Library was deserted.
I did find out that one of my clients who I met about a week and a half ago was exposed to the main source of the virus in NYS. He’s symptom free, but they won’t test him.
We just returned from watching our high school’s spring musical. While there we saw a fair number of friends and neighbors. We’ve decided to all quarantine together if we need to so we can play games and truly catch up with each other as some we haven’t seen for a while due to life changes. 
Of course, maybe at the end of two weeks we’ll be ready to kill each other and who knows if we’ll have enough snacks on hand to see us all through, but hey, it’s worth a try!
If (big if) so many folks are trying to prevent this from spreading, I wonder if it will slow down cases of the flu as well? It’s really a ‘big if’ though as I didn’t see too many there tonight caring about it. Fortunately there also didn’t seem to be anyone near us with a cold this time!
Went to lunch with friends, to the gym and then out to dinner with neighbors. All were very crowded.
As an aside, did a survey of what I had on hand - there is an advantage to having a lot of bathrooms with stuff still stored beneath. Have found some isopropyl alcohol and aloe vera gel. Oh, and I found the blood pressure cuff I’ve been looking for!
I live in the Seattle area and work at a large tech company. Because of how hard hit the Seattle area has been from covid-19, our company leaders asked all of us to work from home if we can for the next few weeks. The last two days have been pretty bizarre - through video conference calls I’ve seen inside the homes of dozens of my coworkers…and their lounge clothes, too. Everybody’s in hoodies and sweatpants with no makeup, no hair done, etc. (yes, even moreso than a normal work day at a tech company.)…it’s pretty weird!
Several of the other large technology companies in the area have also asked their employees to work from home, and traffic has evaporated. I had to drive into the city on Thursday evening, an ordeal that usually takes me about an hour from the Eastside to the Central District if I leave around 5 pm. It took me 25 minutes.
I also live in the land of Costco, and apparently Costco was out of toilet paper, paper towels and hand sanitizer.
I’m not doing anything in particular to prepare for coronavirus, per se. I take this public health threat seriously, but don’t panic. I feel fairly confident that bottled water, toilet paper and paper towels will be in the grocery stores next week (and the grocery stores will be functioning). Other than working from home and avoiding large gatherings, I’m living my life largely the same - and honestly, the precaution I practice is more because I don’t want to unknowingly infect someone who is immunocompromised.
We went for a nice, loooong walk tonight all the way to “ground zero.”
Someone has to support the local businesses, we decided, and went to check if the restaurants needed our help. OMG, the places were crowded, maybe less than usual, but still not an empty table in sight. We kept on walking until we found one that looked like it needed some help. 
Eating really yummy soup as we speak…
My college reunion is in 3 months. The hotel many of us are staying in (rather than staying in the old dorms) has a 90 day cancellation policy. Well, given that there are so many unknowns (if us old geezers will still be advised not to attend large gatherings, etc) or if it might get cancelled, I called Marriott. The representative couldn’t “guarantee” that the hotel would waive this policy, but felt “90% certain” that they would, and noted our reservation. Hmmm… might need to call the hotel in the morning, though the manager probably isn’t on duty on the weekends. Will try anyway, I guess.
It is official - no more food samples at Costco for a while. (Business Insider. )
Our Costco store still had samples yesterday and today. I refrained from taking any.
We are pretty well stocked. We have lots of Clorox wipes, 1.5 mega bottles of washing machine detergent, dishwashing detergent, toilet paper for us and mom, paper towels, soup ingredients, about a month or more worth of Depends and pads (for mom), chlorine, white vinegar, and several old hand sanitizers from long ago health fairs, and moisturizers.
We even bought 4 small boxes of Kleenex. We also bought some food so we can stay home and “socially distance” more (instead of dining out as often as we usually do).
We do plan to attend a resort wedding in a month, driving there and staying at resort 3 nights.
S continues to fly domestically and says it’s nice that flights aren’t crowded and it’s easier than usual to make changes and get free upgrades.
@BunsenBurner At my local Costco most of the sample workers are older, retired people. That income will be missed.
I was at our local TJ’s in north Jersey yesterday. Didn’t see hand sanitizer for sale, but not sure that’s something they sell? No obvious empty shelf. Plenty of toilet paper and paper towels, and cleansing products. Usual amount of crowdedness for a Friday, didn’t see any masks. Basically it felt like any typical weekday.
They are selling toilet paper roadside in Westchester county I hear. DH working from home. He was away during the all of the drama (and the week preceding) the New Rochelle attorney incident. When he returned, certain supplies were depleted from stores.
Not a sign or murmur of CoVid-19 other than when I check the internet in this outlying locale where I work 4 months of the year. I haven’t gone back to NY as I usually do Plenty of Cold research, and other OTC meds on the shelves as well as paper and sanitary food. Yup. i stocked up, and DH bring stuff back to NY after the weekend. He says he’ll set up shop and sell the goods off US1 near our house. Would do better than the stock market selling toilet paper right now.
Hoarding really sets the panic ball rolling, and yet if you don’t participate, you end up out of goods you want and even need like DH did because he didn’t shop right before and during the panic buying. Now certain things not left to buy. So he’s loading up his car here. I’m set for the year here even if the supplies run out having done my shopping 10 days, 2 weeks ago.
I’m not taking any day to day precautions here and I don’t see anyone else doing so. I don’t have anyone close to me right now thst is in a risk category for respiratory illness, so just taking common sense precautions is all that I see necessary. That could change quickly, I know. But right now, other than my shopping spree, everything is fine and as it was last year
Of course, it is possible that my visiting DH could be the one who imports this virus down here since he’s coming from a hot spot, but he’s not been anywhere near people or places affected in last 2 weeks,
I’m carefully watching the New Rochelle circle of cases as it so close to home. It’s amazing to me how those folks do close to us in distance really led such separate lives with their private schools, Synagogues and neighborhood stores. My favorite Starbucks is there, and a bagel shop , but I’d actually switched to the one in my town last year, and that part of town is largely unaffected from what I hear. It’s a specific enclave in Wykagyl part of NewRo affected heavily, and other venues where residents there tend to frequent. I never thought about how segregated we were there. Of course that has contained the effect of CoVid-19 to some degree.
I’m still basically going about my day BUT I’m avoiding the close-quarters, sweaty exercise class I usually attend. The weather has been nice-ish so I’m putting on another layer and running outside instead. I was curious if the location in Westchester was empty (I can check on my app) but nope, sold out. Apparently not everyone is panicking. I wonder if these are the same people making a run on hand sanitizer?
Woke up this morning to see an email from our old exchange student in Germany - one we’ll be staying with on our trip the end of April (assuming we still go). She lives in the state that has the most cases there.
Not one word of it in the email. Just excited plans looking forward to our visit and confirming her family can do part of the Poland trip afterward with us too.
It makes me feel better about keeping our trip “on” if at all possible.
It also makes me wonder… what are other countries (like Germany) doing about the outbreaks? Are average citizens there curtailing travel, etc?
3 posters ignored the above; those responses were deleted.
Ditto here. They are not Costco employees though. Costco contracts with a company that provides this service. Of course the income will be missed, but exposure to hoards of people is not good for some of these older workers.
Not wanting to get off track but an article I saw about the Costco axe to sampling mentioned that those workers would be put to work in other ways in the warehouse if they wanted. That might not apply everywhere but apparently some- wheres!
@cptofthehouse, haven’t seen any roadside tp stands in the Rivertowns. Have definitely seen schoolkids roaming around with masks on, though that was down around Hastings where the district was closed for the day.
Mostly what I’m seeing in this part of Westchester is empty shelves in the drugstores / HBA sections of the grocery stores, where zinc lozenges and Airborne and those things are normally stocked.
One local drugstore actually had a sale on all things elderberry - hats off to them.
Got together with a friend who works for a high-end property management company in Vail. He said, the company has been instructed to send staff (to Denver - 2 hours away if necessary) to stock millionaires’ vacation homes with cleaning supplies, food supplies, toilet paper, etc. Same kind of directions have been issued in Aspen and Telluride, where a lot of the top 1% also have vacation homes.
His hunch is that the reason you’re reading so much about hoarding and Costco runs in Colorado is because of these directives. Millionaires and billionaires getting ready for the apocalypse
I have a flight booked from jfk to Vail (ege airport) for the end of march. Not sure if i am cancelling as of now. Let’s say i go, and wear a mask. If i go, will tsa let me wear a mask at jfk during screening, and check in from start to finish? Do they need to see my face to match up with passport ID? Just thinking I dont want to be touching it, taking it on and off? As for eating, and drinking, i would hope to do that off the flight, with freshly washed hands.
^If you’re so concerned about going through airport screening, why wouldn’t you be more concerned about the rest of your trip?