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

quitting my job right before a pandemic-triggered recession was an interesting choice. wish I'd known I was making it at the time.

I've been getting a flurry of e-emails and social media posts from businesses and cultural institutions about their "measures" wrt the virus, most of which don't involve closing or cancelling anything. Are they just delaying the inevitable? And if there were a coordinated effort to close things now, might it in theory not have to be for as long? Obviously it would be a big financial loss, but isn't that inevitable as well?
I posted a little upthread about my selfish/trivial fear of missing out on things if they're closed/cancelled or I'm quarantined, but I'm getting the sinking sense that the responsible thing to do would be to avoid those things anyway?

GRRR.

OK so a few weeks ago we canceled our planned trip to Italy (for the kids' spring break, next week). Our alternative was a trip to New Orleans, where we were going to see the St. Patrick's Day Parade and the Mardi Gras Indians on Super Sunday. Well so of course New Orleans canceled ALL its public events, and we have now scrapped that trip as well (especially since New Orleans has just declared a state of emergency, which among other things means my wife would have to self-quarantine for two weeks when we got back, because of restrictions put in by the university where she works). So now we're telling the kids, like, maybe we can go to a movie one day?

But a lost spring break is a small thing, I know, compared to what a lot of people are dealing with.

Also the Big Ears Festival got canceled, which is the best weekend of the year every year here in town.

What a world.

Oh and also a conference my wife was going to in San Jose next month that I was going to totally tag along on is also of course canceled. We had reservations at NOBU! (I know, 1st world problems and all.)

Close to cancelling our Hawaii trip, which at this rate might be out of our control by next week anyway. We have friends going to Canada, Bahamas and Disney, and I believe all three have cancelled, or are trying to cancel.

canceled a trip home (both of my parents are in the high-risk age bracket and one has had a really bad health issue this year), almost certainly not going to pop conference even if there is a pop conference

still not sure at what point i'm supposed to stop doing things altogether, i have dinner reservations and tickets to see berio's sinfonia this weekend, should we still do that?

I had a slight cough/headaches/fatigue the last few days so I’ve been staying home. Kaiser told me not to bother getting tested. Symptoms are p mild so I’m kinda like eh whatever I’ll just wait this out.

More bummed that our trip to Disneyland in a few weeks is lookin less and less likely.

xp -- same, honestly

I am going to Va to visit a best friend next week.

Risk of getting it on flights is still relatively low, per the experts, and we're planning on staying in for most of it anyway.

I'm selling my tix to the Orlando City game Sat tho. Doesn't feel like a good idea to crowd in with 25k people.

buy low, sell high

I have the same question about if I am supposed to stop doing things and not leave my apartment for anything that's not essential. And for how long will that go on? A few months? A year?

If yr not sick do whatever you want

hm emoji

that's the whole problem, though, is that there is no way for anybody to know for certain that they're not sick

staythefuckhome.com imo

(actual guidance at that link)

lemme try that again https://staythefuckhome.com

pretty much staying in unless i need food

i'm not eating food until this is all over

cool a local person who attended the AIPAC conference has tested positive

i have also chosen to stay home. other than walking my dog i've been home since sunday. i'm lucky that i CAN choose to do that.

I was kinda joking, nobody listen to me i’m not a doctor

maybe we should all sign a quick nda

maybe this is all a trick to 1) get us all into our homes, 2) cut off internet, 3) break us all from our internet addiction

and we've been addicted for so long that this is what it looks and feels like to try come out of it

*slo-mo shot of me crying out in anger while reading a book on day 11 of no internet*

The doc appointment I was at yesterday, the receptionist loudly greeted and HUGGED a lady I guess she knew personally. Then when the lady said "actually Im here cos Im sick" and said she had a fever they made her put on a mask.

AFTER THE RECEPTIONIST HAD JUST FULL BODY HUGGED HER.

Tbh I'm in major need of saving money so i am down with laying low anyway.

Other than the one excursion.

It would be nice if state and natl govt could agree on whether we have community spread, but since fuckin' Desantnis is the one denying it, I'm sure he's lying

I think my work's about to make us all work from home and I am totally down with it. We can all do our jerbs from home anyway.

Lol, just after I left work this afternoon, I saw a couple of business bros shake hands and their faces simultaneously fell once they realized that we're no longer inhabiting the world of casual hand contact with our work colleagues.

I had lots of awkward moments with handshakes today. I asked more than one person, "Are we still shaking hands?", and did elbow bumps instead.

We have no confirmed cases in our county, so I'm being overly cautious, but mostly trying to get into the mindset.

Cancelled gym, Criterion memberships tonight. Waiting til HBO Now renews tomorrow so I'll be able to finish the Outsider. Going to be up all night listing as much shit as I can on EBay and Reverb to hopefully build a little cash for a worst case scenario.

"there is no right or wrong amount of actions to take" somewhat at odds with "stay the fuck home"

Im having a little social soiree at a bar right by my house for my birthday on saturday. I'm trying to pretend nothings wrong at the moment and just let it go ahead, because I havent seen any of my mates in fnyears and I dont want to be The Piker Yet Again, for once. No one's expressed "ew germs" concerns, and yet...

Friday 13th. Full Moon. Coronavirus. Stock market crash.

What could possibligh go wrong?

"there is no right or wrong amount of actions to take" somewhat at odds with "stay the fuck home"

― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Wednesday, March 11, 2020 11:18 PM bookmarkflaglink

it's basically saying "hey we know not all of this is within your control". also it's an improvement over what's happening now where a large portion of the populace is doing this, another large chunk isn't paying attention to the news and is wiping their butt without washing hands and holding 40,000 people parties with sneezing people at it, another large chunk is paying attention and defying the conventional wisdom, and lots of big events happened instead of being cancelled where people likely got infected.

I read an article in Medium where the author pointed out China actually had 27 times the infections it thought it had during the initial outbreak, and that we probably do too.

I skimmed this quickly--I don't feel like reading it now, but looks to be pretty exhaustive. Maybe posted earlier, I don't know.

http://thewalrus.ca/anatomy-of-an-epidemic/

holding 40,000 people parties with sneezing people at it

oh you mean my pepper parties? but they're FABULOUS

it was a 40,000 people pepper party paroxysm!

tonight's Control Top gig was a first: a punk show where everyone in attendance was consciously making an effort to keep a tiny bit of physical distance from everyone else for the most part. could get used to this tbh

Overkill was so empty that it was ridiculous. my claustrophobic self was happy but i went into the bathroom to wash hands four times

Gobbing still allowed, though?

also got super drunk and apparently ordered Wawa hoagie via Uber Eats and then fell asleep so the driver showed up, gave up trying to wake me up, and hung the bag around my hotel door handle. woke up to find a bag with a sandwich and my name written on it waitign for me on the door, 9 hours later

haaaaa

Living the dream

i don't even remember placing the order. didn't eat the sandwich obv

Dang man, door sandwich is the best kind of sandwich

I am lucky enough to live walking distance from work but I am a lazy moron and run late every morning and this morning I was running extra late and it was raining quite hard so I got the bus, which was bad because it was v full (which on reflection was inevitable since it was raining quite hard) and so I was pressed into several other people, and then by the time I got to work a) there was nobody else here who would've noticed me being late and b) it had stopped raining anyway

I disinfected my hands with a wetwipe after getting off the bus, and then with hand sanitiser on arriving in my building, and then washed my hands when I reached the right floor of the building, but yeah, I need to 1. get better at mornings and 2. maybe talk to my boss who is a p. reasonable person and will almost certainly agree that it's better for me to be 20 minutes late (and stay 20 minutes late at the end of the day, which is fine as I walk home anyway) but at a lower risk of making the whole team ill

Boy oh boy is the train ever empty this morning.

Yes, I should be walking to work, laziness + shit weather is my excuse.

This is so true..... @rivm #COVID2019NL #Corona pic.twitter.com/0tfcWnPmJl

— Lisette Paap (@Mama_Liset) March 12, 2020

This is indeed otm. Dutch gov not bothering with any real measures up till now, and it's beyond irresponsible at this point. It's mostly pointing to regional govs, science and health institutions and individual schools to come up with things. So it's p much left to everyone individual's judgement. Which will of course be totally fine, because people are sensible and logical beings erring on the side of caution amirite?