4/13/2020 of COVID-19 Home Life

Chel Owens

I went out again today, out beyond my four walls. I’ve been trying to limit trips to once a week, in accordance with our county’s laws and common sense.

We passed a Costco on our way. I recalled how, at my last ‘adventure,’ my oldest son and I tried to shop there for milk. Costco has been more fun each time I’ve visited; their newest attraction, then, was limiting how many people could enter the store. We stood in a line that snaked around pallets inside the entry, out the opening, down the sidewalk, and around the other side of the shopping carts’ new home.

hello-i-m-nik-6ivrz1SJeZM-unsplash

I used to enjoy parking where the carts were. I’d pull right up to the sidewalk. The boys would jump out and race or push each other or yell as they raced and pushed each other. We could always smell something wonderful baking. Perhaps that’s why we often returned home with their oversized ‘muffins.’

On the day my son and I tried to get milk, we waited for half an hour without moving. Signs on cones and tape lines helped us measure our distance. The wind blew. “I wonder how effective six feet away is when we’re standing downwind,” I mused. The wait proved too long, wind or no. Like many others, I chose to leave and try a different store.

Today, we did not go shopping. Our destination was The Pit, itself: the doctors’ office. Yet another son needed his checkup and the baby needed his four-month visit. The office is split into a Well-Child side and a Sick-Child side. My happy baby has had cold symptoms -no fever- for over a week. At the behest of the staff and their posted sign, we entered the condemned half. I’d been dreading the visit for that very reason, but it proved a blessing. The office has been encouraging Telehealth visits for sick patients. We were the only occupants. From what we observed upon departure, the Well side was quite busy. Ironic, no?

My phone beeped with a notification during the visit: the Salt Lake County mayor extended her Stay Home, You Idiots order till May 1. Yes, ma’am.

Utah’s state governor has been broadcasting daily updates around 1:30 p.m. The last one I watched included his wearing a mask and encouraging us to do so; the one before, information about a loan to help small businesses.

Do Not Return to Earth

“Do Not Return to Earth,” says Buy N Large’s CEO ©The Disney Company

I also recall some plan involving visitors to our state being prompted to self-report COVID-19 symptoms. In researching it further, I learned that the texting system didn’t quite work the way they wanted:

Since the system’s launch Friday, [Joe Dougherty, public information officer for the Utah Division of Emergency Management] said, “a number of residents in the state received alerts in their homes, in their bathrooms, and in other locations when they were quite far from the borders.”

“Some people clearly got an annoying number of messages,” Dougherty said, some of them 15 times.

The state learned, Dougherty said, “that these messages will sometimes alert much farther than the areas that we intended.” He apologized to people in the St. George area and the Uinta Basin, both in Utah, and Oneida County in Idaho — north of the Utah border — for being sent repeated messages.

-“Utah’s ‘bold experiment’ to text alerts to road travelers to collect coronavirus data ends abruptly, ” The Salt Lake Tribune, April 12, 2020

Most of my exposure to COVID-19 is online. I watch the updates, read what friends share on Twofacebook, and connect with blog friends worldwide. Some states have put plastic caution tape around their gardening and outdoors supplies. Others have curfews and gathering restrictions. From what I can gather, every country is trying to “flatten the curve” through distancing measures.

LA, who lives on the front lines of New York City’s Coronavirus Action, tells quite a different story than mine. After all, the virus doesn’t have such alarming numbers mathematically. It’s when those numbers apply to highly-dense areas like hers that math gets used in real life. Even if you’re in the “1% death rate” camp, that’s 84,000 of 8.4 million people. That’s also not how many get infected, need respiratory aids, and have lasting health problems.

There’s a children’s book I loved as a child, Anansi and the Moss-Covered Rock. In it, Anansi the spider discovers a mossy rock with the power to cause unconsciousness when verbally identified as such.

Anansi

“Isn’t this a strange, moss-covered rock?”

He uses this to trick each animal and acquire his or her food. One animal is never tricked, because she has been watching Anansi the entire time. In fact, Little Bush Deer figures out how to give that tricky spider a taste of his own medicine.

As I’ve been watching Coronavirus since it first broke out in China, I’ve felt like Little Bush Deer. Watching and planning gave me more toilet paper than those who then rushed to install a bidet. It allowed me to anticipate closures and distancing. However, far more animals have dropped than I expected. Far more areas of the forest have been closed off. Conflicting news about the rock and its potency is causing some animals to demand stricter closures while others bare their teeth and say, “Make me.” I never knew the forest could look like this.

I, like many others, feel lost. What plan now, besides a long wait? There seems to be no other.

 

©2020 Chelsea Owens

Photo credits: Hello I’m Nik 🎞
© the Almighty Disney Company, c/o Youtube
and, Amazon

54 thoughts on “4/13/2020 of COVID-19 Home Life”

  2. You are doing good, you stick your hand to the plough (see what I did?) And lead by example for your nearest and dearest. We can’t change the doings of covidiots, who normally are intelligent hard working people. But myself I have to have tried, If someone I knew was not abiding by the rules … I have to at least explain (in case they do not know) then I have done my best by my thinking. I have two sisters wandering in and out of our 88 yr old Mothers house. Taking lunch, eating and spending time … Mum would be lonely for sure, but she has no ilnesses and takes no meds at all, she is a whirling dervish with housework. It is like they play Russian roulette with her life. So I am the nasty one for not seeing or helping. *sigh* I hope we get through and are still family.

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      1. I have to say It is not mine, but fits the bill. Thank you Chelsea I apparently am no longer named as one of her girls. “You must go now Ellen, my girls are coming” nice. 🙄

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        2. I’m really sorry to hear that. Your’re doing what’s right to try and keep your mom’s exposure to a minimum, but I don’t think that knowledge is really any comfort. Sometimes I think our parents might say things they really don’t mean simply because they’re frightened.

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          1. Ahh! Michael, I did not say she was the kind of Mum that loved equally, or that she was not dagger tongued and orinary. But she is 88 and the only parent left, I would like her to have as much time as possible. Even if it is just to try and fathom her out. Better alive and sniping than gone. Maybe, her tongue is what has scared co19 away thus far.

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  4. Hi Chelsea, I, just like you, prepared and we are very self sufficient here. I even stocked up on wine. The figures in South Africa are very low compared to your country, under 3 000 known infections, so it feels rather ridiculous. I am fearful that this is cooking among our poor and we have much worse to come and I think that the poverty which is being greatly increased by this lock-down will make it even harder for these poor people to withstand the infection as they are forced to share food.

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  5. Hi, Chelsea. I hear you but I sense the tide of public opinion shifting as economies around the world start to tank, with the unspoken sentiment that losing a few old farts like me is not worth the rest of the world going into a recession or even another Great Depression. To end on a lighter note, I ventured out to the chemist (pharmacist, druggist, whatever) today, unthinkingly wearing an old cruise line T-shirt. The other customers were not so much distancing but running in the opposite direction. 😉

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    1. Oh, dear. Yes, I think you’re right.

      Great story about the shirt. I’d say you ought to start coughing as well, but I’d hate for you to get in any fights. 🙂

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  6. I am reading to much on the Wuhan research centre, the working on bats for over 10 years, knowing that there was a strong probability it would move into humans and in 10 years after SARS they did not think to start working on something that would stop this blighter from sticking to the throat.. I have to count to 10 and calm my nerves.. 😉

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  8. Chelsea, not sure about your Walmarts in your area but here is a good one.
    Our Walmart here now opens at 7 a.m. just for seniors. Well the other my best friend went there. While there a younger woman came in and she was approached and told her that she had to leave and wait until after 8 in the morning.
    They also have someone monitoring the aisle where the toilet paper is. They have a limit now of one pack per customer.
    I haven’t been out since the last part of February. I have no plans on going either.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. We do have a Wal-Mart or two. I haven’t been, since they’re so big! and of questionable cleanliness. The Costco, Smith’s (Kroger), and Wal-Mart have hours for seniors.

      I’m trying to hold out as long as I can. At least we have grocery pickup and Amazon!

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  9. I wonder, when they look back at the start of this century if they’ll wonder at the number of government initiatives where there was zero exit strategy – Iraq and Afghanistan, Syria and now Covid lockdown. Or whether they’ll look back and wonder if we really did break everything successfully? Ah me…

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  11. In a world that has slowly lost all that was fun, the “Stay Home, You Idiots order” made me laugh out loud. It felt a little strange. Thank you.

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      1. That comment caused a smile because the words “annoying number of messages” sounded very Monty Python-ish. And, yeah, because I imagined someone getting a message at a ‘difficult’ time.

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    2. I think it truly depends on how simply you lived prior to the lock downs. My wife and I were practically homebodies to begin with. The only thing I am bummed about is that we vacation once a year for our anniversary, I predict that vacation won’t happen till there is a readily available vaccine.

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  12. It does seem like a long wait yet it’s the speed at which the pandemic is ripping through the world that’s causing the crisis globally. It’s a long wait to hear what governments might have in mind afterwards, it may be a longer wait before we’re back on our feet again. I fear by that time all this will be largely forgotten.

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  13. We’ve just had our first person sentenced to jail because he snuck out of quarantine. Thousands in fines have been issued to people breaking social distancing rules. It’s tough but our cases are very low so I’ll take it. Glad you’re keeping safe. I don’t think any product is worth standing in a queue with who knows what they’ve got.

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    1. Wow. We’re doing a lot more of “just be good.” I did read that at least ten police officers have tested positive. I have a good friend who is married to an officer and she’s really anxious.

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      1. Someone in the Minneapolis Police Department – they didn’t say if the person is an officer or not – just tested positive so I’d imagine that number will be a lot higher by the weekend. I guess all the police are now going to start wearing masks. Everyone is wearing masks and I don’t know where they’re getting them.

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  14. I am going to pinch Covidiots( Thank you) Ellen…It seems the so-called civilised countries have shortages, queues and the like…We have none here,…Pleased your doctor’s visit with the kiddie winks went ok…Please stay safe x

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  15. When you used “The Pit”, I got excited because “The Pit” is one of the best BBQ (real bbq, not a cookout) joints in North Carloina. Then I saw it was the doctor and was like, “Aww, much less pleasant.”

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    1. If anyone has A Grand Plan, it’s either (A) We all get exposed, in a spread-out fashion, or (B) Miraculously, the last one to have COVID-19 stays home till its dead, or (C) More miraculously, we develop a vaccine.

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  17. Sorry few days behind. Where does the time go when your housebound. Funny just been venting on a post about planning. Our Government has admitted it does not have a plan yet for what happens when the lockdown eases. It’s madness. Those in charge should be Working out in what order things start to open. Then for each of those areas decide NOW what things need to change and be out in place for this to happen as safely as possible. But they won’t. Places like schools will probably just open as they did before. It’s not as if this thing is going away any time soon. Sorry wittering….
    Look after yourself x

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  18. yes, a tricky time for us all; they’re talking of easing restrictions here in Oz where that damn curve has been flattening for some time; but maybe it’s too soon to rejoice

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