Beginning of the COVID-19 National Emgergency

On Friday, March 13, 2020 at approximately 3pm ET, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency in the fight against CVODI-19, aka Novel Coronavirus. The last time a national emergency was declared regarding a health concern  in this country was in October 2009 when President Barack Obama was in office for the H1N1 virus, aka swine flu. It lasted a year. I do not recall much pandemonium then, as it was not very deadly and the reaction was nowhere near as harsh as it was today.

The coronavirus, or COVID-19, was first noticed in the Wuhan province of China back in November of 2019. China ended up with over 80,000 cases and about 3,000 people died as result, by the end of February 2020. As the numbers became more clear, it was discovered people over 60 and people with underlying health conditions or impacted immune systems had a greater mortality rate of the virus. That didn't mean anyone under 60 wasn't a casualty, just much less likely.

As the virus spread throughout parts of the world, hitting many first world countries due to the number of foreign travelers and workers in China, some countries became hit hard. Notably, Italy, where it has become the new epicenter of the virus as cases have begun to dwindle in China. One thing to note about Italy is it has an aging population issue. More than 35% of the country is 55 or older (https://www.indexmundi.com/italy/demographics_profile.html). That puts a large section of the population at significant risk. Compare that to the US, where the same age population is at about 28% (https://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/demographics_profile.html).

Back to Friday the 13th, it began as a typical day with people wondering about the COVID-19 response plan of the country. By the afternoon, the US got a taste of what it's like to live in current times with a national emergency announced and a voluntary 14 day quarantine for people. Everyone made an immediate run on grocery stores stock piling food, non-perishables, and paper products. When I went to the grocery store that Friday evening to shop for a few regular items, I was shocked at what I saw.

I saw a completely empty produce department where fruit used to be. I saw empty and bare shelves where pasta, canned goods, bread, paper products, milk, eggs, butter, and even meat used to be. There was no hand sanitizer, no cleaning wipes, paper towels, or TP. It had all sold out. It reminded me of the empty shelves we'd see coming out of the news from Venezuela, and even Russia during the collapse of the Soviet Union. Prior to their collapse, they did not let any cameras show their food store shelves, because they were usually bare anyway.

I had my daughter with me during this shopping trip and I think it scarred her. She was not expecting the shelves to be empty of food. I used this opportunity as a lesson to show what happens to people when they panic and when they don't plan ahead. I told her this is what life is like pretty often in Venzuela right now and how life was like in communist Russia during the later part of the Cold War. I told her of a time when Boris Yeltzen visited a grocery store in Texas back in the 1989 and was shocked at the amount of food on the shelves.  https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When-Boris-Yeltsin-went-grocery-shopping-in-Clear-5759129.php. I also told her this would likely be temporary. It's not like we don't have the services to feed the country, but when people do panic purchases like this, it creates a massive strain on the supply chain and it will take a few weeks to sort out. I also reminded her of the gas shortage we had in Texas back in 2018 when hurricane Harvey hit Houston in 2017 and people panicked about gas. Everyone went and bought more gas than they needed, and it put a strain on the supply chain for a few weeks.

At any rate, we are now on day 4 of the national emergency. Grocery stores are still a little strained for some staple like eggs, paper products, cleaning products, and meats. We are self quarantining as much as possible and only going out when absolutely necessary. I have a daughter with asthma so I try to keep her from going to too many public places. So far we are doing ok and no one is showing any signs.

Our kids go to different school districts. One has had their school close indefinitely. The other is out until at least the end of March. We'll see if that holds. Soon we'll be working on lesson plans for the kids so they have everything they've learned this year leak out of their ears. I work from home, so I'm fortunate in that I don't need to travel to an office somewhere. I know others are not nearly as fortunate, especially hourly workers in the service industry. They will suffer the most on this. I'm hopeful this will go by quickly, and that we will begin to get back to normal life, before our economy is hit too hard.

I'll keep this updated every couple of days. This was a big catch up from the last 4 days as a lot has gone on. Hopefully, we all stay safe here, and you as well. Hopefully we can get through all this quickly and we'll all laugh about it in about 5 years form now. But we will all have certainly learned something about our country, where we stand as a country, and where we stand as human beings to each other. Stay healthy, keep your hands and face clean, and be polite to others. We're all trying to make our way through this. Take it all one day at atime.