Day #327 Writing Through COVID-19: S O . . . C L O S E . . .

On again!

Public Health called today to schedule my COVID shot for this coming Friday, at which point I'll be 15 days past my shingles booster. 

When they denied me the shot last Friday, they talked as if it would be the second half of February before I could get rescheduled. 

KCCI reports tonight that Iowa lags nearly every state in both vaccine acquisition and delivery.  

Our confidence in renewing pre-COVID lifestyles as individuals, as a state, as a country--as a world--won't return until months from now. Whether I got my vaccine last week, or get it this week, or three months from now is a grain of sand on this COVID beach. 

But when I returned to school last August, two of my children asked me to retire, or at least take a year off. I promised them I would be diligent in masking, distancing, and wiping of all surfaces. I've tried to maintain rigorous standards, even as masks slip beneath my students' noses, and I forget to sanitize my hands after collecting the dry-erase boards. I'm still eating lunch alone in my room, but today I found myself (masked) washing my dish in the work-room sink next to an unmasked anti-vaccine colleague. 

Even after my second vaccine dose, I will still have the potential to spread the virus, and therefore I will need to maintain my diligence. 

Yet I feel I'm in the homestretch: racing my vaccine against this resurging virus, as there is again an uptick of COVID in our district.

We were notified Sunday by our superintendent that he'd begun to run a low fever on Friday, left work, and was tested. His positive diagnosis came Saturday night, and he transparently reported his condition to us on Sunday. I appreciate his candor.

One of my colleagues was in a meeting with the superintendent and several others for the first round of salary negotiations Wednesday afternoon. My colleague said he was the only one who wore a mask, with the others unmasked, as our district's 6-ft-distancing policy allows.

A second person at Wednesday's meeting tested positive today.
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I feel like I'm THIS CLOSE to subverting the virus. 

I'm hunkering down.

Enough.
Be well.
Write.

Allison

It's summer down under! Wolf is swimming
with his daddy in NZ.