Apocalypse Now

My first end-of-the world experience was a novel read at the tender age of twelve: John Wyndham's 'Day of the Triffids'. You may remember it - three-legged plants which could up-root themselves and stumble aggressively across the landscape. They were equipped with enormous whip-like stings and the world (except for our plucky hero) had all gone blind.
They made a very bad film of it in 1963 and, apparently, various versions came along later. An early Mojácar resident called Daniel Aubrey was said to have been involved in the original film as a co-writer.
The story, like so many others in a similar vein, has a hero (which we must always identify with) and lots of dead folk, either simply dead, or clambering out of their graves and away after you, occasionally muttering to themselves their sickly menu: 'brains'.
There are many other tales of general doom like a cataclysmic asteroid crash, or a mega-volcano or an alien attack from the Planet Clunk. We've read them often enough, or seen them at the movies. Now, we have an Andromeda Strain story; only, this time it's for real. No heroes in this one unfortunately, and any of us could be dead in a few weeks.
I'm sixty six, and egotistic enough to suffer from mild solipsism - the philosophy that the world revolves around me. That's why fiction is so attractive, because it feeds on this selfish trait that we all have. Me, myself and I. So, an elderly fellow like myself, who has had a wonderful life full of rich experience, must now convert myself into the hero from I am Legend (but without the zombies) as I munch on old bits of rice and cackle over my last roll of lavatory paper. Perhaps I'll have a gun and a dog (I certainly do in the fantasy version).
It started a couple of weeks ago. Until then, it was just another scare lurking at the back of the news like Ebola or Sars or the chances of the lunatic Vox party winning the elections here in Spain. Then, with a dozen infections in the country, it was clear that things were going to get difficult. As I've suggested above: difficult, yes, but exciting too. Maybe we shall have some high-old adventures, in the best deserted castle beset by demons tradition, and since I'm 66, maybe it's time to check out anyway while cheerfully singing '...if the cocaine don't get you, the morphine must...'.
A week later, and the cases in Spain had risen to several hundred, while the news today is of many thousands of people infected. I was in the supermarket this morning, buying vodka, and there was no meat, no lavatory paper and queues of people at the till, their carts loaded with dried beans and other disgusting things. A few of them were wearing masks, whether as a fashion-statement, or perhaps to keep themselves from touching their faces. All very exciting.
A few towns and barrios have been isolated in Catalonia and a number of public figures have declared themselves infected. Schools have been closed down and the mad president of the USA has banned flights from Europe (but not, oddly, from the UK, where the equally insane leader Boris talks of tens of thousands of 'loved-ones' pencilled in for the high-jump).
We have horses here that need feeding and watering, plus the usual chores of domestic life to respond to (less food-shopping) like posting a birthday card and getting the car inspected. Life goes on, until, of course, it doesn't.
Just the one question for now: which comes first - the end of the crisis, or the end of the rice?