LIFE DURING COVID-19

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A return to some normalcy amid coronavirus outbreak could be June or July, Murphy says

The governor stressed people need to continue to adhere to strict orders to help fight the outbreak.

The state is rapidly progressing with this virus, but not in a good way. Our numbers continue to rise with the amount of positive cases and the amount of deaths due to the COVID-19 are continuing to grow. Governor Murphy doesn’t think that things will get back to normal until the summertime AT LEAST and that’s ONLY IF everyone follows the rule to stay home and social distance. Although the way people are treating it, it doesn't seem like we’ll get back to normal anytime soon. The weather gets just a tiny bit nice, and everyone decides to violate the stay at home rule and wander around, including filling parks that just re-opened. 

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Life of a Business Owner

Across the street from my job, there is a little deli store, and even though they are considered an essential business, the owner still closed. He was open for a time being, and just for the three weeks that New Jersey was supposed to hit its ‘peak’. The owners are very close friends of mine so before he actually closed, he told me that he was thinking about closing but he wasn't completely sure about it because he would be loosing out on a lot of money. In the end he decided that his safety was worth more than making his bank account grow.  Although now, since we haven’t hit the peak as projected, he said he will just remain closed until it actually does happen and he thinks it’s safe to reopen. 

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Don’t expect ‘a normal gathering in the foreseeable future,' N.J. Gov. Murphy says of life after coronavirus peak

Gov. Phil Murphy provided a glimpse into what examples of re-opened businesses would look like, including restaurants offering dine-in options again with temperature checks or rapid coronavirus saliva tests at the door.

Governor Murphy doesn’t think the state will go back to normal after all of this dies down, he believes we will have a “new normal” This makes complete sense because once something changes, it’s changed forever. The American people will forever be affected by this, they will always be prepared for this sort of stuff now. People will always want to have masks, gloves, lysol, rubbing alcohol and hand sanitizer in their house. They will be left wondering if there is any way that this will start all over again. They will always be looking over their shoulder. 

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Life of a Pharmacist/Mother

Mariela Lemes Aleman is a 45 year old pharmacist. She's the registered pharmacist in charge of Horowitz Supremo Pharmacy in Elizabeth, NJ. Her father tested positive for COVID-19. Luckily enough her father wasn’t that bad with his symptoms and didn’t need to go to hospital for anything. His breathing was normal, at least for a 74 year old man who's been smoking for majority of his life. I asked her how it was living with her father, mother, husband and two children of her own. Of course she would want to be cautious that no one else in the house were to catch it. She explained to me how it was a little hard to separate her father form the rest of her family, especially her children. But eventually her children were able to understand that they couldn't go near their grandpa until he gets better so her father was completely isolated from the rest of them. She also said that luckily, he got better quickly. Her mom also tested positive after 3 weeks of learning that her husband had COVID-19. It then was the whole process all over again with separating her mother from the rest of the family. Being as Mariela and her husband were the only ones in the house who didn't have the virus, they were left to do EVERYTHING around the house. She realized how much of a help her parents were to her and how difficult it was for her to still be working, risking herself to exposure everyday and coming home to still be everything her family needed her to be.  

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Union County hospital employee is back at work after testing positive for coronavirus

Trinitas Regional Medical Center is in the process of notifying any patients who may have had contact with the staffer, the hospital's president said.

Trinitas Hospital is in the center of Elizabeth, NJ, where everyone goes because it’s the closest. When people think of a hospital, they think of safety, they think of people who are able to heal and make them feel better. They don’t think of it as a place where they go to feel better but actually leave with COVID-19. An employee at Trinitas Hospital who tested positive for COVID-19 and went back to work very shortly after. If a person was infected then they should've stayed home until they got past it. Instead they risked the health of the whole hospital staff and of the patients by being allowed to return back to work.  

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Life Comforting Others

Working in a pharmacy during this whole pandemic has been super stressful and rewarding at the same time. On a daily basis I deal with patients who are scared due to the virus and because how our officials are handling the situations. The constantly watch the news to see what they should be buying in order to be prepared for this. They end up in my pharmacy to find all these different things that the media and our President is telling them that they need in order to rise above the virus. They get so freaked out and worried when we’ve already been bought out by every other person who beat them to the punch. There are some people who are becoming a little selfish when it comes to the supplies to the point where they want to buy EVERYTHING we have in stock. They get frustrated when I tell them our policy is one item per customer, and they continue to get mad at us because they think that we’re hogging everything for ourselves and that don’t want to sell it to them.

This is a time to be scared, but this isn't the time to stop being humane to others. 

[lifewithcovid19]

Voices of the Pandemic

Screaming children, worried employees, sick parents and anxious grocery shoppers: This is a peek inside our new world.

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Life working in a Pharmacy

Ana Reis is a 61 year old female and is also the store manager of the small owned Horowitz Supremo Pharmacy and Surgical Supplies. Being the store manger of a pharmacy during this pandemic has proven extremely difficult. Everyone else is so scared of what could happen to them because of the pandemic and they expect the pharmacies to have every single thing they want. She has been stressed out trying to cater to the needs of her patients and spending ridiculous amounts of money on things the patients as her for. Yet she also has to cater to the needs of her family as she is still someone’s wife, daughter, mother and grand mother. She doesn't want to think of leaving her family behind so she has an afterwork routine she follows everyday to keep her and her family safe. My boss is part of the 60+ age group, so is her husband and father who live in her house with her. Due to the fact that she spends all her days in a pharmacy possibly exposing herself every day to people who may or may not have the virus, she takes extreme precautions when she’s entering her house from a workday. Instead of entering through her front door, she enters through the garage, into the basement door. Although before entering the basement where no one goes into, she takes off every single piece of clothing and runs into the shower with the hottest water you could possibly imagine. She washes her clothes everyday with hot water and sometimes on long days she washes them twice.

It’s amazing how someone must change their life completely in order to accommodate living during this pandemic. 

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Things You Should Know

Although Elizabeth is just one of many cities that make up the state of New Jersey, it is a city that has been hit hard by COVID-19. It isn't really something that you discuss, but we have had so many deaths in relation to this pandemic. On any given day, no matter where you are in Elizabeth, you’ll be able to hear the firetrucks, ambulances and police officers sirens coming from every direction. The sounds of the sirens only mean that yet another person has become affected by the virus or yet another person has passed away because of it.  

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Background on Trinitas Regional Medical Center's efforts to prepare for patients with coronavirus.

Trinitas is the hospital where they are taking all of the COVID Positive patients who have trouble breathing. That is the only way you are allowed to be admitted into the hospital. You can have all of the other symptoms, fever, chills, diarrhea and all of that, but if you can breathe and your oxygen is 90 or above, you are not allowed to be admitted into the hospital. This shows the demographics of people being treated at Trintas and how they are working to do everything they can to be able to send more and more people home.

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The First FDA-approved coronavirus saliva testing site opens up in Middlesex County. Middlesex County is so close to Union County and bring saliva testing instead of getting something stuck up your nose would be so much better. No one is immune to this virus, including young people. Everyone hears how it feels to get that cotton swab stuck up their nose and they don’t want to feel that kind of pain so they opt out of testing. And the thing is, young people can have it but not show any symptoms, so who knows who they could be infecting. Having the option for a cotton swab to just touch the inside of their mouth would probably make them more inclined to get a test and then we’ll be able to treat the infected accordingly as opposed to wondering if that person has the virus or not. 

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45 dead at 3 nursing homes in Elizabeth amid coronavirus pandemic, city says

It was unclear how many of those who died at the nursing homes had the coronavirus, city officials said.

Elizabeth Nursing Home is right down the street from my job and all of the workers are friends with the workers in my pharmacy. Plaza Healthcare is another establishment that is right around the corner and we are in constant contact with. The residents living there are our friends, some of them are even our patients. In Elizabeth Nursing Home residents continue to pass away because of the coronavirus. It is happening quickly and rapidly because as more people become infected, the quicker it spreads. Imagining our people ‘dropping like flies’ is heartbreaking because theres nothing we can do about it. We can’t even properly mourn the dead without violating social distancing rules. 

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Life Caring for the Elderly

Working in a pharmacy is a blessing and a curse during this pandemic because you really see people’s true colors. A pharmacy, which is considered an essential business because people still have high blood pressure and need their regular medicine, are struggling. We can’t get basic stuff like Vitamin C or Zinc Sulfate that patients used to get on a monthly basis because everyone bought it all. And the companies aren’t restocking. Everything that we try to reorder from our usual companies is out of stock, even if it’s a little thing. Everything is becoming unavailable and its causing people to panic more than they already are. Once one person hears about something that’s available, everyone else wants it to. Our elderly patients who get a monthly supply of diapers that also comes with blue under pads for their beds and gloves are no longer receiving gloves because we don’t have any more to give to them and none of the four companies that we get supplies from is allowing us to restock under the fact that they don’t have any themselves or the fact that we can only get one delivery per month. Life as our patients knew it ceases to exist now. They have to make shift things that they used to get because it was a necessity to them and their caregivers. People don't live a normal life now, they have to adapt to the world around them and it’s proving harder for the older patients.

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Bad Bunny, a very famous Latin trap artist released a song about 2-3 weeks ago titled “EN CASITA” where he basically talks about everything he’s been doing while in quarantine and encourages people to stay home until it’s all over

[lifewithcovid19]

Life of a Big Sister

My two younger siblings have been transferred to school ‘online’, only one of them have been having actual assignments. It’s been difficult to teach them seeing as both of my parents and myself are still working everyday. My 15-year-old sister has computer struggles every day and has no idea to fix it. Everyday she has questions about the assignments her teachers give her and I don't know how to help her if even I don't understand the assignment. Questions that easily could've been answered by her teachers are now left for me and my parents to try and answer. My 5-year-old sister finished her education packets that were sent home with her when school first closed. They were meant to last her a month before the school would be able to assess how they were going to work out the rest of the school year, the packets ended up lasting her only two weeks. She’s had nothing else to do but do non-educational activities. She spends her days playing with toys, watching YouTube and having her eyes glued to TikTok. As far as school at home goes for the younger generation, I’m not the biggest fan. I have to help them in any way I can while working my job and while staying on top of my own school work and managing a healthy sleep schedule.