Dealing With the COVID-19 Epidemic

These are scary times and the constant bombardment of news, good and bad, doesn't help. I tend to have anxiety problems anyway, so I keep my consumption of news to a minimum. In particular, I don't go to social media for my news. Politics and news are blocked or eradicated on my social media feeds. Anxiety is the last thing I need more of right now. This post is about how we are coping and is not intended as any kind of medical or legal advice. Feel perfectly free to ignore it all.

In the case of the coronavirus, I use very little of our many news outlets. There are those out there that specialize in fear mongering or focus too much on the negative and not enough on the positive. For example, I learned in yesterday's WHO brief that 70% of the people infected in China have already recovered. Did you see that anywhere in the news?

One thing that was drummed into me as a graduate student was to always go to the original source. Given that, I have hunted down the sources that I think are most trusted for COVID-19 information. I usually only check them once a day in late afternoon or evening because I really just want to get on with life and not sit here wringing my hands all day.

1. My city health department is my first source to see what is going on locally. They should have a section devoted to COVID-19 and if they don't, call and ask why not. Sqeaky wheel gets the grease.
2. My state health department. Just search on your states name + 'health department' and it should pop up. That will tell you what is happening in your state. Ours is still showing (as of 3/10) no corona virus cases and how many people they have tested. Good news so far.
3. The Centers for Disease Control or CDC (coronavirus.gov). They are usually a little behind the numbers you will see in the news because they have to wait for state health departments to give them information. They update their situation report every day at noon (right now). They also have recommendations for different populations of what to do.
4. The World Health Organization (WHO) gives updated news briefings 3 times a week (right now) and you can listen to those to find out what is going on elsewhere in the world and what they are recommending that countries and individuals do to stop the spread of the virus. They have many more written resources of what to do and what is happening world wide. 

My husband and I are both 65, and have some chronic though not debilitating health problems, like asthma, so we have chosen to be cautious. We have also made a few preparations in case we find ourselves needing to stay home for several days. 

1. We made sure we had one full gallon each of bleach and lysol for cleaning. We use the instructions on the bottles.
2. We bought a large refill size each of hand soap and hand sanitizer. We only use hand sanitizer when we are out and about and we are limiting our trips to town right now. No recreational shopping for now. So we felt like that was enough.
3. One extra large pack of toilet paper-24 rolls.
4. A couple of extra 2-lb bags of brown rice and 4 or 5 one pound bags of different kinds of dried beans. 
5. Half a dozen extra big bags of frozen veggies plus extra onions and peppers. I diced them up for cooking and froze them on cookie sheets, then put them in freezer containers. You can also freeze tomatoes and peppers whole if you plan to use them for cooking. Just wash them well, freeze on a cookie sheet, then place in freezer bags. We have a deep freeze and extra refrigerator freezer in the garage, so we do have extra storage for that.
6. A 5 lb bag of masa to make tortillas or flatbread (thick tortillas) because we really love our jalapeno and sweet potato tortillas. This is an easy way to have bread for sandwiches and just takes a little water to moisten the masa, then cook on a griddle or cast iron skillet. I have also mixed it half and half with flour and it turned out pretty good. We also keep a few packs of flour and corn tortillas in the freezer. You can only store so many loaves of bread in the freezer.
7. We bought a couple of extra packs of ground turkey at Sam's and a big pack of chicken thighs for making soup or casseroles. My husbands hobby is smoking meat, so we always have a freezer full and didn't feel the need to add more.
8. I am a fermentista, so I also fermented a couple of gallons of giardiniera with peppers, onions, cauliflower, carrots, celery and garlic. I also have fermented vegetables of various kinds in the garage fridge and they will last for 6 months to a year. With the frozen veggies, this should give us a good selection of vegetables if we don't get out for a couple of weeks to get produce.
9. I follow instructions from CDC and my state health department for frequent cleaning of surfaces we touch often, like our front door knob where we come in and out from shopping. There are other instructions on the web sites listed above. Find them and use them.
10. We have cut back on our trips to shop or run errands, we go only where we absolutely have to, get what we need and get out. We go early in the morning when there are fewer people out and about.  We keep hand sanitizer in the car and use any wipes that might be offered in the stores to wipe down our grocery cart handle and our hands. We use our debit cards rather than cash because anything that people handle routinely, like money or door knobs, can be likely sources of infection if you touch them and touch your face holes. 

We have chosen to start developing these habits and making these preparations now so if  COVID-19 does occur locally, we are prepared. March is spring break month and we often see a lot of tourists in this area, which increases the chances of an outbreak here. The most important thing is to educate yourself on recommended procedures, don't panic, and cooperate if your local authorities implement any kind of quarantine because it is for the good of you, your family and neighbors. We will get through this.