Good morning from the Jersey shore. We are bracing for the onslaught of out-of-towners who will descend by this weekend (already the ratio of NY to NJ license plates on the roads are increasing).
Although we did purchase seasonal beach badges, we will not go anywhere near the beaches this weekend (covid concerns aside, this is our normal MDW behavior). D20 will be starting her summer job at a concession stand on the boardwalk soon. H and I are nervous, for sure. H actually offered to just pay her to stay home, but she really would like to be able to work.
We are awaiting info from her boss on what the safety protocol will be and are reserving the right to tell her no if the plan isn’t satisfactory. In addition, even if the plan is a good one, if she finds that customers are not complying with the “everyone on the boardwalk must be wearing a mask” rule the town has put in place she will finish out her shift and quit.
Oh, one last update from here: my D24’s sleepaway camp officially called off the summer. We had already decided she could not attend this year, but it is still sad. It is located in the Poconos, but has kids cycling in and out every two weeks from many states. I hope the camp can survive the revenue loss and she can attend next summer.
I felt that Danger Danger alarm before the mask-required stage. I was definitely creeped out & somewhat frightened going to the grocery store every 7-10 days.
Then we got sick (H got infected at work and brought it home) and suddenly we had firsthand experience with 15-17 ppl getting infected & no one had a serious complication or hospitalization.
Mentally, that helped bring my anxiety down by several factors.
Now I am back to a Trader Joe’s run &. Jewel run when I get groceries. 2 stores, whereas that seemed like excessive risk in March. I am much less afraid. Here in Chicagoland, I see a high level of mask wearing in stores, which I find comforting.
I’ve been to both Ace Hardware & Home Depot for plants. I picked poor weather days and sure enough, very few people there. I felt comfortable.
I also had my hair cut on the down low at a stylist’s house last week. Again, I felt comfortable.
With time, I’ve gotten much less afraid of surfaces and much more wary of taking in someone else’s breath for any extended time (conversations!). If I keep having to take shifts at the restaurant, this is going to be a problem with coworkers & I’m going to need to find a way to deal with unmasked coworkers coming in close like normal times & talking to me.
I have developed new & better hand-washing & hand-sanitizing habits. I’m much more conscious about any face touching.
I won’t feel comfortable in a public restroom for … who knows how long.
DIL and both our sons are all very scrupulous about mask wearing, going out, and distancing. They only leave home for groceries or work (and have been WFH for a while now). Sounds as though their peers are doing the same. They realize their good fortune and are most concerned about not spreading anything around to others.
Older son had a sick friend for whom he was on tap to pick up a prescription, which they ended up having delivered. He was talking to me about it to work out details, and one of the factors they considered was whether pharmacy staff would be more or less exposed if their delivery person dropped the Rx off on a front porch versus having someone show up in the store in person.
A few weeks ago there was a news story about some sidewalk improvements in DIL and younger son’s downtown Midwestern city neighborhood. I messaged DIL a link and she came back with something like “Yay, I had to walk through mud the other day to maintain distance.”
On the other hand, one of the two people without a mask and not keeping 6’ away from people in the grocery store the other day was my kids’ age. Your last sentence says it all. We’re all over the map, aren’t we?
@Singswimsew and @Midwest67 interesting about that internal alarm. I’m in an ongoing state of (probably) hypervigilance here. Am going to more places mainly for my mother, whose medical appointments have now come due. She’s 89 and has had part of one of her lungs removed – poster child for risk, IMO.
My husband had it – tested positive – but I wasn’t tested. I need to find a reliable antibody test site and get it done, for whatever it might be worth. But my biggest fear still is that I pass it on to my mother. And ironically she’s the reason I’m going out more. Gah!!!
I have long walked the dog first thing in the morning, but now that it’s getting so warm here, others are out at the same time. I was irritated that at 6:30 am I crossed paths with 10 people, none of whom was wearing a mask. I get that it’s uncomfortable, but it’s not that uncomfortable.
I honestly don’t see how gloves help in this situation. It would just mean they’d be transferring the same germs via the gloves rather than their hands.
My daughter is also starting her summer job. I am weary but I trust her. She has the whole routine down from putting the mask and glove on, to changing it in the garage and going in.
I hate that she is working. She does not need the money but b/c some of the $ in her non-profit charity fund got depleted from the work she has been doing since she was home, she is anxious to fill it back up. I am trying to get her organization a public non-profit but it’s hard b/c it requires that the donation from outside is higher than one’s own. Right now, she and us are the only main donors haha. If her organization was a public one, I could donate AND get my company to match twice the amount we give. Much more than her own little income from the part time job.
Anyways, didn’t mean to rant with all of that, DD is working 20 hours/week, hope she doesn’t bring the virus home.
Just got back from dropping off my car at the dealership. Person who checked me in was wearing a mask, as was I. The other people who were dropping off their cars weren’t wearing masks. Sigh.
If you had it, you probably have nothing to worry about now. Hopefully that will be definitively announced soon. Vaccine’s are counting on antibody’s to fight the virus, so it should work the same way if you have antibody’s from a previous infection. Again, hopefully we will get definitive info on that very soon and folks like your husband can travel worry free.
People who have had it and have antibodies for it will be the key to truly getting the economy restarted - assuming that they are immune which is seeming more likely with each thing I hear about it.
When the bulk of the tests used are considered reliable, I plan to pay to have two of my lads get the test - the one in NC who was told he “likely” had it and med school lad. Of course, med school lad said he might get one from school since he’s now pretty much in his 4th year and will be back working with patients next week if I recall correctly (not Covid patients).
I just returned from the post office having had to send out more things regarding my mom’s estate. No one else was there except me and the worker. The sign said masks are required - two signs - and the worker wasn’t wearing one. I said nothing and I’m not terribly worried as I didn’t need to touch anything after her, plus washed my hands when I came back home - and there are only 15 known cases in our zip code.
I’ve decided to keep track of our zip code numbers so I wrote down ours and all of those around us along with today’s date. I’m curious to see how they are two to three weeks post opening (Friday). Some areas around us are higher, but the highest one is just 63 at this time. We plan on stocking up some more from the grocery store and doing a couple of last take outs, but then staying in for that 2-3 week period when things could really start circulating. Fortunately, we’re beginning to be able to eat from the farm (greens, some asparagus, bamboo shoots, etc), plus we have chickens for eggs.
In Maine: "State health officials reported 78 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, the largest single-day spike to date in the state.
The jump comes at a time when the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention has significantly expanded testing capacity at its laboratory, a fact that likely contributed to the surge as more doctors submit tests for analysis. To date, Maine has 1,819 confirmed or probable cases of the COVID-19 disease caused by the coronavirus."
Ugh, I wish I knew how much the increased testing affects the number of new cases. I guess we’ll have to wait a couple of weeks to see if the number of new cases every day keeps increasing. Just in time for Memorial Day weekend. It will be very interesting to see how many tourists enter the state.
“Common sense” is not all that common, since everyone has a different idea of what “common sense” is (not just in relation to COVID-19).
With respect to risk (of COVID-19 and other things), people also differ in:
How accurately they can estimate risk. Many people are quite poor at that, such as being afraid of crashes when flying scheduled commercial airlines but not crashes when driving or riding in a car. With COVID-19, the incomplete, sometimes conflicting, and fast changing information can also make it more difficult to estimate risk.
How much risk they personally are willing to accept.
How much risk they are willing to impose on others.
With respect to rules, some people also seem to have a hard time knowing what the rules actually are are, whether they try to obey them or complain about them. By this, I mean rules that are well publicized, as opposed to fine print technicalities that may be less publicized or obvious (though it would be a good idea to read the fine print technicalities if it looks like a rule may apply to your situation or if you want to complain about the rule). Yes, COVID-19 rules do change somewhat frequently, but the changes do get publicized in local media.
I noticed that cloudy weather, rain in the morning, or predicted (not necessarily actual) rain tends to result in fewer people doing outdoor exercise or other outdoor activity. The places that I go to for that are not crowded (i.e. no problem to maintain social distance), but the number of other people I see is noticeably dependent on the weather.
Went to my Walmart Neighborhood Market today for my weekly grocery run. I arrived around 8:00 a.m. Not too many shoppers at that time. Had put two Clorox products (toilet clean and shower cleaner) in my buggy. Was only allowed to purchase one when I checked out. Mea culpa.
Lower percentage of customers wearing masks compared to last week from my eyeing guesstimate. All store associates wearing masks. Non-associate vendor folks stocking not wearing masks.
If there is a better example of situational irony than the Corona beer guy stocking Corona beer in the cooler without wearing a mask, I don’t now what it is.
We are local to the beach. No way am I going over anytime this weekend. As someone mentioned above, as locals, we skip all summer holidays.
@DeeCee36 we are big OCNJ fans but don’t plan on going for a long while. The images I’ve seen of the boardwalk are not encouraging. My H mentioned how who he really feels for are all those young counter workers who are wearing masks, having to deal with the ignorant who refuse to comply - those workers will have so many face to face interactions in a day!
I hope your child can keep that summer job and people are courteous.
When you’re looking at increased cases, also look at the percentage of cases that test positive. Ideally if they test more, they should be finding fewer cases per 100 tests, because they were already testing the people at most risk. Like, if last week they only tested people being admitted to the hospital and health care workers, and this week they’re testing people admitted to the hospital, health workers and people who just want tests, they should be getting a lower percentage of positives.
"The veterinarian who refused to treat a recovered woman’s dog. The laundromat worker who jumped at seeing an elected official whose illness had been reported on the local news. The gardener who would not trim the hedges outside a recovered man’s home. The neighbor who dropped off soup, and said not to bother returning the Tupperware it was in. And the sick teenager whose solace during his long illness was the thought of fishing with friends, only to have them ghost him when he recovered.
“My gut thought was not, ‘Oh, people will now be afraid of me because I had this virus,’” said Ms. Martucci, 41, who described a neighbor tripping over a curb while running for her door when she and her son, who goes by M.J., approached on their bicycles.
“It didn’t even occur to me — being shunned,” said Ms. Martucci, a real estate investor. “You’re looked at as a contagion, versus as a survivor.”