So how’s your day going? A coronavirus update

Let’s back up to Wednesday, when my husband drove up to my son’s college, a couple hours away, for a wind ensemble concert.  He gets there and finds out (a) the concert has been cancelled and (b) classes are cancelled for Thursday and Friday, and after spring break (which was already scheduled for this coming week) classes will resume online only until Easter.  So my son starts packing and they get back here at midnight.

Somewhere along the way, my high schooler learns that his spring break band trip to Washington DC has been cancelled, as has my husband’s upcoming conference.

Then today we get the notification that my high schooler’s classes are cancelled for this coming week (they’re using the unused snow days), and will likely be virtual after spring break ends the week afterwards.  And my middle schooler, at an Archdiocese of Chicago school, has virtual school indefinitely.  Later on, the news reported that the governor cancelled both public and private school throughout Illinois until March 30.

And in the meantime, I needed to take my mom to the bank — she and my dad live in an assisted living community, and when I got there, the receptionist gave me a strange look when I started to sign in, and said, “didn’t you know? we’re closed to visitors.”  (There seemed to have been an issue with e-mail lists.)  I was at least able to take her out to the bank, but visitors are restricted to the front lobby only.  And on the way home, the radio newscaster said, “the Archdiocese of Chicago has cancelled all masses” — and later today an e-mail confirmation came out that not even the confirmation mass scheduled for tomorrow that my son was going to be playing at, would still continue.

Then the kids get home from school, and I know I need to return a book to the library so I log on to see what’s due, and discover that, beginning tomorrow, the library will also be closed until the end of March, so we scurried over there to check out books.  And likewise, with the exception of the fitness center, the park district facilities will also all be closed.  And my husband comes home from work reporting that he, too, will be working from home until further notice.

I should also mention that I made a quick stop at Aldi on the way home from mom and dad’s, at noontime, and the parking lot was full.  All paper goods were gone, all water was gone, most fresh meat was gone, as well as lots of canned goods.  It seemed that rice was also missing, but it’s not my usual Aldi so I wasn’t sure if I just missed where it was located on the shelf.  (But there were plenty of freezer items, as if people just didn’t have room in their freezers to buy extra.)

So it’s all just weird.

Not to mention that a week ago, I had a long interview with some folks about multiemployer plans — in particular, about a “green zone” multiemployer plan, that is, one that met the government’s standard for being financially healthy, and I spent the week feeling spooked about the fact that the stock market nosedive was going to kill that boast (unless the market recovers dramatically before the next valuation).  And I had another article bring me some, well, negative publicity in a manner that spooked me.

Now, I presume many of my readers have similar stories.  And I have no particular confidence that this set of actions is the right set of actions to be taking — not that I think we should be doing something else in particular instead, but that I think it’s all hit or miss as to what the right answer is.  I read reports that the “social distancing” approach really has to last a lot longer than just ’til the end of the month to be effective.  I read recommendations that churches not wholly shut down but have congregants wear face masks in case they are infected and asymptomatic, test temperatures, etc.  I felt spooked when I took my mom to the bank — she’s 80, after all.  How much can even a lockdown protect her, if aides can become infected without knowing it?

And, lastly, I find myself thinking that a whole lot of people are going to be facing far more difficulties, with kids who are too young to care for themselves, or jobs that don’t permit working remotely, or in the case of old folks who are at greater risk from going out in public but need to get groceries, etc. — and it seems to me that those of us who can, ought to be able to help them, but I have really no idea how to be helpful.

So welcome to this new world!  How is it treating you?