Covid Times

Some notes on how things are different now. I just want to get these down, so I remember, when - if- things go back to normal. In addition to all non-essential businesses being shuttered, and all schools closed for the rest of the school year:

• The governor has decreed that no one shall ride in a vehicle with a person not in their immediate household
• All large stores, like supermarkets and big box stores, have a sign at the front saying there shall be no more than 100 people in the store at one time. How we are supposed to know how many people are already in the store, I don't know.
• At the grocery store, there are taped-off spaces leading up to the registers, to keep people spaced 6 feet apart. 
• Everyone who can sew is making protective masks, to help prevent the spread of the virus
• Through most of the panic buying is over, the toilet paper aisle is still pretty sparse, and you can't get hand sanitizer. 
• All professional sports are cancelled. 
• Beaches, public parks, playgrounds, and trails are closed. 
• Gatherings of more than 10 people are prohibited.
• We wash our hands many times a day, especially if we have been out of the house. We wear rubber gloves if we have to go out in public, then we wash with the gloves on before we take them off; then we wash out hands again. 
• Weirdly, almost all spam phone calls have ceased. 
• There are field hospitals in Central Park. There are 18-wheelers parked at New York Hospitals to take away the dead. 

I don't know how long we will be in the corona times. Governor Mill obviously thinks it will be at least until the end of this month, because her executive order extends that long. I don't know if things will ever go back to the way they were in the before times. I still remember the last conversation I had with students, at the end of the last class I taught - I had no idea it would be the last, no idea.