Well, a lot has been changing this month, and it's been really weird. I suppose I better start back in December. There was an outbreak in China of a new virus that we making people sick and killing a bunch of people. It started in a city called Wuhan, and they called it the Novel Coronavirus of 2019, or the Covid-19. We kept hearing reports about it in December and then beginning of this year. But, China is far away, and honestly, though we were sympathetic to the people suffering from it, we were that worried about it.
Fast forward to mid-February, and it had reached spread to other countries, and hit Italy really hard in particular. And it had made it to the US, still in small numbers, but it was here. We still kept an eye on it. Actually, the whole world was keeping an eye on it. It's been taking over the news basically since then, and it's impossible not to hear about it.
Fast forward again to mid-March, and the spread of Coronavirus in the US has been fast and scary. Certain states were hit really badly -- Washington, California and New York in particular. Certain parts of New York were in full lock-down, and Washington had shut down schools and many businesses. Italy was in full quarantine, as well. It's been spreading all over the globe, and the CDC and WHO have declared this to be a pandemic.
In Utah, it was about the weekend of March 14th, schools announced it's closure for 2 weeks. Daniel had already been working from home for a few days, because a couple of his coworkers had been in contact with someone who had Coronavirus. So they basically told everyone at Divvy not to come into the office and to work from home. Daniel went into the office and NO ONE was there; and then he got the email telling him to go home. Also, the church came out that same weekend and said that regular church meetings, including weekly activities and sacrament meetings, were temporarily suspended. The first presidency told us to do our home church. And in the days that have followed since that weekend, they've made other temporary adjustments, it seems like a new one every day. Temples are now closed. Missionaries aren't proselyting, and they're all being sent home as soon as possible (some to continue their missions in their home country) because of all the travel restrictions being placed.
So, starting on Monday March 16th Brooke stayed home from school and we attempted a little homeschooling until the school got us some work packets and online learning instructions that we could follow.
They hadn't closed everything down right away. Many businesses started working from home, and all the schools were closed for 2 weeks. But over the next couple of weeks until now, businesses have been gradually closing to people. Movie theaters aren't running; restaurants have been only allowing pickup orders; universities and colleges announced that they would be continuing school only online -- classes were cancelled; the Utah Jazz even cancelled the rest of their season because of Coronavirus. People are encouraged to stay at home, don't go anywhere you don't absolutely NEED to go, sanitize and wash your hands, and if you're sick, quarantine yourself for a couple of weeks. The virus is still spreading at an exponential rate in most places. Diane even told me that Oregon is considering their borders to visitors coming in or residents going out.
Here's the thing: the Coronavirus is like having a bad cold. When people get the sickness, they get a cough, a runny nose, respiratory distress (for some individuals), and a fever. Most people get sick and then get better from it. The people at higher risk with this disease are elderly people and people who already have health problems. These are the groups of people dying. The other thing about the virus is that it has a long incubation period -- 2 weeks in some people. So, many people could have it without realizing it or showing symptoms, interact with others and spread it before they know they even have it. And it's highly contagious. It has a lot of people scared, from the disease itself, but also because of the economic impact this is having worldwide. Businesses are closing down, people aren't working and the economy is just tanking. Daniel isn't too worried about his job; but this week he said that his company is having to lay people off at some point, and they are on a hiring freeze and stopping all bonuses for the time being.
No one knows how long this quarantine life is going to go on, either. We were supposed to only go 2 weeks. But the spread rate of the virus in Utah is CRAZY. Professionals are worried about how this might overwhelm hospitals and health professionals if this gets too out of hand.
I am not worried about getting the virus. I think if our family gets it, we'll get sick and then we'll get better and it'll be alright. I'm more worried about spreading it to others. I'm quite worried about the state of the economy and how this will impact everything after this is all done. So many people are out of jobs -- millions of people! And congress just recently passed a trillion dollar stimulus package to help people through this time. But what is the most pressing worry for me is I'm having a baby in less than 2 months. What is it going to be like having a baby right now? So far, they've put restrictions in place -- I can only have 1 support person in the delivery rooms and no visitors at all in the hospital. This in itself makes me sad. This delivery is going to be very different than my others -- mom won't be there, and the kids won't be able to come meet their baby brother in the hospital. My doctor (who I had a phone appointment with ... so weird. I'm not having hardly any appointments at the end of this pregnancy) said that if I show symptoms of CV, they have a special delivery room in the corner away from everyone else, and that it'll be challenging because I'll have to wear a facemask and gloves. This could possibly be the worst experience ever.
But I suppose after the baby comes, it'll be over and I'll be less anxious about it.
Life has been a little weird for us. We have a couple of hours of schoolwork in the day. The first week of our homeschooling experience was all over the place -- a basic free for all, no structure whatsoever, and it was a bit chaotic. This week, at the beginning of the week, I tried to come up with a flexible schedule for us. We only followed it for half the week, but those days were the best we had. Thursday, Aunt Jenny, Brooklyn and Bailey came over in the afternoon to play with us. It was nice to have visitors -- we hadn't really seen anyone since this started a couple of weeks ago, and the end of this week was rough. The weather hasn't been good this week either; it's been rainy and cold and snowy. So, my ideal is that we'd be able to get out of the house and go for a walk every day, but we haven't been able to do that this week much. Maybe next week it'll be better.
This week Daniel and Brooke have both had colds, very mild ones. But when Jack woke up yesterday with a cold, and we likely had to postpone an appointment for Camille, I called the pediatrician and we went to get Jack tested for Coronavirus. I spent most of the day making and cancelling doctor appointments, having video chat with the pediatrician, filling out paperwork online, and getting the test done. It was an odd day, and we find out the results next week for Jack. I don't think he has it. There have been no fevers in our house, and that's one of the big symptoms of CV.
Home church has been different and interesting and pretty cool, actually. Daniel blesses and passes that Sacrament to each of us, and we all participate in some kind of talk or lesson or scripture for our meeting. Then after lunch and a nap for Jack, we have a little primary lesson from the Come Follow Me manual, and a little singing time. It's kind of nice to have it at home, despite missing all our friends at church.
The other thing has been that my group of girlfriends have really pulled together and helped each other out. Elise Pearson picked up some Crumbl cookies last week; I grabbed some groceries for another friend; and we all share little conveniences and activities we can do to make this better. It's been so weird the last 2 weeks. People have been adding new video chat apps to their devices and doing more videos with friends. My sisters and mom started doing Marco Polo videos a ton this week, in an effort to relieve the social isolation that this is causing. My mental health has been fairly okay, in my opinion ... until Thursday night. And then I woke up Friday morning, not wanting to get out of bed to face another day like this. It's been a hard weekend. And I'm hoping I can pull it together enough next week for things to go better. It feels like the world is ending (I forgot to mention that there was also a fairly big earthquake in Utah last week), and every day we hear some new development in the Coronavirus situation. Likely this will go on a lot longer than any of us realized it would
