8/18/2020 of COVID-19 Home Life

Chel Owens

Curse you, WordPress, and your ‘new’ block editor a thousand times!!

As to The ‘Rona, everyone ’round here’s behaving like it’s gone and out of there -up till when they enter a store. Kevin, my husband, summed up the odd double-standard in describing a recent work-sponsored river tubing activity to me:

“We didn’t wear masks on the bus, riding up. We didn’t wear masks while tubing. Afterwards, when we went to lunch, everyone got out of his car and put on a mask. Then, when we were sitting right next to each other in the booth, we all took our masks off and ate lunch.”

His exchange reminds me of a friend of mine who has been careful of exposure this entire time. She explained that her children play with their friends only outside, wearing masks. When their cousins came into town, however, she acquiesed to allow her teenage daughter to spend the day at Lagoon (our only amusement park in Utah) -hopefully, still masked.

Turn_of_the_Century_-_Lagoon

By Scott Catron from Sandy, Utah, USA – View from the Sky Ride

I draw the line where I always do: slightly to one side of center. I stay home, wash my hands, wear a mask when I walk inside a store or church, and don’t lick doorknobs. I’m also planning to send my children back to school.

Speaking of, school has been a real hot-button issue. Districts in Chicago and Los Angeles quickly paled at the idea and said it would all be online. According to a local news source, Utah’s governor came out with a 102-page document in governmentspeak that said all children would start school ‘regularly,’ with distancing measures, extra cleaning, and mandatory masks. I looked up said document, and was disappointed to find it only came to 96 pages and included cute graphics to help people figure out what ‘hand-washing’ and ‘mask-wearing’ looked like.

This is a child, wearing a mask. Or, he’s plugging his ears whilst being turned into a cyborg.

I found it to be a helpful guideline for when I may not be feeling up to snuff. I mean, who knew what coughing or a fever looked like before now?

I jest, but find the disease a serious thing. I also find most people not taking it very seriously. I had thought they were assuming the disease to not exist. Since speaking with more people, I’ve learned they think the symptoms have been exaggerated and that their plan is to not be affected by it if they are exposed.

We’re functioning at a normal level, with normal traffic patterns and normal work schedules. Most jobs done with computers are still keeping workers home; Kevin’s been here since March 13. All the workplaces in urban areas or specifically for the government require masks.

In other news, we went camping last weekend. A rest area on the way asked for masking and we all complied. The campsite asked for a three-hour drive, a half-hour of which involved a damaged road through open range cattle country. Read: the site was pretty remote.

A young couple near us donned masks whenever they left their tent but they were the only ones I saw doing so. I guess most of us felt we distanced enough because of our natural, campfire-enhanced musk.

We saw chipmunks, birds, flies, and a mother deer with her child. She surprised me the first morning; a small herd of cows and calves did the second morning.

Photo by Jahoo Clouseau on Pexels.com

We planned the campout as a last hurrah before school started, as it was set to begin today. Then, the districts sent e-mails saying they would delay till next week. I have five children of differing ages so they will have differing schedules. Two plan to attend M/W and online, and two plan to attend the full-time four days a week with Friday off schedule that the gov’nuh decided.

Our state’s case counts have hovered around 200-300 per day. The teachers will get PPE from the government, and …the First Cases of SARS-CoV-2 in Mink in the United States [were] Confirmed in Utah. Interesting. I hope they learn to wash their paws. Can you imagine making a mink wear a mask?

©2020 Chelsea Owens
Images from Utah’s Coronavirus Education plan may be found here, and are ©2020 The State of Utah.

55 thoughts on “8/18/2020 of COVID-19 Home Life”

  5. It is scary how folks are not taking the consequences of this disease seriously.

    Also, you don’t have to use the dreaded block publishing?? There is a setting to use classic.

    Are you back for good or only once a month?

    Liked by 1 person

  7. I’m in LA and people are seriously torn about whether to treat this thing seriously or not. My husband’s boss jokingly, or maybe not jokingly, said they were all going to get it. Our mayor is too cheerful for his own good and the public health director makes it sound like we’re all going to die. I am glad schools are all online only since our daily case rate ranges from 1100-somewhere over 2000. But today was the first day and I was ready to curl up in the closet after only an hour. I can’t imagine what it must be like to have to coordinate 4 school schedules; one is hard enough for me. Our district is trying to put plans into place to reopen schools as soon as possible, though, and I’m looking into homeschooling. Too many schools have had to close, so I’d rather ours not open, and I wish your family luck and health as school starts. Hmm, a mink wearing a mask would be funny.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. 😥 Yes, we will all need to be exposed at some point. I’ve concluded that. -Or, we need The Magic Vaccine to work.
      I’m not good at homeschooling but think it’s a great idea if numbers go back up. Good on you for going that route.
      We’ll call them Minky Masks.

      Liked by 1 person

  11. We’ve only had 300 cases in our county since this whole thing started, but yesterday we had 20 in one day. Sigh. Come on, people!!!

    Liked by 1 person

      1. That essentially is my biggest frustration with some others. We know what we need to do, and yet we lack the self-discipline to do it.

        Liked by 1 person

  12. Ugh! That schedule sounds complicated. I’m lucky enough that all three of mine ended up on the same schedule (5 days a week)… the younger two I’m homeschooling. So we will be having a *relatively* normal school start. Who knows what will happen if cases jump though, so I’m seriously preparing myself for having them home again in a month or two 🤷🏼‍♀️
    Nice to hear from you Chelsea!

    Liked by 1 person

  14. “… they think the symptoms have been exaggerated and that their plan is to not be affected by it if they are exposed.” That is the perfect summary of how people are reacting to this.

    I’m glad the teachers are getting PPE–I just hope they weren’t threatened to be fired if they wanted to do some sort of online alternative for worried parents.

    I hope you, your family, and your friends get through this and nobody gets sick!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. People often confuse me, but it’s an understandable position if they’re healthy and strong.

      I’ve heard that many teachers have quit instead of going back this year, across the nation. That hasn’t prevented any schools around here from opening, so part of the delay in starting must be their trying to build as safe a setting as possible for all involved.

      I wish you safe travels through the Coronasea as well!!

      Liked by 1 person

      1. True–too bad the disease spreads even if they feel fine 😦

        Yeah. I have family in education, so it’s been a ride. CA has opted for everything online, so now the next hurdle is accommodating students with special needs or no Internet.

        Thank you! Hopefully we all get out of this in one piece…

        Liked by 1 person

  15. I had a day last week where I sneezed at least a thousand times. I was very sneezy and sneezed all day. For a while I was certain this meant I had the corona and was giving Fred Sanford like speeches. “Oh, I got the corona, Elizabeth! I’m comin’ to join ya!” But then it turned out there isn’t a correlation between sneezes and corona and I was just sneezy. I am glad I did not have the corona as I want to live a lot longer and write lots of books that no one reads. The End.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. 😀 I am exceptionally glad that you were Sneezy and not his lesser-well-known brother, Coronaed.
      I worry I have Coronavirus every time I feel cold symptoms.

      Like

  16. ” their plan is to not be affected by it if they are exposed.” Sounds like a good plan, Chelsea. I think we’re all down to just doing our best, since our country seems determined to just ride this thing out. I hope school ends up being safe for everyone. The places that have opened seem to close fairly quickly. Take care and keep up the hand-washing!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. At the start, I thought people in charge had a plan. About a month and more sleep later, I realized that “flattening the curve” meant that everyone would be exposed over a long time. A month after that, especially in looking at how China was *still* dealing with infection, I realized “a long time” was longer than most people understood. 😦
      Things are staying open, here. I cross my fingers that our 800-900 per day infection rate of June and July were our high point and that we won’t have a deadly resurgence. I cross all my other fingers for a medicinal cure.

      Liked by 1 person

  17. Because, statistically, the majority of deaths have still been in the northeast despite the largest number of cases being in the south, I’m wondering if the virus is self-attenuating into a sort of cold. The 1918 pandemic ended when the virus evolved into a less-virulent strain of itself. At the same time, I don’t want to knock the disease like this.

    Liked by 1 person

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