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Daily coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - March 21
This thread is posted daily, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!
My province declared a state of emergency on the 19th. My grandfather passed away on March 13th and his funeral was on the 19th. I don't know what to say besides I got through it. The social distancing and a capacity limit for safety was so bizarre. At least most of my family took it seriously, a lot of them work in health care. We had signs up for distancing (mostly respected), limited entrances, had sanitizer stations.
The funeral was live-streamed and I have a recording; I know several other people watched the live stream but the chapel itself was pretty empty. This was a lot harder emotionally that I thought it would be. He was a popular guy, but of course his friends are also old and at risk and some people were self-isolating, so people couldn't come.
My heart breaks for my grandma. I taught her how to use video calling but the desire to visit her is so strong. She is of course at risk - I am not really religious any more, but I've found myself thinking of her and praying for her safety through this so that once this is all over we can have a big party. :(
Anyway - I had a bunch of government weed in my house and I absolutely obliterated myself after the funeral and for most of Friday. I have a tendency to stress dream and cannabis helps with that, so I am finally feeling a bit more like a functional person after catching up on sleep.
I had time planned off for Monday (booked it off months ago) but I am ready to work again, I think. Or I will be. (Thanks Animal Crossing and Scrabble online with friends.) Right now the company I work for is moving like crazy to get people in my province OUT of crowded call centers and working from home using our software instead - these are people who work as tech support for ISPs and carriers and of course the remote communication industry is critical right now for work and for socializing. These tech support people are helping others stay connected; we're trying to help them stay safe.
Not much changed since I posted last time.
Czech republic, 11M, 925 infected, 4 cured. data
On the positive side, Seznam.cz, one of the biggest internet companies here, and company that made Mapy.cz, one fo the most popular map application here, added opt-in feature into their app. This stores all user's location data and promises to alert people who they determine came into contact with someone infected. They promised (a lot, they put a lot of emphasis on that) to delete all location data when the epidemic ends. This looks like a really cool feature to me.
And people are absolutely OK with wearing masks. Everyone has them now. A bit surprising, considering Slovak PM spent like two minutes of his speech telling people not to make fun of people in masks, and we're absolutely fine with this.
However, after our government used location data from phone carriers to track people who met infected ones (without even an option to opt-out), our prime minister said (literally two or three minutes ago), that according to location data and bank transactions, 46% of people in quarantine went out to a shop at least once. It just sounds scary that they can get this information on such a massive scale relatively easily. At least I know that if I ever plan to do something illegal, I have to leave my phone at home.
What's your take, will they really implement the total lockdown? I really can't seem to get the feeling of what's the common train of thought here...
I'm in Berlin, working in the delivery/maintenance industry and I'd say less people have been going outside since the temperatures dropped this weekend. Still though it seems to be highly dependent on the neighborhood right now, and during this past week the parks were admittably crawling with people partying and chilling outside.
I don't know what to make of it: I've been going outside only with a proper respirator and latex gloves both for work and supply runs; many still give me the stinky eye or openly laugh, some have started wearing masks and few seem to be practicing social distancing where it matters (even though the streets have been mostly empty).
I admit I have been kinda underestimating the situation up until some weeks ago as well. I still believe whatever happened the first weeks in Italy was a total shitshow caused by the media and definitely contributed in spreading the desease. Hearing from my parents on a daily basis it seems like they are handling the situation as best as they can right now...
Mom is twisting my arm to go to a barber before some sort of official lockdown happens. (SE MI) She didn't want me to see a new hand and wrist therapist, since I had an appointment from before things got super duper bad, as doctor's offices are bad places to be during a pandemic, but a barber is fine because "this may be the last time in a while." I don't get it.
Maybe tell your mom about no haircuts until whenever it's safe to let someone within 2 meters of your head. 😒 As /u/bleem said, DIY with clippers and/or a razor.
[Live-in partner is an acceptable alternative barber, and you'll have someone to blame. Funny story - I let my spouse cut my hair when we were young and broke. He insisted that I sit in a particular spot in the kitchen. I didn't think much about it while he was trimming, until he let out a few evil-sounding giggles. I quickly had enough and demanded he let me in on the joke - I was afraid he'd carved something irredeemable into my head. He said, "I've finally gotten human hair in the cat's food."]
I've never had great success with home hair colors, so I've decided to go Pandemic Gray. Hair isn't in the "necessary" expense pool, either, and we're trying to cut back.
Coincidentally, I bought hair clippers yesterday, after I realised that a hairdresser's appointment would be a major exposure risk. So, like you & /u/bleem have said here, my hair will be going DIY very soon.
/u/moocow1452: You need to tell your mother about the risk of going to a hairdresser, where someone who touches lots of people all day will be in close contact with you for the 15-30 minutes required to pass on the coronavirus.
grab a pair of clippers, i've been clipping/shaving my head for about 10 years (I'm bald). I keep a short beard that I also clip. Really easy to stay a little tidy. Now might be the time
I went out and bought hair clippers yesterday. A recent post on Facebook joked about the silly hairstyles people will end up with after being locked up for a while, and I had a light bulb moment: I don't like long hair (even a few centimetres counts as "long" for me), and I don't want to sit in a hairdressing salon putting myself at risk. So I bought hair clippers, and I'll be sporting a DIY look in a couple of weeks.
I have also re-started some mindfulness exercises (I was doing mindfulness a few years back for a problem I had back then). I've noticed worrisome thoughts creeping in these days, particularly about what might happen to me if I caught the virus. I would prefer to not start having random panic attacks, so I've started doing mindfulness every day. Of course, this won't help if I actually do catch it, and certain of my phobic triggers get... umm... triggered. In that case, all bets are off. But it'll help for now.
I bought the clippers so I can trim my own hair. I don't need or want to shave my head.
Our school sent out an email at midnight last night saying we are going all online for the next quarter. They said that as of right now, classes that have a hands-on component will be online for the first half and in classroom for the second half as long as social distancing can be put into practice and we don't get further restrictions. I'm scrambling to drop some classes and pick up others.
woops, posted in the wrong daily thread. Had my over the phone therapist meeting. Was actually not bad but they want to do video conferencing and I don't want to hook up a webcam to my computer
Looks like there will be a shutdown of non-essential services in NSW, Australia. It's unfortunate it's come down to this but the cases keep piling up and there's still people trying to live a normal life going out and socializing. Up until a couple of days ago, beaches and pubs were full but now the government has to step in.
São Paulo, Brazil. Just above 1k cases in 26/27 federal units (states plus the capital), out of which 396 are in my state.
My state's government has declared a quarantine for 15 days starting on march 24th (3 days from now on Tuesday for some reason), so they've realized this is really contagious or want to Pat themselves on the back.