COVID-19: A Kirkland Resident's Perspective

Hello again, my wonderful readers.

I have rarely spoken of where I live, but today, I feel I must.  You read correctly. I am in Kirkland, Washington, the site of the COVID-19, or novel Coronavirus, outbreak.  I've decided to tell you all about what life is like right now in a suburb of Seattle that is now on the international stage.

I live a few short miles away from the Life Care Center, and you'd think that would mean nothing changes. Well, things have changed.  The first and perhaps biggest change for me is in my career.  As some of you know, I am a preschool teacher.  Over the past couple of weeks, I watched as my students coming to school dropped by half and gradually to a quarter of the class roster.  Over in the older class, attendance dropped by a similar rate.  This past Monday, only one child showed up to class.  It was that day that we decided to close down until April 13th, if we're lucky. I understand why it had to be this way, but... I miss my kids.

The second thing I've noticed is that traffic is way down. If you live in the Seattle area, you'd know that for a few years now, traffic has been awful.  Our elected officials, including Governor Inslee, came up with the "brilliant" idea to toll certain corridors of I-405, but that only served to make traffic worse.  But in the last month, with the tech companies having their people work from home, traffic has returned to levels I haven't seen since I was a little girl. 

The third, and perhaps most disturbing thing I've noticed is how quiet things are.  Even after 9/11, it wasn't this quiet.  The only places that are busy are grocery stores and pharmacies. It's...unsettling.  I wandered my favorite mall on Tuesday before it closed for two weeks. I felt like I had crossed over into a sci-fi horror film after the Apocalypse.

If this posting is something you'd like to continue seeing, please let me know. These are my observations for now.  Thanks for reading!