So I’ve seen a lot of comments and diaries about how we are managing the crisis we are in now. How we need to shut everything down now, and leave it there for some extended period of time. Trump and the Republicans in Congress have been looking for ways to make sure the stock market jumps back up in the next few months, and they just tried to pass a bill with a massive giveaway to the shareholders and CEOs. They have also downplayed the pandemic as something that will go away once we hit hot weather. They are being as cynical and despicable as they can.
But the idea that we need to return to some level of normalcy is not just about getting the economy roaring again. Just in the last week, we’ve had our state start to lock down what we can do and where we can go. We are now in a remain in place order for the foreseeable future, with serious restrictions on any type of gathering. One of these is a restriction on grocery stores, with a limited number of people that can be in the store at any one time. This is on top of shortages of various foods and other necessities, like milk, eggs, chickens, and toilet paper. And they have also have their hours cut back. As of today, it is not too bad, but there were lines outside both stores that I live near. If this goes on for more than a few weeks, however, I could easily see worse shortages, where many people may not be able to get all the food they need, especially if they have a family with a couple of kids or older parents living with them. If they could alleviate the shortages, that would be one thing, but if they don’t, it is not too hard to envision things getting worse very quickly. High tensions to start, but then potentially leading to food riots, armed attacks at grocery stores, and even home break ins to steal food. I hope that I am wrong about that, and that stores will be fully stocked again soon.
Another, different type of problem is that we have already seen a drastic decline in the number of blood drives, and with it a drop in the number of blood donations. The American Red Cross estimates that 4.5 million people need blood transfusions every year, and would die in their absence. But we hardly ever hear about them on the news. I’m pretty sure that there are plenty of other ways that these measures will cause real harm to us, just by having them in place.
No doubt a lot of these emergency restrictions are being put in place because of the latest news, which is changing daily, usually getting much worse. But they were also put in place because of panic, meaning the people who put them in place did not give much thought to the other consequences. For most of us, normalcy is not just about going back to how things were a couple weeks ago. Without some mitigating actions, put in place ASAP, the cure may well be as bad as the disease.