Social Distancing

The last time I recall a pandemic being declared was in 2019 with H1N1 (swine flu). That time the only way the pandemic affected my life was because the hospitals were being stricter about screening guests, and because of H1N1 Nadia wasn't allowed to enter the hospital following Ian's birth and NICU stay. Once we got home after staying in the hospital for about 10 days, H1N1 didn't really impact our lives in any noticeable way. Over the years I've been aware of other viruses that have made the news (SARS, Ebola, and Avian flu all come to mind), but they never seemed to be an issue here in central Pennsylvania. So when Paul first told me about the coronavirus, my first instinct was to assume it would be like the others. Also, I looked up how many people typically die each year from the flu, and seeing that number made me wonder if this was going to be any worse than the flu we deal with every year (for example, according to the CDC over 80,000 died from the flu in the 2017-18 season). Well I don't know if more will die this year in the US from the coronavirus than from the flu, but life certainly has quickly become very different around here over the past few days.

First, our governor said on Thursday that we should try to avoid being in groups of 250+ people for two weeks. This caused our church to decide to only offer a service by live streaming on March 15 because our church has an average attendance that far exceeds 250. Then on Friday our governor said all the schools in PA should be closed for two weeks. The soonest they can return is March 30. The local universities had extended their spring breaks by one week, and now some are contemplating moving to an on-line format for the remainder of the spring semester. I have received a barrage of emails from museums, restaurants, AMC, and many more organizations stating how what they are doing in light of the coronavirus. In some cases that plan of action has changed multiple times in a short time span. Yesterday morning I received texts from the kids' basketball coaches that they would still be having their final practice last night, final game today, and awards assembly this evening. Then the next texts said that everything was cancelled. The third round of texts said that there wouldn't be any more practices or games but they would hold the awards assembly in a different location (the church rather than the public school auditorium) and only for grades 4-6 instead of grades K-6. Similarly, we received an email this morning from the AWANA commander saying they would have AWANA next Wednesday as usual, but then within an hour I received a recorded phone message stating that the Alliance Church (where the kids attend AWANA) would not be having any programs or services through March 28.

Up until Thursday our schedule went on as usual. We attended an ice skating party Thursday night, and the kids attended art and chorus at Meadowbrook on Thursday afternoon. Yesterday was the first day in which our schedule was changed because of COVID-19. Oliver's pizza party with his basketball team was cancelled last night, and his last game was cancelled today. Far fewer people attended the Upward award assembly this evening. Nadia was the only member of her team who showed up. We had planned to attend a maple sugaring program at Montour Preserve this afternoon, but they cancelled because of the virus. We've had a few other field trips cancelled thus far that we planned to attend this month - Saturday Science at Susquehanna University, an art program at the Children's Museum, and a homeschool day at the Hershey Museum. That field trip was postponed until June 4. The others were just cancelled. The kids and I had planned to take a ten day trip to Ohio, Chicago, and Detroit in April. It seems very likely that we'll have to cancel that trip. If that happens, I'm hoping Priceline will refund what I paid for two nights at a hotel in Michigan. We were really looking forward to spending time with Wendy's family as well as with one of my cousins in Ohio. We haven't made a firm decision, but I'm not feeling very optimistic at the moment that it will take place. The other closure that rocked our world was finding out the public library will be closed for at least two weeks. I will adjust the lesson plans accordingly. I'm hoping that these closures will really only last for two weeks. Time will tell!  I'm thankful I was just at the library on Thursday, we have many books at home, and we can access many books through digital means. From what I've read, the virus doesn't do well in temperatures above 70 degrees so I'm praying the temps will rise to that point sooner rather than later! We're especially praying for senior citizens as it seems those over the age of 80 and those with some pre-existing condition are the most at risk. If this happened when Oliver was younger, I would have been very nervous about what might happen if he contracted COVID-19, but thankfully he seems to have outgrown the lingering respiratory effects of being born prematurely. We've never been swabbed for the flu. I don't know if any of us have ever had the flu. I know Oliver has had RSV twice as well as HPMV once.

Nadia is thankful that First Baptist (where the kids play basketball) hasn't cancelled their services. She can still attend youth group there tomorrow night. She had planned to attend Winter Jam (concert) with our church's youth group (both youth groups had planned to attend), but they've cancelled the rest of that tour because of COVID-19. Nadia, Cheri, and I have tickets to attend a Sidewalk Prophets concert in April. That band has cancelled their concerts for a month, but not the one we have tickets for (yet anyhow). Sight and Sound has cancelled their shows in March, but thus far they haven't cancelled Esther in April, which is when we plan to attend. Our church hasn't made any decisions beyond tomorrow thus far. We shall see if Nadia and I go there on Wednesday for Bible bowl, choir (me), and middle school youth. Here's to hoping life returns to normal as quickly as possible. For one thing I assume it's not good for the economy to have a lengthy time when most people are staying home as much as possible. We might homeschool our kids, but we certainly don't typically stay at home all day most of the time.

I typically don't read news articles on the web, but I have certainly done that more recently both in terms of the virus and also the stock market. I have no desire to check and see what has happened to my retirement accounts recently. I can't actually use those funds for I believe at least 14 years, and after seeing what happened to my brother, I'm reminded there's no guarantee I will actually live long enough to use any of it. So ignorance is bliss in my opinion. I don't want to know how much money we "lost." We escaped the worst of the crash in 2008 because I borrowed money from my retirement account to buy our current home, but I assume we didn't dodge the bullet this time.