Covid-19 Coronavirus - how has it affected you?

BLUEVOODU · March 19, 2020, 07:49:10 PM

Beer virus, covid-19, cv19, coronavirus ... China virus... as infections have picked up and disruptions to our daily life have occurred. How has it impacted you?

Comments, stories .... post it up!

retro junkie · March 20, 2020, 08:03:44 PM

I guess, how it has effected us?
The inconvenience of the madness where people are in a panic and it seems it is not letting up. (You would think that their storage area would get full, or their money would run out.)
Since the panic buying has started, I have not seen a loaf of bread, bag of potatoes, raw chicken, spaghetti sauce, pasta noodles of any kind, etc. This can go for a lot of things that were just common items when shopping. And yet two aisles that are left untouched in the stores around here are the candy and chip aisle.

Walmart is starting a Senior day for each Tuesday where we get to shop one hour before the store opens. So maybe I will be able to get some of the missing items.

Before this crisis, I never mentally grasp the concept that I am a "Senior Citizen." The thought never occurred to me. I have always been aggressive, go getter, bull in the china shop sort-of person. Now I am trying to adjust to the idea that I am a "high risk" category because I am 65 years old and have hypertension, plus a few other things. I am not used to being cautious. I am wearing gloves to use the AT machine, to get gas, and now including going to the grocery. I am trying to adjust to thinking through what might be a possibility for "contact." I think the possibility is beyond our personal control and can be mind boggling if you spend too much time on the subject. I do have a piece of tape on my floor in my office, or lab, at my desk. It marks six feet from my chair, the safe space, supposedly. We was told today that we will not shut down unless we are forced.

When it comes to meals, especially when you have been on a strict diet, choosing some alternative food can be challenging. This is due to not finding your normal food choices. I have picked up some things just to have on hand that I would not normally purchase due to the salt content, corn beef hash in a can, for example.

Our area has had its first confirmed case this week. I still do not think this is going to be over with in just a couple of weeks. I think, locally, it will explode, peek, then calm down. A possibility is, it could dispensate after warm weather kicks in. But the effects to our economy could last all Summer.

targetrasp · March 21, 2020, 11:09:49 AM

Restaurants, bars, pools, gyms, attractions, are almost completely shuttered in Asheville. Some restaurants are still doing take out or drive thru but for a destination know for breweries, Biltmore, and the parkway we're 66% screwed (more so actually, the parkway is open but the attractions along the parkway are closed). Hotels are closing or barely staying open. I just closed 60% of the hotel and laid off 75% of the employees. It's almost completely staffed by management now. Occupancy is down to nothing, we'll remain open until the city says close down.... and they've warned its coming...

The grocery store hysteria is starting to subside but you've got to go daily to catch certain items in stock (bread, tp) and forget about Lysol or hand sanitizer.

Banks are drive thru only.

No one I know has been sick and as of yet my county has 0 confirmed cases. Our airport isn't an international airport so we didn't get hit hard initially. Testing really didn't start until last Sunday. What we have takes 5 to 10 days to get information back from so we'll not see any numbers until mid next week. That will likely be the catalyst to the shelter in place order or local government seems to be considering.

Grindspine · March 22, 2020, 06:11:02 PM

My job in a pathology lab is business as usual over the last week. We expect to see far fewer elective surgeries in the coming two weeks though.

AngelBob · March 22, 2020, 09:56:52 PM

My work is still open, we've got quite a few cases in my city, and it seems to be doubling every few days... And I've got asthma so realllllly hoping I don't get it.
My little sister is an ICU nurse treating patients infected with covid19 so I've been pretty worried about her.
My youngest will only eat those stupid Chef Boyardee abc pasta with meatballs (gag) and we had to try 5 stores this weekend before we found one that had any in stock. People are going stupid crazy here with the hoarding!

targetrasp · March 25, 2020, 01:14:07 AM

No joke on the hoarding. I had a couple rolls of TP left so I've been going to the grocery store and Walmart almost daily for a week before I found any in stock at Walmart... of course the only thing left was the 3ft tall x 2ft wide Charmin Gigantor Pack for 30 bucks, so i'm good for a while, or one drunken Halloween...

Tests are starting to come back now and they've found it where I live too... It seems like they've all been isolated at a converted shelter near the hospital and is being guarded by the police department... weird times

BLUEVOODU · March 26, 2020, 11:33:48 PM

We are all working from home right now... as of MOnday, our plants closed down. We are still "working" from home in the corporate division... but hopefully this doesn't last too long. Our China plants are back to work now. At least 1 of our locations retooled to make parts for medical devices.

@AngelBob - I hear you... the hoarding is crazy. Oddly enough, I've been able to get a bit of toilet paper. Clorox wipes... running out and impossible to find. Salt was hard to find as well... but I could find about everything else.

@targetrasp LOL...... drunken Halloween... that just sounds like gross regrets.

retro junkie · March 27, 2020, 07:49:00 PM

The factory that I am working at is considered "essential." So I am still traveling back and forth to work. I am in Kentucky and the Governor has ordered lockdown to everything non-essential. Store shelves are starting to look better, fuller than the last two weeks.

BLUEVOODU · March 28, 2020, 04:08:49 PM

One of our factories converted to making tubing for ventilators. Otherwise, most of our plants shut down last week.

Food is finally stocked and people aren't being as dumb. Thankfully the stores made a senior time in the am... so tjey get 1 hour of shopping time 1st. I think that's good.

I hope we can get back go normal soon and this goes away. This stay at home thing is cool for work in some cases. But it would also be back nice to get back to normal life.

AngelBob · April 01, 2020, 08:35:57 PM

Our plant is considered essential, so as long as we have material coming in we're running! We're working on converting one line over to making face shields for our local hospitals.

BLUEVOODU · April 04, 2020, 06:42:41 PM

@AngelBob - That's pretty cool! That's also a smart use of resources. How long until that's up and running?

retro junkie · April 05, 2020, 06:29:01 AM

I know that it has been determined that some are essential and some are not, but I am beginning to think that we are all essential.

AngelBob · April 06, 2020, 07:04:25 PM

@BLUEVOODU as soon as we can get the materials in lol....engineering has a design so it's up to sourcing to find materials and it's pretty impossible to find elastic or clear plastic right now!

retro junkie · April 08, 2020, 05:52:28 PM

I am presently working Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And it is confusing trying to figure out what day it is. Today was my last day this week due to the Holiday. Long weekend. In my spare time been hitting the yard pretty hard. I am working harder at home than I do at work, sore muscles. I did not know I had any in that area of my body.

targetrasp · April 11, 2020, 01:29:16 AM

my microwave and cook top took a crap on me on the same day... I ordered both from best buy with a delivery date april 15th, I get a call earlier today saying it wont be till may.

Amazon packages are taking longer, people are griping about eBay purchase...

with the unemployment numbers and stores closed it amazes me these retailers aren't trying to make money where they can..

BLUEVOODU · April 11, 2020, 11:23:41 AM

Lol I finally scored Clorox wipes on Amazon. Arriving end of May

@AngelBob that's pretty crazy on the materials. Do they have any head times or know when those materials will be available?

I finally had to mow the grass. The exercise with yard work is nice... no gym right now.

stupid virus. Weeks are passing by pretty quickly and I find myself working more remotely. I really have to cut that off some days.

@targetrasp what are the eBay complaints about?

targetrasp · April 11, 2020, 07:28:16 PM

shipping times. Stuff to NY is especially taking way long. There's some articles out about how the post office is running out of workers, money, resources, etc. and it makes me wonder. I think the longer this goes on the more telling it will be on businesses' leadership. There's no question that businesses are and will continue to suffer but the ones that are helmed by superior leaders will suffer less, let the customers down less, and come out stronger on the other end. I think this is a really good stress test on our postal system. The cracks are really starting to show now.

BLUEVOODU · April 12, 2020, 01:57:40 PM

They shouldn't technically be running out though. 2-3 weeks after employees are sick... they should be able to returning barring they are further I'll... and hopefully not. Then immunity sets in. They're still trying to figure out how long term effects are affecting the body. Some are starting to show lung and heart issues from what I read... which virus can perma damage your body. So maybe it's not that easy.

Hopefully we can get over this bump and get back to normal by summer without a wave 2. Spanish flu wave 2 was the deadly one.

Mai Valentine · April 18, 2020, 01:07:32 PM

This actually came at a weird time for me. I had just moved out into my own apartment (wife and I got divorced) so I wasn't doing many social outings anyway since I prefer to stay home and play video games. On my days off, I'm not really doing anything differently as before this all happened. I guess the main difference is that where as I had a choice of staying home or going out, now I don't have much of a choice.

I work at Walmart so I'm still going out to work. The first few weeks were really insane with the toilet paper and hand sanitizer madness. I work in electronics and at first we hardly noticed, but then everyone bought up all the laptops and webcams and mics since everyone has to do school from home and work from home. We also can't keep game consoles in stock (especially Switches) because people are buying them up to stay entertained. We're even out of controllers for PS4 and Xbox One. This came at a bad time for us in retail because we usually switch out our merchandise in May, so they stop sending us stuff in April. So basically, once we sell out of something that's not going to be restocked, we just have empty space until we get whatever is going to replace it in. The shelves look even emptier than they usually do after Christmas.

At least they are making a lot of effort to comply with the CDC at work. Employees have to go in through a side entrance, and we get our temperature taken. If it's 100 or above, that person gets sent for home. We also limited our store hours. My store used to be open 24/7 but now we open at 7 am and close at 8:30 PM. And they are limiting the amount of people that can be in the store at once.

targetrasp · April 19, 2020, 10:37:36 PM

The people still working do have a completely different work life now. I keep hearing about how bad doctors and nurses have it but where I live we have a pretty low amount of cases. The last figures I've seen put NC somewhere between the 12th and 14th lowest state in infections, so our medical staff isn't dealing with a lot. They still have strict rules to follow but the risk is lower here. NC has still stopped elective and non life threatening medical procedures so the hospitals are pretty empty. Telemed has really gained traction as well.

The grocery business is completely opposite. Walmart, target, the grocery stores; all are a complete nightmare. While there's technically less people, it seems I find myself in these places with the least intelligent of us. Stores are going out of their way to distance everyone, change the flow, wipe down things, etc. but people are still not used to it. Many isles are one way and very clearly marked yet few notice, or abide. I'll be in an isle 6 foot away from someone parked in the middle of the isle, making their selection, waiting to continue down. Someone will rush right passed and get in-between us. that cycle continues until I just have to push through, completely rendering the one way design useless. I've considered coughing and hacking just to keep people away but the fear of being lynched is too great. And the poor workers. I'm sure they deal with it their entire shift. They're exposed to far more people than any of our doctors yet they largely rely on hastily build sneeze guards and homemade masks.

Mai Valentine · April 21, 2020, 01:50:37 AM

Yeah, there's definitely a lot of people coming in shopping that aren't taking it seriously and seem to just be making a social outing of it. We still get a lot of entire families shopping, when one of the parents could have stayed at home with the kids. People come in to print pictures, of all things, and get upset that our kiosks (which are touch screen only) are disabled.

I live in Georgia currently and Gov. Kemp just opened up a lot of the state for businesses like gyms, hair dressers, and theaters, so it's only going to get worse for us.

BLUEVOODU · May 03, 2020, 10:05:56 AM

@Mai Valentine They're making a social outing of it? What the heck?! And whole families? .... that's just crazy. BTW I'm very sorry to hear about your divorce... that sucks and is hard. We will keep you all in our prayers.

I'm not sure how I feel about everything re-opening right now. For the last week... it seems everyone is more active. We are going to try to take a walk, but so many people are out. We went to the park to walk... it was packed, so we left.