How does COVID-19 pandemi affect you?

Well, the Mrs. is working from home. My work hasn't changed at all, but they did hand me a N95 mask and told me to treat it like a newborn because its the only one I'm getting. We're probably switching to a 12 hour shift model and mandatory overtime coming. We'll see if we follow the bay area in California and start shutting down everything and enforcing quarantines. I reckon' we'll find out this week how this is going to play out.

I work in healthcare and we cant get our hands on any

My wife is a barber in San Francisco. Her shop is shut down till at least April 7th. She'll be lucky to get half pay from unemployment. This shit sucks.

@KillzoneSnake: Finally an intelligent post from someone who isn't brainwashed.

Wife and I are showing symptoms of some sort of illness (likely a cold or basic flu) but have chosen to self-isolate for the sake of safety. Our local health advice network says any symptoms of an illness should be immediate isolation until they subside, but amazingly, won't do testing until more apparent matching symptoms to COVID are established.

They have drive-through testing in South Korea that takes 10 minutes and you get results texted to you the next day, but in Canada, they are waiting till you show signs of serious symptoms to test for it (despite the 2+ week asymptomatic period where we could be spreading it around to friends, family and coworkers).

The federal Liberal government is dragging their heels and not committing to anything serious yet besides closing borders to non-US citizens (why not everyone?). It's going to get serious in BC and Ontario this week (they are at 103 and 185 confirmed as of today) where the numbers start to explode, and the provincial governments there know this and are taking what action they can (Ontario issued a state of emergency already).

We need a shutdown right away to contain it so hospitals don't get overwhelmed.

But if you carry it and give it to someone who is older, immune-supressed, predisposed to a lung or heart condition or in any way vulnerable to the pneumonia symptoms that it drastically increases their risk of death, how would you feel knowing you could have been the reason they died?

It's this selfish attitude of "it won't effect me" what they are trying to contain it from spreading too quickly that hospitals don't get overwhelmed like what happened in Italy, where they had to triage people because they only had one intubiation tube for 5-6 people (meaning those that didn't get it couldn't breathe and died).

This is why they are forcing you to stay at home, because you lack the self-control and empathy to look our for others around you.

In the US, there was some issue with the production of the tests. The CDC had insisted on having their own test and then had a major flub in production. So currently, there's a limited number of them available. We have similar restrictions on testing - they only test those with specific signs or those with known exposure. However, that should change in the near future. The president allowed private companies/labs to start making the tests and hopefully we will have them available in large numbers. Dont know if Canada had similar issue?

No idea, I think it's largely related to their delayed response despite seeing what happened in Italy (who also had issues with tests I believe). They, like other Western governments didn't think it was a "severe threat" so they didn't prepare.

Give it a week and I guarantee we'll see ballooning numbers in ON and BC, well over 1000 cases. They just started having their first deaths now.

And due to the lack of testing, the numbers might be significantly under-represented.

Doubling time of 6-10 days I am now looking at my country realising in about 4 weeks to 8 weeks that it's impossible to not lock everything down. OR if we are real lucky the social distancing guidelines may have such an effect that it won't become a gigantic mess (50% infected in a year instead of 3-4 months, giving our ICU's more of a chance).

I am pretty sure we'll be completely overwhelmed and will face a 9 month lock down to try and save some of our medical care. But of course I hope we'll be so disciplined and well organised as a people that just official directions will slow the virus down considerably.

Right now it affects me in that I spend at least 5 hours a day going through information about it, informing and correcting some sources and people where I live. I am also a little worried about my own health and my family. I made sure (weeks ago) that we have food for a few days in case we get ill.

Drink water.
Take no ibuprofen or other NSAID's for corona.
Be in a clean environment and be extremely hygienic even after 'full' recovery, for at least a couple days.
Secure better sources of information than me, look at situations internationally and learn from them.

but there's a flu jab. there's a vaccine. flu has been studied for decades. it's not the same thing at all.

very little is known about this type of corona virus. covid-19 has a higher fatality rate than flu inc. h1n1 swine flu (considerably higher according to some reports). its mode of transmission is different. its reproduction rate (R0) i.e. the amount of others a person with covid-19 can infect is already at least 2-3x higher than flu. it takes longer for carriers to display symptoms, hence the need for social distancing. the vaccine is still likely many months away from being close to widely available to public. there's a good chance based on the numbers so far that a very large percentage of the world's population (20%+) will catch it and require medical care; therefore there's the need to attempt to control the flow of sufferers into health services to prevent them from being overwhelmed and people dying as a result, which is exactly what's happening in other countries.

point is this is not "complete insanity hysteria over NOTHING." it may well predominantly be a risk to the elderly, but that doesn't mean people shouldn't give a shit. if it affected you and your parents or grandparents become seriously ill as a result of it i don't think you'd be as blasé

Thanks for the warm confidence. All I can do is wear my N95 mask and most importantly, wash my hands with soap/water all the time is the only way I'll survive this and not risking getting infected. Hopfully this dies down between May-July.

One n95 mask is silly. AFAIK they typically only last for a few hours (until they get pretty moist) and should then be discarded?

Save the mask (unless you are working with patients?) for when someone around you starts coughing and use it for that?

Oh, it has been a crazy week. Started my new job on Monday and today I was told work from home until further notice.

What a way to start my new job.

Well, I'm 58 but I think I will be just fine, in great shape and don't take or need any medications. My numbers are great.

In middle of a hot zone. One of my two jobs on hold, the other still going for now. I am actually enjoying the time off work. Wouldn't mind more.

Been gaming mostly. Since friends shut in too we have managed to get some co-op time in more regularly.

WHAT THE HELL. So let me get this straight, the numbers are a joke compared to previous outbreaks that I and pretty much NOBODY gave a F and we should panic for this? Infection what???? Freaking MILLIONS IN THE US ALONE GOT THE SWINE FLU, ONLY THOUSANDS OF SICK PEOPLE DIED. My 87 year old grandma almost died from a flu 2 years ago, she managed to survive. OLD PEOPLE DIE! She has heart problem, diabetis! Unless we cure the aging process its normal old people die. The freaking average age of people that 'died with corona' in Italy is 81!!!! 81!!!!!! That is the average lifespan of AN ITALIAN!!! Italy is the country with most elderly in EU, they die in the buckets everyday this year, last year, the year before, the one before....

The world economy is crashing down like never before. This will destroy the LIFE of MILLIONS. It might even destroy my life. You wanna live in SLAVELANDIA, lock your self up. Watch out the virus bro!!! Might get lucky and get a cough omg!! Lets shut down the entire world. Funny i had the flu during the swine flu outbreak, maybe i had it, beats me i blew my nose and moved on with my life.

Who remembers the climate hysteria? Oh Greta... shut everything down! We will be watching you! Hey wait a minute... thats what happening right now lmao yea follow the globalist agenda, nice job.

none of what you say changes my point that this is not "complete insanity hysteria over NOTHING" no matter how much you CAPITALISE YOUR WORDS and use EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!!

just have a normal conversation you f*ckin spaz

I'm antisocial, so the pandemic didn't affect my life too much. I work in a pharmacy that's always busy, but now we have to handle huge shipments, so we stay longer, or work from home. And of course we have to answer the same god damn questions 1000 times a day. I don't think I can really protect myself, but I'm in my 30's and healthy. It's my mom and aunt that I'm worried about, so I simply avoid them.

I'm affected by it because the cracker barrel I work at is slow.

Work is getting hit by the quarantine rules indirectly now. Lots of colleagues has to stay home now. If 2 specific people have to stay home as well, we might as well close the department until further notice.

On the other hand, lots of overtime so far for me.

wife and i are on mandatory wfh until april. salary wise we're unaffected, murdered in the market.

productivity wise we're way down though as we have 2 young children to care for now that daycare is closed for a while.

not counting meetings which i don't consider work, i get maybe 1-2 hours of work done a day now if i'm lucky.

How old are the kids?

I can't work from home. Next week I might have to stay home a day or two. However that might also mean my department is closed for a day or two. We are really shortstaffed atm.

Self Isolated right now... 14 days. I am on my second day and I am bored, I ordered a new OLED TV which is coming tomorrow to keep me entertained.

I didn't want to but turns out if you even have a strong cold like my partner does you have to self isolated in the UK for 14 days and everyone who lives with you does to.

Its all over the top but as I am self employed photographer with no clients as of right now I don't mind.

This will have a domino affect on the economy for the rest of the year.

Teaching from home now. On Spring Break right now but I'll find out more when I get back Monday to work. Schools most likely closed until next school calendar year.

Can't go to the gym.

GF is being prevented from seeing me because of her parents are using the quarantine as an excuse to distant us.

On the bright side, I have TP, plenty of food to last me several weeks to months, and I'm healthy. Also getting paid to stay home.

Except we have vaccines and anti viral medicine for the flu.

Corona virus is a family of the common cold virus. Each year the common cold is a pandemic but not at the morality rate that this novel corona virus is. RNA viruses can mutate fairly quickly too, whether it be a milder version or a more deadly one. Scientists normally don't focus on finding a vaccine for the common cold because there are a lot of strains and usually the symptoms aren't that deadly.

Summer is approaching and it'll be over in about 3 months or so unless you're Australian.

@Gaming-Planet: Not sure if summer will "save" us since the virus is spreading in countries where its summer now.

Its just becuase its something new to us. With time our immune systems will adapt to it. We need to live with it, not hide in a hole. The old weak and sick die, that is part of life. Its like if someone is sick in a building and some old guy dies there so everyone starts jumping out the window. The global hysteria is going to collapse society, the world will never be the same again.

You or her in quarantine?

If we had continued as normal, our healthcare systems would collapse. If those collapses, a lot of people will die that could have been prevented. A lot of people will get less healthcare than they need and will have to suffer from illness more than necessary.

But I guess that is not important as long as you are not affected, right?

Was gonna order my usual Iceland stuff but all the normies have stolen my bookings.

Should have seen it coming, bit of a dummy. No biggie, fridge is full of shit.

The only thing collapsing hospitals is the mental hysteria. Never in my life i went to the hospital when i got the flu lol.

Lets take a look at the death count... 10,000 in a world of 7,700,000,000. Nothing. Lets take a look at swine flu deaths in 2009, oh my 575,000 deaths with 1.4 BILLION INFECTED. And no collapse? Maybe because there was 0 hysteria by the media, maybe because globalists/leftists gov/chicoms did not start shutting down the entire world? Oh gee that might be it....

You have actually had the flu, and not just the common cold?

What part about overloaded healthcare systems do you not understand? Some countries have made estimates with roughly 80% of the population getting infected. If 5% of those cases are critical, that will be a huge burden for the hospitals.

We're getting a speech from the king in an hour and a half. That's pretty big because they don't really do these types of things anymore ^_^ Edit: OK the king didn't say anything new.

I am actually feeling ill at the moment. I have jotted down the times and the symptoms, but they don't seem to correlate with those from covid-19. It's more like a weird lightning speed little flu without coughing but with chest pain. It kinda sucks that even during this pandemic there are still other illnesses to contend with.

I can almost feel the troops in my body starting to pin down the virus. I told my body to deal with this one without mercy. With a focus that the local viruses have not experienced before. Target practice. I will not make it easy for these, whatever this one is. I will kill it inside and outside my body, and it can't go anywhere. I rest when my body tells me to rest. My door is locked and my hands are clean. It will infect nobody else. End of the line, little virus.

Pretty sure there about to lockdown the country.

I'm a tour guide

@r-gamer: Maybe time to take it seriously

https://www.salon.com/2020/03/20/entire-georgia-senate-told-to-self-quarantine-after-republican-shows-up-despite-coronavirus-test/

@horgen: I wasn't being sarcastic.

I think they will do a nationwide lockdown.

I saw a military convoy being carried on train. This is serious.

Still some politicians think it is a joke.

In Italy and Spain that man would face possibly 12 years in jail for that.

Those 10,000 people could have been your family or friends. Estimates are currently at somewhere between 1-2.5 million Americans could die over the next year from COVID-19 or indirectly due to hospital bed space/equipment/staff shortages.

Is that "just a small percentage" too?

Can't go to the Gym unfortunately, In my spare time I am watching stand up (Dave Attell) and catching up on games I haven't played yet (Bayonetta)

Right now I'm off work for one week because of a shutdown. I really hope that it doesn't go for too long.

@KillzoneSnake: The UK alone was predicted to have 500 000 deaths if nothing was done. That's why the government changed their idiotic idea of waiting for herd immunity to do its thing to actually starting doing something. Of course those were projections made by the lizard men with tin foil hats not professional immunologists like internetJoe42069.

I no longer have to physically attend my two courses for this semester, so that saves me a couple of trips on the bus per week for the next two months.

On a more personal note, my girlfriend and I planned to take a trip to Washington state later this year. We bought the tickets back around the end of the summer before anything about the virus was even heard about, but now I'm highly doubting that we will be able to make that trip.

Workload has increased by at least a factor of 4 since the GPs closed their doors to the public. They've been sending all prescriptions directly to pharmacies. Many of our logistical staff are in isolation so there have been considerable delays on our stock so we have about a 2 day back log of prescriptions to fulfill. Everyone has been putting in extra hours just to keep our heads above water. Public transport is on emergency schedules at the moment so I'm having to walk miles to work in the morning so I've been pretty exhausted by the end of the day.

Not trying to sound crude but I wish there is a lock down, some folks that don't take it seriously, like the spring breakers in FL are the ones that is going to get this horrendous disease in which in retrospect would contaminate us.

Only time I go outside is to get Food and Water, At this point of time I am thinking of survival rather than having a good time.

I guess i should hide in a hole because the flu kills way more. Nice estimates.... we will be lucky if it even hits 100K. Nothing compared to any past outbreaks. Look at the Spanish flu, that was way worse and nobody locked down the entire planet. Even the tribe people in America survived the conquistador invasion, not only they had to deal with the conquistadors killing them, but a flu that was like an alien bacteria, their bodies never experienced anything like it.

Millions of years of evolution, adapting to all sorts of bugs and here we are in 2020 hiding from a flu that kills like 1% of elder people who most have other illness. Instead of adapting to something we might have to live with. Has any child died? Yet they are locked up instead of adapting to this new cough.

But anyway, what will really kill people is the economic meltdown. Once this clears, if it even does, we will be left with a destroyed economy. Some countries will turn into Venezuela. Then you can enjoy a much higher death rate!

https://www.wsls.com/features/2020/03/18/2-cities-handled-this-health-crisis-different-the-results-couldnt-have-been-more-opposite/

Get your head out of your fucking ass and stop spreading misinformation. This shit is serious and is killing thousands who don't need to die.

I think the moderator/admin staff need to look at people posting misinformation/fake news and suspend them accordingly if they do shit like this. People's lives are literally at stake, "opinion" or not. @horgen