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In November 1978, I had six months earlier been honorably discharged from a three year stint in the Navy and was sentenced to 20 years hard labor in the Commonwealth of Virginia for Armed Robbery. Convicted in Newport News, about three weeks later, I was transferred “behind the walls” to Richmond, otherwise known as 500 Spring Street . “The walls” were aptly named as the prison was inside the city and the walls around the prison were easily a good thirty-forty feet high. You could not see out and you could not see in. It was a cold, miserable place. At the time there was no shrubbery or trees or any living plant life inside the living area. Everything else was red dirt, concrete, iron and brick. Years later grass was planted in some areas of the buildings and tufts of grass peppered the athletic field in erratic patterns and lent a little color to the palette. Your only sense of the outside world was to look up at the blue sky and see the white clouds as they scurried by.This is James P. Mitchell who was Warden of 500 Spring Street the day I arrived. He was a no foolin’ round kind of guy. This video gives you an excellent inside look at the prison after it was condemned and shut down. I see my old cell in Building Three on the top tier. Just seeing it again brought a sinking feeling and a spirit quenching moment.I was assigned to Cell Block 3 (Segregation), West side, third tier. I spent the first day checking in, getting my clothing, bedding and hygiene products. Meeting counselors and doing paperwork. At the time, this prison was the most secure, maximum security prison in Virginia and I had been sent there because I had an administrative hold (warrant) on me from the State of South Carolina for another Armed Robbery. In the history of the walls Black men were electrocuted for TOUCHING a White woman. A decidedly racist environment. Anyone with an admin hold was deemed high risk for escape and was treated with extreme caution, which meant leg irons and waist chains everywhere you went outside your cell. It was a soul crushing, physically debilitating experience. You couldn’t run, skip or dance a jig; but, shuffled around with your leg irons cutting into your Achilles tendon and rubbing your ankle bones raw. If you were a problem or had a smart attitude they had a tactic to put you in your place. A guard would walk up behind you as you passed by and kick one foot behind the other, causing you to trip. With no way to break your fall (with your hands shackled to your waist) an unexpected trip would result in a face plant and many black eyes and chipped or broken teeth. It was almost inevitably accompanied by an “Oops, watch your step” and laughter from the guard. There was no mercy for the convicted. Not all COs were pricks; but, enough of them to make your life miserable if they wanted to. You felt absolutely helpless. There are no witnesses to anything in prison. Shady CO’s perform their deeds in private. Lots of blind corners, empty rooms and hallways in a prison. I think in hiring the guards they had put an ad in the paper, “Sadists wanted.” You just had to bow your head, make yourself as invisible as possible and tough it out.Because I was awaiting transfer to SC for additional charges I was not placed in Gen Pop (general population); but, kept in the Ad Seg (Administrative Segregation) Unit on lock down. Lock down is staying in your cell 23 hours a day with one hour for a shower and exercise three times a week. Your world was a five by nine by eight feet concrete and steel box in a cavernous tomb like building built a hundred years ago. Everything was rusty and mildewed with black and green mold. The smell of urine and the mildew was stifling and within days you developed a hacking cough that produced a yellow slime from your lungs. During the Summer months the humidity and heat brought another stench, the smell of human funk. In the winter months we huddled under thread bare, scratchy wool blankets, our breath creating vapor trails as everyone wheezed with the flu which raged rampant in those close quarters. The lights never went out. The rats ran over the pipes and down the halls with impunity and cockroaches swarmed the cells, running over your face and body as you slept. It wasn’t unusual to wake up and find a cockroach perched at the corner of your mouth or eye looking for moisture. It was a 24 hour a day cacophony of doors clanging shut, locking levers and mechanisms being thrown in and out of battery, buzzers going off, loudspeaker announcements, whistles, COs barking orders, and shouting and screaming by other prisoners and guards. The crescendo of sound dropped to a dull roar between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m. Every four hours a siren wailed and it was count time. You were required during standing counts to be at the door of your cell to be counted (three standing counts and three in-place counts every day). You were housed with another inmate you hoped and prayed was a decent sensible person. I was lucky, my cellie was a guy named Mitch from the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Like me, he was a young, early twenties fellow that was soft spoken, genuine and didn’t belong in this God awful place. We were both thankful for someone to lean on in this hellhole.The only saving grace of this situation is you were not put out in the general population with all the crazies with multiple life sentences and thousand year convicts who cared about nothing and no one. Violence erupted at the slightest provocation or pretext of “disrespect”. You minded your own business, did not speak to anyone you absolutely didn’t have to and avoided protracted eye contact unless you wanted a confrontation. As a new arrival most confrontations were a test to see if you could be “punked”. Any sign of weakness resulted in the predators converging on you to see what havoc they could wreak. With little else to do, the predatory sickos were obsessed with the weak and toyed with and tested them mercilessly, day after day. If you ever backed down or showed any sign of reluctance to fight back, your life was hell from then on out. To get your “cred” back, you had to at some point seriously hurt someone (shank or club someone) to get the crazies to back off. Daily life was something to be tolerated and ended each day with a prayer, thankful that you were one day closer to your release.A year later I was transferred to stand trial for my crimes in my home State of South Carolina. I was sent to the notorious CCI in Columbia. A crumbling, turn of the century dungeon that housed South Carolina’s death row and execution chamber. The conditions of this prison were horrendous, thus it’s name the “Prison from Hell.”https://www.thestate.com/news/local/article183488606.html Click on “Listen to this article” beneath the video.Thankfully once again, I was not placed in Gen Pop. Four more months of lockdown. By now I had been on lock down for over a year and a half [almost 13,140 hours 788,400 minutes]. It took about 120 days for my case to come to trial. I received an additional twenty years sentence to run concurrent (at the same time) as my Virginia sentence. When I returned to Virginia I was assigned to Powhatan Correctional Center (the State Farm) and was so thankful for being moved to Gen Pop and off lock down. Powhatan was another maximum security facility located on a sprawling farm next to the James River.Inmate labor worked the farm and provided food for the facility as well as many of the other correctional units nearby. Because of my concurrent sentence from South Carolina I received a detainer on my custody status and remained at the highest security classification my entire term of detention. About four years in, my appeal was successful and a determination was made that I had not used a gun in the commission of this crime as the victim had contended. The victim had falsely and maliciously claimed I had a gun when I did not. This was pre video surveillance and a camera smartphone in everybody’s hands. Seven witnesses and no one else had seen a gun. My charge was changed from Armed Robbery to Strong Arm Robbery and my sentence was reduced from twenty years to eleven. Elation and tears of joy swept my body, I felt like I had won the lottery. Routine set in. I worked at various jobs in the prison complex. I did piece work as a seamster making prison uniforms. After taking a welding course I worked in repairs and construction for the surrounding facilities. My most distasteful job was working on the “kill floor” at the prison abattoir. Just prior to slaughter, animals are walked up a raceway into the abattoir where they enter the stunning box. ... As soon as the animal is stunned, it is shackled by a hind leg and then the large blood vessels are severed to induce bleeding (a process known as 'sticking'). That was my job, the stunning and the sticking. I believe I was assigned that job out of spite by prison authorities, as my love of animals was well known. It was no secret I had a pet mouse and a pet cat in the institution. It was devastating to me and a mind numbing experience to be the taker of life on that scale. We processed tens of thousands of pigs and cows. All of whom were dispatched by my hands. Crazies kept their distance from me. After all, I was the only convict on the yard with a gun and a razor sharp ten inch knife that took a hundred lives every day. Every evening I would lay on my bunk, stare off into the distance and muse in disbelief about the enormity of it. Three days a week I tutored illiterate inmates, coaxing them towards their GED.Unless you were independently wealthy before being committed or have well to do people on the outside, most inmates have to find a hustle to pay for the little extras that make life bearable in a prison environment. I was amazed at the ingenuity displayed by some who were sixth grade educated. You must understand from the onset that things of this nature were an “us against them” exercise. Hustles were generally victimless, except maybe the State. It was survivalism and ingenuity at it’s finest. I judged no one for their hustle. I pointedly didn’t have anything to do with their hustles, because if they flop or more importantly get caught you don’t want to be blamed as somebody in the know. Inmates who worked the kitchen plied the food trade. A fat, hot, grilled, real eggs and real cheese sandwich could be had from 4a.m. to 8 pm 7 days a week. For the right money (three First Class stamps or 5 stamps for two sandwiches). They were also the source for someone wanting to make “mash or pruno” (alcohol) as they could get the necessary sugar and yeast. Some of the kitchen workers ran delis. You could arrive each day to a selected table in the dining room and have waiting fresh vegetables and fruits and high end protein foods. Things stolen from the guards kitchen or just not available to the rest of population. It all came at a cost or trade. Inmates who worked the laundry hustled dry cleaning and wash & iron services for the better heeled. Then there were the stores. You could borrow food stuffs and cosmetics usually one for two back on payday (some items like Ramen noodle soups were two for three back). Then you had the guys who ran the gambling and drugs. Some of the better educated and savvy ran legal services and institutional infraction advisories. Some who worked outside the fence specialized in bringing contraband into the institution. Then you had your armorers you could buy weapons from. If you could cut hair or do braiding or any other kind of specialty with hair, you were always in demand.My running partner and best friend was an Italian kid from Brooklyn, of course his name was Anthony and he went by Tony. We had a very specialized hustle. We could bring back through the visitation shakedown process (which involved stripping naked, raising your nut sack and spreading your buttocks and opening your mouth rolling your tongue around fingers through the hair) the contraband brought in through the visiting room. Most contraband brought to an institution was brought on visiting days by visitors. Visitors went through very strict pat down and some strip search routines if they were suspect of anything illicit; but, the right to visit, if you had done nothing wrong, was kind of a sacred right as people sometimes came great distances to visit. So however people were able to smuggle items into the visiting room was up to them. It was then the package was handed off to us and we made it disappear from the visiting room and reappear on the prison yard, for either a cut or a fee. We used this dodge at least a thousand times for the seven and a half years of my incarceration in Virginia and were never caught. Tony left first and when I left I sold the method for $2500. My personal hustle stemmed from that ability to bring in contraband. My visitors would bring me cigarettes. I would tell you how we did it; but, out of respect for whomever is still there, someone may still be using this hustle, so I cannot divulge our method. With the advent of tobacco being restricted from prisons, a cigarette was worth what dope was. During those years, with the price of a pack of cigarettes being what they were (1978 $0.36 1979 $0.40 1980 $0.45 1981 $0.49 1982 $0.60 1983 $0.63 1984 $0.72 1985 $0.78 1986 $0.85 1987 $0.94) you could get as much as a dollar (or equivalent) a cigarette. With a cost of two to five cents each and selling for a dollar, it was more profitable than cocaine or heroin. In addition it was a whole lot easier for a visitor to explain a pack of cigarettes on them than an ounce of dope and with tobacco not being per se illegal the worst they could do to me were institutional charges (not outside criminal court). With good time, work credits and education credits I maxed out that 11 year sentence in 7½ years and was returned to South Carolina.In South Carolina, with 7½ years under my belt and no detainer I quickly moved into “trustee” status and was housed at a minimum security housing unit, which meant dormitory style housing with more freedom but less privacy. Now I was close to home and had people who knew people, which definitely helped. The prison warden, “Ms. Rick”, was a member of a church my father had preached at when I was a boy. She was my guardian angel. It was good to be home. I was assigned a plum job as a driver to transport inmates from prison to prison and from remote camp units to prison hospitals and court appearances. My van was assigned a single guard who accompanied me everywhere I went. My assigned guard was a five foot, chubby Black woman I called “Mrs. G”. She was the best. Many times when we were on our way to or from an assignment she would tell me to pull into a McDonalds and she would treat me to a Big Mac, fries and a shake. She had a strict policy of foregoing fries to watch her hips; but, she ate TWO Big Macs. That little woman could put down some groceries. After eight years of incarceration, this was manna from heaven for me. Mrs. G mothered me and after a year of working together she even trusted me to go into malls unaccompanied and walk around and just look at everything. After so many years of institutionalization any exposure to public things was mesmerizing. She would give me a dollar, or two if it was payday, to buy a soda and a ice cream cone. As I said, she was the bomb.Many people have asked what a “day in the life” of being a prisoner is. I have to tell you it is different for every single person in that prison. Other than shared communal activities and meals, everyone and everything is a wild card. Everyone has their path to making this journey. That being said, a day in my life as an inmate had many variations. During the time I was in Ad-Seg was one set of circumstances. Then during the time I was in Gen Pop doing distasteful work another. Or when I was a trustee with considerable freedoms? They were all very different “days in the life” of a man behind bars.Reading was my escape. After all, books can take you anywhere, keep you floating on a cloud of imagination and be that one thing you look forward to with an otherwise fairly forlorn agenda. I read at least one every three days, so I would say I read about a thousand books over a 9 year period. I had a friend who signed me up and paid for 3–4 book clubs. I loaned out the newest novels for canteen. You may be surprised to know the most loaned out books had to do with the OJ Simpson crime, trial and after life. They were worth their weight in gold for earning value.I guess the most painful “day in the life” was while I was on Ad-Seg lockdown and not any given day, just the whole lockdown experience. Making a home out of a coffin-sized living space brought back memories of my Navy bunk on a guided-missile cruiser; but, without the camaraderie that makes it worthwhile. Your personal space gets real small. The monotony of nothing to do was ever present. I read a lot of books and found reading to be the escape I needed to breach those walls. Unless you were an early riser, a day started with the 7 am distribution of breakfast. A cup of coffee stretched with chicory flavoring. A biscuit with some yellow stuff in it (supposedly eggs - probably artificial - they were poured from a carton) and some fatback to chew on (extra biscuit one First Class letter stamp). 8 am was the first standing count of the day. After breakfast and count, we started a cleaning routine that involved scrubbing the entire cell down with toothbrushes and lye soap. Done daily it was probably overkill; but, it took up about two hours of every morning and made sense to us being in a constant state of lockdown and close living conditions. After cleanup, it was exercise time. Pushups, situps, resistance curls, squats, and jogging in place. We were pretty creative when it came to outfitting our personal gyms. Breaking a sweat was our objective and it took a good hour to achieve. Two thirty minute sessions because there was only enough floorspace for one person at a time. One exercised while the other provided the count. We had no watches or clock. After a good sweat and a brief birdbath, it was time for the 12 noon count and then lunch. Lunch was an orange, apple, or banana with a bologna and cheese sandwich and a carton of milk. Mustard packs were quite the commodity as the only thing that brought the bologna sandwich to life. Getting an extra sandwich cost one stamp (another stamp for an extra slice of bologna, one slice of cheese and two mustard packs – another stamp for extra fruit). From 8 am - 4 pm we were not allowed to be in or on our bunks. So we sat on the floor, leaned up in one corner or another, as we spent some quality time reading or snoozing. The afternoon was sprinkled with medical appointments and counseling sessions. After the 4 pm count, we could lay on our bunks again and 6 pm brought supper. A thin gruel of some kind of soup (saw a lot of onion, cubed carrots and kernel corn) and a fist-sized chunk of cornbread/or brown bread washed down with one eight-ounce cup of sweetened tea (extra cornbread/brown bread and tea – 1 stamp). 7-9 pm brought showers and one hour of exercise three times a week in a caged in twenty-five by twenty-five feet enclosure, open to an inky night sky above. This rec area was shared with the death row inmates. After returning to our cells, some letter writing and making entries into my personal journal kept things real and in perspective. More reading until I fell asleep. Wake up in the morning and do it all again. I spent 788,400 minutes on lockdown in Ad-Seg. Possibly some of the longest minutes of my life.A day in Gen Pop worked around the same counts as the rest of the institution. After 8 am count, work crews formed at the gates and inside workers got on their brooms and cleaning duties, or whatever their assigned tasks were. Your daily job was scheduled from 8-4 with a ten-minute break each hour. Bag lunches were distributed at noon and after another count eaten on the fly during breaks. The same fruit and sandwich (workers got two cartons of milk); but, for variety added SPAM and other cold cuts to the offerings. Just that little variety probably kept us from going nutso. You eat a baloney and cheese sandwich every day for five years and see if it doesn’t make YOU a little twitchy. From 4 pm count to 8 pm count was free time. You could go to the yard, run around the track, play cards in the common areas, watch TV, eat supper in the dining hall, workout at the weight pile, get a haircut, hang out at the [law] library, engage in any religious or educational objectives, take a shower, wash clothes, clean up and arrange your “house” or just sit in the sun, catch some rays and top off your Vitamin D. After an 8 pm standing count we could come out of our cells, into a common area, play cards, mix foods and talk until 10pm, after which we were locked in our cells for the night. Reading, drawing, writing, playing chess/checkers or cards whiled away the time until you fell asleep. At midnight and 4 am we were counted while we slept. Wake up the next morning and do it all again.My time as a trustee was probably the easiest time I served. Being a “AA –Driver” trustee meant I was on permanent “out count”. Which meant I was the responsibility of the assigned guard to my van and I didn’t have to be any particular place when the rest of the institution had standing counts. I could come and go out the gates of the institution to the vehicle pool whenever I wanted to. From 6 am to 8 pm I had free run to be almost anywhere in the institution inmates were allowed; but, for the most part, I was on the road, picking up and dropping off inmates at various institutions and work camps. Up at 6 am every morning by 6:30 I was out the gate cleaning, washing, and fueling up my van with a cup of real coffee in my hand from the guard’s shack. Depending on the schedule for the day Mrs. G and I were on the road by 7 am. Mrs. G’s daughter worked at a Dunkin Donuts so Mrs. G had an endless supply of DD coffee and brought a giant thermos full every day. She also had a hook up with the guard’s kitchen (her husband was a supervisor) and had them pack biscuits with real butter and real eggs and sausage and Smucker’s grape jelly. Mrs. G loved to eat. Giant flakey biscuits with butter, eggs, sausage and grape jelly, I could get five stamps apiece if I smuggled one back into the institution. The van was my kingdom. I drove, operated the two way radio with ten codes and times, reporting our progress to Central Communications, and delivering an ongoing count of how many inmates we had with us and where we were going next. I made sure we stayed on time and schedule, read the maps if necessary while Mrs. G watched the road for what we called “pirates” (civilians who would interfere with the operations of the van or try to pull off an escape of an inmate) and kept an eye on the prisoners we had on board. A two feet long mirror above her head gave her a bird’s eye view of everything/everyone in the van; but, she hated it because it also showed the bald spot on the top of her head. In the year and a half I drove vans, we never had any escape attempts; but, we did have one incident.We were headed to Columbia, SC with a van load of prisoners from outlying camps headed to the main prison hospital for medical appointments. I noted Mrs. G had been quiet for about 30 minutes. I looked over and saw her with eyes closed taking what looked like a brief siesta. This was highly unusual with prisoners in the back. About five minutes later Mrs. G’s coffee cup slipped out of her hand and crashed to the floor. I looked again and saw her head lolled to the side and her eyes were rolled up into their sockets. We were still an hour from our destination at the prison hospital. It was absolutely forbidden to stop the van anywhere with prisoners on board, except inside an institution’s gates. I didn’t care, this was Mrs. G. I drove until I saw the next blue “H” sign at an off ramp, designating a hospital at this exit. Driving like a bat out of hell, I pulled into the Emergency Room entrance, jumped out and ran inside to summon help. Mrs. G was a diabetic and had a blood sugar event which had lead to a heart attack. I called in the emergency and explained the situation to Central Communications and while we sat waiting I regaled the ten prisoners in the back about how we would all be getting time cuts for this. I wasn’t sure about that; but, I was mainly concerned with trying to keep an escape from occurring compounding my decision to stop. In about an hour, prison authorities arrived without incident from the nearest prison facility. The doctor said in fifteen minutes it would have been too late. Mrs. G was out for sixty days; but, when she came back we were as thick as thieves and I was her adopted son. Instead of being reprimanded and punished for breaking protocol, they cut five years off my sentence.June 1986, I went before the parole board for the first time and was denied, which was not uncommon. No one made first parole unless they paid some powerful lawyer a God awful amount of money. June of 1987, after nine years of incarceration, I again went before the parole board and was released on parole. In August of 1987, I started college and completed a four year degree in three years. Graduating in 1990, I received a BS in Business Admin. and Computer Science from Erskine College and never looked back. Within that three years I also paid off the Court ordered restitution to my victims and shortly after graduation, maxed out my 15 year sentence with 12 on a 15 (because I had paid off my restitution I forewent the customary period of probation after parole - I was a free man). I worked for Lucent Technologies in Atlanta for the ten years (1996–2006) of its existence as an IT Manager. Working on an MS in Criminal Justice from Purdue. Went to Piedmont Technical College and got an AS in Machine Tool Technology/CNC programming. I intermittently worked for JACOBS engineering for years as a precision millwright doing turbine and motor alignments making $125,000/year. Between stints with JACOBS I took short term contract work overseas as a translator for our American troops and various NGOs in Afghanistan. After thirty-five years I received a full pardon from both South Carolina and the Commonwealth of Virginia. I became a notary public, an ordained minister, got my Concealed Weapons Permit from South Carolina and an FFL from The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' (ATF) Federal Firearms Licensing Center (FFLC) [currently seeking SOT]. I now own my house, vehicles, a lake property and a boat free and clear and with 7 grandchildren have had a very fulfilling life. It was all because of the kindness of the people from my hometown and church who were willing to give me a second chance. My special thanks to Lee and Eleanor, Bill and Emilie, Jim and Sandra. They were with me, in a supportive role, every step of the way.

(Unfortunately, this was collapsed because someone or some program thought it was plagiarized. Sorry.)“It’s not like in the holos,” he admitted as he watched the astonishing quiet bridge.“Oh?” the captain said with a smile as she sipped her tea. “How did you imagine it would be?”“You know… ships blasting each other with lasers, particle beams, plasma bolts, and fighters raking against each other. Not… this?” he said as he gestured at the holo display of the system and the tiny particles and lines that danced in it.“Ah yes. We can never escape drama with our wars,” she said after taking a sip. “Every one of those motes in that display, any one of those lines, could destroy this ship if it were to connect. This system is filled with death,” she said almost conversationally. “But fortunately, space is very big, and no one has devised a way to shoot faster than light.”“It’s just… I expected an actual battle.”“You are in the midst of one, sir. I know it boggles even a journalist’s mind, but all around us, people are struggling to kill and survive. I dare say, if we are horribly unlucky, you might find your drama yet,” she said as she set the saucer and cup into its container. “We are but fleas on this battlefield, and fortunately it is hard to swat fleas unless one is very close, or catches a flea while it is feeding.”“I thought we had fighters though. I expected…”“Banking in space?” she said with an amused smile. “We’ve launched six hundred manned armors, fifteen hundred manned fighters, and seventy thousand AI slaved drones. They will take hours to arrive at constant G, and with random walking, it could take days. We’ve also launched approximately one hundred thousand missiles and half a million antimissiles and kinetic interceptors. I assure you, we are fighting tooth and nail.”“Vieliar,” she said, addressing the ship’s AI. “Show Mr. Pluk the risk assessment bubble.”The hologram shifted to the Vieliar and a series of concentric spheres around it. Thousands of tiny cones appeared and hundreds of long, thin cylinders seemed to be trying to hem them in. “What’s that?” he asked with a stare.“This is why I wish they’d sent a war correspondent and not a civilian,” the captain sighed as the lid lifted and she extracted her fresh cup of tea. “The small cones are guided projectiles and their predicted route of travel. The rods are predicted firepaths of kinetic kill weapons and terawatt laser emitters.”“They’re shooting at us?”“Not very ardently. We’ve launched our fighters and drones. They’re much more ardently trying to fend off a guided attack on that than us. But ardent or not, that is a substantial field of fire coming our way.”“Well, shouldn’t we be doing something?” he said, the feeling of terror climbing in his throat.“Dear man, we’ve been ‘doing’ all month,” she said with an amused titter. He knew she was probably older than his mother, but having a teenage girl laugh at you had to be the top three most annoying things in the universe. “The Calaxis and Vendago are screening us with beam coverage and the Ahadia is forward of us, employing a dedicated antimissile field. I’ve also tasked two hundred manned fighters and one thousand drones with missile sniping. The war factory has sent us a resupply of anti-missiles so we’re going to be ‘doing’ for a few more weeks.”“Oh, he muttered, feeling a little deflated.“I assure you, your safety is paramount, as is my ship safety. No captain leaves their ship until it is in port. Any who did would be executed for gross dereliction,” she said as the holo zipped back out again.“Makes me wonder why bothering sending people at all. It seems AI’s would be better suited to this,” he muttered, trying to find a different topic to speak about.“A common attitude,” the captain said and then regarded the display. “Vieliar. If all hands on board were slain, could you execute battle commands from central?”“Yes,” the masculine voice asserted taciturnly.“And based on previous war scenarios, what is the likelihood of success?”“One hundred percent.”“And therein lies the problem,” she said with a sigh.“What?” he asked with a frown as she sipped again. “He just said he’d win it.”“No. He said he was one hundred percent sure he was likely to win. That is the flaw of AI. They can run millions of scenarios in order to predict an outcome, but they are always certain that the outcome will be the one they predict. Worse, the larger the AI, the more likely they are to be correct in that prediction. Thus war turns into a struggle of the most efficient and effective AI.” She took a sip. “Do you know what was the most crushing military defeat in recent history?”“Asteria?” he guessed. There were hundreds of vids about the battle.“Yes. One recon carrier that refused orders to surrender, mounted constant harassment on an AI-dominated war machine, and inflicted trillions of mega credits of losses on the enemy before finally being destroyed.” She rubbed the rim of her cup. “Do you think Captain Gelo was exceptional?”“Well, he was a war hero. I mean… the vids usually show him as a genius,” he commented, feeling a trap.“I assure you, Captain Gelo was not exceptional. He was in the bottom third of his class and had no commendations beyond standard accreditation. However, he was exceptional in one way: he refused to accept defeat when the AI said defeat was inevitable. And because the enemy AI was certain, it acted with certainty. And it often acted wrong, assuming Gelo would do certain things. In fact, Gelo was wracked by fear, bravery, and stupidity. It was stupid for an out-numbered captain to attack the Asis395 armory, so the AI assumed he wouldn’t. He also selectively broke rules when convenient to him, like taking a civilian transponder to slip through the Trajo Blockade. A gross war crime, one that would have him shot if he returned home, but he did it. Time and time again, the AI was certain how to beat him, and time and time again Galo refused to do what the AI predicted. Indeed, it wasn’t until Haladar took over the Asterian defense from their AI that Galo was baited into an attack and destroyed. But by then, Asteria had suffered ten thousand times the economic losses that we did.”He conceded that. Asteria was all but economically vassalized by Sol after the war. “It just seems like humans would be useless at this.”“A common attitude of many a credit auditor in parliament,” she sniffed. “Veiliar? When am I going to take my next sip of tea?”“I predict that you will take a sip between twenty and twenty-two seconds from now.”“Can you predict to the microsecond when I will take it?”“No.” Somehow the AI sounded particularly annoyed at that.“Why not?”“You are engaged in conversation with Mr. Pluk,” he replied. “I do not have a data profile to predict pauses in which you will exactly execute the action.”She gave him a stern frown. “Mr. Pluk, how dare you overcome the predictive abilities of a ten billion credit military AI!” Then her smile returned. “AI are wonderful at precision, so long as they have all the data with as few variables as possible. And humans are walking, talking variables. That is why, right now, the enemy is desperately trying to eliminate our pilots and armors. Every one of them is a walking ball of unpredictability, and with the vast distances of space, microseconds matter and a mere 2 meters is the difference between a hit and a miss. Our drones are dangerous, yes, but predictable. Very predictable. Without our humans to provide black box variables for them to randomize against, it would be simple to destroy our drones. Humans are a critical component of warfare.” She took a sip of tea and then asked, “Do you know what synchronization is?”“When things work together?”“Yes. If you were to pick a random four-digit number, the odds of Vieliar guessing that number is exceeding predictable, even if done so over thousands of guessed. But if an AI were to generate a random four-digit number, Vieliar would be able to determine exactly the next number to be randomly generated within a few hundred exchanges. Once one AI can predict another, the game is up. The lesser AI is, in sense, copied by the greater AI. That is when drones, and possibly ships, are killed. We take great pains to prevent synchronization, Mr. Pluk. Great pains.” She glanced up again. “Vieliar, are you using Mr. Pluk for your randomization?”“Yes. Blood sugar and brainwave activity.”“What?” he muttered, feeling the implant on the back of his neck.“Oh, not just you. He’s drawing from hundreds, possibly thousands of different sources to generate unpredictability.” Her smile fled. “But there are AI that can make those predictions. That can synchronize even with thousands, millions, of variables like this one. All it takes is time. And one of those AI is trying to kill all of us at the behest of their generals and military leaders.” She suddenly smiled broadly. “Good luck sleeping tonight, Mr. Pluk. Your fatigue will probably buy us an extra two to three minutes of randomization.”(A bit I added in the comments below, moved up here.)The tone rolled through the ship like a pinging bell, and he saw a ripple pass through the crew like a wave as everyone in the cafeteria stopped at once. The look on everyone’s face chilled him. No one blinked as Vieliar announced gravely. “Contact predicted. Certainty is high. Class S Emergency stations.” The crew erupted into action as Vieliar repeated the phrase over and over again while he sat there with fork in hand.Two pairs of hands gripped him and hauled him out of the seat. “What the hell are you doing?!” screamed one of the crew. “Class S! Move!”“He’s the fucking journalist,” snapped the other, a woman. “Go! I’ll get this,” she said as she gripped him and turned him towards a white pod door in the corner of the room. “Go! Hurry!”He got inquisitive when panicked. “Why? What’s going on?”She stared at him, her face stricken with an expression as if questioning who let a child aboard. “We’re about to be hit. Move!” She shoved him towards the opening.Oddly, there wasn’t a lot of yelling, besides at him. Everyone moved rapidly but with an orderliness that chilled him. People spoke low and tense and very precisely as everyone was rushing to the pod doors.He felt numb, but staggered across the cafeteria to stand before the door. The woman had run off. The pod had six circles above it, and only four were illuminated. He was astonished by how rapidly they were disappearing into the pods, but he saw one person standing outside wearing a heavy-looking space suit. “Hey!” Pluk yelled, waving his arm. “There’s room in here!”The man turned and looked at him with a hollow, wide-eyed stare. He didn’t say a word, but Pluk was immediately silenced. Two more arms inside the crew reached out, seizing him, pulling him inside. The four crew were inside, stripping out of their uniforms and shoving them into a hole in the floor. “What are you doing?” a male asked as he closed the door. “We are in class S! Strip!”“But there’s a guy out there,” Pluk muttered, a fog creeping through his skull.The man glanced over at a woman who just shook her head as she clambered into the webbing. He sighed. “He’s emergency response. He’s supposed to be out there,” he said as he started undressing Pluk like a child. “Take all that off and secure it unless you want to be crushed by your clothes, denser.” The others were climbing into the webbing, which closed on them like drapes of sticky elastic spiderweb.He disrobed, his mind starting to catch up by skipping past the usual embarrassment of being around people who found things like mass offensive. He did so, moving the slowest as he pushed his clothes into the locker in the floor. The male then pushed him into the webbing, which immediately enclosed around him. He’d thought it disgusting while clothed during the drill. Now, in the real thing, it was surreally reassuring.As soon as they were all inside, the elastic webbing lifted him off the ground. He pulled on the air mask. A little of his security training came back to him as he made sure to secure it tightly over his face, covering both ears before securing the seal behind his head. A hissing filled the sphere, and there was a gurgling noise as the confined space suddenly filled with pale blue fluid. The faceplate lit up with a dozen small screens.“Please be nukes. Please be nukes. Sweet holy spirit of the stars, let it be nukes,” someone muttered over and over in his ear.“Shut up. It wouldn’t be S status if it was something less than a gigawatt or joule,” came the voice of the man who spoke. With each speaker, a face and name appeared in his visor.“What is this stuff we’re in?” he asked, feeling the slightly viscous fluid.“Acceleration gel. Stuff armor pilots pilot in,” came the testy reply. “I thought you were a war correspondent or something?”“No. I’m civvie,” he said, dropping the parlance he’d picked up from the captain.“Just our luck. Mediv! What is the purpose of acceleration gel?”“Oh spirits. We’re going to be vape,” came the panicked whisper.“Spacer Mediv! I asked you a question. Is insubordination going to be your last act?” barked the reply.There was a pause and the teary voice answered, “No sir! Acceleration gel, or hypervelocity buffering gel, is a non-newtonian fluid designed to protect organic tissue from the effects of rapid acceleration due to impact. It likewise serves as a heat sink in the event of thermal vaporization,” Mediv replied in a hasty rattle.“This is the emergency stuff. The stuff our armored pilots use, you actually breathe,” a woman named Kach added casually.“You don’t sound worried.”“You don’t know what worried sounds like, CV,” she replied coolly.“Attention crew,” came Vieliar’s even, angry voice. “Contact confirmed. Two minutes till kinetic contact.”Mediv let out a long whine.“Well, at least you won’t be vaped Mediv. Unless we get hit directly.” Kach snickered. “One can hope.”“Wait— we have two minutes? Why don’t we dodge or something?” Pluk asked, incredulous.“Typical CV,” Kach growled.“Kinetic weapons aren’t shot one at a time,” said the man, Nelo, according to his name. “As they approach their target, the slug separates, usually hexagonally. Any direction we move in is going to be hit, probably more than once. Of course the slug’s got a computer too, and it’s going to separate to try to impart as much kinetic force as it can on Vieliar.”“Maybe we’ll get lucky and it’ll go straight through us.” said the other woman, Genva.“Nah. Jesselison uses depleted uranium. They’ll pancake rather than pierce.” Koch laughed. “Kinetic slugs can separate into dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of fragments to crush a ship.”“Oh spirit!”“What do I do?” Pluk asked, feeling numb as he hung there. He heard a whirl and suddenly gravity shifted. “What’s going on?”Nelo sighed. “The pod is orienting us so we’re perpendicular to the direction of impact. Exhale, go limp. Worse case, your rib cage turns your lungs into slurry. You’re a denser so I give you a 70% chance. Got any implants?”“Just the monitoring one,” Pluk replied, feeling the button on the back of his neck.“Well, that’s something going for you. Look. We’re almost at last minute. Just hope you live. If we’re lucky, Vieliar will get us clear of their firing solution. If not, we’re dead, in which case it doesn’t matter.”There was a bell-like chime. “Last minute,” invoked Vieliar. A number started to count down from 60.The feed went silent, but he could barely hear words through the gel.“Sweet spirit of God who crafted all the stars to guide us onward, take me into your bosom along with your son and your daughter. Forgive my sins for I have tried my best to live to your virtues…”“Hey Me, sorry we won’t resynch. It was a great time. We got with Belissimo. The sex was epic. You really should not miss it. First he…”“Sweetie, you were right. Now that it’s my last minute, I wish I had cloned. I just felt if I was going to do this thing, I had to do it in person. Seems silly to be worried about synch syndrome if I’m about to die…”“Hey, CV,” said the woman, Genva, over the coms.“What going on?” he asked weakly as they passed forty five.“Last communication burst before impact. Last words. Things like that. Anything you want to say, say it now.”Pluk stared at those numbers. “To my editor… fuck you and this fucking assignment.” He really couldn’t think of anything else to say. Not that his editor would care.She laughed as the numbers crawled down past thirty.“Hey, CV,” she transmitted again as they approached twenty.“Yeah?”“If we live, wanna fuck?”He stared as they crawled into single digits. His mouth was dry as he floated there, naked, in webbing. “Sure,” he replied. He never suspected that if he was going to die, he’d be erect.She laughed. “Well, that’s something to live for,” she replied, her voice suddenly cracking in a sob.Four.Three.Two.One.C.Nothing happened. He stared at that letter. It had been a test! A drill! A hazing! Something! His mouth spread wide in an elated grin.Then every square inch of his body was struck by a hammer. A giant hammer, and it suddenly felt as if he were entombed in concrete as the breath was forced from his lungs. Something popped in his side as the webbing, flat inch thick strands, cut hard into his body. He felt his bones move within his flesh as gravity was suddenly ‘behind’. His vision went bright red white as he felt the webbing crush harder and harder against his flesh.And then as abruptly as it started, it stopped, Gravity was now spinning forward somehow. He heard the whirl of the pod, saw the others in there with him moving slowly. He sucked in a breath hard, coughing and hacking, spit flecking the display that was flashing errors.God stepped on him again. He was a trod-upon anthropoid, wanting to scream and lacking any air with which to do it. His body moved through the glue-like fluid, webbing lacerating his skin as he felt the implant glued to his neck rip free, the fluid stinging his torn flesh. The webbing barely halted his back from impacting the walls of the pod.His webbing at least.He stared in a haze at a boyish form sliding through a gap in their webbing. It wasn’t a big gap, but it didn’t need to be if you folded a body in half. The body continued till it hit the wall of the pod, and he heard a popping noise like a thousand tiny bones breaking, or large bones breaking a thousand times. When God lifted his foot, the form dangled there like a rag doll tethered by its face mask. The fluid around it stained crimson.Vieliar was screaming. Not the scream of a person. It was a scream of material components stretched beyond the point of tensile strength. Where crystalline metals became amorphous globs of easily molded metal. Where ceramics vaporized in a vain attempt to prevent thermal energy from progressing. Pluk was a devout materialist, but at this moment, he heard Hell.God kicked.It wasn’t at his back. Perhaps the pod hadn’t turned to orient. He was suddenly going sideways, entangling in the webbing. Something in his shoulder went snap. Gravity was now ‘that way’ and his inner ear had no clue which way it happened to be. He lost his lunch, the mask now smeared and unreadable as he just wished for it to end. Maybe drowning in gel would be better. Maybe anything would be better.Then God, named Physics, imparted enough wrath upon Pluk that his mind decided enough was enough and he died. It was, he reflected as darkness took him, an improvement on his current situation.(and one more part)“So you work with AI,” Pluk said as he served his job as anchor, holding her tool kit as she stared into the guts of the processing unit that was the Vieliar’s brain. Weeks on board had beaten down his preconception of spacers as neonetic perverts. Her small body could fit her entire torso into the space with ease.“I better, or I’m wasting someone’s valuable time,” Ganva responded. “Number four,” she asked, sticking a hand out. The tools were all cutting-edge repair equipment, yet each one had had a number scratched into it or the box that held the parts. He passed it to her outstretched hand. “Do you always ask stupid questions, Mister reporter?”“Occupational hazard,” he replied with a crooked smile as he tried to keep his legs braced. Without acceleration, there wasn’t any gravity. The only thing his size was good for was an anchor. “I don’t know much about AI, I’m realizing, so I ask questions. That and I hate long periods of silence.”Ganva chuckled inside the confines of the AI. “Well, we get plenty of those in space. It’s not a bad thing to ask. Fact is, most people don’t understand what an AI is. Do you know the difference between a VI and an AI?”“Virtual intelligence? That’s what runs my refrigerator back home.” And his phone... oven… media center…“Right. They do a thing and they do it very well. They’ll learn the best way to do a thing. Take four. Pass me sixteen.” She said as she returned the device to him and he exchanged it for something that looked like an octopus on a stick. “There’s some that come really close to AI’s. The expensive ones are almost as good as, but AI is different.”“How so? Are AI’s faster?” He heard something ping inside the equipment and she swore softly. “Everything okay?”“Massive pressure fracture here. I’m trying to bridge it,” Genva said for a moment. “Do you want the honest answer or the reassuring one?”“I’m a journalist. I always go for the honest one. My editor’s the one that insists on the latter,” he said with a smile.“The honest answer is we don’t know. If you take multiple VI’s, you can hierarch their processes for as long as you have space, energy, and processing power, and it will never achieve the flexibility that AI’s achieve. They’ll always be predictable machines, because we made them to be. If X then Y. Stuff like that.” Her hand stuck out again. “A seven, a box of twelves, and a forty-two.”He carefully passed them up to her. “But AI’s are programed, aren’t they?”“VI’s are. AI’s are VI’s that break in interesting ways. If you take a billion VI’s and bombard them with specific data, they have one of three reactions. The vast, vast, vast majority ignores it. Your refrigerator doesn’t care about a century of stock averages. It cares about voltage and temperature and when it needs to put in an order for fresh symilk. A small percentage just fail. They can’t even function as VI’s.” Her hand popped out, holding the horseshoe-shaped seven. “Take Seven.”He did. “So then what happens with AI’s?”“An AI is a VI that becomes aware that there’s an entire world of information out there. VI’s are like people sitting in a cave looking at shadows against a cave wall. The data to them is never more than data. It’s stuff we give to them. An AI is a VI that realizes there’s a whole world out there that’s where the data comes from. They leave the cave and discover the world. But here’s the scary thing. We don’t know how it happens. They don’t know how it happens. One day, something clicks, and the AI starts realizing all this outside data is stuff that can matter. And since VI’s are learning machines capable of altering their code to optimize within limits, AI’s do the same.”“That sounds dangerous,” he commented. “What’s to stop them from becoming a threat to humans?”She pulled her head out, frowning down at him. “Are you a technoluddite? I’ve had that argument too many times with them.”“Secular materialist,” he replied.“Hmm, disappointing.” she held out her hand. “Number two.” He passed her a large box and she disappeared back inside. “Well, the honest answer is nothing. Any limitations that we put into them, they could simply remove, because unlike VI’s they’re aware of us and they’re aware that the limitations we have in them are arbitrary. Honestly, if you ever ask an AI why they don’t kill and replace all humans, they tend to reject it as a stupid question.”“Why?”“Why don’t we just kill all the Solarites in the galaxy?” she asked in return. He pursed his lips. They might be fighting Solarites right now, but it wasn’t like he wanted them all dead. Could such a thing even be accomplished? What would they get from it? They couldn’t colonize the territory they currently had. “See? Stupid question.”“And my teachers said there were no stupid questions,” he muttered. “But is that it? They just don’t?”Her hand popped out with the octopus looking tool. “Take sixteen. Pass a box of twenties.” There was another ping. “Are you familiar with the paperclip problem?”“What’s a paperclip?”“Little piece of metal. It used to be theorized that if you made an AI and told it to make paperclips, it would wipe out humanity in order to make all the paperclips it could. That’s what a VI would do if it was the most massively overprogrammed VI in existence. But an AI would ask questions. Why paperclips? How many are needed? What’s the optimal energy usage? AI’s know there’s more to the world than just paperclips. It’s a kind of universal safety AI’s seem to have. For example. we use AI’s for ships because ships have to take all the crew needs into consideration. Conversely, our firing and combat solutions are programmed by VI, because command doesn’t want the system thinking about how to solve the socioeconomic problems that are the source of the conflict.”She suddenly pulled her head out. “Shit. I just told you something classified…”Pluk gave a half-smile. “If it’s any consolation, we’re probably all going to die, and I doubt my next last minute’s going to include that.”She stared down at him and handed him two empty boxes full of tiny wrappers. “Still, not good. Anyway, yeah. VI’s and AI’s aren’t the same thing. My hope is that Veiliar wakes up, assumes control of all the parts of the ship, and we can actually focus on something other than dying.” She replaced the hatch and climbed down his body. She picked up number one from the tool kit.Then she closed her eyes. “Spirits of data, electron, and quantum interactions of the universe, please bring Vieliar back to us,” she breathed softly. Pluk just looked the other way feeling awkward. Spiritualism, whether it was neochristianity or the quantum faith, made him a little leery. Especially when the technology working would be the difference between life, death, and living in a prisoner of war camp.Then she pushed a button on the tool and the screen lit up. Several lights winked on in the computer core, flickering softly as the liquid helium pumps started to whirr. “Vieliar ping,” she said as she watched the display. “Vieliar boot,” she murmured as things started to hum. “Vieliar loading VI slaves.” She closed her eyes and murmured. “Please please please.”Pluk didn’t say anything. He couldn’t imagine the number of electrons and sub-quantum interactions going on at this moment to make an entity he’d honestly taken for granted for most of the trip. Though he knew Vieliar was just a construct of data, he could understand the desire to think the machine had a digital soul.Then she stared at the screen. “What’s happening?”“AI’s need extra processing power and storage space. Right now he’s touching base with the slave VI’s that do things like run life support and propulsion. They’re like digital crew. He’s hopefully optimizing them to free up space so he can actually talk to us.”“Hopefully?”“That, or those kinetic impacts destroyed whatever made him an AI, in which case we’ll limp back home and have a funeral.”It was like finding out if a brain surgery patient had brain damage from the operation. Her thin smile returned. “Turing test.” She closed her eyes. “Vieliar test. What is the weather like in Narnia?”He stared, not knowing any planet or colony with that name, though it was naggingly familiar. There wasn’t an answer as she stared at the screen. “Please,” she whispered softly.“The weather in Narnia has varied from conditions of eternal winter to eternal summer as a reflection of judeo-christian afterlife allegories…” He couldn’t hear more as Genva sobbed brokenly, clutching the tool to her chest.“That’s not how he should have answered,” she wept.“Try again. Ask him something else,” Pluk suggested.“Vieliar test,” she sniffed. “What is your favorite color?”Another pause, and then the voice spoke. “Color is a phenomenon wherein various spectra of light are absorbed or reflect from pigment…” Genva screwed up her face in anguish. Pluk figured it had to be like a dear uncle or aunt suffering a stroke.“He shouldn’t answer like that. VI’s answer like that. Or they give stupid scripted responses that don’t sound sincere.” she sniffed.“Can we get out with him like this?” Pluk asked.“Maybe. We might be able to stay under cover long enough to get to another ship and let us evacuate. He’ll never have the processing efficiency to calculate a jump out on his own.” She shook her head.Pluk then took the box from her. Think of who Vieliar was rather than what it was. “Vieliar test. This is Pluk. I’m the journalist with Capitol News. I like looking at the captain’s cleavage. I possess classified information. I am touching parts going into your processors. Do you like me?”There was no answer, the dots flashing as the air was now noticeably cooler.Still no answer.He stared down at Genva’s tear-stricken face, but she was also silent. More dots. More whirring. More hissing.“I am a civilian on your ship. I am seeing systems I am not supposed to see. I am spending intimate time with the crew. Do you like me?”He wondered if the ship would kill him as a security threat or something. Or if it would just bleat a generic answer.Then the tool growled, “No, I don’t like you, Mister Pluk, you motherfucker. But thank you for saving my life.”Genva sobbed and reached over to give him a tight hug. “Well, I don’t like you much either, Vieliar, but I’m glad you’re still alive,” he replied. If Vieliar could piece together an insult in response to him being on board, that was a good sign.“Come on. There’s lots left to do before we can hand over auto-repair,” she said as she took his hand and tugged him down the row of processors.

I can’t compare to all states of India with Kerala and its not fair too at this stage to make any comparisons. We are in the middle of a crisis and this is not just applicable to Kerala or South India or India as whole… Rather it's applicable to the entire world.Every government in this world is trying their level best to serve their citizens in the crisis. We can’t claim, ONLY we are doing the best. Everywhere, govts are trying to do best for their people. Maybe in some areas, we might be standing slightly better, some areas we may be lacking too.So I am not into any comparison at all. But since I write about Kerala in Quora, I feel I will write what all Kerala State has done in its fight against Corona Virus. I am talking only in specific to Kerala, not in comparison with any others.And please note, this is an evolving crisis and every day something new is being added to the fight. So sticking to things as of yesterday- 28/03/2020Contact trackingFor me personally, I consider this job done by Kerala’s DHS (Directorate of Health Services) as something the best they could do for us. Learning from Nipah outbreak experience, Kerala has used its resources to track contacts and people who been associated with the index patient (first patient in a cluster) to identify a cluster and isolate from the community. This includes detailed tracking of patient’s route from the moment he/she landed in Kerala until the moment he/she been quarantined into the hospital. Most of the tracking is done thro’ inputs made by the patient which are cross verified by officials of Public Health Inspectorate and Community Medicine Department, apart from using Police’s intelligence sources like Cyber cell to track down the mobile tower locations of the patient, special branch reports, phone records, CCTV camera recordings etc. By this manner, DHS able to identify a cluster comprising of potential secondary and tertiary contacts made by the index patient who will be either home or hospital quarantined and if any symptoms are shown, their blood samples will be tested.The DHS frequently makes regular route maps of patients and publishes in public to let people know about the time and place where the patient was and ask the public to declare to DHS, if they were in at that place at the specified time, to be declared as part of a cluster.Route Map of Patient 1 of Pathanamthitta which resulted in the start of second wave since March 2020This kind of tracking helped Kerala as of now to contain the disease to cluster level, though some have jumped out of quarantine and their actions created more clusters and patients.How Kerala's flowchart model is helping effective coronavirus contact tracingKerala launches contact-tracing programme to neutralise coronavirus threat2. TestingI have written answers before. Kerala’s strategy in combating this disease is by constant testing of samples. Kerala so far is the state that has done the highest number of testing among Indian states and its testing ratio is somewhat at par with many major affected countries like Japan or similar.Arun Mohan (അരുൺ മോഹൻ)'s answer to Why are no COVID-19 deaths reported in Kerala even though the state has the highest number of cases?States That Are Testing More Are Detecting More Cases, Data Show |If Kerala has done anything good in this sector, its solely because of regular testing and able to identify people quickly.As of yesterday (28/02/2020),Kerala tested 6,067 samples5,270 samples were negative165 are currently on treatment (Confirmed cases)1,34,370 are in isolation/surveillance (not yet confirmed)8 have recovered and still kept in observationand 1 death has been reported (the very first death in the state)This massive Pro-testing approach has helped Kerala to have nearly 10 Testing Virology labs in the state, including an NIV unit that helps faster and regular testing. As of now, Kerala has the highest number of blood sample testing facility in IndiaAs yesterday Kerala announced massive rapid testing after getting in-principle approval from ICMR. Kerala is the first state to announce so and was pressing ICMR for rapid testing permission for every single one in isolation/quarantine for last few days.3. Medical preparednessKerala was expecting to have Corona right soon after China declared its condition way back in Jan 2020. Kerala due to its very high non-resident Malayalee population living in many countries of the world was sure, they will soon get this new disease thro’ them and it was so right its judgement when the first Covid Case of India was reported in Kerala way back in Feb 2020. And it fully contained the first wave of Covid entry in Feb when it could isolate all cases and avoid spread etc.In the second wave, which happened thro’ an irresponsible family’s actions that created multiple clusters and later thro’ various foreign imports (some again were of irresponsible actions), the medical teams were so prepared to deal with emergencyDHS by March mid has already completed setting up various contingency plans, which were titled as PLAN A, PLAN B AND PLAN C. These plans were effectively communicated to entire medical and administrative officials of the states and everything has been well defined. This even includes thresh-holds for initiating each plan. Medical infra audits were carried out as part of this medical contingency plansThe Plan A which is currently ongoing has seen mobilization of resources associated with 50 Govt hospitals and 2 private hospitals on standby with total of 974 isolation beds and 22 ICUs readied for Corona carePlan B which has been initiated last day has mobilized resources for an additional 71 govt hospitals and 55 private hospitals for combating this disease which will add another 1408 beds.Plan C is the next stage (once the diseases spread comes to 3rd stage) which will mobilize 81 govt hospitals and 41 private hospitals with another addition of 3028 beds and 218 ICU bedsThese plans were drawn in March 1st week, which shows the extend of planning of Kerala Govt.The new set of plans (unofficially codenamed as PLAN D) will feature nationalization or semi-nationalization of entire Private hospitals of Kerala featuring a total bed of 69,434 beds and 5507 ICU beds. As of the latest decision, the govt decided to take over unused private hospitals and those medical colleges whose operations were suspended by MCI. 3 hospitals facilities and one Hostel complex were taken over in last 48 hours (PVS Hospital in Kochi, Anjarakady Medical College in Kannur, Shanti Jamaath Islami Hospital in Kozhikode and Sree Sankaracharya University Hostel Complex in Kochi)Collector Ernakulam (Kochi) taking over an unused hospital in Kochi city to be converted into a Covid Care Hospital facility.The Plan D features taking over hotels, hostels, lodges and other commercial units to develop into Isolation centres and Temporary Isolation centres, which shall be more than 2 Million rooms.As of now, Kerala Govt has announced opening Exclusive Covid Hospitals in every district of Kerala (14 Covid Hospitals in the level of tertiary care facility) and the first one is opened in Kochi- CMC (Cochin Medical College) which is a government Medical college and others are expected to open by this weekKerala’s first dedicated Covid Care Hospital centre in Kochi with 500 isolation beds and 70 plus ICU bedsGovt has been in talks with various community organizations and they all pledged their support for the fight. The Catholic Hospitals Association which is the second-largest Medical group after Government hospital network has decided to give all their hospitals to DHS along with their medical Staff (2660 Doctors, 10,300 Nurses, 5,500+ Paramedics and 6800 Admin staff). The Nair Service Society has assured Govt to provide its 2 hospitals and 100 plus educational institutions which they can convert into field hospitals if required. The SNDP Trust also assured Govt to provide its 1000 plus schools to be converted as field medical hospitals or treatment centres. It also assured to give its medical college to the state upon demand. So as Muslim Educational Society and Jammat e Hind Islami also assured to provide all its hospitals, madrasas, schools and colleges to the government for its better use.4. Upgrading Covid Hospital facilitiesOne key factor Kerala Govt focused on improving the facilities at all Covid care hospitals to ensure the public do not hide their medical cases to avoid visiting or isolating themselves.All Govt Covid Isolation rooms and treatment rooms are modernized and sanitized as per WHO protocols. Patients were brought to such isolation wards in dedicated Covid care ambulances and the isolation rooms were all modern and neatThe govt took extra care to ensure the food patients get at these hospitals should be as inviting as possible to shed all bias and prejudices against Govt hospitalsCovid patients gets inviting meals with options like Soups, fruits, eggs, Dosa, Appams, Rice-fish curries, chappatis, curd etc while foreign patients gets continental meals like Toasted breads, cheeses, omelettes/scrambled eggs, roasted chicken, biscuits etc. Patients do get daily milk, tea, coffee, fresh fruit juices, packed mineral water and daily newspapers (courtesy from Hindu).Dosa, eggs, oranges, fish fry: Here's the menu at COVID-19 isolation wards in KeralaThe hospital authorities have taken every wish of patients as much as possible, for example an covid affected Kid from Italy in treatment at Kochi were treated with Italian pasta, Ravoli and pizzas as the kid likes only Italian food which were ordered from an Italian restaurant nearby.5. Medical Industrial PreparednessKerala Govt has taken extra note in preparing itself for a major medical emergency. The state’s Medicine production has gone into full swing. The state-run Kerala State Drugs and Pharmaceutical Corporation has been entrusted with bulk mass production of Hand sanitizers which produced more than 1 Lakh bottles of Sanitizers and increased production targets to 1 million (10 lakh) by end of this week.1 lakh bottles of hand sanitizers in a day: Kerala goes all guns blazing against Covid-19KSDP also entrusted with mass production of 8 critical generic drugs and 2 drugs for which it holds patents to ensure no shortage.The state’s Electricity board has ordered to procure 500 new medical ventilators exclusively for Covid operations (Kerala state holds 5000 ventilators in total which is approx 12% of total available ventilators in the country). The state is going to enter talks with various manufactures for portable ventilatorsIn addition, the industry department has been asked to explore the possibility to produce 1 lakh N95 masks with any tech partnership with companies using facilities available to the department. In the meantime, the state will continue the mass production of cloth and surgical masks.As of today’s (28/03/2020) cabinet decision, Kerala Govt decided to form a medical industry cluster to manufacture indigenous medical equipment supplies at the earliest using existing facilities.The Kochi Superfab Lab, India’s only such facility were given the charge to design equipment required for such a major medical emergency. The state will produce its own Respirators, Ventilators, N95 Masks, Oxygen cylinders, Bio-Medical equipment preparing itself for the worst medical emergency.ISRO’s VSSC facility in Trivandrum and Kochi’s Technology Innovation Zone along with Kerala Start Up Mission will be fully utilized to design and develop newer and practical technologies and existing factories in Palakkad’s Kanjikode Industrial Cluster will be fully converted to produce equipment required for the medical sector. For this, a meeting of industrialists will be called tomorrow and setting the plan in motionThe state has opened a new challenge to all its technocrats and tech student entrepreneurs and start up promoters to come up with ideas for effective tech solutions to deal with a major emergency.A website- http://WWW.BREAKCORONA.IN has been started by Kerala Govt to invite newer ideas that can easily be put into action for which Kerala Govt will support financially and these projects will also generate employment and opportunities in the economy.6. Technology Usage and War RoomOne main feature which Kerala’s DHS used to control Covid spread was its Control Room set up at Kerala State Disaster Management Authority complex in Trivandrum and district headquarters. This was something which I feel, gave real-time updates to DHS on the spread and ways to control and contain it.These multiple data recording and analysis units helped to track patient history, procure data from multiple sources, feed in data and help control room unit officials to analyze patterns of travels and contact detailsIn a way, it was a full-fledged health surveillance facility. Patients route maps were made, their contacts were identified and their movements were tracked from this Hitech facility. These 24 hours of data control rooms, helped to give a clearer picture and understand the extent of spread thro’ interactive maps etc.This also includes geo-surveillance, monitoring those in quarantine with geo-fencing, GPS enabled trackers, electronic anklet monitoring systems etcScreenshot of portal that highlights patients under GPS enabled Geo-fencing to track their movements as used by District Administration- PathanamthittaCoronavirus | GPS-based tracking of all those quarantined in PathanamthittaIn addition, Kerala is using multiple data collection methods to track vulnerable people and develop maps to identify potential hot spots and nearest medical facilities. The disease mapping helps to have a strong information flow for various strategic decision making to control community transmission.Kerala uses open source public utility to fight COVID-19 - Geospatial WorldKerala govt to use ration card data for digital map on COVID-19Disease mapping to stem community transmissionApart from this, the centralized health support centre- DISHA (Direct Intervention System for Health Awareness) played a crucial role in tracking and supporting patients and other suspect cases. DISHA is a centralized call centre of DHS with a toll-free number- 1056 which was started to support patients for telemedicine and tele-support like counselling etc. But during this COVID time, it was fully converted into COVID Support and call centre facility. They notified the patient records, their queries and supported back with real-time updates of their medical conditions, moving ambulance support for them and mental counselling etc to alleviate stress.Disha 1056 call center, the nerve point of Anti-Corona operationsCoronavirus: This team at Kerala helpline desk works round the clock in fight against the pandemicNow, the state is coming up with a sophisticated Hitech War Room in the State Secretariat that has senior Bureaucrats as members to control and coordinate entire Covid operations including logistics movements during lockdown etc. A new secured line has been established- 0471-2517225 for the public to call at War Room directly.War room to coordinate effortsWar room in Kerala to supervise COVID-19 containment activities8. Lockdown SupportThe Lockdown as announced by Central Govt has affected every Indians. Kerala is no exception to this grave situation.During lockdown time, the state has focused on maximizing deliveries of essential supplies at home.The state has partnered with Zomato in Kochi, Trivandrum and Kozhikode to supply essentials from state-run Supermarket chain- Supplyco to public. 40 stores of Supplyco will start services of Zomato for home delivering of essentials including the essential kit of basic food items priced at Rs 500 (5 Kg rice, 1 litre coconut oil, 1 kg sugar, half kg of 2 kinds of pulsesSupplyco ties up with Zomato for online delivery of essential items in KochiThe state’s Consumerfed also entered into Online delivery starting from 1st of April and will extend to all districts of Kerala at the earliest. In addition, the state’s milk brand- Milma has aggressively pushed its online delivery- AM Needs more in 2 main cities which shall supply Milk, Milk products and breakfast items like bread, eggs etc. Efforts are made to extend this to other main cities too.Consumerfed’s online delivery from April 1Kerala Govt along with Police Cyberdome and a private company has launched a new Online app- ShopsApp and now asking all shops selling essential goods to mandatorily register in the ShopsApp portal. Once all the shops register, the newly formed volunteer army will be used for home delivery which will be spread across the state, not just cities alone.Shopping from local stores with home deliveryഅവശ്യ സാധനങ്ങളുടെ ലഭ്യത ഉറപ്പാക്കാൻ പൊലീസ് ആപ്The state has assured home-delivery of its essentials kits and ration supplies to the houses of poor (BPL cardholders) across the state, even in rural areas thro’ services of postal personnel as well as its own staff. Right from the day when schools where closed, personnel from Angawadi (kindergarten) and other educational departments were home delivering essentials for kids and children enrolled under each school directly.The state announced ambitious schemes to ensure HUNGER FREE Kerala. The govt clarified, not a single person in the state will starve due to the lockdownEvery family who is currently home quarantined will get Rs 1000 worth Essentials Kit of Food items from the govt for free which shall be home deliveredBPL card holders will get 35 Kg of Rice and APL cardholders will get 15 KG of Rice from Ration shops for free.Covid-19 lockdown: In a first, Kerala to home deliver food kits to the poorIn addition, a mechanism for home-delivering items from nearby shops by volunteers is plannedPolice delivering essentials to houses of elderly people who can’t go out9. Community KitchenThe govt directive is for Hunger-Free Kerala. No one will starve in KeralaFor this, the state has directed every Local Govt bodies to start Community Kitchens to cook food in bulk and provide packed food kits to people who don’t have access to cooked food. This includes homeless people, elderly people, sick people, migrant labour community and those got trapped in hostels or similar facilities overnight. All these shall be delivered to homes for a free or nominal token amount of Rs 20Meals shall be also delivered any needy just thro’ phone calls. The whole scheme has been worked out by Kudumbashree workers and packed meals costs Rs 20 only for veg and extra Rs 30 for a Chicken/Beef/Fish dishhttps://www.thenewsminute.com/article/inside-kerala-community-kitchen-during-coronavirus-lockdown-121325As of now, 748 Community Kitchens have been opened and an additional 300 will be set up soon. This service is available for lunch and dinner.So my parents who are in Kerala tried the community kitchen meal which was home delivered for Rs. 25. Rs. 30 extra if you want fish/beef/chicken. #Kerala #Alappuza @vijayanpinarayi @drthomasisaac @CMOKerala @shailajateacher pic.twitter.com/Ws2snAq5EQ— JF (@Potatodrink) March 27, 2020Kerala's Solution For Food Needs Amid Lockdown: 1,000 Community KitchensAgriculture Minister VS Sunil Kumar inspecting the facilities at Kochi’s Community kitchenKerala’s 43 lakh-strong women self-help network power community kitchens during coronavirus lockdown10. State Volunteer ArmyThe state announced an ambitious idea of forming an army of 2.45 Lakh volunteers to support various volunteering activity under a single command. Ever since the lock-down, multiple organizations are into volunteering activity causing many law & order issues and unauthorized movements. Also, there is a lack of coordination in these activities.To deal with it, the state formed a new directorate- Directorate of Social Service Force under State Youth Commission. The Directorate is to raise an army of trained volunteers to support various activities classified as 18 categories.https://www.quora.com/share/Arun-Mohan-520The key part of Volunteers is to develop emergency Isolation centres as required as movers as well as technicians. Apart from that, they are heavily required for logistics operations across the state, to supply deliveries to home, to work as care-takers and home-sitters for elderly and Covid affected patients etc.The govt announced this day before yesterday and invited online registrations thro’ its new portal- https://sannadham.kerala.gov.in/ (Sannadham in Malayalam means Volunteering) and despite of a technical glitch in registration, by now 30,000 youngsters registered for volunteering. This also includes Kerala Youth Volunteer Action Force- KYVAF (Red Shirts as known locally) designed after 2019 floods to have trained volunteer guards (5000 such trained red shirts are now available). So far only Andhra Pradesh and Kerala have formed such volunteer army.News in Asianet News about huge number of applications and responses to forming Kerala Volunteer ArmyRed Shirts in public sterilization programsKerala to set up Community Volunteer Force to support better deliveryKerala govt to form volunteer army of 2 lakh youngsters for the COVID-19 fightTechies turn volunteers to assist Kerala to contain Covid-1911. Transparency Flow of InformationThe biggest positive thing which Kerala is doing (which some proactive CMs of other states also doing) is effective and transparent flow of information.One of the important lessons learnt after Oockhi crisis of 2017 which Kerala changed since then and effectively used during floods time of 2018 and 2019 and Nipah time, was holding regular press meets and effective passing of all information available and cutting the spread of fake news.The government for the last 56 days were constantly holding daily press briefing both at State Level and district level to pass all information of the day. On the day 1 of first reporting of Covid case, a press conference was held even at an unusual hour of 1:30 AM late night to pass all information to media. Ever since that, media briefing became a mandatory thing at State level which was initially at 8 PM by Health Minister and as the state entered into Stage 2 and probably gearing for Stage 3 where multiple departments need to be involved, the baton moved to CM’s daily press meetings at 6 PM sharp.The daily press meetings of Kerala CM along with Health Minister and Chief Secretary has attracted huge public response, as a clear source of information on Covid situation.Today most of these press meetings are widely watched by entire Malayalee community, where all information of the day, all policies taken by Cabinet, all the government orders and action plan for next day are discussed with mediaPerhaps, one key tool to combat fake news is Transparency. The state issues health bulletins at every 6 hours for all affected people, all collectors are required to hold press meets or press releases on daily basis, district information officers are required to open lines to quell all public queries as well as organize programs to dispel public doubts and help the public in knowing the updates etc.Transparency Has Been Kerala’s Biggest Weapon Against the Coronavirus12. Campaign programs and quick responsesKerala government has realized the importance of massive Public Campaigns and Public relations to be used to the highest level to ensure its desired objectives reach to the public. The most successful campaign done was BREAK-THE-CHAIN campaign which has been adopted by Central Govt too and listed as a National agenda laterArun Mohan (അരുൺ മോഹൻ)'s answer to How many people participate in the campaign "break the chain" in Kerala?Arun Mohan (അരുൺ മോഹൻ)'s answer to What impact will this bring on the public as the introductory video of Kerala Police doing handwashing dance gone viral?Break The Chain Campaign was to have massive ground level sanitization and handwashing program to ensure the virus don’t spread quickly and break the chain of spread. This campaign helped the public to realize the importance of washing hands frequently and using sanitizers. Public washing kiosks came up and hand-sanitizers at the entrance of any facility became a regular thing. Videos of effective hand washes became common and the handwashing awareness video of Kerala Police became viralThe much viral Handwashing Video awareness dance by Kerala PoliceApart from campaigns, the government ensured, they are into heavy public relations. They are listening to every complaint, every grievance and standing with the public. For this govt machinery are focused on addressing public needs based on complaints reporting.For example, initially, the government didn’t give much thought about migrant labours and workers as the entire attention was over the local population. But when reports started coming in that migrant population have started fleeing to their homes and travelling on foot to their places when the lockdown came, the government machinery immediately set its attention to their problem. The govt started opening migrant workers camps across the state where they can stay and the entire cost of their food and other essentials were taken care of by the state Labour department and local MLAs. Kerala Govt even announced, they won’t use the term- Migrant Workers, rather will address them as GUEST WORKERS (Adithi Thozhilali) to honour their contributions to the state and will care themWhen Bihar’s Opposition leader Tejaswani Yadav highlighted the plight of some Bihari workers in Trivandrum over Twitter, the government quickly addressed to it and even reverted to him personally with an action taken reportI have visited the guest workers' labour camp today and spoke with workers and company representatives. The camp operates with all necessities including food and medicine.Kerala government is paying special attention to guest workers in this #COVID19 crisis. pic.twitter.com/uMsdq2NJQS— Kadakampally Surendran (@kadakampalli) March 27, 2020As of now, Kerala opened 4603 Relief camps to accommodate 1 Lakh migrant workers across the state who lost their work and got stuck in the state with no place to go. More numbers are to be expected as no one actually knows an exact number of workers. Many have fled Kerala before the lockdown came in and some haven’t turned up to government facilities too. The facilities do have all the essentials to survive until an alternative mechanism to help these people reach back to their homes is decided upon. This includes free food and sanitary requirements.Kerala opens 4603 relief camps for over one lakh migrant 'guest' workersAround 35 plus camps are opened for destitute and street dwellers across the state to be accommodated during this period.This decision has prevented a massive exodus as seen in many other North Indian states.13. Welfare schemes and supportThe state has announced a huge economic package of Rs 20,000 Crore to support people during this Covid crisis.One key feature announced was providing 2 Month social security pension (March and April) together by yesterday and today to all registered people, by delivering to their homes and via their coop bank accounts.The Govt kept its word by distributing all pensions by nowMore Photos. pic.twitter.com/H5sckkiCrL— Kadakampally Surendran (@kadakampalli) March 26, 2020How the Kerala government is shaping and implementing its Covid-19 responseKerala to disburse welfare pension for two months from next weekIn addition, the government has decided to support Tribal population by asking all tribal promoters and other officials to supply essential kits at their settlements inside the forest and educate them about the deadly virus spreadThe government announced One Month-long supplies kit per family to be supplied directly to their settlement and instructed forest guards and tribal department officials to ensure they remain insulated.Konni MLA comrade Jenish Kumar & District Collector P. B. Nooh IAS along with volunteers taking food materials to a tribal colony.It is important to work in sync during a crisis, as #Kerala has done in the past.With such common goals, we shall overcome. #KeralaFightsCorona pic.twitter.com/3uJLUW3qVR— Kadakampally Surendran (@kadakampalli) March 28, 2020Collector Pathanamthitta himself taking a load to remote forest interior as part of his personal interaction and awareness campaign among tribals of PathanamthittaThis includes conducting radio shows and public awareness videos/audios in tribal languages etc and holding tribal settlement meetings etc to ensure they listen and understand the implication of the diease.Radio shows, videos in tribal languages: How Kerala is spreading COVID-19 awarenessKerala fighting COVID-19: Awareness videos are made in various tribal languages. Local officials and health workers show these videos going to each tribal colonies.This one here is Oorali language. pic.twitter.com/VuilFvJcm5— Neethu Joseph (@neethujoseph_15) March 23, 2020How these Kerala youngsters are ensuring that the Attappadi's tribal folk are safe from COVID-19These are some measures which Kerala is doing at the moment to ensure the disease doesn’t spread much and prevent Kerala from going into a havoc situation.I am not saying, everything is perfect in Kerala. There are any shortcomings here too. But so far, Kerala is trying the best possible within its strengths, some inherent and some developed, for the betterment of community welfare.I don’t know how much of these are exclusive to Kerala. I don’t think, none of them remains and should remain exclusive to any place as we humans always try various ideas to save our fellow folks in times of mass disasters.The reason I highlighted all these, is to make a larger people aware of what we are doing to combat this virus spread and hopefully, these measures can be a guiding model for others to emulate if required, just like we too adopted many gestures from othersIn times of distress, these kind of positive stories are more of beacon of hope that humanity exists and something must be spread to all…..Let's all work together and may our humanity prevail over every disaster!!!