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.