Well I do lots of hand shaking and baby kissing for my job and Its gotten a little awkward.

People shake hands and immediately offer sanitize, or literally try to bump your elbow, also people cancelling meetings day of over a small cold or just until this all blows over.

Still hasnt changed anything about the city but people are hyper aware.

Other than that I know people friends and family that have been put under home quarantine due to travel recently to and from Italy as well as people who have had planned activities, business and pleasure to Europe completely scrapped for the foreseeable future.

Also I got 150$ round trip ticket to Phoenix-NYC so thats pretty swell.

**** is hitting the fan in my neck of the woods...

So you prefer to kill more trees for the box than for the product.

It would be helpful if your profile or your post actually identified where on the plant your neck of the woods is located.

C. stands for "Coronavirusville"

I ordered a headband from North Face and it came in a huge box. It was small enough that they could have put it in an envelope...

That sunk in weeks ago when many epidemiologists were predicting that more than half of the world’s population would acquire the virus.

They were also saying, and still are, that the vast majority of people (and basically anyone who isn’t old with underlying health conditions) would be fine. This is why some of us believe the response is overblown, economically damaging, and that the better response would be for those vulnerable people to instead avoid public places (as well as younger relatives).

That wouldn't be enough. The vulnerable old lady's niece will visit twice a week, and bring it with her because she's been in public.

Reduced gatherings and "social distance" are about making sure the niece is less likely to get it and carry it to the old lady.

It's also about slowing the spread so that the health system and maybe a vaccine can catch up before it gets too big.

What they're also saying is that you can be young and healthy enough to lick the toilet seat in an airport bathroom and be fine but you can still pass something on to anyone older or immunocompromised. There's a reason why they're shutting down schools and universities...

Traffic during off peak hours here is usually still bad but lately it's been a breeze imo.

Ive been working from home and via skype but I had to go into The City yesterday to get some files and around 11ish in the morning it seemed a lot less busy.

That would put the death toll in the US at around 6.7 million people.

EDIT: Yes. But I will say the amount of plastic in these packages is actually concerning me. Almost enough for me to stop...eventually.

And this is coming from someone who isn't an environmentalist really.

Locally, Royal Caribbean was in the process of building a new HQ office, now started layoffs.

^ yeah, the cruise industry is in for one hell of a beat-down.

who the fuck is ever gonna wanna take a cruise again after this shit?

you couldn't pay me to get on one of those floating petri dishes.

and i highly doubt i'm the only one thinking that way.

I've never been on a cruise but I know several people who love them. One of these people is currently on an extensive cruise to Antarctica and South America. I can't see them giving it up. Cruisers are really hooked.

And by the way. MGM Resorts today announced somebody tested positive at one of its Las Vegas hotels. I'm sure that's the tip of the iceberg--bet there are lots of people who are positive who've stayed in Las Vegas and certainly in other hotels. You think hotels are land-based petri dishes? They have many of the same issues as cruise ships though not all but especially in Vegas, where people tend to stay in the hotel for gambling, dining, shows and everything like on cruise ships. By the way, MGM is also temporarily eliminating buffets at their hotels. And I haven't seen any announcement about shows but I'd bet they go next.

A lot of people. They're still going on them right now despite the horror stores with the two Princess ships and a dozen or so people here in Houston were infected on a Nile river cruise recently.

if i never set foot in vegas again for the rest of my days, you won't see any tears in my eyes.

So many younger people don't seem to understand that just by getting the virus, whether they get sick or not, in fact especially if they don't get sick, they are facilitating its further spread. They also don't get that they may not even know they're infected, but Granny will know it when they visit her and she dies 3 weeks later.

The Rodeo has been shut down here.

And we house the headquarters of the worlds 2 largest cruise lines. Carnival and Royal Caribbean. RCL stock is down from 134.1 on Jan 17th to 41.2 at one point today.