For everyone here,
Let me start by saying this pandemic is something that hasn't really been seen in a century. Yes, the H1N1 flu in 2009 was also a pandemic, and I had the joy of catching it given not enough vaccines available, but that's not anywhere near what we're experiencing now. And, we're all experiencing it differently. Lots of variables play into how someone experiences this, but at the end of the day, generally speaking, we are all normal people having normal reactions to an abnormal situation. Of course, if someone is causing harm to themselves or others, then it's appropriate to reach out to someone that can help. But outside of those circumstances, there's a full gamut of things we can experience from the stress we're experiencing here. Headaches, difficulty sleeping, anxiety, feeling overwhelmed...
In other words, you're not crazy.
And while I can't provide a single way to go about navigating this pandemic, I can offer some of my perspectives, and some ideas that perhaps may help.
One of the items I try to message when teaching others about emergency preparedness is striking a balance between being prepared and going overboard. The messaging some time ago was be ready with 3 days (72 hours) of supplies, and I liked to suggest adding a zero after that 3. Not that you need 30 days worth of supplies on hand, but think about longer term rather than short. The reasoning? If there is a large-scale incident, such as a major earthquake in the Seattle area, it's going to take more than 3 days for things to get stood up. Yes, government and volunteer resources are going to mobilize and start coming in to provide aid, but in this earthquake example, a lot of infrastructure will be lost, and it'll take more than 3 days to mobilize resources and supplies, get these into the area, and prepare distribution points.
How can you take that and apply it to this pandemic? Luckily, our infrastructure is still flowing, even when operating with only essential services. Before all this happened, I would typically buy groceries for about 3 or 4 days worth of time, and then make another trip to buy another 3 or 4 days worth, and so on. I could buy fresh ingredients and make meals with them without worrying about them spoil. Now, thinking more long-term, I'm buying food and supplies for a week-and-a-half at a time. I'm minimizing my time out in public, which being here in Dallas, there are quite a few people shopping, especially Fri-Sun, so I try to focus on Tuesday or Wednesday mid-day when foot traffic is lower and grocery stores have had time to restock from weekend sales.
The other side of this I'd like to talk about is staying informed, and more importantly, not burning out from it. I'm personally trying to balance how much info I take in each day. I also try to take a global look, which means maybe CBS/NBC/something evening news for the United States update, NHK World out of Japan for the Asia update, DW from Germany for the Europe/Africa update, and maybe Sky News for the UK (although DW does a good job at covering). But those all add up to about a half hour of time for any given day, each update about 10 minutes long. And then I'm done. From watching those and perhaps reading an online article or two, I can see how the rest of the world is doing, and in the cases where other countries are further along in the timeline than the US, perhaps see what might be coming. And, I can see how things are doing here in the US, with more focus for me on Dallas, Detroit given I have family north of there, and Seattle as I have several friends there.
But then I go about doing other things. I enjoy the amateur radio hobby, so I jump on the air as I normally do each day. I'm playing video games, I'm working on website updates, I'm working on various other things I'd normally work on from home. And this is important - the more you can do to bring some sense of normalcy, the more normal things will feel. If you enjoy reading a book, or knitting, or other hobbies/interests you can take time with at home, go for it. If you hold religious or spiritual beliefs, seek an online option for church services or spiritual services. If you are home with family, gather around the dinner table and enjoy a meal together, and talk about how everyone is doing, if they want to. It's important to let folks have distance that want distance, and be there to listen (and not talk - you can't spell listen without silent) for those that would like someone to listen. Call your family members, hop on FaceTime/Facebook Messenger/whatever and say hello to friends...
When this all ends, and someday it will (hang in there), I'll look back at what worked well, and what improvements I can make to our emergency preparedness plans. I've taken several Chemical/Biological/Radiological/Nuclear/Explosive preparedness and response courses, but thy're of course nothing like going through an incident directly (and each incident will be different). For this biological incident, I'm happy with how we've hunkered down at home, but I would have liked more food in the freezer, and by extension, a bigger freezer. Normally we would have an additional freezer, but we're in an apartment while we build a new house, so we're going without extra freezers and things, which, in hindsight, is inconvenient timing, but when the house is done and we move in, I'll plan better as a result. And no, I won't dedicate rooms to storing canned food or whatnot - there is a line between overpreparing and reasonably preparing. If I can have enough food on hand for 30 days, that to me is a good balance.
While I had already believed in self-reliance as much as possible, I'll look at doubling down on the idea where it makes sense, so not only extra food on hand, but perhaps buying other household supplies a little earlier before they run out. We luckily skipped out on the toilet paper rush, which was completely unnecessary, but it happened, and we mainly skipped it because I had recently bought some and those mega-jumbo-gigantic rolls last a long time (I still haven't bought more - we could go another couple of months even). We also have lots of soap on hand, and laundry detergent, and trash bags, and paper towels... but things like pots and pans. I knew the pans were close to wearing out, but I put it off, and then had to replace them during safer-at-home orders. Eventually got them on Amazon, but had to be patient given their shipping prioritization. I also usually have N95 masks, but I was down to about 5 on hand in February and never reordered, and still haven't (I have no business ordering any right now). So those gotchas, I'll look out for better going forward.
And, based on my CBRNE and other preparedness training along with being a state licensed EMS provider (I'm a licensed Emergency Care Attendant, the Texas version of an Emergency Medical Responder), I can see areas where I agree with the response, and areas where I do not agree. I hope government officials will learn from what's happening and set things up so we're better prepared next time. But I'm not going to burn large amounts of time on, "They could have done that better," or, "They're not thinking about <something>," or other things, *right now*. Yeah, I generally comment at things, but right now I want to make sure I'm OK, that my husband's OK, that my parents are OK... they are my priority. I can't control what the government is doing, but I *can* control what I'm doing. Yes, we need more testing, but no amount of screaming that at the TV is going to make it happen, and instead what I can do is make sure I'm staying home, that I'm washing my hands frequently, that I'm avoiding touching my face when I'm out buying groceries, and when I am out buying groceries, have a list, get those items, and get out of the store.
So for now, know that we're all experiencing this in different ways, but we're having normal reactions to this very abnormal circumstance, and as best as you can, try to keep the normalcy in your day-to-day where you can, and balance out staying informed to make sure you don't burn out.
For continued discussion in this thread, there are a lot of political aspects in play, but here on this forum we avoid discussions given the scope of how communicating in an online forum works. There is great potential for good intentions in a political post to be misinterpreted, and then things spiral into name-calling or calling each other idiots or whatever... I've seen it in other forums. Yes, it's important to look at the political aspects and ask leaders about what we feel were/are deficiencies in the planning and response, but we're not going to solve those here in this thread. And at the same time, it's hard to say what the future will look like, and while we are and will continue to see economical impact from all this, the number one priority right now (and always, for that matter) is your health, that you're OK.
And what we can do in this thread to help each of us be OK is, if you want to, to talk about how you are doing, how you are feeling, ideas on how to help manage stress, how to navigate this new environment we're in, and support each other as we all go through this.
Together.
-Aaron
