Pandemic Blues
14/03/20 06:14
Wall Street plunged to all time lows a couple of days ago losing ten percent of its value due to concerns about the impact of the coronavirus on the economy. Maybe the messaging out of Washington was short of the mark leaving folks wondering where this is all going in both the short and long term. Meanwhile, for some godforsaken reason, people have been lining up at stores nationwide to stock up on toilet paper of all things. I can understand not wanting to run short but this seems like madness.
I was telling Nancy that we ought to want to get the virus so we can get over the anxiety of waiting for it to come along at a perhaps more inopportune moment. Let the damn thing ravage us as it is perhaps want to do and we'll emerge stronger and less fearful. That is to say, if the good Lord is willing and the creek don't rise. We're preparing as best we can knowing what we know and what we hear on the news and we can only hope that that is enough at the end of the day. Do we have enough resources to last a month if that is what is required of us?
I can only think of a handful of things I might like to add to our existing supplies and I may well go to Walmart this morning to make my selections. We had a chat with Mrs G yesterday and she indicated that Riverwood was limiting visits and declining visitors altogether from the states of New York and Massachusetts. That was yesterday. Today, they announced that no visitors will be allowed into any of their campuses. Come hell or high water, our nation is going to flatten that curve.
Mrs G had hoped to shore up her stocks of wine and a couple of other items but was otherwise not concerned about shortages and such. She mentioned that several of her friends had been approached by their families who wanted to take them from the facility post haste. There were others with similar offers who chose to tough it out in the place they now call home. Their main dining room is now closed and residents will have their meals delivered to a central area for pickup. Mrs G can come and go from the facility but why take the risk.
I think Riverwoods, like every other elder care community across the nation, is concerned about the virus getting into their communities and decimating their ranks in short order. It seems like a reasonable concern given what we know about just how virulent this coronavirus has proven to be in China, South Korea, and more recently, Italy. We've all seen the disturbing pictures on our television screens of hazmat suits, mass graves, near empty town squares, and panicked shoppers waiting in long lines with baskets teeming with everything under the sun.
President Trump stepped up to the podium in the Rose Garden at the White House yesterday surrounded by health care professionals and professionals from various organizations in a public display of public-private partnerships put together to fight this pandemic. By all accounts, it was the most impressive showing to date by anyone in Washington. At the end of the day you want to know that your government is doing everything possible to make a bad situation less bad.
If you watched President Trump's press conference on television you also saw the stock market ticker gain almost ten percent in value from the time the President stated to talk to the end of the press conference. As a point of reference, the market was down 28% from the peak before the 10% push during Trump's speech. Each of the attendees stepped up to the podium when called by the President and promised the American people that they were there to join the fight with all the resources at their disposal.
It is an "all hands on deck" approach and the American people are joining the fight. Our job as American citizens is to stay home as much as possible, stay out of public places as much as possible, practice social distancing, wash our hands at every turn, and follow the rules and regulations if and when the day comes when we think we've been infected with the virus. Most of us will survive this pandemic. If you have underling issues due to age, infirmity, or other you may want to get your affairs in order.
I walked into our local shopping market last evening after what must have been a very long day for the employees and management dealing with people trying to prepare for end times by buying everything in sight. Store shelves were surprisingly well stocked and for all intents and purposes it could have passed for an opening look rather than a closing look. Maybe it was me but despite appearances of being in a well oiled business model the joint felt and smelled like a poorly ventilated cauldron of stale body odor, nasty germs, and deadly viruses.
My imagination was working overtime. There probably wasn't an item within arms reach on shelves in any of the aisles that hadn't been touched, jostled, moved, and then maybe returned to the shelf for whatever reason. I'm no different from the next guy when it comes to picking the right apples, grapefruits, etc when it comes to pushing one or two aside to get just the right piece of fruit that you then place in your basket. How many infected hands touched these things before I moved them about with my gloved hands and just how long exactly does this virus live once marooned by its host? We just don't know and the people who do know aren't saying.
I steered clear of people looking feverish and tired, people coughing or showing other signs of respiratory distress, and I held my basket filled with purchases at arms length between myself and the person waiting behind me as a buffer zone while standing in the checkout line. I was too close to them and they were far too close to me for comfort. It made me wonder if they got the memo on social distancing or maybe they got the memo and just didn't care. Their disregard for such matters wasn't just callous, it was dangerous.
The very act of placing my purchases on the conveyor belt knowing full well that each and every of the thousands of items put there during the course of the day was put there by a potential patient zero gave me considerable pause. I viewed everyone around me as a potential carrier of the deadly virus and that was considerably and perhaps even irrationally disconcerting.
I can't help but feel bad for the parent or two who has to put up with the long lines, the constant exposure to germs far and wide forgetting the virus for a moment, just to put food on the table for their children. Now that schools are closing or holding classes online due to the pandemic in many states, it will only make matters worse for all involved. It means that more parents will be staying or working from home while attending to both their work and their children and the demands on everybody involved will increase exponentially. Expect a harried populace to look even more harried as time goes on.
I can't help but feel bad for the senior citizen who doesn't have the wherewithal physically or mentally or maybe even financially to survive the hustle and bustle that comes with long lines and impatient and panicky customers in these trying times. Who was it that said, "These are the times that try men's souls"? Who was it indeed. Stay safe and don't hug your children or grandchildren. They can kill you.
I was telling Nancy that we ought to want to get the virus so we can get over the anxiety of waiting for it to come along at a perhaps more inopportune moment. Let the damn thing ravage us as it is perhaps want to do and we'll emerge stronger and less fearful. That is to say, if the good Lord is willing and the creek don't rise. We're preparing as best we can knowing what we know and what we hear on the news and we can only hope that that is enough at the end of the day. Do we have enough resources to last a month if that is what is required of us?
I can only think of a handful of things I might like to add to our existing supplies and I may well go to Walmart this morning to make my selections. We had a chat with Mrs G yesterday and she indicated that Riverwood was limiting visits and declining visitors altogether from the states of New York and Massachusetts. That was yesterday. Today, they announced that no visitors will be allowed into any of their campuses. Come hell or high water, our nation is going to flatten that curve.
Mrs G had hoped to shore up her stocks of wine and a couple of other items but was otherwise not concerned about shortages and such. She mentioned that several of her friends had been approached by their families who wanted to take them from the facility post haste. There were others with similar offers who chose to tough it out in the place they now call home. Their main dining room is now closed and residents will have their meals delivered to a central area for pickup. Mrs G can come and go from the facility but why take the risk.
I think Riverwoods, like every other elder care community across the nation, is concerned about the virus getting into their communities and decimating their ranks in short order. It seems like a reasonable concern given what we know about just how virulent this coronavirus has proven to be in China, South Korea, and more recently, Italy. We've all seen the disturbing pictures on our television screens of hazmat suits, mass graves, near empty town squares, and panicked shoppers waiting in long lines with baskets teeming with everything under the sun.
President Trump stepped up to the podium in the Rose Garden at the White House yesterday surrounded by health care professionals and professionals from various organizations in a public display of public-private partnerships put together to fight this pandemic. By all accounts, it was the most impressive showing to date by anyone in Washington. At the end of the day you want to know that your government is doing everything possible to make a bad situation less bad.
If you watched President Trump's press conference on television you also saw the stock market ticker gain almost ten percent in value from the time the President stated to talk to the end of the press conference. As a point of reference, the market was down 28% from the peak before the 10% push during Trump's speech. Each of the attendees stepped up to the podium when called by the President and promised the American people that they were there to join the fight with all the resources at their disposal.
It is an "all hands on deck" approach and the American people are joining the fight. Our job as American citizens is to stay home as much as possible, stay out of public places as much as possible, practice social distancing, wash our hands at every turn, and follow the rules and regulations if and when the day comes when we think we've been infected with the virus. Most of us will survive this pandemic. If you have underling issues due to age, infirmity, or other you may want to get your affairs in order.
I walked into our local shopping market last evening after what must have been a very long day for the employees and management dealing with people trying to prepare for end times by buying everything in sight. Store shelves were surprisingly well stocked and for all intents and purposes it could have passed for an opening look rather than a closing look. Maybe it was me but despite appearances of being in a well oiled business model the joint felt and smelled like a poorly ventilated cauldron of stale body odor, nasty germs, and deadly viruses.
My imagination was working overtime. There probably wasn't an item within arms reach on shelves in any of the aisles that hadn't been touched, jostled, moved, and then maybe returned to the shelf for whatever reason. I'm no different from the next guy when it comes to picking the right apples, grapefruits, etc when it comes to pushing one or two aside to get just the right piece of fruit that you then place in your basket. How many infected hands touched these things before I moved them about with my gloved hands and just how long exactly does this virus live once marooned by its host? We just don't know and the people who do know aren't saying.
I steered clear of people looking feverish and tired, people coughing or showing other signs of respiratory distress, and I held my basket filled with purchases at arms length between myself and the person waiting behind me as a buffer zone while standing in the checkout line. I was too close to them and they were far too close to me for comfort. It made me wonder if they got the memo on social distancing or maybe they got the memo and just didn't care. Their disregard for such matters wasn't just callous, it was dangerous.
The very act of placing my purchases on the conveyor belt knowing full well that each and every of the thousands of items put there during the course of the day was put there by a potential patient zero gave me considerable pause. I viewed everyone around me as a potential carrier of the deadly virus and that was considerably and perhaps even irrationally disconcerting.
I can't help but feel bad for the parent or two who has to put up with the long lines, the constant exposure to germs far and wide forgetting the virus for a moment, just to put food on the table for their children. Now that schools are closing or holding classes online due to the pandemic in many states, it will only make matters worse for all involved. It means that more parents will be staying or working from home while attending to both their work and their children and the demands on everybody involved will increase exponentially. Expect a harried populace to look even more harried as time goes on.
I can't help but feel bad for the senior citizen who doesn't have the wherewithal physically or mentally or maybe even financially to survive the hustle and bustle that comes with long lines and impatient and panicky customers in these trying times. Who was it that said, "These are the times that try men's souls"? Who was it indeed. Stay safe and don't hug your children or grandchildren. They can kill you.