Jan / Feb 2020
We were planning a trip to Seattle for cousin's son's first b'day and we had two possible dates that we were considering as there were 2 different functions ( traditional one vs b'day party) in late Jan and mid Feb. So while debating if we can really go vs which function/event we target, my wife brought up the news of 'Corona Virus' which had erupted in far away China. Ah one of those virus stuff happening in some part of the globe I remarked, what about it I wondered. Well you know there are lot of folks from China in Seattle area and they travel frequently and the SeaTac airport could be an easy place to catch this thing was her counter argument. I thought it was silly to think something in China will get here and this could even be a problem, we booked tickets for Jan end itself to Seattle. The little one fell sick ( as it happens when you have non-cancellable tickets) the week before with ear infection but responded quickly to meds and was back to normal really fast. By then there was someone in WA state who did pass through Seattle airport who had this. Now my wife brought this up again and pointed out that didn't I tell you! You just brushed me off, see what has happened ... now look this up and decide if we want to go. We called our doctor who said she really cannot say anything and its unto us but as per govt advisory its very very minor thing so that's that. So we travelled with hand sanitizer which was used liberally during the flight by cleaning all surfaces we would touch and we also wore surgical face mask which was an odd sight in that airport with just 5-10 people at max wearing one. The trip was good we got back and settled into normal life, in fact we even forgot to wear the mask when we returned but did use hand sanitizer.
After a few weeks the case count started going up in the state of Washington and there were lot of theories floating around on twitter based on how this was playing out in China that this could spread far and wide. Lot of mainstream media folks were playing it down and making fun of tech community panicking early. I thought its best to use hand sanitizer more at work and ordered 3 small bottles and it didn't come in 2 days as usual and instead took more than a week. That in hindsight should have been the first clue that people were prepping by Feb 3rd week.
Nothing eventful except the case counts slowly started going up but this was still not big news and I certainly didn't do any planning yet or even carry those hand sanitizers I got to workplace.
Note : Writing this in March well into start our shelter in place, based on Jan / Feb events
We were planning a trip to Seattle for cousin's son's first b'day and we had two possible dates that we were considering as there were 2 different functions ( traditional one vs b'day party) in late Jan and mid Feb. So while debating if we can really go vs which function/event we target, my wife brought up the news of 'Corona Virus' which had erupted in far away China. Ah one of those virus stuff happening in some part of the globe I remarked, what about it I wondered. Well you know there are lot of folks from China in Seattle area and they travel frequently and the SeaTac airport could be an easy place to catch this thing was her counter argument. I thought it was silly to think something in China will get here and this could even be a problem, we booked tickets for Jan end itself to Seattle. The little one fell sick ( as it happens when you have non-cancellable tickets) the week before with ear infection but responded quickly to meds and was back to normal really fast. By then there was someone in WA state who did pass through Seattle airport who had this. Now my wife brought this up again and pointed out that didn't I tell you! You just brushed me off, see what has happened ... now look this up and decide if we want to go. We called our doctor who said she really cannot say anything and its unto us but as per govt advisory its very very minor thing so that's that. So we travelled with hand sanitizer which was used liberally during the flight by cleaning all surfaces we would touch and we also wore surgical face mask which was an odd sight in that airport with just 5-10 people at max wearing one. The trip was good we got back and settled into normal life, in fact we even forgot to wear the mask when we returned but did use hand sanitizer.
After a few weeks the case count started going up in the state of Washington and there were lot of theories floating around on twitter based on how this was playing out in China that this could spread far and wide. Lot of mainstream media folks were playing it down and making fun of tech community panicking early. I thought its best to use hand sanitizer more at work and ordered 3 small bottles and it didn't come in 2 days as usual and instead took more than a week. That in hindsight should have been the first clue that people were prepping by Feb 3rd week.
Nothing eventful except the case counts slowly started going up but this was still not big news and I certainly didn't do any planning yet or even carry those hand sanitizers I got to workplace.
Note : Writing this in March well into start our shelter in place, based on Jan / Feb events
