I completely agree! I do get tired of the doomsday predictions given on the news and some of these threads like they are the actual truth. Two things...they don’t help anyone make rational decisions and they aren’t the path we are taking as a country. Are we doing enough? Debatable, we will all have to agree to disagree there because we do not know what the future will hold. Around here in SE Michigan we have a growing number of cases particularly in Detroit. One hospital system for planning purposes came up with DNR planning document. It was not intended for release, it isn’t in use yet, but the Detroit News (can’t speak for the Free Press) along with the TV stations have run that story like they have already put those guidelines in place. It isn’t current, it isn’t in use, but they treat it as both to drum up the anxiety. That I can’t stand. The “facts” are changing daily and really all I can do is take it one day at a time. Keep me abreast of what is changing, but because I choose to be hopeful doesn’t mean I am running around having coffee with my friends. I am in my house with my husband doing school/work/keeping my children who rely on me calm as best as I can while choosing not to drive myself into a depression by obsessing over every worst case scenario discussed on TV. The politicians/government officials I like could do better, the ones I hate could be doing worse, but we are all human and I choose give grace to both sides in this ever changing, terrible situation we find ourselves in. Really, if God wants to wipe us all out He has the power to do so regardless of how much data analysis we do or social distancing we practice. We can hope other people make the choices we want them to, but getting angry about it won’t hurt them-only us. This pandemic has reminded me that we are not in control and that is scary, but I continue to pray for the sick and examine my life and live it as closely to God’s will as I can while remembering His words (paraphrased) that Every day has enough worry for itself and that we don’t need to worry about tomorrow.

Oh no, not Daniel tiger...how about streaming mr. rogers on amazon prime.

So I guess either I don’t have permission or enough knowledge to attach a link, but we found it at livemass.net the mass we have watched recorded is at the Warrington link. They have masses from several locations in different time zones. It is a traditional order, so it is the traditional Latin mass. Today they had a solemn high Mass so they only had a cantor. Last week was a sung high Mass so the extra priests were singing in the choir loft with the organ.

So far: breakfast, checked in with my mom, watched a recorded mass and rosary from the FSSP church in Warrington, England. We have watched it the past three weeks. When we get to travel again, this church is on my bucket list. Since they have five priests in residence they have announced that they will be streaming/recording all the Holy Week masses. DH is headed out to let my daughter get more driving practice - today’s weather challenge is wind gusts as we are under a high wind warning today. He also wants to stop at Walmart for pectin and skim milk. He’s the only skim milk drinker in the family and I am not used to going through very much when he isn’t home to eat breakfast here. He also is getting bored and wants us to make jelly with some of the prepped fruit in the garage freezer. want to take a walk, but don’t want to be blown away... hope to upload 3 months of photos to Shutterfly. I am still stuck back in 2016, thinking three month is a manageable goal since I am clearly behind. The whole project is rather overwhelming so trying baby steps. probably take a nap will be saying rosary with MIL over on the other side of the state via zoom. She liked it when we did it last week. My husband was saying he hadn’t missed Mass twice in a row since he made his first communion. As a convert to Catholicism, I realized that I haven’t prayed the rosary as much in my life as I have in the past month. hope everyone has as good a day as possible. Prayers to those who are sick or have sick family members.

Done, and thanks for giving us the opportunity to help

Haven’t been on this daily thing for awhile, but today was OK Kept waking up to the rain last night and this morning was rainy as well. My husband took my daughter out for driving practice- she is over a year past the end of driver’s ed so if we can get the 50 hours in over this stay at home bit, it would be an accomplishment- they intended to get donuts, but our go to place and our backup place were both closed so they came home with bagels. Husband then went to Costco when the opened and got toilet paper - we weren’t out, but now I don’t need to ration. I got my walk in but it started to rain in the middle which wasn’t too fun. I am jealous of the posts about starting gardens because up here it is still 6 weeks or so away. After lunch the 6yo pestered everyone to play Catan. We played it for the first time last night. I finished my socks last week so today I did my gauge swatch for my new sweater, but also realized I needed new size needles for the cast on so that is postponed until Saturday 😞 I did get a nap and finished the load of laundry that made me angry yesterday - one of my children left Kleenex in a pocket and I had a whole load white flecked darks to deal with. The second time through at least a $5 bill came out of the pocket. I never did figure out the culprit.

There is no zero for any of the questions on the first page. If I use no paid services, do I just skip the question?

Thanks!

When are essay topics usually published? My daughter will be a senior in the fall and I thought she could get started soon. While I was out for my walk today I started wondering how many application essays will work in covid-19 somehow.

Panic is triggering a lot of it. I have zero intention of running out to get some rushed to market vaccine for covid. We need more regulation/consumer protection in that area, not less. I will feel comfortable going out with reasonable precautions (keeping space, avoiding big crowds, washing hands, staying home when sick) once the hospitals get their equipment and things taper down a bit. I am comfortable with my husband going back to work. He doesn’t have a ton of contact with others. I hope that virtual meetings will continue to be the norm when this dies down as it just makes sense...Same with telemedicine. I hate going to doctor visits in the winter with the kids because someone *always* ends up sick. I also hope public peer pressure to stay home when sick will stick around even though covid spread isn’t driven by visible symptoms. I remember sitting next to a middle school principal and a couple of teachers/school secretaries at a scrapbooking weekend and being absolutely appalled at the cavalier way they talked about sending their kids to school even when sick and giving them Tylenol to bring their fever down before school like it was no big deal. I will probably drop our homeschool choir next year as that place is filled with people who bring the whole family for the afternoon regardless of how they are feeling. They also have this massive bring finger food reception after concerts that is just a cesspool of germs with kids grabbing food with grubby fingers. I have been sick more frequently because of that place this winter than ever in my lifetime.

I have heard good reviews on math. My daughter is trying economics and says it is ok, but a bit boring. I also purchased chemistry but we haven’t started it. I may have her do a de class instead.

I have chatted with a couple people, but neither asked for advice. I said our days were different as well - no travel to lessons, volunteering, choir, or swim- and sympathized that their kids had everything changed. At least mine have their school mostly the same and we can try to get ahead to have a break when this is all over. Talk is here in Michigan is that as it stands none on the online work will count as seat time because not everyone is able to offer online learning. Schools here already go to early June- are they really going to go all summer?

Maybe they think if they keep telling themselves it is great they will start to believe it. We had choir online Tuesday...it was mediocre to say the least, but I applaud her for trying. My 6yo has an elderly teacher for piano who did a phone lesson. Not great, but at 80+ I was just glad he offered so I didn’t have to cancel on him again. I might have told him we were sick last week when he said the studio was still open.

I would say I don’t like the short nap at dinner, but for most kids that age I don’t think it is too much sleep overall. I think I would try to keep her up in the morning and try to get her to take one longer nap in the afternoon. One book I liked when my oldest was little was a bit harsh on the infant sleep training, but did show that sleep problems at night can be related to too little napping during the day. One is pretty young, but I would work on a better nap time (so you can get one too) before working too much on night. Alas, some kids like my niece just don’t need as much sleep.

No I don’t, but Jean had argued that because she and someone else had been able to get masks that hospitals should have reacted to what was happening in Wuhan and ordered more masks. My point was it was too late by point because no new stock was being added to the supply line.

I read about it here on the Wuhan thread, but people were already making runs on existing stock. I could find some highly overpriced ones on amazon. All of those were existing stock already in the USA. I sincerely doubt China was shipping out hospital quantity orders at that point.

Hospitals should have more stock, but when the vast, vast majority come from China and they stop shipping we are in trouble. All the more reason to get critical supplies (not just masks) out of China and back into this country as soon as humanly possible after this cools down. Those people buying up masks in early January had knowledge that was not readily being relayed to the general public in the United States at that time.

As for the flu shot bit, literally every doctor at the beginning of this whole mess was on TV talking about Coronavirus and concluding with “and get your flu shot”. I know it isn’t the flu, but when every statement included that advice it is quite apparent to me where the confusion comes from. I don’t think we should be unkind to anyone, but people are so quick to charge racism to shut down anything they don’t like whether it is legitimate racism or not. Calling a virus by where it originated (or was believed to have originated) it not racist. Do we honestly think calling the 1918 pandemic the Spanish flu racist? It didn’t even originate in Spain. MERS - I don’t think that is racist either. People just need to get a thicker skin against it because I doubt the behavior is going away anytime soon. But still, hugging random people to show you aren’t racist in a health crisis (it wasn’t an official pandemic then) is really bad in retrospect, but rather dopey sounding at any moment as well.

Update from the local news tonight Ford is testing their face shields in Detroit this week before ramping up production. Partnering with 3M on masks and GE on respirators. Sounded like those would be in production soon GM making respirators - didn’t catch who they were partnering with FCA is already in production on masks that they will be donating. partnering with an Italian company on respirators

If by “the people at the top” you mean the Chinese people at the top then sure, they could have done more. They could have alerted the world instead of letting their own citizens travel until they couldn’t hide it any longer. At the beginning yes you had a greater chance of dying from the flu because Chinese Coronavirus wasn’t here yet. We also had very little actual data as to what was involved. What did you expect the US officials to do? Put cities on lockdown in January? If the problem is lack of ventilators and protective equipment, that is coming. Many US companies are ramping up production of both. I think we would be much better served to protect the vulnerable and allow *them* to stay home rather than keeping *everyone* home. I don’t have a problem with encouraging people to keep their distance or work from home if possible, but this lockdown police state is feeling like a power grab. So many people seem to have lost their mind lately. Yes, it may take 6 months to get over this, but we can’t all stay inside for six months.

I know that I have had a problem with all the stuff made in China for years. It has become increasingly hard to avoid in recent years so the current situation is not one iota surprising. I think we have ourselves to blame because we demand things to be so super cheap to the point of being essentially disposable that no company can justify making things here. China is willing to lie, pollute with abandon, and exploit their workers and we are willing to look the other way while going on about how environmentally and socially responsible we are. When this is over I am redoubling my efforts to never buy anything made in China as long as their regime is in power. I am very on board with travel restrictions and voluntary social distancing, but the comments from some on this board have become very disturbing lately.

My kids are younger so they have more time. I feel sorry for your daughter. Our coach has been sending out workouts, but it is hard to motivate them to run and do planks. I know he’s trying, but if my kids wanted to be runners they would have joined track and field. Back to pool is going to be very tough.

With swimming, all the lead up meets to the Olympic trials have been canceled. And who has had any pool time? How do they deal with that equitably?

Watched Mass from St. Mary’s Shrine in England again this week. Took a nap Took a walk French toast for dinner Family rosary Watched Princess Bride for a family movie night Trying to figure out whether dh is going to work in the morning and how to keep a school routine if he’s home.

Not a doctor, but I would think general health of the population would play into the percentage of cases that were serious/critical. When dh and I were Italy almost 20 years ago for our honeymoon, once I got past the age of the buildings the next thing I noticed was how few children we saw. Their population is pretty old. Italy has also had more than its fair share of corruption and economic struggles over recent history which has to play into health as well.