Coronavirus

[indianabones]

The New York Times published an article today about coronavirus with pictures of my neighborhood. Like, an actual building two blocks away from my house. Strange. Freaking. Times.

I have decided to embrace the fact that I've gone down from a 40 hour work week to an 8 hour one. Tomorrow I'm going to make a bunch of soup to freeze for if/when my family gets sick, since I doubt we'll feel like cooking then. I'm going to have some good quality time with my own dog, and catch up on Netflix shows, and enjoy the springtime weather we're getting!

Despite everyone in my household being in a high risk group, including me, I can't bring myself to stay home and inside all the time. I'm avoiding crowds and being within 4 feet of people, of course, but if I had to self-isolate despite having absolutely no symptoms I would be so depressed. It's truly a double edged sword.

[therulesofjinx]

It finally came to my tiny state. We have one case thus far. I did not notice anyone stockpiling when I was out running errands over the weekend, but I am thinking perhaps my fiance and I should have purchased some canned goods and other non-perishables at the grocery store yesterday rather than just our weekly meals. We did grab some cold meds last week. Perhaps I'll stop at Dollar General on my way home and see if paper goods are in stock

I work at a university and our students all left for spring break last Friday. Our major concern right now is students returning from travel. We have lots of contingency plans in place if people need to work from home,  classes need to be taught remotely, etc. All of the study abroad students in Italy have been sent home, I believe (and hope).

Because I'm sure you all haven't already heard it several times today: here's a reminder to wash your hands! ?

[clueliss]

Caution on walmart in KY - the first patient there is a Walmart employee

https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-03-09-20-intl-hnk/h_32735baaf2d7fe4c9690a5118532fa85

[keen23]

My husband's company is in full on panic mode (he's a subcontractor for a big tech firm). His vacation was rescinded for this week, and he has to work now- he's the head of safety, so I guess it makes sense- to enforce new sanitation protocols. My company is ignoring it all together and adopting a wait and see policy. My kid's trip to California was cancelled by her school because of Coronavirus cases in the area they were supposed to visit.

[HerNameIsBuffy]

My son works in a skilled nursing facility and they are taking everyone's temp at the start of their shift and sending home anyone running a fever.

More than I thought they would do as they usually pressure them to work sick.

Of course none of them have sick time so it would be without pay.  

[louisa05]

My sister-in-law “disinfected” her yoga studio with essential oils and vodka. She is also “saging” it daily. 
 

There was exposure in their community with a symptomatic person interacting with people closely at a large event. 
 

She is also advising that you will not get the virus if you “practice deep breathing” and “avoid processed sugar”. 
 

She is literally a menace to society now.  

[klein_roeschen]

Since yesterday I'm back at work after 4 weeks of sick leave, I work at a pharmacy in rural Germany. We are out of any kind desinfectants and have already sold more in the last 2 weeks than in the whole last year and we don't know when we get another batch. And people are getting crazy here. Hospitals and doctors offices are starting to have problems because they are also don't get any desinfectants and start running low on it. And people steal that stuff in hospitals together with face masks. They steal it from the cleaning trolleys and out of the toilets and patient rooms. A nurse twittered that she caught a visitor in a patient room filling up hand sanitizer from the dispenser in a freaking soda bottle. And I don't do anything different now than I did in the last years during flu season, wash my hands frequently, use desinfectant on the counter and my hands after a patient with symptoms and try to don't touch my face. Worked for me in the last years, not much more than a mild cold. And where all of this panic get really annoying are the people who are now in panic mode about Covid19, but couldn't give a fuck about the seasonal influenza or other infectious deaseses that are longer known. And when we get a vaccine in round about 2 years, many of the people who are now in panic mode are not going to get vaxxed against, because it wasn't that bad and so on.

[Maggie Mae]

I am so sick of tourists thinking that Covid-19 isn't real. I am sick of tourists in general, and am so glad that I have a non-tourism job lined up starting next month; but my god, just because you don't feel sick and just got off a plane doesn't mean that it isn't a thing. I fear for this summer - we do not have enough medical facilities to deal with even one Princess boat full of Covid-19, much less multiples. 

Granted, I probably already have it, with the number of people who just showed up last week to watch the dog race. And I don't trust my state government to not lie about it if given the option. 

[indianabones]

Well, my city started a fund for gig economy workers who have been affected by the virus, so hopefully I'll get some recompensation for that! I made half as much money last week as I usually do. This week I'm on track to make a third of what I usually do. And it's not like anyone is hiring (not that I'd want another job- I started walking dogs because I was sick of working a schedule someone else set for me) to make up the money lost.

In other news, I sneezed while in line at Target today (it's the start of allergy season here, how serendipitous!) and the woman standing behind me noticeably scooted four feet backwards. ? I don't blame her but I kind of felt like Typhoid Mary!

There's no longer traffic here. I used to have to sit for at least half an hour on the freeway every morning and it's down to 10 minutes now. I walked through my school's campus this afternoon and I only saw one other person, when on a normal Tuesday there would be hundreds. My city's downtown seems like a ghost town, which is especially weird because all the kids are out of school- all the schools and colleges here are closed. If it were summer there would be families everywhere.

My sister lives in New Orleans and they just got their first case confirmed. I told her to make sure to stock up on toilet paper! ?

[Ozlsn]

On 3/10/2020 at 8:33 AM, louisa05 said:

There was exposure in their community with a symptomatic person interacting with people closely at a large event. 

Oh ffs. Stay home if you are not well, why is that hard? Doesn't matter if it's covid-19, flu, RSV.. just stay home if you're symptomatic!!

 

[Italiangirl]

i just saw in the news that in Sicilly there are now 20000 people who have reported themself as have moved from the old red area (basically  a big part of the north country) to their families in Sicilly, because tehy where afraid they would have been ask to don't move and stay home. They make me so angry! I live in Tuscany and unfortunatly for us the virus is spreading in the last few days because of people who has second home here and decided they preferred to be here in quarantine instead where they usually live...i hope this wil pass, bu at the same time i'm rooting for the virus so that maybe some of this "genius" will understand something 

[clueliss]

Nerd trivia - actually Typhoid Mary was not symptomatic which was the issue.  A sneeze is a symptom of something. (end nerd)

[indianabones]

2 hours ago, clueliss said:

Nerd trivia - actually Typhoid Mary was not symptomatic which was the issue.  A sneeze is a symptom of something. (end nerd)

Yes, I was referring more to the social avoidance part. Turn of phrase.

[therulesofjinx]

Well....it's looking more and more likely that the university I work for is going to close (no official announcement has been made so I have no idea what time frame they're planning for) and students will probably be asked not to return from spring break if they can help it- they were told to bring their textbooks/classwork with them when they left. I'm sitting at my desk trying to figure out how much stuff I need to take home with me to do my job remotely (I, unfortunately, deal in a lot of paper forms and files). We are in our busy season, so this should be interesting! I appreciate that we are taking preventative measures to hopefully slow the spread in our community/state/beyond, but it's a sucky situation for our hourly paid employees who cannot work remotely (janitorial, food service, facilities) for sure.

[klein_roeschen]

Well, the town I'm working in has their first confirmed case, a woman who came back from vacation in Italy. At the moment we are concerned that it was the woman that told us monday about her recent stay in Italy, but we take it still with humor, but we are getting more and more concerned. And we got 10 bottles of skin desinfektant, the kind of that's used at the doctors office before injections or blood drawings. Sold in less than an hour. And we now need to watch our own hand sanitizers we have at every counter to use between costumers, because a coworker caught a costumer this morning trying to steal them. It's crazy.

[Maggie Mae]

They declared an Emergency here, despite having no confirmed cases. Granted, they only have tested 47 people and last I heard we only had 50 tests in the state.  Sure glad our head of DHSS is the owner of a truck driving school and a top campaign contributer to the corrupt governor, rather than someone who actually worked in Heath care. 

[CTRLZero]

2 hours ago, therulesofjinx said:

students will probably be asked not to return from spring break if they can help it-

My daughter's college is doing the same.  Students will take classes remotely from home after spring break.  The exception will be international students or others who cannot return home for some reason.  All faculty and staff are to remain available to the campus, at least for the time being.  I'm guessing this same policy will be implemented by many colleges nationwide.  My daughter's college will apparently reassess after a couple of weeks.

 

[adidas]

WHO has just declared it a pandemic. About time. 
 

https://www.9news.com.au/world/coronavirus-outbreak-a-pandemic-who/fa0e9b86-03a0-4930-ad23-1c2fc0e2e792

[louisa05]

Schools are starting to close here. Someone went to a state basketball tournament game last week who has tested positive. That was girls. Boys tournament starts tomorrow and only immediate family members of players will be allowed to attend. Everyone is losing their shit  over that.  Because attending the tournament even when you have zero connection to any school or players is a thing. Never understood that.   But I know plenty of people who do it. 
If the districts I sub in close, I’m in trouble.  I already lost two weeks of work because of injuries from a car accident.  Last week I was able to take light jobs two days so I got 1.75.  This week is spring break.  I normally work 3.5 to 4 days a week. Since Feb 12, 1.75 total. So we’re already taking a hit. Closings will really hurt us financially.  And I know that support staff won’t get paid through any closings, too.  I worry for them. 
 

 

[Ali]

The first cases in Michigan were confirmed last night. I teach high school and some of my students were freaking out 1st period today. I tried to explain to them that they should be fine as long as they have healthy lungs. I know many of them vape and likely have damaged their lungs. My favorite question was, "why was this virus named after a beer?" Since I am a teacher, I could not resist I explained the real origin of the name.

The virus looks like it had a crown and corona means crown in Latin.

[WiseGirl]

Just waiting until my school district closes. It is not an if but a when. They are figuring out so much right now.

[Coconut Flan]

From the trenches:

https://www.newsweek.com/young-unafraid-coronavirus-pandemic-good-you-now-stop-killing-people-opinion-1491797

 

[indianabones]

Welp, all the schools here are now closed. I met a woman today who told me her kids attend a Catholic school where one of the teachers is a priest who's been giving last rites to the coronavirus patients (we were about two miles away from the epicenter when having this conversation) and has been around other teachers since then- something about shared housing. Pretty sure that school closed today with the rest of them.

The local news tonight was entirely virus coverage about my city. Now the national news is all about my city (and a little bit about New York, too). Half of the international news is about us. Poor Italy, too. As soon as the virus has passed, and I'm making money again, I think I'm going to try and plan a trip there. They're going to need tourist dollars.

[indianabones]

1 hour ago, Coconut Flan said:

From the trenches:

https://www.newsweek.com/young-unafraid-coronavirus-pandemic-good-you-now-stop-killing-people-opinion-1491797

 

Okay, after reading that I've decided to start officially social distancing. No more events, I'm cancelling plans, ordering my groceries, standing far away when I interact with (human) clients.

I'm trying to talk my parents into not going to work. My dad is fully capable of working from home but he doesn't want his co-workers to learn he's over 60 if he starts doing so. My mom is the same way, but she's unable to work from home with her job and would either have to take a leave of absence or quit. They're both being extremely reluctant.

[adidas]

Tom Hanks and his wife are in Australia and have tested positive.

I genuinely hope they recover well and that they didn’t spread it to too many people. I’m not sure of their movements but I imagine movie sets and premieres involve being in close contact with lots of people ?