COVID-19 (Corona Virus Disease 2019) - Timeline from our perspective
Early January: We started to hear bits and pieces about a flu in Wuhan China, likely caused by people eating bats or other wild animals. The Chinese government denied it was serious. The doctor who blew the whistle (and later died of Covid-19) was punished. But the worst? China allowed millions to gather in public for the Chinese New Year celebrations in late January. And the worldwide spread began...
January 30: The World Health Organization declared a global health emergency; later on they will declare it a pandemic.
January 31: U.S. suspends all flights to the U.S. from China
February: We heard a lot about the disease spreading on the Princess Diamond cruise ship which was quarantining 3,600 passengers at a dock in Japan. Over 600 tested positive, including some from Utah.
February 24 - March 1: I travel to Cannes, France, for the Certiport Regional EMEA conference. It was a wonderful week, we stayed in the elegant InterContinental Carlton Cannes, where all the famous movie stars stay during the yearly Cannes film festival. It was a little cool, but beautiful. I spent an afternoon in Monaco, which was just an hour's train ride away. Monaco is tiny and clean and beautiful!
While there, we began to hear about Italy, that the Corona virus was spreading quickly there. Lockdowns had started. One of my coworkers from Australia was very nervous that his layover was in Rome... There were a few cases in France, and the Italy border was just a 3 hour drive from Cannes, but we weren't worried at all. Mostly intrigued and determined to enjoy our time in France. There were a lot of people in the airport using masks, but nothing more out of the ordinary.
I came home with a cold -- honestly, I think it was the same cold I had before I left! I stayed home from work one day, but then I was fine. I didn't have any of the Corona virus main symptoms: fever, dry cough, difficulty breathing.
Late February: the first death in the U.S., Seattle area
China is constructing entire hospitals in under 2 weeks for Covid patients.
Early March: Panic-induced shopping. The stores are out of hand sanitizer, cleaning materials, bottled water, and the funniest of all--toilet paper!
March 10: Our company hands out small hand sanitizer bottles to each employee, puts larger ones in each conference room. These tiny bottles were all they could find at reasonable prices (price gouging -- even though illegal, was happening on Amazon and other retailers.)
Yes, the grocery stores were bare. They had to close early/open late so they could restock as much as possible. I had a hard time finding rice, and when I did (at Trader Joe's) I took the last two!
March 11: President Trump blocks visitors from mainland Europe from entering the U.S.
March 14: My mom got home from 5 weeks in Mexico, her annual trip with bridge friends. Matthew picked her up from the airport, and told her she needed to stay home. This virus is hitting the elderly particularly hard.
My brother Milton is an E.R. doctor in Taylor County, Kentucky. He said they are fairly isolated from the world -- not many people travel in our out. He did have a patient come into the E.R. at 2:00am complaining of a cough and asking to get tested. Milton asked if he had traveled anywhere -- no. How long had he had the cough? A YEAR! LOL. We laughed so hard at that story. No, he didn't have it. Milton treated him for his cough.
Mid-March: The CDC, FDA, Trump administration fail to block the spread because it is about impossible to get tested unless you meet strict requirements, such as recent international travel. My brother Brian, a VP at ARUP which does blood testing, reported that ARUP had refrigerators full of samples, but no materials to conduct the tests.
Obviously, the numbers in the media are completely misleading -- how can we know how many are truly infected when tests aren't made available, and then the results take several days?
Wednesday, March 11: This day was the true tipping point. I felt very anxious about our grocery situation, I went to Costco in the evening. No TP to be found, but I found everything I wanted. On my way home I heard on the radio that a Utah Jazz player had tested positive, just minutes before tipoff in Indiana. The game was cancelled. Fans sent home. Just a few hours later, the NBA suspends their season, "until further notice." I came home from Costco in shock; we all stared at the TV for the next hour.
Within a few days, everything was cancelled. Any large event like theaters and concerts. Small events like swim practice and book club. Our family calendar is usually packed with at least one thing every day. I erased it all. Empty calendars. Even Church is cancelled, we get permission from our bishops to hold sacrament meetings in our own homes.
March 12: My own cousin's daughter, a teenager in Heber Utah, fell ill with classic Covid-19 symptoms. It took 2 trips to the hospital $1000+ worth of other tests to rule other diseases out, and special permission from the state health department to finally get a test. Yes, positive. "Community spread," is how she contracted it. Likely at high school. The word has been that this flu is usually very mild in young people. But she was miserable for about a week. Her parents also got it, they had more mild symptoms. I'm following their Instagram posts, and it sounds miserable enough that I'll do anything to keep it out of my home.
Friday, March 13: Utah's Governor Herbert announces all public schools will be closed for the next 2 weeks. No surprise at all. The goal is to "flatten the curve", to keep our hospitals from being inundated like Italy and China with sick people and not enough ventilators. In Italy, doctors are being forced to triage patients -- giving ventilators to those with the greatest chances of recovering. Thousands are dying. Temporary hospitals being set up where ever possible.
Sunday, March 15: We held a beautiful sacrament meeting at home. A silver lining in this time of darkness. Our homes truly are turning into sacred places. And we are grateful that we are with our favorite people.
My email to our bishop, reporting on our service and our day:
So today turned out to be a much different day than I was expecting. Honest, I considered long and hard taking the kids skiing and doing "come follow me" on the ski lift. Then I got your email, where you suggested we wear Sunday clothing, and not once did you mention goggles or helmets... so we altered our plans. Turns out that was a good choice, the resorts were closed anyway! But yes, it was a good choice for other reasons too.
I thought our Sacrament meeting might be full of giggles and awkward moments. It wasn't. (Okay, we all giggled when Barry took two pieces of sacrament bread and fed one to Paisley, our dog. But that's why I love Barry!) It was a beautiful meeting and I was struck by how amazing our two sons are. Barry asked them yesterday to each prepare a 5 minute talk. We didn't help them one bit -- mostly because I figured it didn't really matter how it went, it was just for us. We had to remind them a few times to prepare, and they ROCKED it. CJ had an entire talk written up on the sacrament, with scripture and doctrine. Eli read scriptures and a small story from The Friend but mostly spoke from his heart about the atonement of Christ. They left me in awe. Are these the same two children who 6 months ago totally bombed when we asked them to bear their testimonies for FHE?
I learned today that I can't underestimate my children. They have testimonies -- their OWN testimonies that they can actually articulate, at least in the safety of our home. They understand the gospel of Christ far more than I did at their ages. They truly are powerhouses. And I'm so incredibly honored that the Lord has entrusted Barry and me to be their parents.
Thank you for your direction and guidance and love; we feel it and are so blessed to have you as our bishop!
with love,
Margaret Grzybowski
I start a LEGO challenge with my kids and their cousins. They need a creative outlet! Today's challenge was to build something from "The Restoration". Hope's amazing gold plates:
Another day it was to build something that represents a state, and we all had to guess what state. Here is CJ's Utah:
Sarah's Arizona cactus:
And another day it was to build a treehouse without a tree. Ellie and Lucy's animal treehouse:
One day the challenge was to build a fort out of blankets and furniture instead. Hope and Eli opted out, they won the "Easiest to clean up" award!
Monday, March 16: We leave CJ and Eli home alone, Barry and I both go to work. Instructions from my boss in my morning meeting: "You can work from home if you need to and want to, but if it isn't needed, we want employees to stay." Later that afternoon: "You may work in the office if you want to, but you will need special permission. We have all been asked to work from home." So I gathered my things and went home. Barry's company hadn't figured anything out, they were scrambling to make a policy. He worked from the office on and off for two weeks, there were just a few employees there anyway.
The kids school work wasn't a big deal. The teachers were using these two weeks as a "catch up" period. A time to turn in missing assignments and retake tests to get their grades up. CJ had daily online meetings with his four classes, but I think it turned into online social time.
Wednesday, March 18: a 5.7 earthquake hit Magna, Utah just after 7:00am. I felt it as I was dressing after a shower. At first I thought it was a helicopter right above us, that often shakes our house. But it got more intense. And then we began rocking, like a boat. I hollered to my children, "This is an earthquake!" It took a full 30 minutes for my heart to calm down. We felt several of the large aftershocks throughout the day. Thankfully, nothing was damaged at our house. We were far enough away from the epicenter. We had felt some small earthquakes a couple of years ago, but this one was definitely bigger and scarier! Barry filled up water jugs and took our cars to the gas station where there was big line! Paisley didn't seem too bothered by the shaking, but she won't leave Barry's side. She tries to climb into his lap while he's got his laptop on it.
Work for me is particularly hectic. I am a the product manager over learning products. Suddenly, all of our customers need free learning products that can be delivered to students at home. I work long hours, some nights until 11:00pm or later, hunched over my laptop at a card table. But my kids also need me to help keep them on track with schoolwork. I break down into tears one afternoon. Barry came home to the rescue, took over the kids, and did "clean the bathroom" training.
March 20: A record 3.3 million people filled for unemployment this last week. An emergency bill is being worked on that will give some relief -- most families will receive checks for $2400. But that will take time. My own neighbor, a single mom, was laid off, she was an hourly worker for the school district. Her children are getting their lunches daily from the local elementary school. Another neighbor who works with the free lunch distribution at that school said 175 kids are eating these free lunches daily, just from their school. We called our bishop and have offered to help support anyone in need. Barry and I are so grateful we have jobs. Barry's company isn't as stable as mine, so there is a risk that he might not stay employed. But we are extremely grateful. We don't even look at the stock market or our investment accounts, it's been day after day of record drops.
March 22: Hundreds and thousands of missionaries start to return home from all around the world. Flights with 100% missionaries were common. I believe those in Europe are staying put, unless they are senior missionaries. James Hamilton from our ward, serving in Ghana, experienced a lot of ridicule and harassing. The people there think the virus comes from "white people". He wasn't even able to ride public transportation without getting kicked off. He finally made it home --his original flight from Ghana was cancelled, but the U.S. Embassy came to the rescue. They are instructed to self-quarantine for 14 days. They will have the option to wait and be reassigned when things calm down, or postpone their mission for 12-18 months and go back to the field then. Stateside missionaries are staying in their missions unless they have less than 3 left. Word has it they are all bored out of their minds!
We had another beautiful church meeting at home. CJ played "I am a Child of God" on his new violin.
March 25: All temples, world-wide are closed. For the last few weeks, they have been open for living ordinances including weddings.
I make an evening trip to Costco. I was lucky, it only took me 10 minutes to get inside. They are limiting the number of shoppers inside to 100ish. There was a large sign with a list of about 15 items the store was out of: toilet paper, yeast, flour, rice, clorox wipes, and on and on. And once inside, we were asked to keep 6 feet from other shoppers. But we're all used to "social distancing" by now. I shop for Gary & Joy Moore, our elderly neighbors, and also the Marcinowskis in our ward that have an infant. I'm doing all of the Moore's shopping now, though I'm trying to limit my grocery store trips to once a week at most.
Friday, March 27: Barry visits our dear friend, Andrew Burt, who is quarantined at home with his family. Andrew is in the middle of chemo treatments for his stage 4 colon cancer. Barry took him some Nielson's frozen custard. This is definitely the last in-person visit Andrew will get for a while.
Sunday, March 29: Our prophet, President Nelson asked us all to fast and pray today for the many impacted by this virus. We fasted and prayed today. Our prayers have certainly changed.
Monday, March 30: New York City is turning into Italy. Lockdown. 10k+ cases. Hospitals overloaded. The mayor crying for help -- for hospital space, for supplies (masks, ventilators), and health care workers. The U.S. Navy hospital ship docks in NYC. And Marianne and Mike live right across the bridge, in Fort Lee, NJ. Thankfully, they are still healthy. Marianne jokes that Mike is going to come out of this with amazing health--he spends his free time taking long bike rides!
The schools in Utah are now closed until May 1. Barry's company closed the office, employees aren't allowed in until further notice. The governor asks us to "Stay Safe - Stay Home". It's not an official lock down, but any non-essential business is to close. Everyone who can work from home is asked to stay home. Eli needs a haircut...but Great Clips, along with every other salon, is closed.
Barry and I borrow tables from my mom's garage and set up our desks in the downstairs, unfinished family room. I make a trip to my work building to get my office chair, sitting on a folding chair is too painful after 8 hours! Paisley won't leave Barry's side.
April 1: The kids and I have been planning an April Fool's joke on Barry for months. Little did we know that he would be going NOWHERE in his truck on April Fool's Day!
As for COVID-19, there are now over 1,000 cases in Utah. But we know there are more, those who haven't been tested, those who don't have their results back yet. Social distancing IS working, and we ARE flattening the curve. Hospitals here are still managing fine -- with the exception of not enough PPE (Personal Protective Equipment.) I've seen pleas from nurses on our NextDoor app -- can anyone spare a few N95 rated masks, I'm down to one... We have a nationwide shortage of masks. I have an E.R. doctor friend in California, she said they were being stolen from their hospital. People are making them at home, but I've heard some hospitals aren't accepting them because they aren't N95 rated.
The Tokyo Olympics, that should be starting in July, have been postponed for another year.
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