Daily Note -- March 11, 2020

Back to reality: I was pretty optimistic, excited yesterday -- things seemed to be improving ... but maybe not. So back to reality. I'm not in a particularly good mood this morning. Blogging will suffer.

Coronavirus: those "better" numbers coming out of Italy may have been because the cases coming out of Lombardy were not counted for some reason. If so, the numbers coming out of Italy today could be atrocious.

• China: down to 34 new cases, 22 new deaths. 
• Westchester County, NY: soaring; New Rochelle quarantined
• Germany recorded its first two deaths a couple of days ago
• South Korea: down to 242 cases; one new death
• Diamond Princess: no new cases, but another passenger that had been on the cruise ship did die about two days ago
• so bottom line: except for a few regions, not a lot of happening; number of cases will grow as more testing becomes available. 

Masks: why they work still -- assuming that they do -- still confounds me.

The virus is much, much smaller than the pores in the mask. Yesterday it was explained that the masks prevent droplets from spreading when folks sneeze. But "everyone" says the most common way the virus is spread is by folks touching their face with their hands. Perhaps the masks are doing not much more than keeping folks from touching their faces. If so, bandanas will work just as well and are not in short supply. Ski masks should also work and I assume northern Italy now has warehouses full of them.

Toilet paper: I'm still perplexed how the panic over toilet paper developed. Coronavirus is a respiratory disease but I have heard a lot of folks in the midwest exclaim: "blow it out your a$$." Except they didn't use the dollar signs.

Be that as it may, an internet search revealed that Amazon is sold out; earliest availability is April 15th or thereabouts. Coincides with tax filing deadline. Checking on-line for Target / Walmart in our local area, north Texas, DFW: both Target / Walmart have toilet paper "available for pickup today." My wife, out in California, San Pedro, south Los Angeles, says her neighborhood Target store has adequate toilet paper in stock but the store limits the amount one can buy. 

Tabasco sauce: no shortages reported yet.

So, a pretty slow start to the day. Updates later when we get the Italy coronavirus numbers.