That’s like a few years ago, I was on vacation. My wife’s mom was turning 60, so we went on a big family vacation to a resort in Mexico.
It was a great vacation. We were coming up on the end of a New England winter, so a tropical beach resort was very much needed.
But, of course, being in a different country, we were all about as disconnected as it gets. We weren’t receiving text messages, or phone calls. We weren’t doom scrolling. We didn’t bring laptops or tablets. Though a couple of us spoke some broken Spanish (mostly, ‘mas cerveza, por favor’ or ‘dame dos margaritas, muy fuerte’), we couldn’t really understand the newspapers or broadcasts. It was all quite peaceful.
On the way back from the airport, we stopped at the store to pick up some groceries and dry goods we were low on in the house. Nothing extreme…toilet paper, clorox wipes, hand sanitizer. You know, basic hygiene staples that you could usually find anywhere. But weirdly, today, the store was out of all three. Like, shelves-stripped-bare out. Finding any of these three was like finding a Turboman doll.
The next day, the Governor declared a state of emergency. March 10, 2020. An outbreak of a novel virus doubled in state-wide cases overnight, the majority of which traced back to a conference a block away from my office (in a building my company rents space from). I could have been sharing a subway car with one of them a couple weeks earlier.
When we left, we were a little concerned, but not particularly. There were fewer than 100 cases in the whole country, most of whom had travelled from Wuhan or aboard the Diamond Princess.
Although by that point we (my family) completely distrusted Trump and all shit that dribbles out of his mouth, we didn’t have much reason to not accept his handling (yet). It sounded, sincerely, like he actually had a hold of the thing and was taking reasonable action to prevent the spread.
That’s like a few years ago, I was on vacation. My wife’s mom was turning 60, so we went on a big family vacation to a resort in Mexico.
It was a great vacation. We were coming up on the end of a New England winter, so a tropical beach resort was very much needed.
But, of course, being in a different country, we were all about as disconnected as it gets. We weren’t receiving text messages, or phone calls. We weren’t doom scrolling. We didn’t bring laptops or tablets. Though a couple of us spoke some broken Spanish (mostly, ‘mas cerveza, por favor’ or ‘dame dos margaritas, muy fuerte’), we couldn’t really understand the newspapers or broadcasts. It was all quite peaceful.
On the way back from the airport, we stopped at the store to pick up some groceries and dry goods we were low on in the house. Nothing extreme…toilet paper, clorox wipes, hand sanitizer. You know, basic hygiene staples that you could usually find anywhere. But weirdly, today, the store was out of all three. Like, shelves-stripped-bare out. Finding any of these three was like finding a Turboman doll.
The next day, the Governor declared a state of emergency. March 10, 2020. An outbreak of a novel virus doubled in state-wide cases overnight, the majority of which traced back to a conference a block away from my office (in a building my company rents space from). I could have been sharing a subway car with one of them a couple weeks earlier.
When we left, we were a little concerned, but not particularly. There were fewer than 100 cases in the whole country, most of whom had travelled from Wuhan or aboard the Diamond Princess.
Although by that point we (my family) completely distrusted Trump and all shit that dribbles out of his mouth, we didn’t have much reason to not accept his handling (yet). It sounded, sincerely, like he actually had a hold of the thing and was taking reasonable action to prevent the spread.
Man I had no idea how naive that was at the time.