General Discussion

[quote name="CoyoteGum" date="2020-03-14 21:59:38" ] I'm lowkey scared because people are saying that it's going to last months, maybe even the entire year. I can't just not go around my life for months. Plus I'm worried about supplies with all the panic people are having. I'm even worried about running out of fish food! It's ridiculous [/quote] Things are calming down in places that it's already gone through. I wouldn't worry too much. My best friend is from Korea (she's in Canada for uni) and she's going back to ride it out because according to her family it's better there because it's already mostly run it's course. Not trying to downplay the situation; it is serious but it isn't hopeless.

Bah, ended up cancelling my plans to go to Canada this month. Got some flight credits from Delta, so hopefully I can book another flight once this calms down.

I believe it was said that it does not like heat? As summer comes, it may slow down. Needless to say, getting any cleaning supplies is a nightmare. We already have plenty of toilet paper, but no disinfectant. It's sold out everywhere. To the point where we have to get to CVS early enough on Tuesday for a chance at it. Of course, the scalpers are making a killing off them on ebay.

If it isn't already punishable with jail time for people to be scalping supplies during crises, it should be. Making profit off the backs of the suffering and vulnerable who have been forcibly put there by said profiteers... if I personally knew anyone doing such a thing, I'd make it clear they were the scum of the Earth in my eyes and never speak to them again. May their drinking water ever taste of salt and ashes.

I was supposed to go to this little sci-fi convention today but it got cancelled. And a person I play D&D with online said her college was shut down and everyone got sent home. Which is stupid because if anyone at the dorms were infected, they just went home to infect people there. And that college had some foreign exchange students so where would they stay? Hotels?

[quote name="@ShinyGiratina" date="2020-03-15 02:31:02" ] I hope it won't last too long. I'm actually more worried about all the people hoarding everything than the actual disease at this point. All of the grocery stores around where I live are practically empty. I didn't hoard anything because I thought doing so was a bit extreme, but now where am I gonna buy food and stuff when I do need it? [/quote] Some thoughts: Typically, grocery store chains have a big supply warehoused up or accessible and ready to move; they should be able to restock most things. (TP and paper towels and soap and so on may still be hard to get for a little bit since people are super focused on that, but food and all that should be fine, and the factories for those paper things are here and aren't stopped anyway.) And, as people get what they came for and start to stay inside, that should ease up too--people's freezers and fridges are only so big. If the stores are [i]any[/i] good at all at their business, they should not be empty forever. They may also begin putting item limits in place if they haven't already, as well. And some places, like the stores where I am are doing, may even change their hours to permit the store to get stock up without people freaking out and snagging it as it goes up and fueling the bare look that feeds the paranoia. Also try to look into seeing if your store has some sort of curbside or delivery service, or if they partner with something like Instacart or Shipt or whatever that can handle making order runs for people. If you do need something later, and can't go out, it might be a reasonable solution. Please remember that when you do get to get supplies, to not join the super-panic. Get yourself reasonable levels of item preparations--two or three weeks of food, an extra dish soap, a bottle of aspirin or what-have-you--but don't go overboard. Don't get more than you may need. Nobody's going to go through eight bottles of tylenol or ten shampoos by themselves, and if you overbuy food, you'll end up needing to chuck some out, so try to plan at least a portion of the food you want to get instead of just throwing in random everythings. Stay as calm as you can and try to work on locating your options and planning how to use them.

The escalation of response in such a short amount of time is what has people panicking in my area (Virginia). We went from "no plans to close school" on Thursday, to "Monday will be a teacher work day" on Friday at noon, to "the governor has decided that all schools will be closed for two weeks starting Monday" on Friday at 3pm or so (after schools were done for the day). Monday had been intended as a work day to get things ready in case we had closures of a week or more.

The counties around us had already started their school closures, and been looking at online education - we've got a lot of rural areas, though, so we'd been planning to make up packets of physical paper. Now, I do not know what we're doing.

Doing the usual groceries on Thursday was an obstacle course, even though I left work early to do them. No toilet paper or paper towels (thankfully we've got enough at home due to not paying good attention earlier this year and thinking we needed more when we didn't), no chicken, no flour except for cake flour, very few cans of beans (back of the bottom shelf). I've been to a couple of grocery stores near us since, and there is no chicken anywhere, nor ground meats. One of the stores I went to, the assistant manager was on checkout, and was telling everyone in their line that they've been calling around to see who has what, since trucks are coming in without milk, meat, etc. The overbuying and panic-buying has disrupted the supply-lines, and the fear of catching the disease is making it more difficult for the companies who send the products for distribution to get them to a warehouse for distribution, meaning shortages will continue.

I'm not super-worried for myself - far as I know, I still get paid, since I'm salaried. My wife is hourly, though, and only gets paid if she has clients (hospitality/wellness). She has no idea at the moment what her schedule today looks like. My brother works in a restaurant. No idea what their status is, since things change so quickly. I worry for the hourly and part-time workers who need the work to afford the supplies they can find, and I worry that we don't have infrastructure to take care of the supply chain in an emergency like this. I worry for the people who can't use a lot of shelf-stable foods due to health issues, and need access to fresh foods in order to actually live.

The not-knowing is what gets to me the most. The fact that no one in my area took this seriously until the NBA and NCAA cancelled their seasons, and then went straight into panic mode gets to me, because it feeds into the uncertainty.

Pray to RNG
My country is rn having a debate whether they should close the schools or not. I REALLY want them to close the schools

I think it will last until we have a vaccine for it.

That's how long it will last for me, anyway.

Anyone I would care to visit right now is at-risk. I won't go near them until I can get my Flu and my Corvid-19 shots prior. I hope it is found sooner rather than later because the US was not designed for this kind of thing. There are kids here that only get to eat at school because of the free meal. There are families/people that are hanging on by a thread and losing their job would end them.

It's only going to get way worse for these people, and since everyone seems to have a "If it doesn't affect me I don't care" mentality, I just don't see a pandemic not completely collapsing our infrastructure if there is no way to stem it from spreading indefinitely.