I was quarantined this morning.
93 year old mom awoke this morning with chest ache. Bad cough, congestion. Not exactly unusual but alarming nonetheless. Probably been 2 months since she’s had this bad a cough. Called Henry Ford Health nurse line. They say her symptoms are mild but we are both now quarantined 14 days.
I have to say I agree with decision. My concern all along (I have continued to work) is bringing virus to her. She’s been in virtual quarantine for a couple weeks now. Now I don’t have to concern myself with that thought. Hopefully I haven’t already infected her and we are both covid 19 free.
Living in Detroit I think it’s only a matter of days until Gov tells everyone to stay home
All the best to your mom, and to you. Given her age and chronic condition, I’m sure you’re aware the risk to COVID-19 for her is particularly high. Hoping it’s not that, or that she fights through it.
Frankly, the government “stay at home” orders are riddled with holes. I live in IL (we were ordered home effective yesterday) but restaurants, hotels, any store that sells food, pharmacies, laundromats, dry cleaners etc are all exempt - as are all the package delivery services (amazon etc) on line grocery delivery services, etc. Tens of thousands in IL are still working - seems to defeat the purpose (obviously grocery stores and pharmacies and doctors need to work, but laundromats? we can make do without restaurant delivery too)
Yes I acknowledge that any marginal reduction in people needlessly going to work will marginally improve overall spread.
Right – if you don’t need to go out, don’t go! Pretty simple.
JJ3, good luck with your mom – hope she’s well. We also have an aging mom on the scene here, and on our end it took a few days until we realized some stuff we shouldn’t have been doing, like letting our kids play with the neighbors’ kids. My little one’s daycare didn’t close until Tuesday, and then by Thursday it kind of hit us that if this is what it is, we might as well make it a full on effort to keep our house clean of it. So my mom is staying away for two weeks even though she lives around the corner, and we keep the kids away from the others, take them out on bike rides and stuff for outside time, and are doing the full disinfection thing. Going to try to make one huge grocery shop on Tuesday, freeze a few jugs of milk, and see if we can go two weeks without going again. Assuming everything needed is on the shelves. If it isn’t we may just adjust our expectations and eat what’s there.
Some of this may be overkill, but it makes my mom feel better and it can’t hurt. It’s just a pain in the ass.
I don’t believe either of us have covid 19 thankfully.
No fever. She is coughing a bit but nothing alarming like this morning.
Thanks to all for kind thoughts.
I haven’t felt comfortable going to work with an aged, frail, parent at home. These are uncharted waters. It’s almost a relief to have the decision to work, or not, made by an anonymous medical professional on a 5 minute phone call.
Not everyone has a washer/dryer at home, especially in poorer neighborhoods. It’s a question of hygiene, which in turn affects health.
A lot of people live from paycheck to paycheck and can’t afford to be doomsday preppers. I agree that with people crowding in groceries and pharmacies, it kind of defeats the purpose of lockdown, but of course people need food and medicine.
The rest of this is general comment and not in reply to your post, @mgl.
Everyone should be practicing stringent personal hygiene (that goes for any time, as a matter of fact), people who are old and whose immune systems are vulnerable should be isolating themselves. Anyone in contact with an infected person (or infected themselves) should self-quarantine. People living in the same household with an infected person should keep their distance as best they are able. Social distancing in general should be practiced in public as much as possible.
Bringing everything to a halt for an undetermined period of time is a policy fraught with danger. Big businesses will survive. The government always bails them out anyway. Many small business owners will be ruined, and unemployment is going to skyrocket. Which, in turn, creates additional health problems (both mental and physical) in the population, especially among the most vulnerable.
In short, there’s no magic bullet here. Regardless of which decisions states and the federal government make, there will be consequences.
@JJ3 Best to you and yours.
Best to all of you and your families.
@JJ3, best wishes to you and your Mom. Did your mom, at least, have a Covid-19 test taken?
My wife and I are self quarantining (we are 68 and 70), only to go out for a walk and having groceries delivered to us by our daughters. Our two daughters came over yesterday, we were in our separate corners in the livingroom the entire time. We haven’t been around the grandkids, who live down the street, in 10 days. Really miss seeing them.
Miss the NCAA playoffs and sports in general.
Everybody stay safe and healthy.
I’ve been driving around and reporting on people who’ve been violating Michigan’s Shelter-In-Place ordinance. I park within viewing distance and wait for the police to show up and issue the citations. You just can’t imagine how gratifying this has been.
I specifically asked for my mom to be tested but was told it wasn’t necessary because her symptoms were “mild”. Because my mom didn’t have a fever, I believe, in hindsight, was the reason testing was deemed unnecessary.
Glad to hear you and your wife are doing well and taking precautions.
I’m definitely going for an early secluded walk tomorrow morning. Maybe Dylan can produce a new pod for me to listen to
This isn’t just marginal stuff though. (I’m in Michigan but we have the same basic order in effect.). The percentage of people not going to work right now (either because they’re shut down or working from home) is substantial. Anecdotally, I live in a huge complex and the parking lots have been 75% full or more all the time the past week, whereas normally on a weekday they’re massively empty during the day. I also saw drone footage of downtown Ann Arbor and it is a total ghost town right now. Remember, the objective is to flatten the curve enough so that the health care system can handle the patients who do get sick. The curve doesn’t have to be at zero.
William Beaumont Hospitals are nearing capacity in terms of beds and equipment. They are treating 450 Covid 19 patients with 185 still awaiting test results. The hospitals are scrambling to some extent and making some accommodations, and our numbers in southeast Michigan are still ascending. “Stay home and stay safe.”
The next couple of weeks are going to be tough for the health system. A lot of people that got infected before the social distancing measures took effect are now taking a turn for the worse. Based on the data from Italy, it seems that it can take 10-14 days before you really see the positive effects from social distancing. Hopefully we can hold the line until then.
I think the next couple of weeks will be very difficult as it actually worsens, but we will not be on the other side of this in a couple of weeks. I will leave it up to the scientists and the public health experts as to when that time will be. Hopefully we ALL listen to those medical experts. Hopefully we continue to do the things they tell us we need to do to slow the spread and flatten the curve so that we can get on the other side of this and begin to recover.
That’s all I’ll say because otherwise I may get too political, and I certainly don’t want to do that, not on here.
