Our state is having quite a spike right now Thursday and Friday saw 4,000 new daily cases. So last Sunday the Governor came out with some new guidelines to help try and slow the spread of COVID. One of which was a mask mandate. Honestly, I don't understand why it is such a divisive thing. We wear seat belts to keep us safe. . .Isn't it really about loving our neighbor and wanting to help keep everyone safe. And don't get me started on the people that think COVID is still a hoax. I don't understand that at all when almost everyone knows of someone who has been affected by it now -- they think all those people are in on it too? Seriously hundreds of thousands of people have died from it. One guy even had the nerve to say well most of the deaths are because they had underlying conditions so it really wasn't COVID. Uh--hello if it weren't for COVID they would have been able to live longer with their underlying conditions. Ok so there's my rant. I wish we could all just do our part without complaint (or protesting at the governor's home).
He also asked for social gatherings to stop. They think most of the community spread is coming from small social/family gatherings where masks are not being worn. We really have kept our social gatherings limited to immediate family and allowed Ellie to have a friend over 2 times. Even tried to do most of our youth activities outside while the weather allowed and yes I asked them to wear masks before the mandate.
If you remember, last week the secondary schools went to 4 days a week and well guess what, with that many kids in school the exposure and spread hit the health department limits and Ellie's jr high started a soft closure Thursday, November 12th along with 3 other high schools (and it just keeps going I think 2 high schools in our district remain open). Today she started her virtual classes which is much different than the soft closure this spring where they were given assignments and maybe had one or two virtual meetings. This time they are expected to log on to a virtual meeting during what would be their class time, have their videos on the whole time, and some teachers even suggested being in a place with low traffic area (uh -- hello all 6 of us are home). She does have the basement area mostly to herself but I did a grocery pickup this morning and needed some stuff to go down to the fridge down there. Steve did a little dance jig with our turkey as he walked through her yoga class (class clown).
Oh and on top of the soft closure info I received an email Thursday evening that Ellie had been exposed. She sat within 6 feet of someone for more than 15 minutes who then tested positive for COVID. They asked that she quarantine for 14 days. Then at the end of the letter it checked a box saying they were both wearing masks so if she got a negative test after 7 days of quarantining she could go back to school. After the initial shock, I started looking at the dates more closely and realized that she was exposed on Nov 4th and her 7 day quarantine period was up on Nov 12th (the day we got the email). Hello -- they must be so overwhelmed with tracing that it takes that long, but what a wasted effort if you get the letter that late. Steve and I started looking into getting her tested. The school district opened up a site but it's only open M-Th 7-9am and the lines on Thursday took hours. I was on hold for 2 hours with our doctor who then told us we needed a referral from him which would require a telemed appointment which would be $115. So much for free testing if you have to pay for a doctor visit. We called the hospital and asked if the letter we got from the health department counts as a referral. It doesn't. The receptionist was nice and sympathetic and expressed her frustrations with the whole system too. So after that we just decided not to test her. School is virtual anyway. She would have to miss tennis on Saturday which she was sad about but there weren't really any other options besides waiting in line for several hours around other people that had been exposed. . .So we're taking it easy around here.
We also have been asked to cut back on church activities again which I get but I was really bummed because I felt like we were just getting back into a routine and reaching some girls again. I decided with all the school closures and youth activities going virtual again that I wanted to take a treat to all the young women. So I ordered Crumbl cookies and delivered them with a little note of love and comfort.
This Friday Steve did a virtual parent/daughter engineering night with the girls through Weber State. They had fun doing rockets and a luna lander while the boys and I did cosmic kids yoga and read a Thanksgiving book.
Now we're planning for our own little Thanksgiving here and debating which pies to make. . .There are three that we want and I cannot decide which one to cut so we may have 3 pies for the 6 of us. YUM!
You can tune in this Friday to hear President Nelson give a 15 minute message about hope and healing. I can't wait!