Lisa, our CEO, reports that there are no Covid-19 positive cases at Kendal or our sister community Crosslands. That’s a blessing, and we are grateful for the hard work she and the medical staff are doing to keep us safe. Our Covid-free state is, in part, the result of the severe restrictions we’re operating under: our  Center is closed, healthcare by our nursing staff is being provided remotely (“telemedicine”), package delivery trucks are stopped at the front entrance and our staff takes the packages from there (with, I imagine, careful procedures for disinfection), visitors are permitted only in very restricted cases, and most of our time is spent in our cottages.

Now, even more restrictions have been added:

  • The daily dinner we are given, which has been handed to us at our door, will now be deposited there instead, based on a weekly list of entrée preferences that we post outside (see photo above).
  • Our clean bedding and towels will likewise be left in a bag at the door (and we will put out the dirty laundry in the same bag, to be picked up later).
  • We are strongly advised to wear masks if we have to leave campus for groceries.

One result of these new measures is that we will have little or no in-person interaction with staff. That makes sense, since the staff have become our community’s main connection with the outside world. If a staff person were to contract Covid-19 without symptoms, it would be imperative to make sure that person did not interact with residents. I fully support these rules, but I must admit that it is depressing to lose even the small amount of interpersonal contact that our wonderful staff has been providing up to now. This is what Covid-19 is doing to our world.

Meanwhile, there is a major push to provide everyone with masks. Store-bought masks aren’t available, and even if we somehow got some, they should go to medical personnel and not to us residents. So teams of mask-sewing volunteers have gone to work, and our fledgling network of “neighborhood organizers” is reaching out to residents to see who would like a mask.

There will be more to say in future posts about the mask-making operation and about the role of the neighborhoods, both of which are evidence of the community spirit that makes Kendal a great place to live.