Unless a scarily large portion of PXR people live under a rock, I am assuming we are all somewhat aware of the Corona Virus.

How is it impacting your life so far?

In terms of home, things are tricky. My mum has a few health conditions, so the Coronavirus poses more of a risk to her, but even without all of this, she tends to have slight hypochondriac tendencies, and freaks out, so naturally, she is freaking out, and because I am concerned, but not freaking out, she is taking that as me being flippant about the whole thing. In all honesty, I wouldn't be surprised if I had to stay with my Dad for a little while, if jumping through mum's hoops to keep her satisfied gets to be too much.

In terms of school, it is hard to say. The closest university to where I live, that I know a number of students at, has had a confirmed case. From what I gather, they notified all of the students, and within a day, notified those who had been in contact with the student to isolate themselves. Their classes are still running, and I assume mine are as well. I was planning on not being there this week, as I have a meeting that evening that clashes, and then after I decided to take the day off, I got offered an easy funeral job. The funeral is still going ahead, but I am not sure about the meeting. But I wouldn't be surprised if in the next week or two all our classes are moved to be online.

In terms of work, work at the factory has been quiet, but that is just a random thing. Nothing to do with COVID-19. And I really hope that picks up, because COVID-19 going to have an impact on my other work.

My work at the church has been impacted the most.

Every June, we do a big combined camp called State Youth Games. This year, I was going to be running it for my group, however in the last week it has seemed more and more likely it wouldn't happen, and on Friday, I got an email from the church saying that they were assessing with all of this what the Church will be involved with, and SYG was referenced.

Basically, even if the organization that runs it doesn't pull the plug on the event (and they really should, it is 3000 people gathered together and camping together), there are too many obstacles on our side. The Youth and Young Adults HUB have to approve us going, and I know they won't. Even if they do, we rely on funds from the church, and fundraising ourselves to afford to go. We usually raise funds by doing Trivia Nights, which we can't do during all of this (they were referenced alongside State Youth Games), and there was the possibility we would have to stop Sunday Services. The church relies on tithes to fund programs, and a large portion of them are cash in the offering bowls during the Sunday services. Basically, State Youth Games is off the table for us regardless.

On Friday, I told the other Youth Leaders this, and said that as long as the services run, Youth group would continue to run as well. I thought we would have the rest of the term (two more weeks). But this morning, I got an email from the church council saying that as of tomorrow all weekly activities at the church are postponed. This includes:
-Anime Club
-Playgroups
-Craft Group
-Friendship Group (old people get together once a month)
-Girl's Brigade
-Boy's Brigade
-Youth Group
-Sunday Morning Service
-Youth Chills
-Sunday Evening Service.

We have an evening service tonight, then for the next few months at a guess, no physical services or weekly activities. Anime Club, I have arranged to be digital (organizing watch parties via different platforms). We will be doing live streamed services, but will still probably lose income outside of electronic giving. I still need to figure out how we keep the momentum of Youth Group going during this time, but that will be difficult.

In terms of me financially, this knocks out about 40% of my income from the church, as that is jobs that are basically setup for these events, which are now not happening for the time being.

Long term, my job at the church may be in jeopardy because of the loss of income, and if I do end up isolated, I will rely on that, as the 60% left is work I can do from home.

So that's me. How is COVID-19 affecting you guys?