Social distancing?  Brand new. 8,000 customers at Saint George Costco.  Quarantines, Corona Virus pandemic. March 16 Dow Jones Industrial Average sells down 3,000 points.

            The corona virus is becoming more famous than rock and roll, Americans landing on the moon,  the Wright brothers first heavier than air flight, the Gutenberg Bible and invention of movable font type, and the atomic bomb.

            Since last week, we have been told directly that the Governor of Utah or Board of Education closed the elementary and high schools for 3 weeks.  Harvard and Yale ended spring term yesterday, sending the students home to continue classes online.  Tuacahn  center for the Arts canceled all public events from March 16 to 30. Southwest Symphony canceled its concerts. And according to the media, the NBA cancelled its season, the NCAA cancelled March Madness at a loss of One billion dollars in revenues from the colleges, the Ivy League cancelled its basketball tournament, along with the Big 12, and other colleges. Our granddaughter’s swim club and meets were canceled in Bountiful Utah.  Similar closings were announced in Springfield Virginia, Provo Utah, and Mountain House California.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints cancelled all activities world wide, including the 20,000 visitors coming to each of six conference sessions.  The reunion of the Japan Tokyo South mission, held annually, was canceled for another year. The Army canceled travel.

            The Center for Disease Control put out a warning to limit groups to 50 or less. And so forth.

            Coincidentally, the investors in the public stock markets, NASDAQ, NYSE, sold more stocks watching the Dow Jones Industrial Average sell down nine thousand points in a month, including the largest single day point drop in history.  Ouch.  Disneyland is closed, a revenue source for Disney Corporation.  Ouch. The Airline association put out a press release they would all be bankrupt by the end of the year. Ouch. The travel industry is in major pain. Ouch.    Russia and Saudia Arabia are in an oil producers war. Ouch. Governors and mayors have closed restaurants, and bars, ski resorts. Air ports are reporting long lines of passengers, including a seven hour long line at Los Angeles International AirPort for flights to Atlanta.

            Then we went to Harmon’s Neighborhood Grocer on Saturday the 14^th of March, and the parking lot was full. The Target retail outlet  in Saint George parking lot was full.   Aren’t people bumping into each other at the stores, while avoiding church and theaters? Just how many?

            We had heard stories of lines at the Costco in Tracy California which strung out to the street.  A same story in Saint George.  The Costco in Saint George counts its patrons and reports between 360 and 450 customers an hour for a ten and a half hour day, or about 8,000 customers.  No social separation there.  That is well more than 40,000 customers a week, or about twenty percent of the Washington County residents. 

            How many more tens of thousands are shopping at the three Walmarts, Penny’s, Best Buy, Bed Bath and Beyond, Kohl’s, Deseret Industries and more?  The hospital parking lot was full.  Cruise ship companies have suspended trips.

            The idea of online classes and home schooling technology has much appeal.  Streaming Disneyland on Roku is great, looking at pictures of canyons and mountains. But sometimes we want to see something alive,  travel in person,  smell the roses.

            The Saint Patrick’s day Parades in New  York City and Boston, probably others, are cancelled.   Have the subways in New York City, and Metro in Washington D.C.  stopped running?  Apparently not, the Metrorail WMATA web site, for Washington has schedules and announces safe, clean, reliable transit service for 600,000 customers a day in the Washington DC area.  Trump rallies have been cancelled.  Television studio audiences have emptied.

            Also, quarantines are easy to avoid.  The story is that a pregnant Gene Tierney, a beautiful famous movie star, was greeting for the USO in Los Angeles in June 1943. A fan, quarantined for measles, desperate to meet Tierney, left quarantine to go to the USO, meet and infected Tierney with the measles. Tierney’s baby was born deaf and blind, mentally retarded, and was institutionalized.

            There are  an estimated thirty million cases of corona virus annually in the United States, 15% of the common cold.  If  we are counting the corona virus positive tests this year by the hundreds, we have many  hundreds of thousands to go.  For what purpose are all the tests? Quarantine?  Yes must be for Quarantine, because there are no treatments or preventions as of March 16, 2020. Source .  Dr. Birx ‘’to be able to address this virus comprehensively that we cannot see, for which we don’t have a vaccine or a therapeutic.‘’

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-press-briefing-3/

Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Briefing, Issued on: March 16, 2020

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