Mostly Apolitical Thread for Discussing/Venting our Rational/Irrational COVID-19 Fears and Experiences in 2020

lmao a "third party vendor" who apparently worked on all floors of our building (i'm assuming cleaning staff) tested positive for covid. my computer is never getting restarted and my ability to do my job is semi-permanently hobbled. looking forward to learning a new hobby

for some reason i'm on a server where one of the regulars there is spouting out the most ridiculous bullshit imaginable. it's just exhausting to deal with. the president is going to take personal command of the national guard and require people to quarter troops in their houses! covid is re-infecting people! everybody is going to be under strict quarantine for the next 18 months!

i might just leave the server, honestly.

Making the rounds:

A LETTER FROM F. SCOTT FITZGERALD, QUARANTINED IN 1920 IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE DURING THE SPANISH INFLUENZA OUTBREAK.

Dearest Rosemary,
It was a limpid dreary day, hung as in a basket from a single dull star. I thank you for your letter. Outside, I perceive what may be a collection of fallen leaves tussling against a trash can. It rings like jazz to my ears. The streets are that empty. It seems as though the bulk of the city has retreated to their quarters, rightfully so. At this time, it seems very poignant to avoid all public spaces. Even the bars, as I told Hemingway, but to that he punched me in the stomach, to which I asked if he had washed his hands. He hadn’t. He is much the denier, that one. Why, he considers the virus to be just influenza. I’m curious of his sources.
The officials have alerted us to ensure we have a month’s worth of necessities. Zelda and I have stocked up on red wine, whiskey, rum, vermouth, absinthe, white wine, sherry, gin, and lord, if we need it, brandy. Please pray for us.
You should see the square, oh, it is terrible. I weep for the damned eventualities this future brings. The long afternoons rolling forward slowly on the ever-slick bottomless highball. Z. says it’s no excuse to drink, but I just can’t seem to steady my hand. In the distance, from my brooding perch, the shoreline is cloaked in a dull haze where I can discern an unremitting penance that has been heading this way for a long, long while. And yet, amongst the cracked cloudline of an evening’s cast, I focus on a single strain of light, calling me forth to believe in a better morrow.
Faithfully yours,
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Come on, that is so obviously bullshit.

If it were real, they would have used his real name: Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald.

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/live-experience/cps/624/cpsprodpb/vivo/live/images/2020/3/19/8c9faa41-1c81-49d8-b1ff-e517cbcdd09f.png

cool graph

xpost It's from McSweeney's, I think. ;)

I went to bed worrying about this and I woke up worrying about this. Name let which of us is living in a China vs and Italy. China seems to have got though this relatively lightly scathed got this under control and is now returning to a form of normality. Italy seems to be an ever worsening tradgedy, out of control and what we are trying to avoid by flattening the curve.

I keep wondering if we did enough, early enough to keep a lid on this in Australia, and what about all of my friends And family across the world; are they living in an Italy or a China. It’s the general angst of worrying about who will make it through this and how and the suvivors guilt seem already to be there. ( I have not survived yet)

Tracer are you still going out? Lush dream cream is great for this if you pass one (or can get a delivery).

Anyway. 🙃

my work just us know that we're getting 20% pay cuts, starting immediately.

are you fucking kidding me

well that's fuckin evil

i hope that after this is all over all human beings worldwide simultaneously offer all jobs a 20% work cut

jfc. nice compassion mr employer. sorry to hear that Karl :(

My job is getting about 60% from me this week but that’s bc all my pipes are getting replaced

actually i'm receiving word that it's just me who is getting a pay cut, and it's because of my typos on ilx

also because of the amount of time i'm spending on ilx, sources say

i didn't notice the typo because i'm paying only 80% attention because i gave work 110% this week

It's not like any of us need that money anyway, amirite? We can't go out!

xp besides, being an honoured member of ILX is a privilege that those without a 20% pay cut can't claim.

what's especially dumb is that this is a bigass company with lots of contracts throughout the country - we're consultants and program implementers, funded by clients. and the client my program works for isn't withholding any money or saying they're not going to pay us. but even still, my company has decided to slash everyone's pay by 20%, regardless of the situation with their client. also being explained now that we are still expected to work the same amount of time, accomplish the same, etc

Sounds like they just want people to quit.

people are now asking about whether we'll ever get the 20% back, "on the other side"

turns out they haven't considered that yet

that's truly vile

my bestie is out of work with coronavirus symptoms, nobody will see her to test as she's not "high risk", but she's being responsible and not reporting to work. they snottily told her they won't pay her, that she has to use sick leave (she hasn't earned any yet, her company may have more than 500 people,and even if not, they have 15 days to implement the new rule).

Virginia just expanded unemployment claims temporarily to where they will literally allow you to apply even if you're gainfully employed and you can't report to work due to effects of the virus, even if you aren't diagnosed with it, but suspect you have it. my friend has been arguing with me that it's not true for 2 hours even though I have shared three newspaper articles and text from the website itself indicating this new change.

Hate being a nag but I think this is her only option to get paid (for right now) while she's out and each day she doesn't is a day she isn't getting paid.

Fuck them, KM. If they’re that big it should come out in the news?

what's especially dumb is that this is a bigass company with lots of contracts throughout the country - we're consultants and program implementers, funded by clients. and the client my program works for isn't withholding any money or saying they're not going to pay us. but even still, my company has decided to slash everyone's pay by 20%, regardless of the situation with their client. also being explained now that we are still expected to work the same amount of time, accomplish the same, etc

― Karl Malone, Thursday, March 19, 2020 4:58 PM bookmarkflaglink

I mean...not that there's ever a good reason to issue people pay cuts, but even giving benefit of the doubt and assuming there were, there's a way to massage that message and shitting on people by saying "lol btw u still gotta do the same but we give u less" is...not it.

I would def be calling out with coronavirus symptoms en masse at that point. 50 people a day.

shiter. sorry KM

My dad and his wife are late 70s in Saint Augustine FL. I've been trying to instill some paranoia in them and it seems to have been working.

But I was just on the phone with him and heard his doorbell ring, and he responded just as if it was last summer and a neighbor was dropping in to say hi. I told him not to answer it but to go out though the garage and see who it was. Turns out it's this guy my dad met in a hardware store last fall, who saw the For Sale sign in the window of his Chrysler Sebring, and has since been making payments of btw $100-$200/mo on it. The guy is broke and an ex-con and my dad is a retired minister who does things like this. He's coming to give my dad a hundred bucks.

So I tell my dad to just tell him to keep his distance, so he does that, and the guy responds by making a joke about the plague, and my dad is like it's no joke. And the guy says, well *we* don't have it! And my dad says no, we don't have any idea—I might, you might. And then the guy laughs—I can hear him getting closer and louder and then counting off the five twenties, handing them to my dad, and then saying "If you have faith you're not going to get it! Faith is stronger!"

I think my dad was being a little performative because he wants me to know that he gets it now, and he says, "Vance, this virus doesn't give a shit if you have faith." And the guy just laughs and drives away in this little silver convertible.

I'm so scared of my parents getting this. We stayed on the phone while he washed his hands.

nb my dad doesnt have "faith", he's long been agnostic at best

but this is how some ppl's brainz are working

why are there so many dicks that wanna infringe on other people's ability to self isolate. so many people just ask politely "hey, trying to keep six feet" only to have the assholes go "fuck that, you'll be fine, and invade their general space".

best wishes for your parents - totally get that worry. I worry about mine too, but mom has only been leaving to get groceries, and even then they've been pre-ordering them on Walmart so she doesn't have to go walking through the entire store.

like even if I had a friend that had a completely unfounded medical fear, like they were afraid of getting cancer from being around a microwave, even if I thought there was no basis in hell, I wouldn't hold a microwave up against their head and say "ENDURE THIS!".

people's own insecurities about the seriousness of this causing them to show their ass and put other people at risk.

xxp your dad sounds like a solid guy!

he is yeah. I wanna see him again, too.

xp yeah I am trying to get my mom in MI to start ordering groceries online, seems....unlikely

I've been trying to communicate to my parents that the thing they can do to help me the most is Just. Stay. Home.

And for my dad: find something to do that doesn't involve actively bugging my mom

xxpost yeah I like his response. it's what people don't get. the virus doesn't care if you need a day to unwind, or if you have faith in God or Odin, or if you've already had the flu this year, or if you live in a warm climate.

it doesn't care, it'll infect people, so fuckin' listen to the experts!

those friends I wanted to room with for everything, well, forgot that one of them works for a bar that serves food that's still open, sooooo they've both essentially been exposed to hundreds of people. guess that's out.

might hole up with my parents once we're sure I haven't had contact with anybody for 14 days but that'll be months of my mom asking me why I never go on dates and remembering the answer 5 seconds later each time.

for some reason I am still engagin and getting "likes" on 2 different dating apps which is all well and good but also....why, again?

conjugal distancing

my parents are in spain. full lockdown. can only go to the supermarket in 1s. no jogging, no cycling... at least it's warm and they can in the garden

sit*

So, my aunt is in the hospital in NYC recovering from a diagnostic procedure to determine whether she had lung cancer or not (thankfully, pre-cancerous growth only). She just told my Dad that a bunch of nurses/doctors came in to interact with her "roommate" in some type of masks, gear, etc. and then quickly moved my aunt out of the room. Now I believe she is getting tested for coronavirus before they try and release her ASAP. They said the safest place for her was at home.

I wish I could in a garden. (xp)

Also, someone in my wife's office apparently tested positive. My wife has been working from home since Friday.

Xps to Karl

Last week my husband warned his boss and the money person that this pandemic was going to have a big impact on their small business and they needed to start figuring out countermeasures, and they both were like nah we’ll be fine.

Yesterday the money person suggested the three of them take a 20% salary cut to subsidize the business - a v successful small business that always has a cash reserve of at least $100k (and still does) and has never used a line of credit (and still hasnt).

The fucking nerve.

ugh. i'm sorry to hear that.

so wait, was there a national business assholes conference where they all decided to go with a 20% cut?

That sucks, guys. If I got a 20% pay cut it'd be damn close to the NY unemployment weekly rate, so i'd probably move into my sister's.

This seems to be a consensus? cuz i'm not cooking all my fruits and vegetables:

Experimental studies with a bovine coronavirus have shown that the virus can be stable on the surface of lettuce, said Linda Saif, a scientist and coronavirus researcher at CFAES and Ohio State’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

“Coronaviral RNA was detectable on the lettuce surface for 30 days, and infectious bovine coronavirus was detected on the lettuce surface for at least 14 days after inoculation,” said Saif, who is a world-renowned expert on coronaviruses. “However, from experience with previous outbreaks of SARS and MERS, the transmission through food consumption is not likely to occur.”

https://www.ocj.com/2020/03/food-safety-and-coronavirus/

definitely boiling my lettuce from now on

meh wash in hot water

all the food deliveries from the major supermarkets round here are totally booked for march and all of april, just no slots at all, so i'm going to have to run the gauntlet at the local shop at some stage. we did get a leaflet through our door from neighbours who are organising whatever they can for people stranded in their own homes, but i'll see if we can get through this by ourselves first before calling in the cavalry. or alternatively we just live on mailorder health food shite and vitamin c pills, which wouldn't be too bad tbh - maybe i might look into that

also going to have to start growing lettuce on our window sills and get some good microherbs going too