!March 2020 migratory flows
---
agk's diary
10 March 2020 (on paper)
16 March 2025 @ 21:46 UTC (transcribed)
---
written: blue ballpoint, 100 sheet wide-rule yellow
composition book on a couch in a campus building
typed: Evy's GPD MicroPC, I broke everything else
---
It's been five years since the coronavirus 19 pan-
demic arrived in my country. I embargoed these
journal entries, but now all parties have retired.
I lightly edited for length, clarity, redaction.
---
Tues March 10 2020
There are 1,001 confirmed covid-19 cases in my
country, 8 in my state. Our cases are at University
of Kentucky Chandler hospital in Lexington, on home
quarantine in a county northeast of Lexington, and
in Louisville. Today Berea College was the state's
first campus to announce closing. Online-only
courses start Friday. I have a Spanish exam in the
morning.
Berea's closure
The closure decision was reached by Berea's Admin-
istrative Council, communicated by mass email at
lunch today by college president Roelofs. Faculty,
staff, and students learned simultaneously. All
scramble to reorganize classes, decide and answer
questions on partial information, figure out
housing, rides, and grade strategies. There are
high emotions---fear, panic, anger, concern.
[2025 note: Unlike other colleges, Berea only
accepts poor students, Pell-grant eligible for
free tuition. It's 10% poor international studen-
ts. It prioritizes the first in a family to attend
college. It's highly selective and academically
rigorous, a "hillbilly Harvard," but moving home
on short notice ranges from hard to impossible for
most students.]
As far as I know, no standing pandemic flu response
plan or disaster communication plan guided the
decision and initial response. My boss is director
of Risk Management. She was intimately involved in
the college's response to the 2009-2010 pandemic
H1N1 flu. She thinks the college's sudden decision
may have been a copycat of Vanderbilt University's
decision to close. She wasn't consulted, just
informed concurrently with everybody else.
It makes sense the Ivy League colleges all closed.
They're on spring break. Their students travel lib-
erally, internationally. It's highly likely their
students are partying in China, South Korea, Italy,
France, Spain, and Germany. A returning cluster
won't be automatically quarantined at customs
(their parents'd make a stink). They'll only report
travel on an honor system. Their risk profile is
high. We have no means to restrain risky behavior
by the rich in this country. Close their schools.
While Berea's risk of infection is lower, boss-
woman speculates our risk acuity remains high due
to an uncertain regulatory environment. If one case
presented, it's very possible the college'd be
required to quarantine all students to their dorms,
become a cruise ship, deliver meals, etc. That's
beyond the college's capacity. Off-campus students,
staff, etc., would be expected to self-quarantine
at home and not be the college's responsibility.
I called my friend TC, who teaches at Yale's School
of Public Health. Connecticut has two confirmed
cases. She's struggling with her risk calculus. Go
stay with her grandmother in Vermont immediately in
hopes she isn't yet infected and won't infect her
grandmother, shelter there where she can assist her
grandmother through whatever happens? Vermont has
one confirmed case, a 42-year-old who threw a party
in Brattleboro, she says. Or should she risk not
seeing her grandmother, not being able to help her
til the pandemic runs its course? She said she's in
"a panic spiral."
I encouraged my fiancee Evy to consider traveling
to our country's pandemic epicenter, Kirkland,
Washington state. Washington has 200+ confirmed
cases. She could get a job in the nursing home most
affected so far. She called the nursing home.
They're understaffed and hiring out-of-state CNAs.
Evy's risk matrix and options
A bad epidemic could strand her in the Seattle
area. Even not stranded, she should self-quarantine
before returning to Kentucky. If infected, she'll
need resources to quarantine without income, maybe
seek symptomatic treatment and PCR testing. After
recovery, her immunity might be an asset, at least
against the strain she gets.
After the first week of novelty wears off she'll be
at risk for boredom, depression, and other impacts
of high-stress, repetitive, frustrating, low-paying
work combined with social isolation and lots of
death.
She'll need housing where she won't expose vulner-
able people, like an extended-stay motel room or
apartment. Kirkland's expensive. Housing will be
hard to find, getting to work tough, and trying not
to spread the epidemic isolating.
Additional money, if the nursing home doesn't pay
enough for rent, the commute, and travel to and
eventually from Washington state could be by some-
thing like gofundme or Patreon, especially if she
shares what she learns.
Social interaction could be via internet with
understanding scuttlebutts. She might manage social
distanced in-person coffee, drinks, or walks. It'll
probably be nearly impossible to initiate friend-
ships in compressed time amid crisis. In northern
Italy bar patrons are expected to sit 3 meters
apart. Who knows if that meaningfully decreases
transmission? It hasn't slowed their trash fire.
This will be very hard work to do without a buddy.
[2025 note: Evy didn't go to Kirkland. Pandemic
came to us. Her hospital unit became the overflow
covid unit during the bad delta and omicron waves.
She worked hard in an academic teaching hospital
with way more resources than any nursing facility.
Lots of her patients died. She prepared their
bodies with dignity and grieved them. She's my
healthcare hero.]
