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

that doesn't really add much of value to the conversations we're having on Zoom with our friends on the day-to-day

so not happening here

is she a hoaxer too?

if she was she isn't anymore

that's good

my mom is on a mission to be the very last person in the united states to think that it's real

do you think she is actually believes that or is this her way of protecting herself from stress/anxiety/need of action.

Re: cruise industry and relief bill https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/26/cruise-line-bailout/

yeah, it may have been silly to worry about something trump said but he kept bringing up cruises (such a vital industry!)

many xps thank you Yerac, I'm adopting this protocol today...have set up our porch for grocery triage

who is the hoaxer in their view?

is there some kind of thing out there where we could maintain an ongoing group video chat? Where people could just dip in and out and say 'hey' to whoever happens to be hanging around at that particular moment? Is that a thing? Just thinking that an ILX-centric place to see a friendly face wouldn't be the worst idea for those who might be having a rough go of it.

xpost to yerac

she believes it. she is in a state of extreme cognitive dissonance, pulled in at least 3 directions:

1) first and foremost, she believes the apocalypse is nigh, and that all of this is leading to imminent one world government. everything that is happening now is a conspiracy to get people to submit, use a single currency, lock down those that dissent, etc.
2) trump. she told me this week that trump's reaction to all of this is the "very first time" that she has doubted him. "he's acting strangely", she says. she said that in response to him, on occasion, treating coronavirus like a real thing. this is proof that 1) is taking place, to her. trump is being used by god to pave the way for the events of the apocalypse. i told her just to wait a week, and trump would call it a hoax again and put her at peace, but she didn't listen
3) some segments of the evangelical community (liberty university for example) are onboard with the "this is overblown/a hoax" argument. rush limbaugh, other radio hosts, hannity, etc etc. there's plenty of support she can find

there is this medium that I thought was practical. It comes down to "Wash your hands, clean the things you touch, avoid people (and the things people touch)."

https://medium.com/@amcarter/i-had-no-immune-system-for-months-after-my-bone-marrow-transplant-1b097f16040c

I know I wash my dishes in not-hot water, but I am a pretty systematic hand washer, towel/clothes washer, keeping things very clean and orderly and very rarely get sick. Everyone just needs to do the best they can but it's easier once you have a routine and things set up properly to do it.

oh we have an ilx slack...but no video. there are food (and random) pics though.

karl, so your mom is very religious? Yeah, I don't know how to deal with that.

this is the slack that Ed set up. https://join.slack.com/t/poxyfule/shared_invite/zt-csm19k0n-P_w0mauC3_sXUXus~TI0mw
you have to expand the channels to see everything.

she is actually the most religious. there will be a special set of people, within heaven, consisting of a very small group of elite christians. my parents aim to be among them

i am terrified to join that slack, btw

wash your hands before you join.

KM, please join

It's good! Lurking, that's where I'm a viking.

there is this medium that I thought was practical. It comes down to "Wash your hands, clean the things you touch, avoid people (and the things people touch)."

https://medium.com/@amcarter/i-had-no-immune-system-for-months-after-my-bone-marrow-transplant-1b097f16040c

― Yerac, Friday, March 27, 2020 8:21 PM (ten minutes ago)

thank you for this link! i found this article really helpful. had been feeling a bit overwhelmed by some of the advice i'd been hearing (sanitizing your mail before opening it, etc).

i'm afraid that if i join i'll never be able to get anything else done ever again

i have an ilx addiction :(

and i don't want to quit

My mom lives in a small town about an hour and forty-five minutes outside of Chicago. Thankfully she's taking this really seriously, but she calls me with constant updates about all the people around her that aren't. Their neighbors across the street have two college kids that are now home and have thrown at least two parties in the last week, at one point she counted thirteen cars in their driveway/parked in their yard.

Also, one of the teachers at a local school that lives in her neighborhood decided that the best way to deal with bored fifth and sixth graders stuck at home is to invite them all over to her house for trampoline gatherings every afternoon. It's this type of shit that infuriates me so much and makes me fearful that we'll even have this under any semblance of control.

funnily enough, I had a bone marrow transplant over 7 years ago, and followed just some of those protocols (ie the major ones)

it's just really difficult for some people to grasp this threat when it hasn't "hit home" yet

didn't have a utility room tho

I have a room, a half-kitchen, and a small bathroom

xp

sp I will grant them that it is a really bizarre thing! Something that you need a friggin electron microscope to see has basically shut down the entire planet.

I am so thankful that my parents and the people in their street/community/various activity groups are taking this pretty seriously, from the sound of it.

my bf thinks it's real but he's a lot more laid back about it than I am and still going to the shop for nice-to-have things instead of doing our best to make do. we may end up fighting about it but tbh I know I could work myself up over little things which in the end may or may not make much difference, so as long as we're isolating ourselves to a reasonable extent - not seeing anyone, staying in except for groceries & occasional careful walks, plus lots of hand-washing - then maybe it's better to just... go with it, and let it be a weight off my mind that someone else made the judgement call

(speaking of shops, I went for the first time in days today and felt kind of down at seeing them still so bare-shelved and now with tape markings everywhere to enforce distancing. one of our neighbourhood's two supermarkets now has bouncers in the doorway - who took up half the doorway so I had to walk right past, good job there, and the cashier coughed without covering his mouth while serving me, so that probably didn't help my nerves)

morbs I would be more concerned about groceries if there were other people around. but as long as only you are handling the groceries and you wash your hands each time you handle it, you should be fine.

Well there are the delivery people, and the friends who are ferrying them to me. I just soaped up 4 reusable bags and theyre hanging on a (cleaned) doorknob to dry.

Extra housework is the worst way to go.

Now I'm going to use the basement laundry. Gonna burn another pair of my dwindling disposable gloves supply I guess...

My parents (late 60s) ticking up to 3 weeks with whatever they've had (i.e. almost certainly coronavirus) - latest report is 'slightly improved, still coughing'. This disease does not let go lightly

I'm starting to get annoyed thinking about all the careless fools taking little or no precautions against this thing who will inevitable become infected, most likely be mildly or only semi-seriously ill, and then saunter around immune and probably spreading it even further by touching infected surfaces etc - all while I'm cowering at home following isolation advice. Grr.

An employee of the supermarket where we do our groceries just tested positive and they shut the whole place down until tomorrow morning. Suddenly my mom's insistance on disinfecting the shit out of every item seems less insane.

I'm starting to get annoyed thinking about all the careless fools taking little or no precautions against this thing who will inevitable become infected, most likely be mildly or only semi-seriously ill, and then saunter around immune and probably spreading it even further by touching infected surfaces etc - all while I'm cowering at home following isolation advice. Grr.

... well, yeah! This is what a large proportion of the country has been raging at for at least the past week.

In terms of groceries, it's stuff like plastic milk bottles I'm careful about as they go in the fridge and I'm touching them all the time.

Now that school's been closed for a week, if I get it it's gonna be from the supermarket. Took the kids out for a walk around the neighbourhood today, avoiding anyone I saw. 2yo crying 'not home' when we had to go back, 5yo said it felt spooky.

i just talked to my mom in tidewater virginia and she's still going out to run errands, going to the military hospital, pharmacy, grocery store. She said no one is wearing masks. I told her to slap hers on because it will keep her from touching her face and it will keep people from coming near her.

i think the only thing i am nervous about -- the same thing i am always nervous about -- is the point where people start turning on each other. the scary tipping point where the cooperation ends. the TP hoarding was the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ugly hurtful human behavior. :(

that is back-of-my-mind concerning me but i am trying to focus on helping others for as long as i can. the administration at my school is being SUPER dumb about getting faculty onboard with teaching online. absolutely not enough time in the world for me to type out the details.

on that note:

Please remember: The idea that when disaster strikes people panic and social order collapses is very popular. It is also a myth. A huge research literature shows disaster makes people *more* pro-social. They cooperate. They support each other. They're better than ever. 1/x

— Dan Gardner (@dgardner) March 26, 2020

yeah. I mean, in a way it's good you can't get near people right now (hopefully lack of violence), but we also have stuff set aside in case people need food or inhalers. and i want to make as many masks as possible to give away and I know a lot of other people doing the same.

for now...the time i am thinking of comes later

idk who is dan gardner? i can't really be soothed by a stranger named dgardner telling me that this is fiction -- people turn on one another all the time under normal circumstances. under dire ones, under stress, it can get ugly. dan gardner can't change that.

in the meantime, i am going to try to keep the cooperation happening and hope for the best. i just wanted to vent my concerns.

the danger is that if i am in real need from illness, i don't know that my neighbor will help me and i don't know that i blame them

but yes, humans are terrible and it is not unreasonable to be scared of some of them doing terrible shit

at one point we kind of discussed people turning on each other (during the protests against the govt) but then I was like "oh well, what can you do. at least we have super heavy furniture to barricade the doors."

yeah that doesn't make me feel better
i am trying VERY hard not to catastrophize (even as a "joke"), to stay in the moment, to keep my eye on what's important
that is my #1 challenge atm

I've been more or less social distanced for ... it's been a while. Well over two weeks. Hanging around here with the exception of taking my daughter for driving lessons (streets are empty!), going for walks or going to the store ... twice? But I don't include that as a reset of the clock, per se, since I'm never really around anyone, washing my hands, etc. Anyway, a friend asked if I might be up for beers around a fire pit in a couple of days, and I said yes. We won't be that close to one another, we've both been socially isolated, and there will be a fire between us. I think I'm as good with that as I will ever be.

my neighbours (next flat along) are having a big house party today, forever going in and out of the building, like the pandemic never happened

Surprisingly people seem to be behaving themselves in London - mind you I haven't been outside in 4 days.

LL, that twitter thread cites research

I'm trying to think of things that will make me more positive if they happen.
Photos of deserted streets etc - are actually quite reassuring to me.
Data in 3 weeks or so showing that distancing has had an effect.
Supermarkets/delivery working out some kind of system that reduces panic-buying, repeated shopping trips, helping the vulnerable.

I didn't know until today that the UK daily data (numbers of deaths etc) "do not represent the number of deaths that occurred in the past day but the number reported to NHS England in a 24-hour period. Two of the deaths, reported by Basildon and Thurrock university hospitals NHS foundation trust and University hospitals of Leicester NHS trust, occurred on 14 March." Not that this is particularly positive but it helps me reframe things.

yesterday i remembered that we have access to the roof though our landlord asked us not to use it when we moved in.
i think this might help get me through. it's sunny and open and airy and occasionally people shyly come up from the adjoining buildings and wave and stay way the fuck away from me.

picturing you standing, arms outstretched as you exit the roof door, then spinning slowly in the sun