It makes complete sense that there is a toilet paper shortage because there are two different manufacturing streams for TP: one for home use, and one for industrial/work use. Home TP is a whole different product (softer and thicker than work TP), and they don't keep a lot of it on hand because it's more expensive to store than it's worth. So home TP companies figure that most people use their home toilets 50% of the time (or whatever), so they only make enough TP for that. But now everyone is home 100% of the time, so the use went way up but the manufacturing capability did not. (Which is to say that there is tons of work TP just sitting around not getting used, but they can't easily repackage that for home use.)
ALSO. A couple weeks ago we noticed that our grocery only had single bananas, and that they were small and kind of ugly. Turns out there's a reason for that too. There are also two different banana streams: grocery and restaurant. Grocery bananas are big and come in bunches. Restaurant bananas are tiny single bananas. So my grocery was apparently trying to offload a bunch of restaurant bananas now that many restaurants are closed.
Mysteries solved.
It's Wednesday, so around here that means elearning. And honestly, today was a very long year. I had my regular work job, plus a new short-term side project that came at just the right time for our finances but the wrong time for my ability to successfully cope with everything. I had to help Henry with some tech issues (and I am no tech genius, so it took a while) to get worksheets printed out so he could do his assignments and then turn them in (by taking pictures of the completed worksheets and submitting them online to his teachers). Max has gotten behind in some of his classes, so I had to help him (a) understand that getting behind now is unacceptable and (b) make a plan for him to get caught up. And Liam, who generally just gives me an oral rundown of what's happening but doesn't actually require my help, decided that today was a good day for us to fill out his National Honor Society application ... which is due tomorrow. By the time Mike got home, I was utterly exhausted, but we spent some time out on the patio just watching the birds and talking, and that helped.
Today, 1,889 Americans died from COVID-19 ... at least according to the official tally. However, in New York City alone this week, first responders found 245 people dead in their homes on Monday, and 280 on Tuesday (today's numbers aren't available yet). On a normal pre-pandemic day, NYC first responders see 25 to 30 such deaths, so these numbers are clearly significant. City and state officials acknowledge that most of those deaths are probably attributable to COVID-19, though they can't officially be counted because the people never received tests. These are the people who were told to isolate at home, not to call 911 unless the situation was dire. And they ended up isolating, suffering, and dying at home too. New York is going to start reporting these as probable cases, but think about it: If this is happening on such a large scale in New York City, wouldn't it stand to reason that it's happening on a much smaller scale everywhere else? How many people will experience a death like this and not be able to know for sure what happened to their loved one? Imagine the agony of that.
Against this backdrop of national and personal horror and grief and tragedy, here is what the president tweeted today (among plenty of other things; this is just the most egregious): "Once we OPEN UP OUR GREAT COUNTRY, and it will be sooner rather than later, the horror of the Invisible Enemy, except for those that sadly lost a family member or friend, must be quickly forgotten. Our Economy will BOOM, perhaps like never before!!!" His focus is on the economy, which most likely will not actually BOOM like never before, but the people who have lost a family member or friend are merely a parenthetical. Also he wants us to forget this horror. I will never be able to forget being sequestered in my home for weeks and weeks, watching helplessly as other Americans die alone, either in their hospital beds with no visitors, or in their homes; as their families grieve and can't even hold each other for comfort or carry out the rituals (like funerals or other gatherings) that help them to process the loss; as people in my community and communities across the world get seriously ill, knowing that even those who recover will likely have lifelong medical issues; as I wait for this virus to claim someone I know. I'll never forget that. Will you?
And I'll never forget who allowed it to get this bad by withholding the true scope of the problem from the American people, spreading misinformation, downplaying the risk, and pressuring people to go back to work. Not to mention the political "leaders" who are profiting from owning stocks in companies that make certain medications and then promoting those medications as miracle cures, political "leaders" who suddenly formed medical supply companies that are supplied by the federal government seizing personal protective equipment rightfully purchased by individual states, and political "leaders" who engaged in insider trading to save themselves by selling stocks once they heard intelligence briefings about how bad this would get, but leaving the rest of us in the dark to face the consequences alone. No, those are not likely to ever slip my mind, no matter how the post-pandemic economy turns out to be.
Nationwide cases: 435,609. Deaths: 14,833.
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