I’ve lost my main source of income for a few weeks at least. I’ve got some money and a side hustle–which I will also lose if bars and restaurants are closed–But if this goes on for a while I’m screwed.
I do video recordings of concerts and government meetings. So far, the concerts are all cancelled, but not the government meetings. Yet.
I’m in the north of Italy, so basically I can’t leave the house unless it’s for work or groceries. No shortages of anything and I don’t mind staying in, but I’m a freelancer and am suffering quite significant financial losses.
If this goes on long enough, I may have my first pony tail; or, at the very least, my first mullet.
Ha, yeah. Here the hairdressers are closed too, can you imagine the Italian suffering.
Seriously though, I can stick this out a while, but in Wuhan it took three months. That’s a worrying thought.
Any update?
Good luck.
I emailed my doctor, because I have a weird chest cold. But I didn’t ask to be tested, because I know I don’t meet the criteria around here. My best guess is that I have it, because (1) this cold doesn’t feel like other colds I’ve had and (2) up until Monday, when I decided to self-quarantine after being coughed on my middle-schoolers, I was pretty highly socially connected, and I can trace 2-step or 3-step links to people who tested positive in several directions, including those middle-schoolers. (The coughing was on Friday, but I was at a weekend retreat with a group of people, and with my having no symptoms, it didn’t seem worth it to isolate then, especially since the kids were still running around. When I went home, on Sunday, I decided to stay away from people until a reasonable exposure period was up.)
So I’m just following my doctor’s advice (treat as if I have a cold, contact him again if I develop difficulty breathing) and hiding in my bedroom, away from the rest of my family. I’m pretty stir crazy.
The good news is that I am very well set up to work from home, and my boss and the rest of the team are on-board with that. I’m feeling really good about not having exposed them to whatever I have on Monday. And I expect to continue earning a steady income unless I get too sick to work, in which case I expect to collect disability insurance.
I stocked up on basics two weeks ago, and my husband is still shopping for routine stuff. I also put in a good stock of stuff I like to have when I have a cold. So unless I get a lot sicker, I expect to be fine.
Oh, good luck. 
I work as a General Manager/Wine Buyer for a restaurant group in the Chicago area. The Governor announced a short time ago that all restaurants and bars in the state of Illinois are ordered to close their doors from Tuesday, March 17 through a Monday, March 30 so that sucks.
Personally I will be able to ride it out from a financial perspective. I’m not sure yet if the owners will want us to burn vacation time or how that will work but the hourly cooks, servers, bartenders, bus staff and dishwashers are going to have a rough time.
I’m in St. Louis. Our church board had an emergency meeting today, and here’s what’s happening in our little universe.
Our day care program happens to be closed this week, because the local school district is on spring break. We’ll take our cues from the district going forward.
Church stays open for our Sunday service, although the congregation will be encouraged to spread out. We had already canceled the “sharing of the peace” and modified communion.
No coffee or cake after the service. No food handling at all anywhere on the premises.
No Sunday school, Bible study or any other group other than the one Sunday service.
No club activities. For a lot of our older members, the church groups are pretty much their entire social life. The local assisted living facilities have asked that we don’t visit for the duration.
We’ve asked the local 12-step group that meets here to skip a couple of meetings. This is because we know some of the attendees have compromised immune systems.
Fort Wayne Community Schools are closed until at least April 13. Staff have to be at work Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week.
But I’ve come down with a terrible case of irony, because I woke up with the worst sore throat ever yesterday. No runny nose, no cough, debatable on fever (newer, more accurate thermometer says no; older, cheap, untrustworthy thermometer says yes, prickly skin and chills said yes). No runny nose or cough that are usually listed as symptoms of COVID-19. I’m not high-risk, so I’m not looking to get tested.
The biggest issue is the lack of income from my main job for a month. My other job, a private tutoring company, has not yet made any decision, but I suspect that many families will cancel. No homework and SATs are postponed, so many of our students have less need of our services.
Mr. CelticKnot is a school custodian, and will be working to deep clean schools for the month. So at least we have one big paycheck coming in.
I’d like to hear from other Dopers who live alone.
I’m retired. The upside to living alone during this thing is that you don’t have contact with other people. The downside is that, well, you don’t have contact with other people. I never had a booming, bustling social life, but now it’s really bare bones. I’m keeping in touch with people (especially others who live alone) by phone and text. Not going to the college choir or the church choir anymore. That was where my main, frequent, in-person social contact occurred. For years I haven’t had anyone that I see or even talk to every day. Now I’m really feeling it…
For all practical purposes, my family is fine. My office is big and there are only seven of us who work there; I expect that at least five of them will work as usual. My husband is a driver without a lot of outside contact. Daughter’s college classes are now online, but dorms are open as necessary, so she’ll be driving back and forth so she can finish in-service teaching.
I AM missing a lot of fun. Already, a high school play, a Broadway musical, a “soup crawl,” and a trip to Phoenix for a friend’s 50th have been canceled.
ETA: We do have plenty of toilet paper, soap, and booze.
I suffer from major depression and often am hospitalized on an inpatient psych ward multiple times a year. I’m concerned that psych hospital beds will get repurposed to care for Coronavirus victims, which could prevent me from getting treatment when I need it.
I’m so sorry. That’s hard to bear. I wish you well.
How are we affected? Indirectly only. I have no tales of woe and I feel great sorrow for those who do.
MrsRico is recovering from what seems a bad cold with no COVID symptoms. She’s been homebound for a couple weeks; our main impact is cabin fever. We’ve no bad news of friends or family - except an idiot Fox-addicted BIL hanging at the old-farts’ bar because hey, it’s all a hoax. :smack: I’m due for medical imaging in a few days; I’ll call the cardiologist for advice. We still don’t know if we’ll drive for a family Easter with grandkids. We shall see.
Here’s a fun little update…
My daughter is also ADHD. She takes Vyvanse, which is a controlled substance. She’s covered by the state due to her disability. They will only supply one month at a time; her therapist either transmits a prescription to Kaiser as needed, or writes out a paper prescription that we must take to the pharmacy. The closest Kaiser pharmacy happens to be at a hospital, about five minutes away.
Well, a month ago, when the therapist did the electronic submission, she also gave us a paper prescription because she would be on vacation the next time we need the meds (which is now). Earlier today my wife called our usual pharmacy and explained the situation, stated that obviously we are not going to go to a hospital, so how can they help us out? Can we mail, or fax, or scan-and-email the prescription?
They wouldn’t budge. If we want my daughter’s medicine, we have to take the paper prescription to their pharmacy to have it filled. My wife actually asked the rep “are you off your rocker?!”
If we can’t get the medicine, it’s not like my daughter is going out into the world for the next few weeks, so it’s not a huge deal. But I’m wondering… there’s a Kaiser family practice office about 15 minutes away, which has a pharmacy. And the pharmacy is completely detached from the main practice. Would it be any safer to go there? Or should we just ride out my daughter’s nuttiness due to lack of meds? 
They really, honestly can’t. But if you have a paper prescription in hand, you should be able to bring it to any pharmacy to have filled. Maybe try calling the second place you mentioned, explain the situation, and ask if they can fill it if you bring the paper to them?
I hear you. I’m in roughly the same boat…also retired, but with visual issues, so I can’t drive and sold my car. I’ve gone to the gym daily, when lupus allowed. Now the governor has closed all the gyms starting midnight on Tuesday. I’ll go tomorrow and Tuesday, but then I’m on my own, and I have no equipment at home. I’m really feeling isolated, and I’m not even on lockdown (yet).
I want to start a band called “MAXIMUM TELEWORK.”
Shit is getting real. An employee who was going on about how a virus isn’t a big deal, messaged me yesterday in a total panic. She’d gone to her local WalMart Sunday and saw her first people wearing masks.
Another woman who works for me told her kids if they went outside for too long they’d catch the sickness and die. Her eight year old took their puppy outside to pee and nearly passed out (she was holding her breath).
CVS in Massachusetts is emergency-filling regular prescriptions in 3 month supplies, by mail, now. I got an email to that effect a few days ago. Maybe you should call around. When I had to pick up my scrip yesterday in person I took hand sanitizer in with me and cleaned my hands and the bottle before getting back in the car.
My daughter and her wife were possibly exposed and are self-isolating. They called the state hotline and were told not to go to work. Wife is public school teacher and all schools are closed anyway. We ourselvesare just not going out even more than we weren’t going out before.