Day 1 of Silicon Valley’s 3 week shelter in place order due to the novel coronavirus known as CoVid-19 or the Wuhan Flu. The unprecedented Silicon Valley Lock Down is underway. Supposedly it will be for 3 weeks from midnight March 17 through April 7th. But what magical things will happen on April 8th no one seems to know. Originally the order included 6 Bay Area counties but now also includes Sonoma County.
It is quiet here. Eerily quiet. Quieter than any holiday weekend I’ve ever experienced here. You can hear individual cars driving down the 101, which is usually a steady stream of river like white noise. Restaurants that were already on the brink of bankruptcy due to the Bay Area’s rising costs, new labor laws, and Grub Hub take out orders. Many restaurants highest margin money maker, mixed drinks with alcohol, are normally not allowed for take away orders. This will cut into the restaurant industry’s already slim profit margin and many will not survive the Wuhan Virus restaurant apocalypse. Try to support you local restaurants by ordering some take out orders during the shelter in place lock down. You might literally be sitting on a pile of beans, but do your really want to eat dried beans? Do you even know what to do with dried beans?
Napa County is still the only Bay Area county with no confirmed cases. But of course more testing is likely to show that more cases abound in the Bay Area. Many people will have no noticeable symptoms but may carry the virus to other more vulnerable victims. Which is why “Social Distance” is a thing now. Social Distance used to be reserved for players of “World of Warcraft” but now everyone is practicing it to “flatten the curve” and try to limit the spread of the novel corona virus so that hospitals aren’t overwhelmed with patients all at once.
Santa Clara County in the heart of Silicon Valley now has the most cases of any county in California.
Hospitals are seeing protective equipment meant to be used by medical personnel like wall-mounted hand sanitizer stations, masks and gowns disappearing. Pilfered by scared people that think these protective items will not be able to be found anywhere else. Calm down people!
People that went to Costco to pick up a few items saw the panicked buyers stuffing their giant carts with everything they could grab, canned beans, dried beans, toilet paper, Nutri-Grain bars, followed the human trait of mimicking fellow humans, and joined in the panic shopping frenzy. Like some apocalyptic black Friday. The ensuing panic left many store shelves in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley looking like this:
Please don’t dial 911 because you ran out of toilet paper. 911 is not room service. And please don’t call 911 if you hear your neighbor coughing. They’re probably just choking on some improperly cooked dried beans.
Moon, that spells Wuhan Virus, or whatever the CCP wants everyone to call their enhanced “gain of function” corona virus experiment.