Tonight, Mrs. Mata and I sat down with our youngest to discuss the contingency plan in the likely event that we get sick. Most people will get a cold or flu. Mrs. Mata is a preschool teacher. I manage a facility. Dealing with people is our job. There is a high probability that COVID or the flu will be passed on to us and we will slip up in our precautions. The cold hard statisctics bear this out. We do not want to get sick. However, it is likely we will.
Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay
Furthermore, if one of us gets sick, the other will likely get sick as we sleep in the same bed and can't keep our hands to ourselves. Therefore, the plan is that both parents, us, will be out of commission for a couple of weeks. This has some practical concerns.
- We need foods that are easy to prepare so that our youngest can feed herself.
- We need a sanitary supply stock
- Contact information for relatives
- We need a stock of OTC medications: acetaminophen, allergy meds, etc. . .
- Protocol for seeking medical care. What will our criteria be for calling for help.
- Protocol in case our youngest also gets sick at the same time.
We expect that we would come out of the infection just fine. We are both in relatively good health and relatively young. We expect to feel miserable for several days. However, we would quarantine ourselves to protect others. Our concern is not for ourselves. Statistically, we aren't in the group at risk of succumbing to the virus. Rather, our concern is about infecting our elderly relatives, which includes our parents. Even if our daughter gets sick, we expect that she would recover like us.
That just leaves the external relationships. We could not babysit our granddaughter. Our oldest needs a contingency plan for daycare.
We would need to notify our jobs, respectively. Who do we call? What are the work policies to deal with COVID-related absences?
Most of this is logistical. Once infected and suffering the effects, there isn't much that can be done than to lay around and wait for our bodies to work their healing magic. Mrs. Mata and I are cognizant enough to keep track of our temperatures and hydrate. The biggest complication is the isolation, keeping away from other people.
After having gone through the mental exercise of thinking through the problem, we feel better prepared. We have a good idea of what needs shoring up, which isn't much. We just need to communicate the plan to the rest of our family so that they know we have this planned out and they know their roles.