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

Meanwhile, Walmart just announced that it will finally make masks mandatory on July 20th. My economist friend has hypothesized Walmart could be a tipping point (in the right direction).

I'm okay for hand sanitizer but I really miss all-purpose cleaner sprays (Lysol, 409, even Windex).

The only options hereabouts still seem to be weak-ass all-natural ones, or ones with bleach. Bleach smells make me wanna vomit

^^ otm

I was deep cleaning the bathrooms this weekend and the bleach option was all I had to go with, so it took a lot longer than it needed to for me to take breaks and air things out.

Someone observed how telling it was that when the shit hit the fans it was the hardcore killer chemical cleaners that flew off the shelves, and not the safe, healthy, all-natural whittled-from-one-piece-of-reclaimed-wood stuff.

I had a beauty box gift subscription last year and in it I got sent a bottle of antibac gel hand sanitiser that smells of strawberry laces. Was not impressed at the time (I usually get fancy eyeshadow or whatnot) but was grateful for it a few months ago! Still smells grim though, think rotting potatoes might be preferable.

On my way out of a shop earlier that's operating a customer limit and an ostensible one-way system. They had a person in the door and not only was she standing right in front of the exit side but literally ust as I approached it she told two people to come in so now they are hovering by the other side where the gel station is. So my path is entirely blocked just as I was trying to leave to allow other people to come in. So the girl on the door dances around ostentatiously to get out of the way and I think made some reflexive quip about how I was going the wrong way! Jeez. I know everybody is trying to work this out and I'm not about to give her a hard time but do me a favour. Also I was the only person involved in this farce wearing a goddam mask.

Typed that in rant-o-text apparently.

my teacher friend went into her classroom and spaced out all of the desks she could 6 feet apart. was able to get 13 desks in the room, and some had to be fudged (i.e., barely under 6 feet).

she has classes ranging from 24-36 people.

not anymore she doesn't!
i wish all class sizes actually went down to 12-13 and they just hired a shit ton more people to cover them
that would be so awesome for everyone

my teacher friend went into her classroom and spaced out all of the desks she could 6 feet apart. was able to get 13 desks in the room, and some had to be fudged (i.e., barely under 6 feet).

Yes, the space crunch in schools is a problem. Oh, if only there were a large number of spaces not currently being used

like

um

OFFICES

HOTELS

CONFERENCE VENUES

CONVENTION CENTERS

SPORTS VENUES

RECREATION FACILITIES

Seriously, I have a lovely office that I haven't been to in four months, and have no plans to go to any time soon. Lots of space, plentiful kitchens and bathrooms, good HVAC, already supplied with paper and pens and school supplies...

I have no idea how the logistical or liability concerns would be handled but sheesh. How many cavernous office buildings are sitting mostly empty? Some clever matchmaking could solve that easily, if the requisite willpower could be applied.

Suddenly Woke up w fever and chills around 3 AM after being fine yesterday and temperature was just around 101. Not gonna lie, freaking out.

Have a test scheduled tomorrow but who knows how long I’ll have to wait

For results I mean

Good luck! I hope the results come back quickly and it's nothing serious.

Oof best of luck and feel better Chris!

I can sympathize with freaking out. It would be hard not to. Here's hoping you get well quickly and completely, whatever it is.

"Seriously, I have a lovely office that I haven't been to in four months, and have no plans to go to any time soon. Lots of space, plentiful kitchens and bathrooms, good HVAC, already supplied with paper and pens and school supplies..."

this idea is dope and i def haven't seen it voiced elsewhere!

*lawyer pops head into room*

theeeere's gonnnna be liaaabilityyyy issuesss.....

yeah which I mentioned specifically as a probably prohibitive factor

I have seen the possibility floated that commercial landlords could get a rent break or tax break for donating the use of their spaces; not sure that counteracts the liaaabilityyyy issues

we live in a world that bends to the whims of high finance to the extent that the values of high finance have become our values - or at least provide a scaffolding that snakes through our entire society - and the USP of high finance is that they're supposedly peerless match-makers. the markets provide cost discovery near instantaneously to both sides of any potential investment that could be made. yet children are being squeezed into classrooms too small to safely hold them while offices and hotels are empty, and their owners going out of business. great match-making, guys. oh and what about the absolutely mind-boggling amount of work to be done to dig ourselves out of this pandemic? the affordable houses that need to be built? the crumbling roadways to shore up, and the shitty public transportation systems that need urgent attention? all while millions of people are unemployed. sweet going you wunderkind angel investors! you CDO hotshots! you are so great and worthwhile! let's definitely let you handle all the money.

School starts Aug 18 here, just got word that the local school district decided that the first 3 weeks will be remote. Wouldn't surprise me if this gets extended indefinitely.

Moodles where are you located?

My pal's current prediction is that schools where I live will open as scheduled (albeit as a part home/part in-class hybrid in the case of K-8 schools; high school is 100% remote) but that they will be shut down a month later. Really they should all be remote for at least the immediate future. There's a school in the burbs that had a sports camp for football and baseball players, iirc, and 36 kids just tested positive.

Seriously, I have a lovely office that I haven't been to in four months, and have no plans to go to any time soon. Lots of space, plentiful kitchens and bathrooms, good HVAC, already supplied with paper and pens and school supplies..."

this idea is dope and i def haven't seen it voiced elsewhere!

― Its big ball chunky time (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Wednesday, July 15, 2020 5:00 PM (three hours ago)

it's appealing, but it's not especially viable in many areas due to insurance, difficulty of cleaning spaces, the special needs of classrooms w/r/t accessibility and safety, transportation... etc. sometimes local publically-owned spaces (e.g. libraries, town-halls) might step-in, but privately owned buildings come with a host of difficulties.

My pal's current prediction is that schools where I live will open as scheduled (albeit as a part home/part in-class hybrid in the case of K-8 schools; high school is 100% remote) but that they will be shut down a month later. Really they should all be remote for at least the immediate future. There's a school in the burbs that had a sports camp for football and baseball players, iirc, and 36 kids just tested positive.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, July 15, 2020 8:10 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is the subtext to most openign plans! Nobody expects schools will be open for business-as-usual come October/November (flu season, colds, etc.), but there's a desire to get kids in for face-face interaction and socialization as early as possible.

Moodles where are you located?

Austin, TX

Houston starts Sept 8th. First six weeks are remote, after that we can choose remote or in class. We can change our mind every six weeks. Everything subject to change.

I guess this is as good as it gets under the current circumstances. Bitter that everything has been mismanaged so badly that we are here.

i mean nobody cares but melbourne’s daily case load is creeping up (although nothing at all compared to brazil, the usa, leicester etc) and it looks like our second lockdown (currently underway) will get even tighter and i think this is about as much as i can take of this fucking year

So last night a girl I dated in high school with whom I've stayed close reported her mom died of COVID. She and her dad were hospitalized last Friday; at first she thought her diabetic dad would go first. She's gutted, in large part b/c she had to say goodbye on the phone on Faceetime.

That's how this shit works: concentric circles of doom.

oh fuck that’s devastating

xxxpost damn, Chris. Keeping you in my thoughts. Really really hope it's just a quick bug!

oh jeez Alfred, very sorry to hear that

alfred, that’s awful, i’m so sorry.

Chris let us know how you’re feeling if you get a chance

I just had this horrible realisation that even if Trump loses he’s in power until late January. Those 2-3 months could be critical.

Sorry Alfred. Terrible.

Thanks, all.

That's terrible news. I have two very good friends who had a parent die in the past few months (neither of covid), and the social distancing and other restrictions made things that much more rough.

melbourne’s daily case load is creeping up

Curious, how much chillier is it in Melbourne than Sydney? Cool enough that people need to spend more time inside? For a bit it seemed like Covid was at least tangentially related to the weather, in the sense that where and when it was too cold or too hot to spend long stretches outside there seemed to be big spikes (New York/here et al. in March/April, southern states and CA now), but this country has been such an erratic mess I'm sure there are big exceptions due to outright incompetence. For example, I've wondered if it will happen again here as we creep toward the fall, where northern states suddenly see spikes and southern states get things better under control, but the southern states seem to be dealing with a whole different level of stupidity and stubbornness. Though I guess even Texas and Alabama have finally come around to mandatory masks, so apparently progress is possible. On the other hand, Kemp in Georgia literally just signed an executive order Wednesday night explicitly banning cities from enacting their own mask mandates, so ...

I don’t think it’s got much to do with the weather it’s a concatenation of poor decisions* that have lead to the virus getting out into the community.

*poor decisions include, poor management of quarantine, a prime minister goading the premier of Victoria into opening up to quick, not going for elimination when we were so close (and the virus is pretty much eliminated in all but 2 states) again because our prime minister did a selfish short sighted prick, not paying people in precarious jobs to stay home when sick, not protecting people adequately form being fired when the got sick.

All in all very little to do with the weather.

Negligence for sure trumps climate.

Thanks everyone, my fever has gone down along with the chills, it probably is a bug but I'm getting tested later. I was in a bad state yesterday, my mother passing away a few weeks ago and the perpetual bleak news not helping.

it's pretty frickin cold here in Hobart and we've had no new cases in over a month

Good to hear Chris. it can come and go though. Testing a good idea!

Hope you feel better soon Chris! I get it, my anxiety is absolutely through the roof with the unending flow of bad news. I gave up on hope weeks ago. My baseline assumption at this point is that we won't have a vaccine for probably three to five years and the US is already beyond hope in terms of controlling things in the meantime. It's fucking bleak.

Had a distanced picnic with some friends last night, and we all agreed that at this point, fall 2021 is the best case scenario for any sort of semblance of before, and that's best case scenario.

My wife asked me whether I could just return to normalcy tomorrow and I said that I probably couldn't. Frankly it took a lot of emotional and mental labor to get me to acquiesce to this situation, and if I get out of this mode I am not sure how I'd get back in.

In March, I thought a month of it would be impossible. That was four months ago. I feel like I've built up an immunity to this "new normal" (gah) and can just barely get by. If I got a taste of my old life - gigs, friends, family, night life, restaurants - and had to go back to this, I am not sure my heart could take the whiplash.

Oddly, this is probably the most carefree day we will get this summer. One of the precisely TWO kid-free days we will get, probably until October. (Son is with his longtime babysitter; daughter is assistant-teaching at a socially distanced dance camp.

We discussed going out to lunch at an outdoor restaurant, and I'm stupidly, irrationally nervous about it. How do restaurants work, again? Will there be chairs? How do you, like, sit at a table and ask people to bring you things? How do you, like, pay for it? Do I bring my own fork or do they already have forks there?

xpost - I would love to share whatever your friends were enjoying during that conversation. Maybe in the EU, but there is fucking way imaginable that the U.S. is even close to "before" by 2023 or 2024.

I think a recovery could be relative fast if there's a vaccine, no Trump, and a few more answers to Covid questions. tbd.

He said "semblance of before", not "it's all exactly as it was", and stated "best case scenario"

Yeah, it's especially that middle one that worries me, no matter how promising the polls seem today. If we don't get rid of Trump in November, there's not a fucking chance in hell the other two matter in the least, since the GOP will somehow figure out how to shit the bed on even distributing a vaccine should one exist.

Right, that's what I'm saying too Neanderthal. "Exactly as it was" is out the fucking window and will never come around again. I'm saying "best case scenario" of "semblance of before" is still 3-4 years out

And again, I'm only speaking of the US here since we have managed to fuck things up so colossally. I think a lot of other countries are going to come out of this well before we will.