Journaling Through: 3/27/20

So I got an "Emergency Alert" on my phone, the kind I associate with tornadoes and dangerous electrical storms. It said, "COVID-19 is in your community...If you leave home, assume you were exposed to COVID-19."  

Now, I'm not saying that sending out alerts like this is a bad idea, but I do have a few questions.

First, when they say "your community," what exactly are they talking about?  Dane County?  The Town of Oregon?  My neighbors up the street?

As I frantically searched online for the origins of this alert, one thought occurred to me: Maybe this was how the authorities alerted individuals to the fact that they had come into contact with someone who had tested positive for COVID-19.

They're supposed to track down all of the people whom an infected person might have in turn infected.  Had I come into contact with someone in my community who was infected with COVID-19?

I became super-aware of the back of my throat, suddenly on the verge of discomfort.  But my research distracted me from fabricating more symptoms, and I soon learned that that wasn't it. The alert was not for me, specifically, as a chance victim of a chance encounter with some infected person.

The alert had gone out to everyone in all of Dane County, because the number of infected people has increased in the past two weeks from 1-3 confirmed cases to several hundred.

And now I understand how some of my friends feel when they receive my instant messages with "helpful information" about COVID-19.  We're all following the news obsessively, but on the odd occasions when we're not, we may be diligently trying to focus on our work. We may be attempting to carve out a little time to not read about COVID-19 on a phone app or watch it on TV.

I was at my desk trying to work when I received the Emergency Alert.  And obviously, as outlined above, it took me several close readings and layers of online research to figure out exactly what it was saying to me.

For one who was already sheltering in place at home, as instructed, it was an Emergency Alert saying, DON'T FORGET TO PANIC!

But I get it: Everyone interprets state, federal, and CDC guidelines according to their own biases.  Everyone has to weigh that specifically COVID-19 sense of urgency against other countervailing pressures, which can also weigh heavily in the balance. COVID-19 has a lot to compete with for people's absolute attention and fealty. Officials need to put the fear of God into all of us, to make each of us bend the knee.

And I get that's why officials feel they need to scare me half to death with a vaguely worded Emergency Alert. But I hope this Coronavirus PR doesn't give me a freakin' heart attack, since, God knows, it's driving up my blood pressure.

Once I had figured out that nothing had changed at all for me since before I'd received the alert (besides my elevated stress level), I decided to start my weekend early.  I took a long hot shower to wash that COVID-19 right out of my hair.  And then I sat down to write this, a towel wrapped around my head, because this is how I journal through.