First Days of Kyle Amadeo and Linda Smith

 Mid January-March 26

 New Jersey and New York

 Early Recollections March 25.

The following is a recollection of two persons' experiences during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020. The first account is of my own experiences, and the second is of a 76-year-old woman who has requested that she be referred to as Linda.

            Prior to the spread of the disease my own life could best be described as quiet and slow, I spent little time outside of either work or school; and so, when the epidemic was declared on March 11^th, 2020 and things began to deteriorate little of my life changed immediately. It wasn’t until the 25th that the outbreak really began for me in a serious personal way; it was on that day that I began working from home. It is easy to recall when I began working home, even the exact date is easy for me to remember, though I did check just to be sure, because my supervisor sent us an email explaining how I would operate from home.  I should clarify that I work for the Deans Department at Rutgers Newark, mostly as a bureaucrat; a somewhat dull job for a somewhat dull person. 

My initial reaction to the disease was one of indifference to what I saw as another media craze. No different from the swine flu panic earlier in my life (I’m 23 as of this writing), or SARS before that. Tragic for those few it affected, but hardly a concern of mine given that I have no resources or skills that may be useful in combating the disease. Rutgers University closed down in person classes before I was sent home from my work in the Dean’s office, so for a while, especially in the early days, I didn’t expect much of my routine to change. 

It was only when the orders to stay home happened on the 25^th that my life began to be affected, that the disease became real rather than another example of the media’s need for sensationalist stories. Prior to that I took little notice of the pandemic or its effects, I didn’t mask up or do much of anything to protect myself, other than watching where I put my hands more carefully on the subway and PATH trains. My one concession for the disease was that I washed my hands more often and made much greater use of hand sanitizer at my office. It was only when my work, and everyone else’s, told people to start working from home that I began to take things seriously. After all money is the end all and be all of our capitalist society, and if even the misers were telling everyone to stay home and lower their work efficiency, then that was my clue things were really serious. Still though my attitude had yet to fully adapt, I was taking precautions at this time, wearing masks and for a time when concerns about how long the virus could live on other surfaces were still relatively unknown, gloves. But I was still treating the disease like a minor issue, similar to a major snow storm. Inconvenient, at times annoying, possibly even dangerous, but of no real threat in the long run. I figured that by the end of the month, or at the latest by mid-April 2020, things would be back to normal and the political pundits would be arguing over responded to the disease in the best fashion.

That view honestly died when I saw the lines at the supermarket. I went food shopping the day after the 25^th, and those lines were when I really became concerned about the situation. The United States is either the largest or one of the largest producers of food stuffs in the world, if we were starting to see shortages of certain food items then I felt we really were in trouble.

It was around then that I decided to move back in with my mother, both for monetary reasons, as well as safety concerns for her.  I was initially concerned that my mother might need help dealing with people at places like the market, which thankfully never panned out, but the horror stories of people fighting each other over toilet paper gave me the impression that we were suddenly facing shortages of more essential items. 

When it was clear some of the stories were either exaggerated or simply not pertinent to the situation facing me, my life began to settle down. I began adapting from working at home, learned to deal with Rutgers systems remotely, and just generally adapted to the ever slow slogged life in quarantine. Aside from necessary items like food, both my mother and for the first 6 months of lock down. We stayed home almost exactly to the day, and even then, my first non-food-based reason for leaving was to acquire a computer that could use Microsoft word.

 I adapted easily to quarantine if I’m being honest. I didn’t really care about not being able to leave my home, even prior to the pandemic, my social life wasn’t exactly popping. I changed from the commuter’s slog to work to a whole different kind of slog, but at least I didn’t waste money traveling anymore. I am somewhat blessed to have a very small family; aside from my mother, there isn’t anyone else for me to worry about. Frankly I was just happy to still have a job, a fact I know millions of Americans aren’t as fortunate about; still being able to be paid has made enduring Covid far easier.

Linda, who saw it coming before most of us

Linda was born, and mostly reared in New Jersey; she has lived most of her life there and has raised a family including grandchildren there. She is 76 years old, originally from Newark, she now lives in a comfortably middle-class neighborhood in the middle of New Jersey, which at her request, will not be named. She has three children, of which two have children of their own, and a husband 10 years her senior. Both she and her husband are retired, when they did work Linda worked in the family business, and her husband was an engineer. Needless to say, she has much to lose to the disease and a number of family members which are in the most danger to the virus, including a brother in his 90s.  Despite her age, Linda is a vibrant member of the community; like many of her generation she is very active in her community church as well as various other social functions.

When I originally asked Linda about her thoughts when the disease was declared a pandemic in the US, her only response was to shrug her shoulders. For Linda the apprehension that the disease might actually be a major threat began in mid-January 2020, long before the March 11 announcement. Her son, the one without children and who for the purposes of this archive we’ll call Richard, was actually in China at the start of the outbreak. When word of Covid reached the US, Linda was obviously worried as any mother would be, and to compound matters . Barely making it out of the outbreak zone before Chinese officials locked down the area, and just out of Beijing before the closing of the airports. Richard, through Linda, described American preparations for the disease in airports as completely non-existent. Rather than risk spreading Covid to a cab or Uber driver Richard had his parents drop his car off at the airport. Richard was so wary of spreading the disease to his apartment (he lives in a city near DC), that he decided to stay with his parents in their home.

After returning to live with his parents, both Richard and they quarantined for two weeks, with Richard quarantining in his own room completely isolated from his parents. Linda would bring his food and leave it at the door. He was so concerned with spreading the disease to his parents that he kept the plates even after he finished with them. According to Linda, the room where their son stayed had an attached bathroom, and he would wash plates in its sink. It is important to remember that this is still late January to early February 2020, which means Linda was far more careful with the disease far earlier than I was or than, indeed, many people in the United States.  Part of this caution stemmed from Linda and her husband’s own vulnerability to deadly pathogen, and part of it was Richard’s warning. While in China, Linda’s son had been living with two practicing doctors who apparently hammered into Richard the severity and danger of the new virus. As part of Richard’s return package, he brought along with him masks, not the much-coveted N 95, Linda doesn’t know what kind, and gloves for his parent’s protection.

Even after Linda and her family completed their quarantine, they continued to isolate for the most part, with Linda asking friends and family to do their food shopping with Linda paying them back when they dropped off the food.  Something a little funny of note was when the so-called toilet paper crisis really hit, Linda remembers being well stocked for such an occasion, claiming she always kept extra in cases of emergency.  Linda maintains good stocks of everyday goods even now that things have normalized a little bit more, but she continues to be cautious. Even now, nine months after her life was first touched by Covid-19, Linda has yet to return to normal patterns of behavior. Doing no shopping or other outside activities, she has even yet to return to in-person participation in her church.  Linda remains ever wary of the disease, informing me that she has a system for the mail where she waits 3 days before opening anything, shifting each day's mail until opening day arrives. 

This archive is already too long but something of importance to note is a situation involving Richard which indicates how much corona has taken over our lives. In early August Richard suffered a heart failure, one of his main symptoms was difficulty breathing, which as we all know is a symptom of the Coronavirus.  Corona has consumed so much of our lives that much of the rest of the world’s problems has Things that would have garnered more attention 8 or 9 months ago have almost completely been ignored by the largest of news outlets, Armenia and Azerbaijan are growing ever closer to war, Syria is still the problem child of the international community and coverage of the Russian and Turkish interference in multiple conflicts has almost disappeared. Even now Libya’s civil war rolls on unbated as foreign powers throw money, weapons, and mercenaries into the quagmire of a conflict. And those are only small handful of the conflicts currently ongoing in the world, among all the other problems facing all of the human race, but still it often feels like the world froze due to the Coronavirus. But like the man said, the world rolls on; and if we forget that fact, get drawn into that all too American stereotype of only being concerned by what happens in the US, we will be left behind.  

Special thanks to Linda for sharing her story, all information was gathered by Zoom interview on September 20, at 4:19.

Link to Archival Record of Kyle Amadeo's First Days

Link to Archival Record of Linda's First Days