Eggs Suddenly Vanish from Idaho Grocery Stores

I saw a lot of empty shelves at stores when I looked into the coolers. A sign at WinCo explains that the avian flu virus is to blame. The illness has been spreading through large operations nationwide.

Restaurants are struggling too. A friend in Idaho Falls wrote me with details:

The restaurant my son cooks for wasn’t able to do Saturday brunch yesterday because eggs were too expensive. $68 a case to $160? They are a small restaurant/catering service and can’t bear the cost. There would be no profit.

The thing is, the guy who gets blamed is usually the one in charge of the government. The guy at the top. Donald Trump is taking over much the way he left, being dogged by a viral pandemic.

Are you a conspiracy theorist?

News media spent the last four years telling us that a president had little control over fuel prices, and very few tools for dealing with inflation. Which the media blamed on supply chain issues and not the copious printing of currency. Will Trump be given the same pass that Joe Biden received? Don’t hold your breath.

I don’t dislike eggs, but I’m always eating on the fly. I rarely have time for them on weekends, and even if I wanted them on a Saturday morning at a restaurant, there’s now a challenge finding any.

This will pass, but flocks are going to be greatly reduced.  When they do recover, we’ll probably have birds with hardier immune systems.  Bouncing back could take a very long time.