We in the UK are waiting to see how this pans out, obviously going to get worse before it gets better. I'm thinking about going back to riding the motorcycle into work to avoid trains and Tube.

Mrs Woof is off on her annual trip to Cape Town soon, but other than that we have no overseas trips planned and probably won't bother until this is over. Not so much from fear of catching the virus but from a wish to avoid inevitable travel disruption or risk of getting stuck somewhere.

If I do have to self-isolate I have a number of unread books, CDs that haven't been listened to for a long time and a whole load of shoes that wouldn't hurt from a good polishing.

We've got schools closed, lots of events cancelled, even churches are putting the stopper on services for the time being.

This makes my job harder since I cover these events for the paper.

I have a feeling I'm going to be writing deep dive pieces on why people hoard toilet paper and "Whither Hand Sanitizer?"

Side note -- a college friend of mine works part-time at a Lowe's store in New Jersey. (Lowe's is a Harry Homeowner warehouse store that carries chain saws and paint and lawn furniture and bags of mulch etc.)

An internet order came in for 800 cases of Purell hand sanitizer. My buddy called the number to confirm that it wasn't a typo. It wasn't. Spoke to a man with what my friend called an "Asian" accent.

The back of the envelope calculation is 800 cases of the stuff would allow someone to create a layer four feet deep in a 1200 square foot space.

My friend thinks the customer is going to ship the whole kit and kaboodle to China.

It has come to my attention there is a related post in the NSFW section as well - I don't go there much so was unaware.

When a vintage, unlined BB OCBD starts going for less on eBay than an 8 pack of Charmin, we’ll need to start worrying. That day may be soon.
Here in Ohio, the State Governor, Mike DeWine, has been admirably ahead of the game, defying his parties general idiocy and anti-intellectualism and taking advice from real scientists. Things are gonna suck for a while, but it’s all for the best.
Stay safe all!

I'm off to work wearing my "clean" tie.

Wash your hands.
Avoid others whenever possible

Please read. This Twitter post sums it up beautifully. As an RN in Los Angeles, I especially appreciate the author's understanding.

Tweet by  Alex Kapp:

I just spent hours waiting, outside, in the cold and rain, at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles waiting to get my daughter tested for #coronavirus after a week of symptoms and the discovery of a recent exposure.
We were told to sit outside in the driveway of the ER in the rain for over two hours and only got into the tent after I went back into triage twice and frankly, kind of freaked out. When we finally got into the tent, we were treated respectfully and with kindness by the doctor.
But after a series of questions about exposure and my daughter's symptoms (cough, fever, shortness of breath), the doctor, who was respectful, sage, and honest, told us that their tests are being rationed. They simply don't have enough tests to test people with no pre-existing
health issues. It is not their fault. I felt bad for him and for the hard-working nurses and administrators who are basically flying blind. They have no real data. They have no tests. And he told us that even if we could test her, the test is incomplete and would have to be sent
to a lab, and that those results would take a week to come in. He told us to self-quarantine and rest. And that was it. We gave our insurance information, although I'm not sure how we could be charged for sitting outside in a driveway for two hours only to be refused-
But I am guessing we will be billed in some way, as the tent was outside the ER. And then we were released. All we are trying to do is prevent spread on the off chance that we have the virus. But we left the hospital after almost three hours with no more information
than we had before we got there. We are lucky enough to be healthy and not elderly. And we are lucky enough to have some kind of insurance. But there is an astounding lack of information, data, testing and reassurance coming from the federal government.
Please be kind to the doctors, nurses, administrators, and healthcare workers who are just as uniformed and unprepared as we are. They are at the mercy of the information being farmed out to them. And they are going to be under siege. The reality is...
If you are relatively healthy, under 65, and not showing symptoms, and frankly, even if you are showing symptoms, they more than likely won't test you. They have to save the few tests they have for the elderly and immuno-compromised.
Stay home. Self-quarantine. Be smart. And be kind. We are all in this together. Seriously. The whole world. So let's not go all Lord of the Flies and steal and hoard and accuse. This may be a while. So let's try to behave in a way that we can feel okay about when it's all over.

Mrs Woof and I are largely resigned to being infected at some point due to the situations we work in. Hopefully not 'famous last words' but I'm not overly concerned about it as we are both fairly healthy and have decent lung capacity, but nobody wants to be ill and then there's the inconvenience of self-isolating.

But we need to build immunity to this as a population.... at a controlled rate.

This short article (a series of tweets) by Prof Ian Donald joined the dots for me about UK Govt policy.

https://mobile.twitter.com/iandonald_psych/status/1238518371651649538

Last edited by katon (2020-03-17 05:26:05)

Best wishes GeorgieBoy for your health and to everyone here.

Again all the best to Georgie. Like Woof I'm a public servant and although precautions are increasing day by day I'll probably still be out there a while?

Revisiting band of brothers and making my way through some long overdue books. Don’t feel so fatigued anymore but still pretty breathless. My knees are killing me too but better than yesterday. Stay safe everyone and don’t leave the house unless you have to!