Shutdown

My little corner of the world, like most of the rest of the world right now, is shutting down. The state is slowly tightening the rules. On Friday, they said “we only have a few isolated cases, and we’re closing schools next week as a precaution.” Later, the governor asked people to avoid large gatherings. However, she stopped just shy of shutting things down entirely. She caught a load of shit for that; if businesses that serve crowds are open, people aren’t stay home. Two local casinos announced they would close for two weeks, and most large events were cancelled and postponed. Finally, last night, they announced that all the malls and movie theaters would close, and restaurants that remained open are only allowing takeout or drive through sales.

About a week ago, the state’s department of corrections announced it was stopping visits until the end of the month. Happily for us, this didn’t affect my regular Sunday visit with Shawshank. He’s in a private prison rather than a state run facility. Unfortunately, he called tonight to let me know they’re stopping visits starting tomorrow and continuing until the end of the month. I feel so awful for him. Irish left last week, and he’s really the only English speaker in his ward. Additionally, he’s got a court appearance on Thursday, and he’s sort of freaking out over it. He has no idea what to expect there, and ICE’s Captain America wasn’t in today to answer his questions.

He’s dealing with it, but not very well.

And… the person in the room below his spent the morning throwing up. “At least he stopped whistling for five hours,” he told me.

Working in the pharmacy, we’re exempt from the “stay the fuck home” order. We had periods of slowness alternating with lines halfway down the main aisle today. So far, we haven’t had to deal with a lot of the medication hoarding some pharmacies are seeing. We are seeing some drug shortages, mostly things used for respiratory issues.

There hasn’t been masks in the store for over a month now, and hand sanitizer was next to go about two weeks ago. On Thursday, things started to heat up a bit, when there were only three big packages of toilet paper left. We had no antibacterial wipes or alcohol at all. BossRPh, after the second person asking for them, grabbed a stockpile of alcohol swabs. She hid them in the pharmacy “for the actual diabetics”. She also told a patient that we were absolutely not going to save 24 bars of antibacterial soap for her to buy.

Our district and a neighboring one had a conference call this afternoon. After the normal pleasantries, the guy presenting the call introduced some pharmaceutical rep who works in the region. The rep started promoting this new option that’s been programmed into our system. It analyzes patients, and if they meet certain criteria, will force the dispensing pharmacist to discuss the benefits of getting a pneumonia vaccine.

Unfortunately for this rep, the Corona has every fucking pharmacist on edge at the moment. And they unleashed on him. “I’m sorry,” one said. “But I think this is absolutely disgusting that you’re here promoting vaccines when we’re in the middle of global pandemic.”

It was glorious.

Not long after, the topic turned to policy and procedure regarding the virus. What is the company doing to help its employees protect themselves? Will they provide protective gear to us? In the event that an employee tests positive, will we shut down the store because everyone should be self-quarantined? Who would a manager contact within the company if an employee contracted it, after contacting the board of health? Can a pharmacy employee, working in an area with multiple positive cases, preemptively self-quarantine to avoid potential exposure to himself, and consequently his own family?

In the end, the leader made it more like a political press conference: lots of words but no answers at all.