You guys ready for the coronavirus?
Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2020 6:36 pm
I'm going to steer clear of politics and just talk about life for a bit.
So Governor Sununu and President Trump have both declared states of emergency, and everything seems to be in the process of shutting down. My kids are the ones with the most stuff scheduled, and it's all cancelled - no gymnastics (practice or meets), no swimming lessons, no birthday parties, no soccer, the library is closed until further notice, and schools are closed statewide until April 6th.
I tried to get some toilet paper on Thursday and discovered that hoarders had bought up every [love] roll in New England, along with all the hand sanitizer, most of the hand soap, and for reasons that elude me, all the bottled water. Since my rational decision not to panic-buy toilet paper bit me in the ass I decided that I'd best join the herd and get to stocking up on essentials. My youngest and I shopped hard on Friday, which is good because on Saturday the pickings were slim and today the shelves are bare. I can't decide if we need that much food or not, but it's mostly frozen or shelf stable. People panic-bought all the canned soup and Spaghettios and so forth, but there was plenty of butter, flour, eggs, sugar, and the like. In other words you're all set if you can cook, which I can.
I found it odd that people went all in on canned junk but then my wife made the point that, as New Englanders, we really only know how to prep for blizzards. Blizzards mean no power, so you're sitting in the candlelight eating canned food you warmed up with your camp stove. Nobody bakes cookies or makes spaghetti and meatballs in a blizzard unless they have a generator or they're on the same grid as a hospital or something. I think that's why all the trash food is gone but the good stuff remains. Or maybe it's just that nobody cooks anymore. Anyway, I think we're more than set for food. It might even be overkill, but I'm not entirely confident that supply chains are going to hold up over the next few weeks, and it's better to be safe than sorry.
My wife is a school principal, so she's been on the computer 'till midnight every night for the last week trying to plan for the possibility of 3+ weeks of remote learning and fielding literally hundreds of emails from panicked parents and teachers. We're also working on a daily schedule for our family, so I can basically teach preschool/kindergarten until at least the first week of April. I'm not worried about it - I know my shapes, colors, sight words, and math facts - but this whole thing is completely surreal.
And I guess that brings us to the scary part. My immediate family is fine. There's a pretty good chance that we've all been exposed to the coronavirus, but we're fit and healthy so it's not that big a deal. But I also have 3 sisters-in-law with weakened immune systems (one from CP, one from celiac, and one because she just had a double mastectomy), my father-in-law has emphysema, my mom is recovering from pneumonia, my dad's been smoking a pack a day for 60 years, and I have a ton of aunts and uncles in their 70s and 80s. My nuclear family is just fine, but we're likely to lose a loved one before this is over.
And then there's the other scary part - the Dow has dropped about 6,500 points since mid February. It rebounded in a big way on Friday, but only to recover from a massive loss on Thursday. The Fed dropped interest rates to 0 and pumped another $700 billion into the economy (for a one week total of $2.2 trillion, if I remember right), but as we speak the futures market is down 5%. That means that tomorrow trading will open with a 1,041 point drop. That's very bad news. The Fed is about out of options for stabilizing the economy. They've dropped interest rates and bought Treasury bonds twice in the last week, and each time the market has taken it as a sign that everything is going straight to hell and they should panic. And that's just the Dow. My wife was talking to an airline pilot a couple of days ago. He said that the airlines don't have a lot of cash in reserve, and if they shut down for several weeks or more a lot of them are going to go bankrupt. Several cruise lines might well go down as well. Then there's the disruption to the economy from so many people being forced out of school and work weeks. People in the service industry and retail are going to have a hell of a time making rent, and who knows if supply chains will be maintained. I think we're looking at a major financial catastrophe. And that's not even counting the impact if tens of millions of people get infected and overwhelm the hospitals. Which could happen. We've barely begun testing, and we have literally no idea how many people are currently infected.
This could get really, really ugly.
Get small, my frenemies, and stay safe.
So Governor Sununu and President Trump have both declared states of emergency, and everything seems to be in the process of shutting down. My kids are the ones with the most stuff scheduled, and it's all cancelled - no gymnastics (practice or meets), no swimming lessons, no birthday parties, no soccer, the library is closed until further notice, and schools are closed statewide until April 6th.
I tried to get some toilet paper on Thursday and discovered that hoarders had bought up every [love] roll in New England, along with all the hand sanitizer, most of the hand soap, and for reasons that elude me, all the bottled water. Since my rational decision not to panic-buy toilet paper bit me in the ass I decided that I'd best join the herd and get to stocking up on essentials. My youngest and I shopped hard on Friday, which is good because on Saturday the pickings were slim and today the shelves are bare. I can't decide if we need that much food or not, but it's mostly frozen or shelf stable. People panic-bought all the canned soup and Spaghettios and so forth, but there was plenty of butter, flour, eggs, sugar, and the like. In other words you're all set if you can cook, which I can.
I found it odd that people went all in on canned junk but then my wife made the point that, as New Englanders, we really only know how to prep for blizzards. Blizzards mean no power, so you're sitting in the candlelight eating canned food you warmed up with your camp stove. Nobody bakes cookies or makes spaghetti and meatballs in a blizzard unless they have a generator or they're on the same grid as a hospital or something. I think that's why all the trash food is gone but the good stuff remains. Or maybe it's just that nobody cooks anymore. Anyway, I think we're more than set for food. It might even be overkill, but I'm not entirely confident that supply chains are going to hold up over the next few weeks, and it's better to be safe than sorry.
My wife is a school principal, so she's been on the computer 'till midnight every night for the last week trying to plan for the possibility of 3+ weeks of remote learning and fielding literally hundreds of emails from panicked parents and teachers. We're also working on a daily schedule for our family, so I can basically teach preschool/kindergarten until at least the first week of April. I'm not worried about it - I know my shapes, colors, sight words, and math facts - but this whole thing is completely surreal.
And I guess that brings us to the scary part. My immediate family is fine. There's a pretty good chance that we've all been exposed to the coronavirus, but we're fit and healthy so it's not that big a deal. But I also have 3 sisters-in-law with weakened immune systems (one from CP, one from celiac, and one because she just had a double mastectomy), my father-in-law has emphysema, my mom is recovering from pneumonia, my dad's been smoking a pack a day for 60 years, and I have a ton of aunts and uncles in their 70s and 80s. My nuclear family is just fine, but we're likely to lose a loved one before this is over.
And then there's the other scary part - the Dow has dropped about 6,500 points since mid February. It rebounded in a big way on Friday, but only to recover from a massive loss on Thursday. The Fed dropped interest rates to 0 and pumped another $700 billion into the economy (for a one week total of $2.2 trillion, if I remember right), but as we speak the futures market is down 5%. That means that tomorrow trading will open with a 1,041 point drop. That's very bad news. The Fed is about out of options for stabilizing the economy. They've dropped interest rates and bought Treasury bonds twice in the last week, and each time the market has taken it as a sign that everything is going straight to hell and they should panic. And that's just the Dow. My wife was talking to an airline pilot a couple of days ago. He said that the airlines don't have a lot of cash in reserve, and if they shut down for several weeks or more a lot of them are going to go bankrupt. Several cruise lines might well go down as well. Then there's the disruption to the economy from so many people being forced out of school and work weeks. People in the service industry and retail are going to have a hell of a time making rent, and who knows if supply chains will be maintained. I think we're looking at a major financial catastrophe. And that's not even counting the impact if tens of millions of people get infected and overwhelm the hospitals. Which could happen. We've barely begun testing, and we have literally no idea how many people are currently infected.
This could get really, really ugly.
Get small, my frenemies, and stay safe.
