"The elephant in the room, Covid-19"

Discussion in 'General' started by Richard_arch74, Mar 23, 2020.

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  1. Richard_arch74

    Richard_arch74 Active Member

    This is probably better suited for a general post but since I have interacted with a few of you, here it goes:

    Anybody care to share how you are dealing with the Covid-19 disaster?
    Are you self quarantining?
    Did you lose your job?
    Do you know someone who contracted it?
    Do you have a small business where you have employees who depend on you and your actions?

    My wife and I are seniors who are self quarantining. Only going out for a walk and going out for groceries during hours where there are fewer shoppers.
    I have an appartment project where our residents are depending on me to offer some concessions on rent. I can do that, fortunately, for a few months, but if it goes longer, I'm in trouble. Very stressful.
    All of you stay safe and healthy!

    Sent from my SM-G955U using Inside EVs mobile app
     
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  3. jdonalds

    jdonalds Well-Known Member

    I'm 73 which is enough to be concerned. I do not yet have a Parkinson's Disease diagnosis but am early in the symptoms. They say PD lowers one's immune response. I also have A-Fib with a pacemaker, and I have 60% of normal gas exchange; they call it respiratory failure. So in my case as soon as I thought there was even a slight chance to come in contact with the virus I self quarantined. I gave up two of my volunteer activities, cancelled an April vacation, and canceled or postponed seven medical appointments.

    My wife is 66. But we adopted our grandson who is now just 10 years old. I was concerned my son would bring the virus home but I felt much safer when the schools were closed. Now we have to home-school him and it's just the three of us day after day.

    We go for walks in the neighborhood, and my wife goes grocery shopping about every 10 days. We're both retired.

    Our volunteer work has transitioned to on-line.

    The car sits in the garage and is untouched since last Monday.

    The worst part is we can no longer watch our 9 month old on Fridays. It gives his mother a break and we get to have a baby for a day. This is such a great age to observe.
     
  4. KentuckyKen

    KentuckyKen Well-Known Member

    I’m about to turn 66 and along with several pre-existing conditions, that puts me in the high risk category. So I am sequestering myself and only going out in public for doctor visits and as few grocery runs as possible.

    When I do go out among others, I wear an N-95 mask properly fitted and nitrile gloves. Then I am very careful not to touch the mask or my face. Then I alcohol the gloves, wallet, and c cards used before taking gloves and mask off at my car. And of course I keep the 6 ft rule and go out as little as possible.
    I’m not even hugging or allowing my grown son close when he comes to town until this goes away. I also let any material (like mail) that comes into my house sit for 3 days before I touch it ungloved because you don’t know who has handled it.

    No need to panic, but you do need to be careful since you can’t tell who is infected as they can go up to 2 weeks asymptotic and the virus can “live” for a few days on surfaces. The same precautions and protection against possible transmission that you should have been using for flu season will work with the same efficacy for COVID-19.

    IMHO, if we can stop the spread in time (and that’s a big if right now), the economic consequences will likely be worse than the limited and low rate of mortality. Of course that means precious little if you or your loved one succumbs to the virus. And all bets are off if we have widespread transmission.
    I learned 10 years ago when my wife succumbed to a cancer that had a 95% cure rate that statistics are meaningless if you're in that 5%.
    Praying for everyone to be safe.
     
  5. jdonalds

    jdonalds Well-Known Member

    All wise actions Ken. We ordered a pizza Friday to support a local business, so we could refrain from using up food in the house, and because we like pizza. When Dominos delivered it I had the young man put the boxes on the bench outside the front door. I then put on surgical gloves, removed the food from the boxes, and tossed the boxes and my gloves in the trash.

    I'm not concerned about dying. I know where I'm going. I just don't want to suffocate to death.
     
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  6. While we’re all locked up take a look at: Worldometer.info

    It provides fairly current statistics on current cases, deaths and conditions of those with the virus, by country and state.

    If there is a trend, it is that the countries that were impacted first, had a rapid increase in cases for 7-10 days, followed by an almost equally rapid decline in cases. In China, for instance, approximately 72K of the ~80K victims have recovered. Iran seems to be following the same trend and Italy may be over the hump as well.

    I don’t know how their travel restrictions, “quarantine” protocol or anti-social distancing compares to what is happening in the US. We are almost a week into a rapid increase, with nearly half of the country’s cases being in NY.

    Out of work. Out of debt. Happy to be viewed as a prepper.
     
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  8. Atkinson

    Atkinson Active Member

    My wife and I are in our late 50's and I am able to work from home.
    We mask up for grocery trips and any limited trips outside the house.
    One of my sons is a sophomore in college working part-time as an EMT and lives at home.
    We live with the possibility of getting COVID-19, but do our best to mitigate the risks.
    Its promising that the infection rate is flat in China.
    If more people in the US were careful about virus transmission, I could see things improve sooner.
    Based on news reports, it might be a long haul.
     
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  9. Sandroad

    Sandroad Well-Known Member

    My wife and I are retired and have been self-quarantining for 2 weeks here in Michigan. We can easily adhere to the stay at home order for the entire state that starts tonight. We are fortunate to live on a couple of acres for exercising ourselves and our dog and to simply watch spring come. We have been using a shopping service to deliver food to the house, but they are now booked up for days in advance and when they do get to the store they find lots of gaps on the shelves. Things would be a lot better if there weren't hoarding and profiteering on supplies. Those of use with PHEV or EV transportation have it better than those with ICEV. At least we don't have to go get gas.
     
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  10. Ray B

    Ray B Active Member

    Yeah, the worldometer page is good, as is the Arcgis-Johns Hopkins U dashboard.

    My favorite resource for everything medical, especially for several updates per day on COVID-19 is this retired nurse from the UK who is about the most sensible voice in the world - Dr. John Campbell. Aside from his insightful daily updates, it is great to watch his older teaching videos. He's brilliant.

    Here is his channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Campbellteaching/videos

    here is this morning's update:
     
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  11. oko

    oko Member

    From a business point: The company I work for (large, about 9K people) works with airlines and hotels (i.e. our main customers, probably all customers are travel related). Our revenue is probably close to $0 now. We had so far a salary reduction, but a massive layoff wouldn't be surprising.
     
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  13. Still working, and now working from home. I'm fortunate to have the ability to do that.
    The management started murmuring a week and a half ago about how we ought to start considering how we might work from home. I arrived at work last Tuesday expecting a normal day and by 1:00 PM it was "here are the instructions--try it out this evening and if it works, don't come back in".
    As of close of business today they office is closed. Anyone who needs to fetch something has to call the ranking manager who can disable it remotely and rearm it after they're done.

    The governor announced a stay-at-home order this morning.
    The impact of this didn't really hit home till I received a panicky promotion email from the local Honda dealer (at 5:30 PM). It stated that they were having a "one day sale" and would entertain any reasonable offer on an in-stock vehicle (new or used) before closing time at 7:00.
    The stay-at-home order nominally expires on April 13 so that's probably how long it will be before they can sell another car. Given the trajectory of SE Michigan's case numbers, I'd be surprised if it expires that soon.
     
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  14. insightman

    insightman Well-Known Member Subscriber

    My wife and I are in our very early 70s and both in good health (knock on Touring dashboard). I'm sort of resigned to becoming infected because I'm so clumsy. Even though I wear my workshop-sanding respirator and plastic gloves when I go out, if I'd come into contact with the virus I'd be infected now because I end up doing things in the wrong order.

    Do I remove the gloves before I touch the door handle when getting back into the car? How do I get the second glove off without transferring the virus to my first hand? What order did I do it in last time? How long can the virus live on my glorious leather steering wheel? I'm sure I'll find a website that will teach me how to do it.

    We've got enough supplies that we can last a couple of weeks, so maybe I'll be lucky. TG for the internet and the giant sci-fi paperback library in my man cave, "Tranquility Base." Everyone be careful and stay online--I need your posts to see me through!
     
  15. Danks

    Danks Active Member

    My wife and I are both 60+ and in good health.


    My wife works as a nurse - where we get free charging. Her main job is in surgical recovery, but can get pulled to other floors as needed. Elective surgeries are down so may get pulled more or called off more.


    I am retired, but was more active than when I was working. Until March 12 I was going to a local hospital every day where I prayed for a 20+ young woman who suffered a stroke 10 years ago and has been on a ventilator since. (Interestingly, getting a Clarity ended up contributing to my prayer for her.)


    On March 12 the hospital started restricting visitors. First it was those with symptoms or exposure, then it was just one visitor per patient per duration of patient stay. Last I heard from her dad, her mom was the only one allowed to visit her. I know the hospital has restricted visits even further since then so I’m not sure she can visit now.


    So now I’m working at home on writing and translating my books into German, Dutch, Italian, French, and Romanian.


    On the Honda side of things. I just got an email from West Herr Honda in Lockport, NY informing me that their sales department is not considered an essential business in NY. Service will be open, but not sales. Too bad since they have a 2020 Clarity on the lot.
     
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  16. Atkinson

    Atkinson Active Member

    Our local dealer offered to work with us via email while sales was closed (no Clarity's available here).
    Maybe West Herr can work with you remotely also.
     
  17. Danks

    Danks Active Member

    Perhaps. I'm not in the market though. They emailed me because that is where I bought mine last year.
     
  18. I've been monitoring Clarity availability over last few weeks and they're slowly trickling into non-California. Rochester NY, Cambridge MA, Louisville KY, Suburban DC, to list a few.
     
  19. coutinpe

    coutinpe Active Member

    We're also retired and in lockdown. Son working remotely. Only got out twice for trips to the market last two weeks. So happy don't have to go to the gas station too. Now feeling a bit sick with sore throat and body aches. Fingers crossed.
     
  20. Do you suspect a link between these deliveries and Covid-19?
     
  21. No, not at all. Didn't even occur to me.
    Are you suggesting cars carrying it? These cities aren't particular hot spots for the virus cases.
    I can report that Metro Detroit's numbers are rapidly climbing and there's not a new Clarity in sight :)
     
  22. Nope, not suggesting anything of the sort. Just that the thread is about Covid-19.
     
  23. Tomrl

    Tomrl Member

    We are in our early sixties and are pretty much staying at home. I work from home so not that much of a change. My wife taking call off so won't be working for at least the next few weeks, though she's trying to parlay it into complete retirement. We're well stocked with all the necessities: beer, wine and coffee. Oh yeah, we have a good supply of food too. Stay safe everybody!
     

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