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

i just throw grenades at passersby

outside outside (it's also impossible to give people a wide berth even if they're not taking up the whole sidewalk)

If it's impossible, that's perhaps a different story

the one nice thing about where I moved is that I could go for a run from my house (which basically is on a dead end street), and run a mile up the street and back, and most times of day, i'd run into two other people. very elder community

I only received the masks I'd ordered last week. wore it to the supermarket and saw perhaps 2-3 others doing likewise but there was hardly anyone in the shop. some staff were wearing the plastic visors. I still think, where I am, getting a mask needs a fair bit of knowledge/ research/ inclination.

A lot of people seem to think lockdown is over in all but name here anyway, stupid fucking govt.

Dunno if this makes more sense here or on the UK pols thread, but: really feels like everything's going slowly back to normal now, not because the danger has passed but just through a combination of apathy, lack of govt support/active govt encouragement to get back to normal plus the Cummings thing. Number of people wearing masks actually seems to be going down in my neighbourhood. It's disturbing, not only because it's clear there'll be a death toll to pay for it but also because it just feels like the people around me are just living in a reality separate from my own?

I don't know why you're surprised about that. If you are surprised.

Also (as per the other thread) the proposed end of Clap for Carers has an air of "well, that's over with at least, on to the next stage"

the nice weather is a big factor too. there's less risk outside, people want to go outside, therefore we all notice more people milling about, few wearing masks, because except in certain situations what's really the point of wearing a mask outside.

for that i say..... thank fuck!!

ridership on public transport is still 10% of normal from what i can tell. restaurants aren't open, cinemas aren't open, pubs aren't open etc. far from normal!

sad!

Tom, I don't know about surprised. Sad, unsure how to navigate it and when to start returning to my "normal" life myself.

Tracer, yes but it does feel like the stage is being rapidly set for restaurants, cinemas and pubs to reopen too, and it's really hard for me to put any trust in the idea the govt will hold off on that until it's quote-unquote safe.

I don't begrudge people the nice weather and hate the "people at the parK!!!" scold posts as much as anyone. It's just kinda disorientating.

yes, agree w that

This past week I decided to return to normal life which included going to QuikTrip in the morning to get breakfast and caffeine. I regret not having those things at home (I will next week) because only 20% of the morning customers (blue collar types) are wearing masks.

They probably won't, things have been reopening here, and lots of people are clearly still being cautious, but new case counts are spiking up again. Everyone is way too impatient.

xp

I read two more articles this morning, one on the NY Times, that a lot of businesses are going to institute "no public transportation" rules when they reopen and I just... I'm having trouble wrapping my head around how this is going to play out. I absolutely understand, from a virus transmission point of view, why this is on the table, but the implications are horrifying. Besides the most obvious problem of this completely fucking over millions of people who don't own cars and discriminating against the poor, that kind of traffic increase is going to absolutely cripple a lot of cities, not to mention the immeasurable impacts on the climate. Just, seems like this is being tossed out without a care about what such a rule actually means.

really feels like everything's going slowly back to normal now

Same here in Quebec despite the fact that our figures have scarcely improved. 80 deaths a day on average (almost all of them in Montreal) with no end in sight is absolutely nothing to be proud of, yet we're in full-on denial mode ('sumer is icumen in'). So Britain is sadly (well, you know what I mean) unexceptional in that regard.

My wife works for a (big) company, and her sense is that no matter what happens they will not ask people to return to the office unless or until there is a vaccine.

Also locally, by the way, I have heard horror stories about the state of the trains.

I heard this story on NPR yesterday or so, btw:

https://www.npr.org/2020/05/27/863422745/new-data-shows-the-coronavirus-is-less-lethal-than-first-thought

Yeah, thankfully my work says we are still a long, long way from being back in the office, although my role means I will have no choice but to be in from time to time (been about once a week for the past month).

My wife also has fully adapted to WFH and likes it, which was a surprise. She notes that one big plus is that meetings now start and end on time. One drawback is she doesn't have time on the train to read. But another related plus is that she is "home" from work an hour earlier each day, and gets to wake up for work an hour later.

I wish that were closer to my experience. I've found my commuting savings, as little as they already were, have been completely obliterated by longer hours. I'm working far longer than I ever had before. And meetings? Someone my work has even managed to perfect the art of dragging Zoom meetings on half an hour to an hour longer than scheduled.

that's inexcusable.

a slightly pass-agg way of dealing with that: you could try asking for the invite to be changed to reflect the meeting length, to make it easier for everyone to manage their diaries

It's been an ongoing problem that we bring up again and again, but we have two or three people that just love the sound of their own voices and can't stop talking, endlessly, needlessly. We have these biweekly department meetings that have about 30 minutes of actually good and valid info exchange but are scheduled for an hour and a half and routinely stretch well over two hours.

Calls need a moderator who is willing to cut ramblers short and keep things on track

that's Robert & his Rules

Get an airhorn and blare it anytime someone goes past the one minute mark of talking

we had one the other day that lasted two hours and the one lady who is ALWAYS shaming people for having their microphones on while someone else is talking left hers on the entire time
smh

agree about moderator. whoever’s meeting it “is” needs to periodically pipe up with “okay - we only have (x) minutes left - mary, can you take us through (y)?”

even if there is no mary present, obv

fair points all, except the "owner" of the meeting is among the worst ramblers, so...

our 10 minute start-of-day zoom standups now have an optional 10 minute social prelude, which helps get a lot of the chatter done.

I miss the UK lockdown proper. Traffic noise and crowded streets are returning and as these are two major provokers of chronic (sometimes not so) low level anxiety or maybe irritation for me the reduction has been relatively delightful.

Our county is, I think, about to see a peak. Local schools are delaying opening by at least a week.
I'm keeping off the UK politics threads, but is there any indication of whether we'll ever move to pre-emptive testing of any sort (e.g. for key workers, planned reopenings, super locally etc) rather than waiting for symptoms to present?

how are places gonna enforce the 'no public transportation' rule? do you have to buy a newspaper and take a selfie holding it next to your car?

In Houston we're still planning on sending kids back to camp/school in July. I'll be almost out of vacation days and will have to go back to work. 5 year old's Montessori school transitions to "camp" in the summer, so she's all set. 10 year old's scheduled camps are all cancelled for the summer and all of the other camps we've looked at are booked solid. Our one option is to put her into the same Montessori school/camp which has an opening and is relatively affordable. She really doesn't want to because the camps she was expecting to go to were all cool and awesome and this will definitely not be cool and awesome. But it makes too much sense to do otherwise. Even if we could find another camp, it would be crazy expensive. The other benefit of them going to the same camp is that the potential exposure is much lower than it would be if they were going to different places. So she's going to lose her shit when the decision is handed down.

Meanwhile, 5 year old is regressing and going mental and screaming and is getting lost because she doesn't have other kids to model her behavior on. Getting her into online therapy because it's out of control and we don't know how to deal with it. I love my children but dear god I am so tired of being locked in a house with them. Everybody's feelings are starting to feel like challenges and burdens instead of natural reactions to an extraordinary situation.

my job's HR department just sent out an amazing message to everyone. they gave us all a 20% "hair cut" on our paychecks, starting a few months ago. since then, everyone has been wondering how long that will last, if we might be compensated (since everyone is still working 100% of the time, not 80%), etc.

HR says they have set up a "2020 special incentive". they will start a special fund for reimbursing employees for their pay cuts. this special fund will kick in AFTER they achieve their goal of $72M in profits. at that point, the first $5M will go into a special incentive fund, and then after that, 25%.

but first, they have to hit their $72M profit target

morale is SKY HIGH

they should be fined for calling it a "haircut"

the only kind of haircut that anyone can get right now

/trenchant

Your company's executives know that their employees are their most valuable assets, because if you squeeze them they generate more profits. all they ever get out of their capital assets is a generous depletion allowance.

if someone gave me a 20% haircut, I would make 20% more mistakes each day on purpose

including teaching students about the elusive Medicare Part F

I'm getting word that one of the teachers at our day care tested positive

luckily we haven't sent our kids back but a few of our neighbors did

ok what the fuck this is my hometown https://www.newsobserver.com/news/coronavirus/article243033126.html

Local sainsbury's local keeps tweaking things to make them safer - latest is arrows on the floor, 2m apart, describing a sensible route around the shop. Would work quite well if everyone took notice.

The one bloke in there acting like this thing wasn't happening, and telling the staff their jobs etc, his phone went off whilst at the counter sorting out his lottery tickets. "No income tax, no VAT..."

Just been out for my longest walk since the lockdown began and it's pretty much over out there, traffic back up to annoying levels etc.

things are trending this way even in california and I have to remind myself that the point of lockdown wasn't to lockdown everything and everyone until there's a vaccine; there may never be a vaccine. It was to keep hospitals from getting overwhelmed, and they haven't. shit is going to have to open back up and people are going to have to wear masks, period, if they want to engage with society until this a vaccine is found (hopefully).

that said, our school district essentially said this week that there will NOT be in-person school next fall, which isn't a surprise to me since every teacher and every in-school administrator I've talked to here said there was no way. campuses will be used for 'supplemental' and necessary stuff (labs, band).

Most people in London don't seem to be wearing masks. If you're in a country where mask-wearing just isn't a cultural norm, it seems to be very difficult for a lot of people to adjust (not just macho Americans). They feel 'silly'. So everyone meanders around, breathing on each other, and inevitably there's a new wave of infections. Somehow I can't see the UK government ordering people to do things any differently either (apologies for minor political digression there).

I don't think it's down to silliness so much as a) the goverment not insisting on the wearing of masks and b) the lack of availability of masks. a) and b) are linked, of course.

I'm exercised about schools going back the same time that social lockdown (in England) is eased to the point of no-one really caring. Staggering would've made more sense - as it is loads of families with kids are going to be seeing the grandparents etc, for the first time in months, a week or two before all the kids go back to school and spread it around. I've been diligent so far but am trying to navigate how to say yes/no to my parents coming for a 'garden visit'. It would be ok if I knew they weren't being more blase than they've let on!
Every stage of 'easing' seems to be 'lets see how bad it gets if we allow this', rather than 'we're planning these release measures, lets try extra hard to identify where the outbreaks are and shut them down'. Not that I think there'd be much compliance with that at this point.