The Corona Pandemic begins

On March 11th, The World Health Organization announced a worldwide Pandemic for Covid-19.  On Friday, March 13^th, Schools announced closures. Of course this highly affected the lives of everyone in our nation and around the world.  As the Covid-19 virus spread, we as a nation have begun learning more about the virus and how to keep ourselves healthy. At the end of 2019, a new type of coronavirus started oversees and began making people sick with flu-like symptoms. The illness is called coronavirus-19 or COVID-19 for short.  I call it the "Coroni" as I am pretty confident Grandma Watts would have referred to it as such. The virus spreads easily and has affected people all over the world. COVID-19 can cause a fever, cough, and trouble breathing. Some people might have: symptoms of a cold such as a sore throat, congestion, or a runny nose, or a loss of taste or smell. The virus can be more serious in some people and some people have no symptoms at all. People can catch coronavirus from others who are infected even if they don't have any symptoms. This happens when an infected person breathes, talks, sneezes, or coughs, sending tiny droplets into the air. These can land in the nose, mouth, or eyes of someone nearby, or be breathed in. Some of the tiniest droplets, called aerosols, can linger in the air for minutes to hours and travel on air currents. It seems that the risk of spread is highest when people are less than 6 feet apart. Just writing this makes me a bit afraid.  It sounds like the spread is hard to control, but I have to remind myself not to panic.  At this time we are doing our best to maintain “social distance” when in public. Doctors and researchers are working on medicines and a vaccine for coronavirus. Most people with the illness, including children, get better with rest, fluids, and fever-reducing medicine. However, many people get very ill and need treatment in the hospital. This has begun to cause a burden on hospital campuses do to the overwhelming numbers of patients. There are several things that we can do to help protect ourselves from the virus. such as avoiding large crowds and busy places, staying at least 6 feet from people you don't live with (COVID-19 can spread before a person has symptoms and even when someone has no symptoms), wear a mask when you go out, and wash your hands well and often.  It is scary to think what is happening, but we are choosing to view this as God's way of providing us with more family time to connect, recenter ourselves on priorities, and the power of relationships with others.