Upsurge
My desire to document is at war with my desire to try to remain calm and logical. My heart hurts. This is going to get more painful to watch by the day. I can only imagine what families are going through. Losing their loved ones and not being able to be there to say goodbye or hug them, or even potentially know if they have died. That is brutal.
So I was going to do a timeline as I posted every day. But clearly that hasn't happened. So I will start now.
For context: I live in Colorado. My boyfriend lives in Nebraska, along with many friends and relatives, including my Dad. My brother lives in Seattle, Washington. The rest of the people i care about are scattered across the country in almost every state. I don't have a lot of friends in other countries right now. A couple in Scotland, but that's about it currently.
I got back to Colorado on March 8, 2020. At that point I was coming from Scottsbluff/Gering, NE. Previously in Lincoln, NE. The first confirmed case was in Omaha a couple days before I got back to Colorado, but after I had left Lincoln. I had been wavering between things are going to be completely fuct and I am over reacting. So, I got some groceries in Scottsbluff. Some canned food, ramen, toilet paper, and sanitizing wipes. (thank god I did cuz it was all out here when I got back).
Things had barely started happening, but I felt it was going to ramp up quick.
Today is March 31, 2020. Here are the stats: (technically from earlier today so I'm sure they have gone up. 777,286 confirmed worldwide. (confirmed because there is almost no testing done in the US to date).
164,446 recovered worldwide. 37,140 deaths worldwide.
United States:
160,881 confirmed 5,604 recovered 2,975 deaths.
We are still in the ramping up stage. Not the peak. And every state is on a slightly different trajectory. So it will happen continuously for awhile.
For some perspective:
Gas prices at a record low (between $0.50 -$0.98/litre).
Self-distancing measures on a rise.
Tape on the floors at grocery stores and others to help distance shoppers 2m (6ft) from each other.
Limited number of people inside stores, therefore lineups outside the store doors.
Non-essential stores and businesses mandated closed.
Parks, trails, entire cities locked up.
Entire sports seasons cancelled.
Concerts, tours, festivals, entertainment events - cancelled.
Weddings, family celebrations, holiday gatherings - cancelled.
No masses, churches are closed.
Schools are all closed.
No gatherings of 50 or more, then 20 or more, now 5 or more.
Don't socialize with anyone outside of your home.
We are to distance from each other.
Shortage of masks, gowns, gloves for our front-line workers.
Shortage of respirators for the critically ill.
Panic buying sets in and we have no toilet paper, no disinfecting supplies, no paper towel no laundry soap, no hand sanitizer.
Shelves are bare.
Manufacturers, distilleries and other businesses switch their lines to help make visors, masks, hand sanitizer and PPE.
Government closes the border to all non essential travel, calls Canadians home and makes it mandatory to self isolate for 14 days.
Fines are established for breaking the rules.
Ford sets fines for those price-gauging others.
Stadiums and recreation facilities open up for the overflow of Covid-19 patients.
Press conferences daily from both Prime Minister Trudeau and Premier Ford.
Government incentives to stay home.
Barely anyone in the street or on the roads.
People wearing masks and gloves outside.
Essential service workers are terrified to go to work.
Medical field workers are afraid to go home to their families.
1,000,000 applications for Employment Insurance as people go without work.
They say it started in Wuhan, China at a seafood market. Hundreds of thousands affected, dead, dying, critically ill.
Many recovered.
This is the Novel Coronavirus (Covid-19) Pandemic, declared March 11th, 2020.
This last post was from a friend in Canada. The U.S. is mostly the same. Only with an incompetant twatwaffle for president. In Colorado, as in several other states we are in a stay at home order. You can go out to the pharmacy, the grocery store, and other essentials. You can hike, bike, walk. But alone not in groups. Only essential businesses are open now, everything else is closed. Millions of people are laid off. My brother lost all his jobs in one week. People are in quarantine. It's crazy to live through. It is the smartest thing to do, but should have been done 6 weeks earlier. But in San Francisco and Oregon it seems to be working to flatten the curve and not overwhelm the hospitals. So hopefully we can prevail. My grandpa died a few days ago of covid. That is all for today.