RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Just as Governor Polis is home with his kids in Colorado, Hunter Morton is home with two children in Manhattan, Kan. She's a stay-at-home mom. Her husband is a utility worker who has to keep going to work. They've been careful when he comes home.
HUNTER MORTON: He has to take off his uniform and put it right in the washer and then go shower. Like, there's no, hey, how are you? How was your day? - just so that, you know, he wasn't bringing it in the house. But, unfortunately, it happened anyways.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Now their doctor suspects they both have COVID-19, and they're trying to get tested. Hunter Morton already had asthma and another respiratory ailment before her COVID symptoms started on Thursday.
MORTON: The exhaustion you feel with it is something I've never dealt with before. I think I was sleeping probably close to 18 hours a day. And there's a lot of anxiety that goes into being quarantined. So it just kind of bogs you down.
MARTIN: Now her husband feels that fatigue. Both have body aches, and they're coughing while still caring for their 7-year-old and 4-year-old. They don't want to send them to a relative's home.
MORTON: We've been, I want to say, powering through it - I guess tag-teaming - just because I don't know if my kids are carrying it, so I don't want to take that to another home.
INSKEEP: Friends are helping by dropping off groceries. The kids can pass time distance learning or on the tire swing out back. The 4-year-old just seems happy his sister is home, but his older sister has questions.
MORTON: She was like, why can't I go to school? Why can't I see my friends? And it's like, well, honey, you know, we have to stay home. There are people getting sick. And then after a couple of weeks, she just kind of was like, OK, this is life now.
MARTIN: Hunter Morton of Manhattan, Kan., is one of the quarantined parents we're meeting this week. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
