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

So glad I don't live in an urban area now. No nature to escape to temporarily + literally millions of possibly infected ppl all around= no thank you. Friend who had to move back to the east coast from here is itchin to get back to "the middle of nowhere".

We want to flee out of the city but we have nowhere to go (no relatives or friends with big houses in the NE US)

I was fantasizing about renting a van and driving us to MN yesterday but what if one of us got sick en route etc

cp arsh on artfordshire

xp

I would not want to be in the middle of nowhere during this experience!

The 15 minute figure seems to be from here

https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/covid-19-public-health-management-contact-novel-coronavirus-cases-EU.pdf

which seems pretty clear that it's an arbitrary figure for the purposes of triaging contact tracing?

yup

any epidemiological work is going to attempt to cast a less-broad net to begin with, because "everyone who was at this grocery store during a 30 minute window" is a lot harder than starting with people you talked to, the cashier who scanned your purchases, etc.

We want to flee out of the city but we have nowhere to go (no relatives or friends with big houses in the NE US)

I was fantasizing about renting a van and driving us to MN yesterday but what if one of us got sick en route etc

Or you stopped for gas or got fast food

Or...

OR

You already have some asymptomatic exposure and you inadvertently give it to people en route and introduce it into the area you are fleeing to.

My in-laws were like "the city isn't safe, come down and stay with us" and I'm like "exactly when traveling is what we SHOULDN'T do?"

xp i spose in context of "you cant go outside" it is nonetheless useful to illustrate tho?

not xp to ymp while taking measures at every step- gloves at gas, washing hands everywhere after, etc

Rich pricks in the UK have been fleeing to their holiday homes all week, putting rural healthcare and severe risk of collapse. And less-rich pricks have been trying to drive their camper vans into rural wales or the highlands to flee.

I’m sure grey nomads were considered a vector down here hence the shutting of state borders.

dmac it's not just "who didn't breathe on you" but "who did you not breathe on."

im not trying to be dense when i say that im not seeing where that isnt covered tbh

there's a baseline level of caution that needs to be better in most places, and there's a minimal level of social contact that's necessary to keep society running, and the negotiation of the two interests is a community matter

I don't agree with people who started with "well, I'm going to live my life exactly like normal unless the government specifically says I can't do particular things" but I understand where they're coming from because making crucial decisions about what's acceptable social behavior in an outbreak is a difficult thing to parse.

On the other hand, the people making these kinds of arguments have a fair overlap with those who hate government dictating what they can do in their lives, which makes me wonder if their entire world view is some sort of petulant child/stern parent thing

given the isolation situation, i was curious what was going on at outloud.fm and it is not what I expected http://outloud.fm/

their entire world view is some sort of petulant child/stern parent thing
stop wondering -- it is!

the more mom tells me not to spit on the floor in the house, the more petulant I will become

"you're not my mom!", they say to their stepmom. "YOU'RE my mom", they say to the government, "and i fucking HATE YOU!"

golly we were nearly not having this level of conversation but look

lakoff in the time of coronavirus

xp to deems

i use bookmarks so sometimes i'm just responding to the last thing i saw (mh's post)

i'm hard at work (can't you tell?) and just checking in on ilx inbetween tasks, so i didn't read the earlier posts that led up to that! i am very bad ilx, still

u are very good ilx but if i get the odd rap of a wooden spoon on the nose for my tics im confident in youse all good people to likewise survive the same

last i checked this is a running thread and people blorp in with whatever they feel like sharing, no?
don't tell me what to do, stern parent!

ok but no spitting on the floor

darraghmac you're not my dad!!

but...i hope that you will consider it

...i hate my dad

i have never spit on a floor in my life unless vomiting counts and i have indeed vomited on some floors

my mom is being very stubborn about only going out to the store when it's "essential" because she frequently goes out to escape being around my dad 24/7 (can't blame her) and now they are both trapped inside. i am not worried about them exactly but i am concerned that my mom will start to take unnecessary risks because she is bored out of her skull/stir crazy. again, i wouldn't blame her for wanting to, just hope she doesn't.

if it helps you keep healthy and you're able to mostly avoid close contact with people by taking a walk outdoors, and you're not likely to pass germs on to someone particularly old or immunocompromised, my opinion is to have at it

but that's my own assessment of the risks and rewards not just for myself, but for my community

fwiw I did spit on the floor as a child, no idea why, and was sent to the corner. my parents weren't really the "explain why it's bad, come to an understanding" type so it was the corner until I apologized. I think I sat in the corner crying for a half hour

sometimes people are petulant because they don't feel capable of that risk/reward calculation, or they've never had to really do it

LL, I am wondering if my mom will kill my dad. He really has to be able to go wander around and interact with other people or he'll drive her nuts.

hope for the best, maybe hook him up with a zoom buddy?!

are you volunteering? :)

i kind of can't believe my parents are still married, and now they are not only stuck in a house all day together, but they are abroad in new zealand. i almost want them to stay there. i dunno

but...i hope that you will consider it

the fuckin cheek im what three years older than you or some shit

can't believe this took such an ageist turn

Diogenes received an invitation to dine with one whose house was splendidly furnished, in the highest order and taste, and nothing therein wanting. Diogenes, hawking, and as if about to spit, looked in all directions, and finding nothing adapted thereto, spat right in the face of the master. He, indignant, asked why he did so? "Because," Diogenes, "I saw nothing so dirty and filthy in all your house. For the walls were covered with pictures, the floors of the most precious tessellated character — and ranged with the various images of gods, and other ornamental figures."

deems deceptively appears to be much riper than his true age

"dad" is more a state of mind than an age

if i have to start grounding people here i will

all of our parents that hate each other, i feel like there is a tv show swap idea in there.

do we have to turn this car around?

hope for the best, maybe hook him up with a zoom buddy?!

I hear Marty Wilson-Piper is available.

Both my parents recently retired and my sister and I have been wondering how long before they murder each other. They’ve been together 35 yrs and only happy for maybe the first 3 from what I remember. Can’t wait to see how self isolation works out for them! My poor sister has been living with them since last November and has been utterly miserable.

in orbit, F went to the store on Saturday and he came home so stressed out because people were getting too close the entire time (also I think he was treating it like a timed mission, which...I don't know why he would do that.) xpost

o/h went to the shop at lunchtime - never go at lunchtime, especially if you live near a building site, because:

1. builders don't get to stop work just because of some apocalyptic plague
2. builders need lunch
3. builders spend all day standing inches apart on some scaffolding and climbing over each other when they need to reach something, they're not gonna stand 2m apart from anyone, especially if they might lose their place in the queue and get back 30s late from lunch and get docked wages
(yay capitalism/contract worker hell)

so, mostly, poor builders, but also, if you are worrying about social distancing, avoid the times of day when builders might be trying to buy sandwiches

also I keep telling myself sooner or later these stock shortages will calm down but they just keep getting worse and worse - still no toilet paper, wet wipes, bread, various canned products, and also no beer today (also no cheap wine (had to buy slightly-fancier-than-the-very-cheapest wine (had to)))

I am really picking and choosing when I drink alcohol to keep my immune system up

oh uh... uh... oops ;_;

I worked with a woman who would shoot Rumple Minze then a water back... then just spit the water on the bar floor if she wasn't standing over a sink.

This was a terrible week to have a condo go on the market.

we tried to buy a house before Christmas and, long story short, it was an extended nightmare and it all fell through and then we thought we were out of pocket quite a lot on fees etc but luckily the insurance paid up even though the small print seemed to weasel out of our exact scenario, so we were only slightly out of pocket in the end, but anyway... I was v pissed off for a time but tbh I'm glad I am not having to move right now

I'm glad that I quit smoking ~2 years ago (and vaping at home at the start of all this) but my god no time has been more suited for sitting on the porch chainsmoking and listening to birds.

serious question: when did it become a bad thing to worry about the oncoming worse-than-the-great-recession-approaching-the-great-depression state of the economy? seeing a lot of Discourse along those lines but the thing is, a bad economy means people will become unemployed and die

People can be prevented from dying of starvation and of covid through collective action. The incipient recession is gonna suck but the ghoulish concern for “the economy” over human lives on the part of rich idiots on twitter is risible

Yeah, in my state construction (all of it, as of today) is still considered essential. It has quite a big impact on the work I do, so I've been hearing a lot about it from all sides. Lots of owners I've talked to would like to slim down their job sites and keep fewer people on the projects, but once you get labor unions involved and have to face down dozens of laborers that still want to get paid - it's a tough choice I'm glad I don't have to make.

xpost

it's unclear whether mortality goes up during recession and there's some evidence it may actually go down