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

Tell you what, I'd rather be embarrassed six months down the road by looking overly cautious than I would be embarrassed for furthering the spread to immunocompromised individuals but, hey, that's just me. Probably why I'm not in charge of making those decisions.

OTM

Local "presumptive" cases have jumped 0-3 in 24 hours.

I got my thermometer at the local Walgreen's (cheap fluid type), most were out of stock. Older gentleman perusing cough remedies 4 ft away coughed, and I nearly left the ground.

im a wee bit phlegmy today and I've had a cough or two. hwfg!

Dry coughing at regular intervals here but have stocked up on meds and can work from home for a while. Just don't fever me!

I think phlegmy is generally good as in not likely to be covid19

https://www.flattenthecurve.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/covid19-symptoms.png

Fatigue is the least helpful symptom of every illness.

the governor made us cancel all meetings, trainings, etc. but not the work we do where we encounter 10x more members of the public than we would sitting in a meeting. this came out an hour after our office had a meeting with like 80 people crammed into a room. whoops.

Good to know the stuffy nose and sneezing is just the year round 'seasonal allergies' I developed after I quit smoking

i have constant stuffy nose and sneezing to the point that i take sudafed nearly every day. it's how i know i'm "normal."

Gonna say, this time of year (particularly when the temp is rising/falling 10-20 degrees over the course of a given day) is a generator for all kinds of fun symptoms that I'd ordinarily dismiss as normal but now feel like I have to actively monitor in hopes that I'll recognize, say, an abnormal amount of pre-springtime post-nasal drip.

I shook hands by mistake and went into overdrive washing hands

My wife is at Target shopping right now and things are going super well!

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all of my spouse's grads/postdocs who came back from Italy for the new semester are in 14 day self quarantine. I am like "DO THEY HAVE ENOUGH COFFEE AND WINE!?!" We don't know if the university or government sets them up with food.

have some cold symptoms today, glad to know they don't overlap strongly with covid symptoms

Stopped by the mini Target near my office, right next to a college campus, and pretty similar but extend that to the toilet paper aisle. As I was in there, no less than five people came in frantically asking about toilet paper to no avail.

I get that people respond to stress and anxiety in different ways and stocking up on essentials isn't entirely dumb, but do people typically live with razor thin levels of backup toilet paper in their places? I'm still shocked that this is one of the items in such short supply.

Chicago's St. Patrick's Day parade finally cancelled. Guess I just have to barf all over myself at home this year! (sulks)

Target in dwntwn Chi wasn't too badly hit when I went yesterday. Dry staples were picked over but I was able to get some lentils. TP seemed to be decently stocked. I might make another run tonight and see what difference a day makes.

I posted this in the other thread but it is agonizing being simultaneously told that I need to avoid public transit and stay home because it is a moral imperative due to herd immunity, flatten the curve, etc., and also being unable to do either of those things

i sympathize to that feeling of helplessness, but i hope you're not taking the "moral imperative" too seriously - i think on the other thread you likened it to being called a "murderer"? some people aren't very careful with their words, but i really hope no one is suggesting that you're a murderer or anything close to it.

if you can't do those things you can't do them. great majority of people living in cities can't!

it's the natural extension of the (largely true) fact that I am putting immunocompromised people at risk by doing so

basically, everything in this, which just went up https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/y3meg7/what-do-i-do-coronavirus-travel-public-transit-guidelines

i don't think that's the natural extension of that fact.

the last paragraph really says it better than I have been:

I am lucky in that, so far, coronavirus has had little impact on my life. But it, and the lack of clear directives plus the frenzy around it, have added tremendous moral weight to seemingly every decision I make. Going to my nephew’s birthday party is either a lovely family activity or an irresponsible act of potential violence against the people I love most and anyone I encounter along the way. I just want to do what will make people happy and healthy, so I don’t know what to do. I wish some public official would tell me, but that would require them to have the answers.

Yeah, I still have to spend time on public transport to get to my job and around to our other campus, I wish I could cut that out but driving, parking and getting back and forth would be cost prohibitive at this point.

Sounds like we might get some official direction on working from home soon, but I'm not yet sure what that would mean for me. 70-80% of my job I can easily do from home, but that remaining percentage is working on construction sites and that can't really be done remotely. So, wait and see at this point.

So glad Chicago came to their senses about the parades.

was just about to quote that last paragraph, katherine!

to me, that sounds like someone writing about what many millions (billions?) of people are thinking right now. it doesn't sound like anyone declaring a moral imperative or blaming anyone else for what they have to do. that's just how i read it, i don't know.

Cleveland St. Patrick's Day parade canceled as well.

ah yes, speaking of campus, cuny is still open despite there being a confirmed case (at john jay) and it's very damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't because, compared to, say, columbia or harvard, the students are far more likely to be in precarious financial or living situations (about 3-5 students in a class I am taking have said they don't have access to an Internet connection robust enough to stream live video lectures, which would be what class would be; a few students have offered to host them, and I'm trying to clear it with my roommates, but the fact that this has happened at all is indicative of how shitty a situation it is)

xp -- to clarify I'm not saying the article is the source of said moral imperative, but it describes it very well

Planning to go to Target on Friday; no idea what the aisles will look like (I'm in NJ, which has relatively few cases - only 23 so far, none near me).

Also scheduled to start my first 9-5 office job since 2017 on Monday morning. Genuinely curious whether or not I'll be told just to stay home, that they'll set me up to work remotely, between now and then.

I have booze, now I just need coffee, thanks thread for reminding me

Yeah I have boundless sympathy for decision makers at any university or college right now, even with just the barest scraps I've heard about meetings, discussions and frantic phone calls from parents (my position doesn't require me to be directly involved in any of the above). For every parent essentially demanding they close the campus ASAP, you have just as many fair points being raised about students that have nowhere else to go. Not to mention, were there a cause for concern, would just spreading the students all over the country (and world) just make things worse? I don't know that anyone has the right answer. FWIW, we don't have any known cases on our campus yet.

Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo (& major concert series) cancelled after running for the first of three weeks.

(uh, also to clarify, I don't attend classes at john jay and to my knowledge have not been exposed to the coronavirus any more than anyone else in new york has just by existing in new york)

My cousin just told me that her job in DC has moved exclusively to telework *and* that her classes in her master's program at Georgetown have all been suspended until further notice. So all the students currently on spring break have nowhere to return to if they aren't prepared to return home at a moment's notice.

I was at Costco today, and they had plenty of toilet paper. But indeed, everyone seemed to be buying toilet paper. Then again, that's what you get at Costco. I did see one guy with what seemed like 6 packages of paper towels, which means, like, a bazillion rolls, and the Costco guy politely told him they were limiting purchases to two per person.

FWIW, they had someone stationed by the carts, spraying and wiping down the handle before handing them off. And I saw lots of people around the store spraying and wiping down surfaces.

My wife's job just told her they are going to have everyone work from home tomorrow, as a "test."

I am pretty much of the opinion that the only rational decision is to shut everything down now, because you will be forced to shut everything down three weeks from now when it will be too late to have much effect.

Gotta say, it has not been displeasing to walk into CTA stations that smell like bleach instead of urine.

i feel like costco needs to have a temporary no returns policy on paper goods, water, etc to keep people from hoarding right now.

lol I've seen people return open bags of chips at Costco.

I hate Costco so much, never been and hope to never go

the worst retail customers I have ever dealt with, by a wide margin

I love Costco.

i love costco, but I was a late in life member. the one in nyc sucks so bad though. everyone is very aggro. it's kind of a mandatory membership if you live in hawaii though. the gas and most products are drastically cheaper than anywhere else. and everyone who works there is so nice.

Still only 41 cases across Ontario. maybe I should be nervous about tonight's Control Top gig but I'm really not.

xpost - I refuse to step foot in a Costco ever again. My wife knows better than to even suggest it. The worst customers ever, overcrowded, rude and angry people everywhere, shoppers that just ditch their carts anywhere to block aisles. I didn't consider myself an anxious person until I first set foot in a Costco.

they treat their employees well, I'll say that in their favor. their members, on the other hand, frequently came off as the worst humans alive when I dealt with them in a previous job

I think Costcos vary significantly from location to location. For example, I learned only recently that Costco *stock* varies from location to location. There are things you can get at one that you can't get at another. There are even baked goods that differ, since the bakers apparently have discretion. And a lot of those differences reflect the clientele. For example, I am equidistant from two Costcos. One carries a whole halal lamb, the other doesn't.

from the host of a gathering of friends next weekend; people, many of whom travel quite a bit, will be flying in from all around the country:

I am not particularly concerned about corona virus overall, however, given I have a severely immuno-compromised 80 year old cancer stricken mother in my house, I will ask that if you think you are any sort of risk for carrying it, obviously, bail

. . . c'mon lads

xpost - what pushed me over the edge for Costco was watching one shopper quite literally shove an 75+ year-old man out of the way to get at a fresh batch of free cheese samples

Well, tbf, free cheese.