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Are you self quarantining?
Did you lose your job?
Do you know someone who contracted it?
Do you have a small business where you have employees who depend on you and your actions?
Been hesitating participating on this because the disease continues to hit home in different ways, and it's a fluid thing that changes by the day. In order:
1. Yes
2. I'm 49, retired at 47. But "gigging" as a handyman/mechanic/electrician doing side work mostly for hobby, not financial need. This work indeed has mostly dried up, but if someone needs outdoor work done I go ahead and do it, send emailed invoices, and they pay me electronically or via mailed check. I'm not working much thru this...electively...and I don't need to work so that's fine. I've shut off my advertising.
4. (out of order for good reason). Yes and no. I'm mostly a one man show, but for larger jobs I occasionally hire friends as cash labor. Many of THEM have been contacting me, because they are laid off and suddenly available for ANYTHING I can find for them to do and pay them for. So now when a customer contacts me and wants a job done, even outdoors and socially distanced, I'm passing on the job and giving referrals to my friends who have more financial need than I do. So not my employees, but I'm purposefully giving some of my potential income and customers up to my friends.
3. YES. SEVERAL. And this friggin' question is why I have hesitated participating. Yes indeed I know of 4 personal friends who have tested positive. Also about 4 others who PROBABLY had/have it based on all the symptoms, but were denied tests due to not available/not high risk, and instructed to assume you have it, go home and self quarantine, and don't go anywhere until all symptoms have been gone for at least 3 days. All 8 of these friends have been ages 45 to 60 ish, generally healthy, and have handled it without too much drama other than extremely painful dry cough and quite a bit of pain. For all it seems to last intensely for 14 days, and then linger for a couple more weeks.
A ninth dear friend, I just found out yesterday, is at day 11 of fever and dry cough, was admitted to hospital yesterday, and given the Covid test yesterday. Should have results in 3 days, assuming she has it. On IV and oxygen, not on a ventillator yet and not in ICU yet. This is the scariest of all because she is the only friend who needed hospitalization over Covid, and I'm terrified frankly. 60ish I think and not the healthiest among my friends. Please pray for her.
And 4 days ago a dear friend lost her mother to old age/natural causes. Yesterday her husband (also a close friend) dropped dead of a heart attack. I normally would spring into action, drive 10 hours to go up there and help with the whole situation, give hugs, etc. But I can't. There will be no funerals for either because of the gathering risk and the closed churches. Friends bringing meals to the widow, etc? Not really gonna happen. The widow who just lost her mother and husband over the course of 4 days is going to have to handle this situation MUCH more alone than normally would happen. All the traditional things that people do in these situations are upended because of Covid. It's hitting people in different ways, even if it's not the disease itself directly hitting people.
My mother has kidney cancer. Needs a kidney removed. The surgery keeps getting postponed, and postponed, and postponed. Because of Covid. If this handn't happened she would have that kidney out by now and be recovering...hopefully cancer free. But instead it MIGHT be spreading. The unknown is driving her, and me, nuts. We both want that diseased organ out of her body, but surgeons and hospitals are reeling. Now rescheduled for the 3rd time to April 9. Please pray for her too.
Folks this disease is new, kinda brutal, hitting a LOT of poeple, and if it hasn't already it WILL effect your life in ways much more than the current quarantine situation...sooner rather than later. At the same time the fallout of the quarantine from a world economy standpoint is also doing untold damage in so many ways. No matter how anyone feels about Trump, I believe he made a fleeting comment recently stating that he "doesn't want the cure to be worse than the disease?" or something similar. Politics aside, this is a BIG question he verbalized. Here is a disease that hits a few % of the population, and 1% of those it hits dies, and it's awful. And it's hitting several of my friends...and one friend is a big question mark on whether she'll survive it. But world economic collapse causes widespread poverty, unemployment, and large numbers of deaths in other ways that have nothing to do with Covid. So I believe this quarantine thing actually MIGHT be worse than the cure. And we're all going to be released back to normal life eventually, and gradually, and when this happens there will still NOT be worldwide containment or cure or vaccine or immunity with regards to this disease. It will simply live among us. It will be just one more thing trying to kill us every day like cancer or flu or murder or accident. Eventually treatments will improve and by emergency, the hospitals and equipment will catch up to continue handling the larger number of cases. I believe governments all over the world will be forced to make unpopular choices...essentially to save one group of people, but at the expense of another.
Sorry for the downer, but that's where my headspace is at right now. I'm a very optimistic and happy guy, a Christian who does not fear death and eagerly awaits my place in eternity...though I'm not rushing it! I have very strong faith. So do most of my friends and I find great comfort in that. And I have been having a lot of social fun doing things with friends from 8 feet away in person or over technology -- played board games and drank beer with the neighbors last night via facetime (a friday night tradition but now split into our own households instead of in person) and had a blast! I have a deep and wide network of friends, tight and loving family, lots of people to talk to and I talk to them often, and I have a wonderful wife and a wonderful life. But in other ways my heart is also heavy and I've personally seen a few different types of suffering from this event so far, and I fully expect to personally see much more as time marches on. It has been much more than just a news story for me, that's for sure. It's effecting a LOT of people I know very directly, and I'm not even counting the whole quarantine and job loss thing. It is almost time to make my daily reach out to those who have been recovering and I worry about...selfishly to know their recovery continues. I know, and you should know, that only God is in control. Have faith. He can move mountains.
I don't know any of you personally, but this writing was a form of therapy for me. Thank you for listening.
