Coronavirus

[Number1ChanseyFan]

So... how is all of TPM holding up during the current pandemic?

It’s crazy to think how things have changed so much in such a short amount of time... how is everybody doing? How are things where you are at? I guess this is as good a time as any to post at TPM, I’ll have more time for sure... I’m out of work pretty much the next 3 weeks, I might be able to pick up a night a week, although I’m thinking it is gonna end up being longer than the 3 weeks... Ohio has pretty much been leading the way for the country as far as locking down, I can only hope that it is going to pay off... so far we haven’t lost anyone to the disease in Ohio, although Northeast Ohio has been the area hit the hardest so far in the state... I am doing ok... but I admit I am starting to miss the little things in life... it is so strange seeing everything look like a ghost town except the grocery stores... I can’t wait until everything gets back to normal... I can’t wait to see the Indians play again... it’s all so strange, kinda doesn’t even seem real... I hope that all you TPMers are doing well... hope to see some more posts, a lot of us are gonna have more time on our hands!

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Our club house will be closed from tomorrow, as are schools as well. The Japanese course I was taking is affected. People over 70 years old and I think some other risk groups are in quarantine. On the positive side, we, as TPMers, are together on this, and also, perhaps we'll find more time for TPM, too. I'm also going to draw, watch anime, play videogames, clean up, self-study more.

[Magmar]

Hello! Yes, Ohio really has been leading the way here - St. Louis followed suit immediately. As of Sunday night, all gatherings of 50+ folks have been banned for eight weeks. USA Rugby has pulled the plug on all activities, sanctioned or not, and my gym is closed - which impacts the bulk of my life outside of work. Most weeks between now and June, I have practice at least two weeknights, go to the gym 5-6 times, travel out on Friday for a Saturday match, and come back Sunday. My work calendar still has all these rugby-related appointments and matches, and it hurts my heart a bit to delete them.

In a major, relevant corollary, St. Louis Pokemon GO Fest has been indefinitely postponed. This was to be my first GO Fest, having been unable to score tickets for the Chicago ones (despite living there then). This is a major blow to the city, since Niantic was bringing in truckloads of money to host the event. Also, my little PoGO community put together such a great drone-shot video to sell St. Louis to Niantic. For those of us who keep our tickets, we are supposed to have the opportunity to do the tasks on Friday 3/27 anyway. But what sucks is that we just might find ourselves in lockdown at this rate--even though we have hardly any cases in all Missouri--so I wouldn't be able to go out and do the special research anyway. As an extrovert, this is driving me insane.

We have two home-state girls on this season of RuPaul's Drag Race. Of course, watch parties are indefinitely postponed, and I don't have cable so will have to find a "creative" way to watch it. I could go to a buddy's house or something, but unfortunately, I'm also on day three of quarantine because...

...I had left for a bear event (if you know, you KNOW) earlier in the week, prior to everything going out of control. We went to bed on Thursday night under the impression that everything was hectic but fine, and by Friday morning, everything was cancelled and everyone went home. It was a wild transition, from "this disease isn't even here yet" to "everyone take shelter in place." It felt dizzyingly wild and dangerous to be out in the world for the following two day, but the fact was I wasn't going to chance going to a packed airport during what was now known to be a present threat. I mostly just stayed in the hotel, didn't even use the gym or anything, and played my Switch until I left to a delightfully empty airport. The two positives from that were that I didn't spend nearly as much money as I'd planned, and at least the money I did spend went to charity.

I work from home already - I'm remote staff - but all travel is indefinitely cancelled. My partner is also now working from home until April 6th. His birthday is the 5th and we were joking about how it's been ages since our birthdays fell on a weekend and what we could do to celebrate. He's a foodie so I'll probably just spend all weekend making a great meal, and order something via Amazon for a gift. In the meantime, we'll try not to get in each other's hair...

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

On Facebook, DarkestLight is worried about April Fool's Day being cancelled for corona

How about 20 Years of TPM?

[Fett One]

I work for local government. They just closed today for non-essential personnel, which I fall under, so I'm off for the rest of the month.

[Number1ChanseyFan]

Looks like we are all hanging in there best we can!! Would be awesome if something good like a TPM reunion came from all of this, maybe it will happen with restrictions increasing all the time, maybe some older members will drop by for a visit...

Wow Magmar, I’m so sorry to hear about how much this thing has really interfered with everything you had planned... hopefully Niantic will be understanding about the special research just in case an actual lockdown happens... nothing has happened as far as mandatory lockdowns here yet, although it has been discussed... there have been 5 cases in my county although no one says the neighborhood they are from, although one person has discussed the illness... however, there really isn’t much open here now outside of the grocery/department stores, and drive-thru/take-out services at restaurants. Thankfully the ice cream stands have opened for the year, something so simple is a real treat right now... I’m much more of an introvert, but still I’m kinda getting a little cabin fever... I wonder if maybe drive-in movies will be allowed to operate next month when they usually open? One good thing is that I’m able to spend a little more quality time with family and parents... I’m trying to take care, but I do worry about potentially getting sick and then spreading it, although I would still rather take my chances and go to the store rather than have them exposed to it... I’m still kinda holding my breath, considering I’m usually working with the public, and knowing this thing takes awhile to show up. I had a nasty 3 week bout with the flu in January/early February, so I don’t really want to get sick again... having just stressed out my immune system, I’m not sure if that means that it is ready to fight off something else, or if it is worn out from the flu. We all will have to keep updating how things are going, hopefully some other TPMers will jump in on the conversation too! I certainly hope this thing doesn’t turn into a mandatory lockdown situation... I’m trying to get away from watching the constant updates, it was driving me a little crazy. I’m just ready to see some improvement in the situation... and I really, REALLY want to see an Indians game!!

[Mr.E]

O-H!

Much as it tickles me to see everyone else suffering what I put up with on a daily basis, a loner who rarely has any reason to go out, I think cancelling society is being a little too aggressive. There's something to be said of cancelling large events with minimal disruption to people's daily lives, but shuttering mom-and-pop stores and dive bars that on a good night have maybe 30 concurrent patrons is orders of magnitude less impactful (individually) while being significantly more burdensome to society's ability to function. Only time will tell, though.

Currently working in a hospital and the short-term prospects are heavily curtailed hours, as all nonemergency procedures have been cancelled and all the COVID-19 stuff is being directed toward outside popup clinics away from the hospitals proper. I can't wait to be swamped for months once things start returning to normal and everyone is scrambling to get their elective surgeries scheduled... oof.

[Austrian ViceMaster Alex]

Austria has been kind of under lockdown since Monday, you're only allowed to leave the house for particular reasons (like going grocery shopping or going on a walk by yourself). I've been working from home since then and is the looks the whole ordeal was extended till April 13th at least. So it's gonna be a rough few weeks.

[Number1ChanseyFan]

Uggh yeah Ohio hasn't done "total lockdown" yet, although they are recommending "shelter in place" especially for 65+, people who are already sick and pregnant women... so I'm guessing if the situation keeps declining we might be moving towards lockdown. I'm just ready for a little bit of good news with all of this, Ohio has lost 3 people now... my section, Northeast Ohio, seems to kinda be the hotspot so far for the state... I'm wondering how things are gonna be when this is over? I kinda think this is gonna change the world a little bit... I just hope that the small businesses and people w/o income are going to be able to hold on.

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

First coronavirus death in Finland yesterday. Requiescat in pace.

Also, our former president Martti Ahtsaari's wife Eeva Ahtisaari has corona.

[Drago]

I work remotely. I'm fine.

[darktyranitar]

Hello hello~
Malaysia have been put through lockdown (they refer to it as movement control/movement restriction) since last week. It was originally going to be a 2 week lockdown, but it has since been extended to 2 more weeks. I'm not really convinced that 1 month is enough to contain the outbreak here, so am preparing for announcement of further extension.
I have been out on site work for about 1 month before the lockdown, so now I pretty much have nothing to do (at least in terms of work related to the site - we'll have to wait until the lockdown is lifted to return to site). In theory, I should be returning to my research work (was planning to submit the proposal to my research work), but my supervisor has not gotten back with feedback to my early draft - so kinda waiting on that ^^;;
Dunno if I'll be posting that much here, but I'll stick around~

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Now Martti Ahtisaari has corona, too. They say they are in a good condition given the circumstances.

darktyranitar, good to see you!

[mvtm]

Well i am in Netherlands (The Hague) but Coronavirus crisis exploded while i was here in Spain...
Fortunately i am with family here in Spain, and maybe safer than NL.. as i am pretty isolated and in a small town of 5k persons that is completely lockdown, as most of Spain is.

Hey at least i was not in Venezuela

[Jeff]

Well, it's been crazy. Here in Maryland, our governor has been pretty aggressive in fighting this. We were one of the first states to close our schools (along with Ohio) and have shut just about everything down. We aren't a "shelter in place" state (yet), but might as well be. If people leave their house, there's nothing to do. It also amazes me how quickly it happened. My wife and I went for a walk the week right before the closures started. The town was buzzing as usual. Restaurants were packed, people were in and out of shops, we passed by a place where a bunch of kids were having a karate practice, everything was business as usual. We went for another walk a week later, and it was a ghost town. I've been working from home the past two weeks. I'm very grateful to have a job that lets me do that. I'm also grateful for all those who can't work from home, but go out there on the front lines every day to serve us.

As terrible as this has been, there's still one good thing I can say about it. Even though it has pushed us all 6 feet apart physically, at the same time, it's brought us closer together. My mom is a teacher and will start teaching remotely using Zoom. She was testing it out the other night by setting up a meeting with the family. It was fun, like sitting around the dinner table again. Also, I guess I'm feeling nostalgic, because here I am posting on TPM again! At first, I wanted nothing more for things to go back to normal, but now, I'm wiling to accept that if this is the new normal for a while, I'm fine with that.

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Uusimaa, the southern region of Finland around Helsinki was quarantined yesterday. I don't live there, Ylivieska is further up in the north, but there have been cases here as well.

Basically, all the concerts and festivals are cancelled. And sports events like UEFA EURO 2020, Tokyo Olympics got postponed, or cancelled. Well, since there will be no IIHF 2020, one could say Finland is the defending champion for an extra year.

I just wish I (and we) could think something else than corona for a while.

[firepokemon]

I am currently on day three of New Zealand's four week lock down. We've gone earlier than other countries compared to their rates of infections but still have 500 cases. My work has essentially shut down for four weeks so I am at home stuck for four weeks. Quite fortunate as being fully paid. I don't really go out a lot but the idea that you are stuck is quite hard to comprehend. Going to be a long four weeks I think.

Really hope we don't go down the route of other countries and I can't help but think the US, Australia and Great Britain are just in the early stages of this Covid-19. I shudder to think what these three countries may experience in the next few weeks.

[Lady Vulpix]

Well, the good thing I can say about this is that it's bringing people from all over the world together. My biggest wish is that the world can learn something from this and come out better.

Here in Argentina, we have been on lockdown since the 20th. Eight days down, at least 15 more to go. We're only allowed to go out to buy groceries and medicines, or to give our dogs short walks - which, depending on the police officer who stops you, may range from 100 meters to 400 meters. Of course, some people still have to go out to do essential jobs, like providing food and medicine, taking care of the sick or making sure we have power and communications still work. We can't even see a doctor unless it's an emergency, but pharmacies are now accepting photos of prescriptions as long as they're clearly readable.

...And we're still fighting the mosquitos, because dengue's still a serious thing.

I miss human contact, but I'm really grateful for my dog. And also for all my friends and family whom I can still contact online or on the phone.

I'm still working from home, taking Chinese lessons via Skype, and we're trying to arrange remote lessons at university starting on the 13th of April.

And this week at work I did something that can help more people transfer money online.

[Drago]

Well, the good thing I can say about this is that it's bringing people from all over the world together.

I mean, surely it's no coincidence that we've been seeing longtime members who have been absent for months/years, right?

Hi, friends.

[darktyranitar]

Good time to be catching up with old friends
I do wonder how long our lockdown period can last... I've resigned to the fate that it might go up to months, and not a few weeks as was the initial expected period of containment. I guess it all depends on how we all react in the upcoming days

[Fett One]

I was originally due to go back to work tomorrow but they pushed back the reopening date to April 6th. If things don't improve, it could end up getting pushed back even farther.

[Lady Vulpix]

Here the initial end date was tomorrow; now it's the 13th, but just like you, we don't really know how things will turn out, so it may end up lasting longer. I think it depends mostly on everyone taking this seriously so that we can avoid catching and spreading the desease. If the curve goes down, we'll be out of this sooner.

[Magmar]

In my city, we expect to lift our shelter-in-place advisory on April 22nd. I do not know how this is going to go regionally, though. I live in a pretty major metro - 2.8 million people - spreading across a pretty big geographic area. We are all shut down*. This metro spans two states. Illinois is fully shut down, but I am in Missouri, which is not shut down except by local governments.

Here is the tricky thing that coast people just are not understanding. They say in this part of the country "movement is not restricted enough, people are still going places" but most people work essential jobs. Spring has begun in the mid-South unlike in the northern and coastal cities, so we are doing agricultural work. Other than schools (all shut down), healthcare, groceries, and local government, almost everyone commutes long distances to agricultural jobs so the rest of the country can eat. We mostly produce soy, corn, meat, and dairy in this part of the country. Soy and corn are seasonal, and we have had a wet but early spring season, so things have to get going now. It is amazing how judgmental people are being about this reality.

I do still think that Missouri should shut down. Although not much would change, it would be symbolic and show rural folks that they need to take precautions, too. Illinois is structured similarly--one highway with major metros that straddle state borders, a few bigger settlements off another highway, not much else--as is Indiana, and they have shut down. As it stands, our governor is spreading dangerous rhetoric, underemphasizing the deadliness and seriousness of this disease.

******
* For our fabulous English learners, "shut down" would be the verb form, and "shutdown" the adjective and noun form of this term. So:

"Restaurants could not serve food because of the shutdown." (noun)
"They have shut down the restaurants." (verb)
"During the shutdown period, restaurants could not serve food." (adjective)

[Lady Vulpix]

Now that you mention it, we do have an issue here with some cities which have illegally closed their borders and stopped trucks from transporting food around the country.

[Jeff]

We just got our statewide shelter in place order today. No word on when it will be lifted. My company's work from home order was supposed to last until tomorrow, but now no word on how long it will be.

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

I was surprised yesterday, the Japanese course I had been taking was arranged as distance learning! We used Google Classroom and Google Hangouts. For the first time in my life. It would actually be cool to have Google Hangout with some TPMers, methinks.

EDIT:

* For our fabulous English learners, "shut down" would be the verb form, and "shutdown" the adjective and noun form of this term. So:

"Restaurants could not serve food because of the shutdown." (noun)
"They have shut down the restaurants." (verb)
"During the shutdown period, restaurants could not serve food." (adjective)

Oh and high five with my fellow grammar zealot philologist!

[Lady Vulpix]

I suppose we could do that if you want.

I'm having my Chinese lessons via Skype. And we're planning to give online lectures at university too.

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Is Google Classroom strictly for official teachers only? I really enjoyed the conference, even got a new friend via it.

[Lady Vulpix]

I don't know. My subject is going to use a combination of Google Meet and Discord.

[Knight of Time]

Well, we have 21 cases here now, and I have the uneasy feeling that number will steadily rise here.

Now, being as today is April Fool's Day, I have a quick message for anyone with a sense of humour:

Do not, I repeat, do not make a Coronavirus related April Fool's Day prank! As funny as other pranks not related to coronavirus may be, this one is absolutely NOT funny at all. In some countries, doing one of these kind of pranks could get someone in big, BIG trouble.

Pushing that aside, I am worried about a few elderly relatives of mine (including my grandmother, who is the lone grandparent I have left), as well as my brother...I just hope none of those relatives catch coronavirus. My brother is only a couple of years younger than me (almost), but with his weakened immune system, I fear that coronavirus could be real bad news for him if he was unlucky enough to catch it.

[Lady Vulpix]

Is your brother able to stay at home? He can't catch the virus if he doesn't go anywhere people with the virus have been.

[Knight of Time]

Is your brother able to stay at home? He can't catch the virus if he doesn't go anywhere people with the virus have been.

Believe it or not, he stays home most of the time. He doesn't leave the house very often (it's a little too complicated to say why).

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

I don't know. My subject is going to use a combination of Google Meet and Discord.

What's more, I have found it strange that people are using Discord for that kind of thing. I thought Discord is more like for gamers. But I guess it's only natural since most youngsters are on Discord these days.

[Lady Vulpix]

Discord was originally made for gamers, but it can be used for many other things. It's a communication platform, after all.

[Drusilla]

Illinois is fully shut down, but I am in Missouri, which is not shut down except by local governments.

I live on the Illinois side of the same metro as Magmar, and it's been fairly quiet here; not as many confirmed cases as in Missouri. Our official stay at home order began on the 21st of March (happy birthday to me...), and it was like a ghost town for a few days. People are getting restless now and are moving around more, so I have expectations for a jump in cases here soon. I'm still going TO work, though the store is closed and I'm only filling orders to be delivered by mail. I've taken advantage of not having to worry about foot traffic and been doing a deep clean and organizing of the store. So I see my one coworker that handles our shipping when he comes to pick up orders and I otherwise don't see anyone. It's a sad fate for an extrovert.

[Fett One]

It's a sad fate for an extrovert.

I'm an introvert. While it can get boring from time to time not having people around to talk to, not having to deal with people on the street and and at work (mainly phone calls and emails from people outside the office) is actually making for a more relaxing day.

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

My nurse visited me yesterday, and she said she has been positively surprised how good I have been done all alone. You see, I've always been a part of some sort of a community and visited Mielikkitalo daily. Of course I'm looking forward to be back at Mielikkitalo again, but at least I have got time for my own things now. However, the local home care system will be visiting me a lot often during this crisis and my doctor also adjusted my medication a bit. I feel that's fine, at least if I won't start being delirious because of the latter...

[Number1ChanseyFan]

So cool to see a couple of familiar faces posting here again!! It would be great if everyone could stay and maybe some more TPM veterans found their way back here!!

So Ohio is now on lockdown until May 1st now... so, no work for another 4 weeks, I don't know, they are saying that they think that the worst is yet to come, maybe this week or maybe at the end of the month... It's just kinda eerie out there, everything is so quiet and isolated, its a little unnerving, I live about 5 minutes away from a hospital, they have the tents set up in the parking lot... They are empty for now, but they are there just in case... people seem like they are getting a little crabbier around here, not sure if it is worry/anxiety or cabin fever setting in on some of them. Hang in there, TPMers, stay healthy!! <3

[Lady Vulpix]

I agree, it's nice to see people return and be able to catch up with them. You stay healthy too! It's going to take a while, but things are going to get better in the future.

And not being delirious is always good.

[Austrian ViceMaster Alex]

Seems like the worst is over in Austria. Government plans to have small shops open again next week, big ones by the end of the month. Still, social distancing continues and you have to wear those masks when in public transport or in stores.