March 17th Corona Virus

March 17th

So things change by the day, sometimes by the hour.  Our time off from school is now three weeks, a state mandate.  I went in to school yesterday as teachers were asked to gather one more day to plan for at home activities for students.  We were offered the choice of working remotely, so the only reason I went in was to get my computer and some books to read and study during this break.  People are beginning to say they don't think we'll have school for the rest of the year.  Watch this space.  I'm inclined to agree with them, but there is so little we know at this point.  The experts seem to be strongly communicating the best approach is social distancing, no more crowds, stay home, close down what you can.  Some communities are beginning to shelter in place basically.  My gut is telling me the country should do this, now.  What are we waiting for.  We are watching Italy as they now have to choose what patients will live and so have to let the unchosen die.  They had over 350 deaths the day before yesterday.  If we look to them, we should shut down now.  If we don't want that to happen here we should shut down now.  The price of freedom in this country is that there are too many people going out to crowded restaurants and bars.  The price of poverty in this country is that subways are still packed with people who have to go to work because they can't afford to stay home.  We are the richest country on earth and we have no clue how to handle this, and we have the worst leader in our history bungling everything from the top.  He is only capable of thinking of what might help him, and he is failing the country miserably.
Restaurants in our state are now closed down, except for taking food out.  Wren is now home.  We went around this morning with a bleach solution trying to clean down things that get touched a lot.  For all we know one of us is infected.  This virus can be silent for days, especially in children, and this is why the spread is hard to contain.  This is not something to worry about too much as the girls would probably be okay, and David and I would too- we are close to the at risk category, but we exercise and eat well and don't smoke.  The thing is, we probably would not die, but we could become pretty ill.  If there are no hospital beds available, we are in trouble.
The hard thing is this isn't really about everyone dying.  It's about mitigating when people get sick so hos

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