Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Zoupa]

By leaving the house twice instead of once.

[garbon]

That's a restriction that makes no sense. If I want to run half an hour in the morning and ride my bike an hour in the evening, how does that create any additional infection risk?

Stuff like this does not help with acceptance of the sensible measures.

Presumably the more time one spends outdoors the more chance that one comes within the proscribed d'instance of other people, surely?

[Josquius]

If we are being real nit pickers here we could argue that the wording means going for an all day walk around town is fine whilst going in the garden for half an hour to do a variety of exercises isn't.

[Josquius]

Olympics are officially off.
So sayeth Dick Pound.

[Duque de Bragança]

maybe they are all essential workers?

I don't understand why tfl have reduced the number of tube services. Apparently tube usage was down 70% last week and 89% on Sunday.............but the trains were still crowded because tfl cut the number running.

I only took metro twice in the last 2 weeks, at night due to buses being cancelled  , but it's significantly emptier. Some 5-6 people after 23 on a whole train.
Bus in the early morning are nearly empty. Problem is, the preferred bus users are in general elderly people, who don't enjoy the often hard steps to get to the metro. I'm not really sure they really have to travel for work, some seemed to carry provisions or shopping though.

[Duque de Bragança]

You'd be surprised. I was in decathlon on the weekend. All their indoor exercise shelves were empty.

Yeah - my biggest shock in yexterday's announcement was when people were restricted to "one type of outdoor exercise" a day. Some people do more than one?

Frankly, I have never seen so many joggers in the streets.

[Agelastus]

Well, that's interesting...

I decided to see if Tesco had started having more slots available (ie. if the panic was dying down/the stockpilers had all stockpiled) as I was planning to do another order for four weeks hence tomorrow.

Turns out they are now only showing 3 weeks in advance - I actually have a delivery booked (and still showing as live in my account) for a date past the one they currently stop at.

Also, as is to be expected (as the shown slots were already all full last week) - no deliveries available.

I wonder if I will have to start checking at 12:01am.

[Sheilbh]

Everyone is depressingly selfish:

Benoît Ramacker, a spokesman for the federal crisis centre, said it was "incomprehensible and unacceptable" that people were not following the rules, with some treating the lockdown like an "alternative holiday".

He was speaking after the mayor of the Flemish town of Izegem was criticised for taking part in a street party at the weekend. Bert Maertens claimed no party had ever taken place, with social distancing maintained during the event. He said a neighbour had decided to play a DJ set from their house and invited others to listen from their homes or gardens. But a police source told Belgian media that "people were standing far too close to each other".

maybe they are all essential workers?

I don't understand why tfl have reduced the number of tube services. Apparently tube usage was down 70% last week and 89% on Sunday.............but the trains were still crowded because tfl cut the number running.

Agreed.

I mean it does strike me that there are a lot of essential workers who can't work from home - NHS, some shops, distribution networks, other general council services (I live on a council block and there's still people collecting the bins, doing repairs etc), other emergency services, a proportion of schools, data centres/internet/telco providers, at least some construction, plus obviously researchers - my friend has to get into the lab every day.

I think TfL/the transport network possibly underestimated how big that group is.

[Sheilbh]

I wonder if I will have to start checking at 12:01am.

According to my friend - yes. You can get slots at midnight only basically.

This is another one where I think the supermarkets are hiring but it's not ramping up fast enough. I know they've waived competition law restrictions on them so they can plan together, share resources and share staff but I think it'd be really worthwhile focusing that on the deliveries section.

[Tamas]

Well, that's interesting...

I decided to see if Tesco had started having more slots available (ie. if the panic was dying down/the stockpilers had all stockpiled) as I was planning to do another order for four weeks hence tomorrow.

Turns out they are now only showing 3 weeks in advance - I actually have a delivery booked (and still showing as live in my account) for a date past the one they currently stop at.

Also, as is to be expected (as the shown slots were already all full last week) - no deliveries available.

I wonder if I will have to start checking at 12:01am.

I've been very closely monitoring Sainsburys because we have a big shopping cart saved pending a time slot. They flat out refuse to give me a delivery time slot due to my age, which is perfectly fine, they are correct to do so, there are people in need of it far more.

However, on click and collect, they just this morning opened up a new store for it very close to us. It could not have been longer than 1.5 hours after it first appeared online that I checked it, and it showed no available time slot in the next three weeks.

There's no way that so many timeslots got booked in such a small timeframe. They must be prioritising more vulnerable age group users to see them as available. They do mention that if I disagree about my status being non-vulnerable I should contact them.

Perhaps you want to check if Tesco has similar policies?

[Sheilbh]

Also my colleague who almost certainly had covid has recovered

Horrible cough and issues breathing, but a doctor prescribed some sort of inhaler which helped hugely and took a few days off work. Now feeling a lot better, which is good. Even the reasonably mild cases in a young person sound horrible.

[celedhring]

+514 dead in Spain (+24%). Actually a decent-ish number, this is the smallest increase %wise since the lockdown began.

[Josephus]

Ontario to announce enforced shutdown of non-essential businesses as of midnight tomorrow

But they're super vague about what is and isn't essential

they will announce tomorrow. Looks like media will be essential, so I'm still working-because you know we all need The Canadian Jewish News

Société des alcools du Québec - essential.Société québécoise du cannabis - essential.

Too bad the provincial borders will be closed, Malthus could have travelled a bit to find something 

It's for Quebec, but it will give you an idea of what to expect:
https://www.quebec.ca/en/health/health-issues/a-z/2019-coronavirus/essential-services-commercial-activities-covid19/

Cannabis stores remain legal in ontario too. List of eseential services is pretty much everything except gyms, botox places and lingerie stores

https://www.kingstonist.com/news/ontario-releases-list-of-essential-businesses-permitted-to-be-open-during-covid-19-pandemic/?fbclid=IwAR3bkuIIEd5y4vp-_3TtxQf5Eq8y5aZDG4tqwk9-FZ3VNBVQLK53MoHAzw0

[Josephus]

whats the big deal? 200 people died out of a billion? the regular old flu kills more people. or am I missing something?

Wanna take this back, HVC? 

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

By leaving the house twice instead of once.

Total time out of the house is what matters.  Number of sorties is irrelevant.