Do you want Coronavirus? This is how you get Coronavirus.

I've been knocked flat by Influenza for the last few weeks. Yes, I got a flu shot- I get one every year. However the flu shot only contains the educated guess of what flu strains will hit in a season. Unfortunately, they either guessed wrong or the flu mutated, because a lot of people in my area seemed to have gotten the flu. Not just a lot of my friends, but when I was at Urgent Care the doctor said the flu shot wasn't as effective this year. A lot of people who had gotten the shot were coming in with the flu. I'm going to believe the experts. (Just in case you're wondering if they are actually Coronavirus patients because the US has been slow in getting people tested for it, smack yourself in the back of the head. The flu has an easy - and especially painful if you are sick - nasal swab test. They know it isn't Coronavirus because they know it's the flu).


I have always been assured that even if you get the flu after getting the flu shot, the shot helped make it a lesser monster than it would have been without it. It should help you have more mild symptoms and a shorter duration. That in conjunction with the virus-suppressing Tamiflu, of course. According to the doctors this all should have helped suppress the flu a bit.

All of those assurances aside, the kinder, gentler flu has made me sick as fuck. The flu always seems to hit me harder than others; H1N1 nearly killed me. So for the most part I've been staying home, sleeping, sweating, and purposefully isolating myself from the general population so that I don't spread it around. Especially knowing that the flu shot didn't stop this strain.

But then I had some complications, and had to go to Urgent Care (which they then transferred me to the Emergency Room). Knowing that I was sick and contagious, I wanted to do everything I could do minimize my risk to everyone else. And here begins the reason I wrote this post.

When we got to Urgent Care, my plan was to do my best to not touch any doors with my hands and then I'd grab a face mask immediately when we got inside. This plan should take care of most disease vectors (e.g. breathing/touching). We had just been there two days prior when they diagnosed me and sent me home with Tamiflu, so we knew where all the masks were stacked.

And there were none. Of course there were none. Not in the entryway, not on the front desk, not in the waiting area. The intake nurse said that people had been taking handfuls because of the Coronavirus. They were extremely low on masks now. Let me repeat for emphasis. A hospital was low on face masks because people who didn't need them were stealing them. When I told them I was diagnosed with the flu and didn't want to make them sick, they pulled a mask out from behind the counter. She said it was their nurse/doctor supply. I noticed it was a different type than had been sitting on the counter just two days earlier.

People. I'm not going to nag long about how the efficacy of wearing a mask to NOT get sick is pretty damned low. But it is important to note that the people who need the masks the most are the ones who are ALREADY SICK. It is far more effective to contain the illnesses if the infected people are spreading it less. You are literally making the problem worse by creating a shortage of the very thing that is there to limit the spead of disease.

STOP FUCKING AROUND.