Griffin Olshan
Blog Post 2
Last Saturday, my father and I drove back to my house in State College to pack up all my belongings and move out for the year. I hadn’t exactly been allowed to, but my dad insisted I did sooner rather than later, in case they issue shelter in place orders and we were unable to make the trip in the near future.
As we were driving home, I had dozed off somewhere along I-80 and woke up to him pulling off the road. I asked him what he was doing, and he told me he just got an important email from work and wanted to read it now.
I felt a pit in my stomach form immediately. His office had been closed for a week. It was not business related, and knowing my dad, there was only one thing that was so important he’d pull off the road to read it.
Someone he had worked down the hall from had tested positive for COVID-19. At that moment I realized that the global coronavirus pandemic went from being a mere nuisance in my life, to potentially directly affecting it.
My dad told me he last encountered his coworker who had been infected on the thirteenth. I started thinking to myself, at the latest, he would have been exposed to it eight days ago, which meant he would start showing symptoms within the next six days, at the latest. I determined that in order for me to be the safest and most responsible, I would need to place myself into quarantine for the remainder of my father’s quarantine, and an additional fourteen days after that.
I have been practicing social distancing with my mother, father, and sister in our home for the past nine days. If my dad was exposed to it, he would have given it to us all as he had no idea he might have been exposed to it for the first seven days.
Once we got home, my father looked into making an appointment at the drive thru testing facility located in cummings park, an area down by the beach. He was told to wait until he starts to show symptoms before coming and getting tested.
Since we don’t want to risk exposing ourselves to anyone in public, my sister and I have been entertaining ourselves by driving around Stamford, our hometown. Stamford is one of the largest cities in Connecticut, with a population of about 130,000 people. I have lived here for eighteen years and I have never seen my hometown this desolate. There is no traffic on the busiest roads during rush hour, the most crowded parking lots of the biggest shopping centers in the city are empty as all the stores are closed, and all public parks and facilities have been closed.
I drove down to Cummings Park, where they had set up the testing facility, and there were no signs that there was a testing facility there other than two police cars stationed at the entrance, and a large emergency display board flashing the message, “COVID-19 questions dial City Health Dept”.
I haven’t been in a grocery store for the past week, but the last time I was, there was no toilet paper, paper towels, disposable gloves, hand sanitizer, hand soap or disinfectant wipes. My parents tell me that stores are starting to run constantly low on poultry, bottled water, and other essentials.
The global coronavirus pandemic has hit Stamford hard, and it looks like we have a long way to go before life will return to normal.
The ridgeway shopping center, one of the busiest in all of Stamford, completely empty.
Playgrounds at West Beach Park closed by the City to prevent the spread of COVID-19.