Tag Archives: coronavirus

shelter in place

Shelter in place. That phrase came up yesterday in the San Francisco Mayor’s order attempting to stem the tide of coronavirus infections in the Bay Area.

Technically, we are not under the authority of the SF Mayor here in San Mateo County but she got the health authorities of all the Bay Area counties to sign on. Kudos to Mayor London Breed for leading the charge.

I’ve been trying to remember the circumstances that I’ve heard that phrase before. People involved in mass shootings? People in the path of a tornado? A Tsunami?

Here in California we live under constant threat of earthquakes and wildfires. For some reason, ‘shelter in place’ doesn’t seem to apply to those. We prepare for an earthquake but when it happens, it’s over in a minute or so. Your shelter is either there or it isn’t. Similarly wildfires can be prepared for but when it happens there is no shelter.

But all of these things are relatively fast moving. The coronavirus infections are harder to see. There are numbers on the news, of course, and web sites with graphs to go to, but no wall of flame in the back yard, no 100 mile per hour wind banging on the front door. Metaphorically, of course, that is exactly what is happening. Hang on to your hats!

Well, we were staying home already anyway. We think we have plenty of food, although the order has exceptions allowing people to go out to the grocery store. The power is on, the phones are working, the Internet is on, we have gas in our cars. We have a generator, although the wiring to the house has not been completed. That might be a project in a week or so.

 

social distance

. . .  and self isolation.

Phrases that I didn’t expect to be using to describe myself until very recently. Two weeks ago I was buying travel supplies at the drugstore, getting a haircut, and getting serious about what clothes to take on the tour.

Then, just before the show on Friday the 6th came word that the SF Performing Arts complex was going to be closed to the public starting the next day. The Ballet had a show scheduled at the Opera House. Cancelled. The Symphony was scheduled to perform at UC Davis. That went on but our performances for the next week were not going to happen.

The original announcement only – now I say ‘only’! – was for a closure of two weeks, until the 20th. Tuesday morning the announcement was made to the orchestra that we weren’t going to Europe because several venues there had closed due to the virus. New York’s Carnegie Hall was still open, though, so we continued rehearsals. The ban on public assemblies in San Francisco was extended first one more week, then two more still.

Thursday morning’s rehearsal became an orchestra meeting. Everyone put away their instruments. The official word came: New York was closing too. We weren’t going anywhere. The entire Symphony administration was being told to work from home. Orchestra committees had hurried meetings with management about what to do. It was decided that we would all go on vacation for 4 weeks, until April 11. That’s when we would have come back from Europe. Rehearsals and performances were in the pipeline.

Vacation is not the right word for what we are doing now: social distancing, and self isolating. At first, I thought that Sepi and I could use the time to get in our car and drive to LA, or Colorado, or Washington where we could visit friends and family. After some reflection we realized what self isolation really meant: stay home!

I was all set (in my mind) to go down to Mom’s and hang with her for a couple of days but that was nixed. Mom’s in the most vulnerable group! We don’t know if we’ve been exposed!

In Seattle, the orchestra there is performing for an empty hall and streaming the music to the public. In San Francisco we can’t even do that because the ban is for assemblies of 100 or more. Maybe we could do Mozart . . .

And the ban is now extended to April 30th. We have no more ‘vacation’ left. Will we still get paid? Big conventions, which are the bread and butter for many of my Local 16 brothers and sisters, have disappeared. Those people have nothing. A few hundred dollars a week from unemployment.

I will try to write about more uplifting things in the days to come but that is the environment.