Mark this date down: March 16, 2020.
That’s the day everything changed. It’s the day the AFL-CIO
gave Dan and me the word we were locked out of the building. We got notice Sunday
night. We would be allowed in for a half hour on Monday to get whatever we
needed to work remotely for an unknown period. That was the day the coronavirus
sucker punched us in the gut.
All I had time to do was set up online banking so I could
deposit incoming checks. We would continue to pay bills by writing out checks –
still old school about some things. I didn’t have time to get QuickBooks
online, which I had been toying with doing and unfortunately thought I had more
time to actually do. We expected to be shut down, just not so swiftly.
After the shutdown Dan and I spent the rest of the week
dealing with shopping in the time of Covid-19 and coping with the results of our
neighbors’ panic buying, hoarding, and the empty shelves it caused at all the
supermarkets. We managed to cobble together enough food and supplies by going
from store to store, which kind of defeats the goal of sheltering in place and
avoiding crowds. But we were careful to keep our distance, not dawdle in
stores, and stay home as much as possible except for true essentials.
Toilet paper is high on my list of essentials. We weren’t
out. But we were ready to buy our normal package, which I do when we are about
half way through one package. I replace things before I run completely out, a
good habit it turned out, because we spent the better part of a week and a half
looking for TP and facing empty shelves. All paper goods and cleaning supplies were scarce.
Giant finally got a supply one morning, and one woman bought
out the entire aisle, every brand and every package size. An entire large
grocery cart loaded up with toilet paper. Most other stores were limiting
customers to two packages. But Giant, as a policy, was refusing to do so. I
had a go around with them on their Facebook page and posted about it on Next
Door. I wasn’t too worried, though, because with Amazon Prime, I was confident
I had a backup plan.
Wrong.
Every Amazon vendor I tried was sold out and didn’t know
when they’d have it restocked. Finally, I found some available on Walmart’s site. They
weren’t price gouging. It was a name brand, and they promised to deliver a
twelve-pack in two days. I bought it at midnight on Thursday. Desperate times.
I had had enough of foraging from store to store to no
avail. I wanted Dan and me safe at home. It arrived Saturday afternoon. With
that, we pretty much had the essential supplies we needed. Unfortunately, though, it
had set my mind in panic mode, and I haven’t gotten myself out of it yet.
I have read most of the online tales, the horror stories of young people in their 40s who got terrible cases. This is a really ugly
virus at its worst. Early on the narrative got around that it affected older
people far harder than young people, so a bunch of college kids cavorted on
spring break on Florida beaches, New Orleans bars, and California trendy spots.
Until governors began shutting them down.
Someday, scientists are going to have to figure out how this
virus really works and why it hits some so much harder than others in unexpected ways.
It turned
out that some people in their 40s or younger got slammed, ending up on
ventilators and even dying, while some seniors who supposedly were in the high
risk groups turned out to be asymptomatic. The Washington Post carried a couple
of stories about some of the first Covid-19 victims, seniors in their 60s who
were on the Diamond Princess cruise ship. They were in dock, quarantined and then sent to hospitals when they tested positive. One man of 68 even wrote an
article for the Washington Post Weekend Outlook section titled, “I Have Corona Virus and It’s Not That Bad.” He
said he felt sick but had felt worse a few years ago with a bad case of
bronchitis. One of his friends, a 65 year old woman, tested positive but never
showed symptoms. She was confined to the same hospital, where she spent her
quarantine doing Pilates and dancing to 80s rock music alone in her room.
Meanwhile, her husband, who was a survivor of two transplants and was on immunosuppressant
drugs, also tested positive yet showed no symptoms.
That’s not how it’s supposed to happen. They were the high
risk population. So, why did a 44- year old marathoner in New York and a fit 40
year old elsewhere post on Twitter from hospital rooms, one with an oxygen mask,
another dangerously ill and later moved to a ventilator (his mother updated his
Twitter account when he became too ill to do it himself)?
I should add, some of the passengers from the Diamond Princess
did not fare as well as those three lucky 60-something passengers I just
mentioned did. A husband and wife in their 80s both died. So did five other more
elderly passengers (in their 70s and 80s). But there are probably a lot of
asymptomatic people of all ages able to spread this. And a lot of people of all
ages who will get dangerously sick. And nobody really has a clue who will be
hit hard and why.
Welcome to the end of the world as we know it. More
tomorrow.
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(Here are some follow up stories to what I just posted.)
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