Executive order being signed tomorrow: Effective at 9am Tuesday all restaurants and cafes (and bars with food) in NYC are take out or delivery only; movie theaters, bars, night clubs, and other entertainment venues are closed.
The Millennials (which is who was crowding the bars last night) have only themselves to blame! They proved they cannot practice social distancing without being forced to. At least now they can cram in apartments and socially distance themselves from the rest of us.
Well there is a good series to go back and re-watch during all of this!
So today our many places in our state (middle belt US) started limiting groups to 50 or less attendees. A local shop placed a âno cashâ policy today, many more local mom&pop types are doing drive-thru only. Iâm sad for the seniors that will be missing final end of year graduations, recitals, tournaments, and such. Itâs my daughterâs senior year, we may be one of millions that donât get to see her walk the stage, or perform her final dance recital. We may not get to take her on her dream of a Disney Senior Trip. Iâm sad. Iâm also scared, how long before stores start regulating 2 people in 2 people out type of shopping. In our rural area, we drive 25 miles to get better prices and cleaner stores, and need to shop every 2 weeks for normal shopping. Sacrifices, I know, still have the human emotions rolling around. Iâm an employee for a state agency, we donât know if we would receive the benefits from the relief packages as other hourly and small business employees do. Risk, I know, still rolling thru human emotions. And the long term economic toll, people losing jobs, people not able to pay bills, utility companies can only go so long before they have to have some bills paid, cut-offs can only be delayed so long.
This is triggering my âwe are all going to die this yearâ mode and I usually am mostly positive.
They changed the status here because they mentioned that most of the cases they could trace back. Things changed this weekend when they found new cases that could not be traced back to any of the others infected or by being out of state. They believe there are others infecting people that have not been identified.
That is why the have now changed the status here. You can here it during the press conference today on YouTube. Update on COVID-19 - March 15, 2020 - YouTube
If nothing else, it will make us feel better about our situation!
My daughter is a senior as well, and it is so sad to think of all the things she will miss out on. I can only hope by June things will have settled down enough that graduation can occur. Emotions are running high here, it has been a stressful time with college applications, and now the waiting for the admissions decisions so she can make some choices about her future (she applied to 7, have heard from 5 with 2 more to go). This virus makes an already stressful year almost unbearable!
Re: âA Message From Concerned Physiciansâ
âIt is it time to panic? NO!â âThis is a Pearl Harbor momentâŚâ [Thanks. That clears things right up.]
âMany grocery stores have order ahead options with either pick up or delivery.â [Let the grocery delivery guy kill himself and all the other grocery store employees so you donât have to.]
âWho should follow our suggested social isolation measures? EVERYONE.â [Except grocery store employees, apparently.]
Seriously? I hope this guyâs a better orthopedic surgeon than he is a writer. And after all the fantastic advice on how to isolate yourself from everyone (except the expendable peons who supply the food and medicine that will sustain your siege), no mention of the endgame. What conditions have to be met before âsocial isolationâ and all the other quarantine measures are no longer necessary? And how long do âexpertsâ estimate thatâs going to take? Are we just playing hide and go seek with the virus? Are we waiting on a vaccine? Are we just biding our time until weâre infected when itâs more convenient for health care providers? Any one of those is going to take a hell of a lot longer than a few weeks. And if this concerned physician has a clue, it was very notably omitted from his message.
Iâve only read the first part of it, and it seems like there is some valid stuff in there, but Iâm always annoyed when people say things like âWhy do we write thisâ and they are the only cited author.
I was talking with a client the other day, a NYC police officer, and asked him how he was doing. His reply âI still have to touch peopleâ I am forever grateful to the men and women working to keep us healthy and safe.
Normal like last November? Never. But humans are highly adaptable and a New Normal is already forming.
Ok Iâm caught up now from yesterday. I want to thank everyone participating in this thread for the depth, richness, honesty and compassion of the conversation. As others have said, itâs become a resource for me to be able to tap into so many world views in one place.
My PSA for the day: if you find yourself working from home when you never have done before, keep as much of a regular routine as possible, especially around meals. Working remote is not new to me, I did for 9 years after my DD was born, but Iâve been FT outside the home for the past 5. Friday was my first day back home and by Sunday I couldnât figure out why I felt like garbage. You know why? Frozen waffles for breakfast 3 hours late and skipping lunch. Donât forget to eat!
Also, earlier in the year a memory keeper I follow, Ali Edwards, posted a schedule of upcoming projects and one of them is The Art Of Noticing, which, timely enough, is starting this week. Maybe noticing the good will help give us some much needed balance of the bad that we need for our mental and psychological health.
I also have a daughter thatâs a senior. I keep trying to help her put things in perspective, but itâs hard. Iâm trying to decide if I should push back her graduation party date. I have it scheduled for mid June.
Thanks everyone! We took the weekend to do nothingâŚI was tired from regular work with the added layer of work around the new virus. Feeling grateful and guilty not to be working in the hospital anymore. Feeling worried that if schools donât stay closed I will end up exposed anyway. My DD made a schedule for us to give some kind of rhythm to our days. Thinking of catching up on our photo organizing. She has been a trooper cleaning/organizing her room and play area. Planning on doing our vacation virtually next week. even got Mickey bars at the grocery store. Couldnât believe the empty shelves. For now we are buying as normal and will save our nonperishables for when/if there is a supply chain problem.
. Woke up to the CDC recommending crowds no more than 50 people for the next 8 weeks.
Wishing everyone well.
My son is a senior as well. My friend suggested they will reschedule graduation, but I donât think so. I talked with him about it and told him to start processing it. Hopefully, the graduation will go on as scheduled, but we are going to assume it is not, and be pleasantly surprised if it is. We already decided we are not ordering invitations.
I canât thank our first responders enough for the jobs they do. They are amazing.
A good family friend is a truck driver. As a profession, it is tough and they make many sacrifices to ensure our groceries and other supplies are stocked. I talked to him last night and he is exhausted. They have changed some of their regulations to allow them to keep running, but a person can only drive so many hours. He is having to balance his ability to drive safe and they obligation to keep rolling and get the supplies to the store. He runs all the way from Texas to Jersey. He is trying to be safe, but he comes into contact with so many people from around the country. He has to, he has no choice. If the truckers stop running, then we really will have a problem.
Saw this today and it encouraged me.
We will all have stories when this is done.
My hope is to live through this together and not tear each other down in the mean time. 
My grandfather is close to 100. He drew maps for General Patton and still works today at drawing house plans for people. He and my grandmother live with my parents. We are being very careful to stay away from them.
In this case, heâs probably hoping to deflect from the fact that heâs an orthopedic surgeon with delusions of grandeur.
With regard to opportunists like our esteemed orthopedist, Iâm getting pretty tired of random doctors assuming the mantle of âexpertâ in all things medical, and acting like the job isnât done right unless theyâve put in their two cents. Particularly those whose specialty has about as much to do with immunology and infectious disease as driving a bus has to do with NASCAR. Theyâre not helping. And some, like this clown, may actually be hurting. Everybody canât bunker up all the time. Factories and farms have to produce. Trucks have to drive. People have to load and unload. Utilities have to be delivered. Information has to be delivered. In short, people have to work in order for the rest of us to maintain some semblance of a 21st century existence. This idiot conflates going outside with homicide, then advises people to have their groceries delivered. By whom, exactly? He, and others like him, need to shut up and concentrate on their own jobs, and leave scaring the crap out of people to the real infectious disease experts.
We have plenty of clinical experts giving us clinical advice on how to address their clinical concerns. What we donât have are experts who understand how to lead and motivate people in a crisis giving us a specific, achievable goal with specific, achievable benchmarks for success towards achieving that goal. Thereâs a lot said about what to fear and where to hide from it. But never one word of hope. Not one glimmer of sunshine. Not one thing to make people feel like theyâre actually working towards something instead of just hiding from something. Thatâs whatâs freaking people out. And thatâs what needs to be addressed immediately, especially if the real experts expect this to go beyond a matter of weeks. Hopelessness is psychologically unsustainable. If thereâs no hope, thereâs no point in sacrifice. And if thereâs no point in sacrifice, people are going to start ignoring the clinical advice a lot sooner than later.
He will likely still have a graduation, just virtual. On the plus side, perhaps even more people you know will be able to attend that may not have been able to come in person? And a really top notch video legacy of it?
Itâs going to take some creative thinking shifts to get through this mentally.
