How can this be happening when we're doing everything right is what I keep wanting to ask, but I don't know to whom to address the question--and besides, we're obviously not all doing everything right or we wouldn't be in the shape we're in.
Which, for most of us, is just fine. Even in the midst of a sudden spike in Covid cases on campus, most of us are still meeting classes face-to-face; with only two positive cases early in the semester followed by weeks and weeks of no new cases, we were starting to feel that maybe we'd get through the pandemic without too much disruption. Students were wearing masks, socially distancing, and washing hands, and the College did whatever it could to discourage students from leaving campus or assembling in large groups.
But somebody slipped somewhere, and last week the number of confirmed cases started climbing, with new student cases nearly every day and one employee infected as well. Now we're up to more than a dozen active cases and nearly 100 students quarantining because of close contact with infected classmates. Only five of my first-year composition students are still able to come to class, although one is nearing the end of his quarantine.
And the students who are still in class aren't particularly lively. Even my honors students looked stunned and listless this morning, as if they'd rather be doing absolutely anything else besides trying to discuss great literature in the middle of a pandemic.
Frankly, I'm with them. I don't really want to be here today at all--I want to drive two hours north to be with my daughter and son-in-law and three grandkids, who are all quarantining after my daughter tested positive for Covid last Friday. They're feeling okay--some runny noses and coughs, a little fatigue--and there's really not much I could do for them if I were there, but part of me wants to run off and give them all hugs and chicken soup and hope.
They did everything right too--even the grandkids wear masks, and they're all very careful about where they go and whom they encounter. My daughter hasn't been inside a store in a month. "We wash hands. We sanitize. We follow the science. We take precautions," she writes, and they're going to keep doing those things for a very good reason: "It stops with us. We got it. We won't spread it."
Which is why I'm fighting my motherly instincts and staying right here, even though here doesn't feel like a particularly safe place right now.
2 comments:
I'm sorry to hear the news, especially about your daughter. It sounds like they're taking good care, and hopefully won't have a bad time of it.
Take care yourself. These are hard times.
You too! I hope we've hit bottom but it's hard to say what might happen next.
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