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Coronavirus COVID-19 Social Distancing Self-Quarantine Discussion Thread


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I'm trying my best to be optimistic and think we'll get through the worst of it in the next few weeks, but we shall see.  I really gotta stay off Reddit.

 

I'm bummed at all the things I had planned that got cancelled/postponed. Was supposed to see Hamilton in Jacksonville this weekend, and the rumor is they won't be able to get it back until 2022. I have a trip to Boston planned for June that I'm hoping won't be affected.

 

My fiance's not taking it very well at all. She works for the local health department and it's been stressful for her. Plus our wedding is exactly one year from today and the planning process has been affected.

 

Hope you all stay safe, wash your hands, and enjoy your record collections while you're stuck at home.

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Hydroxychloroquine looks hopeful to me. I think the FDA in the US is going to rush everything as fast as they can and so far it looks like they're moving so fast it could be unsafe. That's Trump for you anyway. His re-election is on the line with our economy and he knows it. I'm hoping they'll try the drug and see what happens. My wife's salon got shut down and while my income will be uninterrupted, she has to file for unemployment. She makes way more on commission than minimum so I hope DE will consider her tipped wages kindly with her unemployment. Our governor confirmed tipped workers will not receive unemployment benefits at minimum wage (meaning they'll receive more than minimum) and part timers can also apply for unemployment. I hope other states do the same. I feel awful for everyone in even worse situations considering her boss is doing everything she can for her workers. Most places would say peace out/deal with it yourself.

 

Our mortgage lender is trash and won't let us get assistance in a speedy manner. They're requiring snail mail that will take so long that we'll miss the due date. I can pay it, but I think other things are more important in the long run when a household loses more than half their income.

 

All this has proved to me is how little financial institutions and rich people care for anyone. And how I'm baffled at the people voting for Trump and Biden when they're crying for the things Sanders wants to provide. I'm not promoting Sanders (almost every politician is rich and only cares about money) but the hypocrisy is real. Also hoarders need to die. I would like to buy groceries, ya know? It'll be interesting how that affects people who get food stamps and state assistance the beginning of April.

Edited by N8TRU
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I've been working from home for the last three weeks and feel very fortunate that I have that option, I know a lot of people aren't able to.  I'm in Seattle and it seems like our bars/restaurants/venues started to see a pinch a week or two earlier than most places.  Now, it's take-out and delivery only for restaurants, bars and venues are shuttered for another 10 days (at least).  Some places have closed permanently and I feel like that's just the start.

 

I've got an upcoming European trip that's all but completely cancelled, which definitely a  bummer, but in perspective is just that and not an actual problem. 

 

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3 hours ago, N8TRU said:

Hydroxychloroquine looks hopeful to me. I think the FDA in the US is going to rush everything as fast as they can and so far it looks like they're moving so fast it could be unsafe. That's Trump for you anyway. 

A vaccine has already been put in a human. They skipped all animal trials and went straight to a human volunteer, but they have to be monitored for ~14 months to confirm that it works and that it's safe. I don't think Trump has much say as far as drug testing goes.

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It’s been stressful & panic-stricken here for the most part. Just last week I got over some serious bronchitis. My parents, who are both 65+ and live with me were both sick. Mom got bronchitis as well but got over it. Did get bad enough that I had to take her to the ER but thankfully it was just severe bronchitis. She has asthma so it was better to be cautious. Now my father is getting over bad sinusitis. He has some health issues so of course also major concern. 
 

My work was ordered to essentially have our staff work from home if capable. We still have some folks in the office but unsure for how long as this progresses. Working from home has been a rough adjustment for me because we’re all cooped up & going bananas already. My brother was supposed to start a new job at a new restaurant that was opening & that’s been put off now with all the restrictions & closures in place. He’s bummed about that & understandably so. 
 

On a more selfish side for me...a great number of shows & concerts I had tix for & plans to head to Orlando for have been postponed & cancelled. But I’m not overly upset as I understand the reasons of the current climate. Plus the timing of some of the shows were going to create problems with my time-off schedule anyways. 
 

On the political opinion of things...I’m just frustrated like everyone else hopefully, on the slew of misinformation and mishandling by Trump & his cronies. The mental gymnastics that you have to do every time something is said is just exhausting now. 
 

And don’t get me started what this is all doing to my anxiety and high-functioning depression. 

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I’m still working, but I’m torn.  I have been there 10+ years, but just started a new role as a trainer a few weeks ago which puts me in close contact with people.  I’ve been working jobs since I was 14 so I’ve always had a good work ethic.  That part of me wants to keep going, but my brain and anxiety about this whole thing is telling me to be smart and say fuck it.. stay home for at least 2 weeks which I have plenty of PTO to cover so that’s not a worry, plus management would totally understanding.  I know it sounds crazy, but I would legit feel guilty if I took 2-3 weeks off and stayed home even though it’s for a legitimate reason.  Hmmmmm.  Thoughtcicles?

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Things are okay, not great, but okay in my part of Canada. I live in a very small town and we have run out of toilet paper at our grocery store, but other than that, I am still able to buy food and other essentials. My lifestyle hasn't changed all that much because most of my work I do from home. I am disappointed the concerts I was supposed to be going to in the upcoming months have been cancelled, but in the end it was the right decision to keep everyone safe. Boredom is starting to get the best of me. I restarted Game of Thrones to pass the time, and I've been trying to busy myself by making new recipes and listening to some albums I haven't checked out yet. Many of my friends have been laid off from their jobs, and I've been trying to look after my dad. I really hope this passes quickly. My girlfriend is still being made to go to work, I'm very unhappy with that.

Edited by Han Solo
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8 hours ago, curator said:

I’m still working, but I’m torn.  I have been there 10+ years, but just started a new role as a trainer a few weeks ago which puts me in close contact with people.  I’ve been working jobs since I was 14 so I’ve always had a good work ethic.  That part of me wants to keep going, but my brain and anxiety about this whole thing is telling me to be smart and say fuck it.. stay home for at least 2 weeks which I have plenty of PTO to cover so that’s not a worry, plus management would totally understanding.  I know it sounds crazy, but I would legit feel guilty if I took 2-3 weeks off and stayed home even though it’s for a legitimate reason.  Hmmmmm.  Thoughtcicles?

Would it do any good though? Chances are this thing will still be around in 2-3 weeks. I've kind of accepted that I'll likely get it even with social distancing, washing my hands a million times a day (which are now cracked to shit) and only making necessary trips out of the house. 

My office is still open but running a skeleton crew. I am on a day at home / day in the office pattern which is just fucking dumb. They took my temperature this morning going in to the office with one of those temperature guns that they point at your head and it was 35 degrees C - which would mean I have hypothermia. So that is clearly not an effective way to determine a person's temperature.

Pretty much all gigs are cancelled, all sport, cinemas, schools are now closed and exams are cancelled. 

This whole thing is unprecedented.  

Edited by Skacel
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I live in basically the hot zone county of PA currently and work in healthcare. Many businesses are still open despite recommendations to close. 
 

I’m a doctor where most of my patients are nonessential type of healthcare. We have seen a reduction in patients but there are a still a lot of people coming in for regular appointments that are unnecessary. Our office laughed at me for wearing a mask last week during work and now every employee is scrambling for one. We’ll be out of masks in a few days completely. Every morning I’m terrified to go to work and it’s beyond stressful. Although being without pay might be more stressful. 
 

My wife and I haven’t left the house otherwise in 2 weeks almost already. Keeping busy catching up on a lot of movies and playing lots of video games. Animal Crossing will help a lot. 

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I work in HR Payroll consulting and have been remote for 4 years. I feel so very thankful for the industry i'm in and my heart goes out to all the people around me being directly impacted by this thing almost immediately. My brother in-law is part owner in  Private Equity firm and they got hit hard with the market and the portfolio they manage, sister is out of work, friend in NY who was a Director of Sales laid off yesterday, many friends in hospitality, entertainment and restaurant industry. Concerned about my elderly parents and grandparents. I've never seen anything like this and the reality is its going to get worse over the next 14 days.

 

I was in the unconcerned camp just a week ago and spent this past weekend in New Orleans at a bachelor party, things have changed dramatically in the past 7 days and I think people are much more concerned now

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4 hours ago, museummouth said:

My wife and I haven’t left the house otherwise in 2 weeks almost already. Keeping busy catching up on a lot of movies and playing lots of video games. Animal Crossing will help a lot. 

I always seem to end up with more games than I can play whenever there's a good Switch store sale.  I feel like I'll be putting a nice dent in my backlog in the coming weeks.

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Stuff that sucks - I’m a barber that flies as a 1099, independent contractor status.  I get no unemployment benefits or paid leave now that our governor has shut down all barbershops for two weeks to probably a couple months.  and I’m the sole income provider for my wife and kid.  
we’re in the process of selling our house and re-locating from Washington to Texas when all this shit started so all my records, books, and video games are all packed away.   And I’m afraid that either our buyer is going to back out or our state gets quarantined so we can’t leave.

 

what doesn’t suck - i get to spend more time with my son and wife.  The public library has a ton of free comics and audio books to check out.  Right now I’m bouncing back between the beastie boys book and Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography.  And reading Doomsday clock and the long Halloween
 

 

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Shit, nothing in my life has really changed except the kids are home. My job is considered "essential" by the government so we're still coming to work as usual, they even gave me a little cop-pass paper to show law enforcement incase the state initiates martial law. My wife's business is still able to do take out and delivery orders so she's still working. I saw this shit coming about a week ago and was able to grab some groceries to get the family by, only thing I had an inconvience getting was toilet paper but it random pops up on Amazon and I was able to get a case from them.

 

Cons: Bright Eyes hasn't said anything but I'm sure their tour will get postponed, my brother is supposed to have a wedding next month and even though the venue hasn't canceled on him I'm trying to talk him into moving it so he doesn't spend a shitload of money on a wedding 10 people are going to attend lol.

 

Pros: you can get hard to find shit on Discogs for lower prices right now, people are panic selling records and tapes they'd usually price gouge. Kinda funny seeing all these recent Fat Wreck releases people usually flip go from $90 to $40 lol

 

As far as our administration goes I don't see why people are becoming solely reliant on the state during this event. It's a pandemic, if it isn't contained from the get-go it becomes impossible to isolate the bigger it gets. My only real gripe with them was their delayed reaction to isolating our nation due to scrutiny, but aside from that they're not doing a better or worse job than any other past administration would had. I see plenty of businesses stepping up and taking care of their employees (letting them work from home, giving them time off, etc), and that's awesome, also a lot of utility services and banks in my area are letting customers skip payments. I think over the next few days we'll start to see products readily available on store shelves again (because hoarders are going to run out of money and storage space). 

 

Now the state needs to hurry up and give us back some of our taxed income via this stimulus shit, papa wants a new revolver lol

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I live in a suburb of New Orleans (which had Mardi Gras about a month ago) and it's legitimately scary. Within the parish (what you normal people call county), there's around 400K people. Apparently the number of COVID-19 cases keep getting higher, so much so, we constantly fluctuate between 1st and 5th place for highest number of positive cases per capita in the country. The mayor of NO just ordered a 'shelter in place' decree, but a lot of dumb ass people are still out and about. 

Being in a neighboring parish, there's a different attitude because our number isn't as high. But people travel between parishes daily for work and getting groceries, especially when it is revealed that some stores are more stocked than others. My employer is an agency that provides social services so we're a LGE (local governing entity), which means although we're paid by the state and many of us are civil servants, our agency is autonomous. It boils down to if the parish were to close up every other state office, it's up to the executive director and board whether our agency closes. Our agency is opened still seeing people for mental health services. The division I work in has ceased face-to-face appointments, but we're still having to report to work as normal. We're allowed to stay home but we have to use vacation time instead of sick time. Other similar LGE's in the state are working from home, so it's frustrating to be on our floor among 20-25 other staff all sharing common spaces (bathrooms, break room, copy machines, etc), even though we're encouraged to work from our office and communicate electronically. I am anxious because, although I am still working and getting paid, I have to go out among people five days a week and then find time to go to a store but it's never just one store because nothing is available. Strange times indeed.

Edited by somethingvinyl
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LA area here, I feel like people still aren't taking things as serious as they should. I'm in the live entertainment industry so I was one of the first to be out of work. Fortunately, I'm not a touring guy, I work in a bigger theater (1800+ capacity) and a smaller city run theater (800+). It started with the bigger one cancelling a show, then a chain reaction started, thought I'd be okay with the small one but then everything escalated, governor announced no more that 250 people then condensed it to 10. I haven't filed for unemployment yet and I feel like it's too late, but I'll probably still try. 

 

Fortunately, I was ahead financially and if the government does send us stimulus checks then I'll be more than okay, but it's weird, I'm quite the workaholic and ive not been doing anything but house work, video games and making music. It's nice but definitely weird.

 

The thing I'm most bummed is my GF and I's vacation to Albuquerque in two weeks isn't gonna happen. She wanted to go for her spring break and I was looking forward to a week of breweries, museums and nature. Oh well, we're gonna go to Denver in October, I'm hoping things will be back to normal by then, but I guess we'll see. Also Coachella not happening either, boo.

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Out here in Brooklyn, NYC. So I'm a Special Education teacher which has been challenging in its own right for the past 6 years. I begin remote teaching from home tomorrow. While some teachers in some schools and school districts may have an easier transition, its going to suck for me. I just started teaching Autistic high school this year and this was actually my favorite class. The kids have been great and we were working on transitional and vocational life skills. Lots of hands on work and they were doing great. Now boom, I probably won't see them again this year, and depending on the sequence of events, maybe ever. It hurts that I had to pack up my room like it was summer already. Now I might be micromanaged online by administration. Great.

 

My union (United Federation of Teachers) had a huge public fight with our mayor (I'm sure you all know Bill de Blasio) over closing the schools here as he made several different claims why the schools should remain open such as we need to feed the kids (true, but safety first) or the hardship on the parents for care (also true, but safety first) to that teens won't listen to orders and go outside anyway (whatever you say dude.) Ultimately, after pressure from my union in threatening to go to court and Governor Cuomo speaking using common sense (like uh Mayor close the schools) de Blasio finally relented. Ultimately it showed that they weren't prepared with a plan and how this would escalate. I had to go in for 3 days to pack up my room, do virtual learning PDs, and try to lesson plan. No bueno. Super stressful. The hastiness of everything and the fact that a bunch of my kids have issues accessing technology is going to make this a problem. Also two of the kids I teach are nonverbal and three have parents that speak little to no English. The NYC Department Of Education and the Mayor were unprepared.

 

Now NYC is far and away the worst place in the country in terms of the outbreak. Someone tested positive in the building I worked in, but I don't know who or if they contracted it from the building. By the third day I went in 3 of my staff members had to self quarantine because they were exposed to someone who tested positive. Several other staff members left by the end of the first day with that news.

 

This pandemic is one of those things that is a huge negative about living in a densely populated area. The outbreak is going to get real bad here. I've been doing my best to stay home as much as possible, but I still have to go to the laundromat amongst other things. I've been anxious even though I'm pretty sure I'll be OK, but I have a bunch of family members with underlying health issues. The mayor was unprepared, Trump was both unprepared and incompetent, but at least our Governor has been concise and cogent so there is hope. Its going to get worse before it gets better, and I'm hoping for the best, but dreading the worst in terms of potential casualties.

 

In my lifetime NYC has had to deal with 9-11 and Superstorm Sandy. Both were horrible and tragic and forever changed a bunch of things about NYC. However, this is going to be an ongoing anxiety inducing struggle to stay healthy and sane. Our medical personnel and first responders are going to need as much help as possible, especially since several hospitals have closed in NYC over the past 10 years. We'll see.

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We (the U.K.) have just gone into lockdown. You’re not allowed to leave your house unless it’s for food/ medicine, essential work, for exercise (once a day) or to look after a vulnerable person. All non-essential shops to close. If you are outside, no more than 2 people in a group unless you are from the same household. To be reviewed in 3 weeks.

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