Coronavirus is here, but don’t panic.
You have surely heard about the virus that is currently expanding over the world and there are probably growing cases of infected people in your country. Unfortunately, there is no vaccine against this virus and it doesn’t look like there will be one in the short term, however, this is not enough reason to panic, since in reality, the challenge is not to develop a cure, but to keep us safe from the virus. Fortunately, we already have a solution for this, and that is, to stay at home for what may look like a considerable period of time. Some people may think that this is a drastic measure, but it can’t be denied that it is a working measure, as demonstrated by the COVID-19 registered cases in China.
Figure 1 shows that the number of recovered cases has grown faster than the number of confirmed cases of infection for the last 4 weeks. Not only that, new confirmed cases have practically stalled for the past 2 weeks. If this trend continues, China could be free of infection in few weeks more. Of course, the cooperation of Chinese citizens to stay at home has been fundamental to achieve this result. Seeing this, I’m sure other countries will need to follow the same example.
Honestly, I don’t think it would be too hard to stay at home for 2 or 4 weeks nowadays that we have internet, books, phones, TV’s and many other stuff to keep us entertained and productive. There is, however, one thing that causes me anxiety about staying at home, and that is, that I’ll need to prepare my own meals. This includes to think what to prepare and in what quantities to avoid the need to go out often to buy more food. That’s why I decided to do an inventory of the food I managed to collect before classes and some labor stopped in my country, as well as a small meal plan to use my food resources.
Food inventory
The truth is, that cooking is not my passion and I often prefer to eat out instead of cooking, but in this case, it doesn’t look like I have many options. Therefore, I made simple recipes of what I think can feed me, counted how many meals I can prepare with those resources, and took some notes about it. Maybe you could do the same to get an idea of the resources at your disposal.
Table 2 allows me to see that I have food enough to prepare breakfast for 20 days, liquids and snacks for 22 days, and food to prepare meals for 16 days assuming 2 meals per day. I even think that my inventory can last longer considering that my lifestyle will slowdown and I will need to eat less food during the day.
Final thoughts
Sadly, the virus is already with us or will soon reach the place where you live. Fortunately, we know a proven method to keep us away from it, therefore we shouldn’t panic. Maybe you get a little alarmed after seeing the supermarket shelves empty but this won’t always be the case. Surely there will be more products during the next days in which people will get inside their homes, however, you should ideally find the way to extend the use of your resources to avoid going out too often. On the other hand, the challenge of staying at home is also an opportunity to spend more time with our beloved ones, to call old friends, read the books we have in our waiting list, watch the series we haven’t been able to, and to dedicate more time to the personal projects that for some reason we have not been able to advance. As a final note, did you know that Isaac Newton developed the basis of calculus during the time he was isolated due to an outbreak of bubonic plague in England?
