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

otm

btw people trying to conserve toilet paper should probably not be stocking up on beans tbqh

Wow, my town here in New Jersey has now gone on total lockdown: public schools, playgrounds, gyms, health clubs, movie theaters were closed yesterday, and today they announced bars will close, restaurants can only open for takeout/delivery and there is a 10pm curfew. So far one confirmed case in the town.

Oh, uh, hey neighbor

Hey! I was out walking around yesterday evening, and there were lots of people out in bars and restaurants. Guess we won't be seeing that for a while.

The company I 'contract' for is stoopid about everything -- especially for a massively successful publisher -- so I know this working from home crap is going to be a major shitshow. Hence I am going into the office for as long as it's feasible.

People out today too having drinks and nachos etc at all the sports bars... not sure most places here are going to survive on takeout only.

Also saw they literally wrapped the playgrounds with tape

Now would be a great time for ppl to foster cats and dogs - if you’re stuck at home anyway, can’t keep a pet long term, you could take some of the burden off local shelters AND have an adorable temporary animal companion to keep you busy.

Pets are great for reducing anxiety too

i have literally never listened to a podcast but i feel like the only way we can get through this is with an achill boys podcast

achill boys won't blow you away
but you know that they'll craic

I suspect I might have this. Started with a mild fever, sore throat and chest pain on Thursday and got a bit worse on Friday. Felt better yesterday though, and today I'm almost back to normal. Haven't been going out obviously and don't plan to do so for the next days. I live in Berlin where public life has basically been put on hold, which makes it a bit easier to deal with the isolation since it's the same for everyone. Still sucks though.

Hold tight groovemaaan!

Took me three supermarkets yesterday to get bread, milk and eggs. No TP to be found.

My brother is a manager in Lidl - I'm going to look for insider information on supply drops.

No grocery store trouble at our supermarket this morning, but the cashiers are worried for their health.

I expect the army to be sent in soon.

Realising that there's no bran cereal for the last week in the local LIDL. finding that difficult to correlate with the TP rush. Or are people buying up bran cereal so they get their own rush and need to work their way through their surplus TP?
Otherwise surprised that this amount of panic requires extra roughage to help things along.

Went to a wedding last night. Everybody was elbow bumping (and Kung Fu fighting).

Calmly doing some WFH today as I usually do. I'll also be going into the office tomorrow. I hardly expect anyone to come by at all, and will just see two or three colleagues there, so I'm ok with that.

With school expected to be closed anyway from tomorrow on (on Thurs gov decided against it, schools took it upon themselves to close anyway) quite some colleagues of me and of s/o at work will have to stay at home I suppose.

We had childcare figured out or a week of spring break, but not a month of it, for a disabled kiddo who requires nearly constant supervision.

We know we're very fortunate and that it could be way worse. My employer is (however grudgingly) allowing remote work, and my wife's job is mostly remote, but still. I fully expect it to be exhausting. There will likely be some conference calls with shrieking banshees in the background. The clink of ice in a tall Maker's & ginger. Occasional yowls of cats. "Woops, didn't realize I was on mute." Nothing significant getting done, minor white lies on the timesheet.

via a friend's FB feed, a registered nurse's advice on how to treat yourself/what to do if you get the virus:

"You basically just want to prepare as though you know you’re going to get a nasty respiratory bug, like bronchitis or pneumonia. You just have the foresight to know it’s coming.

Things you should actually buy ahead of time (not sure what the obsession with toilet paper is?): Kleenex, Acetaminophen (Tylenol) in 325 mg tablets, Ibuprofen (Advil) in 200 mg tablets, Mucinex, Robitussin or whatever your generic cough medicine of choice is (check the label and make sure you're not doubling up on acetaminophen - some brands like DayQuil have it included and you don't want that). You want a cough medicine with both a cough suppressant and expectorant. Vicks vaporub for your chest is also a great suggestion.

If you don’t have a humidifier, that would be a good thing to buy and run in your room when you go to bed overnight. (You can also just turn the shower on hot and sit in the bathroom breathing in the steam). If you have a history of asthma and you have a prescription inhaler, make sure the one you have isn’t expired and refill it/get a new one if it is.

This is also a good time to meal prep: make a big batch of your favorite soup to freeze and have on hand. Whatever your favorite clear fluids are to drink (Sprite, juice, ICE waters, Fresca, whatever floats your boat), stock your pantry with those. Maybe get some nice soothing tea too!

For symptom management, use the meds I mentioned. For a fever over 101, alternate Tylenol 650 mg and Advil 400 mg so you’re taking a dose of one then the other every 3 hours.

Drink A TON, hydrate hydrate hydrate. Rest lots. You should not be leaving your house except to go to the doctor, and if you do, wear a mask (regular is fine, you don’t need an N95).

You DO NOT NEED TO GO TO THE ER unless you are having trouble breathing or your fever is very high (over 103.5) and unmanaged with meds. 90% of healthy adult cases thus far have been managed at home with basic rest/hydration/over-the-counter meds. We don’t want to clog the ERs unless you’re actually in distress. The hospital beds will be used for people who actively need oxygen/breathing treatments/IV fluids.

If you have a pre-existing lung condition (COPD, emphysema, lung cancer) or are on immunosuppressants, now is a great time to talk to your PCP or specialist about what they would like you to do if you get sick. They might have plans to get you admitted and bypass the ER entirely.

One major relief to you parents is that kids do VERY well with coronavirus— they usually bounce back in a few days, NO ONE under 18 has died, and almost no kids have required hospitalization (unless they have a lung disease like CF). Just use pediatric dosing of the same meds."

My career is in Infection Prevention and cannot stress enough the importance of proper hand hygiene. Washing with soap and water is best (sing Happy Birthday twice!) and sanitize when no water is available.
Plus (and this is hard...), do not touch your face!"

That is helpful, morbid.

Just want to note that Acetaminophen (Tylenol) doesn't play well with alcohol. So if you are a heavy drinker (or are drinking heavily to get through this time) be careful.

Oops, meant morbz not morbid (posting from stupid kid Kindle), sorry

Alcohol also not great for immune & respiratory health so I’m probably not gonna drink the beer I bought

Alcohol is the worst for me when I have a cold. Tylenol is Paracetamol?

yup

One beer is fine imo. No need to overdo it.

Idk how much credence to give this but maybe take Tylenol instead of Advil if you have it?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/anti-inflammatory-drugs-may-aggravate-coronavirus-infection

I also answer to morbid, Puffin

I believe I was warned off Advil when I got cancer

tbh my favourite bit of the guardian piece is this comment from the french education minister: “this coming period is not one in which the youngsters don’t have to work”

I had hesitated to post a fb thing here from a couple of days ago but it's from a friend (reg nurse too in CA) whom I trust and I think it gives good advice:

Fellow citizens, you may develop symptoms and want to be tested.

You may not get tested. It’s very likely you won’t given government malfeasance.

Assume you’re positive and behave as though that were your result for the sake of others.

The presence or absence of a test will not benefit or harm you as an individual. It will not determine your treatment or necessarily your recovery.

The tests are to help us collectively find outbreaks and make better and more targeted epidemiology decisions to hopefully reduce the rate of transmission and deploy the right resources in the right places.

Engage in:

Self isolation, supportive care, nutritious food, fluids, rest, handwashing, mask, watch for worsening symptoms. Use sunlight and good ventilation to the outdoors. It’s old school and always fantastic.

Talk to people you love and who love you right back via phone text and FB so you feel loved and not alone.

You don’t need to go to the emergency room unless you need to go to the emergency room.

The emergency room is not the place to go because you sort of don’t feel well and are anxious or curious about getting tested.

The emergency room is for shortness of breath or a fever you can’t bring down with acetaminophen or any other potentially life limiting symptom.

Don’t panic: 80 percent of people have mild to moderate symptoms which will resolve.

Let’s breathe.

So apparently paracetamol is flying off the shelves faster than toilet paper now.

tbh my favourite bit of the guardian piece is this comment from the french education minister: “this coming period is not one in which the youngsters don’t have to work”

Children don't seem to have a hard time with coronavirus, so I say we should be training them up to drive buses and dig roads etc.

He was talking about a 'continuité pédagogique à distance', i.e. switching to online courses.

They can fit that in in between driving buses and digging roads.

'Travailler' strikes me as a slightly broader concept than 'work' – there's a bit of a language barrier/mistranslation here. Against the backdrop of France's healthier take on work-life balance in general, it's kind of a weird joke tbh.

make a big batch of your favorite soup to freeze and have on hand

lol making soup, sure, I know how to do that

never logging off is also work

Never logging in is play iirc.

When I'm bored, I often snack. Today for "breakfast" I ate some kettle chips, a microwave egg roll, and a few graham crackers. When I went to to the refrigerator to get some milk for my coffee, I accidentally knocked a Jello pudding cup from the shelf and onto the floor, cracking the plastic container. "Welp," I thought, "may as well eat that, too." At least until the food supply runs out, I think a side effect of this social distancing will be that I will gain 20 lbs. Which will be ironic if there is - God forbid - a mass food shortage at some later date.

I find that staying on my computer and compulsively refreshing news feeds is keeping me too distracted and anxious to feel hunger, if that helps.

i am at my local algerian hairdresser for a trim. i was suddenly hit with the idea that everything will be closed indefinitely soon and i started panicking about my... hair? (though apparently in Spain hairdressers have an exemption from the shutdown, which they’re not particularly happy about; not sure why they can’t just close anyway but apparently official reasoning is that ppl with disabilities rely on hairdressers for washing?)

this might sound dumb in a few days, but i’m not sure why supplies of food and basic medicines would be threatened? why is this a worry? trains and boats and trucks and deliveries will all still happen. nowhere in the world has closed grocery stores and pharmacies afaict.

/stevolende

(wondering how many Brooklyn barbers will be open this week)

OK, I've been silently cursing mask-wearers on the street, assuming they're not sick/positive and the mask does nothing.

Then here I read

Assume you’re positive and behave as though that were your result

So we should ALL be wearing masks NOW, right?

This is feeling futile already.

I think by that they mean be reasonable and don't do anything or go anywhere if you don't have to. The idea is not to stop - too late - but mitigate and slow to allow doctors and hospitals and so on to keep up.

I suppose the concern is that the supply chain could be interrupted. If enough drivers or workers got sick then companies and shops might have trouble keeping up with demand. You can only make chickens lay eggs so fast, you know.

fwiw re: otc painkillers, acetaminophen, ibuprofen, naproxen et al, and alcohol, I think generally people are considering how much potential damage they can all do to your liver, and in that sense none of them are "good" for you and all of them are potentially problematic with alcohol, but mostly (afaik) warnings apply to longterm usage. Likewise, it's generally safe for most people to take higher doses than what the bottle recommends, too, as necessary - obviously they give much higher doses than, say, 200mg if you're in the hospital for something - but again I think the idea is to limit levels in the liver the best you can.

Interesting theory re: ibuprofen and covid, though. I heard an interview the other day with a man with a serious case of arthritis, one that requires prescription anti-inflammatories to reduce his serious pain. He said he's kind of in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, since a side effect of the medicine is that it leaves him immunocompromised, but to not take the medicine would not only lead to the return of debilitating pain, but also hyper inflammation of his joints, which would lead to his body's immune response going into overdrive and thus leave him potentially more susceptible to other illnesses, anyway.

in re trucks and trains and boats

i mean

yeah, until... maybe they dont?

or, as ive been wondering, until say for instance countries that buy from the UK say look lads fair play on trying something different but we're no longer allowing people, goods, anything from ye until we see how yr lil experiment shakes out

(which if twasnt already too late shouldve been our message tbh)

etc etc

Tracer, you have great hair, babe.

I also answer to morbid, Puffin

I was going to say--in a cheerful, not-critical way--that's what you call a Freudian slip squared.

Tracer, you have great hair, babe.

likewise, it's generally safe for most people to take higher doses than what the bottle recommends, too, as necessary

This is true of most NSAIDs, but very much NOT for Tylenol/Paracetamol, where the effective dose is very close to the level where it can cause liver damage.