My name is Araba, I live in New Jersey, married, and a mother as well. The COVID -19 pandemic was and still is indeed a scare to the entire world. My family and I are no exception to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. It basically brought our family activities to a halt.

When COVID-19 hit, I was working in a bank. I must admit, retail banking professionals were highly exposed to the virus due to our contact with so many customers on any given day. We are always handling customer documentation; cards, ID’s and what have you. Due to our large clientele, we constantly fumigated the entire branch, washed our hands more often and used hand sanitizer as many times as we could, and of course, we always had our masks on.

We did all this to protect ourselves and our customers, but some way, somehow, the virus found its way into our branch! Two colleagues of mine got the virus (tested positive for coronavirus). It indeed felt like a nightmare. They both had to be quarantined for two weeks and all of us had to be tested as well.

Fortunately for me and my other colleagues, our results came back negative. When the numbers of infected people in the state rose, a curfew was imposed and the branch was temporarily closed, as most of us have kids of school going ages and had to be with them at home. Since then, my husband and I have been working from home as most schools are still doing virtual studies with the kids.