The Covid State of Affairs - Sheltering In Place

In the course of two weeks we went from this...

to this...

The week of March 15-21st was Indiana University's Spring Break. It is also Spring Break for the Bloomington schools. I have always worked this week because I don't live in Bloomington and my kids attended another school system so our Spring Break was always later. That being so, I worked on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

Working in the ED that week was a bit maddening in that the "plan" seemed to change almost hour by hour. In Bloomington the first plan was to park an RV in the parking lot and screen all walking and talking symptomatic patients in there, so as to not contaminate the rest of the ED. A nurse would go in there fully gowned, gloved and masked and the provider would "see" the patient over an iPad, like Facetiming the patient. That lasted a couple days, then they figured out the RV couldn't be adequately sanitized. Next there were special rooms. The requirement for protective gear kept changing. The screening criteria kept changing. It was mentally tiring just trying to keep up with the "plan." We decided on March 14th to restrict visitors from the ED. Gone were the days of me running errands after work in my scrubs. I drove straight home and showered before doing anything else. My husband gave me the stink eye every time I coughed or breathed a little funny.

I'm not sure what the kids really did that week. I'm pretty sure G slept most of the week. I know she had been physically exhausted for weeks and weeks. In fact, while she was home for Christmas, she actually went to see her doctor because she was so physically exhausted. She had every blood test under the sun but everything came back normal. For J, it was her Spring Break. She has two jobs so she continued to work and I'm sure she hung out with her friends.

I was off the weekend of March 21-22 when I heard rumors that the governor was going to "close" the state with a stay at home order. All week at work I had heard people talking about going to Costco and Walmart and seeing people with carts loaded with toilet paper...and soft drinks...and beer. One of my co-workers saw a woman clear the shelf of Little Debbie snacks. Being the perpetual couponer/bargain shopper, I had plenty of toilet paper and other dry goods at home. I think the main reason I went to the store that weekend was I wanted to make sure my kids had enough contact lens solution and we needed some fresh veggies and milk. I think the only thing I needed that I couldn't find at Meijer were coffee filters. I honestly never looked in the cleaning product or toilet paper aisles, nor did I look for meat. My husband was also out running his errands so I had him pick up coffee filters at Walmart. He told me Walmart was "crazy" - shoppers everywhere with carts loaded to overflowing. Really? That was not my experience at Meijer.

On March 23rd Governor Holcomb issued a stay at home order, effective at the end of the day on Tuesday March 24th. J got a letter from both her employers on Monday stating she was an essential worker. The initial order was set to expire on April 6th. Since then it was extended to April 30th, then extended again to May 15th.

At this point in March life had not really changed much for me. I still went to work. My husband is retired. My kids are at home like they are on vacation. What was going on around us was alarming though. The Diamond Princess was not an isolated cruise ship incident. Now there were cruise ships stranded all over the world. My employer issued an indefinite work travel ban. Now the warning stories were coming out of New York City.

New York City saw an astronomical rise in Covid cases the third week in March. Now the warning stories of "this could be your town" were coming from there. The stories were also from otherwise healthy healthcare workers who had contracted the virus and nearly died. It was evident being young and healthy was not necessarily going to spare you. New York City hit home. My mother got her PhD from New York University. She lived there for several years while I was in college to get her degree. She lived in the same Jackson Heights neighborhood in Queens that was now the epicenter of death. G lived in Manhattan for 6 weeks in the summer of 2018. She loves that city. It is a short bus ride away from Philadelphia and she has friends who live and train there. With a population density of over 2700 people per square mile, the virus spread like wildfire.

March 26th. We became #1. The United States now has the most Covid-19 cases in the world. Watching the virus consume New York City was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. It's horrifying yet you can't stop reading the news stories... seeing the refrigerated trucks... the field hospitals. Cases in Indiana were rising too. The biggest problem with trying to document cases in Indiana though is the lack of tests. I remember the first email I received from the Indiana State Department of Health about the availability of tests. I can't remember the date but I think it was in early March? It said we had 900 tests available statewide. Obviously we've gotten more since then but still, I think our numbers early on were artificially low due to lack of available testing.

We have sheltered in place for over a month now. As I stated in my previous post (HERE), I am fortunate. My life has not changed much as I still physically leave the house to go to work, same as always. Our income has not changed as my husband was already retired. I don't need to worry about home schooling my children because they are grown.

I worry about my children though. G is technically a junior in high school and went to school online anyway so that has not changed. She does her classes in her own time, same as always. She was scheduled to take three AP tests in May and that has moved to an online open book format. She took her SAT in October and was signed up to retake it in June, simply to try and get a higher score, and that has been canceled. My worry with her is her future. She's a ballet dancer. She had been training at least 6 hours a day, every day. You can't replicate that at home. Her entire career is in limbo. She had been accepted into summer programs with the Charlotte Ballet and Ballet Met but was waiting to hear from Jacob's Pillow and was going to audition with the Nashville Ballet. Jacob's Pillow is canceled and none of the other programs know if they will continue. My heart goes out to all the kids, because they are kids, that are trying to land a company position in dance right now. No one has a job. Even those that got a contract this year, the contract probably is not worth the paper it's written on. There are no jobs.

I think J has had the hardest time of all of us. She is a social being. She hates being alone. She lived with four other girls in her house in Bloomington. Most of her roommates have gone home. She is staying with us most of the time although she works in Bloomington. Indiana University did not reopen for physical classes. Everything has moved online for the rest of the semester. She is struggling with learning online. She needs to be able to talk to her professors. She misses her friends. She is bored at home. Some days she's like a three year old, wanting me to play with her. G and I have always been solitary beings. It's easy for us to occupy our time reading, exercising, crafting... alone. Not her. I have played more board games and completed more puzzles with her than I have in, well, the last decade. Admittedly, I'd rather be crocheting alone listening to a podcast, but I have been telling myself to embrace this opportunity to spend time with my family.

The kids were already grown and gone. We were empty nesters. Now they have come back. When they were here it was a non-stop schedule of dance classes, cheer, football and basketball games and other extra-curriculars. Now all we have is time. We never know when our time will end. I am doing my best to make it meaningful.

The Covid State of Affairs - The Beginning

First Day of the Big Ten Tournament - March 11, 2020

Our Last Hurrah?

Was this our last hurrah or was this the wake up call the world needed? Only time will tell I suppose...

I am fortunate. I still have a job. We have no debt. No one is ill and my entire family is together at home. The last few weeks have turned into an endless summer vacation. G said it best one morning. She had finally come out of her room at 2 pm and was fixing herself breakfast in the kitchen when my husband made a sarcastic comment about having breakfast at 2 pm. She noted that time had no meaning right now. It didn't matter when she slept or when she ate. There was no where to be and really no deadlines to meet. She's right. It's like the summer vacations we had when the kids were way little... before they had a hundred extra-curricular activities, places to be, assignments to do. When was the last time you had a vacation and the kids had no where to be?

It all started insidiously enough in January. Coronavirus was something in a far off country afflicting a far away population. Like Ebola. It wasn't coming here. We had already had SARS and MERS. Again, something in another part of the world. Didn't really come here or affect us. Sure, there was a report of someone in Washington State having it but he had recently traveled from Wuhan, China. It was an isolated case. That traveler was briefly admitted to the hospital but he recovered and went home. It was like a bad case of the flu. Travelers from China were now being funneled through select US airports and being screened. Everything would be OK...

February 3rd. A woman in one of my Facebook travel hacking groups posted. She is a writer. She and her husband were on the Diamond Princess. They had already been to Vietnam, Taiwan, and now Japan. Someone had come down with coronavirus and now the whole ship was quarantined in Yokohama. We followed her plight through the following days. February 12th - still stuck in Yokohama. She had travel insurance but Med Jet either couldn't or wouldn't come get her so she was still stuck and quarantined. February 16th - the US government finally arranged for US citizens to get loaded onto two cargo planes and flown out to two US military bases for 14 additional days of quarantine before being allowed to go home. Several people were found to be Covid positive after being cleared to get on the plane so they put up a plastic sheet around them. She published an article  (HERE) in The Atlantic about her ordeal after she got home on March 5th. Meanwhile, in Washington State, more cases of coronavirus are being reported. Now it's in a nursing home. People are dying. Wasn't this suppose to be like a bad case of flu?

Mid-February. Now it's in Italy. Cases go from a handful to thousands in the course of two weeks and people are dying by the hundreds every day. OK, so this is worse than the flu. But it's Italy. Not here. For some reason we believe that the United States is somehow better and it can't happen here. We're a First World country for God's sake.

My husband and I went to Florida the last week in February. Most concerning to us at the time was not the virus but the world economy. It was feeling more and more unstable by the day. My husband was very nervous. We were in the process of reallocating some of my parents' investments at the time. We had their financial manager move a large portion of their stocks into more stable bonds. I remember that it was on a Thursday. The market had it's first big drop the following day. Their financial manager called to let us know everything got moved before the drop and that people were going to think he was either a genius or an insider. We weren't quite as lucky. My husband traded a large chunk of our stock portfolio for more stable bonds in after hours trading the day after the first big drop. After hours trading while on vacation - we were that concerned. At the time, the big tax hit from selling was hard to stomach. But then the market plummeted... a gut punch to the recently retired. We lost money, but not nearly as much had we waited.

March. We come back home and hear that Italy is running out of ventilators and doctors are having to choose who to treat. The Italians are writing warnings to the rest of the world. But still... it's Italy. We are the United States. But it's spreading. There are rumors of more travel bans.

Friday March 6th...

I was at work. My employer issued a 45 day travel ban that day for work related travel. I was scheduled to attend a conference in Las Vegas from April 16th to the 21st. It had been 3 years since I'd been to a conference and I was looking forward to meeting up with a friend there. I had already looked into the shows we would see and the restaurants we would dine at. I started counting days. April 16th was in 41 days. Arghhh……

Now I was upset. My passive aggressive self decided I was going to go someplace anyway. I already had the days off work. Now I could just go anywhere I wanted for vacation.

It was one of those moments I wish I could take back. I actually hesitated before I opened my mouth but I opened my mouth anyway. A family member of a patient I was seeing had struck up a conversation with me since coronavirus was the topic of the day. His wife too had just been notified that her employer was restricting work related travel. They were planning personal out of town travel though. "Off the record" he wanted to know my opinion about traveling. My opinion at the time was that as long as he and his wife were healthy without any underlying medical problems and they took precautions like frequent hand washing and not touching your face, it would be fine. I even related my personal plans to go somewhere in April. My scribe then asked me why I thought this way. Yes, it's deadlier than the flu... in the old, the sick, the immunosuppressed. But surely there was some media hype. If the internet and social media had been this active in the days of SARS the hype would have been the same, I thought. OK...  I was wrong.

Monday March 9th. My employer officially canceled my plane tickets to Las Vegas. I talked to my friend in Los Angeles that I was suppose to meet up with in Las Vegas. She says UC Berkley just canceled all their classes and that she totally understood. A student in the Avon school district in Indiana tested positive for coronavirus and the school district canceled classes until April 6th. I'm wondering, is this overkill? Have we been stirred up into a frightened frenzy?

Since Spring Break was coming up, the next "rule" that my employer came out with was that if we traveled to a state that had 100 or more coronavirus cases we would have to return home immediately and would have to self-quarantine for 14 days. My husband and I looked at the COVID case map and contemplated our choices. We wanted to go to the Porche track in Atlanta. I had a free night certificate with IHG that we could use at the Kimpton hotel next to the track and we could both fly free on Southwest. We were actually looking to travel the first week in April but Georgia already had more than 40 cases, plus they have the busiest airport in the country. Nope. Not a chance they'd be under 100 by then. Next we looked at Atlantic City. We had both done status matches for Caesar's Diamond status but needed to go to the Borgota in Atlantic City to do a status match for M-Life Gold. I'm not much of a gambler but having M-Life Gold would allow me to status match to Hyatt Explorist status and we could stay at a Caesar's property in Atlantic City for almost nothing with my Diamond status. We could fly into Baltimore on Southwest for free and rent a car. Both New Jersey and Maryland had less than 30 cases. My husband reserved a rental car. I told him I wanted to wait two more days "just to see" before I booked the hotel and flights.

Wednesday March 11th. Day one of the Big Ten Tournament. Due to some late season losses, Indiana University goes in as the 11th seed and ends up having to play the first night, rather than on day two.

We had actually considered buying third party tickets to go to the championship game on March 15th but then decided to just drive to Bankers Life Fieldhouse on March 9th and buy the general admission tickets for Day One. I guess I was in a "see how it goes" mood that day.

On Wednesday my husband and I went downtown and had dinner at Greek Islands restaurant, then went to Game One, the Northwestern vs Minnesota game, to secure good seats for the IU game. We ended up with arguably the best seats I've ever had for an IU game - half court, 12 rows off the floor. We were surrounded by IU fans. Notably absent were most of the other team's fans. There had been rumors floating around all day that the NCAA was going to hold their tournament with players only and that the Big Ten was considering the same. Then, at halftime, the announcement came. The Big Ten was canceling the rest of the tournament. If we had purchased our tickets at Bankers Life we could go to the ticket counter and have our money refunded for tonight. There was confusion. Were they kicking us out after Game One? Well, no, they let the second game play. That would be the last game of the season. There would be no more games. IU won. Then it was done. I heard during the IU game that a player for the Utah Jazz had tested positive and the NBA was canceling the rest of it's season.

Thursday March 12th. The NCAA decided to go ahead and cancel the whole tournament. Yes, it was all over. We weren't going anywhere any time soon. President Trump announced a travel ban from Europe for 30 days effective midnight March 13th. G called from Philadelphia. Her dance program announced that they would be closing the studios on Friday March 13th to April 6th. The Pennsylvania Ballet had canceled the rest of their season. All the companies in New York City were canceling. About half the people in her dance program are foreign nationals. The exodus had begun. Her friends were leaving the country as quickly as possible before all the borders closed. Most would not be coming back, even if the studios reopened. Her Canadian roommate was leaving at 3 am... She said she was fine but it was getting difficult to find groceries in Philadelphia. She was supposed to come home for Spring Break on March 21st. She was supposed to audition with the Nashville Ballet on March 24th. The Nashville Ballet was now closed. We rebooked her ticket home for March 15th.

Flying home...

By the time G got home it was evident life was no longer normal. Indiana University started their Spring Break the week of March 15th. They announced that classes would go online for 2 weeks after Spring Break. J was overjoyed. Three weeks "off"! She couldn't believe it. Social distancing was starting to be empathized. There was a strange run on toilet paper. Now that both girls were home they wanted to go to Milktooth. This is our go-to restaurant whenever both girls are home. Milktooth announced that they would be closing after Monday March 16th. I had to work on Monday but I figured the girls deserved to have a last hurrah too. I let them go to Milktooth with instructions to leave a very large tip.