The World Under Quarantine

In early February we hosted some dear friends here from the UK who had just been on a cruise on the Grand Princess, yes, that Grand Princess. We felt we were sending them off home just in time and we were more right about that than we ever wished to be. The very following voyage, as the GP disembarked from San Francisco for Mexico, she would take with her their first COVID-19 passenger and a health disaster on board would begin.

The following week our friend from France (who we met in Singapore) and a co-worker from Atlanta were here. We enjoyed wine and lovely dinners and talked about the looming crisis. Then we shopped for masks for their upcoming flights home and noticed our first sign of foreboding when we found panic in the hardware store and nearly empty shelves. We took the rationed number for our guest heading to Paris and then I opened one of our earthquake/fire kits and made sure we were covered as well as our guest departing for Atlanta.

By the end of that week we were talking in detail with friends of ours who were looking at the absolutely real possibility of needing to have enough food on hand to quarantine for a few weeks. Heck, if we were wrong, we just would finally have enough dry goods put away to officially be fire season and earthquake ready again. We carefully picked up just enough to do 14 meals and only enough toilet paper for that time too I might add. Joel noticed absolute panic setting in among some shoppers at Costco. Shouting at employees to help them as they hoarded pallets of things they didn't really need. It was a bizarre display of utter hysteria.

Then the school closures began in the East and South Bay. It was a bit surreal. No one in North America was considering school closures and we only had one COVID-19 case in Marin. But the Grand Princess at this point was sitting out in the SF Bay. 56 of its passengers had come home to Marin and been out and about. Then a week later they were all quarantined because one was ill. We knew we were on the verge of a health disaster here and fully supported the drastic measures the Bay Area decided to use. On March 14 we cancelled our oldest's birthday party and I made my last trip out of the house to get him a cake. By March 16, the official shelter-at-home order came via the county Sheriff.

And here we are, 3 1/2 weeks later. Probably another 8 weeks like this ahead of us. We are bouncing between anxious and grateful. We are as safe as anyone can be in the US right now.