Coronavirus/Covid-19 Discussion Thread

[Faulkner]

 

 

[DramatistDreamer]

[victoria foxton]

 

 

[xtr]

 

 

Good advice, Khan. People need to relax and I do think it would benefit a lot of people if they took a break from Twitter, several of them have been obsessing over this in an unhealthy manner for the past few days. Tonight is the night in a few night where there are actually other trending topics in the top 4 trends that aren't directly related to the coronavirus. Some people stay on places like Twitter all day obsessing over that and it's not healthy. They need to step away, spend some time with their family, watch TV, eat a good meal, do some exercise or something to help and try lessen the stress they are feeling from all of this stuff connected to the virus. Their anxiety/stress will probably escalate if they don't take a breather, especially with more restrictions/recommendations being put out by various leaders in different communities.

 

Also, going back to the hoarding discussion, I went to the commissary today on base,  with my dad (He has base access and a lot of times I will go up there with him to grocery shop), we saw this man and his wife buy nine packages of toilet paper. He had several packs that had at least 12 rolls in them and some that had at least four, maybe even six rolls in them. I'm not sure what the exact combination he had of both packs, but at bare minimum he had at least around 80 rolls, If not more. Him and his wife looked like they were in their mid 50's and I didn't see any kids with them or anything. They didn't need all of that toilet paper. I also saw another man who had two twelve packs, and decided not to purchase one of them in the line.

 

He felt it was ridiculous, and he didn't want to be a hoarder. And he did have a family, but couldn't bring himself to buy the two packs. I bought one large pack and then a smaller pack for one of my co-workers, who said she only had two rolls left at home. The commissary did have some packages left, (They do a really good job of restocking), which was good, because the toilet paper is sold out off of base in the city. 

 

I also noticed that a lot of things were sold out like chicken (with an exception being ground chicken), and that pasta sauce was almost sold out. I went to another grocery store and saw that the chicken was sold out there as well. But there was plenty of beef and steak, nobody was trying to hoard that. (Even though the beef in the commissary is cheap, though it's definitely more expensive in other grocery stores).

Edited March 16, 2020 by xtr

[Khan]

 

Well.  That's just great.  What are people who have to watch their cholesterol and blood pressure supposed to do if there's a run on chicken (or fish or poultry)?  I guess now's as good of a time as any to go vegetarian, lol.

Edited March 16, 2020 by Khan

[xtr]

 

They weren't trying to get that steak, they spent that steak money on toilet paper, lol. I bought some at the commissary, (which does have it considerably cheaper than the regular grocery stores.) largely due to the chicken being gone. (Outside of the ground chicken, which I got a pack of.)

 

Sometimes I will go the commissary around a military payday, and they will be really low on items chicken, so I have to rethink things a bit, if I planned to cook with chicken. But I make it work. On the positive note, even though people are buying up stuff like chicken, there still is in general enough food for people. Though, of course dietary needs and costs could and do impact things as well. 

 

I'm not one that would try to go vegetarian and I definitely don't want to go vegan lol, (though I do love vegetables and eat a lot of them). Though, people are definitely free to go that route if they want to.

 

But here are some more suggestions for people who primarily eat poultry/fish as their protein source, if a store is out of regular chicken. When you go to the grocery store and this happens you can try seeing if they have ground chicken or turkey. Or see if they have whole chickens or smaller hens for sale, which sometimes might be in another aisle. Sometimes they also have chicken/turkey sausages and sometimes you can find things like salmon in the refrigerated/frozen aisles. 

 

 

Edited March 16, 2020 by xtr

[Vee]

 

[Vee]

Penny drops:

 

 

 

[DRW50]

If so many people hadn't been selfish over the weekend I wonder if this would've happened.

[Wendy]

 

Normally, I would 100% agree. But I think - in this situation - it depends on if we will STILL be dealing with this virus and/or the fallout by then. The way this is headed, I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility. If not? Yeah, I totally expect "stupidity amnesia" to again take hold.

[Juliajms]

I think the cat has been out of the bag for a couple of weeks, but who knows? Even now we can slow the spread and try to mitigate the deluge that hospitals will face at any one time, if we stay inside as much as possible.

 

The strange thing is that I feel incredibly guilty for all of the commitments I've broken over this last week. It's really irrational, but I feel deeply guilty about not attending a child's birthday Saturday that we had RSVP's to, cancelling play dates, breaking dinner plans with friends and taking my child out of preschool. All insignificant things considering what we are facing. I wonder if some other people are feeling that too and their emotions are overriding common sense and expert advice.

 

As to hoarding it gives people a sense of control and helps calm us down. I've figured out a way to do it that doesn't hurt people, which is I buy $10 worth of canned goods and then donate it to the food bank. I feel like I'm doing something, it eases my anxiety,  but I'm not keeping the food to myself in the basement.

 

1) I never claimed to be sane. 2) Pandemics bring out the nut in people. At least I'm not fighting people for toilet paper and blaming random Asian people for a disease that is no one's fault.

[will81]

 

My mother is over 60 and has diabetes, on top of that she works for Child Protection Services and has to do home visits. I am very paranoid about her coming into contact with children, since they can carry the virus but not necessarily show symptoms. I have asked her to stop home visits and ask her boss to give those to someone else. I try not to worry, but she is too high risk. On top of that my father just went into remission for luekemia a few months ago and is also 60+, though retired and stays home mostly, but I know if either of them got the virus the chances would be against them.

 

My mother doesn't want to worry too much and wants to take the advice of her boss, I want her to be extra cautious and tell him to go f&*k himself. I do feel guilty as I feel like I am scaring her into doing what I want. So I can understand some fear, but I think many just go overboard, they care only about themselves and very little about others.

 

As for hoarding, I was, and still am, following general advice. Just add a few extra items each time you shop. That is getting harder to do when the shelves are empty almost every day I go.

 

Yes there have been idiots here in Australia too, being awful to almost anyone Asian. I was in class with one guy from Vietnam and he was literally afraid to cough around people. Even though Vietnam has had an extremely low rate of infection, though most bigots just assume all Asian people are from China and deliberately spread the virus.

Edited March 16, 2020 by will81

[Huntress]

Hoarding has now also become reality in my city (Cologne, Germany, 1 million citizens). So far we've had ~ confirmed 250 cases of Coronavirus here.

Our mayor is now also quarantined because she had contact to an infected person, but she's reportedly feeling well (I really hope so – she was stabbed in the throat by a psycho in 2015 one day before the election and was a in coma when she won the election).

 

A few days ago, everything was still available but since Friday, people have apparently become crazy.
There's no toilet paper, no paper towels, no tissues, no bread, no fresh meat, no milk, no nuts, no bottled paper at the grocery stores and drugstores except expensive brands.
I've even heard people on the streets saying that refugees and Angela Merkel are responsible for the crisis *sigh* People are such idiots.

[Aback]

 

I agree.

 

 

You're feeling guilty because for now there are just a couple thousands of cases. Unfortunately every positive person infects on average 2 to 3 people. So you can do the math. You'll stop feeling guilty in no time. You did the right thing for yourself and for everyone else.

 

 

I think circumstances like this bring out people's true colors.

 

 

 

May I give you some unrequested advice? 

Be adamant about this. Tell your mom she can't go to work, period. Tell her boss she's not available. Period. Come up with an excuse or something. Time will show you were right.

[Faulkner]