I am not working for three weeks. Fortunately I have loads of sick time. I will be paid, but my employer has not decided if I will have to use sick time or not.
A doctor’s appointment I have next week has become a phone consultation. I went to my optometrist to buy contact lens supplies, and was told they only have emergency meetings there now, starting the next day (good thing I went that day then!).
Shopping is okay, except you cannot have toilet paper, paper towels, tissue paper, antibiotic liquid soap, or Lysol (or pasta). I didn’t check the cereal aisle, but I suspect there was none available. I happen to have a ton of antibiotic soap, which I have to use when putting in contact lenses, but it’s pure luck that I have it.
So far, not much at all. Weekly grocery shopping is the same, I’m not hoarding or panic buying anything, about the only change to my shopping habits last week was a corned beef roast, a head of cabbage, a bag of potatoes, and a jar of horseradish.
At work (pharmaceutical packaging; we don’t make it, just bottle or blister pack it), we’re staggering start times and break times to keep social distancing, and stopped our daily shift meetings as well.
Things seem to be getting worse by the hour. The Hudson’s Bay Company department stores – a huge chain in Canada – announced they were closing until further notice. It’s not like it’s an essential service, but it’s a major harbinger of the fact that other retail operations may follow suit. Restaurants are already closed except for takeout and deliveries. Liquor store hours, which a few months ago were extended for most stores, will now be limited to 11 AM to 6 PM starting sometime in the next few days.
The level of crisis motivated me to refill prescriptions that I still had enough of for several weeks or more, and the pharmacy told me it would take at least four hours. Not sure how this relates to the coronavirus pandemic, but there it is. Grocery stores are sold out of surprising things – liquid hand soap is hard to find but available with limited selection, hand sanitizer is pretty much impossible to get – all understandable – but this evening I had a hell of a time finding … a goddam loaf of bread! I wanted some plain white ordinary bread to make sandwiches with some excellent tuna salad and smoked chicken that I had picked up today, and every single store had their bread section picked clean except for some odds and ends. I finally went to the bakery section of a decent grocery and had them slice me up a loaf of sourdough which ought to be satisfactory, but WTF?
Fortunately, one way or another I have all the essentials I need, except it would be nice to have some hand sanitizer, although apparently the #1 most effective solution after being out in the world is a thorough washing of hands in soap and water. And avoid touching your face until then.
It’s interesting to speculate how long it will be before things return to normal, or how bad it might get. I estimate months before normality, and worse before it gets better.
Everything is Nevada is closed. Everyone is out of work. All casinos, all bars, all nightclubs, all gyms, all bookstores, all beauty salons…. EVERYTHING not essential is closed.
Well… they aren’t ordered to close. But my cardiologist, my periodontist and my GP all called me within the last 2 days to tell me they were closing for at least 2 weeks.
I have an appointment tomorrow at 2:30pm to do my taxes; I doubt that’ll happen now, tho.
Slovenia here (2m pop, 8000 tests, 300 cases, 1 dead). As bad as in say France, but we reacted couple days earlier. So no schools, no kindergartens, no restaurants, no public transport at all, no casual health services, no socializing, 2m rule personal space, borders (especially to Italy) more or less closed.
Local aldis and similar shops are open, but limited to 8h workday. So are kind of post offices and some other institutions. Everyone is working from home and trying to avoid any physical contact with anyone and anything (including cash, cards, mails, buttons, etc). It is still very hectic, but empty store chaos from last week is in significant decline.
As for me, I was amidst of some half urgent medical diagnostication process and was shot off. Some exotic bacteria (Bartonella?) or something on lymph nodes. No time to find proper cure, so: here are your general antibiotics, go away and stay home, kind sir.
My mother’s 85th birthday is this week. My sister and I had both planned on being there. But the risk makes it a bad idea so we’ve cancelled our travel plans.
The tenant in the condo I rent out is a waiter. I texted him Monday to let him know basically I’ll be lenient if he has no income for a long time. At pretty much the exact same moment, our governor announced that all restaurants and bars had to close or go to carry out only for 30 days. He was really appreciative. So, this could end up costing me thousands of dollars, depending on how long it goes on, and if he’s able to cover any of April and beyond’s rent.
What are my options? Be a jerk and evict him for circumstance outside his control, and then have the place sit empty, because I’m not about to host a parade of strangers coming through to look at it?
It’s only money, my family will live without it. He’s resourceful, and not lazy, so hopefully he stays healthy and will take advantage of the temporary jobs available stocking shelves and doing deliveries. In all, I know I’m very privileged, but this is how it’s affecting me directly so far.
I do taxes. Can’t work from home but I don’t have client contact and can work overnight when no one is in the office. Problem is that I do have to shuffle alot of paper and, while they aren’t the best carriers of the virus, I do tend to lick my fingers to be able to shuffle them better. Trying to break that habit by keeping hand sanitizer close by and using it instead of saliva.
Looks like 7/15 is the new 4/15 for filing/paying purposes so that will be a big change.
Also, with my gym closed I’ll be walking outside more and otherwise excersing at home.
We haven’t been eating out as much as we normally do, but for the past week when we do, we’re also leaving huge tips.
We went to one of our favorite restaurants for dinner last night and it was pretty sad. Not just the lack of customers, but also the lack of staff. It’s normally a VERY busy place with an army of servers, the open kitchen full of cooks and a few managers. Last night it looked like one cook, one server, one manager, one bartender.
My job has been doing pretty well with the situation given that it’s normally anti-work-from-home. Someone in our office reported that they might have been exposed, so on Monday they sent us all home to telework. It’s going well, but this morning we got an email from our manager directing us to note in our daily status reports if we’re showing signs of Covid-19 infection. I appreciate that they are trying to keep a handle on things and doing their best, but… since it shares the same symptoms of regular flu (which I don’t have), colds (again, I’m good) and allergies (all the trees are blooming here in VA, so yeah, I have mild allergy symptoms), I’m not sure what to tell him. I’m sure they don’t want us to report every little sneeze and cough, but I don’t think we can tell them anything, short of getting tested. Which we all know is hard to get! I guess I’ll just skip it for now.
My gf is working from home now. When I got home from work I walked up the stairs and could hear my gf talking. I figured she was on the phone. Then I heard someone talking to her, then a bunch of people laughing.
But there were no cars blocking me from entering the garage when I got home, and nobody is really in walking distance. I stood on the stairs for a minute, there were definitely a bunch of people all talking.
Turns out she was on a conference call having a meeting.
Today was my second day dealing with a critical shortage. To my taste the sourdough bread taste and texture just didn’t work with the tuna salad, which was otherwise wonderfully delicious stuff from an upscale deli and of which I have a fairly large quantity. So I went out early this morning in search of what has now become another mysteriously elusive item in this crisis: plain old ordinary white sandwich bread. One grocery store looked exactly the same as yesterday – like a giant gang of rats had devastated the bread section, leaving only odds and ends. But in another, there was lady restocking the shelves from a gigantic pallet that contained nothing but Wonder brand plain white sandwich bread. I thanked her in a manner reminiscent of a starving homeless person thanking someone for a loaf of bread. Now I can truly enjoy my goodies – premium tuna salad with mayo, and smoked chicken with lettuce and mayo, and sliced tomato if I still have any, and maybe a slice of marinated garlic dill pickle.
