The Corona Plan

WHERE ARE WE? Romantic Escapes RV Park, La Penita, Nayarit, Mexico
NEXT DESTINATION? Guadalajara, Mexico April 1, 2020

Today is a little journal entry on our plans for action regarding the Corona Virus.  You may or may not agree with anything I say but hey, there is a like and dislike button on the bottom and a scroll bar on the side!!!

Maybe because of our decisions, our kids will have this to look back on to see where we went wrong.  I would hope things never get that bad and we hope that our 60 years of making mostly good decisions will continue in this case.   I caution you that this is my rendition of our actions and Sue is somewhat different in her thoughts sometimes, but she also respects my judgement in a lot of things and I think we are on the same page right now.  I do agree with how Canada and the US are handling this right now by keeping people separated to slow down the spread and shutting off the pipeline of travellers from high risk countries.  Even coastal Mexico is starting to tighten things up, but remember this is tourist country and they will risk a little more to get those tourist dollars.  The real threat in my mind is not so much the virus killing people, but rather the amount of people who could have it at the same time.  I do feel sorry for our health care providers who will be overworked and will be asked to put themselves and their families in harms way for us.  We need to stop the spread as quickly as possible and the way to do it is stay put.

When scary things happen, people tend to want to be at home.  We are no different and we certainly would like to be back in Canada with family in times of uncertainty.  However one has to be realistic as well.  Based on our research the virus should not pose much of a threat for any of our family back home.  They are all healthy young and in good shape so probably would breeze through this virus.  So they really don't need us there for anything other than moral support.  Sue and I are probably in the highest risk category of any of our immediate family right now so we wouldn't be a lot of help to them anyway!!  So we asked ourselves what the reasonable thing to do would be, and the answer we think is "absolutely nothing!!".  We will stay here in Mexico until month end as planned and presumably make our way over into Texas for a while.  That could change based on the situation at the time.  We are not concerned about the rumors of border closings because, 1- I don't believe that will happen because unless there is a huge outbreak in one country there would be no reason to, and 2- If the border closed we would just stay put.  Its not really a bad place to be quarantined until all the hype passes.

Actually, just for the record, if you remember a few weeks ago everyone around here came down with a flue bug that involved a fever, headache, sore throat, coughing, sneezing, sore muscles, and fatigue?   It never did move into anyone's chest as congestion, but did involve some fluid in the chest.  We were still in the big RV Park and it hit a good percentage of the people in the park and lasted 5 or 6 days.  They even said that it was all over the town of La Penita.  I think, and its just me, but I think maybe we had the virus already and didn't know it!!!  Perhaps we will never know!!

My research says that the virus is possibly less prevalent in places where the temperature is above 26C with higher humidity, lots of sunshine, and places where the population is sparser.  Well thats right where we are right now so where would we want to go that is better?

So our decision right now is to go with the plan.  There is no panic down here at all and everyone is just carrying on as normal.  That could change but for the most part the Mexican people just meet any obstacles head on.

One of the things that makes me the most annoyed is social media, and I for one am caught up in it like the next person.  There are a million stories out there and lots of them are believable but even the believable ones vary a lot in their information and recommendations.  I can see how some people who are maybe insecure or unsure would be panicked with all of the suggestions out there.  Because of the amount of uninformed information that I have seen circulated, I am seriously going to look at pressing the X on face book when this all settles down.  There is certainly good information there as well and that is not a bad thing.   I just don't want to miss any good arguments so for that reason, I am sticking around for a while.  I like to poke the bear a little just like the next guy.  LOL

So today we had a huge problem.  We officially ran out of toilet paper, or at least we were down to one roll.   With all the toilet paper problems in the world we didn't want to be seen as the gringo's who were going to swipe all the Mexican toilet paper!!!  So we went to the Bodega (mini Walmart) to get some groceries, (and toilet paper).  When we got there we found lots of things cleaned out including the bread bin.  Usually this box is piled high with bolo buns.  Today it was empty.

And the toilet paper and paper towel shelf was in a state of disarray with some of the shelves almost empty.  What the heck?  Has the panic set in down here?   Apparently that is not the case but down here they don't stock as often as at home and the stock guy said tonight was stock night so thats why the inventory was getting low.  He pointed to the storage area up top and it was full to the brim.  Whew!!! had me worried for a minute.

We will certainly be watching things play out and our plans may change if we see a different opportunity arise but for now we are going with the original plan.   We proudly headed to the cash register with our 24 pack of toilet paper and no one even looked at us!!!  Hope you got all the toilet paper you need in your cupboard too.   Stay healthy and safe!