Is anyone else curious what this crazy time looks like in other parts of the country? I kinda am! If you're sick of all the coronavirus talk (and I TOTALLY understand that, because sometimes that's me too!), go ahead and read this fun recipe for homemade bagels.
Other fun posts about my area: The Philadelphia Zoo | Things to do with kids in Philly
I live about 30 minutes from Philadelphia, PA, in a suburb with a giant mall, tons of other stores, and relatively quiet neighborhood streets with driveways. It's definitely not "city," but it's not country either. (We don't burn our trash, if that means anything to you haha.) And in my little corner of suburbia, it was a quick switch from "oh yeah, the coronavirus is out there in some parts of the country" to a complete shut down.
One way I've seen the complete shift from normalcy to quarantine is through helping at my church's food pantry. For the pantry's opening on March 10th, we just put some hand sanitizer on the counter for guests to use. Days later, everyone in the county was asked to social distance and to self-quarantine. Two weeks later, the state officially started a shelter in place. This month's food pantry is completely a drive-through setup: no guests get out of their cars or even touch our pens to sign in, and the limited volunteers use gloves and masks. It's CRAZY.
Here's what a shelter in place looks like in my area of PA:
Limited entry into stores: now stores are limiting the number of customers allowed in each store, which causes long lines outside. And apparently people are still pretty committed to getting their Easter ham?
Grocery store shelves are cleared out of certain things.
Everyone's wearing masks when they go out. And if you don't have a surgical mask, a Halloween unicorn mask works, too.
Mall parking lots are completely empty. (See the first photo in the post! Not a SINGLE car!)
Playgrounds are "closed," which means wrapped in caution tape in case any kids got tempted to try and play.
What does quarantine look like in your area this week?
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