There's a rapid and interesting shift. People who used to not take this thing seriously are beginning to take it more seriously. At first they were like, live your life and wash your hands. Now, they'll tell you, it's time to back off and take care of yourself.
A lot of people, I think, have a hard time keeping their kids at home, or keeping out of the bar, or even keeping out of Allsup's. You're going to go in to those places, if that's your habit, because it's too hard not to. And this, in my opinion, means we are probably spreading it around as we speak.
New Mexico has gone steadily upward, 13 to 19, 23 to 26, now 31. In some parts of the country, testing has been unavailable for a few weeks, so numbers are vastly higher. We never had that many to start with, and we don't have all that many people, but I think we're doing better than most with the testing. You test, you get to know who has it and you keep track of who they've been around.
But one of the surprising things, none yet in southern New Mexico. Alamo, none. Cruces, none. Cloudcroft, none. People are beginning to feel invincible. Believe me, we're not. People come through here. They get out of their cars or motor homes, and breathe. It's only a matter of time.
One place to keep your eye on is Texas. They don't believe in mobilizing the state to prevent the spread. They haven't shut the schools; they believe it's every county's responsibility to just take care of their own. But this, combined with a lack of testing, means that Texas has maybe ten times what they know about. A lot of people are walking around with it.
And that's bad news for us, because we're on the road out of Texas.
Thursday, March 19, 2020
Thursday, March 12, 2020
coronavirus comes to town
So the schools are canceled, starting Monday, for three weeks; that's a state thing. The state got six cases in two days, most of them up in the center of the state, and just did it. People here are still of the mindset that it's not that big a deal, not a single case in southern New Mexico. I see it differently. I think it's all over the place.
There has been an acute shortage of tests, so even people who have symptoms and want to check, can't. Now I know some people dispute this, and feel it's not that hard to get a test in so. New Mexico or any other place, but if you look at exponential numbers spiking, then what you'll find is that we should be reporting about ten times as many, by now, as we are reporting. And that's because tests simply aren't available. If you were on the front lines, finding every person that had been exposed to someone who was positive, you'd be able to confirm that for me.
Here are two characteristics of Cloudcroft. One is that visitors come through here at a steady clip. Many are from Dallas, Lubbock, Midland, Las Cruces, El Paso, Mexico. We don't keep them out; we need them. Our economy depends on them. We aren't about to encourage the drying up of our main source of income. But second, we're on the highway. People have to stop here, because there are no more gas stations for as much as seventy miles to the east, forty to the north, indefinite to the south, twenty to the west. They stop here. They have to. I wouldn't want to be working at Allsup's right now, but somebody has to, and I recognize this: they are on the front line too.
But really the second thing I want to say is that it is enormous hardship to have one's kids at home for three weeks, as you might in the summer, when you have no activities planned for them, and no childcare. People work and rely on the schools. It's not the school's fault that they are forced to close, but it's a hardship for almost every parent. I'm wondering what medical workers must be doing: they have an incredible burden. They go down and treat the sick every day, but their kids, also, rely on the schools. Without them, then what?
I am surprised that people take it cavalierly. All I can say is that Fox News is seriously deluding them. Or, maybe they just don't believe it will hit or be a problem (my view: it's hit, and it's a problem). Or, finally, they feel the outdoor lifestyle, lack of contact with anyone but neighbors, and general isolation is a pretty good protection for us. Whatever it is, a lot of people are shrugging it off, as the president tried to do.
But anyone who shrugs it off is on the wrong side of history. It won't be long before we look back and say: we saw all the signs of a serious pandemic, and you shrugged it off. You thought you were better than this virus.
If it does to us what it did to Italy, we're in for a big shock.
There has been an acute shortage of tests, so even people who have symptoms and want to check, can't. Now I know some people dispute this, and feel it's not that hard to get a test in so. New Mexico or any other place, but if you look at exponential numbers spiking, then what you'll find is that we should be reporting about ten times as many, by now, as we are reporting. And that's because tests simply aren't available. If you were on the front lines, finding every person that had been exposed to someone who was positive, you'd be able to confirm that for me.
Here are two characteristics of Cloudcroft. One is that visitors come through here at a steady clip. Many are from Dallas, Lubbock, Midland, Las Cruces, El Paso, Mexico. We don't keep them out; we need them. Our economy depends on them. We aren't about to encourage the drying up of our main source of income. But second, we're on the highway. People have to stop here, because there are no more gas stations for as much as seventy miles to the east, forty to the north, indefinite to the south, twenty to the west. They stop here. They have to. I wouldn't want to be working at Allsup's right now, but somebody has to, and I recognize this: they are on the front line too.
But really the second thing I want to say is that it is enormous hardship to have one's kids at home for three weeks, as you might in the summer, when you have no activities planned for them, and no childcare. People work and rely on the schools. It's not the school's fault that they are forced to close, but it's a hardship for almost every parent. I'm wondering what medical workers must be doing: they have an incredible burden. They go down and treat the sick every day, but their kids, also, rely on the schools. Without them, then what?
I am surprised that people take it cavalierly. All I can say is that Fox News is seriously deluding them. Or, maybe they just don't believe it will hit or be a problem (my view: it's hit, and it's a problem). Or, finally, they feel the outdoor lifestyle, lack of contact with anyone but neighbors, and general isolation is a pretty good protection for us. Whatever it is, a lot of people are shrugging it off, as the president tried to do.
But anyone who shrugs it off is on the wrong side of history. It won't be long before we look back and say: we saw all the signs of a serious pandemic, and you shrugged it off. You thought you were better than this virus.
If it does to us what it did to Italy, we're in for a big shock.
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