January 11, 2020 The first person in China dies of an unknown virus, the Coronavirus, later changing names to covid-19. Most of us in the US didn't think too much of it at this time - China is a long ways away. January 21 was the first confirmed case in the states but again it didn't seem to concerning yet. I remember H1N1 and the copious amounts of hand sanitizer and wipes that we provided to classrooms at the time but the actually flu never quite impacted us as badly as we expected, so my level of concern in January/February was pretty low (which was true of most of us here in America).
By February, things were getting out of control overseas, in Europe, S. Korea, a cruise ship in Japan, etc. It became a global health emergency (see the New York Times article for a timeline) and it was definitely concerning but it hadn't changed our lives at all at this point.
On Monday March 9, my school district was alerted that our students in Destination Imagination had been exposed to the virus by a person who tested positive who attended the event in Osceola. I was surprised - we had 2 positive cases in all of Wisconsin at this point - how could it have impacted little Shell Lake and our north woods rural communities? Now, it was finally seeming a bit real. A message went out to parents, the county health department was busy contacting all of those who attended the event, but we still had school... On Tuesday, the nurse suggested that we tell our staff to prepare for a school closure and get materials ready for students to learn at home.
Thursday March 12th we met as a crisis response team and realized that the changes were potentially going to come quicker than we had originally expected so we created some plans, changed our agenda for Friday's inservice day to include time for teachers to prepare packets of work and have them ready to go. Colleges started extending spring break for 2 more weeks so we knew it was coming - tension was in the air. Friday the 13th was a work day - we were ready for whenever the closure would come. Those two days were stressful, full of tons of decisions and planning and discussions with our team - conflicting opinions on how serious or long this might be and I came home each night exhausted from the pressure as a leader.
Darren wrote a blog "Fear and the Unknown" on the 12th and Drydenwire published it - it was a needed reminder to keep our eyes on the Lord during this time. I am reading two Lent devotionals right now and the scriptures have been amazing and timely:John 14:1, and 27 “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.”
1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.
Friday the 13th - yep, it was a weird day and it was the first day of this historic and strange time which none of use were really expecting or prepared for.
Day 1
3:30 on Friday Katie got the message that she would not be going back to Chicago to complete her freshman year of college, but would be staying home and learning online for the remainder of the semester. It wasn't a temporary closure - she needed to go back (she was on spring break at home) and pack up her room to return home for the duration of the school year. We were shocked.
4:00 The governor of Wisconsin closed K-12 schools until April 6th. It still was a shock, but I felt like we were prepared.We had dinner as a family and then I decided I should get to the grocery store before it got too crazy - just to do my normal weekly shopping, not to be a doomsday prepper (I heard a little about the toilet paper hoarding but I couldn't figure out why that was a big deal).
Aldi's was flat out depressing. It wasn't just toilet paper that was gone. Everything was gone - the shelves were empty - nothing I needed was there anywhere. No canned soup, no spaghetti sauce, bread, mac and cheese, green beans, chicken, fresh fruit or veggies. It was so strange. That night we all went to bed feeling out of place, off kilter, shell shocked and honestly lacking peace. What was going on? Day 1
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