How Is Covid-19 Impacting Life in Your City?

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

I've got Barcelona planned in May and as long as most of the restaurants and day trips I want to partake in are still open, I see no reason to cancel. Would be a shame if something like the La Sagrada Familia was closed though.

Likewise. We're not cancelling our trip to Barcelona et al, until the ship or the airline cancel it for us. So far the rest of the family is holding steady, but the friend who was thinking of going with us has changed her mind.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

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.

Originally Posted by Kngkyle

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

Regular military absolutely has bio-weapons training, I'd think the National Guard would, too. Besides, as long as the people in charge know what they're doing, if there's one thing every soldier knows it's how to follow orders ...

Originally Posted by JManc

Have these people not heard of Amazon?

Amazon is great for some things, but for other they have crap selection and insane prices. This is especially true for bulky consumer goods that are disporportionately expensive to ship (expensive for Amazon, even if not all that cost gets passed on to the consumer). I would never buy toilet paper from Amazon, as I expect it'd cost literally twice as much. Granted, it can be difficult to comparison shop for toilet paper because they have so many different sizes and "equivalents" (8 rolls = 24 rolls, 4 rolls = 16 rolls, etc, etc), but I just compared Target to Amazon and made sure they were exactly the same. $24 at Target without even any sale, $57 on Amazon. And often when I get it at Target, they have "but two, get a $5 card back" deals. Now, if I just went and tried to find the cheapest of the same roll size, or even went to the trouble of calculating a per-sheet price, I could probably find something on Amazon that's maybe only 25% more than Target. But it's really not worth it to work so hard just to spend more money anyway. For specialty things I can't find locally, and things where incredible volume means lowest prices I will use Amazon. Otherwise, I'm sticking to brick-and-mortar.

[JManc]

^ i agree. somethings are better bought from the store; household products being among them but I'm referring to people freaking out and buying enough TP to outfit the Sears Tower for 6 months because they're afraid to be out in public. if I got to that point, Amazon would be the way to go...

[sopas ej]

[10023]

Originally Posted by JManc

^ i agree. somethings are better bought from the store; household products being among them but I'm referring to people freaking out and buying enough TP to outfit the Sears Tower for 6 months because they're afraid to be out in public. if I got to that point, Amazon would be the way to go...

Household products are among the only things that aren’t better to buy from a store. They tend to be heavy, relatively cheap, well-packaged, undifferentiated from one batch to another, and non-perishable. All of those things lend themselves to online ordering rather than buying them in person.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by 10023

Household products are among the only things that aren’t better to buy from a store. They tend to be heavy, relatively cheap, well-packaged, undifferentiated from one batch to another, and non-perishable. All of those things lend themselves to online ordering rather than buying them in person.

Toilet paper is usually not heavy on this side of the Atlantic. That's what makes it kind of silly to buy online. You end up getting a giant box that weighs hardly anything--more pakcaging than product. The environment cries.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by 10023

Household products are among the only things that aren’t better to buy from a store. They tend to be heavy, relatively cheap, well-packaged, undifferentiated from one batch to another, and non-perishable. All of those things lend themselves to online ordering rather than buying them in person.

I've had bags of cat litter, laundry detergent and other household stuff arrive split open. I since stopped ordering these online. Amazon really offers no other incentive other than you can order crap sent to your house. It's not any cheaper from my experience and most of us are in proximity of a grocery store or Target anyway. I order just about everything online except for clothing, groceries and household items.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by emathias

Regular military absolutely has bio-weapons training, I'd think the National Guard would, too. Besides, as long as the people in charge know what they're doing, if there's one thing every soldier knows it's how to follow orders ...
.

Ever been in the military? If so, you'd realize that the chances for error in having soldiers do this work are huge. Yeah, they get some rudimentary biowar training--maybe a few years ago. And as that article that was posted--the one where they finessed the protective clothing--shows, the quality of the training varies from decent to useless. Besides, the applicability to this situation strikes me as minimal.

And yes, if there's somebody who knows what they are doing standing over them every minute supervising, it might go OK. But in that case, why not let the people who know what they are doing do it?

[maru2501]

fewer people on my L line

[chris08876]

Credit: https://www.fox7austin.com/news/amid...hand-sanitizer

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Ever been in the military? If so, you'd realize that the chances for error in having soldiers do this work are huge. Yeah, they get some rudimentary biowar training--maybe a few years ago. And as that article that was posted--the one where they finessed the protective clothing--shows, the quality of the training varies from decent to useless. Besides, the applicability to this situation strikes me as minimal.

And yes, if there's somebody who knows what they are doing standing over them every minute supervising, it might go OK. But in that case, why not let the people who know what they are doing do it?

Yeah, extremely rudimentary.

[10023]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Toilet paper is usually not heavy on this side of the Atlantic. That's what makes it kind of silly to buy online. You end up getting a giant box that weighs hardly anything--more pakcaging than product. The environment cries.

Replace “heavy” with “heavy or bulky”. Same idea... not something my wife wants to carry home (on foot, because we don’t live in the suburbs).

Originally Posted by JManc

I've had bags of cat litter, laundry detergent and other household stuff arrive split open. I since stopped ordering these online. Amazon really offers no other incentive other than you can order crap sent to your house. It's not any cheaper from my experience and most of us are in proximity of a grocery store or Target anyway. I order just about everything online except for clothing, groceries and household items.

That sounds like a local problem. I couldn’t imagine it happening here. And if it did you’d get a refund.

You also live in a place where you drive to the store. You’re not walking home from the subway with a gallon of Tide and whatever else.

[jtown,man]

Yeah, toilet paper and heavy dog food are like the two things we exclusively buy online. And this is coming from a person who tries to buy local as much as possible. I am done carrying around heavy and bulky shit.

[mrnyc]

well here is a snapshot of ny this morning on public transit.

the L train is a ghost train. obviously because the wealthy young move in's dont have to come into manhattan to work if they dont want to. they are always pilot fish.

the A train was regular heading uptown. it did cross my mind i am on a train with a ton of hospital workers who get out at 168st/presbyterian hospital tho, which i never think much about -- and that was a bit disconcerting.

[bossabreezes]

Morning commute in NYC today was one of the lightest I've ever experienced. Not a ghost town yet, but it was a breeze and normally it's very stressful shoving yourself into a sardine can subway.

Not sure if I'm nervous about this virus yet, but I feel like a lot of people decided to stay home today versus yesterday.

[tdawg]

We have our first confirmed case at the City University of New York.

[Handro]

Originally Posted by bossabreezes

Morning commute in NYC today was one of the lightest I've ever experienced. Not a ghost town yet, but it was a breeze and normally it's very stressful shoving yourself into a sardine can subway.

Not sure if I'm nervous about this virus yet, but I feel like a lot of people decided to stay home today versus yesterday.

I wasn't until I listened to renknowned infectious disease expert Michael Osterholm on the Joe Rogan podcast yesterday. He basically said nobody is worried ENOUGH, that this is going to get worse before it gets better, and we need to prepare for, conservatively, 500,000 deaths and millions of infections (many of which require intensive care, putting massive strain on those resources).

The way he put it, "we're treating this like a coronavirus blizzard, but what we're facing is a coronavrius winter."

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by bossabreezes

Morning commute in NYC today was one of the lightest I've ever experienced. Not a ghost town yet, but it was a breeze and normally it's very stressful shoving yourself into a sardine can subway.

Not sure if I'm nervous about this virus yet, but I feel like a lot of people decided to stay home today versus yesterday.

A lot of offices are closing.

[tdawg]

Angela Merkel said that Germany's infected rate could reach 70%. Let that sink in.

[JManc]

The WHO just officially declared Covid-19 a global pandemic

edit: Houston Rodeo cancelled after 1st community spread in Houston area.