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

My understanding is that walking past people is not exempt from the 2m rule because why would it be

The pooch and I have an elastic lead, but we're staying well off the sidewalks, hiking up the levee and down to the lakeshore 50 m away from any stray breaths.

I am finding difficulty finding a single bandana that doesn't smell of dog. I thought I washed these...

I’m so glad I’m on the wagon atm; procuring a supply of alcohol isn’t ab issue now.

I am “tapering off” today hopefully. Got some nice beers in my m&s haul today. The new rules for living are a bastard for impulse purchasing as you’re not allowed put anything back

Also I know takeaway food is fine but I’d be shitting it if I went into a tiny hot kebab shop rn, as I just saw someone (unmasked) queueing to do

I can hear a bird chirping incessantly outside, for the first time since I moved to the city, but fuck, I moved to the city in part to get away from nature. nature is annoying, shut up dumb bird

https://a1cf74336522e87f135f-2f21ace9a6cf0052456644b80fa06d4f.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/images/characters_opt/p-its-always-sunny-in-philadelphia-kaitlin-olson.jpg

Must say it's nice that even people with reasons that they can't get outside much generally get to be self-righteous pricks on social media. My name is Kaspar Houser and if I can manage to be locked in a windowless cell for years you selfish bastards can manage a couple of weeks!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EU2LdD6XkAI5SoP?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

thank you for emptying our bins

thank you delivering our post

you see that is much better than all this false-hearted "everything is going to be ok" bollox.

Yeah I’ve seen some with those kinds of things on too, much better obv. I hope I haven’t given you the impression I’m a huge fan of twee bromides in general calz - I’m not and I have the posts to prove it honest guv

Euler, you realize they're just biding their time waiting until they can take over.

I for one welcome our new avain overlords

Avian

xxp

lol.. I'll hold off the enhanced NKVD background check for now wins, seeing as it's you!

I'm not drinking more than usual except during a Zoom happy hour because, unlike at a bar, I have everything I want here without worrying about cost, driving, etc.

I haven't left my neighborhood in three weeks now, which is probably the longest period in my entire life I've gone without being inside a car. I've had a cough for 2.5 weeks now and had a fever for 13 days and while it probably wasn't coronavirus (bronchitis? pneumonia?) I kind of wish it had been just to have gotten done with it. Being pent up at home doesn't seem so bad now that I don't feel like I'm going to die and needing to sleep 12 hours a night.

a Zoom happy hour, great Caesar's ghost

drinking yr spyware cares away

so who's wearing masks? I wore my balaclava to the grocery store and looked like a bank robber.

I actually find myself more paranoid when I have it on, but I'm still following the distancing guidelines and washing it daily.

moving to have Shipt deliver groceries where I can, but I know there are some areas where it's cost prohibitive and some where you can't even get a timeslot.

I recommend those summer-weight balcalva masks. Much easier to get hold of than the regular kind and do the job of stopping you touching your face.

not sure if mine is summer-weight, but it definitely stopped me from touching my face and wasn't 'hot' or anything.

but on the downside, my friends tell me i look crepey with it on

tho they also said the same thing when i took it off so

I wore a N95 mask and disposable gloves to Booker and Sainsbury's the other day, nobody batted an eyelid in Booker, people were still scared of me in Sainsbury's.

That's been my uniform too, no one seems to mind. Definitely noticed an uptick in mask wearers at Target yesterday.

yeah in about a week it shot up from about maybe like 15% of people having them to like more than half the customers I saw

hey guys, I moved to Toronto end of February and

moving across the country and starting a new job in which you have to actually go into the office each day in a pandemic? do not recommend at all

it does feel weird to be employed in a period when almost everyone is laid off or not working etc esp when I've spent a lot of my life under/unemployed

anyway, I'm mostly settled in now except minor things here and there and I'm mostly convinced I have the virus but asymptomatic considering how often I go out

My cousin sent us some homemade cloth masks with no filter layer, which I truly can’t imagine make an appreciable difference to anything other than making me uncomfortable and thus touching my face while outside more than I would. They’re cute though.

Two layers of cotton fabric can do a significant amount to prevent you from potentially spreading to others, and at least guaranteeing a basic blocker in case you sneeze or cough in public. While not foolproof the idea is that it is enough to make a significant difference in the reduction of airborn virus particles.

masks also tell other people in the supermarket to stand the fuck away from you

honestly, there’s a measurable difference in people’s behaviour when i’m not wearing a mask, they stand near me and brush past me and even bump into me

I literally feel like I'm being chased.

Oh you're behind me and encroaching on me? Ok, gonna jog a little forwar....oh shit, someone's coming the other way.

maybe I can parkour over the frozen....shit, someone's looking at green beans.

backflip onto the top of the tv dinner freezer it is

This is exactly it, like the walls are closing all on sides

parkour otm, i’ve been pulling off some borderline acrobatic feats just to get away from thick people xp

from outbreak thred:

I've been keeping track of my own timeline through this--last day in a school, last movie in a theatre, last coffee in a public place--and I'm pretty sure all of that ended with me no later than March 16. I've been extremely careful since then: walks, grocery store, post office, scarf/gloves/never-close-to anybody. If the incubation period remains at two weeks maximum in almost all cases, than I feel like I can say, with a 90-95% confidence level, that if I were to contract it now, that'd be alarming with regards to the limits of what you can do to stay safe--basically, that never leaving the house is the only option.

― clemenza, Sunday, April 5, 2020 6:00 PM bookmarkflaglink

Wrong thread, probably.

― clemenza, Sunday, April 5, 2020 6:00 PM bookmarkflaglink

3/10 was really a major turning point for me.

a week earlier is when it finally hit me what a real threat this was. i was on my way to a concert (Overkill) on 3/10 when I started reading articles while eating at the Waffle House across from my hotel - all of the condiments were gone as the manager wanted them pulled. starts were starting to talk about closing. I said to myself "this is probably my last concert for a while", thinking gatherings would be banned soon.

the next 24 hours was such an escalation. I had a rehearsal for my Fringe play and while we were there, the NBA season was suspended, and within 10 hours or so, all leagues had suspended play. Trump had just suspended Europe travel. I now realized it wasn't just big gatherings that were over, but mostly everything.

pretty much everything stopped for me that day.

I need weed to proceed

feel like i'm constantly doing dishes

so who's wearing masks? I wore my balaclava to the grocery store and looked like a bank robber.

― no feeble christ (Neanderthal)

here in portland we call that the "antifa look", i bet there are some antifa folks feeling really smug about themselves right now

For us it really was Friday the 13th. I had a pesky workmergency, my wife texted me about a minor scrape she got on the car in a parking lot, we were aware of the threat but dealing with normal stuff in more or less normal ways.

Then boom. Schools are closed for a month, go the fuck home and stay there, grocery stores emptied by panic buying, every music gig and practice suddenly off. Not that much later it was: boom, there goes prom and graduation and birthday parties and Girl Scouts and swim class and dance class and the school play.

No bat mitvahs, no Spring Break atts camp. No speech therapy, occupational therapy, no physical therapy. No dentist appointments or new glasses or haircuts. No first dates, no games, no playoffs.

We've stopped talking about all the things that were expected but now won't happen.

I know all of this probably seems trivial, but. There are millions of ghost childhoods off in some alternate universe where this isn't happening, and a million timy stupid heartbreaks in the spaces they would have occupied.

Thanks for relocating my comment, this is where I meant to post it.

A friend and I were talking, and the day that will be Day 1 for many people will be March 12: Tom Hanks and his wife were diagnosed and the NBA shut down within hours of each other.

I stopped going to work on the 10th because I didn’t think the subway was safe any longer (played sick for three days until my workplace got on the same page on the 13th).

We had already been building up our pantry for at least a week and had enough non perishables. Focused on perishables on the 11th and 12th (bought a rolly cart for the occasion!)

Last day inside a store was the 14th, got stuff at the hardware store and a fuckload of tea from the Indian grocery.

Since then, only dog walks (4x/day, he’s not old enough to do a three walk day yet).

Started practicing mask use about a week ago after watching the video Forks linked.

I flew internationally on March16th. A few days later I had a bad sore throat, and developed a dry cough, chest tightness and chest heaviness that was extreme enough to really alarm me, fatigue, loss of smell/taste/appetite. I never had much of a fever. It lasted two weeks. I called my doctor when the chest tightness reached a peak and I was panicking. She told me to stay home unless I became short of breath. I never.got tested. I think California is way behind on testing

I’m better now

not sure if mine is summer-weight, but it definitely stopped me from touching my face and wasn't 'hot' or anything.

but on the downside, my friends tell me i look crepey with it on

― no feeble christ (Neanderthal), Sunday, April 5, 2020 3:33 PM

perhaps you should remind your friends that this is a batter of life and death

i think they get the whole mask thing but expected a scarf or something

i don't care, it's dope and does its job!

yeah i mean as long as they’re also committed to flattening this thing out, should be a piece of cake

most of my social circle is very much on the "stay the fuck home" wavelength, even before it was mandated. had one metalhead friend who was like "this is so overblown" and ten other metalheads swooped in to say "you're wrong", which...surprised me, lol

btw Dr Drew admitted he was wrong on his original "the media overblew this" hot take.

cool bruh. yr still an asshole.

no kidding. shut yr flap, jack !

kinda dead to me for going on Fox News at all

I do like a batter of life and death

I guess you swing that way

feel like i'm constantly doing dishes

good grief yes. I'm constantly flashing back to those parts in the stories of the early explorers where there are three months of constant cooking and cleaning.