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

yeah every workplace i hear about is "Monitoring the situation" which is the same phrase they use when they hold off on closing down for a blizzard until everyone is at work and the roads and train lines are shut down.

Every store I've been in for the past, what, 3-4 weeks? has been completely out of hand sanitizer. And then over the past couple weeks, they've also been out of disinfectant wipes, alcohol swabs, etc. Clearly, some overzealous people will be refashioning dozens of unused sanitizer bottles into furniture and decorative tchotchkes over the coming years.

I do think a lot of this stuff is not rocket science but if ppl really are struggling to figure out what a reasonable amount is then stores need to implement fair use policies (as quite a few already are)

I found a one quarter full tiny bottle of hand sanitizer in my glove compartment last night and it was the same feeling as finding $20 in a jacket I hadn't worn for a year.

Like, yeah, ppl are being called dicks for clearing the shelves of toilet paper so nobody else can get any; no, you will not be called a monster for buying an economy pack

I'm going to make what I hope to be one last stop at the store tonight and stare dejectedly at the ravaged shelves and then hope that I can somehow sustain myself for the foreseeable future on the twenty boxes of taco shells and clearanced chipotle mayo that I leave with.

The thing I'm most profoundly failing to understand atm is the number of people in this very office who already have the ability to work from home and who work from home multiple days in any given week who are unaccountably in the office right now. Just why.

Presenteeism...the real disease

xp because they still think this is Somebody Else's Problem, I reckon.

my 60something parents have been struggling with severe flu-like symptoms since sunday and my diabetic/epileptic brother for a whole week now

they're made of stern stuff (brother's condition/dad's chainsmoking notwithstanding) but this has me a bit worried. and it takes a lot to worry me. what is reassuring is that they've had it (whatever it is, probably coronavirus) for a few days and no respiratory difficulties reported

I mean I can't speak for anyone else but I am in the office because I fucking have to be

katherine the best all-in-one guide to how to respond to coronavirus that I've seen is https://flattenthecurve.com. From a member of the public health faculty at the U of Oregon.

I’m disgusted with my workplace. It’s becoming clear to me that they are not going to trigger WFH until forced to by the city. This is not safe. Not for the many twentysomethings in the office even, and not for those of us pushing fifty with chronic health shit.

What do you guys think if I just tell them I have a persistent low grade fever. I’m tired of this dance.

The Metropolitan Opera and Carnegie Hall have canceled performances through the end of the month. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is also closing.

Good strategy imho xp

Xps hope they get well soon, LJ

Forgot to mention, but pasta was the only non-TP, non-sanitizer section I saw at Target last night. Went specifically to grab a few things, including linguine, and I got literally the last two boxes of pasta.

i get what katherine is saying in the sense that, just like with lots of other stuff in this shitty performative age, there's a group of people (not necessarily anyone itt) who are going to stake out the most extreme position and then act like even the slightest nudge against it makes you some kind of moral monster. i think people have an especially difficult time resisting this impulse when you have a group of people on the other side of the spectrum politically who are being aggressively ignorant and reckless about the danger. but yeah, there are a lot of slippery slopes here: I shouldn't go to a concert, but can I go to the grocery store? should I go to work? to church? i caught some of Scott Van Pelt on Sportscenter last night having this discussion with some other guy and SVP was trying very gently and with a million qualifiers to try and navigate what is and isn't acceptable right now and the other dude was basically just shutting him down and sort of implying that anything short of cancelling everything sports-related right now is monstrous. I mean, the easiest thing to do rhetorically is just say you shouldn't leave your house at all and you're killing people if you do.

Very curious to see what happens with a friend's wedding at the end of the month

an important point they are hammering home in the UK is that this is a marathon not a sprint. They're not closing schools now because it's not feasible to keep children locked down for 16 weeks, and the peak is still 10-14 weeks away.

(which is what makes fucking testing so important, because who knows exactly where the US is on the curve?)

I don’t think it’s remotely controversial to say feeding yourself is fine? Or that the distinction between picking up a few extra things in case you’re staying home for a while before going out again vs taking more pasta than you’d ever eat in a year isn’t clear?

for real

I have a handful of friends that like to vent but absolutely don't want any advice, so I am usually like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ until they ask explicitly.

Presenteeism...the *real* disease

I have a handful of friends that like to vent but absolutely don't want any advice, so I am usually like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ until they ask explicitly.

this seems like the better way to respond

Yeah, if they haven't made the WFH call by like tomorrow, Imma be makin' the call for them, and my call will be all about the H without any of that pesky WF.

ty gyac

all county schools now closed for 2 weeks by order of the governor, all county residents now advised not to leave the county

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-update.html

New York will ban most gatherings of more than 500 people, including Broadway shows, and restrict smaller gatherings in an extraordinary step to fight the growing outbreak of the coronavirus in the state, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Thursday.

The restrictions represent New York’s most forceful move yet to try to mitigate the spread of the virus. They are expected to have a profound impact on the city’s cultural institutions, including Broadway, a multibillion dollar industry at the heart of New York’s tourist trade.

The ban will take effect at 5 p.m. Thursday for Broadway theaters and will go into effect for other venues on Friday at 5 p.m., Mr. Cuomo said.

Welp, so much for my NY trip in April.

and restrict smaller gatherings

Welp, so much for my NY trip in April

Already spiked mine.

travelling before like July (at best) seems inadvisable now

yup :(

well i stopped (I actually never began) studying for an exam I was supposed to take in May.

Heard through the grapevine a moment ago that someone in another of our company's buildings (not in our company's office, but still) just tested positive. And we just keep on a-whistling past that ol' graveyard.

company president just sent out the email, fucking finally. a couple of days late IMO but good faith somewhat restored

Of course the fucking Republican woman who works across from my wife decided it was fine to travel and come back into work this week. Today she called out sick and says she's trying to get tested for the virus.

You can all rest assured, we canceled our trip. Phew, outbreak averted!

Seriously though, we managed to get full refunds or credits on everything but the airbnb rental, which is mostly up to the owner, who did the best they could and got us 50%. The economic impact of this down the road is going to be huge, even when the virus is gone and the markets settle (assuming either of those things happen any time soon). Cancelling our trip to Maui alone means a couple thousand dollars not spent in a small, insular island tourist community. Losing SXSW lost Austin an estimated $350 million. I imagine there are hundreds of examples between those two extremes.

I'm in NYC at the moment. I've never seen LGA so quiet at noon. My plane had 17 passengers at my count. I do feel some trepidation and I've considered returning early but I figured the trip was in motion and there were a couple people I really needed to see.

Now I feel some guilt.

My university ended face-to-face classes yesterday thru April 4 at least.

The governor just ordered all schools in my county closed. Said to avoid theaters, gyms and stores.

What about bouncy houses?

using them as makeshift hospitals

If I had to choose between a hospital and a bouncy hospital ...

bouncy hospital = less prolonged contact with surfaces

But potentially more contact with a variety of surfaces/other wildly-bouncing patients and medical staff.

i get what katherine is saying in the sense that, just like with lots of other stuff in this shitty performative age, there's a group of people (not necessarily anyone itt) who are going to stake out the most extreme position and then act like even the slightest nudge against it makes you some kind of moral monster. i think people have an especially difficult time resisting this impulse when you have a group of people on the other side of the spectrum politically who are being aggressively ignorant and reckless about the danger. but yeah, there are a lot of slippery slopes here: I shouldn't go to a concert, but can I go to the grocery store? should I go to work? to church? i caught some of Scott Van Pelt on Sportscenter last night having this discussion with some other guy and SVP was trying very gently and with a million qualifiers to try and navigate what is and isn't acceptable right now and the other dude was basically just shutting him down and sort of implying that anything short of cancelling everything sports-related right now is monstrous. I mean, the easiest thing to do rhetorically is just say you shouldn't leave your house at all and you're killing people if you do.

― Evans on Hammond (evol j), Thursday, 12 March 2020 17:42 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

booming post

I definitely don't want to shame anyone for their choices with this, and I apologize if I came off that way in any of my earlier posts. Obviously no one really knows how to handle it on a personal level. I'm bristling because I'm scared. It is definitely frustrating not feeling like there's a clear program to follow, especially when it comes to "social distancing" etc.

TBF I usually do wind up killing people whenever I leave my house.

I didn’t accuse anyone specifically; it should be clear to anyone paying attention the massive amount of sometimes contradictory but equally weighted mandates (with real stakes) coming from all directions