Saturday, March 14, 2020

Coronavirus Tracking

Everything you’ve seen and heard over the last 48 hours has been about coronavirus, new cases, lack of testing, and government entities declaring states of emergency. 

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There’s plenty of information out there about the telltale symptoms…fever, dry cough, and shortness of breath that are usually not accompanied by other symptoms you’d typically expect from the flu.  Some people feel chest pains.

Personally, I’m not afraid to go out and live my life.  I’m shocked at the empty shelves and long checkout lines in stores.  There’s no sign of any cold or flu medicines, vitamin C, bread, paper goods, pasta, rice, water, or ramen noodles, of all things!  Even meat is in shorter-than-usual supply.  It’s hard to figure out just what people are thinking, unless they are expecting an all-out ban on going out in public.  Personally, I have 2 fridges and 2 deep freezers, and all are full.  If that happened, I’d be able to feed my family quite well on what we already have.  I’m really not worried about that.

Here in Fort Worth, schools were on spring break this week.  Now they are not expected to re-open until March 30th “at the earliest.”  I saw a memo to teachers telling them they would not even be permitted to “stop by” the school building to pick anything up.  In addition, the week before spring break, FWISD’s computer server was attacked with ransomware, so in the week before spring break, schools were already handicapped with no email, no wi-fi, and no online access of any kind.  Teachers had no ability to update attendance or grades, and students couldn’t take any tests online.  They weren’t even sure if the computer system would be back up by next week when they originally planned to return from spring break. 

With all this time off from school, kids will be going insane since everything is closed!  No Six Flags, no zoo, no museums, no sports, no concerts, no parades, and basically no public events anywhere.  At least they have wi-fi at home! 

While my daughter will likely be bored out of her mind, my son, who is still homeschooled, has school as usual resuming this coming week as our spring break comes to an end.  Nothing has changed for us.  I can’t say he’s too happy about that when his sister is home from school for at least 3 weeks straight, but at least he gets to keep his usual routine, and there’s something to be said for that.

I’m a bit disgruntled at how all these events we’ve paid for…symphony, YMCA athletics, city sports leagues, etc…are not offering any type of refunds for tickets or subscriptions.  I realize they aren’t responsible for the shutdowns, but they also aren’t doing anything to earn the money we’ve paid!  For instance, I just paid $120 for my son to play 7 soccer games with my husband as his volunteer coach.  He had one game, and then they canceled for the rest of the month.  Lame!

There are plenty of news reports and stories surfacing multiple times per day, but I’ve found that most of them have somewhat late information in terms of the numbers.  If you want real-time tracking, bookmark this site that’s maintained by Johns Hopkins University to get an up-to-date look at what it really looks like all over the world or just in your area. 

Trust me when I say that it’s an eye-opening experience to watch the numbers rise in the U.S. at such an alarming rate!  As of this moment, we’re at 2,951 cases and 61 in just my state of TX.  We currently have family members visiting from another state, and we’re keeping an eye on whether or not there are any restrictions to domestic flights before they return home on Tuesday.

Be smart about personal hygiene such as frequent hand-washing and disinfecting surfaces and stay safe!

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