covid diary: day 13

Today at noon, Gov. Holcomb announced a stay-at-home order for the state starting at midnight Wednesday. All non-essential businesses are supposed to shut down so everyone can stay at home. You would think that would include the factory Mike works at, right? Demand is way down because the industry it services has basically shut down its high season. However, as of when Mike left work this afternoon, management was still debating the legality of staying open. The legality of it. Not whether staying open would put more people in danger. Not whether those people would then go back out into their families, their communities, and spread that danger. They're worried about whether it's legal to stay open.

And frankly, that sucks. Yes, it would be great if Mike could keep drawing a paycheck. But that's not the only consideration at play. He's the only one leaving home on a regular basis, but even that puts all of us at risk. A few people he works with have spouses who are sick enough to warrant testing, but those people are still coming to work ... on the advice of management. If nothing else, this pandemic is certainly exposing how little workers' lives actually mean in the face of corporate interests.

On the home front, today is the first day of official spring break, so no school. Liam had 90 minutes of one-on-one driving instruction this morning, and was supposed to finish his mandated 6 hours this week, but that's canceled now in light of the governor's announcement. Life is kind of ... on hold. For everyone. We got to facetime with my mom and Jack earlier, and also with Erin and the kids. It was lovely to see everyone's faces and just have a little bit of normal conversation.

Nationwide cases: 46,910. Deaths: 594.