To Quarentine Or Not, That Is The Question...

The thing about the Coronavirus is that we will never know if we overreacted, but if we stand by and do nothing we will know immediately how bad it could be. They closed all of the Colleges here so of course, Oldest is home.  His school will go to remote learning on Wednesday for the remaining 3 weeks of classes.  He learns best in a classroom so it will be a learning curve for sure.

The public schools also closed here, which means Youngest will also be home for at least 2 weeks. I suspect it will be longer.  He will also have to log into his Google classroom account to finish his assignments, which truthfully will take him all of an hour to blow through. He has picked up hours at work as many of the daytime staff can't work now because they have small children home. It works for him, and it keeps him busy which works for me.  It doesn't however, allow him social distancing, which is what everyone is debating on social media now.

When the State declares the shutdown of schools to stop the spread of the virus the idea is that those kids will stay home and ideally their parents as well. Which, to be honest, just won't happen unless you close down everything else.  Being Saturday, technically we aren't even a day into this yet, and already kids are being dropped at the mall to wander for hours. Parents are scheduling sleepovers.  Kids are getting together to hang out in parks, playgrounds, or despite the chilliness, the beach.  And everyone is chiming in about what we should do and what we shouldn't. Do we treat it like a vacation or do we force them into a homeschooling program that the students nor the parents are remotely equipped to deal with? Do we hold up in the house or send them out with a bottle of Lysol and a fishing pole? The scenarios are endless and everyone has an opinion.

As I mentioned two posts before, I am stocked well.  I went out as soon as I knew Oldest was going to be home until August as he'd already eaten though the house.  With a bit of hunting I was able to find everything we needed to feed us for about 10 days.  I've also mentioned, with Youngest working at a grocery, Bonus Son working at a specialty grocery, and the husband and I both working for the Post Office we will all be heading to work regardless, leaving us all in contact with the general public.

So in a family like ours, how does this social distancing thing work exactly?  I am in an office of roughly 60 people, have a route of 650 homes (so around 1,200-2,000 people?), go to the grocery every day and run errands (maybe an additional 50 people) and so, on a good day I there's a high probability that I come in contact with 200 people a day.

Today though, as I said, I've already stocked the house so my daily grocery trips won't happen for a few weeks.  Today's errands were the vet and a drive through oil change so I contacted 4 people total there. I picked up Youngest, but only talked to him, got gas for the car, but wiped the handle before and after pumping. And I had the day off.  So aside from my family I have talked to 4 people today. FOUR.  I did not hide in my house, or go without, but I cut down my number of contact considerably.

Tomorrow is Youngest's birthday and we will be going out to dinner.  We are going early to limit the number of people around us, and taking 3 of his friends. Yes, our contact number will be higher, but again, no where near our 200 average per day.

If I'm speaking honestly, I don't even feel bad about still going out and about. Because I am doing my part in cutting down my contact, without going insane.  Our lives are still going on, and I still want to feel as if I am living it, while making conscious choices to be safer.

And that's the best we can do right now, right?

Well, that, and spare a square if need be.