POST #61

Some thoughts on this Chinese Covid-19 Virus...

Yeah yeah, I know its considered racist to call it a Chinese virus..but hey---did it not come from China?

We all have seen the disruption in our lives due to this...but we feel there is a lot of fear caused by the sensationalist press and media outlets.  We are thinking the virus started spreading in the USA a lot earlier than was first reported.

In fact we are quite sure we both were afflicted by this virus.  We both became uncomfortably ill.  We have never has a cold or flu that felt like it.  

Consider the following timeline: 

Dec. 31, 2019: China informs the World Health Organization of a pneumonia-like disease in Wuhan, China.

Jan. 11: China reports the first coronavirus death.

Jan. 20: The first U.S. case involving a 35-year-old man who had traveled to Wuhan, China, before returning to Washington State.

Jan. 30: The World Health Organization proclaims the coronavirus outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

Jan. 31: “a public health emergency in the United States” is declared.

Jan.31: Trump bans the entry of foreigners who were in China. Trump is called racist and xenophobic for doing it.  He is later criticized for not doing it sooner.

Feb. 7: Barbi starts Azithromycin and Inhalers.  

Feb. 10: Mikey gets sick…no medications other than NyQuil.  All of the next week we both spend most of the time in bed, too weak and tired to do much else.

Feb. 16:  We are mostly up and around, but still weak and tired with a dry cough…the dry cough holds on for another 10 days…feels like something is stuck in the throat….the raspy sounds in our throat hang on another week or 10 days. 

   

Feb. 22-24: The CDC discourages travel to and from Iran, Italy, Japan and South Korea.

March 11: Trump restricts arrivals from Europe, which reels beneath this disease.

March 13: Trump declares a national emergency.

You all know how it goes from there...

There was plenty of time for hundred or thousands of travelers from China to directly or indirectly come to the USA (or other countries) before the travel from China was restricted.  We were in the Phoenix area all through that time between the virus was running rampant in China and when travel from there was cut off.  Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix has direct flights from China.  The virus could easily have come to Arizona during that time, and spread through the population.  It has been said the many folks are contagious and never show symptoms.  Or they may have just thought it was a regular cold or flu.  We both had the high power multi-strain flu vaccine in October so would think we would avoid the regular flu.  Maricopa County (Phoenix) was one of the first states to have confirmed cases.

We think we picked it up somewhere..we were in very crowded restaurants and pubs, museums, stores etc in many parts of the valley during the month of January or early February, between the time it was announced and the closing of travel from China..

Of course we can't say with certainty that what we had was the Covid-19 virus, but considering the timeline and other circumstances it is very likely we did.

The stores have had panic shopping here, just as in Billings.  There's no toilet paper, paper towels, hand sanitizer, wipes, rubbing alcohol when we have been at multiple stores. (We made our own hand sanitizer)

Theres very little soup or canned goods...

Cereal is picked over...

Canned anything is picked over...

We just returned from a Walmart...there's not much of anything in meat products, frozen dinners....really pretty much everything was gone...These are photos of the Billings West Walmart....looks pretty much the same here.  We were there in late afternoon....maybe its better early...

If folks would just relax and quit hoarding the supply chain could catch up and the shelves will be full again.  We have 3 weeks of food with us and wells for water so we will be fine.

Anyway...hang in there...this too shall pass and eventually life will return to normal.  Promising treatments are out there and sheltering in place will eventually starve the virus of new hosts.  The numbers in the US are going up fast recently, but a lot of that can be attributed to a lot more tests being done...

Hang in there!!  Don't panic!!

Until next time!