Journal of a Plague Year, Sunday, March 15

Panic buying has an amplifying effect. When one hears that something one uses is suddenly scarce, one wants to buy some so one doesn’t run short. After standing in that line on Friday, I spent the weekend thinking about ways to avoid doing that again. That meant taking inventory and buying enough of everything, so I could eat for a month.

It wasn’t as difficult to do as it could have been. Years ago, I realized stores could not be depended up to have something I needed when I needed it.

When I was a child in Michigan, my parents drove twenty miles to the next city to buy groceries every Saturday. Supermarkets didn’t yet exist, and they preferred visiting the place they grew up to navigating the local markets.

Once supermarkets were open in my hometown, my parents would shop day-to-day. My father would call in the afternoon, and they would discuss what to have for dinner. If my mother had the car, and this was an era when people only had one car, she would spend time putting on makeup to go shopping.

I continued their patterns when I lived in cities. There was always someplace that was open.

This changed when I returned to Michigan in the late 1970s. MBAs were talking about maximizing profits and market efficiencies. They discussed queueing theory. That was research on how long people would stand in line before they get fed up and leave.

I lived in a newly opened suburban area and there were no grocery stores. Either chains hadn’t yet seen a market, or were waiting for it to to get larger before acting or thought, as long as there was no competition, they didn’t need to act; their other stores would suffice.

When it became a burden to drive an hour to buy groceries, I began purchasing enough to last a long time. The habits stood me in good stead here after Furrs closed and I had to go to Santa Fé to shop.

It soon became obvious that stores there were often out of the things I wanted. But, then along came Amazon. I ordered in bulk from them to save the price of postage.

One thing I had bought from them was procedure masks. Insulation leaches out of my attic, especially when the furnace is running at night. Since I suspect it isn’t good for my lungs, I wear a mask when I’m sleeping. I also wear them when I’m handling chemicals in the yard, or working around shrubs with dust that makes me cough.

I reuse the masks I use in the house, so a box lasts a while, but not as long as it might take for the national stockpile to be replenished.

In late February, when Coronavirus was still just in Seattle, I went to Amazon, using the brand name I always used. There were a couple boxes available, but at three times the usual price. One vendor just tripled the price. Another kept the original price, but charged $40 for shipping. I wondered if that was to cover the costs of shipping to overseas customers.

I knew I was being exploited, but I also feared the consequences of not having them. I paid the price.

Jack Shafer recently said, this wasn’t price gouging, but the workings of supply and demand in a free market. Actually, it was both, plus another example of the ways wealth defines who can purchase necessities.

Sources: Jack Shafer. "Stop Hating on the Hoarders." Politico website. 26 March 2020.

Journal of a Plague Year, Friday, March 13

I live in what might be called Española’s exurbia, the surrounding area that’s essentially rural residential strip development. Because I live on a curve, my mail box was periodically destroyed, and I got a PO box years ago. Now, I generally go into town twice a week to get my mail and run errands.

My next contact with Coronavirus was Friday the thirteenth. New Mexico had reported its first cases on Wednesday. By Thursday, five people were known to be sick: three from Albuquerque and two from Santa Fé. My knowledge was abstract.

I went to the post office, and stopped at a dollar store to buy some crackers. I wasn’t particularly surprised when it didn’t have any. It’s happened before.

I drove to a local grocery store to get them there. I didn’t think anything when no basket carts were available. It happens everywhere when someone doesn’t do his or her job of corraling carts in the parking lot.

The absence of a cart meant I didn’t buy anything more than the last boxes of crackers. The brand I prefer seems to be the only one that sells out.

It was only when I went to get in line that I realized something unusual was happening. Every checkout lane was in use, and every one had long lines.

I asked the person next to me if this 'dwas normal for a Friday.

It was then I was made aware that people were reacting to the fact our governor had announced on March 11 that the public schools would be closing on Monday.

The man said he worked at the hot springs in Ojo Caliente. They were still open, and people were still coming.

I'd heard the virus was airborne. I reasoned, if it is transmitted by sneezing, it must be living in moisture. However, a virus isn’t a bacteria. It’s not a plant or animal, but some more amorphous, more minute life form.

Everything I read said it wasn’t transmitted through public water supplies, which, of course, routinely are treated with a number of chemicals. A more scientific paper believed it lived longer in cooler, drier environments.

He said the spa had instituted a more intense cleaning regimen, but he still was worried about losing his job.

I must have stood in that line for half an hour - someone had some problem that stopped the flow for a while. I was thinking it was ironic that we were standing close together for an extended period of time to get groceries, when those were the very conditions that spread the virus.

The fourteen day incubation period for March 13 ended Friday, March 27. So far, so good.

However, the spa closed March 14. I hope the young man has been able to file for unemployment benefits under the new rules.

Sources: There’s now, Monday March 30, a Wikipedia entry for "2020 Coronavirus Pandemic in New Mexico."

Journal of a Plague Year, Wednesday, March 11

I planned to go to a meeting in the Portland, Oregon, area in April. When I first made the plans in mid-January, the Coronavirus epidemic hadn’t yet spread in China. The first death in Wohan was reported January 11.

I began to wonder about the wisdom of attending the meeting, as the disease spread to Seattle. I thought it would hit hardest in the west coast ports that did so much trade with Asia.

The meeting agenda was confirmed on February 23. That was the day Italy began reporting serious problems.

I made my reservations using an on-line website, but made sure I could cancel if necessary. I had to pay an extra $10 for the hotel room. Since, airlines don’t make refunds, I bought one of those cancellation insurance policies. I normally considered them to be a scam, but now there was some chance I would need it.

On March 8, the governor of Oregon declared a state of emergency. I got an email from the meeting organizers on March 9 providing information on alternatives being considered for on-line participation. Two days latter they sent me an email cancelling the meeting.

I immediately went online, and cancelled my airline, hotel, and car rental reservations. The website had a notice it was experiencing unusually high volumes of activity. The credit card statement I received a few days ago showed I got refunds for the hotels and car.

The same day I filed a claim for the airline fare. I haven’t heard anything yet. I’ve since read all these insurance companies have hidden clauses that relieve them of paying claims in times of an epidemic. Of course, they don’t mention that when they advertise their policies. Like I thought, such policies really are a scam. If all I lose from this crises is $41, I will have been lucky.

Please feel free to share your experiences in these perilous times.

Journal of a Plague Year, Monday, March 9

Rio Arriba County reported its third case of Coronavirus yesterday. If it takes two weeks to gestate and four days to test, then the person contacted it on March 9.

This was the first day I came into contact with people who were reacting to televised stories about what was then a problem in Seattle, Washington. The World Health Organization didn’t declare it a pandemic until March 11.

I was in a drug store buying paper towels - not because I was hoarding, but because I was using my last roll and needed some.

Another woman in the aisle was buying cans of Lysol for every members of here family, including her father who didn’t go out much.

What was unusual wasn’t what she was buying, but that she was willing to talk. People in Española are reticent. They talk with friends when they meet in stores, but never with strangers. Anxiety was breaking down a barrier, at least temporarily.

I think she was acting on the concerns of a daughter who called to tell her the shelves were empty at the big box: no paper towels, no toilet paper, no hand cleaners.

She said people had also bought up the isopropyl alcohol. Apparently, Fox had broadcast a segment on how to make your own sanitizer with alcohol, aloe oil, and paper towels. She did let me know witch hazel would work as well.

While we were talking another woman stopped to listen. When the first left, the second began talking. She had allergies, and didn’t use chemicals.

One does wonder a bit about why one needs all the disinfectants at home. It’s public places that need to be washed down every fifteen minutes. But, if someone in your house has the virus, all the disinfectants aren’t going to help.

This woman was going to stick with her homeopathic remedies. The one she mentioned was rubbing the area around her eyes with a piece of aloe vera every night.

At the time I wondered, should I have talked to those women? Was I putting myself at risk? Again, such questions were still just vague apprehensions, not the serious concerns they would become.

Journal of a Plague Year was a novel written by Daniel Defoe in 1722 about the London plague of 1665. I also could have borrowed a title from a novel by Gabriel García Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera. Currently the García Marquez book ranks 736 on Amazon, while the Defoe ranks 1,323.