The thing that genuinely has me speechless is that the level the California wildfires have reached would be the big US "apocalypse" story of 2020 if not for everything else, but as it is they're just a side story https://twitter.com/EricHolthaus/status/1304480675379191808

As it is, it's kind of a mixed bag

Everyone in California was already ordered to stay inside anyway

Maybe it's a good thing the fires are driving people to stay inside

On the other hand, lung irritation from smoke *vastly* increases your chance of COVID-19 infection

It's just the whole thing we all know from our personal lives, that it's never just one disaster, you always end up getting a "day from hell" because one personal problem wrecks your ability to respond to others until they all come to a head

Now we get to see that happen -- "Everything is just falling apart" -- at a societal scale, maybe a global one