Column: The `Big One’ finally slammed California. It’s coronavirus

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The City of Santa Monica closed the Santa Monica Pier in an attempt to prevent the further spread of the Coronavirus. Very few people were on the beach in Santa Monica as the epidemic continues.  (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)

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Volunteer Nagma Shakur, 16, left, hugs her “Grannie” as she helps senior shoppers with their carts at the Grocery Outlet Bargain Market in Altadena.  (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times)

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People walk up the ramp, exiting the secure area at the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX.  (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)

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David Barker, 56, is visiting with his friend living in a tent on skidrow in Los Angeles. Barker, who is not homeless, works in the area.   (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

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Dr. Dallas Weaver, 79, and his wife, Janet Weaver, 75, of Huntington Beach, walk on the Huntington pier.  (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

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Seniors, including Eileen Oda Leaf, 67, left, and her husband Dave Leaf, 67, right, both wearing protective masks, line up outside Gelson’s Market in Manhattan Beach early on Wednesday, March 18, 2020.   (Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

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Roberta Tabor, 66, of Hermosa Beach, has her ID checked by store director Dennis Sullivan at Gelson’s Market in Manhattan Beach on Wednesday. The store is doing a “seniors shopping hour” where seniors 65+ can go grocery shopping before anybody else.   (Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

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Seniors shop at Gelson’s Market in Manhattan Beach on Wednesday. The store is doing a “seniors shopping hour” where seniors can go grocery shopping before the store opens to the general public.   (Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

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Dr. Mark V. Morocco oversees testing at UCLA Medical Center where people can drive up and get tested if they have the symptoms. Morocco listens to a female patient’s lungs through the car window.   (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)

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HOPICS outreach worker Ralph Gomez tosses a clipboard for a signature to homeless client Davis Soto, right, taking care to stay at least six feet away during outreach in Los Angeles.  (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)

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Medical personnel screen patients outside the emergency room at Loma Linda University Health during the coronavirus pandemic.  (Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

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A nurse takes the vital signs of a woman in a medical tent outside the hospital on Catalina.  (Francine Orr/Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

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An employee of the Trader Joe’s store in Monrovia tells customers waiting in line that it would open doors to everyone at 9 a.m., not just seniors, who arrived believing doors would open earlier to older residents, as some of the people were told by employees and it was reported. Some grocery outlets were offering special morning hours of shopping to accommodate older residents.   (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times)

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Kevin Ezeh, protected with face mask and gloves, addresses the Los Angeles City Council meeting standing under a tent erected outside City Hall. A television livestreamed video of the meeting and the public offered comments remotely.   (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)

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Orange County Undersheriff Bob Peterson listens during a board of supervisors discussion on combating the coronavirus in Santa Ana.  (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

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Dr. Mark V. Morocco oversees the testing at UCLA Medical Center. Testing for Covid-19 is going on at UCLA Medical Center, where people can drive up and get tested if they have the symptoms.   (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)

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A large tent is installed for public attendance at Tuesday’s Los Angeles City Council meeting. The public was not allowed in the council chamber.  (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)

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Shoppers queue up ahead of the Los Feliz Costco opening for business on Tuesday, March 17, 2020 in Los Angeles.  (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)

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Muhammad Faruq, an Uber driver, picks his ride Sotero Reyes, left, and Cristian Eguia, visitors from Houston, all in protective masks, from downtown Los Angeles.   (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)

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Volunteer Rachel Figueroa, serves a free lunch to go to Destiny Mendez, with her mother, Estefany, at the Dream Center in Los Angeles. LAUSD students can get free breakfast, lunch and dinner at the Dream Center, Monday through Friday.  (Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times)

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Emma Bradley, left, and her husband, Samuel Bradley, of Palmdale are walking up the ramp to catch the Metrolink in Union Sation in Los Angeles.  (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

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Medical personnel surround a car that is going through a coronavirus drive-thru test clinic at the San Mateo County Event Center. Drive-thru test clinics for COVID-19 are popping up across the country as more tests become available.   (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

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From left, Josh Akamine, of Oahu, Hawaii; Madison Shine of Oahu; Matthew Valencia of Los Altos and Dani Ikeda visit L.A. Live in downtown Los Angeles.  (Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times)

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Normally bustling Grand Central Market in downtown L.A. is open only for take out.  (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)

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L.A. has banned restaurants from offering seating at places such as Grand Central Market.  (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)

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Carlos Perez, a worker at Wolfgang Puck Bar & Grill at L.A. Live in downtown Los Angeles sits in the empty restaurant.  (Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times)

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A line at the Martin B. Retting gun store in Culver City on Sunday extends out the door and around the corner in 2020.  (Francine Orr / The Times)

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A guest wears a mask in front of the Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland on Thursday.   (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

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Students hug as they are let out of school at Hamilton High School in Los Angeles, Calif., on March 13, 2020. The school has 2,623 students who live in 94 different zip codes, some of whom travel upwards of 30 miles to school on 24 different school bus routes. 221 school staff live in 88 zip codes. Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Austin Beutner announced that schools will be closed due to the coronavirus. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)  (Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times)

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Blake Anderson, left, a freshman, walks with his father Oree Anderson, as school is let out at Hamilton High School in Los Angeles. LAUSD announced that schools will be closed due to the Coronavirus.   (Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times)

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Students leave John C. Fremont High School in Los Angeles at the end of the school day on Friday, Mar. 13, 2020. LAUSD announced it will shut down beginning Monday.  (Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times )

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Alexandria Casserly crosses the street while looking for toilet paper in downtown Los Angeles.   (Gabriella Angotti-Jones / Los Angeles Times)

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A crew member stands on the stern of a cruise ship docked at the Port of Los Angeles.  (Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times)

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Two children look at movie posters in the lobby of the Arclight theater Thursday in Manhattan Beach.  (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

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Disneyland guests wearing ponchos pass the Marketplace inside Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge on Thursday. Disneyland and California Adventure will temporarily close in response to the coronavirus pandemic.   (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

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People shop at the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance.  (Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times)

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Disneyland guests take photos in front of the Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.  (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

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Airline workers take precautions at Tom Bradley International Terminal in Los Angeles on Thursday.   (Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

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An airport worker cleans a railing at Tom Bradley International Terminal.   (Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

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Two people arrive at Knott’s Berry Farm on Thursday in Buena Park.   (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Cab drivers wait for riders at the Long Beach Airport.  (Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times)

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The Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance.  (Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times)

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A woman claims her luggage at he Long Beach Airport.  (Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times)

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The Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance.  (Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times)

This is not a test. This is not a drill. This is the real thing. If only it weren’t.

We are learning so much so fast about what we need to have in place when a pandemic happens, only it has happened and a lot of us weren’t prepared — or were prepared but for very different disasters, for the grab-your-most-important-papers fires and keep-your-shoes-by-your-bed earthquakes.

The coronavirus is requiring us to be ready in new ways — and we are trying, we’re adapting fast, but the pandemic may be spreading faster.

There are things we were supposed to have taken care of earlier for that long-expected guest that we’ve always called the Big One: stocking up on the basics — the water, the toilet paper, the batteries, the canned goods.

But even those of us who took the time out to put together great earthquake kits probably didn’t include disinfectant spray. Even those of us who love disaster movies in which our world hurtles toward apocalypse probably didn’t think in real life we’d ever need to be ready in an instant with bleach wipes and gloves.

We also maybe didn’t quite imagine a new kind of crisis that might turn a lot of people who need us invisible.

We’re used to people running out of burning and buckled houses. We’re used to firefighters and police going door to door and finding them. We’re not used to people in need — older people, the sick, those with compromised immune systems — being commanded to stay in place behind closed doors and leaving us not knowing where they are or how to find them and help.

Some confusion ensued as people arrived to wait in line to enter the Trader Joe’s store in Monrovia as employees tell customers waiting in line that it would open doors to everyone at 9:00am, not only senior citizens. Senior citizens arrived believing doors would open earlier to older residents as some of the people were told by employees and it was reported. Some grocery outlets were offering special morning hours of shopping to accommodate older residents.

(Al Seib/Los Angeles Times)

Some blocks and communities no doubt have done all the right things in advance: mapping out their neighbors’ homes, putting phone numbers and email addresses next to names. But all over the city now there are blocks and communities that haven’t done that prep work and, no matter how much they want to, don’t know how to check in on or offer aid to people they’ve seen around but for whom they have neither addresses nor names.

This isn’t a test. This is the real thing. And some of the things we are learning so fast feel too late.

I had the good luck the other day to see one of the elderly people I’ve been worried about as she paced down my block for her exercise. But when I tried to ask her if she was OK and if I could get her anything, I faced two problems: She told me she spoke only Armenian, and I don’t know much more than the “Ari!” that another neighbor uses to make her dog come to her. Also, the woman, who I would guess is in her 80s, was terrified to come any closer to me than about 10 feet.

Another thing we’re struggling to process now is that the way we behave as individuals can have profound consequences for our collective whole. In this new crisis we find ourselves in, the actions of one person just moving around the city touching things or getting too close to others could potentially start a chain of events that costs numerous complete strangers their health or even their lives.

This is true, too, of our hunting and gathering to make sure that we and our loved ones have what we need.

Because we didn’t all have disaster kits in place, because even if we did we didn’t have some of the specific things we now need, because no one is sure how long this will last and whether supplies will dry up, everyone is out hunting now for the same things at the same moment.

Emma Bradley, 82, left, and her husband Samuel Bradley, 86, right, both of Palmdale are walking up the ramp to catch the Metrolink in Union Sation in Los Angeles. Fewer passangers are arriving at Union Station today because of the coronavirus. Emma said the couple had been to church and they did not fear the virus.

(Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)

But we’re still struggling to absorb how much all that moving around might have the power to harm others.

The last time I went to the supermarket, a few days ago, I watched a man get around a two-case limit on water by having his children line up, each with two cases of 24 bottles in a cart. Set aside the questionable belief that we might have a water shortage, the “us” clearly wasn’t thinking about the “them.”

But perhaps more seriously, this man was bringing three children into a crowded place that thus grew more crowded — children who could be carrying the virus and thus exposing others to it or could get exposed in the course of their shopping and bring it home with them.

Each day, in this coronavirus crisis, we learn new things: how to manage when forced behind closed doors, how to harness our inner resources, how to slow down, how to conserve what we have, how to alleviate stress through creativity.

How to find ways to be compassionate toward others when we can’t hug them or sit by their sides or even walk into their homes.

We deserve to be proud. We have learned so much so fast that we can apply to the next time.

But we don’t have the luxury of a learning curve. The more we stumble, the more we resist our new reality, the more lives we lose, the more time we spend sequestered, the more businesses go under, the more people lose jobs and can’t afford to pay their bills or their rent.

If only this were a drill, but it’s not.