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

My partner gets medical hand sanitiser on prescription, usually more than he needs, so we are awash with the stuff. We’ve stuck a bottle just inside the front door. I might even eventually start remembering to use it.

I start rehearsals next week for a Eurovision-themed comedy musical, that we are putting on in Rotterdam in Eurovision week. So I am very aware of the deafening silence coming from the Netherlands. I’ll be amazed if we actually get to perform it.

Disneyland closed

Pornhub open

Goofy getting tested

14 local cases. Finally saw masks on all staff and most of the patrons of the local Chinese grocer. I felt embarassed that I didn't bring one (still sealed in a 5 pk at home). I tried not to breath on anybody...

I'm actually impressed by how quickly things seem to be cancelling or reducing. I think everyone knows the (federal) government is absolutely no help here, but the state governments seem to be appropriately aggressive (however belatedly!).

Cuomo basically told all the State governors "you're on your own, don't wait for help from the Federal government"

ty everyone, about time i checked on 'em again

my company had to evacuate it's San Juan office today as one of the employees was infected. one of my team members was over there and they put her back on an emergency flight. She wasn't in the same room with this person, to my knowledge, but they evacuated the building to sanitize it, they have closed it tomorrow, and when they return, for a period, they're having everybody work from home, and those who can't will be paid Emergency Pay.

for once....I'm thrilled with my company.

Disneyland is apparently paying its employees during the closure. I worry about my brother losing his gigs at Universal, as they pay most of his bills.

The feds are gonna need to bail out a lot of ppl financially tho. States cant do that

But yes I’m glad stat govs appear to be stepping up

Sorry, stupid phone

Maybe Bloomberg can just bail everyone out lol

xxxpost which is exactly why I feel so fuckin' miserable rn. I have little faith it will happen. and if it does, what, $600 to everybody? it won't cut it.

hoping sanity prevails. a lotta people will go under otherwise.

Just used my fancy new WFH app to log in to my work email and see if any decision had been made about closing the office...aaaaaaaaaand it would appear that our systems have completely shit the bed for about the fourth time this week and absolutely nothing is accessible remotely (or, presumably, locally). Huh. Well. Hmm.

Everyoen I know went to Golden Plains over the weekend (big 3 day hipster music fest out in the bush) and no one seemed wary. I guess I'll find out if 3/4 of Brunswick suddenly falls ill in a week's time.

Ha I spoke too soon, there was a confirmed case at the festival.

Was surprisingly able to stock up on a range of nonperishables at the store! TP, however, was completely gone. I think my gf is picking some up from her folks in the burbs tho.

out of TP, using Rand McNally maps instead

Idg the TP thing but then we order 48pks of recycled tp off the internet so not an issue for us anyway

shit yea

I think a better strategy is "shit no."

I just ordered a bidet attachment for $20.

my (public) school was shut down an hour ago. our district has a lot and lots of connections with biogen. there are a few presumptive cases in town –– family members of students – and the hysteria reached a fever pitch. two weeks minimum at home. I'm going to have to teach from my couch..

I went to the supermarket on the way home to get something for tea and bought some TP just because it was literally the last one in the shop and I don't have a whole lot left but am still mystified why people are doing this. And I'm Colonel Poo! If I don't know why, nobody does

Amazon is out of toilet paper. toilet paper holders, on the other hand.

Have a bad feeling any success from e-teaching is going to have fallout down the line.

students at most US colleges don't want it and wouldn't pay nearly as much for it

and public K-12 schools won't offer it at all because of equity issues

I have a conversation class hosted by someone who is >70 tomorrow evening and thinking I should prob cancel just in case, but if they are less panicked than me then maybe my cancellation will seem weird, or induce panic that I may be definitely ill and therefore already have infected them, or just annoy the teacher who won't get paid? Eh.

Probably the right thing to do but will need phrasing carefully - in an sms-sized chunk of not-my-1st-language, yay!

also the bf thinks I'm overreacting (which is fair, I'm a worrywort/hypochondriac) so if I stay home I'll need to tell him an excuse that definitely doesn't involve me cancelling

OTM Silby/Milo. But also, I've DEFINITELY taken great online classes. However, they are engineered from the ground up to foster digital engagement, not just videos that's transferred to Blackboard or Canvas or Moodle, and have discussion boards monitored by a disinterested TA.

However, teaching scared little guys is a different issue. I've got preadolescent children to think about. I'm going to try to provide consistency and emotional stability. Some nominal objectives, but mostly just a sense of community. It's gonna be rough.

News from the front: Whole Foods I stopped at this afternoon looked ravaged for the first time and the shoppers generally looked shook. Pasta aisle was almost completely picked through except for some of the specialty/high-end brands. I had bought $300 of shelf stable stuff (pasta, rice beans, lentils, etc) three weeks ago but you can't help pick up some vibes from the herd.

I just want to wish the best to all ilxors; let's be good to each other over the next couple weeks.

the large department store I went to today was out of toilet paper, most bags of dried beans/rice, and all sanitizer & alcohol.

here we go.

oh and no digital thermometer, of course

My mom (71) just emailed to tell me she and my aunt are going on a Viking river cruise in October, up the Danube to Prague. "Viking has cancelled all cruises in Europe this month and next. Those travellers are pushing into autumn so I needed to jump in."

xps: TP isn't a high margin item for grocers/discount stores, certainly not by volumes required. Sensibly, most stock more days of supply of canned goods etc than of TP. A not-so-great uptick in demand from those stocking up to self-quarantine, and TP is among the first things to disappear; that starts an entirely different sort of consumer demand fed by scarcity value. Hear about TP being out of stock in Sydney, Australia, and some will race to their Costco. Costco out of TP? There must be some sense to stocking up at the grocer.

We've witnessed similar runs with gasoline before hurricanes. If everyone filled their tanks at once, the stations would be out of fuel for about a week...

I got TP at the gas station

Ah, white people:

https://apple.news/AeYT3Z5mdTYis0-6Ml8TbFg

formula 1 grand prix in melbourne just got cancelled. our local park gets disrupted massively for this thing, and suddenly it’s off (they definitely made the right decision though).

Mandatory telework day tomorrow for everyone. This is as close to a serious COOP exercise as we’ve ever done in my 13 years working at this (very COOP-wary) agency.

Almost all the chicken, rice and pasta is sold out at local grocers, plus the other stuff people have already talked about to death. Funny to see what’s left - you could go for the Jordan Peterson 🍖 🥩 🥓 diet, easily. And anything organic, that shit costs too much to hoard, apparently.

I went to a local pizzeria for lunch and the three people in the front of the house (bartender, self, other customer) had a short rap session about mortality and how silly it is to take extreme measures to avoid death when you could get hit by a truck crossing the street

I was loling at the stuff left at TJ’s today — people turned up their noses at the fully stocked freezer of frozen carrot spirals and the only canned tomatoes left wee the ones w green chiles, of which there was an entire shelf.

I had some quality lols w students, fellow shoppers, and store clerks today. School finally announced a plan, I’m willing to admit that I’m going to miss being around people.

Might be time for me to be growing more food than I do now.

My face let me touch it

i like those TJ tomatoes with green chiles in the can.

and I would totally buy some local pizzeria pizzas to freeze if there was a decent one near me and it was that moment in time to hunker down.

vote by mail!

― Karl Malone, Thursday, March 12, 2020 11:49 AM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think it may be too late at this point, as you have to request a ballot which they then have to mail to you. Maybe, though. I'll look into it.

― Unparalleled Elegance (Old Lunch)

oh, dammit. the deadline was today, 5pm. :(

Writing shit down seems important to me right now, like it did on 9/11. Probably presumptuous to me to think any of this crap is going to be useful to posterity but I want it down for the record that I'm doing my best not to panic, but that I don't know what exactly is going on or what the "right thing" to do is. Today was a very bad day at work because I do have panic disorder and I'm not blind to what's going on around me. I know what my voice sounds like, it sounds like I'm having a hard time of it, and I probably am.

I don't want to be a downer. I don't want to be negative. It's not my style to dance around the possible negative outcomes, to pretend they won't happen. Because maybe they happen anyway, and I don't know if it's me, but a lot of people I know tend to blame themselves for everything bad that happens, and I feel like I need to tell them: Bad things might happen to people you love, and if they do, it's not your fault. A lot of my co-workers have living parents. I have a living parent who's over 70 years old and like many 70 year olds, has multiple health problems. I'm making sure to stay in contact with the people I know. There's so little I can do but right now at least I can still tell the people I care about that I care about them, and that feels important. I have two close relatives who are ER travel nurses. They are going to have it very hard so I want to at least support them as much as I can. Was very hard to talk to my brother because he was expecting the usual coronavirus bullshit - so many people are still apparently viewing "risk" purely in terms of individual risk of mortality. My brother said don't worry about me, worry about my patients. I had to tell him, I'm working on communicating this stuff to him, look, I know you're very unlikely to die from this, it's not about that. You're my brother, I care about you, you already don't have the resources you need to do your job, this is going to be hard, I just want you to know I love you and I care about you. And he accepted that, which is so hard to get to with him and so great.

But I am starting to deal with the possibility that people I care about will die, and everybody I talk to, whether they're at risk or not, is dealing with the same. And if they're not... most of my family is fine, but my other brother, he's had trouble with depression of late, works in the restaurant industry, already isn't getting enough hours, and how many millions of people like him are going to be hit by this? Saying "I'm lucky" isn't about diminishing my subjective experience.

I've cancelled everything, or rescheduled it so that I can do it over the phone. I'm working from home and will avoid leaving the house to the greatest extent possible.

But I am starting to deal with the possibility that people I care about will die

It's hard to conceive of. I wish my meditation teacher had more than one lung.

Two credit card companies have raised my limit this week. Too bad it's so hard to fake your death these days.

High school closed tomorrow, "e-learning" next week.

this is… not a great time to be unemployed

Unless you have kids sent home from school, I guess.