looming over us, we are being reminded of all the things it takes to maintain our lives and well-being.

Some of these are obvious, and are the kinds of people that we've always known were essential.  Doctors.  Nurses.  EMTs.  And everyone else in the medical field staffing the hospitals and emergency rooms, and administering life-saving procedures.  Police.  Firefighters.   Military personnel.  All those who are always on the front lines when there are emergencies in our cities and towns.

Others are visible, but are people we never used to think about when the word "emergency" was uttered.  People who stock shelves and operate cash registers at pharmacies and grocery stores.  Kitchen staff at restaurants serving our new take-out-only world.  Gas station attendants.  Delivery personnel.  People who clean the grocery stores, pharmacies, and other establishments that are still open.  People who collect our trash.  People who repair our infrastructure.  People who gather and report the news. 

Many others are working behind the scenes.  We never see them, but our dependence on them has become more and more obvious as we have moved into crisis mode.  The farmers and distributors who grow, process, and ship our food.  The factory workers employed at factories being retooled to provide the ventilators and masks needed in this health crisis.   And yes, the toilet paper and hand sanitizer.  The truck drivers who deliver the food and goods we need.  The people who answer the phones of the services we call.  The government workers who continue to assure that essential services continue to be supplied to the American public, and that health and safety oversight is maintained.

And, last but not least, the people who assure that our power plants keep working, and that the power we so desperately need, especially during these difficult times, continues to be available.  Power to run our hospitals.  Power to run our factories.  Power to keep our homes well lit and at a comfortable temperature.  Power that enables us to operate all the technology that is helping us continue our work, keep in touch with each other, get needed medical advice, and so much more.

Our power, of course, comes from a variety of sources, all of them needed, but in times like this, our nuclear plants are especially valuable, as they can operate for long periods of time without refueling.  We should keep in mind that, at some sites, keeping the staff safe and available to provide the nation with much-needed power means that some staff are living on site, away from their loved ones. 

Right now, it is difficult for anyone to see what the world will look like when the COVID-19 crisis ends.  Much will return to the old "normal," I'm sure.  There will also be some changes.  Unfortunately, some establishments that are shuttered may never reopen.  Maybe more people will continue to work from home.  There is much speculation, and only time will tell.  But I hope that, even when things are back to normal, we remember the services that kept the wheels going during the current crisis--the people, the network of services, the factories, and the power plants.  They are the hidden, but critical, elements that keep our society functioning. 

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Coronavirus and Nuclear--Take 2:

A Second Cancellation

It may seem somewhat parochial to write about the coronavirus from the perspective of meetings for the nuclear community, but when you think that, just a few weeks ago, the news seemed very far from most of us, thinking in terms of personal impact drives home just how quickly and aggressively this brand new phenomenon is changing all of our lives.

In the beginning, most of what we heard was about things that were happening in Wuhan, China, where a new disease, quickly dubbed COVID-19, was causing illnesses and deaths.  At first, the numbers seemed relatively small, but the concern quickly grew, and quarantines and cancellations began to be announced.  But again, they were initially remote from most of us.  However, slowly, the disease seemed to be spreading--to more people and more countries--and the announcements hit closer to home.

The first announcement that affected my personal plans was the postponement of the Pacific Basin Nuclear Conference (PBNC) originally scheduled for April in Cancun, Mexico, that I wrote about in my last blog only a week ago.

I could not have guessed when I wrote that blog that I would see another cancellation of a nuclear event only a week later.  On Thursday, March 5, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a notice that they were cancelling the annual Regulatory Information Conference (RIC), originally scheduled for next week. 

NRC's official notice states that, "In recent days, a number of organizations and presenters have changed their attendance plans, with indications that others would reach similar decisions in coming days."

Once again, this is an understandable, but disappointing turn of events.  The NRC's RIC has become one of the most important nuclear conferences.  It always draws a wide attendance from all over the U.S. and from a number of other countries, and it provides an excellent overview of a variety of nuclear regulatory and related issues.

While the PBNC announced a postponement of their meeting (until October), the NRC has cancelled the meeting outright.  The next RIC will be held in March 2021.

Of course, these 2 meetings are very small events compared to some of the large and well-known meetings and events that announced cancellations in the last couple of weeks, so I am not trying to imply that there is something special or different going on with regard to nuclear meetings.  And of course, many people around the world are enduring far more serious consequences of this disease than the cancellation of a meeting--deaths, illness, quarantines, worry, economic impacts, school closures, and so much more.  It is just that, as I said, the news always seems more real when it starts affecting our individual lives and our plans. 

So, for all the more serious reasons, I hope that a way is found to beat back this modern-day plague.  But I still can't help but miss this spring's RIC and PBNC. 

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Coronavirus Hits Nuclear Event:

A Major Nuclear Conference is Postponed

I should have known that, in our highly interconnected world, the recent coronavirus outbreak would start hitting in unexpected places.  COVID-19, as it is officially called, originated in Wuhan, China, a place that not many people I know have ever visited.  So initially, it seemed remote.  A serious disease, to be sure, but, I assumed, not one that most of us had to worry about.

Pretty quickly, though, that perspective was shattered.  More people than I'd guessed did visit Wuhan, and people from Wuhan traveled to other places as well, so the disease started to appear in spots all over the globe.  Furthermore, with so many manufactured products coming from China, reports of impacts on numerous industries began to surface.  This was followed by rumblings that there would be effects on the stock market--effects that we saw realized in the past few days.

And then, the impacts of the virus hit even closer to home.  We learned that one of our relatives was on the Westerdam, the Holland America Line ship that wandered around the Asian waters for days trying to find a port that would allow them to land.  Even though, as it turned out in the end, the one report of a case of the virus on that ship was false.  Our relatives are home safely now, but not before enduring a lengthy and uncomfortable ordeal.

But still, it was only February, so events that were scheduled to take place a couple of months from now were not on my radar screen.  Thus, I was not prepared for a message from the Mexican organizers of the upcoming Pacific Basin Nuclear Conference (PBNC) that was scheduled to be held in Cancun in late April.  The message proposed to the Pacific Nuclear Council (PNC), on which I serve, that the conference should be postponed.  Surely, I thought, this outbreak would be contained and everything would be fine by then.  However, the PBNC specifically focuses on countries in Asia and the Americas, and with the number of cases still growing in China and South Korea, and with speakers and attendees needing to make travel plans, it became clear that the success of the conference was in jeopardy.  A number of potential speakers and attendees might not even be able to leave Asia.  Others might be exercising caution and restricting all foreign travel.

Clearly, the appropriate thing to do was to postpone the conference, and the organizers did so.  The new dates are October 18-22.  The place is the same (Cancun, Mexico).  Hopefully, the virus will have been contained by then and the conference will be able to take place and will be a success.   In the meantime, the conference organizers have extended the paper submission dates, so I'd like to encourage people to consider submitting papers and to plan to attend in the fall.  It is one of the major international nuclear conferences, and attracts attendees from around the Pacific Rim and elsewhere.  The resort venue is an added attraction.  I commend the Mexican Nuclear Society for their decision to postpone the conference and wish them a highly successful conference in October.

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