Paul

57

8/31/2020

Old Forge, New York

When we were to travel south to see friends in SC and go to Mexico to see family before going to CA. We gave up on going to Mexico because we didn't want to risk being unable to get back to the US. Then we decided to delay driving to CA until the virus is under control. We have had very little COVID-19 here. We have been amazingly lucky.

My wife is a university professor in CA. She was taking a leave of absence that was to end this month. Now they have declared that all classes will be taught online. We are going to stay here in the Adirondacks until next winter, it seems. My son who lives in NYC has moved here with us, along with his girlfriend and their dog. They too work remotely, so they're holed up here indefinitely.

I'm a little lonely, missing my friends and being able to go out for drinks and other social activities. I'm also somewhat depressed, but coping. We are on a lake, so we go out on our boat a lot. We can get food to go, and eat onboard. I do work around our house, things like cutting firewood. We watch a lot of streaming TV. We read.

What has amazed me is how everyone in the area seems to mostly taking the virus seriously. There have been some big gatherings, usually with Trump flags on display, but those are relatively few and are usually denounced by most. The community has very much pulled together during this. Even with differences of opinion about Trump and the virus, they're all behaving as a community, taking care of each other.

We have been using Zoom and similar services to stay in contact, and have been using streaming services to keep entertained.

The importance of masks. This could have been contained with the use of masks, as we now know. But more than that, I wish we had all known just how politicized this would become.

I would want them to know that it was far more widespread and virulent than necessary because of selfishness and stupidity. The refusal to wear masks and take precautions stems from adolescent rebellion in people who should have outgrown it decades ago. Entire swaths of the country see themselves as rugged individualists, heroes standing up for their rights, when what they're really doing is having a tantrum and endangering the rest of us.

There will be more opportunities to work remotely. People will be able to spread outward from the cities, bringing new prosperity to the rural areas.

Paul

COVID-19 (Disease)

Southern Adirondack Library System

Southern Adirondack Library System

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

English

Covid History

11948468527

Coronavirus Pandemic