Neverending Covid-19 Coronavirus

And having said all of that, a) I know I'm in a good starting position with everybody home and a good supply of food, and I don't mean to imply that my situation is at all any more dire than anybody else's. Just spewing up some anxiety. And b) I told my wife last night that as of this week I feel like I've sort of lost touch with reality. I don't know what an appropriate reaction is to anything anymore. Am I over-preparing? Under-preparing? Are my fears grounded or am I spinning out of control? It'd be great if I could just say I know that I'm overreacting, but I keep looking at people around me and thinking "YOU GUYS ARE NOT TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY." Is it still cool to order our regular Friday night pizza? Probably? Maybe? I don't especially trust my own instincts right now and don't feel completely tethered to rational thinking at the moment, and that scares me the most.
This is how I've been feeling. This is why it is so upsetting to me that our government is still fumbling around with testing with no real chance of large scale testing happening for a few weeks at least. If we had the data, we could not only accurately focus the quarantines, but we could also gauge just how much we should be freaking out.

Anyone who says it's no big deal is talking out of their ass with no data. Until we get that, it's hard to see how anyone can confidently assume we're going to be better off than Italy.

Hopefully we can start the large scale testing before hospitals start filling up, but it's hard for me to be optimistic about that at the moment.
 
Haven't the equatorial countries like Singapore cast a huge amount of doubt on that assertion?
In the immortal words of Op Ivy, all we know is that we don't know nothin.

They think that higher temps and humidity might slow it down:
 
San
This is how I've been feeling. This is why it is so upsetting to me that our government is still fumbling around with testing with no real chance of large scale testing happening for a few weeks at least. If we had the data, we could not only accurately focus the quarantines, but we could also gauge just how much we should be freaking out.

Anyone who says it's no big deal is talking out of their ass with no data. Until we get that, it's hard to see how anyone can confidently assume we're going to be better off than Italy.

Hopefully we can start the large scale testing before hospitals start filling up, but it's hard for me to be optimistic about that at the moment.
San Antonio just opened up a drive thru testing place. Planning on setting a few around other cities such as Houston and Dallas
 
My whole family is at home indefinitely now. I did a bunch of shopping already and am pretty well stocked, but I'm a little freaked out by the difference at what I saw in stores over the weekend versus yesterday. As @zombie.modernist put it, "grabby energy." I expected not to be able to find soap/wipes/sanitizer/toilet paper, but I'm also seeing some pantry staples gone from shelves: Tea. Popcorn. Rice.

The thing that struck me the most was that I went on a Thursday at 9am and not only was it crowded (this was before the wave of shutdowns hit us in earnest), but the produce section was pretty picked over. Leafy greens? Gone. Tomatoes? Just some cherry tomatoes and the runts of the Romas. Onions and potatoes? Good luck.

My wife is in the kitchen right now making herself a tuna melt, and my brain can't help but take inventory of the tuna can, the slices of bread, the mayo, the now-open cheese, etc.

I don't know if that's paranoia or if we need to have a serious conversation right off the bat about rationing, or what. She's a pregnant vegetarian and needs to eat, and it needs to be nutritional stuff. Her work and the schools are acting like come April 6th it'll be back to business as usual, but if you look at the escalations of events over just the last week, I have no confidence that'll be the case. What happens if/when the fresh produce stops coming in and people start swarming the freezer aisles (assuming that isn't happening today)?

I know I'm getting ahead of myself, but my mind keeps racing there as I sit at home and headlines keep pouring in.

I've no idea how well European experiences transfer to the US (my sole US Supermarket experience is traipsing to the Vons in Las Vegas every CES to buy beer, eggs and bacon) but I shopped normally, buying fresh stuff to suit. At the same time, over the last ten days, I have gently built up tins of tomatoes, various pulses (dried and tinned) depending, rice and pasta. I have green veg in the form of spinach and peas, both frozen (middle class sniffiness at frozen veg has yet to be degraded by fears of pandemic). There are potatoes, onions and carrots too. This is bolstered by thirteen microwave curries, stuff reduced for quick sale that I've procured over the last ninety days (this isn't a virus thing, I just buy it and work through in a ninety day cycle to save money) and frozen, plus a full set of herbs, spices and stock.

The UK strategy is basically for me; a 39 year old in reasonable health, to catch the virus. I will consume fresh food in a normal fashion, dealing with the vagaries of panic buying until such time as this happens. On me exhibiting symptoms, I will self-isolate and- assuming I have much of an appetite- move to consuming the set aside stuff which should last at least twenty days and, realistically, a bit longer than that.
 
I know you may believe that to be the case, but let me assure you that for a huge portion of the population, that assertion is viewed as ridiculous on its face.

Oh, I don't disagree that a huge portion of our population believes that. I just don't understand why they believe that.
 
San

San Antonio just opened up a drive thru testing place. Planning on setting a few around other cities such as Houston and Dallas
Is it open to everyone and do they have the capacity to test that? That would be great.

We have a drive through station at a hospital but you have to have a doctor's note to get tested. Not sure how easy it is to get that.
 
Oh, I don't disagree that a huge portion of our population believes that. I just don't understand why they believe that.
Simple: 30 years ago when this sort of “here are the conservative networks, here are the liberal networks” thinking began to take root, people picked the ones espousing what was nearest their beliefs. Then, as it became more normalized for the major news networks to be partisan, the networks would double-down because looking like they were correct drove views up, whereas “we were wrong/this is hyperbolic” is not a news story. Eventually it gets to a point where there's a chasm between the adherents of one network or the other and if there's a viewpoint which Is Wrong, people who hold it have no reason to trust it's not the cabal of The Other Networks just trying to Gain Power. And when my dad says “it seems obvious to me…” I have to keep my mouth shut because I have no tools to make him see what I do.

EDIT: AND you get people on either side who start assuming bad faith and that They're Wrong because They Don't Agree With Me, and you're unworthy of being talked to like a human being/empathized with because You're Wrong and We Can't Have That.

But if we go further with this, probably best to do it in the politics thread.
 
This is good and rational and practical feedback, thank you. I think being in the Midwest just means that I've never experienced this level of mass disaster prepping outside of a snowstorm, and then it's almost always just milk, bread, and eggs. Not being able to buy spinach yesterday shook me a little.

I might recommend an Instant Pot and a bunch of dried beans/lentils.
 
Is it weird that I barely remember anything about the 2009 H1N1 Flu Epidemic? How was that different than this one? I was 17~ when that was going on but I don't recall as much precaution, if any, at all.

I think this is 10 to 15 times worse than flu which is why the scientists and medical community are shitting themselves.
 
Oh yeah. One of the benefits of people's run on meat is that life with a vegetarian has already taught me a lot about meatless and meat-alternative meal prep, and aside from rice people seem to be mostly ignoring that stuff so far.

for sure. Instant Pot's a minor miracle because you can cook beans from dried in an hour or so, no soaking necessary. Real time-saver.
 
Oh yeah. One of the benefits of people's run on meat is that life with a vegetarian has already taught me a lot about meatless and meat-alternative meal prep, and aside from rice people seem to be mostly ignoring that stuff so far.

Also a vegetarian, and the WF near me was totally wiped out of vegetarian stuff, they literally only had 2 packs of Field Roast sausage in the whole section. Thankfully I was able to walk to a bigger market 15 minutes down the road and stock up on my usual supplies, but I think people with niche diets are going to be stressed out throughout this. Unfortunately I also have some pretty annoying restrictions in diet as well, no real allergies thankfully, so I can push through it with discomfort, but just adds to the food anxiety.
 
Is it weird that I barely remember anything about the 2009 H1N1 Flu Epidemic? How was that different than this one? I was 17~ when that was going on but I don't recall as much precaution, if any, at all.
For me, as far as I know, the main scary difference is that H1N1 didn't overwhelm any hospitals to the point that doctors were forced to choose which dying person gets to have the ventilator.
 
This is good and rational and practical feedback, thank you. I think being in the Midwest just means that I've never experienced this level of mass disaster prepping outside of a snowstorm, and then it's almost always just milk, bread, and eggs. Not being able to buy spinach yesterday shook me a little.
I lived through Katrina. You want to talk about no food availability. There are a ton of memes going around about how the rest of the country is going to learn what the gulf states already understand when it comes to food availability before/during/after a catastrophic event. Don't freak out too much, but I would definitely look at canned food as a really solid option.
 
Yikes. My wife is deep in a love affair with the Sweet Earth Benevolent Bacon. I put in a WF Amazon delivery order for tomorrow morning and I have a gut feeling that's not going to be included.

I do love that as well! I will say that I think the run on the veggie stuff here was mostly stimulated by the closure of the universities, and WF generally pathetic supply chain failures in the northeast. It's funny that certain specialty items are not being touched at all, chief among them gluten free pasta.....
 
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