The Virus is Still Here

It’s been over a year and a half since the Wuhan virus arrived in the United States from China. Its also been called Coronavirus and Covid-19. Whatever you prefer to call it, the virus is still here.

Covid has affected so many people from those having the virus, those losing loves ones and those not being able to see family and friends. People have lost time from work while others have lost their jobs. Stay at home orders were announced and when we could go out, masks were a must. Everyone was washing their hands more than normal and using hand sanitizer. But that didn’t stop Covid from showing it’s ugly face.

Our family started wearing masks early on and to help her learn about masks we put one on her stuffed puppy and little bear. Once they had masks on, Lia put her’s on without any problem.

Lia would remind people to wear a mask. She would even wear her mask when she walked to the mailbox! She go lots of thumbs up from people passing by. http://themarthareview.com/lia-says-please-wear-a-mask/

Lia became our neighborhood mask spokesperson to remind people if they didn’t have one on. If we were out and someone didn’t have a mask, she would tell them they need to wear a mask.

For us personally the virus didn’t change a lot in our household. Alexandra, Lia, Rich and I aren’t ones to go shopping or out in crowds on normal days so staying home wasn’t any major change for us, we ordered groceries and picked them up curbside. I think those that were affected the hardest with the new way of living were the elderly and young children.

Lia was only 1 1/2 years old when this started and our elderly neighbor was in her 80’s. Lia and Ruthie would always visit each other and share delicious baked goods. But all that stopped and they could only wave to each other from across the street. Lia couldn’t understand why she couldn’t go see Ruthie and Ruthie couldn’t understand why she couldn’t come over.

It was so sad to see Ruthie sitting by her front door and not being able to give her a hug. One day Lia drew chalk hearts in the driveway and would wave to everyone going by. That made her happy because she could still share her smiles with others. Then she made a few posters and she held them up so Ruthie could see them from her house.

But it wasn’t just Ruthie that Lia missed, she also missed her best friend and buddy, Carlos who lives a few doors from us across the street. When both were outside, they would get so excited and wanted to go play. Nope, that couldn’t happen. How do you explain to a 2 and 3 year old that a virus is preventing them from playing with friends? Finally when it seemed like it was safe and the numbers were dropping Carlos and Layla made it to Lia’s 2nd birthday party. A few more visits and it seemed like old times for Lia and Carlos.

Finally after research and trials, vaccines were made available. Some people can’t or decide against them but Rich and I were ready to sign up as soon as they were in our area. http://themarthareview.com/2nd-covid-vaccine/ We both got the two part Phizer vaccines. While we felt a big of relieve we still wore our masks. As more people were vaccinated, people started to show a sign of relieve and nixed the masks. We live in a tourist town and people from other high risk states would come vacationing and not take head to the safety warnings. So the numbers of Covid cases and deaths were on the rise once again.

A few months ago it seems like the states were getting control of the virus and in our state the numbers were dwindling. But then came the Delta variant and people were getting sick again, even those that had been vaccinated. Mask orders were put back in place in some places and Lia continues to spread the word to please wear a mask.

I’m not sure when or even if Covid and or Delta variant or even others will ever be totally gone but I do know that for the past 1 1/2 years Covid has affected everyone even if they didn’t get the virus. The virus is still here and I don’t think anyone has any idea when we will all be safe.