Life in the time of Wuflu, Part 7 (and a pre-Wuflu bonus)

(This is an extension of a comment on a post at the Raconteur Report.)

There are two confirmed cases of Wuflu in my county. That number hasn’t changed in some days. However, this morning,Son texted me his boss told him that several coworkers had been tested for Wuflu; all negative. No stated reason why they were tested at all. As far as I know, local protocols call for no tests unless you’re showing symptoms. Of course, drive-in testing has started in various locations, and it may simply be easier to test them that deal with irate not-patients.

For some reason, I started getting twitchy last fall, and started quietly laying in what I could. Those of you who have a spouse who isn’t on board with preparedness know what I mean. I have no explanation of why I was twitchy, just I was. Just had a feeling. I started with some first aid supplies and a bit of food. Nothing too obvious.

In mid- to late-January I started buying with the attitude of “I’ll catch hell but I’ll survive”, after a couple of weeks watching the news about Wuflu and figuring that the words and the actions of the Chinese government didn’t jibe. This was masks, veterinary antibiotics, some heavy disinfecting supplies. Later it was half-face respirators and P100 cartridges.

I had a very careful talk with Mrs. Freeholder in mid-February, I simply told her the basics of the virus outbreak and showed her some things on the Internet. Five minute conversation with no particular action requested of her. I started watching Chris Martenson and Dr. John Campbell, in addition to my normal YouTube channels, in her presence. I said nothing.

It took a week, one 60 second conversational blip at a time, but she grudgingly agreed that I could stock up, “as long as it’s stuff we’ll use.” Never let a crisis go to waste. We now have around 4 months in stock. I also bought a few other items that would come in useful if this goes really South.

I haven’t been to a grocery store for several days and won’t go until I need to, and I don’t really need to. Maybe next week, just to top things off. We have hit several drive-thrus, trying to support the local restaurant folks.

I did go out today, back to the big-box home improvement store for more project supplies. (It’s a law of nature-no project can be completed without 3 trips to the home improvement store.) I saw my first masks, amazingly worn correctly. And one woman in gloves, cell phone in hand, wondering the aisles at the directions of the male on the other end, looking for something.

Want to bet whether or not she deconned the phone? Or her hands? I’m betting she never even took the gloves off before driving home.

I hear from others the supply situation is spotty. Some stores have, some don’t. Last I saw everyone was limiting purchases of most staples to 1-2 per person. Local big meat packer is selling like there’s no tomorrow-heard the line yesterday was 4 hours, but it’s all the meat, frozen veggies and such you can cart off. They supply a lot of local restaurants, which are closed except for take out. They have plenty of extra right now and are probably glad to be rid of it.

Gas in good supply, prices down. Most stores open but quiet. That won’t last for long-pretty much any place where people can congregate is going to be closed by 5 tomorrow. Traffic, oddly, isn’t quiet.

Social distancing is also hit-or-miss. It depends on where and who shows up. A lot of folks still aren’t taking this seriously. Home improvement place had 2 of 10 aisles open-side by side-after continually harassing us with messages about staying 6′ apart in their clean, safe store. On the other hand, local big healthcare provider outlets are setting up triage tents in parking lots. Probably going to want those.

Wife is a teacher; schools are out until May 15 and likely for the year. She is working from home. They’re all desperately trying to figure out how to do distance learning with no infrastructure and no training, serving a population who mostly thinks Internet access is something you do from an Obamaphone. I smell FAIL in the air.

Listening to the scanner a lot. There are rather many calls for folks in respiratory distress. Could be the time of year-it is the cold and flu season. Or not.

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