COVID-19

Of course COVID is on everyone's minds, so I may as well talk about it too. Cases are exploding in the city with no end in sight. My parents are both compromised in more ways than one, so if one of them gets it it would be an actual problem. Unfortunately, I'm showing symptoms and have been placed in a mandatory 2 week quarantine. I'm able to walk amongst humanity next Wednesday, but until then I'm stuck doing nothing. Both of my lab jobs have closed in-person lab work and are moving to exclusively online. By way of my full time analytics job it's a bit more complicated. The entire office is in the process of transitioning to remote work, but not everyone is equipped for it - me included. I've lost out on 3 days worth of pay so far and that looks as if it will continue until someone gets back to me about working from home. Frankly, it's bullshit that people are losing out on money because of something that's out of their control. The new bill being proposed would make small businesses under 500 employees mandatorily pay 2 weeks sick leave for employees who qualify. The company I work for is much bigger than 500 employees so we have no promise of being paid for time out of work. I wouldn't mind working from home, and I would actually prefer it right now to give me something to do . However, I have yet to be contacted for setting up our remote systems.

This entire situation has me baffled. For most people (including myself) it brings up thoughts of a chaotically cinematic zombie movie. The mystery virus starts taking over the world and the death tolls rise as humanity falls. I know it won't get to those levels of extreme, but it's still disconcerting nonetheless. It's only been a few weeks since I last posted and it feels like a lifetime. Nothing feels truly normal anymore. Grocery store shelves are empty, people are (literally) fighting over toilet paper, hand sanitizer is a commodity, and communities are slowly being quarantined one by one.

I miss looking at the cat washi tape around my monitor at work. I miss talking to my coworkers about stupid shit we heard that day. I miss being at the lab training new research assistants and doing cool things. I miss driving home at 10pm cruising at 70mph all the way home bobbing and/or singing along to music. I miss seeing Seth. I miss not having to worry about infecting my parents with a potentially deadly virus. Everything needs to go back to normal again. I know it will, but how long do we have to live in a constant state of paranoia and panic-buying?