Check in: How is everyone doing?

General Discussion
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Here in Ontario we just passed the month mark for our lockdown, with the nice weather finally coming in it seems like lockdown from here is just going to get harder and harder. Luckily before everything got crazy, my partner and I temporarily moved out of the city so we could have some green space to move around in.

So, how is everyone else doing? How are you staying active? What games or movies/tv shows are you watching/playing to pass the time? Let us know!

I really enjoyed the new Netflix movie Extraction :man_shrugging:

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Here in Italy it all seems pure crazyness. I was lucky to stock up, and in my region (Tuscany) goods (perishables and not perishables) are still available, whereas in other places not.

Itā€™s about two month of official lockdown (me and my partner were ā€œisolatingā€ from december already,so letā€™s say itā€™s about 4 months that I am seeing the sky only to shop for foodā€¦), goverment is trying to decide for the better on the restarting of the economy.

People think the lockdown was to avoid the spreading of the virus (aka stop people from catching it) instead it was just to dilute the spreading not to flood hospitals. So everyone is looking forward to the permission to go out and about, but they do not understand this permission is not going to come in the way they fathom.

goverment feels pressure to reopen for the economy, but they know that as soon as we doā€¦ spreading will increase like in Germany.

Meanwhile, in my little house I am happy as a mouse in the cheese remote workingā€¦ watching things on amazon prime and reading customer support booksā€¦

everything that is not the very close circle (family, work and entertainment) is a little faded in the background, because we are bombarded by tons of scary newsā€¦ but itā€™s okā€¦ this too shal pass, one day or another i will discover itā€™s the new normal.

And, ohā€¦ Itā€™s Ramadan.

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Here in the Philippines they shut down domestic flights and ferries quite early, and being a nation of islands that was quite effective. Our province has had a total of 4 cases in 1.4 million people. 2 of them died, the other 2 recovered and there have been no more so far. My wife and I feel pretty safe. Our quarantine is quite strict. Only one person in each household gets a pass, and I can use mine to drive into the city 3 days a week for groceries and medicines, and we can drive up into the village together for local shops and a short stroll. They should be relaxing the rules a little in a week or two.

Weā€™re grateful that we have a spacious house with a garden to walk around. And our neighbours are good friends (and theyā€™re all healthy) so we can still sit on the porch and chat when the sun goes down.

My work continues pretty much as normal, so financial health is OK, unlike some of our neighbours who had to stop work and have temporarily lost what small income they had. We help out from time to time with groceries.

And weā€™re in the process of adopting a puppy which is keeping us quite busyā€¦

Weā€™re making a ā€œpost virus bucket listā€ - all the things we want to do once the Philippines is back to normal. It ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous - we want to take the car ferry to a neighbouring island and stay at a beach resort for a weekend, but we also want to just wander around the mall looking for underwear and snacks :smiley:

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Here in the US (on the East Coast) weā€™re in week 6ish of the ā€œStay at Homeā€ order. Iā€™ve backspaced about six sentences trying to describe it but canā€™t do so without starting a political discussion I donā€™t want to have.

Weā€™re all doing the best we can. I am making masks for my extended family ā€“ everyone here at home has one now. The supermarkets are still mostly empty in the craziest ways and nobody really knows how to navigate the whole mask-social-distancing-thing in public. Itā€™s all just really weird.

On a positive note, my little town has figured out how to do a drive-thru Farmerā€™s Market! And our local Great Harvest Bread company is baking thousands of dollars of bread each week to donate to food banks and shelters, which is funded by individual donations by the community. And even though the federal funding has been held up/sucked up by not-small businesses, our county is taking care of their own through micro loans and grants to help out locally.

In my own business, things are still busy right now, and I choose to focus on that, rather than worry about the future or when we can begin to lift the lockdown here.

There is always a silver lining to look for. I am grateful to be healthy and have a healthy family. I have food in my fridge and a roof over my head and am able to pay my bills. My community is doing what it can to take care of one another.

Wishing all of you peace as we continue to move through this ā€“ no matter where you are at in the process.

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Well, here in Germany ā€¦ I actually cant say much about it. My life hasnt changed much, aside of not being able to go anywhere at all, expect to the supermarket oder grocery store.

The toilet paper and noodle hoarding idioticy seems to have slightly calmed down, although the rule is by now: If you want TP, go buy them in the morning, because the pensionist and mommy brigade is gonna snipe them at noon or early afternoon in the latest.

For stores and shops, there have been excemptions in place since begin of April - at least in Northrhine-Westphalia. See, Germany is not just ā€œGermanyā€, but also a Federated Republic. Thus, the federated states (called ā€œBundeslandā€, singular form) have much more rights and options compared to eg. a single state in the US. Thus, regulations may be different depending on how the regional government of the resp. Bundesland may interpret the national governmental ruling.

Since ā€¦ I think the 20th of April, there is also a reduction of the store lockdown in place, the official ruling says (very random) any store with up to 800 sqm of sales area are allowed to open up. This week (since Monday, 27th of Paril), the official national rule of having to wear protection masks or scarfs in shops, etc. have become effective, too. Before that, it was just a ā€œstrongā€ suggestion.
A few museae have opened up again, as well as zoos, within ā€œstrict regulationā€.

Pubs, restaurants, clubs, etc. pp. are still not allowed to open ā€¦ I think the cultural landscape AFTER all this is going to ā€¦ devastating.

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Itā€™s quite hard to say anything about whatā€™s going on in the UK without it getting political but Iā€™ll give it a go :wink:

The Governmentā€™s ā€œplanā€ was that we donā€™t really close much down and let everyone catch it, just not too quickly, to build herd immunity. I say ā€œGovernmentā€, but itā€™s not really - itā€™s the Civil Service plan, and whichever party happened to be in power at the time would be in the same position.

Of course, once people worked out that they were the ā€œherdā€ most said ā€œSod that!ā€ and stayed at home and took their kids out of school, forcing a change of plan - something any UK Govt is notoriously bad at.

Since then itā€™s been one demonstration after another that those in charge have no clue how the real world works.

Basically, if youā€™re a business, the only help on offer is to defer payment of various taxes, and a loan from a bank thatā€™s supposed to be easier to get than normal because the Govt has guaranteed 80% of it, but since thatā€™s still 20% of the bankā€™s money and you must borrow at least Ā£25k, theyā€™re doing all the usual checks and paperwork so only larger companies have managed to get one.

If you furlough your staff the Govt will pay 80% of their salary (up to Ā£2k5pm); great for large companies, pointless for small business where the rent/lease is the main cost.

Theyā€™ve just announced a loan for ā€œmicroā€ businesses starting next week where you can borrow 25% of your turnover (supposedly with fewer hoops to jump through, but Iā€™ll believe that when I see it). That number is interesting: thatā€™ll be week 8, so they must be expecting things to be back to normal in June. Again, Iā€™ll believe that when I see it - Iā€™ve no idea how you persuade people to get on the Tube again or go into an office now people have discovered that it really is possible to work from home. I donā€™t know how you persuade people to go back to work at all once youā€™ve paid them to sit and watch Netflix.

Or, TL;DR: no Netflix for me, too busy making sure I can keep trading through the recession/depression.

On the positive side, weā€™re still allowed to go out for a walk (great last week when it was sunny), but the downside of that is going past shop after shop after shop that have packed up and closed.

Some of the pubs are doing takeout so hopefully theyā€™ll survive, but thatā€™s about all the good news there is.

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In Australia (and also New Zealand) they have done an excellent job in managing this. I have been very impressed with the response from both the government and the public. We closed up the country and locked everything down at a very early stage. Of course it helps being an island nation. But I look at some other countries with alarm and sorrow. Also donā€™t want to get into politics as it just gets me worked up, but my wife is English and she is very, very glad to be in Australia.

We have had just under 7,000 cases here, and have it mostly under controlā€¦ less than 20 new cases a day with 88 deaths so far. We never had over-burdened hospitals. The govt has just launched a social distance app and the uptake has been phenonomenalā€¦ more than 2 million have uploaded it in just a few days. We are looking to start lifting restrictions this weekend.

On a personal level we are fine. In fact I feel a little guilty to say that we are sort of enjoying the enforced quiet time. Iā€™m getting lots of jobs done around the house and garden. No distractions or visitors. It helps that itā€™s autumn; sunny and mild and we have a big garden with beautiful deciduous trees. I bought a breadmaker and Iā€™m playing with that. And I have a cellar full of home brew. :wink:

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Especially NZ, although Czechia seems to be catching up quickly.

For once it looks like the Oz Govtā€™s desire to monitor everything about everyone all the time has been put to one side in the interests of doing something that might actually work - seems to be pretty well-written as an app, no obvious data slurps beyond what itā€™s supposed to do, and AIUI proper legal safeguards for the data collected; Iā€™ll bet you can guess what the UK Govt has decided to do insteadā€¦

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One failing. It only runs on Android 6+. I have an old mobile phone that is Android 5 so I canā€™t install it.

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What invisnet said about the country overall, but I usually work from home and am continuing to work full time; the company I work for seems to have a good pipeline of work coming through for the next couple months or so.

I miss going to client site, but havenā€™t needed to go anywhere else except the corner shop for milk, bread, eggs and potatoes.

Took car for a spin three weeks ago and doing so again this evening (just started raining so maybe tomorrow instead) to make sure the battery doesnā€™t die (I live in a rural village 20 miles from the nearest town so need to make sure it keeps working so I can go out if I need to).

I live 200 years from a National park so can go for a walk very easily.

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Here in the US, weā€™re about 6 weeks into lockdown. I was ringing the alarm bell early to stock up and stay home and have actually been social distancing for about 2 weeks more than that. As far as the isolation, Iā€™ve been home-based for years and have always spent more time alone than not ā€“ you know, pretty much training for this moment my whole life. :slight_smile: What Iā€™ve found most difficult (and exhausting) is trying to keep track of the true(st) information available ā€“ an increasingly monumental undertaking here in the states.

Since my state sits right between a couple of hot-spots, most people here were committed to physical distancing from the jump. Also, I live in a town that has favored telecommuting for a long time, so, tons of people were already working from home when the virus hit. As a result, weā€™ve been very lucky in terms of disease transmission and death rates.

Weā€™ve seen some shortages at local grocery stores, but, it hasnā€™t been too bad yet. Sanitizer, cleaning supplies, paper products, beans, canned goods, flour, yeast ā€“ all those youā€™d expect ā€“ have been sporadic. Today, there were virtually no cuts of meat where I shop ā€“ by 8am, there was nothing left except snouts, tongues, and tails. Due to bursts of panic buying, many items are now limited in how many you can buy and only so many people are being allowed in stores at a time. More and more people have been wearing masks and face coverings, and sneeze guards have been erected all over the place.

Itā€™s all been rather inconvenient, but, overall, I canā€™t complain: the family is doing well, everyoneā€™s still working, got all the things we need. Just gotta get through the stir-craziness of limited activitiesā€¦and weā€™ll be fine. :slight_smile:

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So, now we know who has a time machine when we need one. :slight_smile:

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^ What @invisnet said.

It is difficult to avoid getting all political and angry about the way the UK govt has mishandled the whole situation, but I wonā€™t say any more about that than has already been said. All I will say is that I completely understand why Ozā€™s wife is glad to be in Australia.

We started self-isolating well before the govt enforced it. My wife is considered high risk and is ā€œshieldingā€ which means none of us has stepped out of the house for 2 months or so now - except to sit in the garden.

Many of my clients have temporarily ceased trading (and have subsequently stopped paying me) and yet I seem to be busier than ever. Those that are still operating are more than making up for the others - a doctorsā€™ practice in particular!

All in all, just trying to make the best of a bad situation. Just plodding along and taking things one day at a time.

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Brief reply from another German Bundesland in the southwest, Baden-WĆ¼rttemberg (specifically Baden).

Same here, same thoughts about the hoarding.

Stay happy, stay healthy!
Donā€™t lose your humour!

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Here in Florida, one thing has become abundantly clear: the USā€™s multi-layered system of government (federal, state, county, city) is not fit for purpose. Weā€™ve had all sorts of conflicting orders and recommendations, many of which have made little or no sense. At one point, Hillsborough county, for example, had a curfew for no apparent reason, though it was OK to be out after curfew if you were walking a dog! Nor surprisingly, that got rescinded after just three days!

On a more personal level, all classes had to go online, which inevitably presented numerous challenges, and now weā€™ve just started exams, which present different types of challenges. And, while my dog loves having me around all the time at home, sheā€™s not impressed by the idea that she canā€™t be petted by all and sundry when weā€™re outside (which is what she normally expects).

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Fine here. Surprisingly busy, other projects are still full steam ahead, and cooking every meal at home is a lot of work but as a result of that we are healthier than ever. The owner of the gym we go to is doing sessions on Zoom, so now the Chinese government can also see our workouts.

I agree with this. It is what it is, I guess. ā€œNothing is as it seems, nor is it otherwise.ā€

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Hereā€™s a video which should clear things up:

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Yes, thatā€™s it! Put that woman in charge!

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This is really helping article, really helped me.

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