The Scariest Thing About the Coronavirus
Day 12 – of COVID-19 affecting me directly.
The humor (is that the right word?) of schools in my county making the decision to close on Friday, March 13th is not lost on me. My daughter’s school was the first in our school system to close, on Thursday, March 12th, in response to a virus scare. The mother-in-law of a teacher was ill, the teacher reported it, and thus the school decided to play it safe and send all the kids home. I was in a meeting at work when the school called me, less than two hours after I dropped my daughter off, to inform me my daughter’s school was now on a soft lock-down, and that more information would follow. The faculty and staff didn’t even see fit to explain to the nervous kids why they were being sent home. It wasn’t until after I picked up my daughter (noticing the Nashville News 2 van in the parking lot), brought her to work with me, and several hours of not focusing on work later that I learned my daughter and her friends were not, in fact, exposed to this scary virus from China I had only first learned about less than two months before. The mother-in-law had been tested and found wanting any coronavirus. The next day, public schools throughout our city and county were closed, quickly followed by private and all child care, toppling dominoes in response to the looming virus shadow. Now, public schools won’t open until May 4th (May the 4th be with us!).
