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

My county put in a mandatory masks-at-all-times order last night; we had not retreated from March's mandatory masks-indoors rule.

Although Miami-Dade has the highest totals in Florida, those cases look concentrated in, of course, the poorest and blackest parts of town, and for the first time less than half of new cases are in South Florida. I just haven't seen evidence of the lunacy Neanderthal describes upstate, thanks to the mask ordinance.

I'm still not particularly nervous. My family has a beach vacation on the Gulf coast; we plan to walk straight from condo to beach and avoid everyone.

Saw my first two tense arguments break out in a store a couple of days ago, at least one mask-related. And they were in a very granola co-op.

In San Francisco it's been interesting, because while there'd been some light retail opening a few weeks back -- primarily curbside pickup still, but moving a touch forward on certain fronts -- they, wisely, put a halt to what would have been an accelerated opening otherwise allowing outdoor bars and the like. That initially was going to be around July 15th, then pushed up to June 29th, but on Friday the 26th they'd clearly seen enough from SoCal in particular as well as some lightly rising numbers here and went, "Yeah, no." (However much London Breed was or wasn't involved in the nuts and bolts, she's two for two on the biggest announcements so far.) So essentially we're frozen in place rather than retreating -- at least so far -- and thus avoiding the clearly obvious fuckups elsewhere. In terms of masks, the requirement's been tightened a little more but it pretty much was actively encouraged the whole time and required for anything indoors; you do see the occasional person outside without them, more at certain times of the day, but less so now, and pretty much I haven't seen anyone while inside anywhere for my usual weekly errands (laundry, shopping, once-a-week takeout) without a mask. No cheers for us until we're all through it but we seem to have settled into a norm, though let's see what the next two weeks bring.

Texas just issued a mandatory statewide mask order.

oh, is it april already?

For counties with 20 or more cases. All those other counties can party on!

That's like every county that isn't 75% desert tho.

Although if this drives all anti-maskers to live free in the deserts and badlands, then hey-hey.

Right, I was wondering which counties could possibly fly under that radar.

As long as the people who make barbecue mask up, I'm okay with the rest of the rubes wandering off to the desert to live free and die.

Kind of wondering what all the anti-mask folks think when Republican leaders suddenly change course on this shit

"The deep state is even deeper than we thought ..."

XP They'll say they never trusted them and "All Heil Trump/Q!".

My wondering didn't last long. Abbott posted a couple tweets about the mask order, and the replies are every bit as horrific as you can imagine.

Ironically, I would wager that if 'Q' told his follower-bots that the USA had reached a top secret tipping point where wearing masks now was now mandatory for them, because it would cloak their identities from the surveillance of the Deep State, which is collecting all their names via face recognition software in preparation for attacking Q-Anon, but that a sudden turn to mask wearing will render it all inoperable, they'd all be wearing masks with secret signals emblazoned on them to show each other they are In The Know - Wink Wink.

the new all gas no brakes florida man 2 video is instructive

One of my anti-maskers on FB has already posted the exemptions list and advised everyone to save it to their phones for reference. I expect a lot of folks claiming they're exercising and/or giving a televised speech in the coming days.

COVID has tied ropes around my chest. it's made work more stressful than I can handle, and then there's the mother unemployment issues, the dad swallowing issues, the toxicity of the anti-mask and racist brigades that are everywhere lately, my state becoming the next COVID epicenter, and the cloud of gloom that just permeates fucking everywhere with zero escape.

I decided last night to try and cheer myself up and treat myself to a new turntable as I recently I started collecting vinyl versions of some of my favorite metal albums and figured hey, it'll be a new hobby. so I was excited as I had new albums coming in today and I was picking up the set, and figured I'd just chill and listen to toonz all night and turn off my phone.

and not only was work really fucking terrible to the point I worked two hours late, but my best friend had two crises today. she has Asperger's, depression, and anxiety, and so when she gets upset, she needs to just talk about what's bothering her to get through it, so she was msging me throughout the day.

and we thought the first crises (her apartment fiasco) was solved after she worked on it by herself for hours, and instead of thanking her, her boyfriend uncharacteristically decided to be a dick to her afterwards and created an explosive argument and she started freaking out, saying she didn't want to see him anymore, lamenting what a loser she was, saying she would be in a better place if she just killed herself, threatening to just drive back to Florida right now (an 11 hour drive from VA) because if her and her boyfriend split, she can't move into her new apartment, or go to school in the fall, or even bring her cat with her. then the BOYFRIEND Tried to call me right at the same time trying to get me to talk to her for him (literally this all happens mere minutes after I finished work and was just getting ready to relax for 10 minutes of peace and eat dinner, and instead, pelted with calls and messages from all directions).

not the first time she's mentioned self-harm and has never done it, but she isn't saying it for attention. now I can't get ahold of her, and out of all of my friends, she's the one I worry about the most because she's so fragile and people treat her like shit and she was abused by her parents growing up. i can't control what she does nor are her problems mine to solve but I just wish I could, so now I'm sitting here stressed out and worried about whether she's ok or not, and she's not answering her phone. which i know she doesn't owe me. but I just want to know that she's ok and not doing something destructive.

so now I'm sitting here in silence, next to my assembled turntable not wanting to do anything.

shit man

don’t forget to take care if yrself in all this...seems like your resources are depleted and you can’t be much of a help to anyone else if you can’t keep your head above water

what an impossibly shit year

This whole situation has me increasingly defaulting to direly pessimistic personal forecasts, feeling like all the best of life has just abruptly dried up...I keep seeing myself at 75 or 80, fixating on my parents’ mortality, my kids’ bleak futures.

lol I have a drawerful of MDMA that would come in handy but don’t think it’s possible to share responsibly while socially distancing

maybe I just need to double down and give myself a day in the woods with it

I'm driving six hours on Saturday to the Finger Lakes in NY to go to my Mother-in-Law's wedding on Sunday. We're going in commando; in and out. 15-45 minutes in a restaurant for the ceremony and then 6 hour drive back on Sunday.

fun!

that's some dedication

Find a safe ecstasy friend

fuck it, I just put on Mayhem - Deathcrush. that helped my mood a little. and short at 18 minutes.

ha I was on zing and forgot this isn’t 77

I meant M&M’s, I am always getting those mixed up

xp I would like to!

MDMMs

melts in your mind not in your hand

Lol

The place I work has just posted two 'washable' face masks to every person in the organization - as one of my colleagues has just pointed out, they look like tiny underpants. I don't know how practical washable masks are? Some of us are going back on Monday to prepare for (partial) re-opening to the public late in the month, they haven't asked me though... yet.

you put them on your face. and you wash them if you need to. what level of practicality are you aiming for? do you want to actually use them as tiny underpants?

I meant do they actually remain as effective after x amount of washes?

Knowing where I work, they'll be cheap rubbish that falls apart after a couple of washes.

Someone gave out email addresses for the FL DEO processing team. Unfortunately, some of said assholes are just spamming the fucking things, but due to the long phone waits and website being down the last two days, I emailed them politely asking for help.

One of them replied with a note that they fixed her issue and payments should resume!

For my mother's unemployment.

Depends on what material it's made out of. I have cotton washable masks, I assume whatever their effectiveness is isn't diminished by washing.

100% cotton. I'm still not getting on a bus to go to and from work.

The best, most practical guidance I've found for washing your (reusable/cotton) masks is not the more extreme omg, wash them everyday at high water temperatures and then dry them at high heat, it's to actually treat them the same way you would treat your underwear. That is, if you wear your underwear for a full day, it's probably a good idea to put on a clean pair the next day. But if you only wear your underwear for half an hour or an hour a day, you probably don't need to wash that underwear everyday, barring exceptions that would probably be pretty obvious at the time.

so like your dinner underwear

people out there with some weird underwear protocols I have never heard of before

also the best Mission Impossible movie

you don't change your underwear every half hour?

xp

underrated INXS song

if it's a sunny day, hanging your mask outdoors will dry out any droplets.

A skidmark a day keeps...well... everybody away

if you only wear your underwear for half an hour or an hour a day

great, not going to be able to sleep tonight because this image is now haunting my every waking thought

i think i'd wear it immediately after using the toilet - catch some of those tiny pee dribbles