My doctor is worried. He says one confirmed case of Covid-19 means 100's of unconfirmed cases and is frustrated by the lack of tests available. They are saying that if you have a cough or respiratory symptoms you need to triage in the parking lot by calling from your phone. They will send a nurse in proper gear out to assess you.

They prefer you go to the after hours clinic if you suspect it, though, so less people will be put at risk. Blood tests are being done with gloves, face masks, and eye protection in their attached lab for non-Covid-19 work ups. Usually it is done with just gloves. 19 people with a high probability of the disease are waiting on test results in my county, but still only 1 confirmed case in my county. 4 more died in King County.

My county is still not closing the schools even though the colleges have shut down to online classes only. They have closed all of the senior centers, though. I really just don't think people understand at the public school level how bad this is likely about to get. They have not taken the time to educate themselves. They always whine think of the children, but right now it is more like think of the inconvenience if everyone loses their babysitters. I mean they are quite literally treating the teachers like that is all they are, babysitters.

We are looking at probably a hard quarantine in some of the counties within a week according to some sources. I am reading a lot of local articles and city, county, and the state website to keep track of everything as well as listening to local radio. TV reporting is full of propaganda and agendas. Flights in and out of Washington and California may be suspended soon.

DH's work is making sure that everyone is set up to work from home, not just the main engineers and designers. They have not gone to that yet, but may have to at any time. And of course if you get sick you need to stay home.

I went to pick up milk, eggs, ice cream, carrots, and green onions today and took a stroll down the paper products aisle. It wasn't as bad as the store I was in last week, but it was pretty bad. Almost all of the name brand stuff was gone and there was a huge dent in the store brand tissues. TP only had about six packages. I then decided to look at everything else.

Eggs and butter were almost gone, except for the organic butter and pasture raised (expensive) eggs, but there was still a bit. Sour cream had a big dent in it. There was milk, but it was about 1/3 what is normally there, and most of that was organic. Still plenty of cheese and yogurt and lots of fruits and vegetables, but the convenience packs (like precut broccoli, snow peas, and cauliflower) were mostly gone. There was a full meat counter and bakery and bread aisle, and most of the frozen stuff was there except there was almost no ice cream. I ended up buying the ingredients to make ice cream instead.

There were no bags of white or brown rice but Minute rice and boxed mixes and bags of lentils were there. There were only 2 bags of mixed beans, no single variety bags of beans, a massive dent in tortillas, but still about half, half the pasta as normal, about half the canned goods as usual with empty spots in the canned beans, canned pasta sauces (though the glass jarred sauces were at about 2/3), and canned tomatoes (except the ones imported from Italy) and corn were either gone or only six or so cans of them on the shelf. There was tomato paste and canned fruit was plentiful. Bottled water was about 1/3 of normal and that was mostly the cheap brands, but it was there. It had limits on how much you could buy, though. The medicines are pretty low but nothing appeared to be out.

I think this is my last visit to a store for about 3 weeks. I got enough milk and eggs to last that and powdered of both if we run out. We are going to hunker down for the most part. DH can work from home if it comes to that.

Nationally, it's in Kansas now. The new James Bond and the live action Mulan movies have postponed their openings. Disneyland and Disney World are being shuttered for 30 days, but will continue to pay their employees. Broadway has been shut down. The NBA is on a 30 day hiatus. Did you read about that stupid basketball player deliberately touching a bunch of microphones and recorders at a press conference because he didn't believe stuff was serious and then touched everyone's lockers and bags in a locker room, coming down with the virus a few days later and infecting one (so far) of his teammates? Idiot. He should be suspended from the league or given a massive fine. He apologized today, but his career is probably in the toilet. Maybe Nike will hire him.

Mountain Rose Herbs sent out an email today. Apparently a lot of people have been ordering extra medicinal herbs. Not only are they being overwhelmed with orders, but their supply chain has been slowed and disrupted so orders will take longer to fill. Glad I got my elderberries weeks ago.

Capitol One sent out an email today urging everyone to use their online and phone options for banking.

People are whining about not allowing flight in and out of the EU, saying it won't help because the disease is already here. Yeah, it's here, but this isn't about keeping it out, it is about slowing it down so it doesn't get worse by spreading it around more and everyone getting sick all at once.

Even Obama is coming out to support the reason why. We need to slow it down enough that it doesn't overtax our medical system to the breaking point like in Italy. Italy is discussing leaving the elderly to die and using their hospital beds for younger people who have more time left to live, because their government healthcare system is overtaxed by the cases they have.

I feel like I am living in the start of a dystopian novel. Well, maybe I'll write one some day and have my feelings recorded here to look back on. It is scary. I am not panicking, but the feeling of unease in my stomach is not going away anymore. It is what it is. All we can do is do our best to protect ourselves and our loves ones, hope for the best, and prepare for the worst. And district ourselves with YouTube and Netflix.

As an aside I have done a book inventory to make sure there is enough reading material in the house (there is) in case we lose the internet. Now I don't think that will happen, but better entertained than bored. We also have quite a few board games and decks of cards, so I think we are good.

Life goes on.