Monday, March 23, 2020

A Tale of Two Businesses

I have two granddaughters who will be working through this crisis - going to work every day because they work for  "essential" businesses.

Morgan works in the warehouse for a company that delivers breathing machines. Her job is essential. The company provides gloves, sanitizer, disinfectant for essential employees and have left inside doors open so that nobody has to touch doors. Anyone who is in the office is working from home. They enforce the 6' distance rule and take employee's temperatures when they enter.  This is a responsible business delivering critical services.

Kaci works for a company that has decided that they are "essential" also, and so she will have to go to work every day or not get paid.  If she is sick, she needs to keep going or get no pay. She goes into literally a different business nearly every day, accepting packages and delivering the packages all over the building - no gloves, no sanitizer, no disinfectant, no temperature check. If she is carrying or getting the virus, it will be spread to possibly hundreds of people in several different businesses. 

Who is monitoring this?  Who will enforce basic safety protocols on these companies?  My granddaughter is not expendable!  

The New Normal

I hadn't blogged in YEARS.  I'm an obsessive Face Book Poster, but had to admit that even my beloved family is sick and tired of my constant posts.  With this in mind, I am capturing for posterity my thoughts as we enter into quarantine during the COVID-19 battle.

We had heard the news from China back in December, but that's a long way away.  We were fascinated that entire large cities were shut down.  But still, that's a long way off.  It couldn't come here, could it?  Our President assured us that we were not in danger and that the media was hyping this disease beyond what was warranted.

Italy was next to sound a clear warning.  But again, they're so far away!  We're still safe here, right?  Federal government agencies were forbidden to speak about the virus and provide us with information while the President continued to minimize it and tell us that it would be gone soon (it wasn't) and that a vaccine was close (it's not).  Only those people who had been travelling to those affected countries need to worry and we are testing them when they return home.  (we weren't)  The World Health Organization offered to sell $5 test kits to the US, but our administration refused them and decided we would develop our own.  We did, but they didn't work.  Back to the drawing board, and we have kits, but not nearly enough.  Not even close and so NO ONE is being tested.

Some of us started hearing from people we know in Seattle - hospitals were being overtaxed, respirators were in short supply, masks and other protective wear for health care workers were in short supply.  People were starting to die, but nobody knows how many because there is a huge shortage of tests here, still.  At first, we heard that this is "an old person's" disease, only having a severe impact on older people or people with compromised immune systems.  Now, however, we are discovering that young people are suffering and dying, as well.  I received an email from a man I know in Italy and he reports that two neighbors are on life support, ages 29 and 41.  Health care workers are describing terrible, violent deaths as patients gasp for breath, going suddenly into respiratory arrest. 

But we still have people who are going by what we heard for the first 2-3 months of the virus - it's all media hype - it's a hoax perpetrated by the Democrats to make the President look bad.  Some people are still going to beaches, public places, church, work, etc, and don't care about the governor's warning that we need to stay home.  A lot of people live paycheck to paycheck and can't afford to stay home, and so they keep reporting to "essential" jobs - and I am seeing that most companies think that there business is "essential."  Way too many people are still going out and about, working, and spreading this disease.  There is a shortage of bleach, disinfectant, gloves, masks - everything we need to keep ourselves protected.  And we have only just begun.