Milk, Flour, Eggs ... a Pro-Life Issue

Adam says there was no milk at the grocery store. When he talked with his mom in Nebraska, she said she could buy no flour. However, in Mississippi, Anna said there were no eggs on the shelves. Don't you wonder about some of the surprising aspects of this Coronavirus event? Why? Why milk in one state, flour in another, eggs in another? I bet in a week all the stores will be well-stocked again. If anybody needs a job right now, truck delivery and store-shelf-stocking should be the places to look!

We got hens, so we got eggs. So many eggs.

I went to the post office a couple of days ago, I think my last foray into public spaces. Two men stood in front of the counter where Teresa, our local postwoman, served them in turn, in the little glassed-in serving area that most post offices have. A glass door separates that serving area from a room of post boxes, where I stood. I paused, not wanting to add a fourth person to that small space -- social distancing, you know. A woman came into the building after me. I hesitated and turned to her. I didn't want to open the glass door quite yet.

"I'll wait a second until they're done," I said to her.

"Oh, are you scared?" she asked. She wasn't being mean or insulting. I think it was an honest question. She was encountering another human in the public sphere, and she wanted to know what kind I was. Was I a scared-of-coronavirus person? Scared of contact? That's one kind of person. Others are bold and confident, claiming this coronavirus will not keep them from being friendly, from seeing friends, from supporting local businesses or buying what they usually buy. Our nation's personalities range from the 19 year olds  cavorting on Florida's beaches for their bonus week of spring break (thank you, universities ... NOT!) to prepper couples in their deeply rural cabins who feel vindicated in all their labors to stockpile resources and skills, justifiably so. Some folks have nowhere to go, and some are ready for a year of quarantine.

I smiled at the lady in the post office. "No, I'm not afraid, but I am careful." Perhaps I said, "cautious." Either way -- there's a big difference between fear, which is unproductive socially, and carefulness, which is another form of love.

Why should we stay home? So that we stay well? No, this virus is quite contagious, and a certain percentage of us will get it eventually -- 60% or 70% they say. Why do some countries have high death rates, and some have comparatively few? It all has to do with your hospital  ICUs. Deaths sky-rocket when there are not enough ventilators. Do we prevent this by quickly manufacturing ventilators? No, there's no time. We do it by slowing everything down, by making sure that we never have more ICU patients than we have ICU beds. Patients survive this who have good hospital care. When the critically ill numbers mount? When we have 100,000 ventilators but 200,000 critically ill Covid-19 patients? 100,000 of them die, more or less.

Stay home. You'll catch the virus later. Let's spread it out over 5 months. Our doctors and nurses will be tired, but not overwhelmed as in Italy. All those cavorting 19 year olds on the beaches? Many of them will be ill within the week. Let's hope they don't need the hospital beds that their grandparents will desperately need a week later. Because when exhausted hospital staff are forced to decide whether a 30 year old gets the ventilator, or an 80 year old does, guess which person is chosen to live?

This is a pro-life issue. Nurses shouldn't have to make that choice. Save other people's lives. Stay home, and eat your eggs and bread without milk, or whatever food is scarce in your area. We can all survive this, if we all sacrifice just a little.