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

Also yogurt, eggs, tortillas, cheese,  caramelized onions, pesto- things like that totally freeze fine.

Wait... what if the TP is for all the masturbating thats about to happen

May they mix up their Purell with lube.

best thing about the whole thing is that there isnt really a way to judge ppl and be wrong, this baby will work from all angles

xpost I guess one reason it's different from a hurricane is that it's happening everywhere.

― Josh in Chicago

well there are certainly lots of differences, to be fair. how much hurricane recovery comes from out of state, though? my impression from living in florida that a lot of hurricane response was determined internally on the state level. when a hurricane hit a big chunk of the state, i don't feel like we sat around and waited for someone else to bail us out; we started taking steps to recover.

the biggest difference is that ever since andrew florida has known what a hurricane can do and how to deal with it - if it's going to be compared to any hurricane is would probably be andrew, which i wasn't around for. the other issue is that while hurricanes caused extensive damage to infrastructure, which covid-19 won't, as soon as the hurricane was over everyone could get back to work. i don't know what people are going to do if the only people available to keep the infrastructure running are sick and contagious. if this is a true pandemic situation, it's not going to help to have literally everybody stay home, is it? not just in healthcare, where the crunch will be most acute, but infrastructure _everywhere_ just isn't going to work without people to make it work.

the big similarity i see between this and a hurricane is that the level of direct damage covid-19 can do is limited in both scope and time. the double-edged sword of the infection rate is that the worse it is, the quicker it is going to go. i'm expecting the next month to be the worst of it; anything bad that happens after that would, i suspect, be an entirely different problem which would require a qualitatively different response from effective COVID-19 response.

A huge difference, for the better, is that no one really has to worry about water, power, heat, plumbing, etc.

Hopefully my SF jury duty in mid-april gets cancelled.

One of my housemates just canceled a weekend camping trip because he has a cough. I'm now stressing about WHAT IF to the point where my other housemates are getting irritated with me. But I'm starting to wonder, what do you do if you just have a suspected case of coronavirus in your house and can't get tested? I mean, I feel that you should treat it as coronavirus and everyone in the house should self-quarantine until two weeks after the last sick person shows symptoms, but I'm thinking this will be a hard sell with my housemates.

I was DJing last night, and observed that bumping elbows instead of shaking hands is now a thing.

Imagining this taking place in a very cramped, sweaty club and chuckling

one by one the food delivery service websites are conking out

My Publix was still pretty well stocked but the foot traffic is definitely much higher.

There was TP!

Went record shopping this afternoon, one guy was flipping through the bins with his sleeves pulled over his hands. Was about as dextrous as a seal trying to fold a newspaper

I'm flying back to Miami. I dread Publix.

I'm flying back to Miami. I dread Publix.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

winn-dixie happy to have a break from florida's grocery store locus of dread

25 new cases in FL.

The sharp increases begin

Ohio just doubled (from 13 to 26). They're ramping up testing.

can we plz keep actual news to the other thread?

I didn't want to interrupt Aimless's concerns about his brother but felt this was news.

Honestly having these two threads is a pain. There's no reason we can't all coexist in the other one now.

Yeah, I understand anxiety, but numbers are apolitical and relevant. Unless the other thread can be just for stats and facts and news, and this one for personal anecdotes?

I thought that was the idea tbh

My son woke me up at 4:30 this morning so I thought, hey, maybe I'll go to a 24-hour grocery store when it's unlikely to be mobbed.

It was a trifle unnerving. No milk, bread, chicken, or beef. Almost no pasta. There were some eggs. Very few staff, and what staff there was was clearly harried and shell-shocked from spending all night with a frantic panic-buying populace. My heart goes out to them.

From what I have read, there's plenty of food, but the distribution channels are overwhelmed and the stores are understaffed.

We have enough wine and rice and noodles and stuff. That's not so much the problem. Milk and bread, eggs and butter? I worried that supply chain issues (plus panic hoarding) could make those difficult to find.

Later in the day I bicycled to 7-11 and the liquor store; things seemed less bleak. Most pepple were quietly going aboout what business they had.

I know we're very fortunate not to be genuinely worried about actual hunger/malnutrition. But it will be a challenge for my children, who have not experienced poverty or scarcity. They will have to abandon some fussy preferences (I like ONLY A CERTAIN SHAPE of pretzel, DAAAAD). Particularly my special needsy son, who can't necessarily understand why his preferred cereal isn't there, and will almost certainly melt down over it. Sigh.

Went for a walk in the park today and just the thought of previous summers there really hit me. God knows what it's going to be like by the time it's normally warm enough to lounge around in there.

My manager sure picked a hell of a time for a Florida road trip with the fam.

(He left a few days ago, RIGHT, before things got real serious in terms of restrictions.)

there was a dude in the grocery store with a facemask on, and I couldn't tell if it was because he was stupid and thought it would keep disease out, or if he was sick and I should run the other way.

eitehr way I kept a distance.

a FB friend of mine said she was accused of "hoarding" water when she bought two containers and she barked back IT'S FOR MY FISH TANK, ASSHOLE

I mean I really have no idea how widespread it is in Florida right now. probably much more than we know.

the theme parks are still open through today and people are still going. :/

i keep pulling out the ukulele and playing songs on it. i might master this thing by the time this is over

Been baking bread with what bread flour I have left and cutting it with cornmeal. Historians are already calling it the cornbread spring.

I thought this was just the thread where I’m not allowed to accuse any posters of having reactionary sympathies

i thought this was the "relatively apolitical fears and experiences" thread where people talk about themselves and their situations
if there was a more complicated implication, it was lost on me.

speaking of me, i am trying to grasp the degree to which i will lose my shit cooped up at home for 2 weeks or more. hopefully minimally but today is not a great example of me making the most of this.

yeah I am very concerned about going stir-crazy, I'm already too socially isolated

xpost Butter freezes well too (you may already know this). Also, I am not a hoarder but since it's hard to get things here sometimes we just kind of buy a lot of some stuff when we see it go on sale which is why I have like 8 blocks of kerrygold in the freezer.

if anyone wants some tips on how to survive being at home for months on end without really talking to anyone irl, hit me up. i did it for a couple years recently, in preparation for coronavirus. the trick is to be high all of the time and be totally fine with getting really depressed

Surprised to see my local diner (which is a pretty small space) doing brisk business this morning, as was the neighborhood bar last night.

I’ve continued to patronise my local cafe, where the staff have been wearing masks for a couple of weeks now and where they have a hand sanitiser station with a sign saying “clean your hands before you eat”, so my isolation is not total

Yerac I already know all of that because I am a hoarder :D

the trick is to be high all of the time and be totally fine with getting really depressed

:( i am not ok with getting really depressed. again. it's why i am aware that this will be a challenge for me. i at least need to talk with people on the phone or something.

Just realising this is why the AIM chatz thread got revived

well, looks like my office is now remote until at least march 30

went out with friends last night, taking some precautions. it was the first time they’ve had a babysitter in months, and the number of recorded cases in our metro area is still zero but... I still feel a little guilty. but it’s not like I’m going anywhere any time soon. might be ordering takeout from a few favorite restaurants to make sure they get some
business

a friend posted on facebook about how her daughter has symptoms that seem similar to what’s been published, and even though it’s unlikely she called the local county info number. the operator referred her to the department of health, and the person that took that call referred her back to the first number. yikes

xp

sorry LL, my post was tongue in cheek. (but not funny either!). i'm worried about it too - getting a job helped my depression chiefly because it got me out of the house! my house is like a warm inviting trap. it always seems comfortable and i'm drawn to it all the time, but the mood subtly shifts after a few days of isolation

I’m starting to wonder if I’m a weirdo because I never buy milk, eggs, or butter unless I’m making something in particular

it’s all rice, vegetables, meat, and broth/stock

hmmm maybe we should start a covid picture thread soon. I may need to straighten up my pantry so it's visually appealing.

i never buy miljk and only recently started buying butter because of one pasta recipe. I am obsessed with eggs. xpost

I require soft butter to be available at all times for spreading on toast, so I keep a stick in the cupboard.

I'm sorry to folks who are less okay right now. I was already enjoying unemployment and I do well staying at home with books and coffee and gardening. If it goes on long enough I might even get back to sewing, which I used to do a lot more of.

oh yeah, i have one block out for current use. I am not a monster eating frozen butter for thrills.

lol that does sound like something you would do

I don't buy milk or eggs often but that's mostly because I am too rarely able to cook to be able to use them up before they go bad

(obviously, that has changed a bit for now)

After I posted, I was considering if there would be something to it xpost

Last week I did just eat some eggs that had been in the freezer for two months.