The day Longs Drugs posted a sign near the pharmacy counter stating they had run out of surgical masks, I knew something was amiss. The sign was written in bold, Chinese characters followed by the English translation stating “Masks are already sold out. Temporarily. NO STOCK!”
What exactly did they know?
Inside Longs, which is just a block away from Honolulu’s Chinatown, I witnessed many Chinese purchasing medical supplies, rubbing alcohol, sanitizers, and other cleaning supplies without abandoned. This was February 19th. Many seemed distressed as some items were already disappearing off the shelves.
The western world had already been subjected to news reports of a new virus spreading in Wuhan, China in the last few weeks. Social media posts showed overwhelmed hospitals filled with the ill. Social media out of China alerted the world to the pandemic posting videos of the dead lining hospital corridors, crematoriums working at full capacity, and bodies wiggling in body bags as they were buried in mass graves. Many of the videos were grainy and poorly recorded but they showed that something was amiss in a far away place.
Many videos also showed unprotected security officials dragging “victims” out of their homes or cars and forcing them into quarantine. One video showed a middle aged lady stubbornly sitting on a sidewalk as two men dragged her by her legs to a medical van. On the outside, it looked more like dissidents being rounded up. In 2019, Hong Kong was besieged protestors and now, China was cracking down on anti-government protestors using the virus and mandatory quarantine as an excuse. It was easy to believe as the Tienanmen Square was essentially just a generation ago.
I shrugged much of it off with laughter as I kept asking Alexa to continuously play The Walking Dead theme song. Western news outlets were beginning to report on the deaths of Chinese citizen in Wuhan but the connection to pop culture seemed to lessen the fear these foreign diseases would affect me, us, the West. This is just a far away outbreak in a region of a country known for poor sanitary conditions.
More reports came out that the disease came from eating bat soup or pangolin stir fry. Horrible images and videos appeared from the Wuhan wet market where poor animals were kept in disgusting conditions and slaughtered in an equally disgusting manner. One image showed the roasted carcass of a dog hanging from a cage where live dogs awaited that same fate. Their eyed shown dull, dead without hope, ready to succumb to their inevitable fate. Wild animals from all corners of the globe sat in cages awaiting the coals of a fire. Feces, fear, blood, and pain seem to spread across the market as shoppers with their fake LV purses purchased fresh, bloody flesh in hopes to find cures for aliments or plain protein consumption.
In the Max Brooks’ novel, World War Z, he ironically describes how a strange virus originating in China spread across the globe.Viruses travel. They are not bound by passports or border control. Milan, Italy had direct flights to Wuhan as it appears fashion factories made luxury goods in both countries and trade freely flowed. Nouveau riche Chinese have been poured into Europe with pockets full of Yuan buying up Manolos and Bordeaux and in many ways, appear no different than Captain Cook or any European sailor infected with new virus as they cross the seas to the new worlds. One early social media post pointed out a tweet from a well-to-do Chinese woman from an affected area who could not do without eating at her favorite Lyon, France restaurant so she took fever controlling medicine, fled the quarantine zone boarding a flight to France.
It is now March 19th, and the world is much different from nearly a month ago. Hawaii now has 26 cases confirmed. The US is struggling to control the outbreak from coast to coast. Athletes and actors are reporting to have COVID-19. Politicians are not immune either as several national and local leaders are sick as well. The more testing centers that open up, the more confirmation we will have that the virus is spreading here at home.
With little to no work happening for many people in the US, life is beginning to look tough. In the next few weeks I plan to blog about daily life in Hawaii as the COVID-19 continues its devastating past. I will note that facts tell a much different scenario from the doom-and-gloom news media is reporting. There are relatively few deaths per infections, yet the count is rising on both sides. I do have hope there will be a breakthrough in the next few days, weeks, or months and we can all start to get back to normal life.