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

yeah I watched the very stupid Medical Police two months ago, which did not help me understand this pandemic at all

Loss of smell is a common symptom of a lot of cold/flu things.

Yes, because of stuffy nose, etc. To reiterate, I think it is more unusual for it to be the *only* symptom. That is, per reports:

"Anosmia, in particular, has been seen in patients ultimately testing positive for the coronavirus with no other symptoms," reads to a statement on the academy's website.

As a Houstonian, I’m bewildered that we haven’t shut down yet.

The way I understand it is Houston hasn't had enough cases reported per capita (compared to other shutdown US cities), but now that there's more tests and testing sites that'll rise and then there will be a shutdown.

But that'll probably change now other big Texas cities are doing it.

hi & welcome Cow_Art! hope the leg's on the mend, good luck wrangling the 5y/o, and post more imo

san anto just announced shelter in place

Inslee ordered WA to stay home for two further weeks, which is the finest possible distinction from the state of affairs that previously obtained but pressure was mounting for him to do it so fine. I've already been told I'm working from home until June 12. My fancy chair arrived just now, so that's nice.

I'm so relieved WA got the stay at home order. It's been a constant struggle trying to get my housemates (not all of them, mostly just one) to do some basic social distancing, and they keep pointing to the lack of order as a reason why they don't have to.

that’s the same reason we got a (moderate) lockdown order, some people were doing whatever the hell they wanted until they were told not to

Lily I’m glad u can now beat your dummy roommate over the head with this

Thanks!

anosmia is fucking weird; I've gotten it as a symptom of regular colds, and you don't realize how destabilizing it is until you go and sniff something you know can be smelled from 50 feet away and get nothing

I will say it made a huge impact on me a week ago. I think I even lost a couple of pounds, because there was no pleasure in eating or drinking! But the real reason it intrigues me is that it happened to me for the first time in my life in the middle of a highly contagious epidemic where it has since been reported that loss of sense of taste and smell with no other symptoms may itself be a symptom, and unlike many of the other symptoms associated with covid, I commented on it and complained about it before I or anyone had any idea it could be related. At minimum a really weird coincidence!

The first person stories I've heard are so fascinatingly inconsistent. Families where likely everyone had it and no one knew. Households where one person has a terrible case, and another person has a mild case. Young people with terrible cases and old people with mild cases. And so on. It really makes you wonder about all the things we may be carrying with us all time without showing symptoms. After all, why would you test for something if it wasn't bothering you?

I've had a bad sore throat and a deep chest cold that has gotten worse over the last 5 days, but it seems to have bottomed out and it is not unlike other colds I’ve had. I am being vigilant but my level of worry has gone down

For me it's standard on like days 6-7 of a cold... can't smell anything, food has no taste. I prefer it to a sore throat, honestly.

Houston apparently will be getting Shelter In Place orders tomorrow morning that will go into effect on Wednesday.

after today the all-encompassing fear of losing my job has now been combined with guilt for being afraid of that , because it involved the economy, which I am not supposed to worry about

or. OR! you could not worry about what others think you're supposed to worry about

there’s the economy as in “the government is in surplus and it’s trickling down through the sweaty fingers of the rich”, and there’s the economy as in “how the hell am i going to eat tomorrow”

i really wish we had different words for these

The DJIA is fake. The GDP is a little bit fake and a little bit real. The deficit is fake. The national debt is mostly fake. Needing money to buy food is real.

oh yes, beautifully said

always good to fake stock at times like these

"furlough" and "layoff" are words I'm starting to hear spoken close to me

same, I just don't know what the morally correct amount to be scared for my job is

there’s the economy as in “the government is in surplus and it’s trickling down through the sweaty fingers of the rich”, and there’s the economy as in “how the hell am i going to eat tomorrow”

― karmic blowback for dissing pip and jane baker (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, March 24, 2020 12:00 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i really wish we had different words for these

― karmic blowback for dissing pip and jane baker (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, March 24, 2020 12:00 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Macroeconomics versus microeconomics? (I didn't even take Econ 101.)

Good news: I will be getting out of the house next week. Bad news: It will be the first day of 5 weeks being on call for grand jury duty. It should be...interesting...going into downtown DC.

australia just got told

* max 5 people at weddings
* max 10 people at funerals
* max 10 people at fitness boot camps
* schools to continue with a billion kids squished into a tiny room
* hairdressers max 30 mins, no colouring
* nail salons & tattoo parlours to close
* no house parties
* no auctions
* REMAIN INDOORS

Also the Queensland border closure doesn’t apply queensalnders going out and coming back in.

is that a tweed heads thing?

also, “don’t leave home unless absolutely necessary” but shopping centres will stay open

Anglophone nations are basically shit at stopping things is my take, though NZ might be an outlier.

lol at fitness camps being twice as important/well attended as weddings

utterly alien to the irish, that

It’s a tweed heads thing, but if you’re going to make that exception then why bother. Domestic travel ban deal with all the pricks wanting to spend their Easter at the Gold Coast.

Anglophone nations are basically shit at stopping things is my take, though NZ might be an outlier.

"I'm a sovereign human being, I stand under common law only" - Thread of Freemen

lol at fitness camps being twice as important/well attended as weddings

we’ll start having fitness themed weddings

It's weird, everyone talking about the out of doors being a ghost town, because I haven't left my building in over a week but every time I leave my apartment it's like party central. I don't think I've ever run into as many neighbors et al in the course of a normal day as I do when I'm trying to very quickly rush downstairs to pick up a pizza or get the mail and very pointedly trying to avoid coming into the proximity of other people. Go to your homes! Inside of them!

If I knew that everyone in the building was properly self-isolating, I'd just say hey yeah let's have a big ol' potluck in the courtyard and commisserate! But I don't really trust that that's the case.

I'm sorry to bang on about this but if you're self isolating you don't meet anyone else.

No worries, I am self-isolating like a mf.

the 'hanging out' part vibe is the ultimate in coddled denialism

same, I just don't know what the morally correct amount to be scared for my job is

― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine)

my experience is that when it comes to my feelings i need to suspend any moral judgement. i've found the only way i can live with myself is to accept my feelings for what they are.

if it helps reading your posts i don't feel moral judgement towards you; mostly i wish there was more i could do to help. my impression is that you're one of the people here who's being more affected by this crisis.

There's going to be a boom in family gatherings of various sorts when we get out of this but non-funeral memorial services are going to be huge. The idea of someone in my family dying and not being able to get to the funeral has been haunting me the last few days.

i attended a virtual funeral last saturday (not close, cousins marriage relative) and it was pleasant enough.

I went to a funeral yesterday, my gf's father died last week. I was drafted to be a pall bearer because of the (understandably) low turnout. We are going to have a picnic in his honor over the summer, or whenever this ends.

Kids still out playing cricket with their dad in the street across from me, as per every day this week.

according to my 17 year old son, the memes have gotten really bad and unfunny

Just been for a lovely walk with the kids up some remote woods we have nearby. Didn't see a single soul once in the woods but there still seemed to be an awful lot of people out and about in cars.

Kids still out playing cricket with their dad in the street across from me, as per every day this week.

this seems... fine?

if it helps reading your posts i don't feel moral judgement towards you; mostly i wish there was more i could do to help. my impression is that you're one of the people here who's being more affected by this crisis.

― Kate (rushomancy), Tuesday, March 24, 2020 8:54 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

maybe here (doubt it though, surely others have jobs that cannot be done from home and thus don't exist anymore by default) but in the grand scheme of things I absolutely am not

I am a little shocked to see that 4 showings of my condo were booked up through today.

absolute nonsense that my roommate's office, a private electrical contracting firm, is still open and requiring people to come in every day bc they technically fall under the heading of "construction," which is for some reason an essential business in nyc. AND they're still open even though one of their employees' husbands tested positive. office is run by conservative shitheads of course. i'm fucking furious about it