Hunker Down

[WZ JUNK]

These are odd times.  We are in uncharted territory.  I have done a lot of thinking about the virus thing.  Just to be on the safe side, I plan to keep to myself at home the next couple of weeks and see what develops.  I do not plan to tempt fate by attending anything that draws crowds.  There is plenty of work to do in the shop and more to do around the place outside.  I wondered if anyone else has similar plans?  Most of us are in what is called a target group and it is not a good target group to be in.

As a side note, my wife and I had a scheduled a trip to Europe next month.(Germany, Austria, and Switzerland)  We had transportation, hotels, and attractions booked.  My wife spent a lot of time reading, and scheduling the trip.  I doubt that we will be able to go, and this is probably our last chance.  Thats okay, because we have been able to go lots of places.  

[chimp koose]

WE are supposed to go to mexico next month. I doubt we will be allowed to go . Ontario and manitoba have shut schools for 2 weeks . I think that may happen here too .

[Fat Cat]

The wife and I have a trip planned and paid for to go to Vancouver in August. I hope this all blows over by then.

[Crosley.In.AZ]

No planned trips at the time.  Wife will have new hardware installed in her left knee in early April. We shall see how that goes, plan from there I guess.

Wife's work place has majority of the office working at home till the end of March

The panic buying of a long list of paper items here in the local area is extreme. Makes little sense to us, but it is happening.

[348tripower]

I too have plans to stay put until there is some kind of relief. I even pulled my investments and moved them into a cash account. I will wait the wild market swings out till I feel more secure. A 100,000 loss in one week does not do my investments any good.
Glad I didn't go get my hair cut on Thursday. The place I go was visited by a virus carrier.  My barber is in self quarantine.

[Bruce Dorsi]

Things are crazy around here (NJ) as well.

We went to the supermarket yesterday, not out of panic, but to do normal weekly shopping. ...We do not own a large freezer, so we shop more frequently.

Business was booming to the point there was hardly any merchandise on the shelves.  ....No meats, canned vegetables, soups, paper products, detergent, soaps, cereals, crackers, bottled water, etc.  ....Only things not sold out were milk, eggs, cheese, and produce with short shelf-life.  ...Basically, anything which could be frozen or stored was sold out.

We talked with one employee who stated as fast as they get a delivery and re-stock, it's gone from the shelves.  ....He stated while they normally re-stock 2000 items on Thursday, they re-stocked 10,000 items and most were gone by mid-day Friday.  .....While this is good for today's business, the hoarders will not be purchasing the excess items for quite some time.

It's ironic that we are being told to avoid large groups of people to minimize spread of the virus, yet the supermarkets, Walmarts, Costcos,  BJ's, Sam's Clubs, etc are packed with people!  ....Governments, organizations, companies, schools, churches and events are being closed, cancelled, minimized, or postponed.

Trump is getting blamed for not reacting sooner.  ....I'm sure he is/was acting on information that is/was available to him at the time.  ....The CDC did not have a good understanding or enough information in advance to anticipate all needs.   ....The RATE of spread caught many people, governments, countries off-guard.

Nature's way of population control?  ....Darwin's theory?  ....God culling the herd?  ....Time will tell.

[Charlie Chops 1940]

I was appalled Thursday at our regular store trip. We had 8 items in our cart. Every checkout had cartspiled to the gunnals. Took a half hour to get to the dront of the line. The checker said it was the emptied cart she had seen all day. We are planning to stick around home and help day car our grade school grands a few days until they return to school in 3 weeks,

I can't grasp the number of panicked people on social media and in the stores. We can eat out of our pantry for a month probably ....might need milk and eggs. I'm guessing stupid can't be fixed. We might be in for a prolonged period of minimal contact - our choice mostly.

I might turn off my computer and get more done in the shop....I've got plenty to do....just like the rest of you blokes.

[kb426]

This brings to mind, 9-11. I watched mass paranoia as I had never seen before. The run on fuel. The topics of conversation. The various forms of social media has allowed acceleration of this process. In my life, monkey see, monkey do has been very common in many items. However, if you believe that the sun comes up everyday, you have a tendency to stay calm. The list of cancellations will affect me in some form. I will exercise caution more because I wouldn't want to be the carrier that caused harm to some of my friends who are in the upper age group rather than being concerned with my health. Most of us on this forum are able to hide out with out repercussions. If our employment required travel or large groups of people, we would have extra cause for concern. I just tried to find the current number of deaths for flu this season. The smallest number I found was 16,000. Once again, hindsight will tell if the correct decisions were made.

[jaybee]

We're just going to hang out in the casa. Since no one has immunity to this the important thing is to slow the spread so the medical services won't be overstressed. Lower the peak on the curve by spreading out the base. https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/AVGXw3HFGs62uWI_CNOx7ASXMSg=/1400x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19780273/flattening_the_curve_final.jpg

Out here in Tidewater Virginia I went to the grocery store last night. We didn't need a lot. Bread, lunch meat for next week and a few other things. The paper products aisle was totally cleaned out. Not so much as a package of napkins. Canned goods weren't much better. A whole lot of empty flats but I got the 6 cans of canned pears I wanted. Hand soaps were also virtually gone.

The store must have called in all hands because nearly every register was open. All of them had lines 50' long. Almost everyone had full carts. The guy in front of me spent $350. The people in front of him had to have spent more than that.

I told the cashier it's a good thing we all went there so we'll be prepared to avoid crowds.

[Crosley.In.AZ]

Wife visited the local Costco this morning. That was  Mistake #1. We had avoided the place since this panic buying started.  Mistake #2 : we thought panic buying may have slowed down.  NOPE!

She got to Costco about 9:30am.. It opens at 10am , but opens earlier now I guess

the entrance was jammed , crowded. Store had ropes up to route people in zig zag line. Wife said the inside aisle areas were roped off too. You enter one end , exit the other... Period. You stand in line... period.  She wanted 1 item in an aisle... Tuff , wait in line to enter the aisle.

As she entered the Costco front door  several employees were announcing : "we are out of stock for toilet paper, paper towels, baby wipes""' the list  went on. She felt sorry for them... repeating the same list over and over.  She saw people in cashier line with paper products in carts. It must have sold out quik.

As mentioned by others: canned goods near gone.  Meats gone. If it was perishable , not able to freeze it, that was on the shelves, but limited in quantity...

She went over to the local Fry's Food store. The shelves looked about the same there.

We  have  paper products at home.  In a couple weeks though, we will need to buy more some where.

[chimp koose]

I am OK I HAVE 80 POUNDS OF CAT LITTER !  

[GPster]

Things are not so bad here. Wife had major back surgery in December so our life doesn't get too far from her lift chair. If we do go out we are separated from large clusters of people by her walker, crutches or a shopping cart.Our son is a high school spanish teacher that is facing major heart bypass surgery. . His family was planning a trip to Spain over their spring break to visit their daughter who is doing her practice teaching there from Syracuse University. The virus scare and his personal health scare coincided at the same time so he won't blame himself for the trip not happening. Because of spring break our daughter-in-law (also a teacher) had the time to spend a whole day to find air plane tickets to get our grand daughter home from Spain today before Trumps travel ban was fully in place. Her and her friend have a place  in New York state to quaranteen themselves for two weeks and her classes can be done on-line. Plus with Ohio schools cancelled til the end of the month it removed some of our son's stress before his surgery on April 6. Our son-in-law works from home anyway so there's no change there and our other grand daughter is home from college for spring break so she's safe and can stay that way. Things will work out here. GPster

[416Ford]

Wife and I were scheduled to fly out tomorrow to New Orleans for vacation, now i will be at work on Monday. Not the vacation we were planning for the past month.
Better safe then sick.
I'm not a senior mechanic yet  

[Crosley.In.AZ]

Few hours ago, I read the Governor of Arizona has ordered schools closed for the next 2 weeks.  From  March 16th  thru the  27th.

Parents will need to care for the kids..  Will they take them some where or hunker down at home?  Closing the schools may provide no difference in the spread of the virus.  :?

[chimp koose]

I teach shop classes . We have not been shut down yet but i feel like it is coming . If it does they should also make a law about loitering in the malls . Closing schools will have an effect but not if the kids still gather at a mall.