A Journal of the Plague Year

Market day: time to resupply, and my first excursion in about a week. I’m missing a beautiful spring out there, my first in a dozen years. Makes me think of that old Bonnie Dobson song.

This time there was a lineup, even for seniors’ hour, largely because they were taking social distancing seriously. The number of shoppers in the store was properly limited: one out, one it. The people in line did a decent job, at last, on keeping distance. A few were wearing face masks. I was using a scarf, but it was impossible to cover my nose—my glasses would fog up.

There were no empty shelves. At last I was able to pick up some skim milk powder. There was an especially large supply of toilet paper.

The store clerks, heroes all, were sunny and helpful. They were wiping down the belts after each checkout.

I checked and double checked my list, but somehow forgot the one item I was actually out of: artificial sweetener. Folly; but all it means is that I’m on sugar or honey for the week. Not real hardship.

News of the wider world: Reports on Fox are that hospitals in NYC are now swamped and experiencing shortages. On the other hand, Scott Adams says the federal government is unable to get accurate numbers on what the NY hospitals have and do not have, and Trump has said supplies sent have been disappearing.

Novartis has donated 130 million doses of hydroxychloraquine. It seems to me that ought to be enough to handle the current crisis in the US.

Scott Adams, usually a voice of calm, spent some time recently just cursing the “experts,” the professionals: the WHO, the CDC, the FDA. Their advice and commands during the crisis have been consistently wrong, and they seem to have been a delaying and complicating factor. On the other hand, businesses and businessmen have been looking really good: stepping up and getting things done in a hurry, donating to help the cause.

I think this may have a lasting impact. The “experts” were already in trouble thanks to the democratization of knowledge by the internet. This may hasten their decline.