The end of books did not occur to me, yet here it is.

Yesterday after closing for the day, our library system announced that it is closed until further notice. Since I am very much in danger of losing my job during this crisis, I really can’t afford to spend $10 every time I read a book. So now I have lots of time for reading but nothing to read.

This seems like a pretty big problem to me.

I wish they would have given us even a day’s notice, though one might rightly point out that this was predictable. My husband and I spent a lot of time yesterday gathering information on the virus, and now we are convinced that social distancing is the right thing to do. Too bad we were doing that research late at night, so we were unable to rush to the library.

I feel it is pretty easy to go to the library and engage in social distancing. If they provided gloves, and reminded people to maintain six-foot spacing, I think it would be perfectly safe.

I mention gloves because the most surprising new thing I learned yesterday was that the virus can persist on surfaces for nine days. One fellow, who may or may not be creditable, opined that every doorknob, elevator button, and ATM keypad in Seattle has virus on it. I imagine virus could hang out on books as well.

Another new shock for me is I can’t see my doctor, even now, with not much in the way of confirmed cases in our county. I am a person who sees my doctor every two years for a checkup, and now’s the time, but they aren’t doing any live checkups, just video checkups. So I’m paying $1200/month for health care and I can’t get any.

I went to the grocery store yesterday and managed to get most of what was on my list, though certainly not all, and there were some empty shelves. Again, we are in the very early days, so I have to assume it will get much worse. The only US quarantine I know of is in New Rochelle, NY, where the National Guard is bringing food and medications to homes and maintaining public spaces. I’m guessing they are not getting organic, fresh food.

No health care, no healthy food. We may avoid the virus, but if the situation persists for long, we will emerge less healthy, and dumber.