COVID-19/Coronavirus: Away From The World

[ThememanXX]

I’m on a work call that started at 3:30 regarding COVID-19; can’t watch Trump. Not sure if that’s a good thing or bad thing.

[blumathu]

Well nothing of value has been said. Trump clearly thinks he's an incredible president, and so do all his "sponsors" at this press conference.

[Wildcats82]

The DOW rocketed up as soon as he finished

[Jack]

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Good info here.

[K270]

Originally Posted by Define Dancing Thought I'd get a separate thread going for this, considering how things have unfolded over the last 48 hours. I am a high school teacher in Maine and we just had our first confirmed case in the county where I teach, possibly the same town. And another presumptive case two hours north. There are bound to be more. It was a very uneasy feeling at school today, and I think most teachers, parents, and students are wondering why schools haven't closed for at least two weeks. There is no toilet paper anywhere, the grocery stores are insane. We are all affected by this. What are everyone's thoughts? Are leagues and the NCAA overreacting? Are universities and public school systems overreacting? Is this the appropriate action given the facts? The last two days have been so surreal. I can confidently say that if a more major/deadly contagion outbreak were to occur in the future, humanity is royally fucked.

Originally Posted by Mitch I don't get the obsession with toilet paper. Are people literally shitting themselves over this? Are they confused and think it's a diarrhea disease? Do they think that all stores are gonna be shuttered?

Originally Posted by ThememanXX We've got 7 spare rolls, I think we're good for a little bit. I was at the grocery store an hour ago for a few things we needed, it was pure chaos. Everyone was nice enough and no fights or anything like that, but just packed to the gills, grabbing all the canned goods and pasta...... I'm limiting my trips for when I need essential purchases. I stopped at the store, wiped the cart handle with a clorox wipe, got what I needed, used self-checkout and used a single-serve packet of hand sanitizer before getting into the car. Washed my hands to the tune of happy birthday x2 when I got home too. All you can do, I guess.

I work for a small, family owned grocery store. Thursday was bonkers. When I do 8 hour shifts, I usually sell around $11,000 to $13,000 in grocery items. On Thursday, I did $17,000. Here's the weird part, the first part of my shift was 5 hours. I did around $8,800. The last three hours, I reached the $17,000 mark. I did just as much business in three hours, as I did the first five hours. Yes, we're out of hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes. We do have TP, but very limited. Normally, the biggest order that come through is around $260. I did one order yesterday that was $510 and several more order that were $300+. As I left last night there was a cashier ringing up an order. When I peaked over her shoulder she was up to $370. The belt was still filled with groceries and stuff from the cart was still being loaded onto the belt. No idea what the total was. I'd guess it was close to $700. Still trying to find out.

[Fan#41]

My wife works for a pharmaceutical company in Cambridge (not Biogen, who had that big conference where a bunch of employees were infected and spread it through to local hotels) and she was told last week to begin working from home for at least 2-4 weeks. Boston has become quite the hotbed for this virus as of late and some are speculating that it's a city most closely on a trajectory to that of Italy. Morning and Evening rush hour traffic is non-existent right now, trains are basically empty. However, unfortunately not everyone can work from home. A LOT of people work in production, manufacturing and other industries that require hands-on labor. Sad part is that not only will this heavily affect those who are living check-to-check, but if small businesses start to shut down, especially in the production and manufacturing industries then a good percentage of those companies will either not be able to re-open or lose such a portion of their revenue that they will be forced to lay people off even if they re-open.

I'm very fortunate that my wife and I can both work from home, but it wasn't that long ago that I was working for a small business that I'm almost positive will suffer severely if they have to close their doors for even just a few weeks.

As for the stores, it's funny - everyone is posting pictures of Trader Joes shelves being empty. That was one of the first chains that were going to be effected because their supply chains that deal with the specific brand items they sell are not typically ordered in bulk quantitates like say Stop & Shop ordering 10,000 boxes of kraft mac and cheese from their Hub that can be shipped to that store within 3-5 days. Of course, not to say other stores aren't effected, rather their shelves can be replenished a lot quicker than Trader Joes or Whole Foods.

I'm just hoping with the cancelation of the major events and gatherings, a good number of companies in densely populated financial districts of cities are having their employees stay home which will cause less public travel, the general public at large being scared into doing common basic things like wash their fucking hands...I'm hoping this will slow this down at least to the point where we don't have to quarantine entire cities and possibly even states. Right now, maybe I'm wrong, but is New Rochelle, NY the only US town to have quarantine checkpoints?

[greykitkat36]

Originally Posted by Fan#41 I'm just hoping with the cancellation of the major events and gatherings, a good number of companies in densely populated financial districts of cities are having their employees stay home which will cause less public travel, the general public at large being scared into doing common basic things like wash their fucking hands...I'm hoping this will slow this down at least to the point where we don't have to quarantine entire cities and possibly even states. Right now, maybe I'm wrong, but is New Rochelle, NY the only US town to have quarantine checkpoints?

I'm not sure, but I would think Washington State has at least a few in place as well, as that was hit the hardest with the virus. These drastic measures should help this go away relatively quickly, hopefully in a few weeks.

[Fan#41]

A lot of this had me doing research on virus' and outbreaks over the years and the other day I read how the "Spanish Flu" wasn't really Spanish at all. It's only that Spain was the country that reported it as it swept across the country, but it was believed by Spain, that it came from France and Spain itself referred to it as the "French Flu" for a long time.

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[Bluewater34]

So my kids are out of school for three weeks starting Monday, and we found out today that my wife, who is currently head of HR while her boss is on paternity leave, is considered “essential staff” and can’t work from home. Which means that starting next week I have to try to take care of two kids (as long as the daycares don’t close and I end up with three) while doing my job from home. So that’s a fucking nightmare.

[blumathu]

So sorry dude, that sounds very stressful

[Fan#41]

Originally Posted by Bluewater34 So my kids are out of school for three weeks starting Monday, and we found out today that my wife, who is currently head of HR while her boss is on paternity leave, is considered “essential staff” and can’t work from home. Which means that starting next week I have to try to take care of two kids (as long as the daycares don’t close and I end up with three) while doing my job from home. So that’s a fucking nightmare.

Well clearly the only solution is to keep them occupied with one of the greatest DMB shows of all time, 7/9/00.

[Bluewater34]

Oh shut up.

For anyone who thinks this is being overblown, here’s the worst case scenario according to the CDC’s top outbreak modeler:

In the US:
160-214 million infected over a year or more.
200,000-1.7million deaths.

Holy shit.

[Fan#41]

Just thought you needed a quick laugh, James. My bad.

[Bluewater34]

Originally Posted by Fan#41 Just thought you needed a quick laugh, James. My bad.

No, that was meant to be playful, not serious.

[Fan#41]

[Wildcats82]

the live Baby Shark show scheduled for the palace theater has been postponed. Just wrap it all up guys. No reason to keep going at this point.

[MaLaKaS]

I don’t think it’s right that people are hoarding food and not allowing others to purchase basic needs. That’s being selfish. If anything, stores should impose purchase limits on items.

In addition, the scumbags out there now selling hand sanitizers at price gouging rates should be charged with a crime as well. It’s sickening.

[ThememanXX]

Originally Posted by Wildcats82 the live Baby Shark show scheduled for the palace theater has been postponed. Just wrap it all up guys. No reason to keep going at this point.

I’ve got tickets for that one.

[Bluewater34]

Originally Posted by MaLaKaS I don’t think it’s right that people are hoarding food and not allowing others to purchase basic needs. That’s being selfish. If anything, stores should impose purchase limits on items. In addition, the scumbags out there now selling hand sanitizers at price gouging rates should be charged with a crime as well. It’s sickening.

Some places have limited those purchases.

And I don’t know about anywhere else, but Ohio put it’s AG on the task of catching price gougers.

[MaLaKaS]

Originally Posted by Bluewater34 Some places have limited those purchases. And I don’t know about anywhere else, but Ohio put it’s AG on the task of catching price gougers.

That’s good to hear. I just read an article that people are price gouging toilet paper on eBay. What a bunch of scumbags.