Is the bizarre statements some people I know are making. Let me give you one example. I will not name names, I will make up names to be on the safe side, though I do not think they are readers of my blog. Lets go with Jane Austen names!
My friend Elizabeth (known as Lizzy) is someone over 60 with underlying health conditions. Her doctor has told her to go nowhere. Yet she keeps going to the shops all the time, and then saying things like “There were so many people there, I can’t believe it!”
This has happened a few times and I’ve kept my mouth shut about it, until the last time on Monday when I blurted out “You were one of them!” in reply to this comment.
Then the story changed “There was nobody there” – wait a minute, just a minute ago there were so many, now there’s none? I said in reply to this “It doesn’t matter how many people were there. It matters whether some of those people coughed all over an item you’ve just bought and taken home to your house. It matters if one of them left germs all over the eftpos keypad.”
She was a bit taken aback when she really thought about what I said. Then I said – “your doctor has told you to go nowhere. You shouldn’t be going to the shops. I’ve told you if you need something I will go for you, and you have family who can do that as well. Plus you can get things delivered, you are eligible to have home delivery from either of the supermarkets. But you’ve got to stop going.. ”
The next morning she had offered to pop around and keep an eye out for the courier while I ran to the post office. I was due a couple of packages. When she got here, she told me she had a sore throat and wouldn’t come inside just in case. I gave her some of my awesome Difflam throat lozenges and she stayed in her car in the driveway while I ran to the post office.
I really hope she listens to me about this. But she’s not the only one doing this kind of thing. We had to go to Bunnings today and by had, I mean we really needed some stuff in order to do things we need to do for the business. I stayed in the car while the other half ran in with his mask on.
The amount of people there! The many, many clearly elderly people there! I have never seen Bunnings so packed on a Wednesday. Normally on a Wednesday you could have your pick of parks, the carpark was nearly full.
Is it that people need to tell themselves one thing “I’m not going anywhere but I actually went here, there, and yonder” so they will believe they are safe from this? Is it because they are bored and need to entertain themselves? WTF is going on with this?
I’m confident enough in my germophobia that I think I take the right precautions but even I recognise that might not be enough and going anywhere is a risky business but especially to the shops, therefore I am trying to limit the amount of times I go to the shops. If I can do home delivery I will.
My sister-in-law seems to go to the store every other day; I have to bite my tongue because just because you CAN doesn’t mean you should. My nephew has a compromised immune system and I doubt that she wears a mask. My boyfriend doesn’t think it’s a good idea to see each since we don’t live in the same household, but is going off to buy plants today. He does have an N95 mask from when he used to work at Boeing. Still, his priorities seem a bit off to me. I’m trying to stay home as much as possible and getting grocery pick up versus going inside the actual store. It is incredible the justifications people find for their behavior. Including me, probably.
When I saw my mother yesterday I told her she really shouldn’t go to shops. But my brother, her carer refuses to go the large chemist chain, so I took her to get what she wanted. It was then a trip to the big green shed for potting mix and some seedlings. While she should stay home, the mental benefits of getting out perhaps outweigh what she should do. She was so much brighter after an outing of an hour or so.
We have the same problem in the UK and similar reports are coming from all other countries as well. People are told “Stay at home.” but they congregate at the seaside on sunny days, hold barbecues attended by friends and relatives and organize street parties where they all dance the conga. They are told to keep two yards/metres apart but they brush past you in the supermarket and stand right up close to you in the check-out queue. You leave a space between yourself and the next person and then some idiot comes and stands in that space.
The one small consolation for the rest of us is that numbers of these idiots have been fined by the police for breaking the rules.
Why do they behave in this way: is it that they are not aware of the rules, think the rules don’t apply to them or simply don’t understand the rules? I don’t know but I do know that they risk worsening and prolonging the pandemic.
My sister-in-law has a son and daughter-in-law minutes away who have told her and her husband to stay home and they’ll get them whatever they need… and they’re ready to brain her. She’s 69. He’s 74. He has lots of MAJOR risk factors. But, she’s made two trips to Walmart in the past week because, “Oh, I’ll be fine.”
I went to my first curbside pickup thing this week. It wasn’t perfect, both me and the store are new at this. So we’re learning. There is a little side parking lot where you park in a numbered spot and call their number to let them know you’ve arrived. I think there may only be 10 spots and most of them had someone in and out.
But the main parking lot was packed also. My doctor hasn’t talked to me about this (I also had my first tele-visit this week) but I’m not an idiot. I’m 57 with multiple health issues and I’m on oxygen. Our area is at least superficially low risk for getting the virus, we have no confirmed cases, nearby counties have 2 or 3 confirmed cases. People are not taking it seriously.
I’ve had the serious talk with a friend here who didn’t know how to shop for more than a day at a time, she said. She was going to the big shops or the local grocery daily. She says she’s not now but she was really mad at me for pointing out that she was not only putting herself at risk but putting others at risk. She’s convinced that we won’t get sick here because the stores are really full of people and she’s not gotten sick yet. What kind of logic is that? I had the same talk with a friend who lives in your neck of the woods. He’s over 60 with multiple health problems and several heart attacks. He’s now going to shop every other day rather than daily. His best friend’s daughter has just been released from quarantine because she was exposed, He still doesn’t think there’s a risk.
I believe that we will get through this. I don’t think it’s going to be over quickly, however. And watching people refuse to take it seriously scares the hell out of me.