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Think about the people closest to you. Tell us about how the coronavirus has affected them, and their life.

For my daughter, the pandemic is the only world she's ever known. Conceived in late January, I realized I was pregnant about the same time I was starting to hear about a dangerous outbreak in China that had spread to Europe. So unlike my first pregnancy, stress, fear, and isolation haunted nearly my every waking moment. The stress I knew was having a harmful impact on my baby but was unable to mitigate. I felt sure one or both of us would not make it. Stress eventually led my normally low blood pressure to ever-increasing new highs. On bedrest at 35 weeks. Hospitalized at 36 weeks for an overnight urine study. At 37 weeks my daughter was taken by a medically necessary c-section. She was blue when she was born and until she let out a mighty cry, I was afraid my worst fears had come true. For the first three days of her life, every person she saw had masks on except me. Once we got her home she was able to meet her brother, granny, and papaw. She met her paternal grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousin outside during her first trip into the backyard. All were wearing masks. My brother, who is a PCP in Northwest Arkansas, has only seen her once when his caseload was at its lowest. Most of our extended family has never met her and maybe they never will. For my son, the pandemic has meant that he lost valuable social interactions with friends and family during a critical time in his young development. It meant that his speech, occupational, and autism evaluations were greatly delayed as were therapies. Hardest of all, it meant learning that it was no longer safe to run up and hug people. It was no longer safe to go to the library or jumpzone or playgrounds. Most heartbreaking was seeing him and his best friend talk through a glass door and fight desperately to get to each other. For my brother, the pandemic has been the entirety of his career as a PCP. He graduated in December 2019 as a nurse practitioner and began working at a family practice in February. He has been on the frontline of the pandemic as one of the only primary care clinics that remained open during the early pandemic. He meticulously followed PPE and sanitation protocols. But he got COVID in fall of 2020. He recovered after two weeks, but is still dealing with long-term COVID symptoms. He says having had COVID, allowed him to better treat his patients. He developed a treatment plan for patients who tested positive for COVID that led to drastically reduced number of hospitalizations and was awarded an accommodation by the state. I've only been able to see my brother three times since the pandemic began. His workload is overwhelming and unending. Each time I see him, I worry it will be the last time.