Quarantine

Quarantine.

That's something they did like a hundred years ago right?  That's only in those public health books I used to like to read right? We're way too advanced a society to ever need to quarantine.

Welcome to 2020, people.

I keep telling my children this is what they're going to tell their children and grandchildren about.  This is their "walk to school 6 miles uphill both ways in a blizzard with only rock to eat for lunch" story.

This is momentous history.

So I felt I should document some of it.  So, first, let's start with a day-by-day play-by play.  This will be kind of an outline that I will expland on later.

(Also, please don't judge my lack of news knowledge for the past 3 months.  My mom used to say she didn't know what happened in the world in the 80s because that's when she was raising babies.  I didn't doubt her, but I totally get that now.  Plus, we don't watch TV and I don't usually read news because it's all so biased.)

-sometime in January -
My husband, knowing that I have been in hormone fog for months, told me, "I don't know if you've heard about this but there's a really bad virus in China."  It will never effect us.  That's China, this is America.  And I wentback to snuggling my baby.

-a few days later -
My husband told my seven-year-old son about something he read about a hospital in China being constructed in some short amount of time.  I tried to act like I know something about it, but really I had been to foggy to think about looking up the virus in China, even though that's the kind of thing that interests me.

-a Sunday in January -
My seven-year-old reported in Sunday School the kids were talking about a country they won't let you leave.  I laughed because I remember kids saying stuff like that about China at that age.  And then my husband said that it's true about China right now.  Oh, yeah, I should probably look that up.

-all through February -
I went about my life thinking that the mysterious virus from China is keeping itself and it's problems over there.  I usually don't read much news because I'm skeptical that anyone is telling the truth.  I heard a few things about coronavirus being on cruise ships and around the world, but didn't think much of it.  Looking back, I wish I had kept up on it all, but I was still so foggy and focused on raising and educating my kids I didn't think much of it.

- March 8-ish
My husband mentioned that high school basketball state championships will be played without an audience due to coronavirus.  Huh?  Really?  

-early March -
My sister mentioned she's working from home in a trial to make sure it will work in case they all have to for COVID-19.  I was so confused about it.  That's kind of drastic isn't it?

-March 12 -
I heard the term "social distancing" for the first time.

-March 13 -
My sister texted me and says, "I don't know if you've been following the coronavirus stuff but they'll probably close schools for the next 2 weeks and I'll be working from home.  They've canceled all after school activities until the end of March." Seriously?
And that's when I finally woke up and started following all of this and reading everything I could on it.

At first I didn't think it would effect us much, after all we homeschool and are home most of the day. 

-March 14 -
All schools in Ohio closed for 3 weeks.  Gatherings were limited.  Soccer was canceled.  Story times were canceled.
My husband tried to get groceries while everyone is out panic-buying.
We tried to explain all this to our kids without getting my anxiety-prone seven-year-old too worried.

-March 13 -
Church is canceled and would be online.  My son's church club was canceled.  Soccer season was postponed until after April 15.
We tell the kids in what will become a daily disappointment update.

-March 14 -
We went to what was probably the last story time in the state for a while.

-March 15 -
Restaurants are closed to dining in.  Not a huge deal, my kids can't eat at restaurants anyway.  But things were getting scary.

-March 16 -
More things were closed.  Voting the next day is canceled, then not canceled, then canceled again.

-March 17 -
Even more things were closed.  We heard my the major automobile manufacturer my husband's factory supplies would not be running production the next week.

-March 19 -
We started looking at the possibility of the state "locking down" and my husband not working for awhile.

-March 21 -
We squeezed in a small (<10 persons) birthday gathering the day before the state orders a lockdown.

-March 22 -
No church again.
State ordered a lockdown.  My husband is considered non-essential and would not be working for at least 2 weeks.
People panic-buy everything from stores again.

-March 23 -
My husband fortunately was able to find milk.  He came home from work early and would be home the next 2 weeks.


And now we settle in for the long haul of not going anywhere, not knowing when we'll be allowed to go anywhere.  I've been compulsively reading everything I can and over-analyzing stats, discussing everything with my sister and my best friend who lives several states away, alternating between terrified it will come to my family and convinced it's all a conspiracy theory and every thought in between.

Next time I'll tell about how my kids are keeping themselves busy.