How’s things where you are?

The Quarantine Zone
1

Here (Holland) schools, bars, restaurants gyms and other assorted assembly places are closed until the 6th of April. The public is advised to work from home if at all possible.
Looking at public transportation (-75%) and roads (virtually no traffic) it looks like people here are taking it to heart.
So far we have seen a minor run on TP and canned goods last Friday. I was able to order everything online and everything got delivered just fine.
At home we’ve decided to expand our little quarantine zone to include our friends/ neighbors with children around the same age as ours: 1 house is school/childcare, the other is our makeshift office.

This makes life a little more normal and so far, 2 days in, it is working out.

2

1 reported case in Peoria in the Heart of Illinois. Patient sent home for self quarrantine. As for the rest of us? All restaurants, bars, pubs closed. Take out, drive-through, or delivery only. Casino’s also closed. State parks closed. Schools and day care closed. 24-hour stores close at either 10 or 11 PM to allow for restocking of that which everyone has bought out, including frozen pizza, eggs, frozen vegetables, bread, and bottled water. No sign of toilet paper or paper towels on delivery trucks so far. I work for the major healthcare system in the area and non-clinical employees have been put under an infectious disease / facility contingency plan allowings us to work from home if desired. Home improvement stores are open and doing pretty good. People loading up on paint, building materials, appliances, etc to take advantage of the shut downs and catch up on home improvement :slight_smile:

We too will do out best to make the most of it. Engage in our own home improvement projects and COVID cookoffs at home

3

1 reported case in Peoria in the Heart of Illinois. Patient sent home for self quarrantine. As for the rest of us? All restaurants, bars, pubs closed. Take out, drive-through, or delivery only. Casino’s also closed. State parks closed. Schools and day care closed. 24-hour stores close at either 10 or 11 PM to allow for restocking of that which everyone has bought out, including frozen pizza, eggs, frozen vegetables, bread, and bottled water. No sign of toilet paper or paper towels on delivery trucks so far. I work for the major healthcare system in the area and non-clinical employees have been put under an infectious disease / facility contingency plan allowings us to work from home if desired. Home improvement stores are open and doing pretty good. People loading up on paint, building materials, appliances, etc to take advantage of the shut downs and catch up on home improvement :slight_smile:

We too will do out best to make the most of it. Engage in our own home improvement projects and COVID cookoffs at home

4

Only a few sick here in Austin. All restaurants and bars are ordered closed. People have panic-shopped, like anyone else, but not too extremely so. Overall still quite calm here.

5

Here in Dallas, there are 28 cases in the county so far, with 3 of them critical.

Meanwhile, we’re limited to gatherings no larger than 50 people, and all bars, restaurants, gyms, health clubs, theaters, etc… are shut until further notice, except for takeout/delivery food. Most school districts have at the least extended spring break, and many have indefinitely cancelled classes. We can still go to the grocery store, parks, and other retail places. It seems like a huge chunk of the white collar workforce has been sent to work from home, but it hasn’t been mandated or even ‘recommended’ by the city/county government yet. Traffic is light, and from what I’ve read on social media, the weekend’s frenzied panic buying has mostly been restocked, with the exception of a few specific items like hand sanitizer and toilet paper, and even the latter isn’t totally unobtainable.

My family’s pretty much stuck at home; my children are out of school, and my wife’s working on coming up with some kind of routine for them as well as homeschooling them. For the moment, I’m still coming in to work, although everyone’s kind of expecting that axe to fall any day now, and working in IT, I’ve heard that there’s a lot of frenzied VPN testing/activity going on among the technical teams, so I think that feeling is probably justified.

We (my family) have tended to keep about 2-3 weeks of food on hand anyway- I descend from something like seven generations of Galveston/Gulf Coast dwellers, so emergency preparedness has become part of the family traditions, and my wife’s family is just generally sort of prepared. We did go stock up on some semi-essentials, like coffee, beer, fresh fruit/vegetables, TP, and cleaning products, but nothing panicky. Mostly stuff we wouldn’t want to do without for a long period, or stuff that we can avoid a trip to the store later by buying now- like dishwasher detergent. We probably have 2 weeks worth, but it seemed prudent to just go ahead and buy more now.

I imagine we’ll be watching a lot of TV and doing a lot of garden-related stuff in the backyard. We had some projects that I suspected we probably wouldn’t entirely complete before it gets too hot, but now that we have several weekends with literally nothing better to do, I suspect they’ll get done and then some.

6

Massachusetts.

So far no deaths, but 218 confirmed cases. Of course there’s almost no testing yet.

Most obvious things like schools, restaurants (it’s legal to do take out or delivery) have been closed, along with all events. My dentist cancelled my teeth cleaning appointment this morning. My daughters were potentially exposed and are in self-isolation. One is a therapist and has been okayed by her institution to get paid for phone therapy. The other is a public school teacher.

I have a sore throat, not very bad. We live very rurally so can go outside all we want.

I’m worried about my parents, in their 90’s and living in the Bay Area. If they get infected they’ll probably die and I may not even be able to go to their funerals.

I’m cooking a lot of root vegetables and binge-watching The Magicians. My husband is cutting firewood trees in the lower pasture.

7

Massachusetts.

So far no deaths, but 218 confirmed cases. Of course there’s almost no testing yet.

Most obvious things like schools, restaurants (it’s legal to do take out or delivery) have been closed, along with all events. My dentist cancelled my teeth cleaning appointment this morning. My daughters were potentially exposed and are in self-isolation. One is a therapist and has been okayed by her institution to get paid for phone therapy. The other is a public school teacher.

I have a sore throat, not very bad. We live very rurally so can go outside all we want.

I’m worried about my parents, in their 90’s and living in the Bay Area. If they get infected they’ll probably die and I may not even be able to go to their funerals.

I’m cooking a lot of root vegetables and binge-watching The Magicians. My husband is cutting firewood trees in the lower pasture.

8

They just closed all Kansas schools for the rest of the year. At least in person. They are working on ways to finish the year with on line learning.

All Kansas City restaurants, bars, theaters and such are closed. takeout and drive thrus remain open and I guess others will start doing take out.

9

Curiously, it was actually perishable goods that were almost completely gone at the supermarket last night. Produce, meat, and daily were basically gone. But canned goods, coffee, cereal, snacks, etc. were all fine. I’m in the California Bay Area and we’re under a three-week lockdown starting today.

Hopefully the situation relaxes in a few days. I was hoping to cook “real food” now that I’m working from home.

10

Maybe most people have by now stocked up on several week’s worth of non-perishables; but are starting to run out of (or to be dubious about the dates on) the stock of perishables they got in the first shopping burst.

11

Yeah, could be. And really, meat and dairy are only semi-perishable; they both freeze well. Can’t really explain a rush on produce though, aside from people being generally in panic mode.

12

Went for a walk (allowed) around the ‘hood today; it was weird having people coming in the other direction stepping out into the street to maintain the 6’ social distance. On a kind of a positive note, the mini-grocery store around the corner announced that they would be open between 8-9AM for people over 60 only.

13

Self-imposed isolation is mandatory here because heavy snow - but our new generator works, hopefully keeping us online and warm till the next propane delivery can crawl in. Locals posting on www.nextdoor.com don’t mention shortages at the mountain markets, and do volunteer to haul supplies to those not willing or able to venture out. A cafe-bakery even offers to deliver meals! Miracle! Well, after the snowpack diminishes…

14

Bay Area. Traffic is very light. Rapid transit ridership is very light. I took a walk today, and traffic was unusually light also near my house.
We went to the grocery last Friday which was much busier than usual, but no lack of items. Yesterday I walked to my bank which is in the same complex as an Indian grocery. That had people out the door waiting to get in.
I notice that the ads on CNN are now for restaurant delivery.
The ad circular we got Sunday had lots of ads around food for watching March Madness. Oops.

15

San Francisco hasnt been shut down this bad since the 4th quarter of the Super Bowl.

16

Again, it must feel like the 4th quarter of the Super Bowl.

17

8 days since the schools closed:

The schools are distributing work via email and the post. They’re really trying.
Yesterday the government announced some fines for people willfully ignoring social distancing.

I’m working in our almost empty office at work to give my wife some room to work at home.
My mothers birthday was last Saturday. Birthdays via FaceTime suck.
Looking at the numbers I think we’re in it for quite a long period. I hope my parents (who are all kinds of surceptable) stay healthy.

18

Hudson County, NJ (across the river from New York City)

Schools, parks and all other public spaces have been closed for a bit over a week. All businesses that can are working “remote”. Bars and restaurants are closed to all but take out and deliveries.
There have been relatively few cases in my town so far (25 known cases out of a population of 55,000 jammed into one square mile).
I see people out walking around or jogging, but they are few and far between. We have enough open areas around my apartment that you can go outside while maintaining “social distance”.
Grocery and drug stores are open and more or less stocked with everything (except the one specific thing I’m looking for). They have reduced hours and some places like Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s limit the number of customers at a time
By specific apartment has removed all chairs from the lobby to discourage loitering and roped off a 6 ft zone around the concierge desk.
Basically everything is just very quiet here.

I find it very bizarre listening to the ravings of people online, many of which live in relatively isolated places. People just seem to be coming up with these random fantasies based off shit they saw in some post-apocalyptic movie. “My friend PFC Nobody who trains with NBC gear in the Army said so and so” or whatever.

19

South Africa

There’s been a strong and clear response, despite only a few hundred positive tests and no deaths yet.

The president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has made two excellent speeches to the nation, and the government is taking this extremely seriously.

On March 15, Ramaphosa declared a nationwide state of disaster, closed schools and some land and sea entries into the country, almost cut off international travel into the country, and strongly encouraged social distancing, hand-washing, etc.

Yesterday evening, in another address, he announced a 21 day national lockdown starting on Thursday. All non-essential services and businesses will be closed, and people must stay at home, except for limited essential trips. Temporary shelters will be set up for homeless people. The army and police will be enforcing the lockdown. South Africans are notoriously casual about following rules, so we’ll have to see how it goes.

However, I’ve seen no panic. My local supermarket was busier than usual today and selling out of some staple foods (but there was still plenty of toilet paper). Since the 15th, supermarkets have had security guards at the entrances with spray bottles of hand sanitizer for people entering, but I haven’t seen much social distancing so far. A few masks and gloves.

20

It’s stunningly beautiful here in South Alabama. Spring has fully sprung, the sun is shining, and there is a warm breeze off the Gulf of Mexico.

Everything is green and full of lively color!