COVID - what?

The world has learned a new word.... COVID-19. It's the ONLY thing people are talking about these days and it has the world, country, state, city, neighborhoods on edge.

COVID19 is a flu virus. A deadly, horrible flu virus. It started in China and found it's way to the US and the world now. Thousands have died and Seattle appears to be the epicenter of it in the US. We have a rehabilitation center for the elderly that has been hit the hardest and then it just exploded.

That was 2 weeks ago. Two weeks when the company told all of us to go home and WFH until the end of April. EIGHT WEEKS of WFH. Oh Lord...I am just not sure I can do that. I miss my work peeps.

The answer to stopping this flu is also a new term "social-distancing". The way to stop the spread is to not interact with people. Stay at home. Less likely to pass this along. Makes sense! Yet people are not getting it. So many people are out and about NOT practicing social-distancing.

The other weird thing that has been happening is hoarding of toilet paper. Why? No one is sure. It's not like this is a stomach flu and - well - you may need the TP. It's insane the amount of hoarding of TP and hand sanitizer has been going on.

For me, when this first started I didn't take it as serious as I am now. It felt like it was something that the media got all hyped up about and it moved on. Turns out, that's not been the case. Instead, it's getting worse before it gets better. I'm literally forcing myself to not be fearful, but be safe instead. It's easy to get anxious about this type of thing...the unknown. We do know that COVID19 is a bad flu - respiratory bad. Mostly elderly and folks with compromised immune systems are the most likely to get it and have the worse of it. The rest of us, if treated and paid attention to correctly, will survive it. 80% survive.

This will impact my trip in May too. 100% sure that Janet and I won't be traveling to Europe in May. In fact, we've talked about post poning until Sept / Oct - hoping this will be over by then.

Th economic impact of this is also significant. Restaurants are closed for dine-in. Many are still doing take out, many have closed all together. This will be a huge impact on several employees income. It makes me sad for small businesses and people who run them. And this economic impact will last for a year or more easily. The stock market is low, and crashing all the time. This feels like a HUGE recession on our way again. Oh goody.

So...the world has learned some new terms and are slowly learning a new way of life during these social-distancing days. I'm not a fan. But I'm also not a fan of being sick, or passing on any germs so I'm being diligent at keeping myself at home.