New restrictions at U of M hospital where I’ll be delivering. I predict most hospitals will go this way if they haven’t already:
I live very near a hot spot. Thankfully it’s been over two weeks since I met with my client who had been exposed to the New Rochelle synagogue patient zero. But I’ve traveled on Metro North, the NYC subway and have been out and about. I was in the City on Wednesday and it seemed pretty much like a usual day, but I heard reports it’s was much less crowded today. I haven’t had occasion to go to the one business I frequent regularly in the affected neighborhood. New Rochelle closed 3 of 6 schools. That didn’t last long - I’d say everyone agreed, you had to either close all of them or none of them, so today they announced it’s all of them. A number of smallish events I was supposed to go to in the next week or two have been cancelled. DH did a qualifying exam via Zoom today. (Interestingly he said the student seemed less nervous with that format.)
We’ve got about two weeks supply of food, though I think we are short on milk and eggs.
@romanigypsyeyes , the University of Wisconsin Hospital announced similar restrictions this week. Exceptions will be made when a patient is at the end of life.
DH came home to say that someone a couple cubicles down, who wasn’t in the past 48 hrs, is out sick “with a fever”. There are no known cases in this community, but my office already has sent about 60% of the staff home to telework. Trying to decide if there’s any chance this person can even get tested, has DH been exposed, have I?
This weekend we visited S2 & DiL, and endured teasing for bringing them a big box of rice, pasta, etc…and today their area instituted a lockdown. Momma knows…
H recently had surgery. Monday his case nurse put her hand out to shake mine on a follow up visit. I said “no shaking, but it’s nice to meet you in person.” Yesterday we met with his primary care physician who also put his hand out to shake. He’s been a big support in H’s healthcare issues so I did shake hands. And sanitized at one the many stations. And washed when home. But why is hand shaking still a thing with medical professionals?
I was supposed to have jury duty today but got an exemption because of H’s issues. Glad not to deal with the public transportation and jury pool room.
We have a planned HI trip tomorrow. D1 arranged a family conference call about if we should go on the trip. D2 was concerned about her dog if she couldn’t get back. D1 has been bombarded with raising money for her clients (may need to work every night at 2 am). I was concerned about my mom in NJ. Of course it didn’t help there was rumor that NYC was going to be quarantined. After talking about it for 30 min tonight, we decided to take a time out for an hour to re-think and then decide. Well, we are going.
We are brining our laptops with us in case if we should get stuck in HI (could be worse). We have arranged various people to take care of the dog and my mom. 
We are bringing our passports with us, Purell hand sanitizer, N95 face masks, cold medicines. My girls said we will be with people we love if we should get stranded.
I saw on Twitter that my city is telling prospective jurors to not show up to court tomorrow. They are to check in and be qualified online only. Smart move!
Have fun! So far, I haven’t noticed things being too crazy in HI, as long as you avoid Sam’s Club and Costco. Traffic is particularly better than usual, which is always nice. We only have had 1-2 likely community infection(s) ID’d. Public school break starts 3/14, so traffic should continue to be light.
One-month eviction moratorium in Dane County, Wisconsin, announced today. This is a compassionate action.
RE: Panic buying
Probably until yesterday we had zero cases of coronavirus in the state. Wednesday night, there were 2 cases (husband & wife, travel-related, in a rural area); today there are 6 and the new ones are in ABQ and Santa Fe (unrelated individuals, infection source unknown)
The Governor declared a state of emergency last night, and prohibited any groups larger than 250 people. Major events statewide have been cancelled through the end of April. This evening the PED closed all public schools in the state for the next 3 weeks and in midst of high basketball playoffs–all games are cancelled. (Even though the tournament went on as scheduled last night–with spectators even.)
So a lot of bad news/big changes in a very short time period. It’s been crazy.
Good. Any such measures, though, need to come with a compensation for (at least small) landlords.
I made my monthly Costco trip yesterday–oye! Since all the Catholic schools in the area will be closed for three weeks, Costco was filled with moms from the public schools, who fear it’s only time before they get the word. So they were buying everything possible for having kids at home. Saw lots of Mac and Cheese in carts!
There was no TP, paper towels, pasta, Costco chicken!, etc. Also noticed the wine section was about half of what it was a month ago…
I have a grocery delivery service & have been ordering regularly for awhile – my daughter (who lives in Brooklyn) also uses a similar service. I tend to order mostly staples – things like milk and eggs – but they also sell toilet paper. Anyway, they’ve now added hand sanitizing wipes to their offerings, but are out of stock for this week’s order. 
In any case, I’m not planning to do anything different – I don’t see any particular reason to stockpile. I’d note that I generally am fairly well stocked with stuff like rice & beans.
Here’s a suggestion on what to stock. I am a terrible planner. I can’t never shop for more than 3 days. I plan to continue to shop every three days. If I can’t shop anymore for whatever reasons, I get to clean out the freezer and the stuff from the back of the pantry. That should last. If it doesn’t, I get to practice intermittent fasting.
We were out and about walking through our 'hood and saw many, many folks scurrying around with takeout. Amazon, Google, etc. workers who live in the area have to eat… but they are not used to cooking! Glad at least some restaurants will be in business.
I don’t know where I read this tip, but for anyone who is still looking for hand sanitizer, PetValue is giving it out with a $3 donation. I haven’t been able to find any in over a week. Tonight I was at the grocery store (which was insanely packed at 8pm) and decided to stop by the PetValue next door. Sure enough, they had a sign out front advertising the offer. They are small bottles, like purse size but since I’m going on a road trip tomorrow to pick my son up from college, I really needed something to clean my hands while on the road. I’m happy to finally have some since every other place has been sold out for the last week.
Lots of talk about bottled water on this thread. This is from CNN’s Coronavirus town hall tonight.
What to stock up on if your community goes on lockdown
At CNN’s ongoing town hall, we’re taking audience questions and answering them with medical experts weighing in.
One viewer asked: What supplies should I get in case my community locks down?
Here’s what Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had to say:
Extra medication in case you can’t get refills
Bottled water
Canned food
But he and CNN’s Anderson Cooper acknowledged that sometimes health insurance doesn’t allow for extra medication.
“We’re looking at relieving a lot of regulations and other things to make it easier for people to cope with this … really somebody should look at that,” Fauci said.
People have been panic buying: Stores have sold out of face masks, hand sanitizer, food staples, and more.
The cleaning supplies can be good to have, especially soap and sanitizer — but one unusual item selling out is toilet paper.
It’s not entirely clear what is driving the panic buying of toilet paper. The trend began in Hong Kong last month after rumors that border closures would cut off the supply from China — but the rumors were dispelled by the government, and there don’t appear to be any similar rumors in the US.
Panic is driving the panic buying of TP.
Think it’s time to spread out these factories like for TP. We seem to rely solely on China. Vietnam and Indonesia would love some of these jobs. Sure Cambodia would not complain either.
Maybe even having a factory in the United States. Sure we would pay more but maybe we would have enough to go around also. South Side of Chicago would love to have more jobs etc.
Also… Why are we not buying test kits from other countries that seem to have a surplus of them?
schools in our town and many in the county are closed as of Monday and move to distant learning. Tomorrow the kids will be given instruction and package of work to take home. They confirmed most student households have WiFi network. Those who didn’t have WiFi someone came to the house and installed. They have been prepared for this weeks ago. Now they are ready to implement. ( Gotta love nj public schools)
Meanwhile Berkeley will be online for the rest of the semester (no surprise there). My kiddo is a little bummed out. She loves going to classes and see her friends.
It’s going to be weird all 4 of us working/studying from home for the next few weeks/months. I hope Pizza delivery is still available.
I feel so horrible for my friend who works at retail. She can’t leave her kids at home alone and she has to work. I offer to take her kids in. They can have their own space in the basement. My husband said our WiFi is strong enough for the whole army. I just don’t want to have to troubleshoot everyone’s Zoom/Skype/WebEx problems.
This crisis is going to hurt so many not so well off folks. Most will be recovered but those in the hole already is just going deeper into the hole. ?