Covid-19 Update

Several of you have reached out to us wondering how we are doing so I figured this may be the best way to update everyone….

WE ARE SAFE! WE ARE HEALTHY! End of message…..just joking 🙂

Things here are changing and being updated at a moments notice, so what I am sharing is our current state:

• Schools here remain open. From what I can gather from the news and social media Aussies are not happy that school are still open. If a student or staff member has tested positive for Covid-19 those schools are currently closed. The government met yesterday (Sunday) regarding school closures and decided to keep them open en mass for now.
• Public transportation remains open. We currently don’t need public transportation for anything essential to our livelihood.
• We are currently staying in an apartment in Wentworth Point, NSW, Australia. Within a block we can walk to a medical clinic, a chemist (pharmacy) a grocery store, several restaurants, etc. There are miles and miles (or kilometers and kilometers) of trails out where we are currently living. Yesterday we walked 4.5 miles on trails and we are excited to explore more of the area on foot.
• All public gatherings of 500 people or more are cancelled. There were things that we had planned to do during this part of our trip that are now cancelled. While we are bummed that we won’t be able to do those things, we had not purchased tickets to anything and we are fully supportive of the restrictions that are in place.
• Currently, anyone entering Australia via a flight is required to do a 14 day self quarantine.
• All cruises are currently cancelled. (At this time of year not seeing a cruise ship in Sydney Harbor is WEIRD.
• We continue to try to support our local restaurants to the best of our ability. We are fortunate that most restaurants around us have an open air dining space. We utilize those spaces regularly at this point. We also order take away (carry out) to help the local businesses as well.
• Grocery shopping: we go to the store about every other day at this point. We are keeping way more food on hand as compared to before, but we feel it is the responsible thing to do. (Keep in mind our fridge/freezer is about 50% smaller than a fridge/freezer in the states so that makes things interesting.)
  • TP: hard to find here and when you can find it the amount that you can purchase is restricted.
  • Kleenex: same as TP
  • Hand Sanitizer: same as TP
  • Soap: we had body wash so the only soap we purchased was dish washing soap which we also use to wash our hands.
  • Sanitizing Wipes: you can still find them, but not easily. We have a package on the counter to wipe off our phones and keys when we come home.
  • Potatoes: fresh ones can’t be found
  • Lettuce: hard to find
  • Rice: same as TP
  • Pasta: same as TP
  • Bottled water: plentiful….not be hoarded at all
• Jerry and I can live a pretty quiet and hermit like existance. We are in a 2 bed/2 bath apartment currently and this is the most space we have had since we sold our house in June. We can manage to stay inside for days at a time and not be around other people. We also have a covered balcony so we can be outside in the rain and get fresh air and again not be around peopole.
• Going forward we will continue to monitor and follow the guidelines issued by the government.
• We are fully prepared to have to self quarantine for 14 days when we re-enter the USA on April 8th.
• While this isn’t exactly the experience we were hoping for, we have embraced it and are facing the challenges head on. We have supported each other, vocalized our fears/frustrations to each other, and honored how each of us are feeling. We have leaned in to one another instead of pulling away from each other and isolating ourselves.

I am certain that in the time it has taken me to type this that some of the guidelines have changed, but that is the world right now.

Stay safe, stay healthy, help each other, support your neighbors and community.

Much love from Oz and more later, NB