in the scrum

How the shelter arrangement was working I didn't know at first, as I didn't leave home, aside from bringing newspapers in and taking trash out, for the better part of two days.

But I needed to drop off my tax forms at my accountant's office (they said push them under the door - it's inside an office building - and someone will pick them up later), and figured I could do some shopping at the same time. I deliberately drove a route along commercial streets so I could see what was happening.

The traffic was light, yes, but it was hardly a ghost town. Only when I saw the empty parking lot at a mall did it seem spooky. A lot of restaurants had little neon "open" signs in the windows, so at least for now the chances that one is open are good enough to make inquiries worth a shot.

The only lots where I saw a lot of cars were at supermarkets. I went to one from a local chain which had seemed relatively normal during earlier stages of the crisis, though it had been hit badly by panics the last time I was there on, I think, Monday morning. Its lot was a lot less full than others, and I didn't have too much trouble maintaining distance from other shoppers. Still, I want to keep these excursions down.

Result: produce, fully recovered. Plenty of broccoli. Still lots of holes in the packaged dinners section. Paper towels, but still no toilet paper.

Cases in Italy are still going up, and now they're considering banning all outdoor activity. That might help, but it may not be clear that, because of the incubation period, the reason cases are going up now is because of what happened before the restrictions were put into place at all. So new restrictions won't have any effect on that: what it might have an effect on is what happens 2-3 weeks from now. This is what I mean by being behind events.

In the meantime, lots of work at home. I'm trying an electronic connection which is turning out to be ... challenging. But useful when it's working.