COVID Update: NJ Students to Repeat Same Grade Next Year

We're still in lockdown, and here's the updates:

• The President announced that our isolation policy (i.e. stay the #*&$^@ home) should continue through the end of April.  His previous assurance was that we'd all be at Easter services (that's less than 2 weeks from now) but we're nowhere near the end of this.
• There are idiots everywhere.
• Pastors who are encouraging people to go to church.  Not virtual church... ACTUAL church.  Where people sit side by side in crowded pews.  If that's not a money grab I don't know what is.
• Jerry Fallwell told students of his university to come back to campus.  They're all getting sick.
• Spring Break: the idiot college kids went on spring break, crowded together on beaches and in bars, and then took their diseased selves home and spread the germs.
• The spread is increasing.  As of today we have over 200,000 diagnosed cases in the US alone (half are in NY and NJ).  And no one is talking about this, but those are only the diagnosed cases.  I expect the actual numbers are quite a bit higher, as there are some people who won't go in to get diagnosed, and others perhaps can't or don't have access.
• There are so many cases in New York City that they have had to set up hospital tents in Central Park, and the Javits Center has been converted into hospital space.  Around the country other major metropolitan areas are doing the same - convention centers are being turned into COVID-19 hospitals.  In Cleveland I heard that they cleared out the dorms at Case Western Reserve University and are planning to use that space for patients.
• NYC couldn't handle the dead using their existing infrastructure so they set up mobile morgues to increase capacity by 75%.  I expect within days even that won't be enough.
• The US Navy sent a hospital ship (USNS Comfort) to NYC, which will function as a hospital for those who are ill or injured but don't have Corona.  This is a ship designed to provide medical services to US forces during wartime... being sent to New York because there simply aren't enough hospital beds.
• I think we're all realizing how much of a distraction sports are.  There's no golf, no baseball, no soccer, and Wimbledon was just canceled.  Not postponed, canceled.
• Oh - and The Tiger King.  This is everyone's Netflix quarantine obsession.  It is tawdry voyeurism, and no one can stop looking at the train wreck.  A 3-person gay wedding?  Check.  A woman who may have murdered her husband and fed him to her tigers?  Check. Someone gets their arm bitten off?  Check.  Feuding between factions?  Check.  Possible cult-like activity?  Yes indeed. And that's just in the first three episodes.  And a friend of mine knows most of the people personally... I refuse to ask for insider details. 
• My kids are coping as best they can but it isn't always pretty.  Ryan keeps using a baby-like voice/affectation which drives Colin nuts.  The boys bicker more than I care to admit.  Schoolwork so far has been hit and miss at best.  We still aren't on track, but they are doing some work... this year is going to be a mess no matter how you slice it.
• Hari shared Fresh Prince of Bel Aire with the boys - they love it.

Someone posted on FB recently, and it was a really harsh reality check.

If you get this and have to be hospitalized, no one you know can come visit you.  They won't be allowed in because of the required quarantine protocol.  You will likely be on a ventilator so you can't make phone calls.  And you'll probably be so sick that you won't even be able to text.  Your only human contact will be the overworked, exhausted angels who are still at work in the hospital.  And if you don't survive the disease, you'll die alone with no family to hold your hand or hear your last words.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Does it stink to be stuck home?  Yep.

Are we all tired of playing Quarantine Chopped (what can I make for dinner with a box of pasta, some frozen vegetables, and a can of XXXX)?  Of course, and it is only going to get worse.

Out of milk?  Of course - be thankful if you got box milk when it was still around.

Low on TP?  Join the club.

But guess what?  It isn't all bad.

• My family is eating dinner together EVERY DAY.
• I'm getting more hugs.
• Our dogs are getting walked and walked and walked and walked.
• I'm working out with my kids instead of in an empty studio.  Ryan and I did a 100 challenge last week, and GRIT yesterday. Hari and Colin do a 4-mile walk every day.  Colin even did Born to Move with me yesterday and said he wants to do another one today.
• We're all going to bed a little earlier, and spending more time together.

And today, because I'm mean, I showed the boys a post on FaceBook.  It was a headline... All NJ Students to Repeat Same Grade Next Year.  Colin was immediately enraged and proclaimed he isn't doing ANY more work from home.  Ryan looked at me with a sad face and asked why his teacher keeps giving him work if he has to be in 3rd grade all over again next year.  I tried to explain, then gave in and told them... APRIL FOOLS!!!  I got them!!!!!  Ryan smiled and laughed, realizing it was a joke but Colin took a little longer to recover.  We might be living through a pandemic, but mom still has to have a little fun!