COVID-19 Pandemic

The world fell apart last week. and it's  been a little crazy ever since. 

The entire world is responding to a pandemic right now. This pandemic is caused from a respiratory disease that is spreading from person to person from a new coronavirus. It's been named "coronavirus disease 2019" and abbreviated COVID- 19. The disease originally came out of China and has quickly spread across the entire world. It isn't bad in Arkansas yet but state officials have preemptively closed things down. It's so crazy. 

On Thursday, March 12th, our church leaders cancelled church in all buildings around the world. We've been instructed to hold our own sacrament meetings in our homes and keep our families home.  On Friday, Sam's Club and Wal-Mart corporate offices closed their doors until April 17th. So Chris will be working remotely from home for a while.  Then on Sunday, March 15 2020, the schools in Arkansas all closed until April 17th. They are hoping to reopen at that point but until then- we are doing all our schooling online through "google classroom". I can hardly believe that this is the world we are living in. It literally feels like a bad dream.

The CDC has made the following recommendations to help slow the spread of the disease. 

• Wear a cloth face covering in public settings to avoid spreading COVID-19 to others in case you are infected but do not have symptoms. The cloth face cover is meant to protect other people in case you are infected.

• The cloth face covering is not a substitute for social distancing.

• CDC continues to recommend that people try keep about 6 feet between themselves and others.

Globally, approximately 170,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the 2019 novel coronavirus. As of today, March 16, a total of 4,226 COVID-19 cases in the United States had been reported to CDC.

I feel like I'm still in shock after all the big announcements that have been made. I'm grateful to be able to keep my kids home and safe. I'm so happy Chris still has a job and is able to work from home. I'm incredibly worried about both my parents and Chris' parents- since the elderly are the most susceptible to this disease.  I definitely feel like my anxiety is off the charts right now but I'm just trying to focus on the positive and figure out how to survive teaching three elementary school aged kids from home.  I just keep praying this craziness ends soon and that people are able to stay home and stay healthy! I just feel like I need to be keeping a record of this craziness so I can look back at this time and remember all the details.