The Virus

I went grocery shopping recently. It’s not like the old days, you know, four weeks ago. No, now things are different; the coronavirus has hit our state.

My local grocer opens an hour early for us seniors. Yep, from 6 to 7am only seniors citizens or people with weakened immune systems are allowed in. So I got up at 5:30, not to go to work, but to buy food.

The blue gloves on my hands looked out of place wrapped around the handle of my shopping cart. I’d bought a box of them last summer for painting, and good thing I did. Now it’s hard to find rubber gloves. I may not have actually needed them, but you do what you can in case the new coronavirus is taking rides on shopping carts.

They kept the store stocked as best they could. The shelves appeared to be mostly full, but when I approached them I found gaps of missing product. Still, I found everything I needed, just some off-brands. Most of the white shelled eggs were gone, but there were lots of brown eggs. I imagined how, if my kids were still little, I could have told them the Easter Bunny left special colored eggs for them at the store.

In contrast to the rest of the store, one isle, once full of toilet paper, hand towels, and napkins was nearly empty. It reminded me of old photos I’d seen of stores in the former Soviet Union.

Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, is changing America.

Libraries and schools are all closed. You see only a few people walking in town. Freeways, even in our biggest city Seattle, are somewhat busy, but eerily there are no plugged up rush hours.

This is the new normal. A silent monster was born in China and, in less than two months, has spread its deadly arms around the world.

Washington State, where I live, had the first death of the nation in February. That one death turned into 53 in a week and one week later stood at over 100. Now, just four weeks later, as of April 3, 2020, we have 262 deaths with 6,585 confirmed infections. The country as a whole has 7,381 deaths and 276,392 confirmed infections. An additional 12,268 had the disease but are now recovered.

Those are the numbers as I publish this blog post. There’s a good chance the tolls will climb higher before they get better.

My wife and I are hunkered down at home. Our ages, and health situations, make us particularly vulnerable to the virus so we are taking few chances. We mostly go out for groceries, prescriptions, and mail. I still walk outside for exercise. We live in the country so don’t have any problem staying away from people. The new phrase “social distancing” has become part of everyone’s vocabulary now.

With an unprepared and slow-moving federal government, states have had to take control of the situation. Our governor has issued stay-at-home protocols and hopefully, most people are heeding the orders. Only essential businesses are allowed to stay open.

We’re not overly worried or panicking (not yet, anyway). This will pass.

Still, at the graveyard where we buried my parents, near the back, there is a headstone of a woman who lived through the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. It looks like she lived a normal lifespan, but next to her are the headstones of her five children; all died within months of each other. It’s hard to even imagine the agony of her loss.

Our medical technology is better now than it was in 1918, but still the virus grows. Not everyone in our country is taking it seriously yet, but they will. Hopefully, we can avoid a repeat of 100 years ago.