Thursday, March 12, 2020

Covid Supermarket Sweep

So yesterday was Panic Day, where everyone all seemed to get worried about Covid-19/coronavirus all at the same time. Well that was super fun for us because we had a trip to Kenya planned to depart in two days. So not only did we have to worry about how to navigate life in St. Louis we had to make a decision pretty quickly about what to do about our trip. We had initially had a trip to Mongolia planned but that got nixed because the flights connected in China.


Flights to the US from Europe were being banned and we had connections both ways to Europe. However we were in a tough spot because our trip was booked on Air Canada and our first leg went to Vancouver. As far as I understood we were still able to go to and from Europe in this roundabout fashion using Canada as a mediator. Which for pandemic prevention purposes... you wouldn't think would be very effective. Furthermore since flights from US to Canada weren't banned, and flights from Canada to Europe weren't banned, as far as Air Canada was concerned it was "game on" and they were not going to let us cancel our flight.




It was interesting to see the dueling measures that St. Louis and St. Louis County were taking as virus response.


One of my favorite activities is going to see free sneak peek showings of movies. I had tickets to A Quiet Place: Part II but it was canceled. As I write this the movie release date is now listed as April 23, 2021.




There have been a lot of references to the 1918 Spanish flu recently, which killed 675,000 Americans. I remember thinking that coronavirus was serious but that surely the US would fare better this time. Surely 100 years of health technology advances would help us avoid that sort of death toll. As of October 25, 2020 the US has had 225,000 covid deaths.


At work we had pizza party thing. I think maybe coworkers from a different office were visiting.


The Family Video across the street from our office closed but don't worry. An equally classy outfit is moving in to the space: Dollar General.




My acquaintances on social media who work in the service industry started to realize that they were about to be royally screwed if everyone stopped eating out or going to bars.




A covid related sign on the front door of the Central Library downtown.


We'd heard about shortages at supermarkets from people stocking up for doomsday. This is where they used to sell toilet paper at the downtown Fields Foods.


I figured we should stock up on bottled water as well. In case we got bored during the apocalypse and wanted to do papier-mache with the toilet paper.


Some of the other local residents were apparently also concerned about where their next drink of water may come from.


I put all my little bottles away when I noticed that the giant jugs of water for water coolers had been unnoticed by the mob. I bought three of these things. We got to the point where we were talking about how we could collect rainwater on the roof with tarps if the plague got so bad that the water system broke down. It was hard to tell what sort of measures one should take in times like these. There were a few other shoppers witnessing us push our cart around full of toilet paper and water. They were definitely watching us but they were not laughing.

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