My normal Monday posts are summaries of what happened over the weekend, mostly revolving around sports. So what to do when there were no new sports to watch?
I did watch some of (and recorded the entire) replay of the Kansas-Dayton game from last November. That was such a great game and it would have been fun if those teams had met again, either in Atlanta or on the road there, to see how they matched up with four months of growth. KU’s defense wasn’t nearly as good in November as it would be at the end of the season. Devon Dotson was a better player at the end of the season than the beginning, but the Dayton game was perhaps his finest game of the season. I know Dayton kept rolling but didn’t watch any of their games to know how they compared to their November selves. Alas…
No kid sports either, obviously. We were gearing up for spring sports. C and L were supposed to have their first track practices Friday and Sunday. L was supposed to get her soccer roster today. M was supposed to have tennis tryouts tonight. This was to be my final season running the kickball program. With the latest CDC recommendations that everything be shut down for at least eight weeks, I doubt we will have spring sports seasons.
Saturday we had several hours of heavy, wet snow. The ground was warm enough that the roads only got slushy by the ground was covered for several hours. Since it was the middle of March the girls had no interest in playing in it.
We let C have a friend sleep over last night. We figured this might be one of her last chances to do it. With S in healthcare I’m pretty sure we will be exposed at some point, so I’m less worried about someone else bringing Covid into our home than us giving it to a guest down the road.
Life goes on in some ways. C has an ortho appointment this morning. I got the confirmation text Saturday and haven’t received a cancellation call yet, so looks like it will proceed. She is sooo close to getting her braces off that I know she would be bummed if she missed an appointment. That could be her issue: today might be fine but as we get deeper into her final detail work and the eventual removal, those are the appointments that will be in the most jeopardy.
Our tradition is that we get her lunch somewhere after her ortho appointments before she returns to school. We’ve decided to cut out restaurants for the time being, but I’m debating whether it is safe to go ahead and get something today. The logic being, again, so long as it is carry out it will be safer today than two weeks from now. The CDC, etc have not said to avoid getting food outside the home, just to avoid sitting and dining. So I may gamble that it will all be fine.
I thought this was a very informative video. I’ve heard many people, including some of our girls’ teachers, share explanations for why diseases often come from Asia that just seemed wrong. This explains why the jump from wildlife to humans so often takes place in Asia.
Saturday M and I were scheduled to work at a local food pantry as part of her service hours commitment. Late last week I kept checking the pantry’s website and saw no changes in the schedule and did not receive a cancellation from the volunteer coordinator, so we got up early and headed down. When we volunteered there in December the streets around the pantry were completely filled with parked cars well before the pantry opened. Saturday the streets were empty.
When we checked in we were told that the pantry was closed, but we would be preparing boxes of food that would be distributed via a drive-through when the pantry reopened on Tuesday. We spent five hours doing exactly that.
Because of the change in schedule and mission, several of the pantry’s employees who don’t normally work in the distribution area were with us. For a long stretch I was between the president of the organization and the volunteer coordinator. They told me how they had to scramble beginning Thursday to completely revamp their mission. All the food pantries in the area had met on Wednesday to discuss how to manage keeping people safe while still getting food to folks who needed it. They agreed that every pantry that was able would move to a drive through method of distribution. This would keep people from congregating in the waiting area – there were often 100 people in the waiting room at any one time the last time we worked – while also avoiding direct contact between volunteers and clients. As most pantries rely heavily on families and students for their weekend volunteers, I think every organization wanted to do all they could to make it clear that those kids would be isolated from the pantry clients lest they lose their workforce.
There were still around 50 people working Saturday, which was great. We did a ton of work, packing dozens of pallets 8’ high with boxes of food. The staff members who joined us on the floor were super impressed at how much we got accomplished. With no idea what to expect, I think they were fearful A) people wouldn’t show up and B) we wouldn’t put them in a good position to begin distributing again on Tuesday. They seemed to be comfortable that with the work we did Saturday, and what could be added Monday, they would be in position to distribute when their doors opened again.
Anytime we go to a food pantry it is deeply humbling. Last December we had more than 500 people go through during our five hour shift. And that was just one of many pantries open in the city that day. To help during a moment of (so far) minor food crisis was even more humbling. We can complain about crowds and empty shelves at grocery stores, but those are minor annoyances. We still have access to fresh food and the ability to purchase it. I can’t imagine counting on food pantries to get through the week and seeing them close down because of the virus scare.
I had some reservations about going. Several times I wondered if we should cancel. My fear was that because of some of the rules that CHS sets up around service hours, if we didn’t go M would be screwed on her freshman year requirements and affect her GPA in the process. When they told us we would not actually be serving people directly, that made me feel better.
But last night I still wondered if it was the correct decision. The experts are coming out more forcefully for shutting down all but essential services and having everyone hole up at home. Are M or I carry Covid–19 and spread it to the people we worked with, some of whom were older and not in great health? Did someone else there carry the virus and pass it to us? Was it dumb to put an academic requirement above other considerations? Might we have been able to get a waiver for those hours given what is going on? Hell, might CHS scrap the requirements for this year should the school shutdown and isolation recommendations stretch deeper into the spring than currently expected?
I’m hopeful we dodged a bullet and didn’t do more harm than good. We had planned on trying to knock out some more service hours during spring break. Now I think there is no way we will be doing that and will either scramble to get her final hours once things return to normal, or count on the school adjusting the hours needed for this year.
Ah, spring break. We officially cancelled our flights Saturday. We decided it was too risky for us all, S’ employer is highly encouraging all docs to stay put, and it’s looking more and more like we will have domestic travel restrictions soon. We are waiting as long as possible to cancel everything else, not in hopes we can salvage the trip but in hopes the vendors we purchased lodging, ski rentals, lift tickets, etc from adjust their policies so we can get full refunds for everything.
Unlike when we first mentioned this as a possibility on Thursday, there were no tears from the girls. They’re figuring out what is going on and how serious everything is. They are definitely still disappointed – we all are – but realize it is for the best. Although when I told them that the NCAA tournament had been cancelled, they all snapped their heads to attention to see if that made me cry. It did on the inside.
I suppose this is the second in what will be an on-going series sharing my thoughts and observations on the most insane era of my lifetime.
I’ll work a little out of order to get caught up.
First, my girls are all out of school. Cathedral was scheduled to be off today for the St. Patrick’s Day parade.[1] The parade was cancelled so it’s just a day off for high schoolers. They were told at the end of the day yesterday that school was closing and all activities would be cancelled until at least April 14. They will begin an eLearning schedule on Monday and will be expected to be online to “meet” with their classes during normal school hours. M was sad that she won’t get a chance to play tennis, but was sadder for all the seniors who are missing out on their final seasons of spring sports. She said there were a lot of tears from seniors and their coaches as campus shut down.
A few hours later all Marion County public schools were ordered closed beginning today. The archdioceses quickly followed and St. P’s has suspended classes until April 6 at the earliest. I took C and L into school this morning to get all their books, check out C’s iPad, and grad a few assignments from their teachers. They also begin eLearning Monday.
As with everything else that has happened over the past three days, this was not a surprise. But for it to actually happen is absolutely surreal. As we walked through school today parents were all giving each other looks like “Can you believe this is happening?”
Thursdays are a meeting day for S, and she spent literally all of yesterday on the phone, bouncing from one conference call to the next as her health system raced to get policies and contingencies in place. It was a very stressful day for her.
She had been adamant as late as Wednesday that we were still going on spring break. But as the country shuts down that seems less realistic. Her employer is encouraging physicians to cancel plans so they don’t get exposed and put into quarantine in another state/country and not be able to see patients. They can get exposed/quarantined just as easily here but I guess they would prefer it happen closer to home. One of the girls cried when we told them spring break was in jeopardy.
With the girls home and S and I agreeing we should do our best to avoid eating out for awhile, I decided to rush out to the grocery store first thing this morning to make sure we could get through the weekend. I was not the only person with this idea. At 8:30 AM it was the busiest I’ve ever seen my grocery store outside the holiday rushes. The lady who rang me up said the place was a madhouse when they opened at 6:00. The store reflected that: there was almost no lunch meat or cheese, the fresh fruits and vegetables were well picked over. It was strange, though. For every section that was wiped out, there would be another section that had plenty to choose from. We normally drink 1% milk, and it was completely gone. The whole milk was getting scarce. But the skim section was completely full. Good luck finding a frozen pizza.
I saw a lot of people doing what I was doing, securing food for a few days and maybe throwing a little extra in. I grabbed a few extras on proteins that were on sale to freeze. But there were some folks who were panic shopping. One couple had two carts jammed full of food. And I did see one man with a cart that was full of toilet paper, which I found both humorous and sad.
It took me about 15 minutes to get through the line to pay. People were being polite and calm. It could have been a far worse experience.
There’s no evidence that the food supply chain is in any danger. You can never know for sure what is going to happen, but I’m confident while grocery trips may be a little more stressful for awhile, none of us should worry about losing access to food.
Onto sports.
Again, we knew it was coming, but when the NCAA tournament got scrapped I got a little emotional. Some of that was personal and stupid: I felt cheated that this KU team doesn’t get to see what their tournament fortunes held. This was going to be the third, maybe fourth time in my life that KU went into the tournament as the betting favorite.[2] Those teams all came up short. Would this team have been different? I feel worst for Udoka Azubuike, who stayed healthy all season and now doesn’t get to go out on his terms. I’m sad we will likely not see Devon Dotson play for KU again.
But there was also plenty of macro-level sadness. The NCAA tournament, for as often as it floors me, is my favorite event in all of sports. There is nothing like watching basketball all day with that hint of spring in the air. There is nothing like your favorite team making a run over three weeks. And now it’s all gone.
I hoped the NCAA could find a way to simply postpone the tournament and play it later, but I understand why that was an unrealistic hope. Forget all the logistics of gaining access to arenas, blocks of hotel rooms, etc. We don’t know when it will be safe to have large groups traveling across the country again. Even if we knew they could play the tournament in three weeks, how do teams get back in game shape without playing any games?
It’s for the best, even if I hate it. I had this fear that if they continued with empty arenas, important players would start getting sick and that would ruin the tournament, likely forcing a cancellation after games had begun. Or what if they made it to the Final Four and suddenly half of one team was symptomatic and locked down?
Every other sport shutting down is just an extra kick in the nads. I guess we’ll all be streaming a lot of TV for awhile. I made a run to the library today to grab an extra stack of books. Just as I was parking I got an email from the library saying all events it hosted were cancelled. It would not surprise me if most libraries either close or begin limiting their hours soon, thus my trip.
And so begins the strangest chapter in world history of our lives. I think we’ve jumped past 9/11. The entire world is shutting down. All the evidence is that this will pass in weeks, maybe months, and the massive majority of us will emerge unscathed. If it keeps our hospitals open, our healthcare workers functioning, and reduces infections and deaths, it will all be worth it.
2010, and maybe 1986. The 2016 team was the #1 overall seed but that was in a year when there was a big group of good teams at the top. They were just the top team that had lost the least recently to nab the #1 seed.
Below are some collected thoughts on what is going on with COVID–19. I’m not going to promise they are coherent or all that intelligent. I’m trying to get them into text and online quickly, so I may contradict myself or miss some glaring flaws in logic. My apologies if it goes off the rails anywhere.
Wednesday was the craziest damn day I can remember since, perhaps, September 11, 2001. While the causes and immediate effects of each day were dramatically different, both are ones that will be seared into my memory.
Yesterday it seemed like each refresh of a news page or check of Twitter brought about some new story about COVID–19 that made me say “WOW!” and immediately share it with others.
There was the morning official declaration of a global pandemic by the WHO.
There was the news that the Congressional doctor warned staffers to expect over 100 million Americans to contract the virus.
There was news that the White House was locking down all COVID-related briefings.
That was before lunch.
When I picked up the girls from school M told me CHS had begun preparing students for classes to be postponed without really saying that was a possibility. They were downloading apps that would assist in eLearning, getting kids who need food assistance signed up for food delivery, and otherwise gently nudging kids so they would be ready for a change in school access.
The girls and I had a long conversation on our ride home about what was going on. They had some slightly crazy thoughts, but for the most part were on the right track. We’ve had several discussions about COVID in recent days and I did my best to reiterate what we’ve been saying: we are unlikely to face any life-threatening complications from COVID. However, we are almost certain to come into contact with the virus, if we haven’t already, and could face a range of uncomfortable complications from that contact. If their schools get closed it was more about keeping people like their grandparents and newborn cousins from getting sick than about our health.
In the afternoon and evening came two more huge waves of news.
The Big 12 and other conferences announced they would lock down their basketball tournaments beginning today.
The Ivy League cancelled all spring sports.
Two private high schools on our side of town announced they were closing until mid-April (These are super expensive, non-religious schools, so I’m guessing they have multiple week spring breaks so families can go to Geneva or Nepal or wherever, so this halt likely only knocks out a couple weeks of class).
The NCAA first announced that they were recommending all sports be played without fans in attendance. Moments later its president announced that he was locking out the public from the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments.
That was the first “Oh shit, this is getting real!” moment of the day. But not the last.
Later in the evening I was making a final run through Twitter before I settled into a book when the NBA decided to go crazy. First, the game between the Jazz and Thunder had been abruptly cancelled seconds before it started. Then word that Jazz center Rudy Gobert had tested positive. Finally the biggest bombshell of the day: the NBA was suspending the season. I flipped over to watch the surreal fourth quarter of the Nuggets-Mavericks game, what would be the last NBA game played for awhile.
In the midst of this, the president was speaking and not helping matters much. Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg was seen to be visibly ill on the bench in his Big 10 tournament game downtown.[1] And Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson announced they had tested positive.
Just before I went to bed at 11:30 Scott Van Pelt and Sean Farnham were speculating on ESPN that we may have seen the last college basketball games of the year. Which, HOLY SHIT!!!
I went to bed but struggled to relax and fall asleep after several hours of getting buzzed by breaking news and frantic texting.
What to make of all this?
Before yesterday I was firmly in the camp of “we should be vigilant but not overreact.” I thought people panic purchasing groceries and cleaning supplies were lunatics, causing more harm than good.
While that is still my general line of thinking, there was one other thing that came out yesterday that adjusted my thinking. This concept of “flattening the curve” resonated with me. The overwhelming majority of Americans either will not get sick, or will not face anything close to life-threatening illness. The biggest issue, though, is if too many people who do get dangerously sick do it at the same time and flood hospitals beyond their capacity. If we all take steps to slow the virus’ spread, we can stretch out the rate at which the sickest people hit the healthcare system, allowing it room to care for them.
Not that I wasn’t being safe, or teaching my girls to be safe, before. But now I’m a little more diligent about it. And shutting down public gatherings makes more sense. A little inconvenience for us all can make this crisis much more manageable while giving those at the most risk a better chance of getting access to care.
In two or three months we might look back and think it was insane to play games in front of empty seats or suspend the NBA season, close down schools, etc. But if that allows the healthcare system to cope with a flood of severely sick people and slows the spread of the virus, it will be worth it.
Several people have asked me “What does S think about all this?” She’s a pretty calm, rational person. She has remained so throughout this. She’s not cancelling our spring break plans – yet – or making any other dramatic changes to our lives. I figure as long as she is chill, I should remain the same.
It was interesting to sit next to her during a conference call this morning and listen in on some of the steps her employer is taking to plan for the inevitable. I should not/can not share specifics, but I will say they are talking through all scenarios and trying to come up with the best plan to keep the most people as possible healthy while treating those who are sick. There were some hard questions asked, and the response was always “We have a plan for that.” Hopefully it is the right plan. I would imagine most major healthcare systems around the country are having the same conversations with similar conclusions.
As if the times we are living in weren’t crazy enough, this drops on us. I remain optimistic that we will get through this. As a society, it will require some difficult decisions and adjustments, hopefully only for the short term. And hopefully things will slow down a little today so we can catch our breath.
