Coronavirus patient goes to hospital
The single patient diagnosed with COVID-19 in Quebec has been taken to the quarantine unit at the Jewish General.
CTV reports on hoarding of supplies as fears are stoked about what may be coming.
Patrick Lagacé wrote Tuesday about how he’s not afraid of coronavirus. But are people afraid of the illness, or of its social and economic impact?
So I’ve put a few more supplies up in my freezer and my pantry. If there were some sudden arbitrary shutdown of our lives for two weeks, I’d at least be eating. If the crisis were to last longer than that, the whole thing would be bigger than anything I can prepare for.
Chris 09:54 on 2020-03-04 Permalink
My coworker was at costco last weekend, and said they were sold out of masks, sanitizer, and kleenex.
Blork 10:38 on 2020-03-04 Permalink
I think most people are misunderstanding the talk about stockpiling two weeks worth of food. Nobody in authority is expecting any sort of societal shutdown. The “two week supply” is for things like:
If you or someone you live with gets sick, you’ll be asked to self-quarantine for two weeks.
If you or someone you live with gets exposed to the virus (via a coworker, friend, etc.) you’ll be asked to self-quarantine for two weeks.
If you or someone you live with flies home from a hot zone (currently Iran, for example, but who knows where it will be next), you will be asked to self-quarantine for two weeks.
It’s not about some apocalyptic shutdown of society, although plenty of people seem to think so.
Blork 10:45 on 2020-03-04 Permalink
Related: travel. Just yesterday I heard of two families I know who cancelled their trips due to complications around Covid-19. One trip was to Mexico and the other’s was to California.
But here’s the thing: it’s not because either of those places is boiling over with Covid-19 cases. It’s because all the STUFF around travel is more complicated now, including:
-> The risk that you will fly with someone on board who has Covid-19, which will complicate TF out of your life for a couple of weeks because you might have to self-quarantine WHILE ON VACATION and again when you get back.
-> The risk that your return flight will get delayed or even cancelled if there is an outbreak in the location where you travel to.
-> This is a big one: the increasing chance that you won’t be able to get travel health insurance for your trip, or any other kind of insurance.
So that’s what’s going on. It’s not that the virus itself is causing all this disruption; it’s all the infrastructure that we take for granted that’s getting disrupted because of perceived risks (risk of illness, risk of disruption, risk of financial losses, etc.)
Kate 12:33 on 2020-03-04 Permalink
What you say, Blork. I’ve seen Americans online going on about supplies of water and having no electricity, whereas a two-week “house arrest” scenario is what I’ve been considering. I rarely have more than a week’s worth of food supplies in the house, as I’ve mentioned, so I decided to be a little more providential, just in case.
Chris 12:18 on 2020-03-05 Permalink
And with today’s JIT inventory, it’s doesn’t take too many people stocking just a little more for places like Costco to run out.