10 days ago I posted My Coronavirus Concerns. At that time we didn’t have very much going on within the US besides Washington, California, and New York.
Now everything is cancelled it feels like (sports, bars, churches, senior centers, etc). New guidelines from the CDC suggest no meetings of larger than 50 persons. A church in my home state had a member test positive, they were at church on Sunday. Everyone at that church is quaranteed.
I’ve run into my fair share of people not taking it seriously, worried about their bottomline. Most of these people are farmers and they very often run paycheck to paycheck. One hit this time of the year equals a bigger hit next year since they may only have a single sell off each year. That single sell floats their farm for the entire year. Some aren’t going to be able to buy that new piece of equipment, new parcel of land, won’t be able to afford improvements that need to be made. That agricultural community as a whole is going to hit by a semi over the coming months.
I’ve watched as friends think they have it but they can’t get tested because there are still no tests. Instead they just have to go into quarantine until symptoms subside.
The other side I’ve seen of those not taking it seriously are younger persons on TikTok and social media. That group will be ok but they’ll pass it onto their grandma and then grandma will get severely sick and might die. That’s what has me more worried. I know I’ll be fine even if I get it. But the idea of passing it to someone that won’t be ok and is a possible death sentence honestly freaks me out. But you want to post something ‘cute’ on social media because you need some clicks, enjoy the backlash.
In general, there is a cloud of doom overhead. It reminds me of waiting and watching a hurricane come on shore. We’re not sure where, not really sure of when, but we know when it hits and where it hits it’s likely to be pretty bad. I just feel like I’m waiting for the crash to occur and I know it’s going to. Or I’m sitting blindfolding in the surf bracing for that large wave to crash and knock me over. That’s what it seems to feel like waiting for this to happen.
The world is still turning, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. This too shall pass. This isn’t the first or last pandemic I’ll likely face in my lifetime. The solution for the average citizen isn’t really that difficult. Wash your hands and avoid large groups of people if at all possible. If you can do grocery pickup, do it. Get caught up on that book reading. Watch your church online. Youtube has a great resource of workouts available if you need that gym time. Learn to cook if you don’t know or experiment with a few of those recipes you’ve been saving. We’ve been cooking larger dishes like goulash or beef bourg. so we eat lunch instead of going out to eat, possibly exposing ourselves.
I’m still required to come to work although I do work in a small office at a research station. There’s generally only two of us here on a regular basis. My husband is working from the house after his office told him last night they’ll be doing so for the foreseeable future. It’s not that big of a deal for him to work from home, he doesn’t like it but he just did it for 3 months while the office got a face lift. For me, I work out in the field often. All my large group events have been cancelled. Even person-to-person consults are limited. We’re doing what we can to abide by the CDC guidelines and still
I kind of doubt I’ll be forced to work from home, but another University is on essential personnel only after an employee tested positive. It’s a smart move. Our office space could follow soon once we find out we have more cases.
We had our first case in the county. Everyone just about lost their shit. Grocery stores (we have 3 Walmarts ( 2 Supercenters and a Neighborhood Market) for a 50k person city/town). But we service the entire county and outlying areas since we’re the nearest major shopping area for most people within a 50 mile area. So we see a lot of people doing their day to day shopping or weekly shopping. The other bad part of this, that also means we’re the largest hospital in the area. We’ve had a wave of hospital closures over recent years in rural Oklahoma. Some of those cases will end up in my town’s hospital and we don’t really have that many beds.
We don’t have enough tests to actually understand how bad this is unfortunately. I’m disgusted at the news that the US gov tried to poach a German scientist to develop a vaccine. It’s warmongering but attached to a virus.
The way I’m trying to approach it is simply thing. I assume everyone has it or I have and can transfer it to someone who gives it to their grandma. You just don’t know and that’s the scary part. You could’ve been infected a week ago and not show symptoms. I avoid shaking hands (kinda hard in my line of work), avoid touching the face especially the nose and near my mouth. I wash my hands much more often. If I need a 15 minute break, I wash my hands. Surprisingly enough, I don’t have hand sanitizer at my desk, washing your hands is better.
Doesn’t help that the federal government can’t seem to get it’s act together. We’re still short on tests, individual universities are developing their own on the fly and putting those into production for their own area. It’s just insane. We get told ‘this is happening’ just to find out that its not or its several months before we’ll have it. It’s just ridiculous.
Edit: Now our schools are closed state-wide for the next month. I can definately see the argument for both. Kids will get infected and transmit but likely won’t show symptoms. So we solve this by keeping kids from transmitting at school, but then the nurses and doctors have a harder time figuring out what to do with their kids. So we’re left with a double edged sword. Damned if we do and damned if we don’t.
TLDR
- Stay Calm, panic doesn’t do anybody any good. People make their biggest mistakes when they panic.
- Buy what you need, there’s thousands of other people who need products as well.
- Avoid restaurants, gyms, bars, etc.
- Don’t go licking toilet seats Karen. That disgusting even if we’re not in a pandemic.
- Wash your hands and often. If you sing just about any song’s chorus or a nursery rhyme verse, it’s about 20-30 seconds. That’s how long you should be washing your hands. Pick your song of choice and wash ’em.
- Your water doesn’t need to be as hot as you can handle. Just leave if comfortably warm for you. Hot water coming from the tap isn’t going to kill the virus or bacteria. All it will do is burn your skin.
To add insult to injury, our state’s economy is centered on ONE product, Oil. Oil is now at $29 a barrel. This is what’s really going to effect my state in the long run.
It’s not all bad though. Italians are taking their shutdown in stride. I just hope those of us in the US can show this much grace.
