Coronavirus, Covid 19 Discussion and How It Has Affected Your Daily Life Chat Thread

[CapricornFarm]

I just heard that travel to the US from Europe has been suspended except from Great Britain. This also includes all trade.
What have you experienced, and are you experiencing shortages in your area? Have you been sick, or do you have friends or family that are?
Italy has closed commerce except for pharmacies and food stores.

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AN EDIT FROM ADMIN:​

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[CapricornFarm]

Oh, by the way, all BYC rules apply. Be nice, and let's keep politics out of our discussion.

 

[David61]

Brown bottle Lysol makes 9-15 gallons and costs less than $5.
Buy baby wipes and put beach and or Lysol in and you have wipes.
Think, adapt, over come

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

I touch my face WAY WAY too often!

I think there's a good balance between some people I talk to saying "It's not a big deal, I'm just going about my day as if nothing is different!" vs. "OMG! Buy up everything & freak-out!!!"

IMHO, a metered, calm, deliberate, mindful, and balanced response is good. It's definitely a bigger deal than the seasonal flu, but it's not 10,000 people walking around with Ebola.

The toilet-paper thing is odd... really really odd to me. I'm guessing that some people started stocking up, others saw them doing it, so they did the same, then it got on the news "stores are out of TP!"... then everyone watching the news thought (even subconsciously) "OMG! I didn't know I needed to stockpile TP, but everyone else is, and it's clearly not available, so I should go get some wherever I can... just in case! I don't want to be the only one without TP!!!"

Heck, I know it's silly, but I can feel my monkey-brain twitching a little and thinking, "Wait, should I be doing it too?!?!"

... then I remember: Oh ya, I have a bidet, and also lots of TP from a costco run a few months ago... so I'm solid!

BTW, I'm a HUGE convert and fan of bidets! I have gifted 10 for friends & family that are now also converts! They are super fast / easy install, and work GREAT! This isn't the exact one I got, but it's almost exactly the same and has almost 9,000 reviews!!!
https://amzn.to/2Q4w1ry
OH, how funny! Look at the ad I just got while typing this!!

 

[Shadrach]

I've had to stop picking my nose.

 

[CapricornFarm]

I'm not sure hand sanitizers will kill a virus. Bacteria, yes but that's not what we are dealing with.

 

[drumstick diva]

Can't find hand sanitizers anywhere. Target had a sign that you could only buy so many BUT all the shelves there were empty.

Ive Got toilet paper (extra) which don't really need, have a large pkg not opened - bought it b-4 Xmas. My son visits at Xmas and usually goes through most of it.

Dollar Tree - cleaned out, couldn't find any similar products at Wally or Tarzhay, for cleaning hands. But, they had something to wipe down tables etc. I got a couple packets of those.They don't sound user friendly. Label says after use, thoroughly scrub down area, used on

The senior bus transportation dispatcher told me buses all have face masks if needed.

I have found most of our seniors do not get flu shots, some don't even see doctors or dentists. Honestly they pull their own teeth - diagnose themselves and treat with OTC products - not knowing what they really have.

I have major worries about them. But most are older than me and bragging they are still here. How to you argue with that?

 

[rosemarythyme]

Well I live in one of the hot zone areas. Hubby's company asked people to work from home for the rest of the month but I personally haven't changed a thing - we're still eating out on weekends, I still make my 2 or 3 grocery runs a week. But I feel we're pretty low risk despite being in a hot zone. We're naturally isolated as our house sits alone on a private driveway and with hubby at home and me gardening and tending to animals, we're just not getting exposed to many people.

If we do get sick, then we'll self quarantine. I'm more concerned about my mother in law (she just came back from vacation and is still going to her gym classes and knitting circle) but if she needs to self quarantine then we'll be dropping off supplies for her if needed.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Remember, every time you talk about COVID-19 being not very serious because it only effects certain people, anyone you know who has a disability or is elderly or otherwise in an at risk group is hearing that you don't think their deaths are very serious. Anyone with loved ones in those groups is hearing you don't think their loved ones deaths are very serious.

I'm young and yet I am at-risk for pneumonia because I've had it twice before and need to monitor myself in cold/flu season. My sister has no immune system due to RA medication and is 35. One of my closest friends is 29 and is pre-diabetic with thyroid issues and like me is in an at-risk group. My father is 70. One of my oldest friends in my dnd group is battling cancer right now. My partners parents are both in their late 50's.

We're listening when you say those at-risk people aren't something we should be worried about, and we should just expect deaths in their demographics.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

We have a TP shortage in the area but not extreme. Like if you really need TP you can go places and get some. Some certain canned and dried goods too, namely rice, beans, pasta and tomatoes. We shop at Costco for those kinds of products and they didn't have any brands but the most expensive for most when we went, but they had it. Hand sanitizer too, just all gone. Partner works at a high end grocery and people are asking to buy the hand sanitizer they keep at the registers. 9_9; Pretty sure facemasks are gone too but we haven't been looking for those - which is especially frustrating because they're useless if you're not sick because it can enter your airways through your eyes. But now people who ARE sick won't have them. We have one whole face mask left in our house. XD

It's a problem tbh, not for us specifically (I mean, we buy our animal feed every 3 months, and we have 2 weeks of food in the house at all times, and we don't live paycheck to paycheck so we CAN isolate if we need to) but is for other people even people close to me, and I mean I also get why it's happening. I live in a low income city. Most people don't have enough food for 3 days in their house in case of an emergency and live paycheck to paycheck and suddenly they're being told they better get it and they're risking their rent money to comply. A huge number of people fall into the medicare gap. Once it hits these people are trying to live & deal with it on their own the way we as Americans have been taught how - pick yourself up by the bootstraps, you get yours or else, hunker down prepper style. (Which it has hit, 3 confirmed cases in our county, schools are shut down.) And that means trying to stock up on things they really can't afford to try to stay indoors to stay healthy so they can go to work to pay their rent.

But it's not going to work out. Like you don't stop the spread of a disease by hoarding soap - you stop the spread of disease by making sure everyone has soap - ESPECIALLY anyone who is at risk of catching it or already has it. As it stands my immune compromised sister who takes care of my elderly (70+) post-stroke father can't go and get the things THEY need to avoid getting sick because other, likely healthy but broke, people have taken it out of misguided self preservation. But that means those two are more likely to catch it. And that means they're more likely to spread it. Etc etc.

The reality is people are scared cause we live in a country without sufficient safety nets to deal with a pandemic systemically. I mean, 30/47 pandemic response centers that the USA was running internationally got closed in the last few years and our entire federal pandemic response team got fired about a year ago too. Currently tests for CORONA cost $1000+ without insurance. That's a lot of money. State medicaid does NOT cover CORONA tests unless they feel like it. And insurers that have hospitals in-network might not cover out-of-network lab costs. (citation) And given that the fatality rate for healthy young adults is less than .5% and it's got flu-like symptoms as we walk into our second flu season (it picks up again in spring here) and the start of allergy season I can 100% guarantee that most low-income workers who handle every single day-to-day service in our lives won't be going home when they get sick, let alone to the doctor. They will lose their homes and won't be able to afford food if they do. (This is already happening too. My sister works 20 hours a week at our local college tutoring math. Her work is closed for a month and she has no idea how she's going to afford the rest of the next couple months. Luckily her husband recently got a new job two days before it closed so they SHOULD be OK if HIS work doesn't get shut down but she's not the only one working there wondering how they're going to eat next month either. About 4 people in that tutoring center out of 20 relied on that job exclusively for their grocery bills and rent every month and now they have no income. That high income grocery my partner is worked at is short staffed and they refuse to hire more people cause it cuts into the profit margins for their parent corporation/shareholders, etc. so if people who work there need time off they may need to shut down despite being profitable and having room to bear the financial burden of more hires.) So they'll go to work, sick if they can, and exposing themselves if they need to, just to get by.

And I think that's where a lot of the concern is coming from. Humanity isn't going to die out from this. We'll live and move on. But with a 2-20% fatality rate for seniors (55+), a 10% mortality rate for immune compromised individuals and how virulent it is we're going to see some very human losses. I don't think anyone doesn't know someone with a compromised immune system. So people are scared and they feel very much on their own for dealing with it, they KNOW other people won't be able to stay home from jobs even if they get sick, so shortage-inducing fear levels aren't surprising at all.
(citation)

There's also some sketchy stuff in the bigger picture. Like you can't order Purell hand sanitizer off of amazon right now, they're sold out. But you sure can buy an 8oz bottle on ebay for $40. And I have it on good authority that major tissue brands are actually holding back stock of their product creating a bigger shortage issue.

All in all it's wack. I will (probably) be fine and so will my household. But dang I am spooked for my sister. :T And I can't even get her the stuff she might really need cause a bunch of other people bought it all already. You know, it's like, I have the money, but you can't eat money.