Chaos Central

March 14th, 2020

So, the COVID-19 has started to hit the U.S. schools. Schools are closing there. Sports teams and events are being closed, shoot ~ even Disney parks and Universal Studios are closing as of next week. I mean, at least it's not just an issue we are only having here so people will stop telling me to just go home or to another country - but it's also hitting home and I'm more scared of the negative effects it will have there. Too many people can't afford to miss any work or go to the doctor for small things. 

The bad news is, our boss messaged us tonight saying that public schools will not reopen before April 6th. Which, unless a miracle happens, means we will also not be reopening before that. I'm not sure these sporadic online classes will be able to sustain us as a school, let alone pay the teachers any sort of valuable wages. 

Thanks to a GoFundMe that school friends set up, I have some funds in my U.S. account for now that has helped me cover expenses...and if I am a miser with my money, I may be able to scrounge through April. However, if we don't start getting something  by April, I will be at a loss. Since this is now affecting so many countries around the world now, I cannot rely on any more funds to be donated to help me so I need to start finding other ways. 

I'm not concerned about contracting this damn virus as much as I am about the economic effects it's having on everyone.  Shoot, if I get the virus here, the government will give me ₩464,000 (~ $450 USD) to stay home. That's better than nothing. We all need this to be over quickly - I hope. I am doing my best to not stress too much and stay positive, but it has already been 3 weeks and now we're projecting at least another 3.

Doctors in Europe are comparing this chaos to WWII - I wonder if it's really comparable as COVID-19 people are not being blown up and needing surgeries and blood as much - at I'm guessing. In the states, fools are clearing out toilet paper and bottled water as if those are the most logical things to have if you have to stay inside for an extended period of time. 

China's infection rate is decreasing and most of their population is showing recovered so that is positive. It's been about 7 weeks for them since they started shutting everything down. New cases are lower in Korea now but we still see a surge here or there. Maybe it means in the 3 weeks' time we will be where China is and we can maybe attempt to recover our lives. Just hoping the school doesn't go bankrupt and leave us screwed before then. Then what, right? How would I even get back to the states? Too much riding on the what ifs right now...

COVID-19

March 9, 2020

...The week before Lunar New Year we heard of a flu-like virus that was hitting China and starting to spread rapidly. China that weekend decided to cancel all New Year's festivities and ask people to stay home to stop the disease from spreading. There had been travelers in and out of Korea to China and there was fear that it would spread here. I don't remember if we had any known cases in Korea at that time but the next week China started to lock down full cities demanding residents to stay in their homes. Their infected and death rate was growing rapidly.

Of course, due to travelers going back and forth, the virus did start to spread some in Korea. At the beginning of February we only had about 30 something cases and no deaths. I had asked the boss if we could start to request that the students wash their hands before every class. The numbers in Korea were going up. By the second week there were over 50 - then 80.... We had even started wearing masks in class to teach also asking students to wear them. In the course of a weekend the numbers doubled and someone in our area became infected. While things didn't shut down, there would be stories about businesses that had the KCDC come in to disinfect. The numbers seemed to double daily by the end of that weekend. We went into school Monday, February 23rd and literally 90% of our students didn't come. The next day we made the decision to close for the rest of the week at 70% pay and hope things were better by the next week. 

Yet still, the numbers were increasing fast. Panic and fear of a new virus was hitting Korea harder than the virus was. Schools everywhere were closing (most universities and private academies had been on winter vacation since the end of December). Public schools were pushing back their return from winter break.

So, the numbers reached the thousands because of some church cult that showed symptoms but refused testing and went around to large assemblies spreading it. Most confirmed cases are a result of that specific incident. But that also caused our school to decide to stay closed another week. The boss messaged us the 27th saying we couldn't work and due to parents asking for refunds for March (since they decided to keep their kids home for the month), we wouldn't be getting paid. There's still a lot of debate over what the actual legalities are about it but we couldn't afford not to get paid. 

We requested a meeting the next day to try to decide what other options we had, such as online classes. After a 4-5 hour brainstorming session we decided to try to recruit students for online classes and hope it was something to sustain us. 

March 2nd we started our thrown together attempts at classes via Skype and planning every class individually for each student. Honestly, I only ended up with three one on one classes but they proved to be a lot more work and energy than regular group classes. We were not told IF or how much pay we would receive (it's too soon to burn bridges when we need all the support we can get right now). I think we're all trying to stay semi-hopeful that we'll get at least half or maybe even the 70% like before. 

We are now going into our second week of online classes with no clear idea if this is sustainable or if/when schools well resume.....