Diary of a Pandemic

It's amazing how much can change in a week. Like the whole world, we are struggling to keep up mentally and emotionally with this pandemic. It's crazy for me to think what our viewpoint was on the coronavirus just eight days ago:

Saturday, March 7
We spent the school week wondering why the world was overreacting so badly to the coronavirus. Ten cases in Washington? Italy closing it's borders. Is this going to effect our Semana Santa trip to Spain? Surely not, but we better at least start keeping our eye on news of the virus in Spain. We pull up an article about the current situation in Spain; the headline is meant to scare...something to the affect of "Madrid bracing for the worse in face of new deaths from the virus." Reading further into the article we see that there has been five deaths: a person with pre-existing conditions, a 99 year old, and the other three elders as well. Again, we try to access: what is all this hype?

Sunday, March 8
At church we chat with a couple we know from Spain and inquire what's the situation on the ground in their home country. Natan tells us that it's life as usual in the country and they aren't stopping festivals, women's marches, etc. He tells us not to worry about our trip being cancelled.

Monday, March 9
Women's shut down day in Mexico. Weird day regardless, but with Covid19, life feels like a little too much to handle. The burden of whether or not we ought to cancel our trip to Spain grows as cases there are rising quickly.

Tuesday, March 10
We're struggling to keep up with the rapidly increasing virus. Life feels so unsettled/uncertain/unpredictable. We have never had anything like this happen before.

Wednesday, March 11
Covid19 is officially declared a pandemic. We concede that we have to cancel Spain. The world seems to be going mad: everyone is buying up toilet paper and cleaning supplies. The NBA is suspended. The first case is confirmed in San Pedro.

Thursday, March 12
Things are rapidly declining with Covid19. March Madness is cancelled, as is Ben's trip to Portland (what a relief!). It's hard to mentally keep up with the panic. At the beginning of the week we were still hoping to hop on a plane and go to somewhere tropical for spring break. But now, the virus has hit everywhere. Flights are cheaper than ever, but places like Disney World are closed. Maybe we can still drive somewhere?

Friday, March 13
Schools in Oregon (and many states) are shut down. The Leonard family cancels their mission trip here in a couple of weeks and we're struggling with the oppressive feeling of this virus. It feels like everything in life is cancelled. Mexico seems pretty tranquilo about the whole thing; so far, only 12 cases, but speculation is that's because they aren't really testing much or publishing information quickly.

Saturday, March 14
We feel stuck: especially because the weather has been oppressively hot coupled with horrible smog. (Smog that, consequently, gives Josh allergies and makes him cough. No one wants a coughing kid these days.) Early afternoon we simultaneously get news that the kids school will be cancelled March 20 - April 20, and that the Tigres game that we bought tickets for that night was cancelled. We feel stuck inside because of the heat and the smog and now literally have no plans. We marvel at the fact that just one week again, we were chiding the newspapers for overstating the situation with coronavirus and were confident our Spain trip wouldn't be cancelled. How much can change in one week! 

So, here we are, Sunday, March 15. Mexico has 53 confirmed cases; touching closer to home, a dad at AIM has Covid19. We had church this morning; our last service in four weeks, although we're still encouraged to meet in small groups. We've spent the last 24 hours contemplating if we should try to travel to Portland for the month that everything is shut down. But, for now, we've come to the conclusion that staying in Mexico makes more sense than trying to travel. We're ready to ride out the storm here with plenty of food, toilet paper, and games.

However, I have absolutely NO idea what life will look like tomorrow, let alone 8 days from now.