Originally Posted by BeckoningCat

OK so the United States now has more confirmed cases than either China or Italy. It's because people weren't practicing social distancing, shelter in place, or were being totally crazy and going on cruises or to beach parties during Spring Break. Just putting that out there. I know people here are distancing but really.

I have moved my rice cooker and crock pot into my bedroom and am now going to keep "dry goods" in my closet. I am really thankful I have such a big bedroom. These things won't eliminate my need to use the kitchen entirely, but my goal is to try to reduce my trips to the kitchen to once a day while no one else is there in the early morning, including washing dishes, getting fresh items from the fridge, collecting clean water to use for the day, and other meal prep. We have jumped from 2 to 12 confirmed cases in my rural county in less than a week. In another week it's going to be bad here unless something drastically changes. The state of California has an A for social distancing, but my county has a C. I think my roommates are doing better, but I have decided that I can't be too careful.

I also picked up antibiotics for a tooth where I lost a filling. I want to be in my best possible health, so in the case I do catch the virus, I don't have multiple infections or the "piggyback effect" that killed people a decade ago from Swine Flu. One of the primary things that killed people who were not elderly or immune-compromised was having a bacterial infection in combination with the virus.

The streets are looking pretty empty though, and I was careful to wear gloves and a scarf over my face inside the pharmacy. The cafe near my house that looked like a zombie Apocalypse scene a few days ago is now completely boarded up. People are finally sheltering in place, I think. People are starting to realize that multiplying that many cases, even if its under twenty, in a week is real bad. We only had one for a long time, but that person had traveled outside the US, quarantined and is already better. 2-12 are new cases, likely from domestic flights from LA or San Francisco. In fact 7 cases here are confirmed from a flight from LA.