The Coronavirus | Contains 4.5% Alcohol

[Karo]

Gotta love our "democracy"

[Path Light]

When will the coronavirus end?

[Moonface]

When will the coronavirus end?

I don't expect it'll be over before the summer, and that's being generous about it. Too many stupid people will keep this dragged out longer than it has to be.

[Karo]

Personally I was kinda hopeful that will see it die down by April, but I actually just googled an article that says the first patient in the USA was apparently January 22nd...and well it kinda grown since then and I don't think the viruses are going to go away if we ask them to politely leave.

On the plus side apparently China has apparently stemmed the spread of it so that good to hear:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/world...a-aid.html

I do wonder though how long will these measures stay in place?

[Moonface]

The trouble is China has taken measures to deal with this that America has yet to bother to even think about. Rather than help the people, it seems the only ones getting help are those in the stock market and anyone who is rich enough to get testing. If this carries on I don't expect stores will have much food left. My store got a grocery and frozen delivery today and I already know there isn't enough there. Our dairy section is entirely empty now because we just can't get enough to keep it filled for longer than half a day.

[queenzelda]

All of the grocery stores where we live is implementing certain times that they are open. Before, a few were open 24/7 but they've had to resort to cutting their hours just to be able to restock & clean the stores. Just waiting for there to be amount placed on how much people can buy to come next.

[Moonface]

Just waiting for there to be amount placed on how much people can buy to come next.

That isn't a thing there yet? Here all the stores are limiting people to one or two of any crucial items. Publix only allows one water/paper towel/toilet paper/cleaning product per household now and we still managed to run out within 5 minutes of receiving the order yesterday.

The limits help more people get items, but there still just isn't enough for everybody because of it. The people who got those items yesterday came back today expecting us to have more. You have to be at my store waiting for almost 5 hours just to have a chance at getting something when it gets delivered that's one of those items.

[Dragon Lord]

So the Governor of Minnesota held a press conference today, amid rumors swirling that he was going to shut down the entire state, following the footsteps of California (and later New York and Illinois), but instead he said during the conference that they don't feel like a shutdown is necessary at this point, but they will shut the state down if they feel it becomes necessary.

I mean, I don't know about anyone else, but they can try to word it however they want, but that is 100% saying, "We're not going to shut the state down today, but we are definitely going to be shutting down in the near future."

I wish they wouldn't drag us around like this. If you're even considering shutting the state down at all, just do it. Just do it and get it done and over with. Don't come out two days from now and be like, "lol we know we said we weren't going to, but we totally are." They should have just been like, "We don't really want to, but we feel that it's going to be required in the near future, so we will be shutting down the state on Monday. You have the weekend to prepare."

At least that way we'd have some time to get ready for a 2-3 lock down, rather than being blindsided by it and only having one night to get ready for such a thing. Absolutely stupid.

[Kyng]

So far, the only direct impact that it's had on my life is that: a) Formula One is off, and b) I'm working from home. I've been given a laptop from which I can use a Remote Desktop connection to access my computer at work, and from there, I'm able to do all the things I would be doing in the office. It's a bit clunky (in part because the screen resolution of the laptop is different from that of my resolution at work), but it gets the job done. And contacting people remotely (either via Skype or WhatsApp) is more difficult than contacting them in person, but again, it's doable. So, a couple of minor disadvantages... but, it is nice not to have to drive into work, and to have a greater range of activities available to me during my lunch hour. So, on the whole, I'd say working at home vs. working at the office is very much a wash: neither of them comes out as the clear winner. (Maybe I'd give a slight edge to working from home; however, it's not something I'd want to do five days a week forever)

On the other hand, April is going to be heavily disrupted. Normally, I have a week off work around the time of my dad's birthday, where we go out for a birthday meal and go on a couple of days out. It's also the time that more sporting events start up... but, obviously, all of those plans have been annihilated now, with nothing to replace them as of yet >_< .

[Moonface]

Canada have announced they are pulling out of the Olympic Games due to concerns over the coronavirus. I wonder if this will prompt other countries to also pull out or not.

[Dragon Lord]

The IOC is heavily considering delaying the Olympic Games, so that might be what they do to try and prevent more countries from dropping out completely.

Looked up the updates for COVID-19 in Minnesota and some interesting events have taken place. Confirmed cases jumped up to 235 (1 reported death), Governor Walz came into contact with someone who has it and is now self-quarantining, and Wisconsin is going to order a shut-down tomorrow. I expect Minnesota to follow very closely, especially with our Governor possibly having it.

In other news, I am showing possible symptoms of the virus, so that's fun. Unfortunately there's no way for me to get tested to see if it's Coronavirus or just the flu, so all I can do is rest up and hope that whatever it is goes away soon.

UPDATE: So I ended up calling a clinic to talk to a nurse and she said it was highly recommended that I begin a self-quarantine for at least a week, longer if my symptoms persist. Looks like I'm going on lock-down.

[Dragon Lord]

So more COVID-19 related news from earlier today:

-The World Health Organization (WHO) have stated that the United States could become the next Coronavirus epicenter (the US currently has the third most cases in the world, behind only China and Italy).
-The IOC has officially postponed the 2020 Olympic Games to 2021.
-The lockdown on Wuhan, China (the origin of the virus) is set to end on April 8th.
-The United Kingdom has gone into lockdown.

Also if no one has looked at the numbers recently, Italy has more than doubled the death count of China, and Spain is very close to passing China's count as well (currently 2,991 deaths in Spain and 3,281 deaths in China. Meanwhile Italy is sitting at 6,820 deaths). The USA is sixth on the death count total, sitting at 778 (France and Iran are the other two countries ahead of the US, France at 1,100 and Iran at 1,934).

There has now been 422,785 cases worldwide with 18,903 deaths (though again, 13,092 of those coming from just three countries).

[Karo]

Those deaths count are pretty sad because a lot of countries I feel like had fair warning that the virus could potentially come over here. You ignore it and it could easily come over here and start effecting a lot of people. Sadly I don't think we really take it too seriously here and I do kinda worry about like what if it does explode in area where any of us lives? >.<

I wonder how long will these shut downs have to last for because I mean it really a dangerous balancing game and countries are scared about opening up again in the fear of a reprisal which is probably the biggest reason China has been kinda slow about the whole opening up thing. Opening up wuhan though is definitely a big step.

Orange man said he would like to release the strict guidelines by Easter, but I tend to think this early in the stage for the West I don't think it going to be safe by the end of April.

[Dragon Lord]

The Italy death count isn't too surprising. The elderly are the most at-risk when it come to the Virus, and I remember reading that Italy has one of the higher number of elderly in their overall population. So they were unfortunately a very bad place for the virus to break out.

As for how long the shutdowns will last, who knows? For us in the United States, if what the WHO believe is true, it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Them saying we could very likely be the next epicenter is basically saying we're up next for what China and Italy have gone through. Seeing as how ill prepared how health system has been for this (hell, in Minnesota you can't even get tested for the virus unless you're administered in a hospital or a health care professional), I wouldn't be surprised if the US ends up overtaking China in total infected. Not sure if we'd get that high in death count though. While there are areas of extreme poverty in the United States, we're no where near the terrible living conditions that countries like China have.

It also doesn't help that there's a lot of people who aren't doing basic hygiene to make sure they reduce the chances of catching the virus. I know at work I saw a lot of customers ignoring signs to use napkins/wrappers to open warmers and grab food out of them. It's those people who will get everything shut down, because they refuse to listen.

[Moonface]

I love how the government thinks Covid will be dealt with in 15 days (less at the time of posting this) but doesn't want to do a shutdown either. How are they expecting it to become better if everyone is free to continue to go out and spread/catch it?