Corona (COVID-19)- is it affecting you?

I work for a big tech company in the UK. I got a phone call from my boss the other day that as of 5pm that day, everyone who could work from home has to work from home until further notice.

To be fair to work, I'd already been doing that anyway. But interesting to make it policy for all of us capable of remote working.

My sister works at a hospital that has an employee with it. They furloughed the workers who had contact with that employee so they could self quareeeten to home, so they did the right things quickly. I supposed anyone in an affected in any state that works in healthcare can't help but think they need to be cautious.

I was going to Disney World in a few days, but they "school organisers of that trip" cannecled it. We are all getting our money back, and it might be for the best. Getting cooped-up on a bus for over a day, they going to a theme parks in another state that cases cases when you come for a state with cases...and their parents work in a hospital. Meh, it starts to add up on the 'risk-factor' table to not justify a school trip.

Really who I worry about are my 80+ parents, they are they ones who is they get it are likely to die or be really weakened in the process. Thankfully, they are no part of big group things like church, bowling teams, bingo nights, or Elk Club, etc. They putter in small groups which is safer. My parents are with it enough to be 'cold/flu conscious', so they wash their hands and think about not being around sick people withot prcautions. Thus, I'm not really worried, just realistically that if they do get it it won't be nothing.

It sucks that so many big events are getting canceled, but any event where you shove dozens, hundreds or tens of thousands of people together in one building is just not smart if it can be avoided. I have still kept plans for August to go to Boston Fan Fest, but if CONVID-19 is still brewing in New England at that time I won't go. I can say it unlikely to be still around, but viruses and people don't allow for certainty - so it is best to not get hung up on 'having to go' to anything.

Apart from the occasional panic buying of dust masks and toilet paper, everything seems relatively calm in the Midwest for the moment. Just lots of notices of events being postponed and to be ready to work from home.

Classic rock stations are still telling us to kick back and drink an extra bud light, while their comments sections are mostly shoulder shrugs from the workin' class.

I'm in Toronto, where we've had a number of cases already. That said, our employer has been pretty good about it and it's looking like we may be told to work from home indefinitely in the upcoming weeks.

The college I work at/take classes is extending spring break a week and then going all online until April 3 which seems like a pretty sensible approach to me. If people can just understand this is serious but if people calm the fuck down, get off Facebook and follow the CDCs instructions things will go much more smoothly. Shit is gonna be weird for a month, deal with it.

Yep. We just heard at work that all MN, IA, and WI universities are extending Spring Break and moving to online classes after through at least the first couple of weeks in April. Based on the timing of the announcements, this sounds like something they likely coordinated together. The U of M at least is keeping the the dorms open to have a safe place for students who need it, but I wonder how long that's going to last.

It is adding some complications to my final semester.

The toilet paper shelves were literally empty at my local grocery store, and my job has already started drafting procedures for what to do if anyone here catches it.

Not much, I work from home. I haven't not left my house other than buying groceries for the past two weeks. I think this should be taken very seriously, and get annoyed with people saying it's not a big deal or that it'll be fine.

Worst of all is when people say the flu, cancer, and car accidents kill a lot more people. That attitude is ignorant of asymmetric risk. I think we are seeing a status quo bias in a lot of people... Italy was normal a couple of weeks ago. There's no reason we won't look like them a week from now. I get the sense that some people don't see how catastrophic doubling every 3 or 4 days could be after a month. Comparing the raw numbers of covid with other far more fatal thing completely ignore that.

And the people discouraging others not to take it seriously are doing damage. There is no worry about overreaction in this case. By waiting to see it how it goes in the US, instead of looking to other countries, we are ensuring that it gets far worse. Every day we decide not to take drastic measures ultimately causes thousands of more cases, and more deaths. Eventually we may be forced to shut down everything anyway, if we got ahead of that things would be better.

As someone who works in Shanghai, this whole thing sucks balls. Major disruptions to everything. Don't even know where to start. If anyone has specific questions, ask away. Currently at home in Vancouver and will be until April. Vancouver feels woefully unprepared for this, hopefully spread won't get totally out of control. Wish people can start taking this seriously. Don't panic, but please, please, PLEASE, exercise every precaution.

My law school just shifted to remote classes for the rest of the semester (my final semester), which is a major pain in the ass, especially since half of my courses have ABA-mandated experiential requirements that literally do not work with a remote course mandate. If I have to repeat a semester because of this I'll be less than pleased, to say the least. I have the further misfortune of living in campus graduate housing and depending on the school's meal plan for food, which appears to be either disappearing completely or being severely cut down and only available on the undergraduate campus a mile away. So yeah, not great!

The XFL ticket I had was refunded.

I work in a public library in Finland and apart from posting notices for hand hygien and proper coughing habits there hasn't been much yet. There is 65 confirmed infections so far and our visitor numbers have dipped noticeably.

It seems it is mostly destined to be an ass to my finances. Between my saving funds taking a beating due to market drop, my SO suddenly feeling the urge to prep with money we don’t really have and my potential new job offer got put on hold because they need to see how Corona affect their business.. I’m just getting real tired. Oh and since Sweden has now banned gatherings of more than 500+ people, my trip to go to a Beer & Whisky festival with my dad for his birthday was cancelled.

Big time. I'm a medical student and we were told we can't travel at all without 14 day quarantine. Means that we can't go to conferences and stuff. And a ton of people's reading week trips got cancelled. Honestly a big bummer. There is also the fact that the next 2-3 months are gonna be wicked stressful for like all of our professors and stuff.

I second the concern of people’s reaction. In New Mexico in the one big city (Albuquerque) toilet paper, soap and hand sanitizer is almost sold out everywhere. You would think that toilet paper was the only commodity people will want in an apocalypse. Most people read one or two panicky articles and are acting super paranoid in my office. Most people haven’t been following the story for more than a couple weeks. Some are refusing to sign telework agreements because they don’t have internet at home (I am surprised how many people there are in that boat). My wife and I are mostly worried about hoarders grabbing essentials for a months long supply. Other than that I think there are 4 presumed positive cases here, or were as of a couple days ago. The news sites are making a killing on this frenzy. Overall it feels like health professionals have a valid concern, and citizens are clinging to the wrong info, basically buying all toilet paper in sight.

I'm not sure why most people give such a shit about the toilet paper throughout this thread. People always panic buy. They do it before 1" snow storms in NC.

Anyways, I have not been quick to panick on anything like this but the US is on the same track Italy was before they are now in a full lock down. It's not a joke. It can be averted hopefully with measures like cancelling big events and people choosing to stay from home.

I work at a coffee place at a mall. We have been slower and the mall has looked emptier and empiter, although it won't be clear until the upcoming weekend when it would be pretty full. My stupid company won't even let us refuse travel mugs and doesn't get why the fuck that would be a germ/virus problem (the DM I answer told me it was no worry because we are just pouring the drink in the cup.... this is the intelligence who my health could tie to). Also every other coffee place in I have seen, literally, is refusing personal mugs but us. And I have to handle lots of used dishes which sucks. I serve lots of older customers, which is my number one concern. Personally I will be using lots of gloves while at work while I'm still there and since I am switching jobs in a couple months I may quit my current earlier and take time off, even a month.

Not a great time to be in the service industry. No work from home options and you get hardly any sick leave. Not that this country cares at all with the politics they keep supporting. Hilarious to see people like Ben Shapiro asking for things like universal testing provided AKA SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Or guaranteed sick leave. Wow guys great idea you just came up with when your back was against the wall that you've been shitting on for years and years. Pathetic.

Anyways, people should take personally responsibility for themselves in this pandemic when they can. IT IS NOT JUST ABOUT YOUR HEALTH, but others, especially the vulnerable.

@stephen_von_cloud: I think the frustration with toilet paper is people have latched on to it as something they can try to control when they feel out of control. For reasons beyond me. And now if you happen to run out, it’s nowhere to be found because people have hoarded it.

I live in Berlin, Germany and returned from spending a week in Italy 12 days ago. Luckily I was in the south, in Naples and then on the island of Ischia, so well away from the centre of the outbreak. And before everything got locked down, of course. It was a bit stressful though and I'm glad we were able to get out. I've experienced no symptoms at all as of yet.

There has been some panic buying in stores in Berlin, with almost no hand sanitizer, masks or TP to be found, and now there are well over 100 confirmed cases in the city. Chancellor Merkel recently warned that up to 60-70% of the population could fall sick, and Germany has a fairly substantial older population, so that's slightly worrying. Berlin's Culture Minister has also ordered that all events larger than 1000 people be cancelled. So tons of shows, plays, etc. are being cancelled left and right. Lots of my friends' tours are being cancelled. A music festival I work for had to be postponed. Even the big clubs are closing. Now state galleries, museums and libraries are closing for a month or so. So definitely feeling some effects here and there. Thank god Germany's public health care system is so strong. I don't think tests are as widely available as they should be, but should the situation hit the fan like it has in Italy (and people assure that it will), I hope Germany's system can bear the burden slightly better.

I'm currently at my folks' place in Switzerland for a week to finish off a big work project and I just hope I'm not an asymptomatic carrier or something, as my father is over 60 and has respiratory issues. But so far everything seems to be okay. I'm wearing a mask, keeping my distance from him, using a separate bathroom and wearing gloves in the kitchen. Stay safe y'all

@paliv: Yeah that actually has been a problem. As of today, I had the runs without any toilet paper, and that is a true state of emergency.

First two positive cases have popped up in our area, one of them appears to be in the same office park where I work based on an email everyone received from the property manager this morning. There's now of course a much bigger push to work remotely and most upcoming work travel, including some booked as recently as this week, has now been cancelled.

...and they delayed FF9.

What a difference 24 hours make. I didn't half shit myself when that EU travel ban came through. Hopefully the UK's not crossed off the cool list before I can go / come back home.

I was going to visit the parents this weekend but might just stick with a phone call. Don't want to risk public transport more than I need to. Also, the British response to this is complete wank.

We had planned a trip to Japan in May but we've cancelled. My doctor also took me off of some (but not all) of my immunosuppressants as a precaution. My job is currently fast tracking a VPN setup so we can work from home, and naturally we were also bought out fairly recently by a publicly traded company who is now hemorraging money.

So yeah, everything is going great.

Toronto Canada here, I work as an HR Manager at a long-term care centre and we went into full on pandemic setting today. And to top it off one of my employees found out her daughter's boyfriend works closely with someone just diagnosed with Covid.

To say the least it's been an interesting day.

Oh I've also only been in the job for about 3 weeks...

well, it looks like it's poppin off in nyc now. the mayor hit the 'state of emergency' button, and any gathering of 500+ people is a no-go. restaurants and bars are also being asked to run at half-capacity. public schools appear to remain open, however.

my employer (teaching hospital) is understandably being pretty slow to react, but there's now a travel ban in place for anything work-related. additionally they apparently sent out a work-from-home policy (notably AFTER 5pm), so that will be an interesting conversation with my boss tomorrow. i don't work in a clinical capacity- so hopefully that's an option for me.

i'm sure it depends on what part of the city you're in (i imagine midtown is starting to thin out)- but so far queens and spanish harlem still feel like business-as-usual.

I live in the Triangle area in NC. NC State and surrounding universities have moved all their classes online. Public schools have started to close. Large events are being cancelled.

I just set up a VPN at the office where I work. We are allowing optional work from home for at least the next few weeks.

Luckily I am able to work from home and limit my public exposure, but I worry about my roommates who work in the service industry.

Chicago Suburbs here.

Our school district instructed us to start preparing to teach online lessons in case we get the call that school is closed. It was a pretty weird day. Especially when the kids are looking at you to tell them everything will be fine.

@mightyduck: Everywhere I've seen has said kids don't even show any symptoms, so everything will be totally fine for them. I'm actually kind of curious why that is. Does it have something to do with how thier immune system works compared to older people?

I am almost certainly not communicating this correctly, but I heard something to the effect that the severe symptoms are caused more by the body's immune response to the virus, and for whatever reason kids' immune systems don't seem to be reacting to it in the same way as the older population.

But that doesn't mean they cannot, and are not, being infected and transmitting the virus to others. The closing of schools is more to protect the general population and not the kids themselves.

I work at Costco so it's been crazy couple weeks. Sold out of toilet paper in 45 seconds this morning.

It's a bit hard to say financially. It hasn't affected me personally yet because I am the sole full-time bartender (and bar manager) at the restaurant I work at so I never get sent home, but mentally I am anxious as hell that there are going to be some days I expect to be very busy and am very not. Plus there were some pretty guaranteed bangers like an opening round of March Madness and the College World Series, not to mention the Olympic Swim Trials and Berkshire Shareholders' Meeting I anticipate will be canceled soon, that make the year's outlook far less sunny than expected.

Kanye shrugging through it right now until further notice. Also, America's healthcare system is a failure.

@efesell: I'm the same in Michigan, that said, I do work in the Restaurant business and there are a lot more elderly and younger kids that live here and I'm already seeing things slow down. That said it is still very early in the season for us.

Shit hasn't got here yet and the only toilet paper/water left is a small amount of store brand. I told my dad he should've stocked up because people act like the world is ending when they call for an inch of snow in these parts, he damn well knew it'd be worse.

Follow up on a post from less than 24 hours ago: I'm officially threaded by anxiety and dread. Buffet just announced the cancellation of the annual Berkshire shareholders conference, an event that generated about 5% of our restaurant's total income over just four days last year. 5% is one of those numbers that doesn't sound so significant (sort of like, oh I don't know, 3.2%...) until you consider the sample size. That's roughly .01% of our total time in operation throughout the year; in other words, it pays the goddamn rent.

I really like my job and have no idea what I'd do if it were to fall into serious jeopardy.

So, a stretch of unseasonably warm weather here in the Bay Area has meant an explosion of pollen. This has, of course, sent my usual allergies into overdrive, but now rather than just dealing with it every sniffle sends me into a fit of COVID-induced hypochondria. Fun stuff.

I bascislly can't come into work for the next two weeks at least. No pay.

I get that hindsight is 20/20 but at this point I wished I went out and bought hand sanitizer and paper goods. Slowly running out of the stuff and places don't have them in stock, Amazon isn't much help. Also not sure if this has anything to do with the pandemic but people have been more agitated, just left a cvs and there was more people honking at each other than normal.

The toilet paper hoarding has started here, where there is almost no virus in the state and nowhere near the place where those few cases have been reported.

What do people think the toilet paper is going to do for them, for this respiratory disease.

Reading through all the responses here, it's fascinating the different stages we're all in with COVID-19 and how much just a few days can change things. Here in Vegas, we just got our 15th reported case, so we're just starting with the spread of the virus. The Trader Joe's we stopped by after work here was pretty barren of the frozen stuff, the canned stuff, but no one was fighting people for things like others have mentioned here (another nice reminder of why I don't social media).

My work is a very small engineering firm so we really haven't reacted too much to the pandemic aside from hand sanitizer around the office and a friendly reminder to use it. One of my big curiosities is the Raider Stadium; is it a matter of time before they delay construction of it altogether? And will the buildings we've been working on be postponed as well?

Lastly, it's forcing me to judge every drop of alcohol I have. A weakened immune system is easy prey for the virus!

Tell me about it. I was quietly confident about my holiday going ahead when Trump excluded the UK from it. 24 hours later, Boris takes the stand and says, "INFECTIONS FOR SOME. HERD IMMUNITY FOR OTHERS!" and our infections are off to the races.

I'm trying to plan out the possibilities in my head and they're changing day to day. Anything could happen from a relatively smooth holiday to being immediately quarantined when I land stateside. At this point, I've written the money off and cancelling would mean missing out on something that I've spent months looking forward to. I don't travel often and there's something adventurous about doing it in these specific, changing circumstances. But man, this could go all kinds of fucked.

@efesell: I saw a psychologist explain that people are buying toiletpaper not necessarily because they panic themselves, but they assume their neighbor, or their neighbors neighbor etc. to panic and hoard basic resources like toiletpaper that will be used no matter what. So they feel compelled to do the same as their neighbors out of fear that the TP supply ain't high enough to cope with all these hoarders. Couple that with the stories & pictures of empty shelves and people having carts full of TP and these feelings only get more intense.

It's not that the coronavirus causes explosive diarrea, but toiletpaper is one of these things people would like to have enough of if they end up having to quarantine themselves for a couple of weeks.

It's been four days since I wrote this. We now have dozens of new cases daily and more than 220 combined. Pretty much all concerts, sporting events and so on have been cancelled for the upcoming month. Any form of travel is discouraged and human contact is recommended to be kept at a minimum. My company and most others have implemented a "work home if you can" mentality.

The area of Helsinki where I live has a very high concentration of restaurants and bars. It's a shame to see most of them hurting already, and quite a few buffet-style restaurants have already closed down temporarily.

Finns are luckier than most though. Paid sick leave is the norm and public healthcare is tax-funded. So people are able to stay home sick quite easily and get tested and treated without having to worry about personal finances.

EDIT: Oh, and about toilet paper. People are hoarding it here too, which is especially hilarious since most people have bidets in their bathrooms.

Everything changed on Friday afternoon. Our schools will be closed starting Tuesday, my partner works at a hospital and she's now basically on call for the foreseeable future. My work place is in a bind as one of our major project leads was out in Vegas - and there's this odd dance around if they're coming back into the office or not. A lot of people are asking to work from home... I'll probably need to just to care for my kid with schools closed.

I guess we'll see what happens next.

I'm in Dublin, Ireland. The first case here was two weeks ago and we're up to about 90 confirmed cases with 1 death. I'm not sure how much we're testing, they don't give out those figures. I know we're not doing mass testing yet, it seems to be only if you call with symptoms or suspicion. On Thursday they announced all educational institutions, tourist attractions would be closed until April. The same day I started work from home which will go on for the foreseeable future.

People panicked that day and a lot of shops ran out of stock, but the supply chain is fine, they all restocked the next day.

I don't like working from home, but I'll accept basically living in my apartment for the next month if it helps stop the spread. One thing that's really helping though are the amount of home streams and discord hang outs people have going to keep in touch and there's a "nice" sense of we're all in this together.

It's interesting walking through supermarkets and see which shelves are empty and which ones are fully stocked. The one I frequent on my way to work, for example, had plenty of whole wheat bread, but no white bread left. I'm starting to suspect that people are wiping their bum with it.

Sure is affecting me right now waiting in a checkout line while these fucking imbecile summer preppers buy up all this fucking shit they don't need!!

The panic buying has finally hit the Charlotte, NC area. Local Target is completely out of toilet paper, soup, and medicine. Every grocery aisle is half empty. I work in physical testing so I still have to go into work and now I'm worried I won't be able to buy groceries to make lunches come this weekend.

It's also crazy to follow along with how things are going seeing as my brother is a medic in the Army... And currently lives in Seattle. The funny thing is he just finished being stationed in Italy for a few years, so I guess he was going to be in the middle of it no matter what.

Well, they shut all the schools, universities and most places where people usually are closer than 1 meter from eachother like hairdressers and such.
They also just announced they're shutting down all the airports, harbors and the borders for the most part.

Tons of layoffs are already happening.

So yeah it's affecting me and every single Norwegian.