Or everywhere is and it doesn’t really matter anymore.

This is so crazy. National guard soldiers don't know anything about avoiding contamination. If there is any virus in these places they are cleaning, they are likely to catch it and spread it further.

Anyway, the idea of a ghetto with a synagogue in the center is maybe not so new.

This is not a containment area.

Netherlands, Belgium and Germany for us in May as well.

People are stocking up on "essentials" so they won't have to go to stores and mingle with the crowds there if the virus becomes widespread in their communities. Makes perfect sense to me however I stocked up on TP and paper towels about a week ago just because I needed them.

Have these people not heard of Amazon?

It was only about a week ago that I was thinking a trip to Italy was a fantastic idea - fewer crowds and discounted prices just for the risk of a then seemingly overhyped virus. Glad I didn't do that now, given how quickly and dramatically things have changed there.

In the meantime, if anyone wants to do any travelling, I think local road trips are the way the go. Less of a commitment, easier to adapt as needed, less exposure to potential carriers.

It's a bit of a bummer (especially as I had skipped any "big" international trips last year so as to be able to do several this year), but perhaps this is an opportunity to spend a bit more time exploring our own regions and getting to know some of our overlooked neighbouring cities a bit better.

Or just save that money and invest in stocks as the market bottoms out instead. That'll be bound to pay off in a couple years.

I'd be surprised if the National Guard doesn't train for events like this.

So do you know whose been handling that stuff you'll be handling when you open the Amazon package? Bet they coughed into your box before sealing it.

Besides, I'm finding Amazon is "out of stock" on the same stuff my local Walmart is so they may not be such a reliable source to depend on.

Finally, bulky but cheap stuff like TP isn't always available on Amazon Prime.

In Sitges this week. The flight over from Boston was not full, but I swear, Logan and Heathrow were the healthiest I've ever seen them (7 hours combined in each of them). Normally there is hacking and coughing all over the place....not this visit. Some masks.

Sitges is small town just outside of Barcelona and life is going along normally here. Tomorrow we will be in Barcelona and should be fine. Tons of hand sanitizer and no masks. We'll see.

I wouldn't. They train for decontamination in nuclear war, not cleaning schools (I was in the Navy Medical Corps for 26 years--I never heard of any training for what they will be doing). And the idea seemed so remote to most of these young guys when they went through whatever training it was, I doubt they absorbed much of it. Probably rolled their eyes through most of it.

A package of Charmin handled maybe by four or five people between the time it leaves the distribution center to your front door or the panicked hordes sniffling, coughing and touching everything in their wake as they make their way around the store?

Yeah, but the idea is to get it NOW, when the guys handling it are likely to be uninfected (no matter where you choose to buy it).

Besides, Charmin? Really? I already said nothing but Quilted Northern touches my butt.

How do you abide by this exclusive preference in public places?

Old articles, but seem to support my belief that virus containment is very-much part of the National Guard's specialties.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/marylan...813-story.html

https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/26...ational-guard/

https://www.nationalguard.mil/News/A...emic-response/

And so it begins:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/art...d-15118383.php

This is a nightmare waiting to happen:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/...h-15115597.php

"Normally, the soldiers would wear tightly sealed protective suits. Given the near 100-degree heat, they chose to work in T-shirts . . . ."

These articles reference, in the first, case an instance of not-very-realistic or relevant training conducted years ago (the key thing in bio-decontamination is how to don and remove the protective suits which they apparently finessed--and this is the way military training too often goes), and in the other two it's about specific units (medical and "first response"), not regular guardsmen. I continue to argue that regular guardsmen from regular units don't know much about this activity even if they've had any kind of training in the last 5 years. They are being used as unpaid cleaning labor which is probably OK but if they find themselves in a genuinely "hot zone", one or more of them is likley to catch "it".

Do you know what type of National Guard units they deployed? Or are you just assuming, and then saying it's stupid based on that assumption? There is so much neither of us know, yet you were so quick to call it crazy. To me, THAT is crazy.

The article said they are being used to clean schools. They don't use medical units for that and I'd bet they don't use the special Homeland Security units for that either. But OK.

I admit it--as someone with a lot of time in the military I get very annoyed at using the military as cheap labor which is what I think is happening here.