So, checking in from south-central Texas...
My county, 714 sq miles, pop 169,440, has as of y'day 73 cases of C-19, of which 37 are active cases and 36 are recovered, and no deaths. Four have been hospitalized, with one recovered. Eleven cases have occurred in the unincorporated area (where I live, with my 15 acres of social distancing), the rest in the cities. The cities are in three clusters: Cibolo/Schertz/Selma (basically northeast San Antonio along I-35), the part of New Braunfels on the Guadalupe side of the county line (also on I-35), and Seguin, the county seat in the center of the county (fun fact: Texas Constitution requires the county seat to be within 12 (i think) miles of the geographic center of the county).
I think my county has been touched pretty lightly, and it would have been even less if Cibolo/Schertz/Selma weren't contiguous parts of San Antonio along the interstate. (If you look at a map of Texas corona virus hotspots you can see I-35 running from San Antonio to Dallas). We've had the essential business only-curbside/takeout food service rules for a couple weeks now, and happily HEB and Walmart both had started experimenting with curbside grocery delivery prior to the SHTF, so they were somewhat prepped for this. It's been very popular, open time slots for pick up are usually at least a week out, so the wife has been scheduling on pick up at each store as soon as they come available, then added stuff to the list as we approached the pick up date, and that has worked out well. The apps for HEB and Walmart do seem to get overwhelmed once in a while. I laid in my hoard/prepper cache well before the SHTF, so we were in pretty good shape to start with, but for solidarity's sake we laid in some more TP, paper towels, ammo, and another rifle for the heck of it.
The main thing I was worried about was to have enough kitty and horse chow if the supply system hiccupped or I got sick and couldn't leave my property. Once that was taken care of we were golden.
Texas is getting ready to unwind the rules a little bit starting Friday to open more of the retail stores, and hopefully more by mid-May. I've been to work each day, albeit with reduced hours, as I work in an "essential business" (self-storage). It's basically been a semi-vacation for me which has been nice. It is an hourly wage job, so I padded the paycheck with some vacation hours. I'm not one of the people who burns up every bit of vacation time as soon as I get it, in fact had quite a few hours banked. Also I don't run my bank accounts down to zero either, so the restricted cash flow doesn't cause immediate crisis.
All in all for me this has been a relatively mild, and boring, crisis. Hopefully we'll turn the economic curve upward soon enough and sharply enough that this will be the nadir for the Alamo tribe.
My county, 714 sq miles, pop 169,440, has as of y'day 73 cases of C-19, of which 37 are active cases and 36 are recovered, and no deaths. Four have been hospitalized, with one recovered. Eleven cases have occurred in the unincorporated area (where I live, with my 15 acres of social distancing), the rest in the cities. The cities are in three clusters: Cibolo/Schertz/Selma (basically northeast San Antonio along I-35), the part of New Braunfels on the Guadalupe side of the county line (also on I-35), and Seguin, the county seat in the center of the county (fun fact: Texas Constitution requires the county seat to be within 12 (i think) miles of the geographic center of the county).
I think my county has been touched pretty lightly, and it would have been even less if Cibolo/Schertz/Selma weren't contiguous parts of San Antonio along the interstate. (If you look at a map of Texas corona virus hotspots you can see I-35 running from San Antonio to Dallas). We've had the essential business only-curbside/takeout food service rules for a couple weeks now, and happily HEB and Walmart both had started experimenting with curbside grocery delivery prior to the SHTF, so they were somewhat prepped for this. It's been very popular, open time slots for pick up are usually at least a week out, so the wife has been scheduling on pick up at each store as soon as they come available, then added stuff to the list as we approached the pick up date, and that has worked out well. The apps for HEB and Walmart do seem to get overwhelmed once in a while. I laid in my hoard/prepper cache well before the SHTF, so we were in pretty good shape to start with, but for solidarity's sake we laid in some more TP, paper towels, ammo, and another rifle for the heck of it.
The main thing I was worried about was to have enough kitty and horse chow if the supply system hiccupped or I got sick and couldn't leave my property. Once that was taken care of we were golden.Texas is getting ready to unwind the rules a little bit starting Friday to open more of the retail stores, and hopefully more by mid-May. I've been to work each day, albeit with reduced hours, as I work in an "essential business" (self-storage). It's basically been a semi-vacation for me which has been nice. It is an hourly wage job, so I padded the paycheck with some vacation hours. I'm not one of the people who burns up every bit of vacation time as soon as I get it, in fact had quite a few hours banked. Also I don't run my bank accounts down to zero either, so the restricted cash flow doesn't cause immediate crisis.
All in all for me this has been a relatively mild, and boring, crisis. Hopefully we'll turn the economic curve upward soon enough and sharply enough that this will be the nadir for the Alamo tribe.
Well, unless it's "uncured" bacon I guess.
