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

on the plus side, I stress less because I don't have time to fixate on one problem anymore with all the shit going on lol

I was talking with my friend about something similar, she takes meds for anxiety but if anything seems to feel more at ease now that crisis is just the state of things

I feel like some of us anxiety folk tend to wig out more when everything is perfect for one little tiny detail. it's the whole inconsistency piece.

i have a small group of friends that shacked up together (despite having their own places) to be germ buddies, and i'd really like to join them, but i can't -- they're working from home and i gotta round this weekend (just the inpatient psych ward, but a hospital's a hospital right now yknow). sucks

My asshole downstairs neighbors, who we've been at cold war with for a couple of years already, keep having people over. Not parties, but one or two people stopping in for a chat. I feel like perching in the stairwell and spraying Lysol in their faces when they come in or out of their apartment.

a perfectly reasonable response imho but you need to wear a full hazmat suit while doing so

sorry justine, that's rough. hope you can get by and that once all this is over (not too long, I hope) something much better will come along for you both

watched a sweet story unfold on the local mutual aid whatsapp i'm on: last night someone posted to ask what to do, they live around xx in yy street, needed a bunch of medication and related picked up but had just become symptomatic. someone who didn't knbow them replied saying "i live right across the road from there! i can do it", they connected via DMs, got it sorted, and the first person posted a pic of the pick-up* this morning with a million thanks. obviously this is tiny in itself (one story) but also heartwarmingly east end london in its way, plus an indication of how local internet social networks can and should be working. in this relentless time of arseholes-be-bein-arseholes type stories etc

*the pic included olbas oil which i used to have to put on a bit of tissue paper for my niece when she was small bcz it "helped her sleep" (in fact she sleeps quickly and deeply, it "helped delay bed time" lol). but it made me tear up a bit all the same…

Yeah, there was a guy on my local mutual aid group who was experiencing symptoms but didn't speak much english, in like 10min someone popped up to translate from Italian and sort the situation out. :)

Last week my wife had a night of shivers and coughing, felt bad for a couple of days. She's still coughing but otherwise fine now. A few days ago I had a similar experience - shivers, aching limbs, but no cough. Feel perfectly fine now. Dunno if had the covids or what, but if we did, we got off very lightly indeed.

Had something similar to your wife. Really hope that was it.

best luck to both of you daniel, you too chairman -- also everyone else on ilx and their friends and circle and etc :(

Did I see news of a possible/imminent home test to see if you've had it?

In UK yes

nightly phone calls with my mother are mushrooming out to 40 minutes a night as she goes stir crazy. about halfway through its clear she has nothing to say and starts either regaling me with tales of useless ephemera (plots of television shows or the exploits of her cats around the house) or starts ginning up conflict. last night she rigorously questioned my vitamin c intake. I am gonna need to be patient.

i'll call your mother if you call mine.

going to the grocery store this morning sucked ass even though it was emptier than usual. in non-pandemic times i go into a total shopping fugue and this has only intensified it plus makes me feel like i'm in an obstacle course made of people

however, while walking home i heard a skateboard humming behind me, and when the narrow sidewalk expanded i walked to the right just to see this teen skater drifting by with a mask on, perfectly practicing social distancing. my heart swelled lol

I have irrationally had a fear of something like this happening the past week or so (more that someone would randomly run up to me and do something similar)...and can know move that over to the rational category.

http://www.cnn.com/2020/03/26/us/woman-coughed-on-produce-trnd/index.html

"now"

Called my mom yesterday just to chat and check in, and she said "I love you" three times before we hung up. She's definitely a longtime "I-love-you-as-perfunctory-sign-off" kinda person but three times made me take notice. I think she's scared.

best luck to both of you daniel, you too chairman -- also everyone else on ilx and their friends and circle and etc :(

― mark s, Thursday, 26 March 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Thanks Mark I am fine now. Hope you and family are keeping well.

My mom (71) volunteers for all kinds of stuff - she was supposed to be preparing people's tax returns via the United Way this month, but that ain't happening, so now she's driving for Meals On Wheels starting tomorrow. She emails me every few days now (as opposed to once every 3-4 months pre-COVID), but no phone calls yet.

20% paycut just implemented across the business (I know this is a lot better than some people are facing) - hours also to be cut by 20%, so at least it's somewhat fair

Found out yesterday via the news that an officer in my local police department has tested positive. The Chief of Police was quoted as saying, "We believe the officer may have contracted the virus last week while off-duty at a social gathering."

We don't have a huge force, and I know that at least three CHPD officers live within two blocks of my house, so it makes me really twitchy.

I am really sad and frustrated to hear about folks here getting salary cuts and furloughs. I feel fortunate to be employed as a computer-toucher in a central administrative unit of a large public university right now. I hope ilxors in immediate need of financial support will be forthcoming about it.

I'm currently assuming I won't be furloughed, but that's also on the cards, they just haven't told us who it's gonna be yet

it plus makes me feel like i'm in an obstacle course made of people

So otm

My mom called me freaked that the Stimulus would fail yesterday
I realized she's reading my frenetic COVID infodumps on FB as her soul source of news.

She just got a temp job delivering food to people during the crisis. Not an Uber Eats, i think people who aren't able to afford groceries due to being out of work

Went to the laundromat this morning, as I do every week. They open at 6, I get there at 6:45-7, and usually it's dead empty until close to 8. Today there were already four or five people there when I got there, and I was lucky to find enough machines. People kept coming in with massive amounts of stuff, like they had decided to launder the virus out of every piece of fabric in their house. I did what I could to stand as far away from people as possible (and people would move out of each other's way, and some were wearing masks and/or gloves) but it was surprisingly anxiety-producing.

contracted the virus last week while off-duty at a social gathering

why was a cop at a social gathering last week??

lol dude cmon

i am pretty sure the kkk is still holding weekly meetings.

cops have friends too

cops spreading it around inadvertently seems like a big risk though. just yesterday, the neighbors in the house across the street had a huge fight out on the sidewalk and the police were called. one of the neighbors had tried to smack the phone out of the hand of the other, and then purposefully coughed in his face. it was clear to me, from across the street watching from my window like a weirdo, that at least part of the argument was about coronavirus, and that one of them clearly thought it was not a big deal, or possibly a hoax.

anyway, the cops showed up and separated both parties in the argument, but continued to stand like 1/2 foot away from them as they interviewed them both for 5-10 minutes! maybe that's not the biggest risk in the world for one interaction, but how many times a day are they touching and standing so close to randos all over the city?

hey fellow cops, great job out there on the force today. *entire force hugs together*

hopefully all cops will die of the vid

lol dude cmon

what? Aren't we all supposed to be avoiding social gatherings? Shouldn't a cop be taking even more precautions then the rest of us?

they are generally not the savviest of survivalists if it doesn't involve a gun or taser.

cops are pretty dumb

silby, that's ott mean-spirited. get a grip.

acab

they can quit being cops if they don't want to get the 'vid from hassling people

^ xp. I meant the 'all cops die' post

cops rarely stop being cops otherwise, is the problem

geez. did you catch the "double-down' on every criticism virus from Trump?

why do you like cops so much

I mean there’s a link in the UK thread showing cops uploading drone footage of people walking in remote areas to shame them because it’s “not essential”. Dread* to think what they’ll get up to around any unfortunate people they don’t like the look of in London.

*the same thing they always do, lol

what? Aren't we all supposed to be avoiding social gatherings? Shouldn't a cop be taking even more precautions then the rest of us?

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Thursday, March 26, 2020 10:46 AM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes, and i'm gonna go ahead and make the assumption that a lot of cops are, well, pretty dumb, particularly when it comes to stuff like this

ok forgive me for being appalled by the stupidity

not quite seeing as "mostly apolitical" the implicit assumption that cops are evil, useless, dumb, or some combination of the three

but w/e

why do you like cops so much

My father's cousin is a retired NYC Transit cop and my first cousin is a parole officer. I like both of them a lot.