The Coronavirus Panic Thread

[Kit-Ginevra]

Over here all bars,pubs,clubs,restaurants closing. All health centres,leisure centres,gyms. And casinos. Possibly art galleries and museums and libraries too

[Rosco the Iroc]

PA closed about everything.....the sales section of the dealership is closed, but I still have to drag in tomorrow.

[Seanette]

Well, (expletive). I'd been feeling minorly ill, but thinking most of it was my allergies acting up (happens this time of year). Symptoms got worse today. Advice nurse informs me symptoms are consistent with coronavirus, DH and I are now required to quarantine for 14 days. At Hades Annex, we're within 3-4 feet of our neighbors, and two who sit near me are over 60 with chronic health problems. Lovely.

[Kit-Ginevra]

XX QUARANTINE XX TO KEEP THlS POSTER SIX FEET AWAY FROM OTHER POSTERS

[Seanette]

I love you too, Kit. (air hug)

[Kit-Ginevra]

(air hug)

(also air bra removal)

[Seanette]

Hey now. I'm married.

[csquared]

Seanette, you should start the CV-19 check in thread. Keep us posted on how you are doing.

Take care of yourself & DH.

[EricKei]

Pff. As if that would stop Kit

As for museums -- Many are opening their collections for free viewing online. Also, concerts (such as the Dropkick Murphys' St Patrick's Day one) are available for free, legal streaming online. Also, libraries (such as NYC) offering free virtual book checkouts. Even Disney is getting on on some online variation of the Disneyworld experience.

[Smapti]

They've had toilet paper every time I've gone there.

Sounds like your location isn't as busy as the one I work at - we opened at 9 yesterday, and by the time I came in for my shift at noon the TP was already long gone and the paper aisle was down to 50-cent single rolls of Store-brand paper towels, with a limit of 1 per household. We're having to impose more quantity limits on products since we're running bare on ramen and all variety of canned foods, but for now we've got plenty of meat, produce, bread, milk, and eggs. It was actually kind of peaceful in the Store today - keeping the line outside means the business is more spread out throughout the day so we're not getting overwhelmed and we actually have time to get things done.

The local grocery union has announced a deal with several of our competitors that they're going to be paying all employees an extra $2/hour in "appreciation pay" on top of their regular wage for hours worked during the shutdown period. The Store is not union (since we're employee-owned and that makes us ineligible), but we have a contract that guarantees us pay and benefits equivalent to or better than our union counterparts, so we're fully expecting that the corporate office will announce something similar in the next few days.

[Android Kaeli]

Take care of yourself and your husband.


Yesterday the Grocery Store actually had toilet paper on the shelves when I went into work at 2pm. Granted it was only the six count but we still had some, the store manager highly advised I grab two packages and hide them in my department so they could be bought.

[TheWolfEmperor]

We're closing at 8:30 now. There have been announcements for a few days and there are clearly printed signs at the doors.

I still had a customer who acted surprised when I told him that the store was closing in five minutes.

"You guys are getting ridiculous about this," he said.
"I'm sorry sir," I said. "But the signs were posted." I also could have pointed out the various announcements our front end people had made on the overhead but I had stuff to do.

As usual I heard the excuse, "Well we didn't see that."

[notalwaysright]

Sounds like your location isn't as busy as the one I work at - we opened at 9 yesterday, and by the time I came in for my shift at noon the TP was already long gone

Ours opens at 7 AM now, and full disclosure, I haven't been there later than 9 AM, so I suppose it would get cleared out soon enough. They were staying open until midnight but I see it's 10 PM now. I think there's more cases (thus more panic buying) where you are, we are at 10 cases in my county. And less traffic across the border probably means all stores are less busy. After tonight NO traffic, at least shoppers. The people in the store were being normal, but I don't go right when they open, I've heard the first people make dashes for things Black Friday style.

[MadMike]

My wife's job started having people work from home last Thursday. Unlike my job, they've never done this before, so they weren't very well prepared. They didn't have enough laptops for everyone, so she got to drag home some bulky setup, which we put up on the kitchen table. No wireless capability, so I had to get a 50-foot ethernet cord and extend it from the router. She usually gives the cats their wet food when she gets home, so now that she's home all the time, they sit there and stare at her while she works.

So far, my job is still planning to resume normal operations on Tuesday but that could change.

More and more businesses are choosing to shut down, even if they're allowed to be open. There's talk about imposing fines on ones that are supposed to be shutting down but aren't.

We went out grocery shopping earlier today. We were OK on paper products, but running low on meat. The meat section has been pretty wiped out, as well as the paper products, so I figured we had a better chance of finding what we needed if we went early. Most of the stores are open 24/7, but a lot of them have been closing overnight so they could clean and stock. A lot of them open opening at 6 a.m. now and just letting in people 60 and older for the first hour. As much as I hated getting up early on a Saturday, we arrived there just before 8. I was able to get most of the meat I wanted, although some of it was in larger quantities than I wanted. Canned good were mostly wiped out. I'm OK on paper products for now, which is good because that area was completely wiped out except for one sad looking pack of paper towels.

I took a nice long nap when I got home. I needed it. I was tired, cranky, and hungry, and people were getting on my nerves even more than usual.

[Dreamstalker]

I'm scheduled for Monday. I'm tempted to text my manager and ask about it, but mom is willing to drive me in so I may as well just show up and see what they say (she'll wait outside so if they do send me home I won't have to take the subway; if I do work I'm out early enough so I can walk home).