For the record, we are now in the middle of a coronavirus pandemic. COVID-19 (Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2), first reported and isolated from patients in Wuhan, China, is sweeping the world: its route around the world can be traced by sequencing the RNA genome from new isolates when they appear. While reports of new cases in China have begun the decrease, thanks to severe social distancing restrictions, most other countries are in exponential case growth, with reported doubling times in the region of 2-14 days. At the time of writing, here in the UK, there are nearly 600 cases reported, with 10 deaths; the UK doubling time is about 4-5 days.
Concerns about the continued availability of basic supplies from supermarkets have led to a rush of buying of essentials: pasta, rice, hand sanitizers, and most dramatically, toilet rolls. A German word has been coined for this kind of hoarding: hamsterkäufe, to reflect the way that hamsters stuff their cheeks with food.
Gallows humour naturally follows in the wake of the virus. A joke doing the rounds has it that drivers of white vans are so concerned about their vehicles being broken in to, that they put a sign on them saying “No bog rolls left in the van overnight”. The picture here records this on a van while I was out a couple of days ago.
Oh - and I have never washed my hands so frequently while singing Happy Birthday to You twice.
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Follow up 2020-03-21
I’m going to try to avoid this blog becoming the coronavirus diaries. But, again, just for the record, two snaps from this week to encapsulate a little of the current situation.
On an early morning shop at a local Sainsbury’s, the toilet roll aisle was completely empty. Intense hamsterkäufe continues. Even though the store had had overnight to restock the shelves, no toilet rolls were available. The guy at the checkout told me the problem was not with the quantities of goods reaching the distribution centres, but with the number of trucks and drivers to take them on from there: it is just not possible to get goods from distribution centres to stores quickly enough. This has been confirmed by reports in today’s papers.
Pubs, cafes, and restaurants have been closed (well, most of them have). An empty pub I walked past today had a sign outside saying “Stay safe everyone”. This is quite a change from the usual sign on the board advertising “Sky Sports here”: most live sports events around the world have been shut down for the duration of the pandemic. Still, it is a good thought. Stay safe, everyone.