With the Unit­ed States econ­o­my al­ready in re­ces­sion and the COVID-19 death toll rapid­ly ris­ing there, T&T na­tion­als who live in that coun­try have been do­ing their best to cope with the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion there.

Di­ane Wilt­shire, who has been liv­ing in the US for the last 30 years and is in New Jer­sey, on Sat­ur­day told the Sun­day Guardian she is pray­ing for the sit­u­a­tion to im­prove quick­ly.

“I wor­ry about what’s hap­pen­ing. The city of New Jer­sey has a cur­few af­ter 8 pm. Peo­ple are sick. There’s death. Peo­ple are dy­ing. This is like watch­ing a train wreck,” she said.

Wilt­shire said just last De­cem­ber she had opened a new bou­tique store, Dressed Up, and the eco­nom­ic im­pact of the virus was al­ready af­fect­ing her busi­ness.

“The shelves are bare. There’s no toi­let pa­per and lit­tle wa­ter. The sit­u­a­tion isn’t good,” she said

She added that para­noia is al­so set­ting in, as when peo­ple have a cold or sneeze peo­ple are al­ready think­ing they have COVID-19.

The last time Wilt­shire was in T&T was in No­vem­ber last year and said she is al­ways in con­tact with her loved ones here.

De­siree Cabr­era, who has been liv­ing in New York for the last 14 years, is al­so hop­ing for the best.

Cabr­era, who works at a hos­pi­tal, said she was tak­ing all the nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions to en­sure she and her daugh­ter are pro­tect­ed.

“The sit­u­a­tion is what it is, I just got to deal with it and take all pre­cau­tions like wash hands and wear my mask,” she said

Yaisa An­drews-Zwill­ing, a neu­ro­sci­en­tist who lives in Penn­syl­va­nia, said she is now work­ing re­mote­ly be­cause of the COVID-19 spread.

“All non-es­sen­tial trav­el has been sus­pend­ed un­til the pan­dem­ic has sub­sided. Schools are out for two weeks and we are not sure when my two boys will be back out to school,” An­drews-Zwill­ing said.

“Try­ing to home school is dif­fi­cult while hav­ing to work. The school dis­trict has been great by send­ing out re­mote learn­ing tools. My boys can walk the dogs in the morn­ing but must stay so­cial­ly dis­tant from the neigh­bours, of course.”

An­drews-Zwill­ing said it has been quite dif­fi­cult for her sons, as they are not al­lowed to be with their friends and to so­cialise.

Her hus­band is al­so work­ing from home but they have dif­fer­ent times when they do con­fer­ence calls us­ing dif­fer­ent ar­eas of the house.

She not­ed that Fri­day was their wed­ding an­niver­sary and her hus­band, who is not a Trinida­di­an, made an “amaz­ing” Tri­ni-style sweet bread for her. She said it was “heart­break­ing” that so many peo­ple in the US are los­ing their jobs.

“I am just thank­ful that my hus­band and I have jobs. We are hope­ful as things rapid­ly change. Our hearts go out to peo­ple who will be se­vere­ly im­pact­ed by this.”