Text Only

How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.

January 8, 2021 Several things have happened last week to make me take notice of the world around me. They have happened at the personal, local and national level. On the personal front, I still work in a restaurant. The managers are still cautious with respect to COVID, taking our temperature everyday with an infrared thermometer. They record it all on a chart, and keep the chart filed away for some sort of review. But what makes me take notice is that a coworker was sent home for high fever two weeks ago, and now she is back. She still coughs, talks about aches, and takes medication. She says she has the flu, not COVID, but I am nervous. I keep thinking, “What if it had been COVID?” Not a comfortable idea. I have to trust both my coworkers and the social/medical systems that are in place to give me honest information. On the local level, the new year has brought changes to the reporting systems for the outbreak. The new county judge was sworn in early to fill a vacancy left when the old judge resigned to take a new job outside of the county. Changes are natural, and the new judge and the county emergency management coordinator have decided that they will no longer post the daily COVID report on Facebook. But I took notice when they announced that COVID figures will now be on the county website. However, the county website does not come up easily on a search engine, and no figures are posted. I guess that I will have to keep checking back on the website, or look for more information elsewhere. Some information is on Apple News and on The Weather Channel, but it does not have the community breakdown that the old report did. I have to trust much more impersonal sources on the internet for accurate information. On the national level, I certainly noticed the attacks on the US Capitol. I am appalled. No doubt the social conditions created by the lockdowns and constraint imposed to halt the spread of COVID contributed to the unrest. Some see lockdowns as proof that they cannot trust the government to safeguard their civil rights in difficult times. People without outlets for expression have turned to rumors and theories. Troublemakers have found a way to tap this energy for their own purposes. And we all still have to trust that the future will be better.