As a postal employee I got a letter stating that when I get pulled over by police and they demand “PAPERS” I can show them I am an essential employee and allowed to go to work.
Welcome to martial law.
For the record, I agree with the stay-at-home orders and our administrators’ directions against the car parades.
If you think it’s okay to go mingle with other people in the park right now, you’re part of the problem.
Moderator Warning
Political potshots are not allowed in this forum. The first one is verging on trolling. This is an official warning. Do not do this again.
Colibri
Quarantine Zone Moderator
The whole situation hit home with my mom today; I agreed to accompany her to the grocery store for some fresh items, and when we got there the line to get in was stretched around the building (with appropriate social distancing). Seeing this really shook her up; I had to repeatedly assure her that yes, it’s sad that she might not be able to get her absolute favorite foods for a while, but we have more than enough stuff at home. (No, we didn’t stand in line; it was already in the low 80s at that point, and the pollen is awful.)
Well, like puzzlegal’s experience, we didn’t get surging crowds on the sidewalks coughing on each other. By the forth or fifth car passing we had a couple families out in their own front yards, with their kids, waving back, then everyone went back inside.
You just keep doing you, Musicat. It’s not like Walking Dead out there where if you go outside you get et.
My stepmother is in the ICU on a ventilator with a positive COVID-19 test. My 79-year-old asthmatic father is quarantined. Luckily so far he is asymptomatic.
I gave notice at my job in mid-February to finally get some time off to recover from the concussion I had last September. I was still feeling dizzy by afternoon, and my short-term memory and multitasking ability are still shot to hell. Plus all the concussion recovery advice is “avoid screen time and mental exertion!” Considering that my job consisted of constant use of 2 monitors and a stack of papers, involving the need to cross-reference highly technical and detail-oriented material at high speed with no margin for error, that was…problematic. Even after 7 months, I still needed to crawl into bed while Tom Scud made dinner, then I would eat and crash out again by 8:30 pm. I hadn’t been at that job long enough to be eligible for FMLA and decided that my health was more important - I hadn’t quit a job without another job lined up since I was 16 and being illegally scheduled for 4 - 11 shifts on weeknights at Baskin-Robbins.
I wasn’t terribly worried about being able to get another job when I was ready - I’d had recruiters contacting me regularly. Now its looking like I might be unemployed somewhat longer that expected - I don’t know that employment-based immigration paralegals are going to be in high demand in the coming months. Especially ones who want to work from home because they are asthmatic.
Ah well, at least Tom Scud is employed and working from home, and we have savings. We’ll be OK for a while.
Let’s see how we both feel a few weeks or months from now. Right now, it could go either way.
Damn. So sorry to hear this. 
Thanks. On the bright side, Dad’s email from this morning says she has improved slightly, they have dialed back the pressure on the ventilator, and she no longer has a fever, so she may actually pull through.
I posted my story in an earlier thread.
Nine days ago a relative(in his late 20s) stopped by to see me(mid-40s obese with diabetes) and my mother(mid-40s with diabetes). Two days later he wasn’t feeling well this morning so he went to an urgent care clinic. They told him to wait in his vehicle and someone would come out to talk to him. The person who came out told him his symptoms were consistent with corona but they didn’t have enough testing kits to test him. So he went home.
Another relative who works in healthcare told me they are lot more cases than the number reported to the state because they are only testing those who extremely sick or in a high risk category.
Five days later my relative said he felt fine now and doesn’t think he had actually had COVID.(He still had never actually got tested.)
On the sixth day both me and mom had bouts of diarrhea over the past 24 hours. There have been reports of CoVID-infected people starting with gastrointestinal issues before developing respiratory symptoms. We both have had bouts of diarrhea in the past from other issues so I am not sure it’s related.
It’s day nine now. Both me and my mom have headaches off and on but it might just be from the stress. We don’t have a fever. I have had a runny nose but I not sure that’s related either. No coughs or shortness of breath yet. Frankly I never been more scared in my life for either me or my mom.
The anxiety of not knowing whether my relative, me and mother have COVID is overbearing. I have anxiety issues to begin with so I am in heightened state all the time. I have lost ten pounds from the stress because I haven’t felt like eating. I have anti-anxiety medication but it is sedating. And I don’t want to take anything sedating on the chance I start developing respiratory symptoms. (I don’t want it to impair my breathing.)
The chart at the beginning of this articlemay (or may not) help you sort out your symptoms. The uncertainty is maddening, for sure.
The first person I knew personally died last Friday. He was an interpreter in the Spanish Booth, working for the EU in Brussels. May he rest in peace. I am told it was a lonesome death, hardly anyone knew he was sick (privacy wrongly applied) and we are all dumbstruck.
The EU has now started cancelling all contracts for free lancers on a rolling basis with two months notice. That respects the letter of our institutional agreement but goes flat out against the spirit. From June on many colleagues will lose all income. The free lancers who do not work for institutions but only for the private market have already lost all income as all meetings, conferences, etc. have been cancelled. Different countries will grant diferent levels of financial support. My wife and me are fortunate in this respect and will not need support from the governement for a very long time but I see and hear friends and colleagues in dire need who are very afraid. It’s harrowing.
I just got a call from my mother’s nursing home. She’s sick. She has a fever and pneumonia and is on supplemental oxygen. The are treating her now but if she doesn’t improve they will transfer her to comfort care.
If this happens we will be allowed in to see her.
I asked the doctor if they thought it was COVID and they didn’t know, but they said no staff has been sick.
Oh course, my head is spinning. I’ve been nervous about this because I was in New York City from March 1- March 5. I spent a lot of time in the nursing home in the week after I returned - then they closed the place to visitors.
Then I got sick with what appeared to be a cold, yet seemed oddly different. But I never had a fever. But I was really paranoid about it. Now I am even more paranoid than ever.
And worried for mom. Yet I’m accepting that this might be it for her. She’s 92 and very debilitated. She’s had a DNR order for two years now. She has late stage Parkinson’s and can’t even adjust herself in bed anymore. She has very in the way of little quality of life.
Damn, I just really want to be there right now.
ETA: my nephews wife is having their first child on Thursday. My moms first great grandchild. It’s starting to look like that might be one of those “circle of life” days.
Oh, Ann Hedonia, I’m so sorry. Damn. So worrisome. Too many momentous Life things crammed into a tiny space of time. How to absorb it all…? Do keep us posted. {{{Hugs}}}
I have always thought I was an exceptionally lucky man. Oddly, I have been lucky again with this horrible plague.
My last day at work was Monday. I was fired because I am now over sixty years old. So I came in, turned in my laptop & security badge. I waved goodbye to an empty cube farm. This has been my workplace for ten years and I have mostly loved it.
I have no way back to the US. I figured I would be trapped here for two or three months with no salary or health care. I was feeling pretty low.
Two hours later my boss’s boss called. Because recruiting overseas has been shut down, they got me an exception to policy. I will be here for another year with a nice pay raise.
In a horrible world situation, with so much suffering, I once again lucked out.
I’m quite lucky, other than taking a bath in my 401k and 457. I continue to draw a pension and work from home so no major changes for me. There’s a chance that our clients will dry up but our clients are public agencies with dedicated funding so I don’t see it happening. Even if it does, I’ll have SS as a fallback second income. My wife is a delivery driver so she’s still got work. No kids in the house and quiet work at home with the dog for company- life is good. Not that I lack empathy for those adversely impacted, I’m just grateful for my situation.
My cousin is a doctor. He’s working at one of the hard-hit hospitals in New York, I just found out. He has a wife and four kids. I’m pretty worried about him.
I had a follow-up doctor’s appointment today, and it got switched to Zoom. Worked really well. I could wait in the Zoom Waiting Room while reading the paper, good meeting, and I knew I wasn’t going to get poked in odd places. No finding a parking spot there, no interrogation at the door. And way safer. Anyone else do this?
Only from the other side of it. I’ll have some Zoom or gotomeeting appointments soon as a patient, which is fine for some things I need (like discussing which labs to get in the undetermined future) and doesn’t work for others (like palpating for tumors, myofascial release, or a dental cleaning).
Just learned that, in Spain, my cousin and his whole family (wife and daughter) caught it. My cousin and his daughter are going to get out of it OK, but the wife right now is touch-and-go 
Cousin and wife are mid-40s, daughter is a teenager.