New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker sent a late-night email to residents this week with this serious message: “I am strongly advising you to stay home and only to go out of the home to the grocery store, for medical supplies or other essential trips.” The exception is outdoor exercise, which is allowed, as long as residents keep at least six feet between themselves and the nearest person.
It’s part of what the CDC calls “social distancing”, which means even healthy people try to stay home as much as possible to slow the spread of the new Coronavirus. But at the Worthington Hooker Elementary School in East Rock, there are signs of normalcy. Kids still play on the jungle gym and a boy shoots hoops with his dad.
All the schools closed days ago. Jason Friedes, a father of three, says his daycare center closed, too.
“We actually have another daycare option that we could do, but we’re not going to do it,” Friedes says, “We’re leaving it open for people who really need it.”
Friedes wants to keep slots open for healthcare worker’s children. He’s on furlough from his teaching job at Yale School of Architecture, so he can care for his kids. His oldest daughter, Ryan just turned five. She runs over to say hi.
“Hey Ryan, stay back here,” Friedes warns, “let’s try to keep your distance.”
Ryan stands about two meters back to introduce herself. Her siblings, three-year old twins Quinn and Eliott, get out some energy by chasing each other across the playground.
“This is definitely a change of pace for them,” Friedes says, “They’re burning a lot fewer calories a day and we definitely feel it at bedtime and at night.”
They try to do lots of science experiments at home, like a rocket launch day.
“We had a stomp rocket. A chemical rocket, which is just baking soda and vinegar, and then a balloon rocket. So we talked about propulsion and kind of what made it go,” Friedes explains.
His wife used to be a science teacher, so she has a lot of material to keep the kids busy. Now, she’s a pediatrician. Friedes says she’s been in a lot of planning meetings.
“It’s not crazy yet,” he says, “I think the biggest issue is going to be if we’re going to be missing her for two weeks or a month, all of which are survivable for us. We’re lucky enough for that to be true.”
Friedes feels lucky he can take care of the kids if his wife is called into work for a long stretch. They prepared the kids, too.
“We’ve talked about it,” he says, “Why this is happening and that there’s a ‘big sick’ going on.”
He says for now, things feel a bit like a Sunday with the kids.
“They know that things might change and things might be a little weird,” he says.
For now, he noticed people did not take social distancing very seriously after WHO declared a Coronavirus pandemic. He says the local hot wing bar was packed for a St Patrick’s Day celebration when the family walked by last Saturday.
“You have to realize that whatever regulation or recommendation they give, people are only going to do like a B+ version of that,” Friedes says.
New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker continues to encourage people to limit gatherings to fewer than 10 people and stay home. Friedes agrees.
“I think that if that’s the smart thing we need to do as a group, then that’s we need to do it as a group,” he says.
Many businesses were ordered closed all over Connecticut, except for grocery stores, gas stations, package stores and some take-out restaurants. But perhaps in other neighborhoods like East Rock, children are still enjoying a play in the park with spring in the air.
