How Has the Coronavirus Affected You?

Everything in public is closed and eventually much else. Strange to drive through the big city on a Friday night without any life in the city. For myself, it has the effect that the kids a home. Then in a week, Corona has 2 more on conscience Otherwise, we can not train in the fitness center either. But what the heck, can't we buy the t-shirt on the other side ??

A few schools have closed where I am, a few big events as well (I'm down in southern AZ as well). I haven't been out in a few days, as I and one of my adult kids are both in the 'higher risk' category and, since we don't work outside the home, decided to just get 2-4 weeks of stuff and hunker down.

So I haven't seen what the shelves are like, although even a week ago, you could start seeing less quantity of some items on the shelves (like tomatoes - last week Walmart was running out of tomatoes and oiling the outsides of the tomatoes they had left, to keep them fresh longer).

I'm worried for my family. My brother works in a restaurant. My favorite aunt is in a nursing home (in CA), as well as lots of other family. My dad just got over pneumonia this winter, and isn't bothering with changing anything he's doing. My 21 year old kid has half a dozen diseases, and I'm really scared for her.

I am trying to garden more this year, with the expectation that I might really be thankful for that, if things got REALLY bad. And if they don't? I have fun gardening, anyway.

I look at Italy and what has happened there, with the 2nd ranked healthcare system out of 191 countries (when WHO ranked them). And I look at the USA, with the 37th, literally the lowest of all industrialized nations. And I think that what's happening in Italy is not as unlikely to happen in the USA as I would hope.

I worry about all the people who are going to be REALLY struggling, as their jobs and income are gone.

So...there is a lot of worry, and fear. Not panic, but especially after seeing the way our gov't has responded to this, I'm was not feeling hopeful.

But then today, I started getting emails from local businesses. My power company, my bank, etc... And THEY are all trying to help. Telling me what they are doing to try and protect employees, suggestions for ways to use their services that won't put me or their employees at greater risk, giving encouraging messages of trying to get through this together.

And...it reminded me that one of the things that's affecting me is a real feeling of community, too. Yeah, there's panicked buying by some. Some folks are honestly awful. But there's also people voluntarily giving up things they like to do, or want to do, just to protect others in their community, even if it has to be instigated by local people rather than at a national level. And that's actually been a nice reminder of some of the awesome things about humanity too...which I really, really needed today!

Was given some work equipment to take home, just in case I'm needed to work at home instead of in the office.

March 14th: The panic buying continues. Most cases in our state that have been tested have come back negative, but the government and military in the area has already ramped up its efforts at "combating" the illness.

Schools haven't closed (yet), but there is no toilet paper or hand sanitizer to be found, our open air events are being heavily monitored with disinfectants and sanitizer. DoD has officially sent out a memorandum restricting travel for anything non-essential. It applies to both the active duty and their dependents.

I'm steadfastly in camp "be prepared, but not crazy". I did not panic buy any supplies, but we have enough through regular purchases to get by for a few weeks. That's the nice bit about living in a hurricane state; you're already somewhat prepared (if you're smart about it).

I continue to monitor the process as it happens.

midlomel1971 wrote: »

All I know that in addition to TP, people in my town are apparently hoarding bananas. I’ve been to 4 stores looking for them and they are wiped out and it’s annoying. People need to calm down.

I won't lie: I bought one bunch Thursday when I went shopping because mmmm, bananas. But there were plenty when I was there.

Tortillas and bread are gone now in addition to hand sanitizer, counter disinfectants and toilet paper.