We've been living this pandemic for a year now. One year!
It was exactly a year ago today that my daughter's college decided to go fully remote and send everyone home. In the midst of all this happening, my daughter decided to bring one of her friends to the walk-in clinic. Her friend wasn't feeling well, and my daughter had a car, so she kindly brought her. The clinic didn't have any Covid tests at the time and the young woman was simply told, "You may, or may not, have Coronavirus" and sent them on their way (without masks, which weren't a thing yet). This put my daughter and her friends in a precarious position. No one knew if she was sick or not (she wasn't btw) but they had to quarantine themselves for a while and "wait and see". The powers that be told them "two weeks" but that was just a best guess at that point. After more than a week, but less than two weeks, it seemed like the OSG (original sick girl) was just fine and probably just had allergies. The girls all left their quarantine and went home. Of course, now we know that she could have had it, and just been relatively asymptomatic, but what did we know then?
Today I went back and read every single one of my previous blog entries from the past year. Yikes! Some were inciteful and TBH, some were cringe-worthy, but it was it was an interesting way to see an "unprecedented" year unfold. You always hear that practice makes perfect, and how the more you do something, the better you get. I'm not sure this is true about my blog. I started the year writing about current events and citing articles, and ended the year with imagined conversations between my clothes (my clothes are very witty btw).
Hmmm.
There were some things I wrote about in great detail and other things I chose not to write about for various reasons, mostly in the name of extended family harmony. Below is a quick summary of the last year (trigger warning) - please forgive me for all that was surely omitted:
Wuhan
Italy
Stay at Home
TP
Hand Sanitizer
Flatten the Curve!
More testing please
Shelter in Place
Tom Hanks has Covid
"Chinese Virus"
Italians singing out of windows
"Imagine" sung by celebrities
Sweden
Social distancing
Dolphins swimming in Venice Canals
Hospitals overflowing
Overworked Doctors and Nurses
Thousands of people dying
ZOOM
Schools closing
Increase in Gun sales
Manhattan, the Ghost Town
Manhattan cheering at 7pm every night
Andrew Cuomo
Pandemic Easter/Passover
"Some Good News" by John Kransinski
Sinophobia/racism
No Boston Marathon
New York City becomes ghost town
No Proms
No Graduations
No Memorial Day parties
Protests of wearing masks
George Floyd
Black Lives Matter
Black Lives Matter protests
Defund Police protests
ACAB
All Lives Matter
Black Lives Matter
Blue Lives Matter
Black Lives Matter
Black. Lives. Matter
College Tuition due
No decrease in College tuition
K-12 goes back hybrid
No vaccines yet
Teachers at risk
"USPS not reliable"
Pandemic fatigue
RBG dies
1st Presidential Debate - a shit show by all measures
President has a Rose Garden get together for SCJ nominee
President gets Coronavirus
Other attendees get Coronavirus
More poorly- moderated debates
Election
Waiting for Election results
waiting
waiting
waiting
Results in!!
Pandemic Thanksgiving
Waiting for concession speech from President
recounting
waiting
lawsuits
waiting
recounting
waiting
Pandemic Christmas
Pandemic New Years
Wait, we are still in a pandemic?
Georgia goes blue!
January 6th storming of the Capitol
Right wing: They did it!
Left wing: They did it!
FBI: We know who did it. The people who did it took lots of video and posted it. Pretty easy case.
Inauguration
Amanda Gorman
Super Bowl
Amanda Gorman again
Vaccines
Vaccines
Vaccines
Schools should re-open!
Vaccinate teachers!
State governments: No!
EVERYONE Else: Vaccinate the teachers
State governments: Okay, I guess.
And here we are, one year later. It's not over yet but somehow we are here and if you are reading this, you are here.
Oddly enough, on this one year anniversary of the Pandemic, my daughter found herself back in the emergency room again with Covid -like symptoms; fever, nausea and a rash. She wore a mask to the hospital and all the necessary safety protocols were followed by the staff. They were able to do a quick Covid test and tell her quickly that she did not in fact have Covid. She doesn't need to wait two weeks. She doesn't have to quarantine. She took some Advil and was able to attend on-line classes this afternoon. (Note: She does live off-campus so she has some liberties that she would not have if she lived on-campus where she would probably be quarantined for just having symptoms)
This incident shows me both how far we have come, and yet, how far we have to go.
I'm grateful for testing and vaccines. I am SO grateful my daughter doesn't have Covid.
I'm just hoping that next year I am not writing this kind of summary again.
Enough.
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