Life during the outbreak

I'm going to set up a "daily coronavirus chat/questions/etc." thread starting tomorrow (in ~health.coronavirus). I think it'll be good just for general conversations like this, talking about how the situation looks wherever you live, smaller questions and updates, and so on.

I've broken out in tears twice today. It never turns into full crying, but I've had several moments of pure helplessness. I know it's coming from a general anxiety over this whole thing, and I'm doing a good job, for the most part, of managing it except for an occasional moment of weakness.

I try to bury myself in data to know that it's not that bad, and limit myself to hour-long periods on /r/coronavirus to understand what's going on. I can manage a few sessions a day at less than an hour each, but have to space them out. I'm watching the American response, specifically in my home state of California, to know what's going to happen, and what kind of policies are going to make their way through the state. Fortunately, most of the news seems to be good, even with the US preparing to deal with a substantially large series of state- or county-mandated lockdowns.

I find maintaining little bits of normalcy helps a lot. Shave my head and neck (I have a beard, so not the face). Brush my teeth. Report to my now virtual classes on time. I'm worried about possibly cracking if this goes on too long, but that's some sort of meta-anxiety I'm really trying to learn to control, as it seems to be most of my problem.

I'm not worried about the virus itself, but the local shortages it's causing, and the trouble it's causing because the people who weren't paying attention are now suddenly panicking, even though it won't be so bad if my state goes on a full Italy-style lockdown, which is pretty much the worst-case scenario at this point, and likely to happen.

I'll be honest, it's not great.

My grandfather passed away on Friday. I have been advised to self-isolate for two weeks and dealing with this without visiting my close and extended family has been really, really hard. I am working on a solution so that his funeral and services can be live streamed. I am exhausted.

I realised last night, while watching yet another television show about the coronavirus, that I've been devouring too much news about the coronavirus. It's making me anxious (it also didn't help that I was over-tired last night because I'd woken up ridiculously early to buy toilet paper). My response to any situation which I'm nervous about is to acquire information. "Knowledge is power" is very personal for me. I always need to know what's going on. Unfortunately, right now, that habit is working against me. Up to a point, having knowledge is good for me. However, I've gone beyond that point. I need to pull back. I don't need to live in an information vacuum, but I need to stop devouring every single article and television show about the pandemic. I need to keep myself informed, but I need to step back and take a breather every now and then.

As background: I'm not in a high-risk demographic, but I'm also not a low-risk case. For a couple of reasons, I have a non-negligible risk of developing complications if I get infected - as does my housemate. So, we're both taking precautions. I can work from home, but he can't. Luckily, because of his health circumstances, he's already slightly germophobic and he already has good hygiene practices (I never used hand sanitiser before a couple of weeks ago, but he's been a regular user of it for years). But we're both sitting here hoping that neither of us catches it, because we're very likely to infect each other in the pre-symptomatic phase.

My wife and I went for a walk today at a local hill. While driving to the trailhead, there was a long line outside the local branch of a major bank. It's quite a busy branch, but a line outside is unusual. They did seem somewhat spread out.

On the trail, people waved but kept their distance, mostly. Usually we see a lot of dog-walkers and there were some, but we also saw a few families and that's unusual. I took a picture of some dog-walkers (from a distance) and one of them asked whether it would be on social media. I didn't hear her, but my wife said no. Since then I've deleted it.

The view was great, very dramatic due to being partly cloudy. I took pictures to send relatives. We thought there were fewer planes than usual, but there were a few, so hard to tell. Nothing looked wrong from the top of the hill.

We were fairly cautious about touching anything. At the end of the hike there is a chain link fence, and when we got close, I would sometimes race my wife to it and touch it. She would run up to it and not touch it, and I would tease her about it, and she would tease me about insisting that it's important to touch it. This time, we didn't run, and neither of us touched it.

When we drove home, the line was still there at the bank.

I'm thinking that I'd like to go again tomorrow. I wonder if it will be possible?

According to the lockdown order, all "non-essential" travel will be illegal. I'm wondering if that includes driving to a trailhead? Travel is "including, but not limited to, travel on foot, bicycle, scooter, motorcycle, automobile, or public transit, except Essential Travel and Essential Activities as defined below."

One of the exceptions is "To engage in outdoor activity, provided the individuals comply with Social Distancing Requirements as defined in this Section, such as, by way of example and without limitation, walking, hiking, or running."

Although "All public and private gatherings of any number of people occurring outside a household or living unit are prohibited," I guess we don't need to do it separately, because although "All public and private gatherings of any number of people occurring outside a household or living unit" are prohibited, "Nothing in this Order prohibits the gathering of members of a household or living unit."

I'm not a lawyer though, and perhaps there is some better source of guidance in this matter.

Not having a great time with this. The shelter in place announcement in the bay area came out on my birthday, and I also had a not-so-great day at work, with a manager's manager being a dick on a presentation I was leading... But I realize I'm super privileged to be able to work from home and not have to worry about losing my livelihood (for now... my business unit is kinda fucked if you ask me, but that's just me for now). I started a job search, but that's probably not going to be fruitful for now.

On top of that, my whole family is in another part of the US, and they're suggested I drive home and shelter there. That seems irresponsible to me, since being in one of the epicenters of the disease in the US means I could be a carrier and not know it.

At the same time though, I have an underlying condition that means if I get it, I could much more easily die than your standard youngish person, so it sort of makes sense to go home where my family has a bit more ability to influence medical decisions than a random caretaker where I live now...

Anyway, it's been a shitty birthday, so hopefully I can look back in a year from now and see this as a unique memory of sorts. Stay safe, Tilderinos

Work doesn't care. The numbers are red so that means they're giving out overtime like candy after Halloween, the girl hacking up a lung next to me is first in line and the guy who has asthma next to me couldn't call in because he needs this job or is too in love with his pride or something. And the worst part is that we are contracted to work with a medical company that's probably working on a test and having everyone who can work from home, because they keep calling in for VPN help. Fucking hell, this sucks and if someone gets afflicted, I hope the CDC comes in with hazmat suits and starts busting heads.

One of our team is going to talk to HR and maybe we can start taking towers homes if we don't have enough laptops to go around.

I'm... not panicking? There's enough knowledge squirreled away in my head that I think I'm realistically concerned, but also optimistic that COVID-19 and its sequelae will not be the end of civilization as we know it. As /u/Adys said, there might be some silver lining to the situation - maybe the revelation that the emperor wears no clothes will lead to real political change starting in November.

It may be that I'm still a little numb, but I'm very glad I started rationing my news exposure and trimming my sources in January. I'm already seeing bad habits start again with the pandemic, but I feel like I've got better emotional separation with respect to what I can and can't control.

I'm a little stir-crazy because the pool, gym, and physical therapy are shut down, but I'm getting out to walk, weather permitting. The town I'm in is remote enough that there are no cases yet, but connected enough that the local hospital system now has a testing site and isolation rooms/ventilators ready. The state's governor has shown both foresight and compassion. Today, she ordered expanded sick/childcare leave and unemployment compensation, with small business aid under discussion. Michigan communities might pull through this time, without all the disasters of a 2008-style crash.

Spouse's employment is secure right now (he's crazy busy). We're both over 50; aside from non-critical issues, in good general health. That's no guarantee of safety, but we're not especially at risk, and don't have dependents or elderly relations.

By comparison with most people in the U.S., I'm very fortunate, and trying to concentrate on gratitude.

I've spoken or corresponded today with friends who are more or less in the middle of the crisis - people afraid of getting sick, losing their jobs, or inundated with work and/or childcare.

One is an academic culinary program director whose students are out the costs of a semester of school, and unable to work or find jobs when they were supposed to graduate in three weeks.

One of my former staff is working from home, as is his wife, with their five-month-old baby; he's now confronted with essential work travel he can't refuse.

A perinatologist is struggling to take care of women with complicated pregnancies when she can't safely book them for hospital deliveries and C-sections if things go wrong. She isn't even considering her own risks, and has always been someone I thought of as a medical hero.

A close friend is agitated because she lost a family member to pneumonia two weeks ago, and there were no tests at the time. Her mother is 70+ and medically fragile. She's also trying to keep phone service working for hundreds of medical clinics and get new ones set up - the environment is challenging right now.

My biggest emotional response is generally simmering rage - at rotten economic and political systems; carefully cultivated public ignorance, distrust and confusion; lack of systemic resiliency; and other failures to acknowledge basic scientific reality. I'm angry that I can't do much to help or control the situation, besides venting here.

UK: I'm starting to get a little worried - we're moving this coming weekend which just compounds things. We were in 3 different shops yesterday and all of the toilet paper, canned goods and even the meat isles looked like they had been ransacked. Shelves completely empty.

I'm now starting to wonder whether I should have been stocking up like all the other fuckwits. Would they even close the shops altogether?

It's not the virus stressing me, it's the people's crazy fucking reaction to it.

To be quite honest, I know this is super selfish as a relatively healthy young person living in a super remote place to think, but I'm actually having a pretty good time so far. The virus has effectively shut down my university for the time being, and with some local businesses closing and tourism dropping off, it's given me a lot of R&R time recently since there isn't really a lot to do. Far from feeling burned out, this has been a great opportunity to detach from the usual schedule and take some time to catch up on stuff I've been putting off for a while, and to just revel in being bored for once.

Obviously it sucks for everyone who's losing their loved ones, and I worry quite a bit about the economic impact this pandemic may leave behind (the US stock market has become extremely volatile over the last couple weeks, and even our usual steady bedrocks in government bonds are weakening), but I've been wondering if it wouldn't be healthy for us to do this more often. If, as busy and chaotic as modern societies are, if it wouldn't be great if we could shut everything down for a few weeks once in a while.

I'm going to post this here for people who are interested: 'Some anxiety can be helpful': How to manage your COVID-19 fears

I live in the middle of the US, and this weekend was the first time I noticed anything in my day to day life. I went grocery shopping and so many food staples were just gone; I got the LAST bag of rice. One of my roomates worked from home today. Other than that, my current intentional unemployment means that I haven't been getting out that much anyway, and I am not worried about losing a job.

I considered the odds of a significant infectious outbreak of this scale to be inevitable, so I am not overwhelmed like most people seem to be. To be honest, I thought more people assumed the same; that globalization would lead to a fast moving outbreak at some point. Even historically, it is my understanding that pandemics at a global scale are, roughly, a per century thing.

So, yeah I guess I am personally feeling pretty okay, but I do hope everyone in more serious situations can find some peace.

Things have been a little complex for me because I'm planning to start a new job in a few weeks, but that job is approximately 1,100 miles from where I live now, and I need to go home for a while first to clear out my room and things before I move. The added complication is that my parents, while not in the prime risk group, are definitely old enough that their risk is higher, and the temporary job I'm finishing up with today is in retail. Oh, and the state where home is is having a rough time of it, so we'll see if I can even get in by the time I'm ready to go.

I'm just going to try to get going as soon as I can, and break the drive up into chunks so I can manage it on my own. If I bring some food, buy some more in grocery stores along the way, and stay in hotel rooms alone, I think I can minimize my potential as a disease vector and get to my destination safely.

Living in a medium sized Dutch city.

Getting groceries is a hassle; I only have toilet paper after asking the local Aldi manager (a friend) to keep one pack in stock for me. Before this, I went to the shops every day and found an empty shelf every damn day.

It stresses me out. Stressed out me gets anger attacks. Had to leave the store to avoid kicking the shit out of the empty shelves.

Anyway, bread is another one of those things not available anywhere. Think I'll drive to another town and see if I can get bread there. Same for basic foods like rice, pasta, eggs. Nothing available.

Seriously, if you're not in (semi-)lockdown yet: prepare and get some things. Don't hoard.

Edit: elaborating a bit since I felt like it;

I get angry from being too stressed. Not something that happens in daily life, ever. Last time this happened on a regular basis was when I was like 9 years old. In any case, the absolute smallest things make me pretty much just explode, like last week when the lockdown announcement came. I couldn't get the lid on the butter container in one try. Kicked a box across the room. It's really not fun to be so limited, and it's stressing everyone out. Friends (from the USA) told me there's been fights at stores, guns pulled. Someone over here also got stabbed for a similar reason. I'd say I kinda understand them even though it's obviously not ok to do that.

Brit here.

I'm not high risk but I live with people who are, so that means I'd need to self-isolate so as to not put their lives in jeopardy.

Not looking forward to the next three months. People have been panic buying supplies like mad over the past few weeks to the point where supermarket shelves are largely empty. Hand sanitiser is unobtainium here, while soap disappears from the shelves the moment any store gets a fresh supply.

A WFH arrangement looks increasingly likely, which will complicate matters at work. I had hoped to apply for a team leader role that my boss posted recently but given that I'll probably need to work remotely soon, I have a feeling that will destroy my candidacy for it.

I almost don't leave home already, so whatever curfews they put on us, not much will change to me unless some serious stuff happens to the economy and fucks over my father's work, which admittedly seems quite likely, in which case lord knows he's the only source of income and since my country dodged the 2008 crisis I have no idea if they know how to handle such a thing, but since his job is thankfully only a staircase down since the first floor of my house is where he works, we're safe from public transport (or at least I hope.)

Me(me)-irl Tl;dr just in case

I keep optimism by telling myself "If it gets bad then only a minority of us will really suffer" and "those who suffer the most are old people who travel a lot like businesmen and corporate managers classes, who tend to vote and fund conservatives" which admittedly is "everyone I hate could die from pneumonia if the pandemic is bad enough and that's good" type accelerationism.