{"id":293,"date":"2026-03-20T14:16:30","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T14:16:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chrisvoisard.com\/blog\/?p=293"},"modified":"2026-03-20T14:16:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T14:16:32","slug":"shelter-in-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chrisvoisard.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/20\/shelter-in-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Shelter In Place"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Only a few days in, I knew the whole covid thing was a lie.

Not that there wasn\u2019t a virus, I was one of the first people I knew who got it.

I\u2019m not some grand prognosticator, it\u2019s just when you grow up with lies, like in my case where they told me that my younger brother was my uncle, among other things, you get really good at sniffing out the Truth. Or at least that\u2019s the case with me. Some call it hyper-vigilance.

My early tip off was three little words: Shelter in Place. If not for the fact that I\u2019m an elementary school teacher in California, I might not have known exactly what that meant.

Friday the 13th in March of 2020, was the last day that I saw kids at school; playing in the playground, tumbling and touching, laughing with their heads back and mouths open wide, for a long, long, while. Spring break was only a week away, and spring fever was hitting hard. The kids didn\u2019t feel like working, and neither did I. Ms. K, the principal, called us into special meeting that Thursday after school in the library. I was thinking, really? Can\u2019t you just send out an email or something? An extra meeting was the last thing I wanted. On the other hand, it wasn\u2019t too often a special meeting was called, so I was somewhat intrigued.

\u201cThe students are not coming to school next week,\u201d she told the assembled, tired-looking teachers, scanning the room for reaction. \u201cWe are being told to close an extra week out of an abundance of caution, so that they can get a handle on this virus that is going around.\u201d

At first I thought she meant because so many kids at our school had been sick. Lots of kids had been sniffing and coughing right in my face, and wiping ribbons of snot on the back of their sleeves. I had been working with kids one-on-one on a computer for English proficiency, and had to keep wiping down the screen and keyboard that was sprayed with sneeze spittle. But closing the school just because some kids were sick? That was unheard of. They don\u2019t close school for anything, as much as I wished we could have a snow day or something once in a while, but no such luck in California.

The room full of teachers sat for a full minute of stunned silence trying to digest this news. Ms. K continued, \u201cGovernor Newsom has ordered all the schools closed in the seven Bay Area counties, due to the spread of the Corona virus.\u201d

Oh, that? Sure, I had heard of this Corona virus in the background of my busy days, the guy who died in China, the three or however many cases they had detected in the US, mostly by people who travelled to China. I remember people being scared to go to the Chinese New Year parade in San Francisco that past February, but I thought that was ridiculous hype, and went anyway. I had heard that a State of Emergency had been declared, but I thought, yeah, yeah, that\u2019s how they get money. None of the talk meant anything to me until I heard Ms. K say they were going to close the school. All the schools in the Bay Area. For a week!

My first guilty thought: we don\u2019t have to teach next week! Yahooo! And then we still get another week off for spring break? Two whole weeks without the kids, an extra week off? I think I can speak for most teachers when I say that while I love teaching kids, the job is, let\u2019s say, taxing. I adore kids, more than adults, but at that point in the year the extra break was welcome. I could feel this somewhat verboten thought ping-ponging around the worn-out, spring-fevered, teachers\u2019 brains in the room. Though most sat stoically stone-faced, no one would admit the glee I think we all felt until I heard a teacher behind me whisper, \u201cWhat, is this Christmas? I thought it was Easter!\u201d

\u201cYou will all need to report to work next week,\u201d Ms. K went on. \u201cWe will need you to help gather materials for the students to use during the extra week they will be at home. Although the kids will not be required to come to school, they will still be considered instructional days.\u201d

Anybody who is a teacher knows that any kind of \u201cwork\u201d that doesn\u2019t involve trying to wrangle kids attention, inspire them to learn, keep them following the rules while fostering and independent spirit, making them laugh, consoling their injuries, and loving them at the same time is not work. Any kind of task on a computer screen, or talking on a phone, or doing something menial, does not compare with the spiritual and emotional effort required to turn a classroom of kids into a cohesive community. So, whatever we teachers were going to be required to do the next week felt like an unexpected vacation.

After we were dismissed, some of the teachers buzzed in corners, and a couple of teachers in the principal\u2019s inner circle went up to talk to her in low voices. I thought I heard her say, \u201cYeah, I don\u2019t think they\u2019re coming back at all this year.\u201d I thought I must have heard that wrong, and put the thought out of my head as being too impossible to fathom. Only later did that overheard remark come back to haunt me.

The next day, on that Friday the 13th there was a palpable grief floating through the kids\u2019 collective psyche, while we teachers were temporarily psyched up. They had definitely gotten the memo about the extra week off, but I was surprised to see kids crying here and there, some clustered in small groups, their arms around each other, heads down. Kids came up to randomly hug me. It felt like a funeral. Actually, it was, but I didn\u2019t know it yet. The kids seemed to intuit what was happening though. \u201cAw, come on, it\u2019s only a week,\u201d I said to whatever kid was acting overly dramatic, as kids tend to act.

Monday morning, we teachers all reported to an eerily empty school void of kid-noise and energy. The bells rang anyway, signaling nothing. We were told to go through the desks in all the classrooms, and start making packets of work that the parents would later pick up. I set to work in various rooms, putting crayons in baggies, and making stacks of work and books, and packing and marking them in paper bags. About half way through the day on Tuesday, I heard Ms. K make an announcement on the loudspeaker. \u201cEveryone is to go home. Now. Please just drop what you are doing. The governor has announced a Shelter in Place.\u201d

I was like, what? Shelter in Place?

I knew what that term meant, as most teachers do, because \u2018Shelter in Place\u2019 was one of the many emergency drills we practiced with the kids every year. Fire drill, evacuate the building, earthquake drill, get under the desk, unfortunately in later years, \u2018active shooter\u2019 or lockdown drill, close the curtains, lock and block the door, and keep quiet. Shelter in Place meant do not evacuate, immediately seek shelter in the nearest building or room, and if possible seal the windows and doors and turn off any air conditioning because of immediate danger outside. The danger could be some hazardous chemical material in the air, or else severe weather. Shelter in Place is a command that is only meant to last for a few hours.

This is where the governor made a big credibility mistake with me, very early in the game, and I never believed another word he, or any other person in the government or public health said on the matter. Immediately my hyper-vigilant brain started rapid-fire spitting out questions as it tends to do, often to people\u2019s annoyance. Like the evil covid germs were just floating around outside in the air? Invisible spiky red balls had permeated the atmosphere? Were we supposed to hold our breath on the way out to our car? Was everybody sheltering in place? And for how long? If there was imminent danger, why weren\u2019t we sheltering there at school? And why only the Bay Area?

I went to talk to Ms. K, being mindful to only ask a fraction of my zillion questions.

I remember asking her if the gas stations were open because I didn\u2019t have enough to get home. She told me they were, and right then I thought, if we have to Shelter in Place why didn\u2019t they? Were they risking their lives? I left the school in a daze. Not scared, just dazed and confused. I tend to get slow and calm in emergencies. Driving home I looked around outside, observing, and thought that everything looked remarkably normal. I didn\u2019t see people dropping dead in the streets like they showed in those fake Chinese YouTube videos. I saw cars driving, some people walking around, kids playing. I stopped and got gas; the workers seemed non-plussed.

That\u2019s when I knew they were trying to scare us. That\u2019s when I knew it was all hype. Everything after that day of the \u2018Shelter in Place\u2019 announcement only confirmed my suspicions. That the government would outrageously lie to the people, did not surprise me. I grew up not trusting the government since I was a little girl with my semi-hippie parents, who sent me to school with a black arm band to protest the Vietnam war, and pointed out the flag-covered coffins of drafted teenagers coming back from Vietnam on our little black and white TV. \u2018Question Authority\u2019 was a prominent bumper sticker back then, and all the rock n roll heroes confirmed that you should never \u201ctrust the man\u201d or the guys in suits. \u2018Fuck the establishment\u2019 is what I learned early on.

The teachers were instructed to make one word signs, and take a selfie holding the sign. When the pictures were grouped together, it read \u201cWe miss you! We will see you soon.\u201d I held the \u2018soon\u2019 sign. But we never saw the kids again that year, or the next. In fact, I never saw that group of kids at that school again.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Only a few days in, I knew the whole covid thing was a lie. Not that there wasn\u2019t a virus, I was one of the first people I knew who got it. I\u2019m not some grand prognosticator, it\u2019s just when you grow up with lies, like in my case where they told me that my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[21,24,25],"class_list":["post-293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","hentry","category-covid-times","category-teaching","tag-covid-times","tag-lockdowns","tag-teaching","post_format-post-format-image"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chrisvoisard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chrisvoisard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chrisvoisard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chrisvoisard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chrisvoisard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/chrisvoisard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":297,"href":"https:\/\/chrisvoisard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions\/297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chrisvoisard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chrisvoisard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chrisvoisard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}