Hold my beer...

Get it? Because it's the Coronavirus? 🍺

*cough* 

At this point if you are unaware of the Covid-19 pandemic, you must be living under a rock in an abandoned Blockbuster parking lot.  

There seem to be two loud camps, those saying "buy all the toilet paper, face masks and hand sanitizer, omg!" and the "whatever, man. The flu kills more people every year and I feel fine, why is everyone freaking out?" people. They're both dumb and need to find a reasonable middle ground between ambivalence and panic. 

Cancelling events, large gatherings and limiting travel may not seem like a "happy medium," but it falls under the reasonable when trying to slow the spread of the virus. While most people who contract Covid-19 will be fine and deal with only slight to moderate symptoms, the ability for those people to transmit it to the elderly or those with health conditions (heart or lung issues, compromised immune systems, etc) is the real concern. People who fall into those categories have a much greater chance of serious or fatal complications from contracting Covid-19.  

In addition to minimizing the spread to our vulnerable populations, the other goal is to keep the healthcare system from being overrun, which would prevent them from caring for people in a timely or sufficient manner. We're still in a tough flu season, so adding a great influx of Covid-19 patients would jeopardize both those who are sick and the healthcare workers trying to take care of them. We absolutely want to avoid what's happened in Italy: 

"The coronavirus has overwhelmed the country’s health system, particularly in the north. More than 80 percent of the hospital beds in Lombardy, the hardest-hit province, are being occupied by coronavirus patients, according to Bloomberg. Intensive care units are overloaded while elective surgeries have been canceled in the process to free up beds. Stories abound on social media about doctors struggling to meet their patients’ needs, even rationing care. 

But hidden behind the official Covid-19 numbers is a much broader health crisis, rapidly accumulating across the country. Even greater than the official coronavirus toll may be the collateral damage wrought by an overstretched health system: the pregnant women and babies, cancer and HIV patients, and children in need of vaccines who are now less likely to get the health care they need."

Historically the best way to slow the spread of such illnesses is to keep people from gathering in large groups, where one (potentially unsuspecting) person can infect hundreds of others. Taking this seriously sooner rather than later and minimizing the spread will literally save lives.  

From "How canceled events and self-quarantines save lives, in one chart"

The Legislature has been keeping us up-to-date on the situation here in Nebraska, holding a Covid-19 briefing on Tuesday for senators and staff, emailing us as things have changed in the last few days. The Executive Board, who makes our administrative decisions, and the Speaker have been sharing the new protocols, which include closing the guest balconies in the chamber, encouraging schools to cancel school tours, cancelling the use of hearing rooms for anything non-legislative and suggesting offices make arrangements for staff to work from home, should that become necessary. 

Today and Monday are recess days, which will slow the flow of random people in the Capitol, so that's helpful. My boss told his staff to work from home today, which was very nice. And as of today, we will be back in session on Tuesday...and then decide on a daily basis whether the legislature will reconvene the next day. Personally I expect us to keep going for at least another week or two, until there are several more confirmed Covid-19 cases in Lincoln. And while recessing indefinitely will be hugely disruptive and unprecedented (as far as I'm aware), I think it's the right things to do. I haven't worked out the numbers specifically, but I'd hazard an educated guess and say between 25%-33% of the senators are 60 or older and many have health conditions including asthma, diabetes and heart issues. We also have plenty of staff who fall in those same categories, so taking steps to ensure their health and safety is necessary. 

On the personal front - my folks and I have done a little "prepping" on the off chance we need to quarantine. We've bought a few packages of toilet paper (not enough to last us till Christmas, lol), Kleenex, some water and non-perishable food items. The determining factors on my mental checklist has been:  

✔ Will we use it anyway?
✔ Will it last longer than a year? (I've tried to only buy food items that have at least a 2 year shelf life.)
✔ Is it something that would also be good to have in the house for a snow storm/loss of electricity/other serious situation? 
✔ Will it easily fit in the basement? We have a finite amount of space, after all. 

I may or may not have used this as an excuse to grab some "special occasion" items too, like pancake mix and some boxes of cereal. If we're stuck in the house, might as well get something fun out of it, right? 😁

I am not that concerned for myself, in regards to catching Covid-19. I'm in reasonably good health and relative young, but my dad has asthma and is 84 years old. Because of this I appreciate the measures being taken to minimize the spread of Covid-19, since he is much more likely to end up with a serious case if he catches it. I may change my mind if the Elton John's concert* is cancelled in June, but for now I think it's for the best. 😊

Have you been affected by the cancellations or closings? And have you done anything special to prepare for the possibility of self-quarantining? 




~ Katie Q. 🐧

* My boss won Valentine's Day by giving the office tickets for the Elton John concert at Pinnacle Bank Arena. We're all super excited for it. 



On the lighter side...