In a vague effort to be healthy, I’ve picked up dried fruit, nuts, trail mix, etc as they will keep and it’s better than chocolate. Unfortunately, by my calculations, even intermittent snacking means I have ingested some 937,000,000 calories over the past few days, and my cells must inevitably go into nuclear meltdown.
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In a bizarre turn of events, the UK Government has listed Financial services in its list of ‘Key Workers’ whose children can still go to school/nursery. My wife works for a bank in an operational role so we may not be lumbered with a bossy two year old full time after all.
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At the current growth rate, the UK will have anywhere between 1.5 to 4 million cases in four weeks.
That can’t be right can it.
Move to Barbican going to be fine, only hitch is the main gates have been shut off to keep cars from going in or out so the movers will need to walk a bit further.
Also most of the grocery stores are absolutely bare out here in Reading, and from what I saw in the city yesterday picking up the keys it looked about the same.
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There’s now a $2000 fine in place for people returning to Canada and violating the 14 day self isolation. And the police are authorized to use “necessary means” to ensure compliance, not sure what that all entails.
Lost a significant amount in the markets so far so simply sold everything on the bounce today as I don’t see anything positive on the horizon yet. There’s no roadmap for having the entire western world’s economy simply grinding to a halt, so any lessons from prior crashes just don’t apply.
On the home front Farmerette and I are getting along quite well after the first week of quarantine. We’re used to traveling for thousands of miles together while crisscrossing North America in the car so this is similar, but with more space and better food.
Next week should be more of the same I’m guessing.
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After a full week of 14h days, planning, stressing, etc, finally got home to the family. Got in a solid workout for the first time all week, took a nice shower, poured myself a full five fingers of Ardbeg Corryvrecken… and found out I was exposed today by an officer who’s been feeling sick all week but came in anyway because he’s afraid of being transferred off the day shift.
I swear before all that anyone holds holy that if he gave me COVID-19 he’ll never see the light of day for the remainder of his very long and potentially very unhappy career.
So much for the stress melting away tonight…
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What an absolute clown. Hope you’re alright mate.
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Oh geez, hope you’re ok man.
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Oh man!!! Thinking of you, Jon.
Hope it ends up being nothing.
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Sheesh. What they said.
People’s ability to delude themselves and rationalise their behaviour is sometimes quite breath-taking … and not in a good way.
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Enjoying my weekend at home with family. Been out three times, twice to get kids (plus get gear from hardware store) and once to the bottle shop.
People… 
Hope you’re ok and clear. Ardbeg can be a powerful disinfectant or so I’ve heard, so complete the course.
My company’s indecision about people working from home continues. After being told to go in on Wednesday, and told to work from home on Thursday, I was home yesterday for my normal wfh day. We were summoned to a department telecon to be told that the company wants to keep the flag flying and not have empty offices, and therefore (with three exempt groups) we must continue to come in, but that no one would be obliged to (?). In my office I’m the one person not in the three groups, at which point my immediate boss called and said that he was putting me on the stay-at-home list anyway. I’m sure we’ll have a lockdown order which makes all this moot soon anyway, but it’s uncharacteristically unclear.
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https://catalyst.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/CAT.20.0080
For example, we are learning that hospitals might be the main Covid-19 carriers, as they are rapidly populated by infected patients, facilitating transmission to uninfected patients. Patients are transported by our regional system,1 which also contributes to spreading the disease as its ambulances and personnel rapidly become vectors. Health workers are asymptomatic carriers or sick without surveillance; some might die, including young people, which increases the stress of those on the front line.
This disaster could be averted only by massive deployment of outreach services. Pandemic solutions are required for the entire population , not only for hospitals. Home care and mobile clinics avoid unnecessary movements and release pressure from hospitals.2 Early oxygen therapy, pulse oximeters, and nutrition can be delivered to the homes of mildly ill and convalescent patients, setting up a broad surveillance system with adequate isolation and leveraging innovative telemedicine instruments. This approach would limit hospitalization to a focused target of disease severity, thereby decreasing contagion, protecting patients and health care workers, and minimizing consumption of protective equipment. In hospitals, protection of medical personnel should be prioritized. No compromise should be made on protocols; equipment must be available. Measures to prevent infection must be implemented massively, in all locations and including vehicles. We need dedicated Covid-19 hospital pavilions and operators, separated from virus-free areas.
@js619 sorry to hear that. I would give you a like, but people being stupid/selfish doesn’t seem deserving. Take care of yourself.
Thing in the household could be better. My spouse and eldest are high on extroversion and anxiety so they are feeling this from two fronts. My wife is trying to channel that productively to pivot her entire small business to making mask covers for healthcare workers and getting anyone in the neighborhood with a sewing machine to help. That said, she had a full panic attack Friday night since I’m still going to work. Doesn’t help that one of our neighbors has a fever and malaise and can’t get tested, while her daughter was exposed to someone who has tested positive. Not to say she has it, but the lack of testing in the US makes folks rationally nervous that we have no idea how widespread this is.
At work, you can definitely feel a general sense of unease. Trying to put a brave face on for my team while also advocating up the chain to protect them best as possible isn’t easy. Especially when I suspect this will get worse over the next few weeks before we start seeing improvements.
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We are working through scenarios at work, like locking the gate and keeping everyone here on site for a four week “tour of duty” as it were.
People won’t like it, but the option will be pretty clear. Work, or don’t get paid.
Work is really appealing right now, it is a small slice of normal.
I am not sure people have worked through this more than a few days, maybe a week. We will be in this mode come Christmas. This will change the way our society works, and it will change what people value.
Millennials may become more like the war generation than they could possibly imagine.
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Seeing articles asking when it will be over, and looking forward to going back to ‘normal’. That’s not terribly likely barring a vaccine, which won’t be soon. Hopefully the changes we will see, or bring about will be for the better in general, and not just solely for pandemic protections.
Given the slow British response, we will have a more-or-less serious outbreak here. If people still refuse to ‘give in’ to the virus and insist on meeting up in the Blitz spirit (accurate only if they all kept their lights on during the Blitz, and insisted upon walking around waving torches), then it’s going to be bad.
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A meme I saw that captured this sort of “I can do what I want without actual sacrifice mentality”:
Your grandparents were asked to fight in a world war.
You are being asked to stay home and sit on the couch. Don’t fuck this up.
That said, I think this understates how powerless a literal invisible enemy makes people feel. People are going to seize some sense of control, and sometimes it will be in really stupid ways. Like still going out or hoarding toilet paper. My old boss who retired last year is pulled public data off the web and doing daily tracking of the disease by country.
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Until a few days ago, I was following the news about all of this with such a fervor–reading as much news as I could each day.
But then I realized I was making it worse for myself. I can’t do anything to change the situation. And the only news that really matters is “vaccine”, which is not going to happen for a while. I know what to do/what not to do and we are doing it. Pulling away from the news cycle has made a noticeable difference in my stress level.
The one thing I am learning (here and in other forums) is that the experience of this is startlingly different for everyone. If “sitting on the couch” were all any of us needed to do, we’d ace this. But for most of us here, that is not what’s required of us each day at all.
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I must admit, I’m not finding it difficult at all. My gym is closed, so I’m finding exercise more bothersome to devise, but other than that, this is the perfect excuse to clear backlogs of books, games, films, etc. Considering the average person’s activity level, it’s purely psychological, most people aren’t out running every evening, so though it’s unfortunate for a lockdown to coincide with some good weather here in the UK, it’s not too much of a hardship.
See if I’ve changed my tune in six months to a year.
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The stuff that’s an adjustment for me is meal planning, lack of solitude (two school-aged kids no longer leaving the house, and a wife working from home most of the time), inconsistent and difficult-to-monitor distance learning for the kids, and minor stir-craziness.
But we’re about as well-suited to this as I could possibly hope for. My wife works in health care, so her job security is fine, and I’ve been a stay-at-home parent for over a decade, so arranging child care is trivial. Our house isn’t absurd, but judicious rearranging has made it possible to spread out into the attic and basement more, and keep our distance. I’m terrible about being social, anyway, so it’s not like I’m missing my valued social gatherings. And we have tons of amusements, including various board games we’ve played less than I’d like, several video game systems, a large library, and three steaming video services (it’s a good time to have fiber to the home internet).
So, yeah, I’m not loving this, but my family is immensely privileged in our ability to cope.
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