In one hour, it will be 40 days since I went into a self-imposed social distancing/quarantine. It's 40 days since I hung out with my amazing friends, 40 days since I've had a life at all, so to speak of. I want to say that I entered into this absolutely willingly. I did not wait for the governor of Virginia to put me into lockdown. I did not wait for a Federal declaration. No, I waited for science, the World Health Organization, and the Centers for Disease Control to tell me it was time. I've always been interested in viruses and diseases. In fact, I blame "Outbreak" for my rudimentary interest in microbiology and virology for that. I saw the writing on the wall in January/February. My husband and children came to visit me on Valentine's Day, but we knew our time was limited. We'd planned early on to meet at my first post in San Jose, Costa Rica; however, we knew well in advance that it wasn't feasible with COVID-19's plans. We waited as long as we could to buy plane tickets and then decided it was useless. The writing was on the wall in February, and we just got lucky.
Look, I am not here to judge; and I am not here to dictate. But I am a semi-intelligent and learned woman. And I can decipher what they're saying on the various news stations. As a career, I've chosen to try (my best) to be as apolitical as possible as a requirement for my lifestyle. I don't want to preach. I truly don't. I want to live in a world where people are free to do whatever it is they want to do. But, right now, we need to stay the hell home. Those who are calling the shots right now are calling for us to reopen--full stop--in order to prevent our economy from collapsing. I understand where they're coming from. I do. But I also know that our economy is already collapsing. In fact, it's already collapsed. History has already shown us how this will play out. The second wave is waiting in the wings for us to let our guard down and re-open. Tennessee and Georgia will see this come to pass two weeks from Friday, when they re-open.
Our people need to realize and recognize that the whole world is changing. The whole world will change in the next few weeks. There is no way to way to circumvent this. COVID-19 has seen to that.
My closing thought/point I want to get across is this: If everyone else had realized 40 days ago that all we had to do to change the outcome of the entire world was just to stay home, our world would be an entirely different place.
From a personal viewpoint: Stay TF home. Because if you don't, the world will never be safe enough for me to hold my husband and children again.
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