Mostly Apolitical Thread for Discussing/Venting our Rational/Irrational COVID-19 Fears and Experiences in 2020

Got a letter from my doctor today - he's retiring at the end of May. He recommends a different doctor in the same building, so I guess I'll give that guy a call?

Got a letter from my doctor today

It said i was suckers

Oh whoops maybe it was a bad idea to pour alcohol on our N95 masks. Should have baked them instead.

baking is always better than alcohol iykwim

I support alcohol AND getting baked.

the other day some bored 5g tinfoil hat nutters have set fire to a communications mast in Hudds (that was also used by emergency services as well as various phone networks) which meant the fire services had to evacuate the adjacent flats until the fire was put out, just what you need during a lockdown. Stupid fucking xenophobic conspiracy theories from dim politicians (and US presidents) have consequences.

Another one for the new moral quandries pile: the wife thinks we should go out to buy essentials when we need them, as opposed to sending for delivery, as a) this way we are running the risks, not paying someone else to (we are both able bodied, young, well off) and b) we are not depleting the stock of orders that ppl w/ less mobility than us rely on. This flies in the face of govt advice, tho frankly the govt's gotten it wrong so many times now and also is unlikely to care about the fates of the proles who deliver shopping. The only other thing I could think of is that if we go out that means more ppl are out and that means higher risk of contagion for the delivery person, who will be picking stuff up from the same places we go to. Thoughts?

I tried to explain the 5G conspiracy thing to an intelligent person the other day, I had to resort to saying that people believe it's the latest sally in a magical war between Chinese tech corporations and the remnants of the British Empire. It sounded unconvincing even to me.

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The conspiracy theorists are really getting to me today. Almost lost it on a friend throwing out all these ideas they “just found interesting”. Ignoring this shit clearly does not work, engaging with it just makes it grow, and now avoiding it is failing too. Soul crushing like few other things.

― Kim,Wednesday, 15 April 2020 20:30 (yesterday) link

The good thing is that you get to decide who you consider your friend or not. These are people with whom you should consider not being friends.

Tinfoil is perfect protection against 5G, it is surprisingly non-penetrating if things like glass or paper or brick. I had to build a special shelf for our 5G modem so it could see the tower.

I've given up trying to weigh up the relative moralities of getting a delivery slot (where I can) vs going out. I offer to get my NHS friends (and neighbours) stuff they need on my delivery if I get one, which will probably result in net fewer journeys.
Some supermarkets only offer slots to vulnerable people which is fine, we're not on the list afaik.

Yeah, supermarket slots are a whole nother thing. I'm talking mostly getting stuff from Co-Op or Morrisons via deliveroo (a terrible company in its own right but that's another conversation).

I don't know why my address isn't on the vulnerable list. My partner has MS and is immune compromised. My son has autism and we have an agreement with social services that I never leave her alone in the house with him after he hospitalised her during a meltdown. Try explaining social distancing to an adult with classic autism and next to no spatial awareness. Not complaining though because still managing to get deliveries so far, touch wood.

The friend thing, yeah I know. I’m sure we’ve all had a deterioration in commonality with a lot of people. Just trying to get by.

About shopping, ideally everyone should stay home as much as they can, but practically, if people have isolated for two weeks and remain healthy and are not part of a high risk group, it’s better to leave the limited delivery options to people who just need it more. Short term anyway - they are increasing the capacity of these things so the ideal might also become the practical.

Another one for the new moral quandries pile: the wife thinks we should go out to buy essentials when we need them, as opposed to sending for delivery, as a) this way we are running the risks, not paying someone else to (we are both able bodied, young, well off) and b) we are not depleting the stock of orders that ppl w/ less mobility than us rely on. This flies in the face of govt advice, tho frankly the govt's gotten it wrong so many times now and also is unlikely to care about the fates of the proles who deliver shopping. The only other thing I could think of is that if we go out that means more ppl are out and that means higher risk of contagion for the delivery person, who will be picking stuff up from the same places we go to. Thoughts?

― Daniel_Rf,Thursday, April 16, 2020 7:37 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

That delivery person isn't going to stop circulating because he didn't have to come to your house. Working for the greater good means staying at home and reducing the chances of your becoming a vector.

I had no idea Deliveroo picked up supermarket shopping. Can't use it where I am anyway.

It’s no longer complicated to me. If the demand is outpacing the supply of delivery spots, the most vulnerable and the literally quarantined people need it more. Only use those services if those populations are able to get what they require. Two week+ waiting times for slots tells me that is not happening here, so I’m carefully going to the store, but as infrequently as we’re able to manage. If more availability opens up as capacity rises, that’ll be the time I stay away too.

social and moral dilemmas in the reign of COVID 19th of its name

Has anyone else noticed that junk/spam emails have dwindled to almost nothing?

I'm still get Labour Party spam and stopped the dd weeks ago!

No idea how all those police captains in Lagos are passing the time these days.

deadly viruses are the ultimate pyramid scheme.

the thing that is breaking my brain lately: all the (correct) criticism of people complaining that the economy should be reopened because they need a haircut has started to develop an undercurrent of "you're not allowed to hate all of this," which... I mean, if there's a way not to hate all this I'd love to know it

uk “lockdown” to last at least three more weeks

Has anyone else noticed that junk/spam emails have dwindled to almost nothing?

― The Corbynite Maneuver (Tom D.),Thursday, April 16, 2020 8:42 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

still getting the occasional phishing email in my spam folder, but i haven't gotten a robocall in weeks.

I don't want to "reopen the economy" but I do need a haircut

at this point I'm assuming I won't be able to get a haircut for the remainder of the calendar year and I worry for my wonderful and treasured stylist

I'm pretty disappointed about how slowly hair grows tbh.

A horrible thing I’ve noticed recently when out: white middle-class people not wearing protection, ordering others to give them more space or telling them they’re too close. The ‘others’ are never white people, and have usually come out in masks and gloves.

This morning, wearing both, I went up to Hampstead for the first time in three weeks and was delighted to see open a place serving decent coffee (shop A) so queued up. Another coffee place (shop B) was also open for pick-ups along where everyone was queuing and having lockdown chat to pass the time. Some guy in shorts and no protection crossed the street with his gf to pick up drinks from shop B and darted between two people in the queue for shop A. As he waited in shop B’s doorway, someone who worked there (tall BAME kid with covered face and hands) approached to enter, but hung back because of the customer. Customer LOST HIS SHIT at the younger man and started ordering him to stand back when he noticed him waiting. Cue lots of tutting and nervous looks between all of us queuing for shop A.

Me: ‘He works there, you’re in his way.” Younger man looks shocked. Customer and his gf, drinks in hand, stomp off. Me, muttering: “...Dick.” From yards away, dude roars WHAT DID YOU SAY?!? I just stared straight at him. Again: “What did you just say?” Me: “It’s hard enough without you being unpleasant to people trying to go to their jobs, just chill out maybe?” When I get inside shop A, the other customer inside laughs and says “that guy WAS being a dick, I wish I’d said it.” We had a quick chat about dude and this weird pattern of racism; he said he was noticing stuff like that too.

The word wanker hardly suffices.

I think I’ve mapped the handful of decent places still open for a flat white between the Thames and Hampstead, special mention to the Greek grocers on Farringdon Road who took over when the Gazzano family closed their Italian shop (they own the building and are still landlords). For ILXors in Angel/Clerkenwell/Bloomsbury, this is worthwhile intel (and supporting small businesses is a virtue worth signalling).

Went out to my second favorite taqueria tonight and saw a bunch of assholes — some adults, some teenagers, and some younger kids — all riding minibikes and a small four-wheeler in a park, roaring up and down the street and tearing up the grass. None of them were wearing masks, they were all standing as close to each other as they'd have done under non-pandemic conditions...it was really fucking irritating, especially since I was forced to think about what I would do if one or more of them approached me.

"Home Working Tip of the Day #18 – Match your music to the task from your to do list - the music within computer games is a great example of this - the lyric-free music tempo in games is designed to help you focus on the challenge ahead; so it makes sense that similar music styles will help you to focus on your tasks too. ... Perhaps try heavy rock for coding, classical music for reviews, operatic for emails..!"

please make it stop.

THere seemed to be a growth in the amount of hairdressing courses available from community centres before the outbreak. I wonder if they are now showing results.
Hope loads of participants are getting loads of practise in at a time when people aren't having to go everywhere with the inept initial stage results. I mean practise makes perfect and one will always improve with further practise or something to that effect.

On the other hand haven't noticed the wave of hair clippers in LIDL one might have expected . & everybody wearing their hair really short to avoid the possibility of it being infected by the virus or whatever the excuse would be.

On the verge of losing it over getting woken up every morning by the hammering and banging from the interminable building work going on next door - it's like they're building the Taj Mahal or something. At least they're not shouting at each other anymore.

Use Whitehouse or Nurse With Wound for those 'inbetween moments' when you're having a full-scale breakdown

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Merzbow, Sunn and Hair Police on constant rotation maybe intercut with Metal machine Music for relaxation.

I ordered a couple of CDs on Amazon - cheap stuff, only like £8 for the pair - which have never arrived and which Amazon have offered to refund me for, however I'd really prefer to have the CDs. Anyway, the original seller suggested I contact Royal Mail because the CDs had definitely been posted on 30th March. Now, whatever you may do in life, do not try to go on the Royal Mail website and make any sort of attempt to find what happened to any lost mail - you will get trapped in a loop which is specially designed to stop you making any attempt to find out what happened to lost mail. I'm currently on my 24th minute of trying to get through to their call centre and about to chuck it.

Currently back on the phone to Royal Mail - on my 15th minute of my phone credit being eaten up - because the postman has been to our building and left a Something For You non-delivery card which says the item in question can be picked up at the Holloway Delivery Office tomorrow - that's the Holloway Delivery Office that's been shut since the lockdown started. So phoning to find out where to pick it up as getting it redelivered seems pointless if the posties won't ring doorbells to tell people they're there.

the amazon warehouse shutdown in France is hilarious because now amazon is saying they're just going to ship from other countries instead

Gave up after 40 minutes this time. Just have to hope the postman on the redelivery day rings the bell. This is probably costing me more in phone calls than the actual value of the items.

Leaving to go out for a short walk earlier, as I open the front door of the building I saw a delivery guy arriving for a neighbour. I thought he might see me in the doorway and give me a moment to leave but he kept approaching. When he''s nearly two metres from me and not stopping I say, loudly, I'll leave the door on the latch for you and I'll go back in. He STILL doesn't stop as I'm latching the door. So I go back into the building and wait for him to drop the thing off. Once he's back out the door I follow at a distance and he looks back at me baffled like he has no idea why I'd been hovering around the door if I was on my way out. *eye roll*

Just had the broadband guy in as out service was dropping out stopping us from working at home. He's the first non-household person to cross the door in weeks. We all kept our distance and cleaned everything etc but it's quite unnerving inviting a potential new "vector" into the house.

In other news two of my friends have lost parents (both over 80) and my neighbour is in hospital. Everything feels closer and more real this week.

Yes I drank white wine and ate sweetbreads and smoked a cigarette b/c it's Friday and a pandemic's lurking about.

xxps: Home ovens should be fine for recycling masks. In a paper bag, 30 minutes in a preheated oven at 70 °C, and that mask and oven is sterile. See Duan et al 2003, and this discussion by Peter Tsai, a guy who invents mask N95 filtration material.

i'm ordering more fernet

Hi, Brad!

chemo walk today

they're increasingly tiring, but I do not want to take transit or be in friends' cars

Has anyone else noticed that junk/spam emails have dwindled to almost nothing?

Nope! I'm getting bothered by them more than ever. Spam filters usually catch them but every day I'm getting a phishing one from "TESC0" that keeps getting tweaked, presumably to test its way past the filters.

Popping in at 10pm on Friday night after my 3+ hr class tonight to report 1) super proud of my students for trying so hard to adapt 2) they’re all showing up still and that makes me feel good as a teacher and 3) omgggggggg teaching via webcam is exhausting. I’m adapting just like my students are but holy crap. I can barely deal w the pressure of being their teacher before/after. I need to maintain my connection but it’s soooo hard. Also, I’m grateful bc they’re the only ppl I interact w face to face now

online teaching is invading my personal mental space, nothing like getting up on a Sunday morning to an email from some fucking student who started a quiz but didn't want to do it and could I please reset it for them. Or an email on a Friday evening asking when feedback is likely to be available. Hi guys, you know how we've given you extensions for everything because it's hard times for students? I'm a fucking person living through this as well.