|
Thanks again to people taking the time to share. Imo it is super interesting to hear people from various US states and cities checking in; stuff sounds pretty wild, and at least for me, it is easy to forget how massive the US is and how varied it is, when thinking of it as "just one country", so def super interesting to hear of different US perspectives. Def super interesting to hear of Iceland, England and elsewhere, as well, and not least from the healthcare professional checking in  If anyone checking in has relatives or friends in retirement/nursing homes, and are aware of what restrictions have been implemented, such as on visitation, then that's for sure something I'd be interested in hearing of how is being done locally.
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2020 09:29
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 17:19 |
|
|
Geisladisk posted:Right now we have basically no cases, and everything is back to normal - which kind of terrifies me, since that makes us ripe for a second wave.  Oh hey I hate being proven right. The graph shows new cases per day in blue with markings on the left, deaths in black on markings on the right. Keep in mind that although these numbers are low in absolute terms, for a population of 300k it is pretty bad. We beat our first wave and had basically no cases over the summer, which was awesome. Then, in an effort to keep the tourism industry alive, the government allowed tourists into the country, with the stipulation that they get tested at the border. This was in spite of warnings from scientists that this would inevitably lead to new infections coming in, as a newly infected person tests negative for a period up to a few days after the initial infection. That is when we start seeing cases trickle in again. This was, in my view, moronic, because the tourism industry was dead on it's feet anyway - Very few people are traveling during a pandemic. Then, restrictions were changed to allow people in, but they would be tested on arrival, required to quarantine for 7 days, and then tested again, and if they are clear, they can come in. This worked out well, until two tourists came in, tested positive - And then broke quarantine - Despite having symptoms! - And hit the bars in downtown Reykjavík. They managed to infect around a hundred people in one weekend, single handedly kickstarting a second wave. The blame doesn't lie exclusively with them, because the only reason they managed to infect so many is that a lot of people had gotten extremely careless (hence the reason people were going to bars in the first place..), and almost every bar in the city wasn't following the safety protocols required of them. So we're basically in the same situation we had back in March. This time around it is a little easier, because experience has shown that young children seem to rarely get infected, and when they do, they don't seem to go on and infect others - There hasn't been a single case of a person under the age of 10 infecting another person, at least in this country. So kindergartens are open, albeit with safety precautions such as splitting the kids and staff into segregated groups that aren't allowed to interact. So at least we aren't juggling trying to work at home and taking care of our daughter, also at home. This may be a unpopular opinion, but I just got to get this off my chest: Covid sucks.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2020 11:14
|
|
|
Yeah, this is a thing that you can expect if your country gets things under control. NZ is just getting over it's second outbreak - touch wood, the last internal restrictions will get lifted next week - but we've regularly had people escaping from quarantine, private security guards turned out to be useless and got replaced by defence personnel. The most recent guy did the bedsheet escape! NZ has had 55,000 people come in during the pandemic and 9 escape incidents. My big takeaway from this most recent outbreak is that it isn't really practical to have a perfect quarantine system, but even an imperfect setup has value because it can give you long virus free periods. The tail end period also tends to really loving drag as well, having to decide what precautions you do when there are just a couple of cases trickling in from areas far away from you is a pain, I try an err on the side of caution but mostly I just stay home except for very small events because it's easier on my mind than being the one guy that loses the lottery and causes another cluster because of peer pressure. Jaguars! fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Sep 30, 2020 |
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2020 06:06
|
|
|
FWIW this is not really that useful. I've had my share of contamination demonstrations, and this is a great way to make a mess. Either glove up before or wash up after. That said, the fomite route currently seems far less concerning than the hazard of just spending time indoors with people.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2020 06:27
|
|
|
Idiot Doom Spiral posted:FWIW this is not really that useful. I've had my share of contamination demonstrations, and this is a great way to make a mess. Either glove up before or wash up after. It's not perfect and plenty of people just use their hands on the thing anyway but it's one less surface I touch while I'm at work. I appreciate it because I have a few dumbshit boomer co-workers who I really hate sharing any kind of space with. I'm still sanitizing regularly but it's still a building with 3-400 people in it every day so I'll take any help I can get. We already have enough students sick or quarantined that we're running some of our classes online so someone important is going to get it at some point and then we can finally start the next round distance learning. I feel a lot like the guy in the joke who is camping with his friend when they hear a bear trying to get into their tent. The guy starts putting on running shoes and his friend says "what are you doing, you can't outrun a bear" and dude says "I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you".
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2020 14:41
|
|
|
I thought I posted ITT back in the first wave but we're back in lockdown woohoo! So basically there were like two months when everyone pretended that the virus is gone, even though we just slowed the spread significantly with the first lockdown. Our offices were open at 30% capacity during this though in practice there were only a couple of people on each floor. I've been there a total of 5 times maybe before they closed them back down so I'm now back at home spending 16 hours a day in front of the computer  These aren't the worst problems of course but it completely destroyed what little social interaction I used to get at work and outside. Restaurants and bars aren't completely closed (yet) but everyone cut down on hanging out so I rarely see my friends f2f.
|
|
#
?
Oct 3, 2020 16:46
|
|
|
Yeah we're back into lockdown too. We had August and then the first week of September, and then we got sent back home. My boss has arranged for a voluntary morning check-in, where you can get like 3 minutes of chat and a 'good morning', so you get at least some contact. We also have a voluntary "friday bar" chat which provides 2-20 minutes of chatting. It's like an oasis of socialization. When we were back at the offices I got my social needs for the day fulfilled just by idle chitchat during the day, but now even I am feeling the lack. I live alone, so I get see people when I'm a) buying groceries (using plastic one-time gloves) b) buying takeout (with a facemask, these last few weeks) c) going for a walk by the lakeside (where there's room enough to keep 2 m of distance) d) looking out the window, maybe, if someone's passing by (there's this kindergarten that used to annoy me with their noise, but now it makes me smile) If I had anything resembling a normal social drive, I'd be cracking up by now.
|
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2020 05:12
|
|
|
Caustic Soda posted:If I had anything resembling a normal social drive, I'd be cracking up by now.
|
|
#
?
Oct 5, 2020 21:20
|
|
|
Thought I'd give a very atypical perspective. My daily life has not changed at all. I go to work. I buy things to eat. I pay rent. That is all. Even though I live in a super lockdown place (Melbourne, Australia) nothing has changed for me, personally. Because my work is an essential service, and I walk there. And I never went shopping more than once per day so that restriction hasn't hurt either. Ok, now that I think about it, I did enjoy my midnight walks along the St Kilda beach, which I can't do anymore. Well theoretically I can because I've never even seen a cop around, but I shouldn't. Also, I get masks from work, and because the drat straps pull on my ears I convert them to round-the-head straps like the good masks we used to have before...you know. If anything, lots of things are better. The fucktards around the back of my apartment can't have all-night parties anymore when I have an early Saturday shift (seriously thinking of stink-bombing them with mercaptoethanol next time they start up).
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2020 16:55
|
|
|
IronClaymore posted:Ok, now that I think about it, I did enjoy my midnight walks along the St Kilda beach, which I can't do anymore. Well theoretically I can because I've never even seen a cop around, but I shouldn't. what is wrong with walking along a beach at night? as long as you dont get close to anyone else its a perfectly safe activity
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2020 17:20
|
|
|
Earwicker posted:what is wrong with walking along a beach at night? as long as you dont get close to anyone else its a perfectly safe activity We have a curfew in Melbourne. I'm allowed to be out at night only if I have a signed permit from my work saying that I'm an essential worker going to or from work.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2020 17:33
|
|
|
IronClaymore posted:And I never went shopping more than once per day so that restriction hasn't hurt either. Wait, there are enough people that regularly go shopping multiple times per day that they had to make a rule about it?
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2020 23:35
|
|
|
Our government has a testing program going, which aims to test around ½ a million Danes out of a total of 5.8 million. They're sending letters to around 1 million people, and the first half who say yes then get sent a testing kit. I am one of them. The letter includes a detailed description of the kit, and how to use it. It seemed fairly foolproof. Naturally, I managed to screw it up, and only got a partial result. The letter also has a link to a survey for the results, notes that even failed tests are of interest, and adds that they don't have replacement kits to send. So I filled out the survey anyway. The kit itself is fairly simple, and contains a copy of the letter + instructions. You can see a kit in action by following this link https://www.vitesterdanmark.dk/, scrolling down and clicking the button labeled 'sådan tester du' on the left, then click on the video labeled 'Sådan laver du testen'. It's 3m18s long. It's in Danish, but you should get the gist of it anyway. It's hard for me to explain in words, but I'll try. The test is an antibody test, with two test kits sent. Using the equipment involved, you prick a finger, suck up the blood with some sort of vacuum glass tube, and the put the blood on the antibody test and let it stand for 15 minutes. Whether you test positive or negative is indicated by whether you have one stripe (negative, but the test control is functional) or two stripes (positive, and the control test is functional). I only managed to get enough blood for one of the two test kits, and the finger-prickers (that's what they're called in Danish, apparently - "fingerprikker") are single-use, so too bad. For whatever it's worth, the one test kit I did use tested negative. The survey is very brief. It asks for your results, the best-before date of the kit, and has an "additional comments" box, where I noted only getting enough blood for one test. mobby_6kl posted:My social life was a disaster too and I realized that this is no way to continue during the first lockdown, so I made a lot of effort to get out and meet new people or old friends, during the little window we had. So on one hand I'm used to this, on the other I really wanted to change it... Caustic Soda fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Oct 19, 2020 |
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2020 16:00
|
|
|
zjentohlauedy posted:Wait, there are enough people that regularly go shopping multiple times per day that they had to make a rule about it? It's to try and reduce the number of people outside and therefore the spread. If you're going out to grab a coffee, then later out to the shops for dinner ingredients and then out to grab beer later you're in contact with way more people than if you're forced to do it all at once. You were only allowed to exercise once a day outside too. Thankfully it's worked, and we're under 5 cases a day in Melbourne down from 500ish a few months ago with our first 0 case day since June happening yesterday. Tomorrow we open up again and we're all very excited.
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2020 23:10
|
|
|
How are things in AUS now? I've heard generally good news e.g Victoria basically down to zero community spread, does it look likely that AUS will become covid free in the near future? I'm also wondering about movement within the EU. What nations have closed their borders? And was being part of the EU an obstruction to nations closing their borders?
|
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2020 01:32
|
|
|
Jaguars! posted:How are things in AUS now? I've heard generally good news e.g Victoria basically down to zero community spread, does it look likely that AUS will become covid free in the near future? Victoria just had it's 13th straight day of zero cases Border restrictions between Vic and other states coming down soon Everything is pretty much open in Melbourne now, pubs, cafes, restaurants have limits for patrons in inside and outside areas, these were made more generous recently Shops all open No curfews Schools open approved masks (no face shields or bandanas) must be worn outside the home in Melbourne, 200 buck fine if you dont You can fly to Australia if you have immediate family members living here, I think it's mandatory 2 week hotel quarantine though They're still finding the odd bit of virus in the sewage in nsw so it's not gone but it's possible we could eliminate it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2020 10:25
|
|
|
That sounds nice. America is on its 5th day in a row of record high cases
|
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2020 14:06
|
|
|
Those measures in Australia sound like science fiction. As an example, let me bring up how college football is going along. College football, for those outside the US, is batshit loving insane. There's no central governing body like the NFL to regulate all the teams. Instead the closest governing body is each individual conference, each one made up of universities that try to be similar in some fashion - athletic budgets, history, pedigree, geography. The players are all students in some capacity, and are limited to receiving tuition, room and board, while most head coaches pull in multiple millions annually. Now, this is important because they aren't actually employees like a professional league - you'd have to pay employees, and that would ruin the spirit of amateurism. Over the summer, many conferences decided on altering the 2020 football schedule, or cancelling outright. Currently, all the major football conferences are in the middle of their new schedule, but as you might expect from groups that make a lot of money with no risk to themselves, they're having trouble playing the schedule. My Wisconsin Badgers had to cancel their last 2 games after multiple players and coaches tested positive for COVID-19, but if one more game is cancelled they can't play in their conference championship game so bring on the Michigan Wolverines. Out of the 7 games the Southeastern Conference had on the schedule for November 14th, 4 have been cancelled due to one team unable to field enough players. Arkansas will be playing without their head coach, who tested positive. But don't worry, one of the biggest and most anticipated games lived up to the hype when #1 Clemson headed to #4 Notre Dame. Without future #1 draft pick Trevor Lawerence: https://twitter.com/NotScTop10plays/status/1325243382445334529, the Tigers never pulled away and Notre Dame managed to mount a thrilling last-minute drive to tie, then win in double OT. Then... https://twitter.com/CFBONFOX/status/1325298534627700736 But don't worry, Notre Dame's president has already scolded the students for their actions. He knows first hand how dangerous it is, because he was at the Amy Coney Barrett confirmation superspreader event were he (most likely) picked up COVID-19. tldr: help us
|
|
#
?
Nov 12, 2020 15:31
|
|
|
We just hit close to 4000 cases in Utah. Our hospitals are at the point that people might need to be turned away. People wear masks at stores but tons of people went to these Halloween parties and with schools still open it spread like wildfire. Other than wearing a mask at work nothing changed for me. We're considered mission essential and all our equipment is on base. Lots of other people aren't on base so traffic has been much nicer getting on and off. Despite the massive increase in cases there are still anti mask protesters showing up at the governor's house complaining about some violation of their freedoms. My girlfriend worked at the hospital, quit that job to work at the health department, then got pulled back into the hospital to work 18 hour shifts. We're predicting things will only get worse as Thanksgiving and Christmas approach
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2020 02:21
|
|
|
I have never felt luckier and more privileged than I do to live in Australia. Victoria was scarily close to hitting the tipping point of runaway cases, and watching the European second wave and the US is absolutely terrifying. Wishing you guys safety and health.
|
|
#
?
Nov 13, 2020 10:58
|
|
|
SF had recently reopened indoor dining to like 1/4 capacity or something with social distanced spacing. Well, they just closed it again this weekend. This whole thing is a huge clusterfuck here in the states.
|
|
#
?
Nov 15, 2020 01:39
|
|
|
Yeah, it's just so incredibly frustrating looking in from one of the 'good' countries. I hope things get better as trump goes away but there's just so much damage that has been done  We're on tenterhooks in NZ atm, there's been some cases that came out of a quarantine facility but touchwood the contact tracing seems to have got ahead of the virus spread. For a few days there everyone was wondering if Auckland was going to go into lockdown (for the 3rd time) over Christmas. I've been looking at the Johns Hopkins tracker and it seems like there's still a lot of active cases in NSW. Are all arrivals going in through there or something?
|
|
#
?
Nov 15, 2020 07:27
|
|
|
Jaguars! posted:I've been looking at the Johns Hopkins tracker and it seems like there's still a lot of active cases in NSW. Are all arrivals going in through there or something? Not all but as Victoria was handling its spikes they shut down international arrivals and people tended to go through and quarantine in Sydney instead and Melbourne international hasn't opened back up yet. The vast majority of all cases in all states that do take arrivals are now arrivals in quarantine, and most arrivals in Australia hit Sydney, especially without Melbourne to balance it out stat-wise. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 18:05 on Nov 15, 2020 |
|
#
?
Nov 15, 2020 17:50
|
|
|
Melbourne has cancelled NYE fireworks so is closing down streets to make them outdoor dining friendly for people to still do something
|
|
#
?
Nov 17, 2020 02:48
|
|
|
Just out of curiosity, how many people here are planning on getting together with family for Thanksgiving?
|
|
#
?
Nov 19, 2020 06:09
|
|
|
For the last 11 years I haven't missed Thanksgiving with my Wife's family. My Mom has 7 brothers and sisters so big family gatherings are something I've always loved. This year we will be skipping, her family is Trumpy and they all hate masks. We will be going to my parents only.
|
|
#
?
Nov 19, 2020 06:20
|
|
|
Bioshuffle posted:Just out of curiosity, how many people here are planning on getting together with family for Thanksgiving? We're getting together with my partner's mother, and that's it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 19, 2020 11:32
|
|
|
I work in a university dining hall. We haven't served food since April but they don't want to pay us to stay home and they can't easily lay us off (unionized labor ftw) so we come in every day, sit down at tables spaced at least six feet apart, a few of us will make a breakfast and lunch for the crew, and we look at our phones or laptops all day. At least, that's all we were doing until a couple weeks ago when we arranged some deal to put together takeout meals to be distributed to several local charities. In theory, next year we'll begin doing takeout for the students. We've put up a ton of transparent dividers, we're wearing masks constantly (except for when we all take them off in unison to eat, which is when the dummies yell across the room at each other, sneeze, cough, etc.), and we clean everything routinely. It's not really possible to maintain a six foot distance all the time when working in the kitchen. The layout just doesn't allow for it. One guy bought goggles and refuses to enter the walk-in fridges without them. Months ago they were informing us all when somebody caught the virus. Now we just see that so-and-so is taking a little time off. Before coming to work we have to fill out an online survey that confirms we don't have symptoms and haven't been exposed. The problem is that cooks have been unofficially trained to never call in sick, so guys who are clearly coughing and sneezing and looking like poo poo come in and try to hide from management. I've taken plenty of sick days, gently caress it. If I'm not feeling well, I'm not coming in. One of my managers is mad at me for doing this. He's also one of those people who thinks George Soros is behind everything. At least he takes the virus seriously. Theoretically, we'll start serving food to students next year. University leadership told us there will be layoffs but there's no timeline and they've seemingly sealed information about their plans behind multiple layers of administration. The kids are getting madder and madder about paying full tuition to attend Zoom University. Covid is ripping through the college party town, of course. The local government either can't or won't provide accurate information about the spread. The college radio station somehow has the hookup to the testing lab. There's at least 4 times as many active cases as the county's website is reporting. One manager admitted he's travelling by plane to another state for a Thanksgiving get-together. I fully expect an outbreak at work this winter.
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2020 00:36
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 26, 2024 17:19 |
|
|
In Ireland we're in what's nominally the highest level of lockdown - level 5 but it's not really because the schools are still open, and there appears to be a lot of government effort being put into directing attention away from the probability that covid is being spread in schools. Otherwise, we're not supposed to go more that 5km from our homes except for 'essential' purposes like getting food, going to work if an essential worker (WFH otherwise), providing support for vulnerable relatives etc. Pubs and restaurants are closed except for takeaway service, non-essential retail can only operate via delivery or click and collect. Everyone is supposed to wear a mask when in an enclosed space and to be fair, the vast majority do, and only a minority do the stupid mask-under-nose thing. Public transport is operating at 25% of normal occupancy to facilitate social distancing, which is a problem when 'essential' workers still have to get to work. This latest quasi-lockdown has been running for a few weeks now and is supposed to end at the start of December, but the initial drop in the case numbers/positivity rate has stalled in the last week. We wanted to get below 100 cases per day, but we appear to be stuck between 3-400. It feels very different from the first level 5 lockdown in March/April - back then the streets were empty, the motorways were the same. Rush hour disappeared. This time around, things look almost perfectly normal - it looks like people have just gotten a lot more casual, less cautious than before unfortunately. That said, Ireland has so far managed to avoid the huge second wave that most of Europe is struggling with at the moment. Our health system is notoriously overloaded at the best of times, so the government simply couldnt afford to risk it's being overwhelmed at all, hence the tendency towards caution compared to other EU countries. We went into lockdown again some weeks ahead of the rest of the EU and it seems to have paid off. (fingers crossed)
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2020 12:37
|
|
