Contagion

     I was driving at dawn to campus the other day. I was going in for the daily meeting of the Emergency Management Team of the university. At first, we were face-to-face and now are moving online out of prudence.
     As I was driving, I saw two cars stalled in the middle of the road and two accidents. This was kind an unprecedented number. It is rare to see one car stalled these days let alone two and even rarer to see such in the middle of the road and not on the shoulder. It made me think about science fiction/disaster movies where an unknown, untreatable, and highly contagious disease spreads through the population at a rapid pace. These movie diseases progress quickly debilitating people to the point where they are dropping dead on the street or in cars, which stall or crash into other cars or objects. Seeing the two stalled cars and two accidents on the way to a meeting to determine how we would react to a contagious disease was a bit eerie.
     We are nowhere near those movie scenarios. This COVID-19 is not quite a movie virus but the various health authorities around the world are taking it seriously enough where local and national emergencies are being declared, schools and universities throughout the US are all going online to stem the spread, professional sporting events from March Madness to the Masters are either cancelled or postponed, and there is a run on toilet paper and other staples in the stores. This is unprecedented.
     The world is a smaller place due to global trade and air travel. A disease like this with a ten-day incubation can spread around the world before governments and health authorities can even decide what to do to manage the crisis. At the same time, real news and fake news about this virus spread at the speed of the internet. 

     Now we find ourselves staying at home if we can. People in healthcare, the food supply chain, and utilities need to report to keep everything running. Discretionary ventures out of our homes are minimized to the essential. I imagine e-commerce, which took a three-point bump during the recent holiday season, will jump even higher because of this.
     The economy? This pandemic has already triggered a bear market in NYSE and is likely to cause a recession. Governments are taking action to secure the wages and healthcare benefits of hourly workers who might be let go because of this. This pandemic will probably influence the US Presidential election.
   As we are just entering this period of semi-quarantine, I find myself wondering how long this will all last. No one knows. How will the powers that be decide it is over? People have plans for the summer or are still making them. We are no different. Will we be able to travel in May for two family celebrations? Will our university have a graduation in May? Many of our students have parents who already have plans to travel here from out of state and abroad. Will our various band gigs still take place? This could all play out by then. It should all play out by then. But, no one knows. If we are still in the midst of this in May, I fear the healthcare system will have been overwhelmed and things will be pretty dismal.

     We are all hoping and praying for the best.