Our state had a reasonably mild "first-wave," that in retrospect, probably wasn't the first wave at all. It seems (to me, at least), that the initial outbreak of COVID in our state was centered in nursing homes, prisons, and other places where folks are institutionalized. The peak infection rate was not too high, we never ran out of ICU beds, and something like 70% of the deaths were in these sorts of institutions.

Now it seems we're on the uptick and we're having more community spread. The average age is lower, I think our rate is as high as it's ever been, and hospitalizations are increasing. The only silver lining right now is that the death rate hasn't gone up (yet).

This has created a lot of uncertainty for our family. We were trying to figure out how we live in the age of COVID, through masks and distancing, while still living our lives. I only go into work once a week right now, and do the rest of my work from home. Our kids have been home all summer.

As we get later in the summer, though, and different areas have different COVID status, it's hard to know what to do moving forward. All three kids will be going off to school over the next few weeks, two of whom are going to areas where there is a high rate of infection. The schools all have plans, but we're having a hard time understanding just how solid and workable their plans are. I still want my kids to go off to school, but it makes me nervous.

Likewise with my own work, it's hard to tell what the immediate future will bring. We don't have any documented worker-to-worker transmission in our institution, and so I don't think we're likely to close back down again. However, if there are a few examples of transmission, I imagine there will be a higher likelihood of shutting down again.

At the moment, I feel like things are all in limbo, and that makes me crazy! As I said elsewhere, I'm a planner by nature, and am thrown off-kilter when I can't make a real plan.