The Covid19 Pandemic and major life changes for everyone

(Craig writes) February 2021 A global pandemic has occurred and we have made many life changes as a result. A brief recap would include: -Becky retired from Sumwalt Associates on March 11, 2020 -we sold our house in Cayce, SC and moved to Huntersville, NC August 24, 2020 -due to the pandemic Craig retired in September 21, 2020 My journal entries to date include: Covid 19 coronavirus March 2020 The nightly news mentioned that a virus had started in China that was very serious and fast spreading. Other than feeling sorry for the folks affected in China I initially did not feel threatened by the possibility of the virus directly impacting us here in the U.S.. It only took a few days before reports of the virus spreading exponentially became the leading news for all news outlets. Then the Covid 19 virus became a worldwide pandemic. Schools and “non-essential” businesses were shut down to try and keep the virus from spreading so rapidly. Unfortunately the shut downs, restrictions to travel and social distancing (keeping at least 6 feet away from others) efforts came too late for the thousands who died from the virus or its complications of pneumonia and other respiratory issues. Stay at home orders came from government leaders and health professionals and initially there were not enough Covid 19 test kits to test everyone with. The Federal government blamed the state governments for not being prepared and vice versa. Bec had just officially retired the week before the virus got really bad here in S.C. so was able to stay home and avoid most people contacts. Craig was still working and his job of working on robotic systems in pharmacies was deemed “essential”. This meant that he was still expected to go out and work in pharmacies to help keep people’s meds coming. Since he was already out and exposed he did most of the grocery shopping. Food was still available although many items were sold out quickly in stores. Grocery stores put limits on how many of certain items you could buy and had numerous signs up inside the stores reminding people to maintain the 6 foot social distancing from each other in the stores. Within just a few days the unemployment numbers grew exponentially due to businesses being shut down. May 15, 2020 Life continues to be very different than before the Covid19 virus pandemic started. We now use a service called “Instacart” for home delivery of our groceries instead of actually walking into a grocery store to shop. It was determined that going inside a grocery store was very risky with possible virus infection (especially since we are both over 65 and Bec is diabetic). Bec uses her cellphone to order what we need from the grocery store then someone from Instacart does the actual shopping and delivers them to our house. We pay an additional cost for the service and add another 20% for the shopper/delivery driver tip. Many restaurants are now permitted to have pick up or take-out food/meals and some have even gotten permission to open with limited seating areas. We have not eaten out for months now and do not use any restaurant take out either as we still are not comfortable with the idea of possible virus contamination on food containers or on the food itself. When we get a food delivery from Instacart we tell them to just leave the food on our front porch then after they leave we open the door and begin the decontamination process. The process for getting the food items into the house means we put on gloves and wipe off every item using a combination of alcohol wipes and Norwex anti-bacterial cloths before moving the food inside. I (Craig) continue to work for Parata Systems and have to go inside various pharmacies to work on the robots and pharmacy dispensing systems. I’m thankful to still have a job as over 30 million Americans have lost their jobs in the past few weeks. There is a possibility of exposure to the virus by being out in public or semi-public places so most pharmacies are limiting access to the inside of their stores to a few people at a time and have signs on the floor to help enforce the minimum 6 foot distance from other people at all times. When I (Craig) come home from work I stay inside my car for a few minutes using hand sanitizer and alcohol wipes on my hands, the steering wheel, gearshift and door handle before getting out. Bec then remotely opens the roll up garage door and I walk in and close the garage door behind me. I then take all of my clothes off and place them away from the door before going into the house. I don’t touch anything (other than my bare feet touching the floor) as I walk straight to the bathroom I use and take a hot shower. Bec and I have been using separate bedrooms and separate bathrooms since the virus started. We do this in hopes that keeping away from each other as much as is possible will help prevent me spreading any virus to Bec if I get exposed while out in my work areas. Sometimes I wear a mask for a while when I get home if I feel like I as in a virus safety compromised area that day. February 2021 The worldwide pandemic continues and here in the United States we now have over 26.2 million reported Covid19 cases resulting in over 441,000 deaths in the United States. New variant strains of the virus are emerging and it seems to affect all age groups as young children as well as older adults have died from Covid19 related illnesses. Face masks are now required in most pIaces but many people resist wearing any mask or mouth/nose covering as they seem to think the pandemic is just a political hoax in spite of the overwhelming and obvious facts. I (Craig) decided to retire from Parata Systems back in September of 2020 to be able to isolate ourselves better and hopefully avoid getting the virus. We sold our house in Cayce, SC and moved into an apartment at Matthew and Amy’s house in Huntersville, NC. We made the apartment there by putting up a partition wall in their basement. It is very comfortable and a very enjoyable place to live. Isolating ourselves is easy there as the house is located on a large tract of land with space between the neighboring houses. On January 6, 2020 a very large group of disgruntled terrorists stormed the U.S. Capital building in Washington D.C. in an attempt to overthrow our government. This seditious action resulted in several deaths and severe destruction of the capital building. Thankfully the inauguration of President Joe Biden went smoothly on January 20, 2021 and there was a tremendous security presence to ensure no further terrorist action occurred during the ceremony. We are hopeful that President Biden will be able to return civility and peace to our country and expedite the availability of Covid19 vaccinations to all. Since most of the construction on our apartment was completed and we had moved in before Christmas 2020 Bec and I decided to take some time to travel a bit. We wanted to travel some but remain vigilant in out pandemic precautions. We traveled to Huntington Beach State Park in S.C. and camped in our travel trailer for most of the month of January 2021. We are now spending the month of February (2021) with the Daliks (Ashlea, Tom, Teddy and Tyler) at Topsail Beach, NC. They invited us to join them in their rental beachfront house for the month. It is in a beautiful setting with large windows facing the ocean/beach. Ashlea and Tom have also invited Matthew’s family and Laura to come to the beach for some of the time we are down here. They are all staying in isolation prior to coming down in order to maintain the proper pandemic protocols. Like everyone else we are trying to make the best of living through a global pandemic and are extremely thankful to God for a healthy family that loves us and shows their love in a multitude of ways, a safe place to live, a reasonable retirement income and each other to enjoy.