Dominos Falling

13 March 2020

Since writing yesterday a great many things have happened. All kindergarten to grade 12 schools in my state are suspended/closed by our governor’s order until about the second week in April.  The NCAA and all the college conferences that had not already completed their tournaments have cancelled all their basketball for the year.  All major sport’s leagues have either cancelled their seasons, suspended them or delayed them. Travel to and from Europe is basically noneixstant with major airlines suspending routes.  Concert tours have been rescheduled for the fall. The stock market has gyrated wildly.  Colleges are now in a mode for teleconference classes only. And last, but not least, Costco is out of toilet paper.

Online conversations about the situation have turned more nuanced.  The pragmatic issues of the hows and the whys of social distancing are being discussed. On forums like Facebook people seem more focused on what needs to be done, how do we do this appropriately and the like.  The vitriol about how the Democratic Party is overblowing this and the Republican party isn’t taking the pandemic seriously enough has been replaced with the pragmatism. Personally I think this has be born out of the decision by scientific voices to take charge of the national conversation.

In our home one son is conducting his work via a VPN and a fancy new headset.  He is seriously isolating himself in the basement with a fast internet connection and not coming up except for lunch.  The other son has been told his spring break will be extended two days.  He has received notices from his two instructors that those classes will no longer meet in person but will be conducted electronically.  With everyone home the cat is losing it.

My guess is that the world around us is going to be a great deal different for the next two months.  My other guess is that the world around us is going to be very different long after those two months.  

If I were a richer person I would invest heavily in Polycom and Zoom and both manufacturers of HD videoconferencing equipment and software.  I think universities, once the shift has been made to online classes will stick with a great proportion of those classes remaining online going forward.  Face to face meetings and the travel involved will be much less common in business.  I think airline business travel will be down for a long, long time and may never recover completely.  Airlines that go the extra mile to ensure a diminution of the risk of exposure to contagions on their flights will probably prosper. Grocery delivery services guaranteeing that all items handled will have been selected, packed and delivered by persons wearing protective gear will gain a major toehold in local communities. Lower cost at store pick up sites will potentially flourish if the same promises about sanitary handling of products are made.

The above are just my guesses.  I am not a futurist.  But I can tell you with each passing 24 hours life in this world changes and changes again.

Cut The Noise

 12 March 2020

“What you see depends on where you are standing,” was a favorite phrase of one of my friends on the school board through that hellish four years.  In that case we were talking about racism and the perquisites of privilege.  Now, in the age of the coronavirus I am seeing that phrase in a different light.  If you are 60 or over the virus means something completely different to you than if you are 28.  A 5% mortality rate for those in their sixties is far different than one below 1% that people in their twenties are facing.

Both my wife and I fall in that over sixty group, and we each have conditions that increase the lethality of the disease if we are to become infected.  Me, I can check multiple boxes off of the conditions that increase the danger of the disease. Thus, I/we have made decisions to limit our exposure to the world outside.

My decision has been made based on articles I have read and the information on the CDC website.  I read the news each day.  As I do, I see such a wide array of opinions mostly as to what the coronavirus really means.  You have the left using it to call for universal health care, you have the right wing calling it a Democratic Party plot to undermine President Trump.  Almost everyone has an opinion and advice.  But like we used to say back in my drinking days, opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. 

Me, I try and keep up with the local news.  For the most part I don’t watch over the air TV ‘cause I got rid of cable long ago.  Except for the Weather Channel and the CBC, I don’t miss it. However, I do go out and read the stories, and sometimes watch the video clips, found on the two local stations websites. On one of the two today I found this bit of advice.  The piece quoted a local mental health therapist, Dr. Elizabeth Allen. She noted it was easy to become overwhelmed with the amount of information flying around right now concerning the coronavirus.  She urged people to not let this pandemic hurt your mental health. "Really just focus on one or two trusted resources," said Allen.

Makes sense to me.  Maybe we should all take a moment and develop a routine.  Stay away from news sites except for say at the breakfast and dinner hours.  For goodness sake don’t look at the tabloid headlines, especially not before bed. My recommendations are to check on the CDC site every so often to see what the current recommendations. Pick a news outlet that is a more neutral one from the US, I leave it to your discretion on that.  But I would also urge look at what one of the other world news services is saying, like the BBC or the CBC.  Both have solid websites without the coloration of partisan political bias in the US.

If we cut out the noise, we reduce the fear and panic.  We can then with calm reasoning make choices for ourselves and our communities that will help us deal with this very serious problem facing both ourselves and the world.

Grocery Shopping in the Time of the Plague

11 March 2020

  

In that I am retired I can usually shop during the day.  Trips to Costco or Sam’s Club are usually very low-key affairs.  On a normal day you can walk through the aisles and encounter few people.  You are usually looking at well stocked shelves. The coronavirus has rendered these not normal days.

Today was clearly different.  The stuff at the back of Costco, bottled water, toilet paper, paper towels were all in low supply. Signs were affixed to the pallets where this stuff was stacked stating a limit of two each per customer.  There were numerous bare spots on the shelves.  

There were no containers of hand sanitizers or Clorox wipes.  There was no tomato soup for God’s sake.  The aisles were clogged.  Instead of two there were five registers open.  Some people had clearly ignored the limit signs because I saw several of those long low carts stacked high with paper goods.

My wife dropped me off and I set about housework.  She went to Sam’s.  When my wife checked out at Sam’s with an order that contained milk, coffee, half and half along with 8 cans of tomato soup the clerk expressed surprise.  She with a bit of a startled voice said, “A normal grocery cart for once.”

What is coming may not be pretty but I don’t think it is the either variant of the apocalypse envisioned respectively by either Mr. King or Ms. Atwood.  I have a signed copy of Oryx and Crake if you need some pandemic reading. Somewhere, I once had a massive copy of the Stand.

For the life of me I cannot imagine the NCAA March Madness with no spectators.

Good luck to us all.  Wash your hands often.