Week of April 28: COVID-19 info, facts & updates

[Koudoawaia]

I'm actually really frustrated at the amount of uncooperation. If everyone would just follow the guidelines and be patient then we could go back to the normal lives so many people are rushing to way too quickly. I want a normal life again too but it can't happen until the virus is gone or under control and I am very frustrated that these people are making it take longer than it needs to.

[Beth3346]

I'm very frustrated that people aren't cooperating with stay at home orders but i feel like the media is so misleading. and i'm not talking about Fox News or "right wing" media. The local news here in Texas and more mainstream if not "left leaning" sources like NPR and the New York Times keep saying that younger people (under 35) need to take the coronavirus seriously and then they say most healthy young people have mild symptoms or no symptoms at all. i mean i'm not sure i would have stayed home at 22 with such mixed messaging. the local tv here is full of ads from local businesses saying that they are back open and to come buy cars and shop.

i wanted texas to stay shut down but i understand why business want to open. we all need to keep eating and paying our bills. but people are upset that businesses are open but have no plan to support business owners and their employees if work shuts down. it makes no sense. we can't have it both ways.

it just really makes me angry that we can't get it together to help businesses stay closed, pay employees, and be able to reopen when we get this virus under control. we're too afraid that people will not go back to work if they're getting too much money from unemployment. staying home is exactly what we should be able to do. no one should have to go back to a dangerous work environment because the government thinks they are too lazy and want to sit around at home. i just don't believe that people would rather stay home than work but work isn't safe right now. at least not right now in most of Texas. ugh i'm sorry if this is too political but the coronavirus response is political.

Also when people have money they spend it and fuel the economy which is what we need right now. Texas is a car state. we can safely drive to local businesses. if people can go get take out or curbside we can help local businesses stay afloat. but if no one has money we're just stuck.

[Taffeta]

I'm not going to advocate the UK response to this crisis as there have been a lot of issues and holes and problems that should have been sorted. And there's a real risk that if this rather rushed 'gradual reopening' goes wrong that we'll have a second spike. I'm a bit worried about that.

On the other hand lockdown began to be eased in mid May but to the extent that I think they let garden centres open and people were allowed to go out more than once a day for exercise. From end March to Mid May nobody was supposed to go out driving anywhere and the police would send them home/fine them if they tried to do that.

Shops opened here on June 15th I think, but hairdressers, restaurants, bars, etc are still closed until the 4th July. And even after that point gyms and swimming pools are still closed. Shielding people have been told to stay shielded till August 1st, and they want to monitor what happens locally and nationally. Scotland and Wales have been more strict on some of these things than England. I think shops in Wales only opened this past week, and nobody is allowed to travel beyond 5 miles from their home in Wales.

So the unlocking has been pretty slow so far. What worries me is whether things will explode when they allow cinemas, restaurants, bars, hotels to open, as they're also going to mitigate the 2m rule in some places and that to me is a bad thing. It almost makes me happy that the shielding advice keeps us grounded for another month ><.

We've had some local outbreaks in factories and community areas which the govt are trying to tackle with PHE. The PM calls it 'whack a mole'. Sigh.

From 6th July it also looks like our quarantine on entering the country will be removed for certain countries where infection rates are low and travel corridors have been established.

The one really big positive here is that our testing is much much much better than it was in March. We're testing more per capita than many other countries are.

..Meanwhile I'm worried about India. One of my best friends lives in Mumbai and she says it's pretty bad over there ><.

[Ponyfan]

Face coverings are now mandatory state wide  in public unless you qualify for an exemption. Public gatherings can have no more than 10 people.  Some of the exemptions include children under 10, going to a restaurant to eat, having a medical condition that makes it difficult to wear a face covering.

Ponyfan