COVID-19 Dump;

Some of you already know this. C's suite-mate returned to their dorm last Thursday night (March 5) from NY, with a respiratory illness, wearing a face mask that whatever hospital there gave him. We know he had a chest X-ray (not the results). We know he tested negative for influenza.

The suite-mate *thinks* it's not coronavirus, "Because they didn't test me." We weren't testing ANYONE last week, let alone 20-year-old boys who hadn't traveled out of the country.

C does not share a bedroom with the boy. They do share a common area, fridge, table, bathrooms, sinks. They're in honors housing, so their suite is three 2-man bedrooms.

C told everyone he was on immunosuppressants when he moved into the suite in January, but I guess it didn't sink into their 20-year-old male minds, because it wasn't about food, sex, or gaming.

Anyhow, C didn't tell me until the next day, because he had a meeting and a lab he "couldn't miss." He stayed out of his dorm all day until his last class was over at 5:00pm. DH met him there and packed his stuff for him, and they left. This (March 9-13) was their spring break week anyhow.

I notified the university. A dean who's on the Covid-19 task force called me early this week and was very kind, but the conversation was useless. They can't compel that kid to get tested, and nobody's testing 20-year-olds who aren't hospitalized and don't have underlying health conditions anyhow. If this boy were to test positive, we'd be notified by public health officials, but no one's going to test this kid.

We'd made the decision to request distance learning as a reasonable accommodation and I drafted a letter for C to submit. He was reviewing it when the university decided they'd transition to distance until at least early April.

I'm holding off on submitting the request for now, because I suspect the semester will finish with everyone doing distance learning anyhow. I'll wait to squeak my wheel when we need the grease.

C has been in the house (or walking the dog around the block) for the past week, but we didn't have him isolate from us inside the home, because we don't even know if he's been exposed to it.

DH has been working from home since he picked up C (he informed his employer, which is a big Boston hospital and they told him to stay home, then had him come in for "team building" yesterday, which was weird, but he drove in, instead of taking public transit, didn't stay the whole day, and he's at a business office that's not on the main campus, so there are no patients or healthcare providers there).

Oldest son's company is trying out work from home today, but I suspect they're moving to it overall. It's like people need the first domino to fall before they'll do anything.

Daughter had just quit her job in a fairly remote office. She had applied to work at a local Hot Topic, but last night we told her it wasn't really time for a mall job, and we'll help her with money (she is only 21 and still lives here -- left college after 2 years, while she figures out what she really wants) 'til we get a better handle on this thing.

We were just told we'll be closing to the public as of 6pm today. I am taking my laptop home and am supposed to report to work on Monday, but only because I'm a manager. It seems like public service staff are going to be staying home, but getting paid.

We were just told we'll be closing to the public as of 6pm today.

Shit, I'd better go pick up the book that's on hold for me.

Ha, one of my colleagues just called her 85 year old mother and I could hear her saying, "Go get your books, go get your DVDs, because we might be closed for three weeks."

Our weekend plans have been cancelled. I'm going to pick up my library book, go to the bakery, pick up ltc from school and then hide.

Ha, one of my colleagues just called her 85 year old mother and I could hear her saying, "Go get your books, go get your DVDs, because we might be closed for three weeks."

I honestly thought "I should get some DVDs!!!" and then I remembered that we just signed up for Netflix. And also I have work as usual since I work from home, so nothing is really changing for me. So the DVDs can go with someone else. But I want my book.

Libraries have access for patrons to Kanopy and hoopla and cloudlibrary and a bunch of other things. Beyond the regular streaming services these are great for audiobooks, ebooks, and movies. Also if you are a Pbs supporter (and some NPR stations) you should have Pbs passport which has a ton of stuff. PLUS podcasts. So many podcasts. For kids home I would look into alternating visual screen time with audio time if kids are open to it. Older kids can even find subject matter appropriate podcasts - I'm thinking specifically history.

Libraries have access for patrons to Kanopy and hoopla and cloudlibrary and a bunch of other things. Beyond the regular streaming services these are great for audiobooks, ebooks, and movies.

In addition to all those, ours also has a lot of comic books available online as well as Freegal Music, where you can stream music or download up to 7 songs per week. Libraries are the damn best.

I am planning on recording some of my puppet shows so we can post them online for patrons, since we can't do online story times because of copyright issues.

But since I write the puppet shows--HA! Take that!

I need to get my new Kindle set up with Overdrive. I'd tried to set it up a few weeks ago and was getting weird error messages, and figured I'd get it done later, since my old one still worked OK with it, but then I never got around to doing it.

My students keep asking me questions like, "If we do end up with the campus closed for the rest of the semester, what are we going to do for final exams?" and I'm like, I know no more than you do.