The Zhao Family

Just so I NEVER forget..... April 2020

So here's a good summary about the impact of the Corona Covid-19 virus:
Definition of the virus: It is a disease causes respiratory illness (like the flu) with symptoms such as a cough, fever, and in more severe cases, difficulty breathing

Covid-19 started in Wuhan China in November 2019

World Health Organization declared the Novel Coronavirus (Covid-19) as World Pandemic, on March 11th, 2020.

Wuhan, China became epicenter, then spread to Italy, then to Spain, then to US as of 04/11/2020

Confirmed Cases 1,709,014

Recovered 382,404

Deaths 103,536

US President have daily press conferences on updates of new cases, recoveries, and deaths.
US Government puts $2 Trillion Stimulus Package for all Americans. Yes, that's $2,000,000,000,000.00 
Each adult will receive $1,200 and each child will receive $500.
US offer small business $10,000 without repay.
US unemployment reach close to 20 million claims

Gas price is $1.89
All schools have been cancelled from March, probably until end of school year - yes cancelled.
Online classrooms have been setup for schools for all students to continue education.
School give out Chromebook laptops for students who does not have laptops at home to connect to school.

CDC confuse people at first tell people don't wear masks, then suggest people to wear masks in public.
Government closes the border to all non-essential travel. Airports, trains, buses operations cut down to operating at 10%.
Local and public parks, outside and inside sports courts, recreation center, and entire cities locked up with locks.
No gatherings of 50 or more, then 20 or more, now 5 or more are allowed to gather.
Fines and jail time are established for breaking the rules.
Non-essential stores and businesses forced to close such as shopping malls.
Only essential people like hospital workers, grocery stores, banks, etc were opened. -Da was considered essential worker at the hospital.
Essential service workers are terrified to go to work. -Da is in this category.
Medical field workers are afraid to go home to their families. -Da goes home everyday, go straight to bathroom, shower, separate his laundry, before talking to any of his family.
Shortage of Covid tests, masks, gowns, gloves for our front-line workers.
Shortage of ventilators for the critically ill.
Doctors offices, prompt care centers, and hospitals will not test people if they do not have symptoms of Covid since there's such a huge shortage test kits, so there are many carriers and they don't know it.
As more Covid test kits become more available, cases rise.
As of 4/10/2020, Da's hospital, where he works, has 23 confirmed cases and most of them are on ventilators.

Panic buying sets in and we have no toilet paper, no disinfecting supplies, no paper towel no laundry soap, no hand sanitizer.
Shelves are bare.
Manufacturers, distilleries and other businesses switch their lines to help make visors, masks, hand sanitizer and PPE (Person Protection Equipment).

Self-distancing or social distancing of 6 ft measures was mandated by the state governor.
Tape on the floors at grocery stores and others to help distance shoppers (6ft) from each other and only one direction for shoppers. Special shopping hours dedicated for senior shoppers
Limited number of people inside stores, therefore, lineups outside the store doors. Many people were lining outside stores to keep the 6ft distance.
Inside grocery stores, workers wear face shields and gloves, large plexiglass shields are placed at checkout counters to shield between shoppers and check-out workers.

Cannot socialize with anyone outside of your home, not even family members not living with you. Only thing you can do it use modern technology to video chat via platforms like Zoom, Facetime, Whatsapp, and similar internet based connection.
People wearing masks and gloves outside.

Entire sports seasons cancelled.
Concerts, tours, festivals, entertainment events - cancelled.
Weddings, family celebrations, holiday gatherings - cancelled.
No masses, church meetings and gatherings are all canceled or closed.
Stadiums and recreation facilities open up for the overflow of Covid-19 patients.
Barely anyone on the roads. Auto insurance refund 15% since no one is driving and accidents are down

So with all so much of this is going on. Da still have to go work everyday while Abbey stays home to file taxes for her client and  to take care of the kids. Although the kids are older and don't need as much help, they will would call mom for things. Since we are home so much, we have been eating a lot and so the grocery bill is way up. The kids are trying their best to use online tools like webcam to attend school online and do their homework but being online is also very distracting and attracting the kids to play videos games more. It is very difficult for them to balance. So when Da comes home, we still try to get some physical exercise but turning off all electronics and go outside to do some activities. Initially we would go to the tennis courts behind the local middle school to play for an hour or so. Then after a couple weeks, the local governor stated all public parks are closed. One day we went there and they locked up all the courts. So now we would go out and play badminton or Frisbee in front of our house, go biking or walks for an hour or so to get some fresh air. We can only involve these activities within our family, we can not invite others to join us. We haven't seen any of our family members, cousins, or relatives outside our home. And another impact are Clayton and Cayleigh's graduating from 8th and 5th grade might be cancelled. We will find out as news and announcements come out everyday of changes.

There are some great things did come out of this whole 'lock down' for everyone to stay home. One of the biggest benefit is that our kids are learning to cook new foods on new recipes. Abbey's tax season is extended to July 15th so she can spend more time with family. The kid also borrowed around 80-100 books from the library before it closed and we don't have to return it until this Covid lock down re-opens. The kids have become creative make art or art frames, growing veggies, and doing other creative things. Our family is finding new ways to play games as a family, online games, card games, and board games with friends across the country and the world. We watch a lot of movies, pretty much one movie per night. The kids get to go to bed really late and can wake up really late too.

Lately there has been a lot of changes to our family and as well as the world around us. This has impacted a lot of significant changes.

First of all, Da's job, which he has been working at the hospital as an IT tech for the last twelve year, his position with a few of his coworkers, was outsourced to a contracting company at the beginning of the year. He will still do the work at the hospital but his paycheck will be from the new company along with other associated benefits. In the initial month, there wasn't much changes, however as months progress, a lot of things changed. The management changed from Chris Brown to new managers with the new company, in fact there was two managers, which both are 'remote' managers. This means they are coming from the new company and are not always on site to manage the staff, since these new managers manage staff from other hospitals too. These managers have a very different style of management and since this is a large contracting company, it seems like all their care about is bottom and numbers and metrics, so since the change occurred each and everyday the management want numbers to be reported, which is contrastly different from the previous management.

With that said, Da have been very actively looking for other job opportunities. He was informed of the changes about a year ago but he he wasn't actively looking, but since this change and especially the new company culture of just seeing employees as a number, don't seem to value the employee talents, and much of the responsibilities have been taken away to basically not doing what he used to do, Da has been spending much of his time looking for a new job. Since Da had become complacent in his old job, he hasn't really looked for a job in over 10 years, much has changed in the IT industry. He needed to polished his resume, he has been talking to friends, church friends, school, and reaching out to many places to get a lot of pointers and how to apply for jobs. He has applied to many websites and sent out many resumes since late 2019.

He learned that during the holidays or end of year, there aren't many companies responding back to his applications. Then after New Years, there were some responses, but only phone interviews. Then around February a infectious disease called Corona Virus or Covid-19 surfaced and became a global pandemic, which impacted the entire globe, including US and making job finding impossible. ( Covid-19 will be discussed in a different post.) So this pandemic literally shut down all businesses or forced many employees to work from home. Since this impacted the US economy and many businesses, many companies aren't hiring anymore so Da's not getting responses from employers that he applied to.

Although he's thankful for still having a job, he still has to report to work everyday at the hospital. As the confirmed cases of patients climb at work, reaching over 19 confirmed patients, he's taking more precautions to not contract the virus and definitely not bring it home.

So while there has been a lapse in our family posting, it is due to Da trying to figure things out, using a lot of resources and time to find another job, and diligently staying safe during the continual changes and impact of this Covid-19 virus.