I'm Social Distancing, But My Parents Are Essential Workers So I'm Still Not Safe From the Coronavirus
It's been 16 days since I started social distancing. I knew from the get go that it was the right decision, not just for myself, but for the several hundred people that I could possibly infecting. That count does not include my co-workers, my neighbors, and the family members that I live with. It's actually the hundreds of nursing home patients that live in the facility where my mom works.
According to CDC guidelines, if I had the coronavirus, COVID-19, it would now be safe for me to continue to interact with the world if everything was normal. Unfortunately, for me, there's no real way to be safe from COVID-19. This is because my parents are considered essential workers, so they must still continue to work as normal while everyone stays home.
Due to where my mom works, she has been going in every single day into one of the most dangerous places to be in this outbreak. As the activities director of a nursing home, it's her responsibility to make sure that all the residents are happy and stay busy while living there. But it's gotten tougher since group activities have now been cancelled and families and guests are no longer allowed to visit. She has had to schedule hundreds of video calls, call in some extra supplies for new games and activities, and come up with new ways to do everyday tasks like the morning announcements as efficiently as possible. But above everything else, she has to ensure that patients are staying positive, even though they are within the age group that is the most at-risk under COVID-19.
My dad is also an essential worker. He works down by the local ports, which are still open due to shipments coming in. While he is pretty isolated where he works — typically operating a machine to help take stuff out of the water through a process called dredging — he still has to interact with co-workers and must travel back and forth between work and home.
A post shared by Tamara Fuentes (@tamarafuentes_) on May 18, 2017 at 5:29pm PDT
Their experiences are different than mine and my sister's, who also has been working from home due to the virus. She just reached the 14-day mark of social distancing, but with my parents coming in and out every single day, there's always a possibility that they could bring the virus in and infect us with it as well.
My parents have been trying to come up with a game plan since we started to work from home to keep the virus away. They call when they get here so they don't have to touch doorknobs. They take off their shoes outside, go wash their hands, and immediately change into new clothes when they get into the house. After that, they run upstairs to take a shower to ensure that the virus is completely gone. They've also been keeping their work clothes in a separate bag so they don't infect their home clothes. Any bag or item that comes back in the house immediately gets disinfected with a wipe. It has slowly become a brand new system in our house that feels normal to do now.
Unlike some other families who have the ability to use a garage or another part of the house to separate the people who are working from home from those who are going into work everyday, we don't have that luxury. We can only hope that each day, with each of the careful decisions that we make, that we will be okay.
It's weird to be doing everything right and still have that possibility of getting infected by COVID-19. But I also think about how much I'm also helping them (and the people they interact with) by working from home and being safe in this situation.
My parents have always sacrificed for me to ensure that I could have a better life. I view this as another one of their sacrifices. Thankfully, we are privileged enough to be able to take these extra precautions in the hopes that we don't get infected.
So if you're in this situation as well, just know that you're not alone. I only hope that you're also doing your part as well by still staying at home and helping to flatten the curve. And for those people who keep going into work every single day, but are worried about their families, believe me when I say that we're more worried about you. It's hard, but we will get through this together.
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