How was everyone dealing with this virus scare?

jode hillman

jode hillman

Well-known member
I figured Id reach out to the brain trust here. Since I know, respect, and trust many of you.

In New Jersey all of our schools are closed. Indefinitely. Bars restaurants and shopping malls are also closed. We have an 8 PM curfew for travel. The National Guard is on standby. Grocery store shelves are bare of many paper goods, and cleaning products. Or liquor stores are closed.

Assemblies of 50 or more people are banned.

For the most part Im as prepared as one can be. My family and I killed 11 deer last year, and although we gave some meat away we have a fair amount left. I have all the cold season vegetables already in the ground and starting to get sprouts. I have gasoline on hand at least for a week or two.

It seems half the population is taking this very seriously, and the other half is living their life without a care in the world. My friend lives a stones throw from the Ocean City New Jersey boardwalk, and he said yesterday it looks like the Fourth of July. Crowded, people off from work taking a day out of the beach.

Im not overly concerned, as I am pretty much a hermit anyway working out of my barn. But my kids and wife are getting a little bit stir crazy. And this is just a start.

Im not looking for political opinions or rants, just what it?s like in your neck of the woods and any preparedness suggestions you may have.
 
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Jode, I am glad that you brought this up. I am sure we all have a pointe of view on what is going on.
To start things out we have similar restrictions like you have. I live in Michigan. We have 10 million people that live
in our beautiful State with 54 confirmed cases. Is it as bad as the media says it is? I think when the smoke clears we will
be able to sort things out but in the mean time we have to deal with what is going on a day to day bases. How is the hoarding
as price gouging being handled in your State?

Tom
 
Very interesting times here... Gus is off school and distance learning without a clear end and we are working from home without a clear end.

We are always pretty stocked up here, but we did make a trip this week in anticipation of worse times ahead. The worst area in NY is right across the border from us and we have the most cases of any county in CT. When we went out yesterday to pick up supplies things were fairly well stocked, but there were things missing.

Gus and I went to the shooting range today to burn some ammo (social distancing of course). Pretty much a perfect day, which made it kind os surreal.

We are stocked, have plenty of asswipe, got liquor and wine stocked before they close our stores...

i hope folks are well.
 
I work in a Gov building and they are trying to get around some contractual issues to let everyone work from home. I hope this is my last week there until everything levels out. Michelle is working but probably won't much longer as the hospital is going to stop all surgeries except emergency ones. Thomas is home from Auburn as they have transitioned all classes to email and online. Caroline is home from public high school for the foreseeable future. Andrew is the only one whose school (Calhoun Community College) hasn't sent students home. Hopefully they will soon.

I really hope people stay out of public except for food shopping and necessities. It's not a matter of panic, hysteria, or media hype, as many have suggested. It all comes down to taking precautions to slow the infection rate to that of one our medical system can handle. I think there is some pretty good info now circulating that describes the exponential growth of this virus. The link below puts the math behind this in layman's terms and does an excellent job IMHO. I'm familiar with the math models (have studied logistic regression in the past) being used to describe the spread and they aren't kidding when they say it goes from just a few to almost everyone in a short time, especially if people don't act with prudence. If you haven't seen the video or one like it please watch and become more informed to the growth process. Discuss it with family and friends and try to persuade people to stay home and out of the public as much as possible.

Eric

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgBla7RepXU
 
Eric, Well stated. I took some time to inform myself and the reality of the situation is best dealt with in the early stages. Hopefully all your chicks will be home in the nest soon!
 
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thomas wilkins said:
Jode, I am glad that you brought this up. I am sure we all have a pointe of view on what is going on.
To start things out we have similar restrictions like you have. I live in Michigan. We have 10 million people that live
in our beautiful State with 54 confirmed cases. Is it as bad as the media says it is? I think when the smoke clears we will
be able to sort things out but in the mean time we have to deal with what is going on a day to day bases. How is the hoarding
as price gouging being handled in your State?

Tom
Click to expand...

We have 400 odd cases mostly in north jersey near NY. But a few down my way. Price gouging hasn?t been to bad, but they are up. A $30 dog food was up to $37 at tractor supply.

Most panic buy items are gone. But hopefully will be restock soon
 
As far as my own personal situation, retirement has it's benefits. No need to worry about going into work which also means don't burn much fuel in the vehicles. Restaurants and schools are closed here but again not much affect to me. My wife is an author and has a usually busy schedule of speaking engagements. These have for the most part, been canceled for the foreseeable future.
I've been fishing solo locally on the river so doing my part to distance myself from others. [;)] I did have a dental appointment for a filling and a crown which occurred on schedule. I have a surgery scheduled for March 26th which may or may not happen, no word that it won't, yet.

I've stayed away from my grandkids and the rest of my family. (except my wife [pirate], course she doesn't go fishing with me so I guess you can say I keep my distance from her as well)

I really feel for the business which have been forced to close and/or reduce hours and services. Lost income will become a major problem the longer this goes on. Take out is allowed for the restaurants around here and I plan to order a few meals that I probably wouldn't otherwise.
 
We?ve had bigger concerns- 2 weeks ago an EF4 tornado ripped through my town at 2 am, killing 19 so far with several still in the hospital. We knew several of those that died and many more that lost everything. 147 homes were destroyed and 700+ buildings were damaged. The vortex missed us by a couple hundred yards but we still had some damage from an errant roof. My new hobby is cussing at insurance and weather men- the roofers and carpenters can?t tear into mine with the constant threat of rain. I did take time out today for a father/son fishing trip. It was a refreshing few hours away from the cares of reality.
 
Here in Spokane(Eastern WA State) we?ve been laying low. Retired like Dave so we can easily stay home. Our medical appointments in the near future have been rescheduled for later this summer by our providers. We keep a supply of essentials on hand as I was raised that way...raised a county boy. Being older and apparently at risk I?ve looked back on the last 2 weeks to see how many people I?ve been in close contact with. It?s amazing the numbers...like 12-15 easily. When you figure the number of people each of them have been in close contact it?s amazing. Anyway, I canceled my two fishing trips with the two old guys I normally fish with this week. My wife and I have only been to groceries and pharmacies in the last week except for a daily coffee clutch which was canceled 5 days ago. Trying to minimize our contacts. Local grocery stores are mostly out of the items all the hoarders ran for. Today both stores we stoped at were out of most bread products also ??

We are getting out tomorrow for a day trip. Driving about 100 miles north and trying some spring shore fishing for walleyes. Just hope the water levels are low enough for the secret spot I have in mind.
 
haven't taken up eating our neighbors yet, so I guess all is still reasonably good. Staying busy in the shop and keeping the lab busy. Damn library is closed, so I cannot even get a book out. Fortunately, there are enough that a buddy gave me.
Still on hold with the Argentina trip-Staying optimistic, but with the airport shut to U S flights, looks like I will be working on a refund from American. Booked in Feb. for june. So much for efficiency.
Hard to find T P in these parts. Cannot figure out why folks went on a rampage, denuding shelves of it, unless they think becoming a zombie also causes the schiffs!
Keep on keepin' on, gang!
 
We're well stocked with the essentials at home, but need to make a booze run. As Barney of Simpson's fame once observed, "Nothing like a depressant to chase those blues away".[;)]

I can't decide what to do at my office, stay open or send everybody home. Some work can be done remotely but our AutoCad programs are server based and can't be loaded onto individual computers. Operated over the internet there is a frustrating fraction of a second lag when constructing figures and linework. From clients perspective there are several projects with purchase/sale deadlines approaching, we need to finish in time. Some have suggested that the deadlines will be extended, until I see it in writing I can't risk screwing up someones seven-figure deal. There's lots of open space in the office, everyone has a cubicle or office. It's a really tough choice, somebody on the news said small businesses can afford to pay their employees for "only a few" pay periods if they close. Not sure which small business these fools run but it won't be a "few" here. Anyway, I suspect the state or feds will make the decision for me in the next couple of days. If they do the wife and I may head north to Maine, there's still ice to fish on and it doesn't get much more isolated than that on the east coast.

As far as the disease's progression, I have a cousin who works for the WHO. He's based in Europe, out of a dozen associates 5 of them had it as of Monday. All in their 40's-50's, three asymptomatic, one flu-like and one in intensive care. He says their models predict 60-80% infection in all developed countries in 12 months, as others have mentioned the current effort is to slow the rate of infection to avoid overwhelming hospitals. What is encouraging is that a high percentage of infections are asymptomatic or manageable at home. The other cases are pretty grim.
 
Our office gave us the option to work from home, out of ~120, there are only about 15 of us coming into work. That's pretty good social distancing.
My son is on his way home from college, virtual class until the end of the semester. Hope he can find a job to earn money from next school year. We just went from a booming economy for kids his age looking for temp work to restaurants, them parks, etc.., doing mass layoffs. But grocery stores and delivery services are adding people, so who knows?
All K-12 FL schools are now eLearning for the rest of the year, so our daughter will also be taking classes from home.
My wife already works from home.
So, its going to get crowded and stir-crazy if all 4 of us work from home, so I plan to come to the office until they force me not to.

Anyone have recommendation for good inexpensive WiFi range extenders? Might need two of them to get some better social distancing inside the house!

My wife, who is a medical professional, saw this coming and stocked up on hand sanitizer, TP, gloves, masks, canned and dry goods about a month ago.
We kinda made fun of her for it back then. I apologized Monday for giving her shit about it. She has us in a good spot.
We aren't going out except to the local beach (not a tourist beach, low to no crowds) and to the grocery store.

Lets all hope we can "flatten the curve" and not end up like Iran & Italy. Things there are pretty tragic.
From all I am reading, many or most young people/healthy people may be asymptomatic. That means the more we test, the more we are going to realize how far spread it already is.
Hopefully the vaccine trials that got underway this week will proceed quickly and this will become an annual vaccine like the flu shot we get each year.
But between now & when a vaccine is developed and in widespread use, we may see a lot of mortality in older & immuno-compromised populations. Tragic.
 
We were out to Costco last week doing our normal trip. While we had been closely following COVID-19, we had not caught on to the hoarding angle that was just beginning. We had toilet paper on the list and the supply in the store was really low and our regular kind was out. We were both like WTF? and it hit us that it was the beginning sign of hoarding. I wish that we had thought about it a little more while the hard to get supplies were stocked in store, but we didn't. The only other sign I noticed was a limit on 50 pound bags of rice. We went this week mainly to top off fresh produce and get dog food and the stock in the store of the hoarding type stuff were really limited (but they did have TP). Anyway, we got all stocked.

Our town got an OK from the state to go to distance/online learning, so Gus' school will probably be out until after summer break. Work is out for 2 weeks officially, but I don't think we are going back and we will be out until after summer break. I'm recording lectures and putting them online and while I'm a pretty darn good lecturer, the quality of the instruction is not the same as face-to-face. There are work challenges like you basically can't give an exam online, and if your course is exam-based, how to you deal with that, BUT that is minor compared to people with real problems.

We have a big trip planned this summer that requires crossing the border into Canada, and the borders are closed now to that travel. I'm hoping they get opened again by June, but recognize that it may be in society's best interest to keep the borders closed as long as possible.

I hope that everyone takes the social distancing seriously and keeps the hospitals below capacity so that those most in need can get the care they need.
 
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Well, I gotta say that coming into work and leaving work the traffic is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much less. So just on that front, less stress every morning when I head to work. And I am really fortunate to work for the government in what is considered an essential position so I will have work and a pay check to look forward to, unlike many little places around me.

As Carl said, all public schools have gone digital for the rest of the year (why traffic is so nice) but that really doesn't affect me since I don't have kids. All of the bars are closed for 30 days (really tough for a college town) and restaurants right now are allowed only 50% capacity. There have already been posts from some local restaurants that if they close from this, they won't be opening back up. Lots of people will be hurting I am sure since this is a state workers town and college town. Everything else pretty much supports those two functions.

TP is gone of course (I don't get that), meat and milk are scarce (I have meats of many varieties in the freezer and I don't like milk), but there seems to be plenty of canned goods and produce so far. I am working on getting my garden up and running for the season. The tough part is finding a place that gets enough sun but is also less likely to be visited by deer. My neighbors give me 18 eggs at a time and those tend to last a while. Turkey season starts this weekend so hopefully I will be lucky this year and get my turkeys. I may begin fishing more with the idea that I'll be keeping fish instead of throwing them back.

So far, people have been fairly reasonable but I have been staying away from stores as much as possible.

I don't see my job sending us home unless things got really, really bad here since people are still shooting each other. Overall I feel pretty secure in what I have right now.

I am far more worried about what my mom will do if this goes on a long time. And I am far more worried about her catching the virus than she is since she is in the danger group. Only time will tell how this all shakes out for her.

Dani
 
In WNY we have the same restrictions as all of NY
Not as many positive COVID-19 cases as down state, border with Canada is closed
We have plenty of game in the freezer, stores open and have most things in stock, hit or miss on TP milk eggs meats.
All of the work I had on the calendar has been cancelled.
Jennifer works in the OR at one of the hospitals she does material management, quite a difficult job right now. When it all started she doubled up on some things so they do have some inventory, but it?s going quickly.
So I?ve been home with the new puppy(Parker)




View attachment A63DA517-03A1-4FA5-B725-E782D9E71AE1.jpeg
I?m keeping busy doing projects around the house and hopefully it warms up enough to get back to the decoy carving
 
Dani said:
I don't see my job sending us home unless things got really, really bad here since people are still shooting each other.

Dani
Click to expand...

Dani,
My son-in-law is Chief Deputy Sheriff for the local county. I haven't talked with him yet, but wondered in my own mind, just how soon we will see an uptick in burglaries, at all these closed bars and restaurants.
 
Retired here also. Thank goodness for shop projects!

Maryland currently has 85 cases. All but one on the other side of the Bay. Only one here on the Eastern Shore. It's probably unrealistic to expect the situation to remain that way, but I must admit a feeling of relief that we live in a more rural area.
 
Here in Maine, closings include schools, bars, private clubs, churches, restaurants are take out only, my bank is drive through only (with other bank business by appointment). I work in long-term healthcare as a Food Service Director, everybody there is doing well, stress levels have risen with co-workers, personal protection supplies are getting tougher to get and we have gone to a locked building situation, limiting access to medical members only and family medical emergency. Everyone who enters the building each day is checked for a temperature of 100.4 or greater. State recommendations are no gatherings larger than 10 people.

On a plus note, we were in Rangeley last weekend, the dogs ran well and Terrie killed her second rabbit ever, so even with social distancing being in place, we are doing well and still living our lives. And Pearl is doing great too.

The rabbit was quickly turned into rabbit stew with corn bread topping.



View attachment terrie second rabbit.jpgView attachment beagles.jpgView attachment rabbit stew.jpgView attachment rabbit stew 2.jpgView attachment rabbit stew3.jpg
 
Things are changing by the minute in South Florida. Every day a new line of business is told to close.I am moving my computer from my insurance office to home this evening. Last night we had a meeting with our son, his fiance and her parents about their May 2nd wedding.We all feel like there is not even one chance in a million that it will go as planned so there are now contingency plans that have back up contingency plans. They will still be married on May 2nd but with all this uncertainty we just have no idea how it is going to look. It will probably end up being outside under the trees with local family. Planning is so important but there is no book on this. I do lean heavily on a book that says "Though He slay me, yet will I put my hope in Him".

After hurricane Wilma in 2015 we were without power for 11 days.The man across the street was a district manager for Burger King so he would raid a store every day for their supplies and for 4 days I would grill for 2 hours and we would feed the 25 families on our block every. Whoppers and chicken sandwiches never tasted so good. What I learned from that is how few people have any kind of disaster plan. I don't imagine that people have changed in the last 15 years so now my attention turns to how to help those that have not planned. With a hurricane the disaster is so localized that we know help is soon coming from somewhere near by. Now it is like a hurricane hit the whole country. This is a game changer and I Pray to God that our family is up to the challenges coming our way.

Now I am heading the grocery store next to my office to see if they have re-stocked the bananas. I am missing my Banana/Blueberry smoothie in the mornings. Something I like most mornings that I never expected to become a luxury.
 
Also...I am a catch and release bass fisherman. After my wife and I tossed back a dozen last Saturday afternoon my wife informed me that it is time to sharpen my fillet knife and bring it with us.
 
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