Coronavirus Pandemic

Just so I NEVER forget..... 

Right now we are in the middle of the  Novel Coronavirus (Covid-19) Pandemic, declared March 11th, 2020 🦠  It amazes me that the things below are happening all around the world at the same time.  My family and friends in the USA and other parts of the world are going through the same things as us right now. 

As of today there have been 184 cases of confirmed cases of Coronavirus in Tasmania and 7 deaths. 

💵 Petrol prices have dropped as low as  $0.99 a litre in Tassie

🏫 Schools brought holidays forward. Students began learning from home at the end of Term 1 and will continue to learn from home in Term 2.

❌ There is tape on the floors at supermarkets and shops help distance shoppers 1.5 m from each other.

 

👫👫 A limited number of people are allowed inside stores, therefore, lineups outside the store doors.

 

🙅🏻‍♀️Non-essential stores and businesses are closed.

👩🏻‍💻Those who can are asked to work from home.

🏖⛰ 🚷 Parks, trails and beaches are closed.

🏉🏀⚽️🎾🥇 Entire sports seasons including the Tokyo 2020 Olympics cancelled.

🎟🎭🎬🎼 Concerts, tours, festivals, and entertainment events are cancelled.

👰🏻 💍🎉 Weddings are limited to five people, family celebrations and holiday gatherings are cancelled.

Only ten people can attend a funeral. 

⛪️ No masses, churches are closed.

🇦🇺 Australians are asked to return home from around the world if they can.

👫 No gatherings of 50 or more, then 10 or more, now 2 or more.

🏠 You’re not allowed to socialize with anyone outside of your home.

🚶🏾🏃🏻‍♀️You can only leave your home to get essentials, go to work or school (if you are unable to do it at home) or to exercise with one other person.

 

🎠 Children's outdoor play parks are closed.

 

🎡 Disney parks and other theme parks all around the world are closed.

🧻 🧼 Panic buying sets in and we have shortages of toilet paper, pasta, flour, disinfecting supplies, paper towel, laundry soap and hand sanitizer.

 

🧼 You are asked to sanitise your hands before going into a shop and waiting rooms have put in measures for social distancing. 

 

🧼 Manufacturers, distilleries and other businesses switch their lines to help make visors, masks, hand sanitizer and PPE.

✈️🛳 Government closes the border to all non-essential travel.

👮🏼‍♀️👮🏻‍♂️ Fines are established for breaking the rules.

🏨 Recreation facilities open up for the overflow of Covid-19 patients.

🦠🎥 Press conferences daily from the Prime Minister and Premier.

🦠Daily updates on new cases, recoveries, and deaths

🚙 Barely anyone on the roads.

😷 People wearing masks and gloves outside.

🦠 Essential service workers are terrified to go to work.

Thousands of people lose their jobs. 

🩺🏨 Medical field workers are afraid to go home to their families.

😷 Shortage of masks, gowns, gloves for our front-line workers.

🦠🚑 Shortage of ventilators for the critically ill.

Two hospitals on the north west coast of Tasmania are closed because of a large cluster of cases there. Over 5000 people are asked to quarantine for 14 days and the Australian Defence Force come to reopen and staff the Emergency Department once it is cleaned. 

BUT:

☀️🌈 We start enjoying the simple things in life again.

 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 🧩 Families get to spend a lot more time together.

🏘 We check on our neighbours, friends and family more.

🔨 We finally have time to do all those projects we never have time for.

📺📖 🎨🎲🎮 We don’t have to feel guilty about doing things we love.

🎼 Singers perform online.

📽 Movies are released online instead of in cinemas.

🎙Talk shows are hosted from home.

💻 We realise how lucky we are to live in a time when we have the internet.

 💵🍣 We support local businesses by doing online shopping and buying takeaway food instead of eating in.

 

👫 We take notice of others more and know we are all in this together.  

Businesses adapt to the needs of their customers. 

The government provides billions of dollars of financial support for thousands of people and businesses for the next six months, including a job keeper package and coronavirus supplements.

People draw on the footpath for others to see as they're exercising.

People put teddy bears in windows so that kids can go on bear hunts around their community. 

☀️💦 Pollution decreases and we have cleaner air and water.

💛 👫 We are reminded about what the most important things in life are.

It still feels like we are not even half way through it in Tasmania right now as there are so many new cases every day.  We are very lucky as my job is classed as an essential one, and I feel for so many people who have lost their jobs including close friends of mine.

Even though it's not ideal at the moment, I know that once we are through this and life is back to normal that we are going to look back on this time and be grateful for the time we had to just slow down and be together.

Term 1 is over...too early!

What a wierd term 1! We were on a high at the beginning of the term, after having a wonderful time in Melbourne over the summer holidays.

Kobe and I held onto summer as long as we could and went swimming every weekend while it was still warm enough and some nights after school.  We also went along to watch the finals at the Launceston International tennis.  

We were lucky to be given VIP tickets to go along to the Sesame Street Circus Spectacular when it was in town and it was lovely to have mum and Simone and some of her kids join us.  

Last year both Harri and Kobe were elected to be in the Student Leadership Boards at their schools for this year.  We loved summer holidays and are never really ready to go back to school and work.  Because Harri is in the Student Leadership Board this year, he has to wear a different uniform.  It was funny teaching him how to do his tie. 

It was lovely to be able to go along to both of their school assemblies to see Harri inducted and presented with his blazer and badges, and also got to see Kobe presented with his badges.  

Kobe had a great start to the school year and was enjoying being busy as a sports leader.  He really enjoyed doing daily PE every day with the younger classes.  He was also enjoying being on the Student Leadership Board and got to participate in a leadership conference at the beginning of the term.  He was enjoying having weekly meetings and doing different jobs around the school.  

He was asked to meet the Federal Minister for Education (Dan Tehan) at the office one day and took him down to meet the rest of the grade 5 and 6 students.  He cracked me up as he kept saying how nervous he was about meeting him. 

Harri was inducted as a the House Captain for Allen house at the beginning of the term. It was such a special day and I couldn't stop thinking about how Aaron would be so proud of him and how I wished he could've been there for it.  He looks so handsome in his blazer - just don't tell him I said that ;) 

It was great that Jalen could come along to the induction assembly with me, as it was held before he had to head off to Uni.

He had to sign an agreement which was also signed by myself and the school principal. 

It was such a lovely way to start off the year and I was so happy for the boys to know that they were finishing off their primary school and high school years by having such a huge roll at school, but we had no idea that the term would finish prematurely. 

Harri's first big role as House Captain was with the school swimming carnival.  He said it was lots of fun and even though he's not really a swimmer, he did really well in his races. 

I went along with Harri to a school BBQ to meet his teachers and also a Grade 10 information night. On the way home we went and got a treat at Maccas and he was cracking himself up as he was doing something on his phone.  He then showed me this!

Teenagers are actually lots of fun - most of the time!

Although I always dread going back to work after summer holidays, I always enjoy it once I'm there. It's so nice to see the kids again and I have beautiful friends at work who I love seeing every day.  We had a fun excursion to Greens Beach and different stops along the way as a part of the Grade 5/6 HASS unit.  We had the best day and the weather was beautiful.   

Jalen headed back down to Hobart for his second year of Bachelor of Media.  When he dropped him off last year we were all very emotional as it was his first time away from us, but he quickly settled in and it didn't take long for us to get used to him living away from home. 

This year he just drove himself down and he was really happy to get back down there.  Last year he stuck to himself and was happy just spending time on his own, but this year he thought he'd put more of an effort in to get to know people and be more social. 

He decided to go down for Orientation Week so he could get involved in the O Week activities to hopefully gt to know people who were staying at the same uni accommodation that he is.  It was fun to see pics of him pop up on their Instagram page and to talk to him every night, as he was having lots of fun and getting to know lots of people.   This pic was taken just before he left for Hobart. 

I support the Swimming and Water Safety Program at the beginning of the year for two weeks.  I absolutely love swimming and when we spend the week at the Aquatic Centre, I'm always jealous of people who are spending their day swimming laps or doing Aqua Fitness classes or going to the gym.  It reminded me that there is a life outside of work and being a Mum and made me really miss the days when I would go to the gym every day.

One day at school I was talking to some work friends about how I wanted to do Aqua classes and join the gym again, but I was too lazy.  One of my friends told me she had a gym membership at the pool but hadn't gone for a while and then another friend said she was thinking of joining the gym at the pool.  One thing lead to another and within a couple of days five of us were joined up as gym members and started going to Aqua classes together and also swam laps.  It was so nice to be doing something for myself again and it was extra fun to be going with friends.  Unfortunately we only got to go for a few weeks, before they had to shut the pool and gym down because of Coronavirus (a whole other post!).

In March it was Danny and Kate's wedding at Boat Harbour Beach.  Our family grew up with Kate's family and Danny is the son of my cousin Felicity, so it was lovely to be there on their special day.  Coronavirus was just starting to spread in Australia when they got married and they cracked everyone up when Dan announced that they could kiss, and they bumped elbows instead.

It was such a lovely day and so fun to catch up with Dan and Lou and Tim and Helene.

It wasn't long after their wedding, that things started to get really scary with Coronavirus and that changed the term completely.  Jalen ended up with all of his Uni classes switching to online.  He was having a great time in Hobart with new friends and was even playing sport with them, going out lots and hanging out with them all.  Because of all the restrictions that had to be put in place because of Coronavirus, it meant they could no longer hang out together so he decided that he may as well come home until things settle down.  So Jay has no been home and studying online for a few weeks. 

Harri and Kobe also ended up doing learning from home for the last couple of weeks of Term as the Tasmanian government made it so parents could choose whether to send their children to school or not, and then asked that only children of essential workers or those who can't be supported at home attend school.  The last week of term was then announced as being Student Free Days so that teachers could plan home learning for Term 2. 

I had to still go to work so I was glad to know that the three boys were home together.  It's not ideal to have them studying at home on their own, but they're all pretty responsible and I know they'll get things done without me.  They do have the option to go to school, but both Harri and Kobe prefer to stay home until things settle down. 

It looks like they may be learning at home for most (or probably all) of Term 2 and I'm not really worried about them academically, but feel sad that they're missing out on being with their friends in their last year of primary and high school and don't get to being doing their roles in the Student Leadership Boards at the moment.   Jay is really missing being in Hobart with his friends and I'm sad for him that he's had to come home for a little while, as he was having so much fun.  

We are currently on our two weeks of school holidays and I'm loving having some down time.  It's different not being able to go anywhere or see anyone, but it's nice to have time to do things around the house and to just really relax before an even weirder Term 2.