Contagion: Thanksgiving Refections

 

The Covid-19 Pandemic has returned with this recent surge.  The hospitals are nearly full.  Most states have imposed travel advisories, moved K-12 schools back to remote learning, and limited public gatherings especially closing restaurants to indoor dining.  I know a surprising number of people who have had the virus in recent weeks.  Most of them are younger folks who have had mild to flu like symptoms and they have all recovered.

While the hospitals are filling up again, it seems like the medical experts have learned to treat the virus more effectively.  They are shying away from using ventilators because they learned that once they started patients on ventilators it was very hard to wean them off of them.  We are all anticipating the vaccines which might finally end this Pandemic.

At the same time, incident rates seem to suggest we are also testing the herd immunity theory, though, oddly, no one is talking about that.

In the summer, people tried to return to normal; a masked and socially distant normalcy.  To a certain degree, we succeeded.  Restaurants were serving diners outside and they were bustling.  Car traffic began to approach the annoying levels they were at pre-pandemic.  The stores and shops were busy again.  People wore masks but they were out and about.

A Wee Bit of Travel:  Last year for Thanksgiving, I was in Germany:  Thanksgiving in Germany.  What a difference a year makes.

In a normal year, we might have traveled to Washington, DC and maybe California a few times.  We had a trip scheduled to Toronto, New York and Massachusetts for an engagement party, a baptism, and a wedding.  We had another trip planned to Massachusetts over Labor Day for the Annual Armenian Youth Federation Olympics.  The only trips I did take were to Michigan basically to visit my mother and sisters.  I drove to Detroit once and South Haven twice.  It was a bit eerie stopping at gas station plazas and walking around South Haven and seeing folks with and without masks.  It was good to be with family, for sure. 

I am hearing of more and more folks who are getting on airplanes and traveling mostly for pleasure trips.  I am guessing this increase in travel is simply due to Covid Fatigue.  We are not ready to take that risk as yet.

Children and Grandchildren:  I was supposed to fly to California the first weekend in March to visit my daughter, son in-law, and grandsons.  The Pandemic was in its infancy and after some discussion, we decided to cancel the trip.  We laugh that I could have been stuck there months had I gone.  That would have been a wonderful exile.

We miss our children and grandchildren and look forward to a time where we can freely visit them and have them venture our way.

Weddings:  As mentioned, we missed three weddings, an engagement party, and a baptism this year.  Four of these five events were out of town.  The weddings took place but with only immediate family in attendance.  We were able to zoom in and enjoy the ceremonies. 

I love weddings.  I love to play for them, and I love to attend them.  I am glad the three young couples got married, I am sorry that it was not the celebrations they were expecting or deserved.

Work:  I spent a lot of time alone working from home.  Just being home, alone, in my office was reminiscent of 2008 and 2009 during the Great Recession.  Back then, the time was spent looking for work.  It was a dismal chore as millions of us were looking for work and there were like two jobs available.  It was a lonely effort of sending out inquiries and applying to jobs into what seemed to be a black hole in the internet.

The difference this time was that I was a busy as I have ever been.  I was on the Covid Response team at the University and I was teaching more than a full load from March at the start of the Pandemic through August.  I was then asked to serve on another strategic academic committee.  I eagerly accepted, knowing I would be even busier.  Being busy, crazy busy, and working from home is infinitely better than working from home was during the Great Recession.

The School Year:  Our Univerity Covid-19 Task Force managed to move all classes to remote learning in short order back in March.  We managed the odds and ends associated with that through the end of April.  In May, our Task Force was renamed the Campus Re-Opening Task Force.  Our charge was to safely open campus in the Fall.  We wanted to have as many face-to-face classes as we could within the social distancing protocols set by the state and city.  We meet four to five times a week from May through September.  We have six functional sub-committees that have been meeting right along the whole time. 

We successfully opened campus.  We had a combination of face-to-face, online, and mixed online and face-to-face classes.  We had professors who taught in all three modes. Also, students were able to attend classes face-to-face or remotely based on their personal and family risk levels to the Covid-19 virus.  We were successful for two months with constant monitoring using a phone-based app, testing in partnership of a local hospital, and reacting to cases as they happened. 

I was one campus two days a week.  I was teaching four classes:  three undergraduate classes and one graduate course.  As all graduate classes were fully online, mine was as well.  Two of my undergraduate classes met Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings.  The third met Monday evenings.  The Monday evening class met face-to-face as the socially distanced reconfigured room could still hold all the students.  Only about half the students attended face-to-face, the other half called in via MS Teams (Microsoft's answer to Zoom).  My morning classes were large.  Half the students were in attendance face-to-face and half were online via MS Teams.  We did this Mondays and Wednesdays, flip-flopping was attended live and who attended via video conference.  On Fridays, we were all online.  We made it work.

Early in the week of October 23, we were thinking that in the Spring term we might have even more classes online and were looking forward to starting up sports competitions.  By the end of that week, the news was about the record number of cases in Chicago, in Illinois and all around the country.  The surge had begun.  By November 10, we decided to move the last week and a half of classes online.  It was a much smoother pivot than it was back in March.  We now have to monitor things to determine how classes will start in the Spring.  We are prepared for however the status of the Pandemic evolves. 

Thanksgiving:  It has been a different year for all of us.  It has been isolating.  We are all Covid weary.  It has been especially difficult for those who have lost loved ones this year.  Some of us are handling it better than others.

I am thankful for my family, for those I see frequently, occasionally and not very often these days.  While we have not seen our kids or grandkids, we am thankful for FaceTime which makes staying in touch much more tolerable.

I am thankful for having the job I have and all the people I work with.  I am thankful to have the opportunity to be part of the team working on how our university survives and thrives during these challenging times.

I am thankful for all the healthcare workers who risk their lives treating everyone.  I am thankful for everyone working in the food, pharma, and personal care supply chain and retail stores that ensure the flow of groceries and goods are not interrupted.

I am sorry for the pain and anguish being felt by my countrymen in Armenia and Artsakh.  Regional politics and war that has put them in jeopardy and ripped a large part of Artsakh from us.  I pray for a positive result, even though the cards are stacked against us. 

With the Christmas Season approaching, Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to reflect on the blessings in our life.  When we also see the struggles of people around us and around the world, it is a good time to pray with greater passion for Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward Men.

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all.