3/13/2020 –

There is a famous book called “Love in the Time of Cholera.”  I am entitling this blog entry “Travel in the Time of Coronavirus.”

The world is experiencing something new and scary right now.  The Coronavirus started in China and has started to spread around the globe.  The CDC and WHO have declared it a pandemic.  This is a first in my lifetime (that I remember).  It is, apparently, a respiratory infection that can lead to death (although most deaths seem to occur in older patients).  The U.S. has (as of this morning) had just over 1600 cases and 41 deaths.  The germ for this illness can live in the air for 3 hours and on solid surfaces for 3 days.  The pandemic is causing unprecedented shutdowns in sports (all professional leagues), education (entire states closing public school systems) and entertainment (Broadway has gone dark).

The general idea is that the experts are saying that “social distancing” is key.  Don’t be close to people and wash with soap regularly.  I don’t know if society is overreacting or not.  But, I hope that all these precautions will at least put a stop to it sooner rather than later.  The last thing anybody wants is for this to drag out into April and May.  Enough already!

So, what do my husband and I do when we don’t have a home to go to?  What does one do if they enter a new city (i.e. hotel) every week?

Well, I will tell you.  You take the precautions that the experts tell you to take, you don’t take unnecessary risks and you get on with your life.

We haven’t gone to restaurants much.  We haven’t gone to super crowded places where we have to stand close to strangers.  We don’t use the handrails on the hotel staircases.  We wash our hands for 20 seconds with soap many, many times each day. In the evening, when I am bringing the dinner food that I have ordered from the hotel’s restaurant up to our room, I immediately wash my hands before sitting down to eat because I just finished touching lots of doorknobs and I have no way of knowing whether the hotel wiped those surfaces today or not.

Sorry, as far as words of wisdom go, that’s the best that I’ve got for ya.

Although, as I sit here in the restaurant of my hotel, I do wonder why I don’t see staff wiping down all the surfaces with bleach wipes while they have down time (i.e. the restaurant kitchen is between meals & closed for service and the guests are mostly out for the day).