The Covid Pandemic- Our 2020 Update

 It's 2020, and you know what that means. It's the year of the global COVID pandemic. 

Thank goodness it's December 14th so the year is almost over. That's very encouraging to us. 

Right now, we still don't have a vaccine. The covid virus is air born, and 10 times more deadly than the flu.

It's like a super flu. Pretty scary stuff. 

Kids don't seem to be hurt very much by it. The elderly are extreemly suseptible. It gets worse with age. Lots of nurses and doctors have gotten it and have gotten very ill. Some have died. 

Those with more pre-existing conditions tend to do worse. 

It all started in about March when the virus came from China to the US. It may have been earlier; maybe February. Then we all started counting cases, feverishly watching where the virus was (on a specialized web page) and how many cases, globally, had been identified. 

Then, on one day in March...about the 12th or 13th, the market crashed. It became evident that Americans were very worried about our ability, as a nation, to successfully fight such a new and severe virus. 

President Trump started having daily press conferences. We watched them at first. Eventually we got burned out, like most people did. Trump liked to say everything was under control. He had to say that to prevent hysteria. But we knew it was bad. 

He closed the economy for a few weeks. I think it was just a month, but it felt like forever. Everything was closed, even schools. But grocery stores, gas stations, Walmart, any type of essential business, was kept open. Almost everyone worked from home. 

Except my husband. Thankfully he has kept his job through it all, but then it has put him at a higher risk of contracting the virus. 

Everyone stayed home. Everyone was all of a sudden homeschooling....for months. 

It was/is like watching a movie about mass hysteria and catastrophic illness, except we lived right through it. 

We were already homeschooling. We already stayed home a lot. For us, not going to church was the hardest change. 

Yes, even church was cancelled. It was major! You now when church is cancelled it's a big deal. I've never seen church cancelled for so many weeks in a row. It was surreal. 

After a couple of weeks our elders set up zoom meetings and we were able to hear a sermon and take the Lord's supper virtually. It was wonderful. 

A few weeks after the economy started to recovery, and things looked better, even though people were still sick and dying...but anyway, at least the economy was looking better. But then, George Floyd was murdered by a police officer. It was horrific. The video was all over the internet. Our hearts were broken. Unfortunaltely, people started hating police, and then there were the violent demonstrations that started happening all over the country. There was looting, injuries and graphiti all over the place. Protesters were then injured or put in jail. 

It was so hard to watch, so eventually we just had to turn off the news. We tried to read the Bible more and watched shows like Highway to Heaven. We had to mentally regroup and decide that we KNEW the hope for the future was a waiting game (this too shall pass) and it all depended in our faith in Jesus.