From Fort Mill, South Carolina:

We have been on lockdown for two full weeks now. I am entering my third week working remotely from home; grateful that I am working and especially grateful that, for now, still earning an income. Being furloughed is a remote possibility. I get up each morning at my usual time; wash, shave, brush what little hair I have left, and get in clean business-casual attire – including socks as if I was actually going to the office. I begin my work around 8 am and conclude at 4 pm.

My wife celebrated her 65th birthday this weekend as did a 7-year-old granddaughter. My wife makes a birthday cake for each of our grandchildren, but this time, we simply delivered the cake and her present off at their home, sang a quick happy birthday in the front yard with her standing in the doorway and left. My daughter has four children under seven. The five-year-old son is a leukemia survivor and the youngest two are twins age 2. There is heightened concern with COVID-19 since his immune system after his bone marrow transplant is younger than his twin siblings. Mom and dad are being extremely careful.

On the other end of the spectrum is my wife’s 92-year-old mother who is amazing for her age with most of her mental acuity still in place. She has emphysema and other breathing conditions. COVID-19 would probably kill her if she caught the virus. My wife stays in daily contact but no visitation. People in our neighborhood are out and about but we equally keep our distance. I feel for mothers who are dealing with young children out of school. We try to walk a couple miles each day and will sometimes visit a park and circle the lake for a change of scenery.

This weekend we experienced our first on-line worship service. We had copies of the order of worship printed to follow. We are active members of a confessional, protestant church in the Reformed tradition, so our liturgy went from the call to worship to the benediction. We sang psalms and hymns, confessed our sins and our faith, and our pastor preached his sermon. It was all very seamless, but it doesn’t feel right with no physical, bodily connection. Virtual worship is too ephemeral. I hope it never catches on.

Earlier this year, I set myself to learn and memorize selections of the Heidelberg Catechism. I will often repeat the ones I have memorized when I wake and before I sleep in order to keep them fresh in my mind. Here is one I treasure:

Question 27. What dost thou mean by the providence of God?

Answer: The almighty and everywhere present power of God; whereby, as it were by his hand, he upholds and governs heaven, earth, and all creatures; so that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, yea, and all things come, not by chance, but be his fatherly hand.

Question 28. What advantage is it to us to know that by his providence does still uphold all things?

Answer: That we may be patient in adversity; thankful in prosperity; and that in all things, which may hereafter befall us, we place our firm trust in our faithful God and Father, that nothing shall separate us from his love; since all creatures are so in his hand, that without his will they cannot so much as move.

That truth has provided me with a vital perspective and succor during the coronavirus pandemic.

In our county, citizens are urged to use good judgement when congregating at a place where three or more are present. Law enforcement is erring on the side of liberty rather than control. Most folks as I observe, if not all, seem to be heeding public health warnings.

I am reading more. I should finish reading Michael Brendan Dougherty’s My Father Left Me Ireland tonight or tomorrow. Not watching TV news or fixating upon the stock market. I’m listening to more music and exploring unfamiliar works such as Oliver Messiaen’s “From the Canyons to the Stars.” My morning journal entries are longer and more thoughtful, at least in my eyes. My wife is binge watching “Larkrise to Candleford.”

All is not dire and bleak. Still, what I have noticed in conversations and observations is that people are seemingly more in tune with their mortality. COVID 19 has forced us to consider the reality of our own death. That is actually a good thing. While there is a high probability that most of us will survive this pandemic, one never really knows. Unlike some who think this may bring revival of some sort, I am not so confident. At my stage in life and at this unique period in our history, I appreciate more and more what the Preacher in Ecclesiastes imparted:

It is better to go to a house of mourning
than to go to a house of feasting,
for death is the destiny of everyone;
the living should take this to heart.
Frustration is better than laughter,
because a sad face is good for the heart.
The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,
but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.

From Grand Rapids, Michigan, a reader passes along a letter he sent to a friend; it sums up his family’s state of mind:

Dear [Name] –

Hi! I hope this finds you well. How are you doing these days? We’re fine here. Covid stuff is pretty weird & disorienting, but nothing terrible, thus far. [Wife, son, and daughter] have been working from home for the past couple weeks. And, since I can be a bum from anywhere, we’re all together these days.

It’s going OK having everyone crammed in here, but we are all feeling a bit of a strain, I believe. A slight bit too much togetherness already. I’ve noticed a definite uptick in dirty dishes I have to do with everyone here all the time, and we seem to be running the dishwasher pretty much every day, or every other day at most. I have done so many dishes over the past 25 years that, at times, I could just about puke, but I realize that it’s my job, since I’m not working. I’ve got to keep that in mind.

We did stock up a bit on groceries a few weeks ago, before the panic buying began. Pessimist that I am, I had a feeling that this whole virus thing could get pretty bad, and so bought a bit more than needed each time I shopped recently. It’s not much, but a little extra. I’ve also been grabbing newspapers when I can, for when that’s needed as Emergency Buttwipe one of these days. Pretty soon, we’ll be seeing the Charmin bears enthusiastically rubbing their cheeks on the NYT. Personally, I like USA Today for its Quilty Softness (TM), and look for the Wall Street Journal to stock us up on Extra Strong. As a miserly precautionary move, I suggested to [my wife] last week that she wrap her used pads in newspaper, rather than TP, which she, humoring me, did. Seems to have worked out OK, aside from the Depression Era (and depress-ing!) stack of newspapers next to the toilets.

I truly think this whole thing could really get pretty bad. IMO, the economy has been little more than a house of cards for quite a while – DEFINITELY since 2008. I believe concrete reality in commercial life has long since been replaced by hollow financial bullshit wizardry, and that most of the world’s supposed wealth exists on paper only. We’ve gone off the rails since leaving the gold standard under Nixon. The whole world is maxed-out on debt, and government borrowing (printing money) has just been kicking the can down the road for a decade. It’s not sustainable, and ripe for collapse. Globalism / offshoring-of-manufacturing is clearly turning out to have been a huge mistake, and diversity wokeness & the Tesla / electric-cars / rocket-vacations-to-Mars / climate change stuff have just been silly distractions from the laws of reality. Possibly deliberate distractions.

My conspiracy-minded side (well – more than just a “side” – probably about ¾ of me, to be precise) thinks that this virus, while real, could easily be used as a tempting excuse, by the elites & Masters of the Universe, to get all us proles used to, and meekly submitting to, a much lower standard of living, now that they’ve already skimmed off & squirreled away most of the world’s wealth for themselves. The rest of us can have a worldwide cage match over the scraps, and give our betters, in their fortified bunkers, great reality-TV entertainment in the process. They’ll place lively bets on who will eat whom.

[Daughter] is having a tough time getting back to school after their medically-extended spring break, and the switch to all-online classes. Math especially. They’re doing logarithms now, and she’s having trouble with it. Despite [wife’s] massive math awesome-osity, she & [daughter] don’t connect well, teaching-wise. So her attempts at tutoring her haven’t worked out thus far, and [daughter] has spent more than a little time lately crying in frustration & despair. She seems pretty aware that her future, in general, may be screwed. Pessimist, like her dad. And she doesn’t really believe in God these days, and therefore, lacks even that solace.

This whole thing could be an enormous change for our kids’ generation. Life could end up very different for them. I feel pretty sorry for them. We Gen X’ers haven’t had it as good as our parents did, and our Millennial kids don’t have it as good as we did. Possibly even much less-good after the dust settles on this current mess.

Goooooiiinnnng dowwwnnnnn!

[Wife] just Fitbit-marched here into the family room on break from work (she & [son] are set up at the dining room table for work), and I quickly closed this window to hide all the negative crap I’m writing to you so she doesn’t read it over my shoulder while marching in place, getting her steps. She’d get on me about it.

[Wife and son] have started having problems with our internet choking up here today. I’m kicked off for the work day. I would imagine that probably a lot of households are having that problem, now that so many are working from home. I’m just glad they’ve still got jobs! I hope your jobs are holding out OK.

I happened to see a couple comments in a coronavirus blog I’ve been following (a suitably-pessimistic one, you’ll be happy to know) in which the commenters praised your governor in OH, and the chief medical officer there, for doing a great job in relation to the crisis. That was nice to hear. Whitmer has done a good job here, too, IMO.

[Wife’s] starting to get a bit depressed about this whole thing. Especially when she goes out & sees the spectral empty world now. It’s not bad, but I can tell she’s on edge. I’ve been remarking repeatedly to the kids (probably too much, knowing me) that this whole thing is completely unprecedented in our lifetimes, and a historic event that we’re living (well – hopefully living) through.

Well – I should close for now. I hope you guys are doing OK. I’m concerned about [your husband], as I’d guess he’s pretty high-risk during this time.

Thanks for your recent letter. It’s always great to receive them. I’m sorry that mine are so few & far between.

Love,

[Name]

From Smyrna, Georgia:

We’ve been staying socially isolated at home in Smyrna, GA for about two weeks now. Working from home and directing two elementary age kids in remote learning has been an adjustment. The dedication and love from our kids’ teachers and school administrators has been outstanding. All things considered, we are doing well.

I’m writing to share how the pandemic has made a situation that would be sad more difficult… grieving as community with social distancing. My kids’ small Episcopal Day School, St. Benedict’s, has experienced some non-COVID-19 related deaths over the last week. The father of one of my daughters’ 4th grade friends died of a sudden heart attack last weekend and was found by his kids. Though we weren’t close, I considered him one of my ‘Dad Friends’; the second I’ve lost this school year. My daughter has sent her friend a card and other classmates have reach out using email, video chats, and letters.

Over the weekend, another of my daughter’s friends had a loss, her 7th grade brother suddenly died after coming in from playing outside. The family is Muslim and the gravesite is several counties away at a cemetery for their faith, but I know several folks are going to drive and sit in their cars outside the service to support this family.

I just got off of a Zoom call for parents to discuss how to navigate this situation and support these families during social isolation. It’s very hard when the natural instinct is to embrace those that are grieving and lift up families in prayer as a community, but we are still lifting them up through our virtual community. I expect that they will be mentioned during the school’s weekly chapel service (now on YouTube).

We are working through what it means to be a community during social distancing. We want the human touch even if we can’t have the human touch that we all want to give these families at this time.

Anyway, maybe this is therapy for me, but I wanted to share how a close knit school community is navigating our grief during this time of pandemic.

Thank you for the solidarity conservatism that you bring to the table. I’m afraid things (economically, culturally, etc.) during and after this pandemic will get worse before they get better. I don’t know if our community will survive it, but I know as Christians that we have to hold up our communities in prayer to him, even (and maybe especially) non-believers in our midst. I hope that they will know that we are Christians by our love.

This Lent is too Lenty for me, but there have been worse ones for the Church. I hope as Christians that this tribulation can make us stronger in faith.

From Boston:

Massachusetts is 2+ weeks into the social distancing protocols. People are getting used to it, and learning how to work around the challenges. My daughter started taking her college classes via video today, and my son had three hours of remote learning high school classes. Several of my wife’s friend’s texted her and they then used video chats to virtually meet.

Although not a problem for my family, April 1st is going to be tough for some people as bills come due, and many people haven’t worked in some time.

Up until three days ago it looked like social distancing wasn’t yielding results. But I’ve noticed an emerging trend in the numbers that seems promising. While the total numbers of cases is still growing, but the rate of increase is falling. On the 3/25 it was +59% new cases, but on the 26th to 28th it fell to ~+33% new cases, and 29th to today it was +16% new cases.

This deceleration of new cases looks like the inflection point in the logistic curve, and after infection the curve flattens out considerably. So in a few more days Massachusetts might see a radical decrease in new cases. It would be an achievement is if the state could eliminate community transmission within the state.

What worries me is that we’re so close to New York City, which is a large reservoir for the virus, and people coming into the state could easily undo the progress.

From suburban Atlanta:

I’ve been following you for several years now and very much appreciate the front-line Pandemic Diaries series, as well as your other posts. Sometimes, through your followers, you have been able to provide information not available anywhere else – such as the fascinating coverage you provided from your readers who had family in China at the time of the initial outbreak.

By way of background, I’m a 50-ish attorney and convert to Catholicism living in an Atlanta suburb, with a cradle Catholic husband and 2 teenage daughters. I converted to Catholicism from Judaism in 2006, which is a whole ‘nother story, as one might say. I’m lucky enough to work in a large, but newfangled “virtual” law firm without physical offices, so we haven’t had to adjust our operations at all in light of shelter-at-home edicts. Work is busier than ever, helping clients comply with rapidly-changing regulatory waivers re data security and starting work on applications for SBA loans for small clients. I am extremely grateful to all those medical workers on the front lines, each of whom is truly doing God’s work at this time. I’m only doing my small part to keep commerce flowing and protect my clients.

Since I’m hardly on the front lines of the pandemic, I don’t have a contribution as informative as some of your readers’ submissions. But I thought two aspects of my experience were interesting enough to write about.

First, my family had pre-paid (without travel insurance) for a trip to Israel over our Spring Break, which was March 6-15 this year. As of March 6, Israel had just 2 days earlier imposed a 14 day quarantine on all travelers arriving from the EU. As you will see below, I am far more of a worrier than my husband, and I was *extremely* concerned that Israel would impose this same restriction on US travelers just as we arrived, which would mean turning right back around. Nonetheless, I didn’t want to throw my body on the tracks and cause a major rift with my husband, so off we went through NYC to Tel Aviv. Israel actually imposed the restriction on US travelers while we were there, having quarantined a number of Americans in Bethlehem after an outbreak there. Amazingly for us, the trip went off without a hitch – in fact, we had many of the historical sites, shops and museums all to ourselves. The tourist industry was already in dire straits, and we did what we could to help while we were there. The only site closed due to coronavirus for us was the supposed site of Jesus’ baptism where the River Jordan meets the Dead Sea, but that visit was still fantastic, as even outside the closed gates we could still see Jericho in the distance and contemplate the probably-unchanged scenery. The whole trip was life-changing for my family, but that too is another story.

While we were there, I became aware via Facebook that my good friend’s niece was there on a college-sponsored trip with several fellow students. She went home, but I struck up a correspondence with one of her friends via Instagram. This woman is now in her 19th day of quarantine – still in Israel! – having tested positive for the virus no less than 5 times. She still says she doesn’t know when she will be allowed to go home. She is not being treated with any drugs and thankfully is not having problems breathing. For me, this is really notable, as 19 days is quite a lot, and here you have Israel’s Teva pharmaceutical company shipping hydroxycholoroquine to the US, while this woman isn’t receiving it in Israel.

Our flight home on 3/15 was routed through Amsterdam, and before we left, Trump cut off travel between the Schengen zone and the US, and Delta announced massive cuts to its flights. Again, I was certain we’d be in for a travel disaster, but as it turned out, we were on the second-to-last Delta flight out of Amsterdam, at least for the foreseeable future. Despite the reports of bedlam in international airports from US residents returning home from abroad that weekend, on Sunday the 15th, we were quickly processed into the US in Atlanta. The CDC boarded our flight, took (but did not read) our questionnaires about where we’d been, did only random tests of temperature (of the 4 of us, only my husband was tested), and handed us papers intended for people returning from China outlining a suggested 14-day quarantine. We just finished that period yesterday without any symptoms. Again, more gratitude to God from all of us.

So, we are sheltering in place under non-mandatory government edicts from our locality (we are outside the City of Atlanta), and we have ample supplies. This brings me to my second tale, which is shorter than the first. When 9/11 happened, I had just had my first baby and was suffering from post-partum depression even before the Twin Towers fell. I became obsessed with the news coverage and was convinced that the next wave of terror – perhaps anthrax, dumped on us from the sky! – was just around the corner. I became a dedicated prepper, acquiring medical supplies, non-perishable food and other items that would have value for trade even if all of society fell apart at the seams. My husband put up with this quite peaceably, but never admired it. I always felt that he thought I was crazy but harmless, which was sad for me. These days, I am happy to say, he has acquired a new respect for my efforts, to say the least. Meanwhile, I’ve given all but a very few of the dozens of N95 masks I bought back in 2001 to local hospitals. Let me also note: I’ve read the stories about people (including DOCTORS) who are acquiring hydroxychloroquine and other items in short supply “just in case.” Yes, I’m a prepper who believes in protecting my family, but this kind of action is beneath contempt. Here’s hoping that pharmacies rapidly block these purchases through close scrutiny, and that the wrong-doers’ names are exposed (yes, unlikely) when all this is over so that they can be excluded from polite society.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Please keep up the good work, and blessings to you and yours.