Pandemic Panic

I don't feel like I've been super nervous about getting COVID-19 since maybe those first few weeks of the shutdown when we didn't know much about how it spread or how many people might be infected since testing was rare.  But since we started focusing on masking and trying hard to limit our outside contact, it has been less of a concern.  For example, I'm not really concerned about picking it up at Wegmans or Walmart, though I am still trying to minimize how often we do things like that.  I think that's the difference between living in fear and being careful--we should do all we can to minimize our chances for infection without making our lives needlessly hard or frustrating.  Run the errands as needed to keep an already challenging existence bearable, but take precautions and don't create extra reasons to be out and about. 

I do currently get a little more nervous that we'll be the victims of bad luck on the rare occasions we do let our guard down, like when we saw Craig's parents on Father's Day, my parents last Friday, or let the plumbers in our house last week.  We could have masked (or asked others to mask) but I think for the most part we're trusting that we're all being smart and safe and keeping our overall risk low.  I had a baby shower this weekend, and while I had my mask with me, I never felt compelled to wear it.  Could I have?  Maybe, since I did go in the house a couple times for drinks, but nothing felt uncomfortable.  However, there are times where I've felt like I should mask but it felt awkward and borderline rude, and usually I cave and skip it.  At times like that, I just have to keep reminding myself news reports of parties that have high transmission rates (like a 4th of July party downstate where a third of guests got infected, or a birthday party weeks ago where 30 infections resulted). 

The issue is that now we're moving closer to a couple higher-risk scenarios, and I'm just not sure what to do about it.  The good news is that our current rates here are low.  Less than 2% of tests are coming back positive in our area, and cases have only been a 2-3 dozen or so most days in our entire county.  So that means that the odds of coming across a positive person are not high, but it's definitely still out there and we should take as many precautions as we can. 

Jacob was supposed to start basketball this coming week, but this past week it got moved again to early August.  It's just a local league, but since he's been practicing (sort of) masked, it's really going to be his first major opportunity for exposure.  And same for us, I guess, since it'll be our first extended indoor setting.  We're going to switch off, though, so for each of us it's only once a week.  It definitely makes me nervous, but considering it's just a couple days a week for an hour or so, it's probably a calculated risk we're willing to take to offset at least some of the negative mental health impact this has likely had on Jacob.  He just wants to play some basketball (and we're pretty much over all of the on-court scenarios he constantly ruminates on), so we sort of just want to get on with it and see how it goes.  But it's still scary.

The bigger issue right now that has me as close to panic-stricken as I've been so far is school.  I understand that with our current low numbers we're in a much better state to start school than much of the country.  Yet despite rampant spread recently, Florida is still targeting an in-school start, which seems extremely risky at best and downright reckless at worst.  This will probably sound stupid reading this back 20 years from now (ha, as if) but this whole thing has turned extremely political.  Not just schools, but masking and the general handling of the pandemic, as well.  You wouldn't think a public health emergency would do that, but I guess these days anything is fair game.  The left is encouraging lots of masking and very careful (read: often restrictive) reopenings.  The right thinks masks are an affront to liberty and American freedom, and tend to have more concern about the impact from the economy from not reopening quickly enough.  They also want schools open, with a certain faction going farther to insist kids shouldn't have any restrictions on their in-school existence, such as masks or social distancing, which seem to be the only documented ways to keep things under control.  I understand that there are definitely groups of kids that are more at-risk from being out of school for an extended period of time.  I feel so badly for special needs kids and parents who can't get much needed teaching and therapies because telehealth isn't always awesome.  Our family knows that full well from our barely-functional family therapy video calls every two weeks.  There are also kids with limited internet access and subpar parental involvement, often due to being essential workers outside the home.  That was clear from some iffy participation in some of Carter's video calls and the general sense from his teacher that despite our struggles, he was still far above and beyond what some other kids were doing.  Some kids are English learners and their parents simply can't speak well enough to help them.  And I know that there are kids whose only safe place is at school--the only time they're safe from abuse, fear, or hunger.  It all breaks my heart so much.

But I also know that those kids' lives will not get any better if they or their family members come down with the virus.  They're already more likely to be in schools with fewer resources to keep things safe and to have less adequate medical care at home, and many probably have different child care situations involving older generations who are more susceptible--either grandparents living in the house or watching them while their parents work.  It's a complete lose-lose situation for those kids, infinitely far beyond the still very real concerns I have for my own kids.  The virus will get into schools, just like it's made its way into camps and daycares this summer, so we need to plan for that to happen--but I'm not convinced some people are taking that thought seriously.  Or at the very least, they're so hell-bent on in-school that they'll once again end up behind the 8-ball, unprepared, when the virus hits and things have to close.

The more I read from teachers, the more it becomes clear that any in-school experience will be a shell of its former self.  Kid interactions will be limited due to partitions in classrooms, distanced seating, and changes to lunch and P.E.  They'll be staring at masked faces all day, and probably be preoccupied trying to keep theirs on.  Teachers will likely be keeping their distance more than before, as well.  It simply won't be the social experience it once was, which pretty much negates the argument that kids need school for socialization purposes.  And believe me, I get it--after four months of this, Carter is pretty much always wanting to be with a screen and it's difficult to get him to go outside, even to play with the neighbors, which he once loved.  I know he needs interaction.  But if it's going to feel more like a prison than school?  I don't know.  Kids are more adaptable than we are, so I think over time they'll adjust to a lot, but it's still not going to be what they remember and that could impact their learning more than we realize.

And that's not even getting into the health risks.  Kids are messy, they are absent-minded, they are fidgety, and they are germ magnets on a good day.  Schools generally don't have the resources to do all of the CDC recommendations, so we can assume germs will still run amok like they do when strep or stomach bugs run through classrooms.  And with something that transmits through air, particularly in indoor settings, it seems rather difficult to keep it under wraps for long.  It just takes one kid, teacher, or worker to spread it around.  And once that happens, what then?  Do entire classes quarantine?  Does the whole school close?  Or do we lower expectations for these groups and minimize quarantines just so kids can stay in school?  It gets more complicated in older grades with changing classes, since any given person could interact with dozens of different students and a half dozen teachers each day, and that group in turn interacts with dozens more.  It's endless.  If teachers need to stay home, does that cut into their sick time?  Or can they use workers' compensation?  Or do they just keep teaching from home if they're healthy enough?  Inevitably these infections will cause exponential spread beyond schools and into communities if we're not careful, and that's not good for anyone.  Many areas are seeing business closures again, and while I fully understand that it's bad for the economy and could contribute to countless permanent closures, I'm just not sure what other options there are to prevent further spread.

I understand one side of this argument thinks that the whole thing is overblown.  I'm just going to ignore that there are some people who think this is a big hoax created by the Democrats to mess with Trump's election chances in the fall.  That is absurd because the entire world has suffered through this, and what's more, Trump's lack of acknowledgement and action (aside from shutting off travel from China) has been part of the reason it has become such a problem here.  Instead of setting forth a decisive course of action that set the example for all governors to follow, he downplayed it, refused to wear a mask, held rallies, and criticized Democratic governors for trying to shut down the economy.  Just last week he said that Democrats were the ones wanting to keep the schools closed, also to mess with his chances of re-election.  What's more, he suggested cutting off funding to schools that don't open in-person, which is not only insane on many levels but also not necessarily in his power, since that funding goes through Congress.  It's all getting absurd and even dangerous.  Even among the more logical folks, there are assertions that cases are being over-counted, death rates are low, and for most people it's just a minor illness.  But even if cases are over-counted, that doesn't account for why hospitals are overwhelmed.  This is not just the flu.  It is making people sick and killing a small but significant percentage of them.  What's more, we've found out more and more that the symptoms people are showing are sticking around for weeks or months, or even causing long-term damage.  There are heart issues, lung damage, blood clots causing strokes, nerve damage, and all sorts of concerning chronic issues that are impacting otherwise healthy people.  It's harder to get stats on how often that's occurring, but the randomness of how they strike concerns me and I can't say I want to expose my kids to that on a daily basis, or risk them passing it along to me, Craig, or our parents.  It may not kill us, sure, but if our quality of life is greatly reduced, was it worth it for some in-person instruction?

There just hasn't been any research I've seen that makes me feel comfortable that this can go off without a hitch.  I'm still not allowed to go into my office freely, even with hardly anyone else in the building.  Even if we do go back, which likely won't be for months, we're being told Zoom meetings will probably be the norm for a while.  So if they're telling me (and remember, I work for a place connected to a big-time research hospital) that I shouldn't sit in a conference room for any period of time, why should I feel comfortable having my kid sit in a classroom with crappy ventilation for six hours?  It just doesn't seem logical to me.  I don't want teachers putting themselves at risk, and I will always worry about my kids.  In arguing about this on Facebook with a couple people that don't have kids, I didn't want to pull the "mom card", and I didn't publicly, but I realized they probably can't understand how parents will instinctively do whatever it takes to protect their kids.  It's practically involuntary.  Realistically I know they will learn more in school and do better socially, but my gut tells me to keep them safe at home, just in case.  I can't actively stick my kids in a potentially unsafe situation without a compelling reason to do so, and right now the social and learning benefits just aren't compelling enough.  

That said, I don't blame parents of those previously mentioned groups of kids one bit for fighting for what their kids need.  Maybe the long-term risks of a subpar education outweigh the short-term health risks for them.  If that's the case, that's fine--but I don't necessarily feel that my kids need to be pulled into that risky situation as well.  It's essentially a science experiment, and I don't want my kids to be the guinea pigs.  I desperately want the kids that need and want services to get them, and if that means keeping my own kids home so those groups can have distanced learning, I'm cool with that.  We can do that and we'll survive.  But the thought of going back to distance learning with Carter makes me crazy and I'm definitely nervous about how both kids will come out of this socially.  As of now, the only thing we know is that Carter will probably be on a hybrid model because the district simply doesn't have enough space for proper distancing.  We're supposed to get more info in the coming weeks.  As for Jacob, we probably won't know their plans for at least another week, until their online town hall meeting.  The crazy thing is, depending on how things go for other districts that do open on schedule in August, all of it could possibly change if things definitively go badly.  It's completely exhausting to think about.

I'm just frustrated that there is no "good" solution right now.  All have risks.  I hate that this has been politicized, because decisions should only be made on science, not what we think will impact the polls.  This will probably be our reality until a vaccine is developed or there is a very clear, universal treatment that helps ill patients.  Neither is imminent and probably neither will be universally distributed immediately, so this is clearly going to be our life for a while.  It's depressing and I'm pretty happy I didn't know in March we'd still be slogging through this in July with no end in sight.  It is truly a one-day-at-a-time thing right now, and we just need to keep living with it.  And finding the good.  It's there, I promise.  I'll keep worrying, too, because this is a big deal, but I'm doing my darnedest to appreciate this time for what it is.  There are parts I'll miss when it's over.  I never thought I'd say that, but here we are.  What strange times we live in!