!March 2020 migratory flows --- agk's diary 10 March 2020 (on paper) 16 March 2025 @ 21:46 UTC (transcribed) --- written: blue ballpoint, 100 sheet wide-rule yellow composition book on a couch in a campus building typed: Evy's GPD MicroPC, I broke everything else --- It's been five years since the coronavirus 19 pan- demic arrived in my country. I embargoed these journal entries, but now all parties have retired. I lightly edited for length, clarity, redaction. --- Tues March 10 2020 There are 1,001 confirmed covid-19 cases in my country, 8 in my state. Our cases are at University of Kentucky Chandler hospital in Lexington, on home quarantine in a county northeast of Lexington, and in Louisville. Today Berea College was the state's first campus to announce closing. Online-only courses start Friday. I have a Spanish exam in the morning. Berea's closure The closure decision was reached by Berea's Admin- istrative Council, communicated by mass email at lunch today by college president Roelofs. Faculty, staff, and students learned simultaneously. All scramble to reorganize classes, decide and answer questions on partial information, figure out housing, rides, and grade strategies. There are high emotions---fear, panic, anger, concern. [2025 note: Unlike other colleges, Berea only accepts poor students, Pell-grant eligible for free tuition. It's 10% poor international studen- ts. It prioritizes the first in a family to attend college. It's highly selective and academically rigorous, a "hillbilly Harvard," but moving home on short notice ranges from hard to impossible for most students.] As far as I know, no standing pandemic flu response plan or disaster communication plan guided the decision and initial response. My boss is director of Risk Management. She was intimately involved in the college's response to the 2009-2010 pandemic H1N1 flu. She thinks the college's sudden decision may have been a copycat of Vanderbilt University's decision to close. She wasn't consulted, just informed concurrently with everybody else. It makes sense the Ivy League colleges all closed. They're on spring break. Their students travel lib- erally, internationally. It's highly likely their students are partying in China, South Korea, Italy, France, Spain, and Germany. A returning cluster won't be automatically quarantined at customs (their parents'd make a stink). They'll only report travel on an honor system. Their risk profile is high. We have no means to restrain risky behavior by the rich in this country. Close their schools. While Berea's risk of infection is lower, boss- woman speculates our risk acuity remains high due to an uncertain regulatory environment. If one case presented, it's very possible the college'd be required to quarantine all students to their dorms, become a cruise ship, deliver meals, etc. That's beyond the college's capacity. Off-campus students, staff, etc., would be expected to self-quarantine at home and not be the college's responsibility. I called my friend TC, who teaches at Yale's School of Public Health. Connecticut has two confirmed cases. She's struggling with her risk calculus. Go stay with her grandmother in Vermont immediately in hopes she isn't yet infected and won't infect her grandmother, shelter there where she can assist her grandmother through whatever happens? Vermont has one confirmed case, a 42-year-old who threw a party in Brattleboro, she says. Or should she risk not seeing her grandmother, not being able to help her til the pandemic runs its course? She said she's in "a panic spiral." I encouraged my fiancee Evy to consider traveling to our country's pandemic epicenter, Kirkland, Washington state. Washington has 200+ confirmed cases. She could get a job in the nursing home most affected so far. She called the nursing home. They're understaffed and hiring out-of-state CNAs. Evy's risk matrix and options A bad epidemic could strand her in the Seattle area. Even not stranded, she should self-quarantine before returning to Kentucky. If infected, she'll need resources to quarantine without income, maybe seek symptomatic treatment and PCR testing. After recovery, her immunity might be an asset, at least against the strain she gets. After the first week of novelty wears off she'll be at risk for boredom, depression, and other impacts of high-stress, repetitive, frustrating, low-paying work combined with social isolation and lots of death. She'll need housing where she won't expose vulner- able people, like an extended-stay motel room or apartment. Kirkland's expensive. Housing will be hard to find, getting to work tough, and trying not to spread the epidemic isolating. Additional money, if the nursing home doesn't pay enough for rent, the commute, and travel to and eventually from Washington state could be by some- thing like gofundme or Patreon, especially if she shares what she learns. Social interaction could be via internet with understanding scuttlebutts. She might manage social distanced in-person coffee, drinks, or walks. It'll probably be nearly impossible to initiate friend- ships in compressed time amid crisis. In northern Italy bar patrons are expected to sit 3 meters apart. Who knows if that meaningfully decreases transmission? It hasn't slowed their trash fire. This will be very hard work to do without a buddy. [2025 note: Evy didn't go to Kirkland. Pandemic came to us. Her hospital unit became the overflow covid unit during the bad delta and omicron waves. She worked hard in an academic teaching hospital with way more resources than any nursing facility. Lots of her patients died. She prepared their bodies with dignity and grieved them. She's my healthcare hero.]