It’s pretty much impossible to avoid this subject, as much as I would rather avoid it. Sporting events that I follow have been postponed, conventions that interest both my wife and I have been delayed, and the slow start to the new store I work in has most likely been prolonged by all this. This is the most serious outbreak I have experienced in my lifetime, but we have the tools to get a handle on this, and we will, if we actually use them.
That being said, the level of panic now on display, particularly in terms of toilet paper, is a sign of a world uncertain as to what to do, at least in some places. Right here, in my home town, my local Asda was out of toilet paper the other day, virtually empty:
To the selfish folk who are grabbing these items in bulk, without stopping to consider anyone else (and this goes for rice, pasta, milk and flour too, among other things):
Get. A. Fucking. Grip. Yes, I am aware this is serious. I am aware it will likely escalate before it starts to improve. I am also acutely aware there are people who are more vulnerable to this than others (including members of my own family), people who cannot easily go out and get the essentials to see themselves through any kind of quarantine, and the hoarders are making that all the more difficult. We are meant to be a compassionate people here in the UK, are we not? We’re meant to be reserved and measured in the face of adversity, aren’t we? I know that’s a task made all the more difficult with an incompetent Tory government moving at a glacial pace to deal with this, but can we please try to remember who we are?
2
0
20
