NZ seems the safest place to be

It’s scary how quickly the virus caused tragedy and disruption around the world.

It’s the speed of Covid-19 that seems so terrifying. When I filed my first column on the coronavirus, it was restricted to the province of Wuhan in China and 25 people had died.

The death toll was not anywhere near the numbers of previous viruses and the angle I chose was the role that bat droppings possibly played in this outbreak and in previous ones such as Ebola.

A couple of weeks later, I wrote about washing your hands for long enough, to be helpful in terms of talking about what people could do to help protect against the disease as it began to spread across the world.

And now, in what feels like an alarmingly quick time, the virus has wrought disruption in the lives of millions across the world.

Forbes reports that China went from 1000 patients to

80,000 in about six weeks and Italy went from around 20 cases 21⁄2 weeks ago to more than 12,000.

The first-hand accounts of human experiences that are emerging are tragic. Such as the stories of the brave Chinese medical staff who first discovered the disease and who sought to raise the alarm and whose hospitals were soon over-run by the sick and the dying.

In Italy, there are stories of people appearing on balconies and singing the national anthem with their neighbours, in an attempt to raise spirits.

On Twitter, I read of an 80-year-old couple who’d waited outside a supermarket in their car, windows wound up, hoping to find a passer-by who could take their money and get groceries for them since they were terrified of going in themselves and potentially being exposed to the virus.

One piece of good news is that China has reported it is on the other side of its peak rates of infection. South Korea has been similarly effective.

It seems like it would be a good idea for countries yet to suffer their worst to look at what China and South Korea did as they ramped up their response.

It’s reported that in China, you can’t ride in taxis, take public transport, or enter any business unless you’re wearing a facemask.

One of the defining images from this disease will be the empty toilet-roll shelves in supermarkets. It’s no different where I am in Hawaii.

Here, toilet rolls have had to be rationed, given customers collect them straight from the pallets before forklifts have had a chance to take them into the store, even at huge outlets like Costco.

I am in the final month of a three-month Fulbright NZCreative NZ writing residency based at the University of Hawaii at

Ma¯ noa where they’ve just decided to make all classes online, at least for the next month.

Hawaii has had only two cases of coronavirus, so it seems pretty safe here. But on the TV news, there was a report of restaurants discovering that patrons have been cleaning them out of toilet paper and hand sanitiser.

In sports-mad US, sports have ground to a halt. We knew things were getting real when the NBA was suspended.

In mainstream and social media commentary there is concern about how the US government have responded to the situation and whether they took it seriously enough, soon enough. Now the US has declared a national emergency.

New Zealand seems the safest place to be right now as it is still in the ‘‘keep out’’ phase of the operation. Especially as Parliament introduces travel bans to keep the country safe.

I wish I was home.

‘Restaurants discovered that patrons have been cleaning them out of toilet paper.’