Hoboken, Jersey City, and Teaneck sound like they are very near an Italy-style lockdown. Bars are no longer allowed to be open in Hoboken, and restaurants are only allowed to serve delivery and carry out. Teaneck is asking all residents to self-quarantine.

For whatever reason, De Blasio and Cuomo have been really dragging their feet on closing the NYC school system. That seems like a big mistake, as closing the school system is often the first thing to happen in a true state of emergency. And, since it seems almost inevitable that the system will have to shut, doing it in an orderly fashion would at least give people the opportunity to prepare.

Wow! That was Ground Zero for the HIV epidemic 35 or 40 years ago. Sure looks different now.

Meatpacking? It was a industrial zone full of warehouses until the 1990s...

Silly boy! It was home to several notorious gay bars and sex clubs from the late 1960s until the late 1990s. They co-existed happily with the sides of beef hanging on conveyors being loaded on and off trucks. There was also a ton of action going on underneath both the abandoned overhead West Side Highway and the abandoned rail line now known as the High Line as well as in the crumbling and empty piers on the other side of the highway. There is a great deal of information about this era to be found online. The Mineshaft was the most notorious, but there were two large and popular leather bars under the highway and another half dozen sex clubs in the vicinity of Little West 12th and Greenwich. There was a rather famous club called The Anvil that featured live sex and un-mentionable sex acts that drew a celebrity audience of voyeurs, supposedly including the likes of Jackie Kennedy on at least one occasion.

https://psychnsex.com/mineshaft/
http://www.back2stonewall.com/2018/0...1974-1986.html

Interesting. I've been to the restaurant now at 835 Washington St. several times. Didn't know the building's history as a gay sex club...

Today, Sunday, 3.15.20. Drive-through Mass/Communion at St. Elizabeth of Hungary Catholic Church, Altadena, California. (Not my photo.)

Per Sylvia M. Gribbell: "You park and listen to mass. Cars are parked with space between them and Eucharistic ministers bring communion to your vehicle.
There will be a noon service in Spanish."
https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...5f&oe=5E93935C
From Hidden Los Angeles Facebook page via Sylvia M. Gribbell

What are your communities doing to help small businesses in event of prolonged shutdowns like in Italy, Spain, and France? A web designer here launched a clearinghouse for local businesses to sell gift cards if they have to cease operations for weeks: Asheville Strong. The site launched yesterday and already has 75 participating businesses of all kinds.

In other news, cases in North Carolina have jumped from 25 yesterday to 32 today, including one in a county I have to regularly visit.

Good, that's a better solution.

Québec is not the hardest-hit province but it has the most aggressive measures right now.

The Premier (François Legault) just announced the mandatory closing of all bars, cinemas, gyms, concert halls, spas, saunas, librairies, ski resorts, amusement centres and buffet-style restaurants.

Regular restaurants can stay open but only at 50% capacity and with 1-metre spacing between customers.

There is also a showdown brewing between Legault and Justin Trudeau, with the former finding the latter way too lax when it comes to borders and travel. Which according to an IATA table someone posted in the Canada forum, appears to be among the most lax countries at the moment.

Just an hour or two ago Justin Trudeau was opining something like "why oh why should I prevent people from coming in the country right now?..."

I rented a cabin in the woods from Airbnb. Stockholm is but a memory.

24 hours after yesterday's trip to the local supermarket (see above) the entire produce section had been restocked (impressive), the dairy section had some inventory (I bought milk) and the packaged meat section was about 50% stocked (I bought a roast and some ground beef). Still no eggs and no bread whatsoever. Minimal canned goods available. I didn't bother looking for cleaning or paper products or healthy frozen food. I bought a frozen pizza - gotta have some fun!

That sounds so nice right now. I’m envious.

If they shut restaurants and transport in London, I am going to Cornwall.

Cornwall, Ontario or Cornwall, Prince Edward Island?

The weekending places are packed right now. The Hamptons are supposedly busier than a Memorial Day weekend.

stockholm syndrome


https://media0.giphy.com/media/4tQmuMGdah3B6/giphy.gif

Didja bring someone nice enough to cross-contaminate?

Ohio and Illinois have closed all bars and restaurants. I’m sure every state is not far behind from doing this. So it looks like no more going out to drink or eat after work or on the weekends.

Ireland is ordering all the pubs closed from midnight. Ireland!

The last time the pubs in England were ordered closed was under Oliver Cromwell in the 1640s. And then there was a civil war.

Putting Cromwell and Ireland in the same sentence is culturally insensitive. lol

Of course he did. He is a kool... maudit... after all.

Wow. Aerial views of expressways in Italy are just freaky. So deserted it looks like a CGI of a fictional city where no one lives.

Tellement.

I trust his good judgement to lasso (figuratively speaking) a green-eyed platinum blonde for prolonged chess tournaments. There is a sanitary measure behind this thought.

Boise hasn't been too bad, yet, but I think this is just the beginning. We got our first confirmed case this last Friday. Talks of several school districts being cancelled is circulating, restaurants are taking a hit (I couldn't believe how dead Texas Roadhouse was. That place is ALWAYS packed here. Some restaurants offering 50% off your tab just to keep their employees working), and grocery stores are getting hit by the hoarders.

I'm sure this is just the start of the race. I work for the city and we have an all-hands on deck meeting tomorrow, so, I will be interested to see what comes out of it.

Should’ve been doing this nationwide last week along with closing the airports and mass transit systems. This is just beginning and will continue to get worse because of our response. Wait and see what kind of panic ensues when the hospitals are overrun and thousands are dying across the country.

^
PA just had all restaurants and bars close in the state.

Kind of destroys the arguments most us have been making for mass transit to realize they can be totally shut down, leaving those utterly dependent on them (even to access medical care) stranded. This may not be the last rampaging virus as everything goes more and more global.

Economic conditions in the US are deteriorating rapidly. This is pretty scary.

Closing transit is not a good idea. People still need to go to the grocery and pharmacy or to work at the hospital...

Hopefully rush-hour transit will get less crowded by itself...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronav...=hp_lead_pos10

Now we’ve gone too far.

The main grocery stores are getting hammered here in Australia and instituting strict controls on certain items per person (including meat, starting today) as well as a specific hour each morning from 7-8 to let the elderley stock up before everyone else strips the shelves.

Apart from that i'm still at work, the Sydney traffic is still awful, the public transport i get to work still seems like a Corona-hive, but i work downtown near the central station where driving and parking simply isn't possible.

Enjoy my inner city life but i'll be honest the suburbs are better set up for social distancing right now!

^ any urban transit commuters who don't have the option to WFH should consider this as a prime opportunity to take up the noble activity of bicycle commuting.

All you need to get started is a working bicycle.

Not the worst idea, especially now that summer's wrapping up: maybe this will be the kick in the pants i need to get on that bike.

^ I've been at it every workday for the past 12 year.

Easily one if the best decisions I ever made. DO IT!

Ironically enough, I'll be WFHing for the next 3 weeks at least, and thus won't be bike commuting for the first time in a long time.

Gonna have to schedule in some fun rides to stay in good riding shape.

New Orleans is slammed with virus cases. Over 100 in the state, with 75 in Orleans Parish and most of the rest in the suburban parishes. Two deaths so far. There is one 45 y/o otherwise healthy man in critical care on a respirator. He had no underlying conditions. Was misdiagnosed and refused a coronavirus test earlier this week. Guess this means even healthy folks under 50 can be at risk.

https://www.fox8live.com/2020/03/14/...-cases-covid-/

https://www.nola.com/news/coronaviru...7f71d169a.html

Ha last Thursday I got in that train of thought, got my bike fixed which happened to be fine aside from no air in the tires.

LA is totally shut down now -- all bars, clubs, entertainment venues, and movie theaters are closed effective midnight.

The idea of living in Central LA, a city where God knows how many millions live paycheck to paycheck particularly within the service industry--take away their pay from one day to the next, how are they going to survive? Where will people go? I am dreading the pandemonium that may ensue.

My boyfriend and I are escaping to my Dad's in Coronado, San Diego tomorrow (my dad lives in Mexico most of the year currently). At least its connected only by bridge and there's a military base next door to where he lives. It takes very little for humans to be reduced to a survivalist, animalistic nature, and that scares me to no end.

Yeah, I don't really enjoy maintaining my bike though. Riding down King I always get flat tires. The Lakeshore path is better but that adds an extra 2 miles. I'll take the green line to Garfield (basically empty) then walk or divvy the rest of the way to campus. I bet campus will be closed soon though and our detector construction will be completely fucked.

Just got a notice from my HOA that their monthly meeting, open to all residents, is tomorrow. This is in AZ where the state Dept. of Health Services is advising all meetings of 50 or more be canceled or postponed.

#clueless

And the legs of person under 50 (or younger).

I know there are fanatical oldsters in their 80s who ride bikes and I know there are electic-assisted bikes, but I reject the idea this is a practical idea for the middle aged and older. Riding for fun and exercise--where you can go the distance that's comfortable for you--is one thing but riding several miles to work and back for those not in shape for it is just not in the cards and there will be consequences (oldsters having CPR on the roadside).

I was out buying weed and saw some guy walking down the street barking, growling and giving the hitler salute.

I guess its affecting him negatively?

I mentioned a week or so ago that my good friend had been laid off from his hotel job (not exactly laid off--just given no hours to work). Now I would guestimate that a good portion of San Francisco, which is a tourist town more than LA (let's not argue about that--just my impression), has joined him. Take hotels, bars and restaurants out of our economy and the techies working from home and basically the only people going to work are in city government (probably also working from home to a large extent), health care and first responders.

I expect the city has to respond in some way.

That would pass without notice in San Francisco. :shrug: First day I was house hunting in the city 4 decades ago, as I got off a city bus a guy in a chicken costume but carrying a briefcase was getting on. Nobody noticed.

Well you don't see that everyday here.

Edit: He was also kicking stuff and at one point a moving car.

I do that when they make a turn while I'm crossing the street and almost hit me.

Not challenging you. Just saying Montreal seems a civilized place compared to the zoo I live in.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/...n-15132049.php

Not too surprising they have the most cases in CA. Before we recognized the crisis, they had lots of travel to and from Asia including China.

Monday morning be like...

https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...c9&oe=5E959481

Probably about a third of the traffic you'd normally see on the roads this morning. I stopped at my favorite coffee shop before work. There were two other people there in line, and we all stood the required six feet apart.

LOL! under 50?????? :haha: :haha: :haha: :haha: :haha: :haha:

my parents are both 73. they are not "avid cyclists" like me, but they both stay relatively active.

they can both ride a bike 10 miles with no problem at all. i did that with them last summer.

will bike commuting be a suitable transit replacement for every single last living soul on the planet? of course not, but there are literally millions of able-bodied transit commuters out there who could switch to a bicycle during these dark days to avoid crowded transit trains and buses if WFH isn't an option.

and every able-bodied transit rider that makes the switch to a bike makes the trains/buses that much less crowded, and hence safer, for those riders who have absolutely no other option to get around.

As things continue to unfold here in North America. 2 Scandinavian governments have unveiled their worker support plans.

Denmark:

- Full pay for those laid off for 20 days
- Self-Employed to get 80% of their 3-year average income for the period.
- Money for those caring for COVID patients

Sweden:

- Laid off workers to get 90% of their income
- Gov't will pay 50% of that, Employer other 50%
- Gov't will pick up the full cost of sick pay from business

Important to judge our own governments offerings.

^
Won’t happen here in the land of the free most likely.