Day 129 Pandemic 2020

Now more than three months into working from home due to Covid-19 I look at things different than I did at the beginning. I miss the people I work with. I chat with them using instant messenger but haven't seen but two people from work in four months. I don't miss everything. I don't miss wearing work clothes to work. I enjoy wearing shorts and being barefoot. Since May I walk everyday before work then come home and post on Facebook about my walk, the sunrise and what I see and hear along the way. I don't ask when we will be going back to work at the office. Not sure I want to. The company sends an email to everyone if someone from the office tests positive but I haven't been there in so long I don't have to worry. I do worry about the people that are still working at the office. When you see someone has called out it is concerning. 

When I wrote in May I sat in a room with people from the Historical Society I belong to and no one in that room knew anyone directly that had the virus. Today that is different. Not only does one of the people from the Historical Society spouse have it and has been hospitalized and returned home. I now know three people in the same family that have it and one friend has had a relative that died. One of the people I know has recovered except can't smell or taste and the another only recently tested positive and has a cough. As you can see there are different severity of this disease. There are different symptoms and much different recovery times. Yes this is now much closer than at the beginning where I couldn't name a name or even a person that knew a person. So as time changes my situation has changed my actions. 

Back at the end of June it became mandatory if you are in a public place you need to wear a mask or some sort of face covering. Still this doesn't seem to be full proof because one person gets the virus and brings it home. Then you get a house of people with the virus but if they don't know they have it now they are sharing it. I now have multiple masks and wear one when I am inside a public place. I am still lax around family which probably isn't the smartest thing. If you go to a restaurant you have to wear the mask until you are seated at a table then you can remove it. When you are ready to get up from the table you must put your mask back on to leave the table. A few months ago I wouldn't have done this but I wouldn't eat inside either. It is now too hot to always choose to eat outside if we want to go out and yes we still want to venture out I am going to wear a mask when in close proximity to others.

Now that we are almost to August the question of when kids should go back to school and how should they attend school is a hot button. My feel is if the people making this decision aren't meeting in person then how can they expect to send teachers and students back to the classroom together. Kids will be kids and yes after a period of time some are going to learn to understand you can't take a drink out of Sally's juice box and you can't share a piece of chewing gum with your boyfriend but that is going to take time. Probably more than the two extra weeks that they are talking about delaying the start of school. Counties have given parents choices on how they want their kids to attend school. Do they want them back in a classroom or to learn at home. Some kids are not going to do as well at home and others are going to be fearful for going back to school. I don't know which way I would lean. I feel that the interaction with other kids is very important but how do you decide.  

The State of Florida now has over 400,000 cases compared to at the beginning of May it was only 40,000 and Pinellas County over 14,600 and in May was 828. Here is the thing with the statistics other than the fact that we have found out over the last month that some testing facilities are only reporting their positive cases and some people that have gone to be tested and left before the test was completed but had filled out the paperwork were reported as positive cases. All of this information not only skews the statistics but it also makes a person wonder. If these are the things that we know what do we still not know? And as I think about the numbers over 1,200 people have been hospitalized for Covid-19 but how many were only there for a day or two and got better? Since in Pinellas County if only 367 people have died from it does it mean the other 14,300 have gotten better? How long is the recovery time for those that do get better? So, I just end up with more questions the more I look into the facts. 

I don't know where all this is leading. I suppose in a few more weeks I will be writing again about more craziness. I wonder if during the Spanish Flu the people of that time did they know what it was and how to not get it or was it just all of a sudden people started getting really sick and dying? Just more questions. Be safe out there. The world is continuously changing and not much for the better.

Day 55 Pandemic 2020

Now that we are well into the second month of dealing with the Pandemic of 2020. I am not sure if I am more or less afraid of contracting the virus. Part of me would like to believe I am one of the many asymptomatic people that have already had it and by being home all the time I have not exposed others and will easily be able to move back on into whatever the new normal life becomes. The other part of me goes out to the grocery store once a week and worries that when I come home that I could have gotten it. Maybe not from personal contact but from a box a cereal I picked up. The more I read and watch on the internet the less you know what to believe. The virus only lasts a few hours on that box of cereal or does it last a few days. One so called expert said that you should leave the mail or your groceries outside as long as you can before bringing them into your house. That isn't really a Florida thing there would be all kinds of critters in your groceries. I am sure that people that live in the wilderness couldn't do that as well. That bear might eat the ice cream or your stimulus check.

The Florida Department of Health has a dashboard of information to make it easy to see and since the last post in regards to the Pandemic my assessment was correct we seemed to have hit our peak of new cases on April 3. As of today 35 days later May 8 we now have a total 828 confirmed cases in Pinellas County, nearly 40,000 for the state of Florida. I have tried but unable to find comparable views of the Flu. My personal opinion which means nothing. I think if you are susceptible to one you are to the other. If you are likely to be hospitalized for one you would the other as well and in turn if you do the simple things like washing your hands and keeping your distance from people that are sick you would be less likely to get either. But what do I know. I don't have a medical degree and I have no background in diagnosing diseases and outbreaks. See what I just did. I gave my opinion and then said I have no idea what I am talking about. If the people that put stuff out on the internet would use the same disclaimers the world would be a better place. I feel the political talking heads have given us their opinion but they aren't medical doctors most I wouldn't consult for anything let alone life or death. Again that is my opinion and I am not a political science major and watch as little of that as I can.

As of this week the beaches are open again. Still with social distancing. I really hope whoever said it first got it copy written. The state of Florida officially decided there will be no more school for the rest of the year. Kids are a mixed bag on this as I can imagine our house would have been when we were kids. What am I going to do with I have so much time to do whatever I want. Time can be a blessing or waste. I am really trying to make more of a blessing out of my time at home. Trying to write and be productive.Not waste the day watching tv. I heard today that phase 2 is to start next week which will include opening barber shops and salons. My brother is hopeful for a social life again and would love to go out and stand next to someone at the bar.

Just as a final thought I shared with some of the people I volunteer with this week while sitting around a room all about 6 feet from the next. I don't personally know anyone that has had this terrible disease and neither did any of them. I wonder what does that mean. The people we know are lucky or have been doing what we are supposed to or are there more people that have had it that didn't know they had it. As for wearing a mask my husband has to for his job. Me personally I have not. I have 2 that people have given me. but haven't found myself in a position where I thought I needed to. Some say you aren't wearing it for yourself that you are wearing it to protect others. I am not sure about that logic either. If a business required that I do I would make a decision at that time. Because I have a choice to shop in that business and wear the mask as they request or not. Well for now I will keep working from home until I am told to come back to the office and will keep washing my hands when I come home from everywhere and keep my hands away from my face. Still the grocery store is my big outing each week. A trip to the museum by myself to work on one project or another alone. Looking forward to social interaction myself.

Day 18 Pandemic 2020

It is always hard for me to start and sometimes that is because I know where I end up or the point I want to make. Today day 18 of my personal dealing with the pandemic of 2020 or whatever they end up calling it. I have no idea where we are going. I am doing my part. I have been out in public about once a week to go to the grocery store.

I have to start back at the end of January was when I first remember hearing a story on the radio about this Corona virus and that young people for some reason believed that this virus originating in China was caused by or could be prevented by drinking Corona beer. This seemed stupid to me as I learned the virus is spread like the flu. It is a respiratory disease that is passed from person to person. The logical person that I am was like we can avoid this by staying healthy and washing your hands just like avoiding getting the flu. I am and was at that time quite confident that I can avoid this.

March 11 was the first day there were two confirmed cases of Corona virus in Pinellas County.

I say day 18 since March 17th was day one of my personal reality check. My work which didn't allow employees to work from home, wanted me to test working from home. Besides the "come see me" message I received from my manager to see the director of our department standing in his office, all I kept thinking is I didn't do anything wrong. It is natural for me to believe I must be in trouble. I try to fly under the radar at work. That day I was asked to do something no one had done before. I felt empowered and scared at the same time. If I mess this up I mess it up for a lot of people. So I was given an hour to get my computer home and hooked up and online and back to work which really was unrealistic but I did it. My manager was waiting to see me connected and asked, how it went and I said, I did it. I worked the rest of the afternoon and sent an email the next morning with the challenges that I had. I had never worked from home before and with no training manual I was getting through my personal challenges.

By the end of the week I had a routine down. The next Monday March 23, day 7, I sent a message to my manager and he said the company wants you to come back to work in the office. Now the situation in the world hasn't gotten better. I truly felt like I must have failed. Maybe I didn't work hard enough even though the day I was on the phone I took 90 calls which is really a pretty good day. So I packed up my computer and monitors and went back to work. The other employees questioned why I was back and did it not work? I just kept saying it did work. By this time we were to social distancing at work. They spread out people across two buildings using every empty office and conference room. A strange new normal had begun. I still had my morning social with my friends that arrive early, we never sat closer than 6 feet apart before so now was no different.

We learned this week that we are considered essential employees. The term is to define employees that still need to work versus those businesses that are not essential should close and their employees should stay at home. The jokes began. My essential pay is no different than my non-essential pay. Essential employees drive better than non-essential employees.

March 30, 129 confirmed cases of Corona virus in Pinellas County

Another week passes and now on day 15 March 31, and while at work I hear a voice I don't know trying to get everyone's attention. This voice is from a person I don't know but find out that it is the Vice President over our department telling us that they are going to send half of the department home to work. Once again I pack up my computer that afternoon and take it home and set it up and the next day start working from home again. I do miss the people I have my morning social with. We now text each other in the morning before work. We are all usually at work 30 minutes early so we have a good talk before it is time to work. Gossip is a little harder to come by but don't worry it is still out there.

April 1, the biggest jump in confirmed cases in Pinellas County to date. 61 confirmed cases almost doubled the day before. Brings the total confirmed to 213. As of today when I am typing this April 4th total 300 cases in Pinellas County with 7 deaths.

The world seems to be sliding down hill. Some aren't taking this social distance stuff serious and maybe I don't take it serious enough. I refuse to wear a mask over my mouth and leave my nose exposed as the people I see at the grocery and I don't wear gloves to touch everything and then take the mask they aren't wearing properly off before removing the gloves. I wash my hands, I try not to touch my face and I try not to have close contact with anyone. But Thursday just before going to the grocery store I learn that 2 employees have been confirmed to have the virus that work at the two stores closest to my house. The part of me that likes to worry has been nervously anticipating the thought that at some point this thing is going to get close. But after reading another article I learn that the employee at the store we normally shop at hasn't been at work for 10 days and that the store has been sanitized multiple times since then.

Like I said at the beginning we don't know where this is going to end. My father being in his 70s has been taking this serious from the beginning and has not let anyone come over. We have all called to check that he doesn't need anything. My sister dropped off eggs to him. Leaving them on his porch to get once she got back towards the car. My one sister that works in a drug store is still working normally, my sister that is a dental assistant hasn't worked for a couple weeks, my sister that works at an elementary school hasn't worked in the traditional sense since their Spring Break a couple weeks ago. She gets online and is available to help students as needed. My brother that works for the City was told last week that he had the next two weeks off except two days a week he comes in to pick up trash from parks. My nieces and nephew that are in school are adapting to online school.

Brian and I are home together nearly 24 hours a day. It is a good thing we love each other and more importantly like each other and even know when to walk away from each other. I can't watch tv like he can so I spend a few hours writing or working outside.

These strange times have brought strange commercials about contact less pizza delivery and restaurants doing family style meals for pick up.

Since these are historic times weather or not everyone living through them realizes. Some day 72 years from now (because that is when this year's census data will be available to the public) Genealogists will be looking at data from the 2020 census which hopefully you logged in and participated in. Will note that it happened during the outbreak or the pandemic or whatever they decide to call it by then. They will know who you were quarantined at home with and they will compare data on some families and learn that some people were alive for the census but died soon after and wonder if the virus is what killed them. They will then look for a death certificate to confirm.

Stay safe.