Listen to Tony
Listen to whatever Anthony Fauci says. He’s likely the leading expert in this right now. He is the director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Over the past couple of weeks we’ve had friends and family ask my husband, (who works at NIAID) what he thinks about COVID-19, what he advised them to do. His response has been, “listen to Tony”. As of this afternoon, Dr. Fauci is saying don’t go to restaurants or bars or other crowded places, and of course wash your hands and don’t touch your face.
Also:
“You know, I would prefer as much as we possibly could,” Fauci responded. “I think we should really be overly aggressive and get criticized for overreacting.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, March 15, 2020
Our next crisis might be clogged sewers
Update:UK’s sewage system in danger of gridlock from toilet paper substitutes
With all the panicked toilet paper hording, many people have resorted to buying facial tissues and at least one Facebook friend posted a photo of dinner napkins she bought when she could find no toilet paper. I even heard that one newspaper printed 8 blank pages for emergency toilet paper. Other Facebook friends are discussing what to do when all the paper in the house is used up (take a shower for #2 was one response). My immediate thought is don’t flush those facial tissues or napkins or paper towels. Hell, don’t even flush “flushable personal wipes”.
King Arthur Flour is out of flour
Of course. The hoarders bought up all the flour in stores, but I never would expect the king of flour to run out of flour! But it has. I can deal with no TP but I really need to bake bread. If not for eating, to deal with anxiety.
I deleted my Facebook app
I had a meltdown Friday night after spending the past couple days and several hours on Friday reading articles people posted on Facebook. I was convinced I was going to die and not live to see my retirement date or sit on the brand new deck or in the brand new “lodge” in warm weather. I would tell you what the articles were, but I don’t want you to have a meltdown too. Listen to Tony…
Facebook is not all bad
I did see some amusing things on Facebook today after I recovered from Friday’s meltdown*. My favorite was someone who’d just cleaned out their deep freezer after 20 years: “Threw out old frozen foods, the freeze dried remains of two budgies and ten betta fish, and found where the good glass containers were hiding.” I told them that they should use this as the first line in a short story or novel.
*just because I deleted my app does not mean I am not reading Facebook sometimes…
Clutch Cargo Lips 
Yes. This reminds me of how I became unhinged after September 11 2001 except….this time this time I should be a little bit unhinged.
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Thanks for the laugh about cleaning out a freezer after 20 years. And yes to all your other comments. It’s easy to become unhinged. It’s the uncertainty that is so hard to deal with, and I guess that is why people have hoarded. I’ve always been a pantry hoarder (I think I wrote about it once), in that I like to have everything I need on hand, even though I could run to the shops that are only 5 minutes away. So I haven’t had to stock up at all! Today I went to the supermarket – there were huge piles of toilet paper on sale at the entrance.
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I have always sort of worshiped Fauci. Today, on the rail trail, I was mentioning that my next-door neighbor’s sister had just lost her job at Simon Pearce, and Martha said, “Surely Laura’s been laid off”—at King Arthur. I hadn’t even thought about that one. In my own state. So crazyscary right now.
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