By GREG WHITE
Candidate for County Council

I totally get the panic buying so many people are doing. But please stop and think.

There are people who have medical conditions like diabetes, and they NEED to be able to buy rubbing alcohol and Q-Tips or alcohol wipes to sanitize there skin when testing and injecting insulin. There are other people with medical conditions that need those supplies also.

The most reliable research suggests this virus has an extremely long incubation period before an infected person has any symptoms: “The implications were unnerving. There was a good chance that the virus had been circulating silently in the community for around six weeks, infecting potentially hundreds of people.” Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/us/coronavirus-testing-delays.html

Considering how many people from other states and countries are here in Los Alamos all of us may already be infected. The good news is only less than 3 percent of people develop serious symptoms and 99.999 percent of children do NOT develop serious symptoms or any symptoms at all. Still of course anyone with the virus can transmit it to someone who might get seriously sick.

You can’t find dish soap and laundry detergent that says “anti-bacterial” any more (and none ever claimed to be anti-viral) not because it’s sold out, but the FDA determined several years ago it was killing to many of the good bacteria and people were getting sick. Yes, there are good bacteria. In fact, far far more good bacteria than bad. Just think about yogurt which has live bacteria that we need for proper digestive health.

There is such a thing as over cleaning your environment (home or office) to the point where the good bacteria can’t keep the bad bacteria or viruses in check. I am by no means suggesting you don’t clean your environment thoroughly and often, just stop and think. Almost all bacteria and viruses can and do travel through the air. You can’t “new air proof” your home because old homes are naturally drafty and new homes are required by building codes to be purposely designed to have a certain amount of fresh air drawn in.

Do I really need to clean three times a day or more? If I have to quarantine how much supplies am I actually going to use for 14 days? If the virus subsides what am I going to do with all the leftover supplies? Remember no law requires any store to do refunds. And if they become overwhelmed and have nowhere to put merchandise, they may stop doing refunds.

This is NOT the zombie apocalypse folks!!! We are NOT going to be locked in our homes for months on end (unless you’re really paranoid and choose to do so).