Coronavirus info, facts & updates

[dragonfly]

We are a global community. Let's keep each other posted about the real state of events.

Discussion is welcome.

NO FEAR MONGERING

1. Where do you live?
2. What is the current climate like where you're at?
3. Are news reports coming from your area accurate or no? What is going on?

New thread:
http://mlparena.com/index.php/topic,398198.new.html

Locking this one because threads get more difficult to read and moderate the larger they get and this is an important topic.

[kellybates1993]

I live in a small English village, it's quite bad here.
People are panic buying, shops are crazy empty.
I have 3 children one who is immune compromised so I'm pretty worried, don't take this as dooms day talk I suffer from anxiety and take regular medication I'm just very worried.
And all of my family are very elderly and ill already,  I'm basically surviving on valium and stress styling my ponies.

[dragonfly]

I live in the midwest USA
We have several confirmed cases
People are also panic buying and stores are sold out of a lot of hygiene and cleaning essentials
They are beginning to close universities and shift to online courses
Large businesses are discussing mandated indefinite work from home and some are beginning to test
They are putting BCM plans into place
The general consensus has been that this is overblown but people are becoming visibly more agitated over the past few days

[flutterscotch]

1. Live in Pittsburgh, PA, technically work in Boston, but clearly, remote. The Boston office is closing.
2. People are alternately panic buying or pretending it's not happening.  What are you going to do with an entire shopping cart full of toilet paper, there, lady?
3. There is no news except "nobody has been reported" in this area.  I am keeping a diary of sorts, just in case.

We have to be extra careful, my partner is on immunosuppressant drugs. I have two extra cans of Lysol and a freezer full of frozen pizza. I'm gonna call that prepared enough.

So, vaguely cautious, glad I already had a bunch of hand sanitizer and other cleaning supplies though.  We're kind of shut-ins anyway, so will probably be ok. I am sure if I gather up all the spare purses and luggage in this house I'll find another month's worth of half-used hand sanitizer.

Planning on spending the pandemic rehairing the 10 ponies I have sitting around to rehair.

I do have rather a lot of friends who are small business owners who are going to get hit hard in the wallet...they tend to own small gathering places and restaurants. I'm also kinda afraid to look at my 401K statement. but mostly I am very worried for people who don't have a safety net.

I am also thinking now might be a good time to get a flu shot.  Just so if I do get sick, I know what it's not.

[BlackCurtains]

I live in Florida. Last I read, which was from the local news, was there are at least 25 confirmed cases and two deaths so far. A doctor in the town north of me has it and has quarantined himself. I think the panic is a little more justified here because of the elderly population and an already overcrowded and overworked hospital system. Tourist season is here right now too, so there are a lot of people from other states and countries coming in (mainly Canada and the Caribbean).

I'm disabled so I don't need to go out and haven't been out for about a week and half already. I'm assuming the stores are bare of everything, including water. We can't drink the tap here, and we are actually on our last gallon. I also need to go to the pet store and pick up some medication from two places. Probably do all that tomorrow. After that? I'm staying home, cancelling my doctor appointments. I'm not worried for myself though I am already chronically ill (I've never had the flu and rarely get sick, but I have a lot of health problems) but my parents are in their 70s, both have had strokes and aren't in the best health. My dad only has one lung. My dad... ugh, he keeps going out. He leaves every morning to have coffee at MacDonalds with his buddies. We're trying to convince him to stay home, but he won't listen. He also isn't good at washing his hands and stuff.

[Gator]

I'm in Georgia, southeast United States. 
We had our first reported death today, a person in his sixties. 
My dad and brother were to attend a Nascar race at the Atlanta Motor Speedway this upcoming weekend.  My dad has been in some pain so I was to go in his place.  The race and other sporting events in Atlanta are now canceled.

With Atlanta having the world's busiest airport, I've been concerned that here in Georgia there would be a higher risk of it showing up. 

Infected people are going to be kept in a state park not far from where I live.
I went to Walmart yesterday for regular grocery shopping, and was amazed to find the panic and toilet paper jokes were true.  The aisle for toilet paper and paper towels was bare!!!

I work at an animal hospital, and we need distilled water for our autoclave to sterilize instruments.  People are buying up all the distilled water as well as the regular!

[SunPony]

I live in the midwest USA
We have several confirmed cases
People are also panic buying and stores are sold out of a lot of hygiene and cleaning essentials
They are beginning to close universities and shift to online courses
Large businesses are discussing mandated indefinite work from home and some are beginning to test
They are putting BCM plans into place
The general consensus has been that this is overblown but people are becoming visibly more agitated over the past few days

Its the same here.  The news may or may not be accurate but any inaccuracy is probably due to straight up lack of testing.

I went to the grocery store tonight (I was out of apples...a crisis!) and sure enough, the "sanitizer" area, the toilet paper area, and the bottled water area were desolate.  Everything else seemed well-stocked though, even bread and milk.

Right now I'm mildly concerned because I am on an immune suppressing drug, and I'm preparing to get a lot more concerned in the near future.  Work is talking about closing and having people work from home as much as possible.  But I live alone, so I'm hopeful that I can remain fairly safe   

[Ponyfan]

I’m in the Southern US. So far no cases have been reported in my area. 

The 3 colleges in town have said they are going to go to online only classes and stores are running out of hand sanitizer,  toilet paper, Clorox wipes etc...
So far the public schools have not cancelled classes but some concerts are being cancelled like Jojo Siwa. The public schools have said they will deep clean during Spring Break.

I already use a lot of hand sanitizer because I have bad reactions to a lot of soap used in public restrooms but I am using more hand sanitizer now.

I have a low immune system and often get bronchitis but right now I feel the risk of me getting it is low. I got a flu shot and pneumonia shot in October.

Ponyfan

[Taffeta]

I'm glad we have a thread like this, because the shoutbox is going to explode if it carries on there and it's literally something that's affecting us all. Community is pretty much the watchword.

I live in the UK, in the Midlands.

There are no confirmed cases in my immediate region yet.
The neighbouring county has 2 reported cases, both came from trips to Italy, neither have been publically mixing since their return. The wider region has something like 6 or 8 confirmed cases.

It's a surreal sense of normal here at the moment. Stockpiling is happening in this area but the worst thing is hand sanitiser (we always carry it so have some but will have trouble replacing it if this continues). Our local store had tons of toilet roll on Monday - by Tuesday morning it was all sold out apparently. No problems getting rice, pasta, etc. Antibacterial soap and wipes, it's hit and miss. We also have had some flooded communities here in the last few weeks so that's probably also aggravating the situation. It may also be keeping visitors away, however, as tourist areas were the ones that flooded.

Everything else is as normal. We're being told to wash our hands and be considerate of other people when coughing, sneezing, etc. Especially on public transport, but this is running as normal. There's been no local advice to change anything but some events in the midlands have been cancelled, especially at the NEC (Exhibition centre) in Birmingham.

UK nationally is currently not closing schools or cancelling large events because govt believe the science doesn't support doing so, but I think local communities are making their own decisions about this kind of thing. There's also no ban on travelling except advice not to travel to the worst infected areas.

I feel like quarantine could have been handled better and people in infected spaces abroad should have served quarantine time there and only returned to the UK when it was clear they were not infected. But I do think it's too late to think about that kind of policy now. Just repatriating people with the virus to their homelands spreads the virus. Quite a lot of onus is put on people to self-isolate. Many are. Some are refusing to.

I have more concerns about my parents/sister than myself getting it. Of all of us I'm the lowest risk candidate.

The UK govt has said that mild cases may have flown under the radar so our figures may not be 100% but it seems to have spread more slowly here SO FAR than in some of our neighbours. Nobody really knows why, but they expect it to go up so it's day by day.

I am focusing on my garden, my writing, and we're going walking because here you can easily go walking and meet hardly anyone.

On a personal note, because of the awkward timing of finishing my PhD, I was taking this year out to write articles and try and get an academic post for the autumn. However, my academic field has cancelled so many conferences (being Japanese studies) and the job market is currently nonexistent so I guess that's also on hiatus and I'm in a wait and see...

[rybett]

Midwest US, so what Dragonfly said.  I already work from home and hubby has that option.  My 14 year old would not argue if school closed or went e learning.  Daughter and I have cough variant asthma so if it decided to flare there is gonna be hacking which would probably freak out folks in public.  Have not gone shopping since Sunday so not a clue... 

[Ponybookworm]

North east Scotland. Got my Tesco messages delivered. Restrictions on UHT milk, also bathroom tissue was a major problem according to delivery driver.

[banditpony]

Ohio here. A community spread case is confirmed within 10 minutes of me. The department of health estimates 1% of us have it in our state (We have 5 confirmed cases).  It sounds scary, but it's not. It's going to spread.

Our state is actually being proactive. It is surprising.

When ALL of the K-12 schools closed in our state-- there did seem to be an actual wave of panic today. Lines out the door to costco. 30+ min check out waits in other stores. I hope that most people stock up as needed, because I want them to stay home (if they can) when/if they get sick.

I feel like what I hear from people is pretty ignorant (usually overhearing people talk at work). I wish people would understand "flattening the curve"...

ETA: Oh, I feel very up to date. But unfortunately you have to cherry pick through some things.

[lonewolf]

There's been maybe a dozen cases in Kansas, including 1 death (a 70 year old) today. Both Kansas City and the state of Kansas have declared emergencies. KC has banned gatherings of over 1,000 people (which torpedoed my plans to go to Planet Comicon next week), even a storm spotter meeting in a small town I was going to attend tonight got cancelled (the weather service cancelled the rest for this year). Even though I live in a small town away from large cities, the Dollar General here sold 70% of their toilet paper today, and all of their Lysol spray.
 The panic is in full swing.

[Mewtwofan1]

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The state of affairs here is...interesting. We have had a few cases in Alberta (23 as of posting including one toddler),and many more across Canada (around 140 according to health Canada). Even a few in Edmonton, and we are encouraging students at the school I work at to wash hands more often than normal. Our prime ministers wife has just been confirmed to test positive for Coronavirus, probably catching it at an event in the UK. The Trudeau family is self isolating as a result. People are being discouraged from gathering in large groups (250+ people) and the unthinkable has happened. The NHL finals are postponed, and may be (if this gets really bad) cancelled. Rumours say that if it’s cancelled, they’re just going to draw the winner based on who made it this far out of a hat.
     
     The shops are running out of toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Some have even imposed a limit on how much you can buy since people were just hauling stuff out by the cart full. Festivals and other events are closing, and my friends currently attending uni have all their courses online right now, or will have by the end of the week (co-worker who’s husband is a professor at uni is scrambling to get it all up there). People are panicking, even stealing supplies from others. At my parents workplaces it was announced anybody caught stealing TP or sanitizer will be fired effective immediately. There has been no indication schools and businesses are going to close right now, but it might happen. Due to the recent economic downturn, our provincial officials are trying to damage control with business. We are an oil based province, and just coming out of a recession...let’s just say it’s not the best circumstance.

     People are prepping in every way they can, almost as if the world is ending it seems. One of dads co-workers is planning on bugging out to nowheresville Saskatchewan where his family lives. It’s a small town of like,12 people (his words) and 3/4 of them are related to him in some way. One of dads radio club members (who is a few screws loose I’ll admit) has dug out his kit from the Y2K scare way back when, and is restocking. Another (more screws loose) has cooked up conspiracies on where the virus came from. Some are...plausible, not gonna lie. This has brought out a lot of crazy none of us knew we had.

   I and my family are trying to keep level heads over this. Not panicking, but being cautious and urging others to do the same. We are mostly healthy individuals, who aren’t high risk patients. Panic and fear will only make things worse. Personally, I am more worried for what this means for the future. If the world is reacting like this now, with travel bans and economic downturn, what does this mean for me as a young adult wanting to study abroad and begin living an adult life?

[fizzerknight]

Here on the West Coast, California, Central Valley. In my city there has been a few cases confirmed, so it is here  Most of the Walmarts, Targets and CVSs lacking in TP and Sanitizers. Schools haven't closed yet but there's a meeting tomorrow to discuss if they should. Everyone is being told to just wash their hands and don't go to crowded events. Don't panic.