I made a trip to the grocery store this afternoon, probably poor timing. It was very busy, especially the pharmacy where the line was about 12 people long. That’s with 2 registers.
I had been there on Monday and all the shelves were fully stocked, some were down about half today, except for the toilet paper/paper towel aisle which was completely empty. It had been completely full on Monday.
Still plenty of everything else.
I spent about $200 and put a bunch of stuff in the freezer. I was planning on not having to go out for at least the next 2 weeks or more, but we don’t even have any Covid-19 cases here in Montana yet. Yes, I know the US map shows that we do, but the one “Montana” case is a Montana woman who has been staying in Maryland and caught it, was diagnosed, and is still there.
So, I don’t know how risky it is to go out here yet.
Well, I spoke too soon, we now have 4 cases in Montana. All 4 in different counties. One in Gallatin county (Bozeman) due to international travel, one in Billings, one in Butte, one in Helena (state capital). All are in the larger towns of Montana. So here we are…
Our old town just posted a “Flush Only Toilet Paper” notice. With people buying up all of the TP, evidently baby wipes and paper towels are being flushed instead.
Maybe, but think about it… If you test positive you:
Go to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $20.
Owe up to $6900 if you have a (non-stupid) health insurance policy and if you don’t you owe a whole lot more.
Don’t get paid. (Promises, promises.)
So, while our newly visible VP says that everyone will, at some indeterminate time in the future, be able to get a COVID-19 test “for free” who in their right mind would actually volunteer to take one?
It’s all moot of course until tests are available.
Participants sign an agreement to quarantine themselves at home and not venture out for 14 days, which is the incubation period for the coronavirus.
Which begs the question for T1Ds (indeed, probably everyone), if you can’t leave the premises for 14 days, what do you do for food? Forget the TP. This probably merits a separate thread, since it is going to happen to some T1D in the US soon.
I would bet the farm there are already a number of T1s in the USA with it who may not even know it. The concern is when they are assigned to mandatory quarantine…
Ultimately I think the situation will go like this—- as more testing capabilities come to bear we’ll see that it’s exponentially more widespread than we ever even feared… then we’ll look around and realize that people who weren’t going to die from the next affliction they had weren’t dropping like flies after all… then slowly over time sanity will regain traction
I think that will happen in the rest of the world, but I have to question our own sanity. Anyway, it does no harm to be prepared and, despite its merits, humor is not preparedness.
I braved Costco today. It wasn’t bad at all. Not too crowded and stocked full of everything I went to get. Of course, I wasn’t shopping for toilet paper or paper towels, so that section may have been empty, but I did see some Kleenex. As usual, I ended up getting more than I intended when I walked in.
