Disasters in Slow Motion (pt. 1) - February 29, 2020

 So, a single hospital in California has 124 healthcare workers in quarantine, Washington state has had its first death already, and the Coronavirus/COVID-19 is spreading. Enough is happening that everyone should have at least sat up and taken notice by now.

Jen reminded me today why this is hitting our mindset the way it is. As Floridians, we are used to watching disasters unfold in slow motion - every single hurricane season. We see it coming, we have time to stock up on things, put up our shutters, and brace for impact. This is no different.

 

I'll admit, this one has me worried (and not just because it hits men in their 50s and older the hardest). But it isn't that I think that we are looking at something like the Spanish Flu, and I'm not fearing I'll end up as a servant of Randall Flagg, but the potential for real economic upheaval exists for the majority of Americans if things continue to spread and quarantines begin to increase.

 

I think that, more than the virus itself, I'm worried about how most Americans are going to survive things like not being able to go to work for a month or how small businesses will survive more people ordering online so as to avoid possible infection while standing in line at a big box store.

 

So, while I don't think the sky is falling, I believe that folks should take sensible precautions. I don't think hundreds of millions of people are going to die, but if things continue to grow more serious, millions in the US could face evictions and foreclosures as years of businesses paying bare sustenance level wages comes home to roost. Certainly, take precautions against getting sick, but be mindful of what might happen if your office closes, or if your store needs to cut back on hours because sales nosedive.

 

Those economic concerns increase the chances that sick people ARE going to go to work and spread things...because it is that or not eat or pay rent for far too many Americans. So that means, if you are sick? Suck it up and STAY HOME. Don't go to work, don't go to conventions, don't go to parks, playgrounds, airports, etc. The lives you may save may be those of your neighbors, friends, and family.

I've already seen people saying that they don't care if they get sick, they booked and paid for a vacation and so they are going on the trip. Don't be that person, we remember the name of "Typhoid Mary" for a reason, and it isn't a happy one.

 

Which reminds me, kidding aside? I've seen plenty of people joking about how if they were infected they'd go to the primaries of this or that political party. Yeah...while there is a cheap giggle to be had with such statements (and I may have joked something similar 5 minutes before typing this)...it really isn't funny. Maybe now is not the time to make jokes about becoming bio-terrorists. Maybe now is the time to remember that, no matter how much you dislike this or that person, or how much that person might dislike you, those people come into contact with a wide swath of people that you don't know.

Maybe that Republican is a school teacher. Maybe that Democrat is a stewardess. 

 

The scary thing about the jokes of that sort isn't the tastelessness of the humor, it is the likelihood that someone in America will actually act on the idea...and we are long past the point where I believe that it would never happen.

 

Be safe, each and every one of you. But also be mindful of others. We are supposed to be in this together.