I was at home on March 12, when I watched officials decide to call off the game between the Thunder and the Utah Jazz, out of concern about COVID-19. It was a bit of silliness really, if you asked me. This was just a big, overgrown version of the flu.
As program coordinator for FIRSTEP, I had talked with various group leaders and other volunteers that come out to the center about what policies we had in place to prevent the spread of Coronavirus. Spread? What spread?? One by one, they all decided to start cancelling services until further notice. I totally respected their decision, but I didn't quite understand. After all, it was just a big, overgrown version of the flu!
Over that weekend, life seemed to change dramatically. It was the last time I got to hug my parents. Stories began to hit the news about hoarding of toilet paper and other "essential" items at the grocery store. I went to Sam's to pick up a few things, but nothing too extreme. They had a little bit of toilet paper, but absolutely NO soap or other cleaning supplies. People were taking this awfully seriously, for just a big version of the flu...
Monday came along and we heard news that our corporate office had made the decision to effectively put the center on "lock down." No more passes or visitation, we also wouldn't be accepting any new clients until further notice. I knew this was going to go over like a turd in a punch bowl, and it did. We had a handful of clients leave, those that stayed behind were pretty unhappy and made sure we knew about it.
I started to read up on it. I started to take it seriously. I went to the store to get a few more things, because I didn't want to have to go back for a while. The store was BARE. It was stark. It was scary. I honestly had to fight back the tears, because I didn't know what to think. For the first time in a while, I thought that one of those bottles of wine they sell in stores now might be a good idea... but no, I can't do that. I called my Mom. Asked her if she needed anything. I was able to get her a small little turkey breast. Helping her made me feel better. Now I just needed to get out of there.
Before too long, Oklahoma had it's first official case... but it was up in Tulsa. No big deal. He had just flown in from overseas and hadn't had any exposure. We can beat this. Then another one popped up, then another. Then we got the first case in Oklahoma City. Then the first one happened in Cleveland county. Then it just EXPLODED. It seemed overnight we couldn't keep up with the number of new cases... and the number of people dying from this new disease.
Here we are, a little over a month later since this debacle started. It's been five days since I last posted and the number of infected has blown up to nearly 140,000. We have lost 108 souls in Oklahoma. Some "experts" state that we are at the peak, or at least near it. Once we hit that peak, it can only get better from here. But then you listen to other experts, and some think that we might have to practice some form of social distancing at least until 2022 or until a vaccine is in widespread distribution. I don't think we'll ever return TOTALLY to the way it was before this whole thing happened, but I can only pray for some form of "normalcy" and that it happens sooner rather than later.
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