Re: COVID-19 - People need to remain calm. If this pandemic has proven anything, it's that we live in a privileged time and don't suffer adversity well. 

My parents lived through a world war and all the horrors it entailed. The people who are complaining about empty store shelves and not having hoarded enough toilet paper should be thankful that they've never had to carve up a dead horse in the street for meat.

There are many people on this planet who suffer terrible things on a daily basis, and few pay attention to or make any effort to lessen their plight, but we will get outraged when the mall closes for a few weeks or we aren't allowed to eat wings at the local pub. People are panicking because they're on a forced, temporary vacation from work.

Perspective. The privileged have none. 

My message would be to remain calm - just like all of those idiotic memes have been suggesting for years now. This is a good opportunity to take stock of our lives, strive to make the best of a bad situation, and to reflect on our good fortunes.

And to spend some quality time with our typewriters. 

This crisis shall pass. Patience and levelheadedness will see us through it. 

Yes. Everybody has been so mean and rude lately, I had an appointment with my doctor for nothing other than a prescription refill, it would've been perfectly reasonable to have him renew it over the phone, but his assistant wouldn't let me talk to him . She barked at me and hung up! I am very sure that she and everybody else in that hospital are very, very stressed out, I'm sure she's had people barking at her all day. Then There was one person I talked to yesterday when I was out shopping, I stopped to gas up my car and the clerk and his son were talking to me with a sense of friendly solidarity, something that reminded me of the stoic cheerfulness of the British in the war. My father's family came here after the war, too. They lived in England and there home was destroyed in the Manchester Blitz, the came here after the war. They were always very proud of their britishness, my father gave me and my brother very British names, and I grew up,on Marmite even though I've never once been to the UK. That sort of stoic stiff upper lip attitude is something that the British are very proud of. Its not hard for me to recall, It was an attitude that was a deep, deep part of who my grandparents were.  It is a very good way to be. Don't panic, like the book says, I can just see the large, friendly letters, which I've always imagined to be the "Egyptian" font, the type from the Keep Calm... poster, or the font they used in the tube. Large, friendly letters. Its good advice. Its too bad USA doesn't have that kind of national experience, something to recalI. Myself, I actually am very lucky, the factory I worked at closed a couple months ago and I am,getting a fair amount of unemoyment. I was mad as hell when I lost my job, I loved working there, best job I ever had, but getting laid off is turning out to be the best thing that's happened to me, but it kills me knowing how lucky I am, everybody with no savings is going to SUFFER. I just heard they're putting up homeless people in hotels in California... I lived in the gutter for years when I was younger, its in fact part of what my book is about, but those people are going to really suffer. It kills me, I wish I could help but I can just afford to take care of myself and my mother, who,is old and not very healthy. I still keep in touch with a number of my mates from the gutter, they invariably talk with that same sort of chin-up stoicism, they are models for American behavior. But there's nothing they can do but suffer. Especially considering addiction-- in order to survive, many of them are going to have to quit RIGHT NOW. I don't see our government doing much to help in that respect. I have a  friend, ive known her for 25 years, since we were kids. She's been a heroin addict the last 20, her health is not good, physically as well as mentally. If she gets sick, she will not likely survive. She's depressed as it is, I'm very worried about her. The famies that in the best of times have no more than a week's savings, so many kids moms, jeez its depressing. Did I get off topic? All this is obvious anyway, people KNOW how they should behave but don't.  I hope we learn from this