How is Coronavirus impacting you

[TGW]

I am fortunate in that nobody I know personally has died from Coronavirus.

But that is one of the few benefits of not being well known or well liked, or keeping in contact with people you used to know.

My girlfriend unfortunately has already lost 2 dear old friends of hers to the disease.

Easy to shrug that off and say “oh well, it’s just two people out of millions.”

Two people who meant a lot to her, and I’m guessing to many other people as well.

I watched part of the livestream for one of their funeral services. It was about 3 hours long. So many people got up to talk about her, and how great she was, how much everyone loved her, what an impact she had made on their lives. So many tear-filled, impassioned speeches.

I unfortunately never met this woman. But she was clearly beloved by many, and taken far too soon, by something that probably could have been prevented.

[princess1]

I’m looking forward to the day when this thread closes due to lack of interest and hope it’s never revived in my lifetime!

[Natural-Lite]

Fingers crossed that we can move forward at the 1 year anniversary of the thread.

[jahjah]

Had it, no severe or even moderate symptoms. Worked couple of times in ICUs and all i can say is wear those masks and gloves at least those are not expensive.

General impact on my life can be felt in almost all areas, still personally nothing serious to complain about. Some effects are kind of positive, spending more time with my family and more time in nature as far as possible from other ppl. Just try to make best out of this.

[Elpis]

All my proud about coronavirus management has been recently wiped away to replace it with the old good half-assed italian administration we saw for all the things.
And that sense of unification we had on the first lockdown is now a far away memory.

For once we did good. FOR ONCE.

We had to screw that because… why not?
Yay, good job folks.

[TGW]

Don’t feel too bad, it’s way more screwed up in the U.S.

Every state here is handling it differently. Some are mandating control measures, others are just letting people do whatever. And all the while, people are travelling between states with no restrictions. They’re supposed to quarantine when going to a new state, but it’s not strictly enforced. It’s almost like it has just become a “suggestion” that hardly anybody follows, because they know that nobody is going to force them to.

EDIT: for example… in my county, currently, it is supposed to be mandated that everyone wear a mask in public. Most stores have signs posted that all customers and employees must wear masks and stay 6 feet apart.

Only about half the people are wearing masks. Sometimes even the employees aren’t even wearing them. Practically everyone is ignoring the divider lines they put on the floors that are supposed to keep people 6 feet apart, even those who are wearing the masks.

Then you have those who go all week social distancing, wearing their masks, then they decide on the weekend to go to a big get-together with friends and family with 50+ people in a small area, half of them not wearing masks, hugging and shaking hands with those they haven’t seen in a long time. I guess they just assume that all of the other 50+ people there are uninfected? They even rationalize it to themselves.

“Oh come on, that’s my cousin! My cousin doesn’t have Coronavirus.”

How do you know that?

“Well they weren’t coughing or anything, and I’m pretty sure they wear a mask most of the time.”

[Justuslebeau]

Dont forget “we´re rounding the corner”, “It will magically disappear one day”…but yet 71.000.000 people…

[littleKAF]

Please keep the conversation on topic, which is how is coronavirus impacting you. Note there are many locations and opinions represented here on the forum.

[Rook]

Party houses defying COVID-19 orders may have utilities shut off, mayor says

I am gobsmacked.

1. that people are foolish enough to gather like this
2. that the threat to shut off WATER (necessary for life) is made.

(Supposedly this declaration is not made only against party mansions…I am looking for evidence beyond the initial 13 parties.)

EDIT: From another side:

L.A. Mayor Garcetti can't turn off people's utilities for skirting COVID rules

[Silencio]

I live in a small town, so the risk to get the virus is really low. However, I gotta be very cautious as I have relatives that have delicate health.

What else? I’m unemployed at the moment since the restaurant in which I work is temporary closed (like the majority of the restaurants in Spain), so a lot of free time to study and play E&P.

Hope this situation will end soon, but I don’t think so.

Take care everybody.

[TGW]

The virus is absolutely affecting me. It has been since it first reared its ugly head. It is running rampant in the area I live, so much so that I am afraid to go out to work.

I had saved up money for years in the hopes of buying a house. That is no longer an option, as I am now living on that money. And it is looking like I very well might run out of money before a vaccine is widely available.

I heard this morning that one American is dying from the virus every minute.

When it first showed up in my state back in March, 3 people were confirmed to have the virus.

A month or two later, 1000 new cases were popping up in my state alone every day.

Yesterday, we had over 6000 new cases confirmed in my state alone. And that’s in ONE day. Not including the thousands of others who are already / still infected.

Just because I’m not currently dying from it personally does not mean that it isn’t affecting me, my life, and the lives of others I care about. It has completely wrecked my financial situation. It has taken the lives of people my girlfriend and her friends and family cared about. It has left me homebound and afraid to try to carry on “life as usual”.

I am paying extra for everything I buy to have it delivered to me. Many of the items I usually buy are regularly out of stock. When I am forced to venture out myself, I have to scrub up and dress beforehand as if I’m about to perform surgery, then come home and decontaminate myself as if I had just ventured into the heart of Chernobyl.

One of my cousins was recently diagnosed with cancer. She has been going through chemotherapy and such to try to save her life. She was recently having pains and difficulties, went to the local hospital… the emergency room was so packed full that all new patients were required to check in to a tent that had been set up in the parking lot. My aunt went up to talk to one of the doctors, and explained my cousin’s situation, asking if there was a way to have her rushed in through an alternate entrance. The doctor told her, “no, do not bring your daughter in here. At least 2/3 people in this tent are confirmed infected with COVID. If she comes anywhere near here, she is almost guaranteed to catch it. Given her condition, the best thing you could do for her health is to take her home and just hope for the best.”

Many of our hospitals and medical centers are already in triage stage. They are literally having to knowingly let some people die (even those who could potentially be saved on a normal day) because they don’t have enough resources to save everyone.

[Rook]

I saw this today:

That’s a lot of people. But not Spanish Flu* “lot”. I compare the two frequently to remind myself that yeah this is awful and it sucks, but thank God it is not soooo much worse, and it could have been.

---

*Spanish Flu infected an estimated 500 million people and killed 50 million of them.

[Elpis]

On reverse, i think spanish flu is a good example of how this pandemic COULD be evolved.
Back then there was no masks, no lockdown (but not a strong globalization tho) and not advanced medical resources.

Without all of these, it’s easy to see this pandemic resemble very much the spanish flu.

This kind of thing (sadly) are cyclical.
We will have for sure again something like this in the future.
It’s not speculation, it’s guaranteed.

I hope when that time will come, we will be even more evolved and prepared to lower even more numbers of death and infected.

This kind of things don’t change.
WE change.

[TGW]

You also have to keep in mind, that back in the day of previous pandemics (Spanish Flu, Bubonic Plague, etc.)…

Medical science was absolute back then. There were no vaccines. No sanitary wipes. Plumbing systems themselves were either sketchy or completely nonexistent. One of the biggest reasons that diseases were so rampant back then is because people were literally dumping their in the streets. Yes literally literally.

You’d go to a hospital back then, and their solution was to put leeches on your body, and give you a cup of opium tea to take away the pain.

They had absolutely no idea how to treat any disease back then. Now? They have a somewhat better idea of what they’re doing. But still not 100%. Still a bit of trial and error, and a whole lot of misinformation.

EDIT:

Also important to note… in spite of how far medical science has come, they still occasionally have to resort to “old timey” remedies.

Some hospitals still use leeches as a legitimate medical treatment.

And patients experiencing severe fevers are still put into cold baths of ice water.

Extremely primitive treatments. But the human body is incredibly complex, and even the most advanced modern medical science has yet to fully understand how all of it works, so sometimes they are forced to resort to very old fashioned tried-and-true methods.

I do believe that maybe one day, medical science will figure out a way to “fix” most medical issues and allow people to live for very long periods of time.

But I don’t think that is going to happen anytime soon. Probably not in my lifetime, anyway.

[Pike]

Unfortunately there was some kind of globalization. With the world war. That’s how it probably spread.

[Rook]

@Elpis

Back then there was no masks,

Actually not true. They had masks and anti-masking leagues. It was an interesting time.

Here’s a Timeline from the CDC if you are interested:

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-commemoration/pandemic-timeline-1918.htm

I will say we seem to have more mask choices for Covid-19 in 2020…

[princess1]

It just feels out of control right now. Sadly it’s going to get worse before it gets better. The whole purpose of the masks, social distancing, hand washing and lockdowns was to protect our hospitals and health care workers.

In North America we’ve failed miserably.

[TGW]

My state is on the verge of going into full lockdown again soon.

Business leaders are obviously upset, because they and many of their employees could end up losing their livelihoods, possibly permanently.

But what is the alternative? Allow people to continue to spread it?

The businesses point out that there is no direct evidence proving that they are responsible for the spread. And they’re 100% correct. At least many businesses are at least trying to enforce mask wearing and social distancing in their establishments. Likely most of the spread is happening in private gatherings. And it’s very hard to stop those from happening.

Even in a full lockdown… the police are supposed to break up large gatherings, but what if they don’t even know a large gathering is going on? Or let’s say they allow smaller gatherings… a few people get sick at one small gathering, then go to other small gatherings… eventually the same result.

Currently it looks like there are only 3 ways to completely stop the spread:

1 - Everybody takes personal responsibility by wearing masks, social distancing, and voluntarily quarantining themselves if they think they’re infected (not likely to happen)

2 - The government does a full blown crackdown, patrolling the streets and arresting anyone who doesn’t have a legitimate reason to be out and about (not likely to happen)

3 - We sit and wait for a vaccine to be widely available

[Silencio]

@TGW completely understand you.

Here it happens the same. All the restaurants and big malls are closed since mid October and we will have to wait 10 days more.

I work(ed) in a restaurant and it seems that we are the guilty. Not any proof.
People can’t be on the street beyond 10.00 in the evening and it’s forbidden any kind of gathering over 6 people. However, not everybody accomplished these rules. They try to meet and organize illegal parties. What happens next? They got infected.

It’s supposed to be a matter of all of us, but some people don’t remember that.

[TGW]

Yep! They decided to close all the bars and restaurants here at 10 p.m. to try to limit the spread.

Of course, when you have people who are used to staying out past 10 p.m., they simply go to each other’s houses to continue the party. And nobody is wearing masks there.

My neighbors have been regularly hosting large parties of a dozen or more people, in small apartments. Not only is this far more dangerous to them, being in such close quarters with no protection, but it’s also far more annoying to the local residents who have to put up with their loud music and fights that spill out into the parking lot.

I say send them back to the bars, let them get sick there. At least that way, my neighborhood stays quiet, people get to keep their jobs, and the police only have to keep an eye on those establishments, rather than being called out to every corner of the city at all hours of the night.