Sitting at my computer here at just after 3am in the morning, I'm wondering how the rest of my friends in the Amiga and MorphOS communities are coping with this horrible pandemic that the whole world is experiencing over the past few months? Yesterday I spoke to, or texted many family members, as I have done much more frequently over the past three weeks, since the pandemic has become more wide spread and deadly here in the USA. I worry about all of my family and friends, but staying in contact with them allows me to worry less often, knowing that they are doing everything they can to stay safe, and hopefully avoid catching the COVID-19 virus.

I thought that it might be helpful for some of the users here to share their experiences with the rest of the members of this forum site, and it might help me learn what is happening in some places around the world, because it appears that the news agencies can no longer be trusted 100% to present the whole picture, without their "Spin", or "Slanting" of the truth. As much as I dislike our current president, the one thing his presidency has accomplished, is to show how biased some news agencies can become, either for, or against him. I don't want this thread to be used for any political ranting, so please do not destroy this thread with such messages, but I for one, will never trust any news agency blindly again, and will try to confirm what they are presenting as their version of the news, through other means, such as the Internet, where hopefully I will be able to see enough other perspectives, that will allow me a chance to piece together the information and form my own opinion about what the truth is in our ever shrinking world.

I am glad to have this community and this forum, as a place to share information, and it is my wish that this thread be used to share personal stories of how each of you are coping with this pandemic, and how it is affecting you and your families. I'll begin with my own story of how my family and I are coping with this terrible situation.

Ever since learning about the COVID-19 virus, my significant other and I have become increasingly more careful about being in crowded places with lots of people. Since we live in a very rural area, mostly farmland, or hundreds of acres of grazing grass for beef cattle, it is easier for us to maintain distance from other people, than it would be in a crowded city. Recently, we have begun disinfecting everything we bring to our home, the mail, all of the groceries, everything! We wear latex gloves when grocery shopping, and if disinfecting wipes are offered at the door into the grocery store, we use them to wipe down the shopping cart handles, before beginning our shopping. In the last two weeks, some things have begun to be scarce in the store shelves, with the first thing to become unavailable being toilet paper, because so many people have been buying up all of the supply, in anticipation of a possible shortage in the future. Two days ago, while doing some shopping for just a few things we had forgotten to get the week before, was the first time I noticed that there was almost no produce in the fruit and vegetable isles of the store, which showed that the pandemic has finally begun slowing down the delivery of some perishable items that cannot be stocked long before they will be sold. We have done a small bit of buying non-perishable foods, so we will have about a two week supply, just in case the stores have trouble receiving goods in the future, but we are trying to not contribute to the problem by participating in panic buying of several months worth of food, like some people appear to be doing. I am retired, so work stoppages will not affect my income, but my significant other still works, and is starting a new job next month at a nursery/florist, unless the newly released California guidelines for all residents of this state to stay home, if they perform non-essential jobs is still in effect when she is supposed to start her job. Luckily for us, she also has another job doing online sales, that she does from home. Both of her daughters have been locked out of their jobs until further notice, and my daughter in-law worked her last day on Monday of this past week, as a dental hygiene technician, and does not know when she will be able to return to work. Losing half of their income will put a great strain on my Son, and his wife, as they had just bought a home with a very large mortgage, so now he is working 7 days a week, hoping that the over-time will make up for her lost income. My younger Son has been fighting health problems, including Asthma, like myself, which makes both of us more vulnerable to mechanics of the COVID-19 virus, so I am urging him to stay isolated as much as possible. I wish that he would come live with me until the virus is more contained, or a treatment has been developed, which will lessen the danger for everyone, but specially for those who have preexisting respiratory illnesses. I have a friend I have knows since High School (1970's), who is still working as a flight attendant, and who is based in the state of Washington, where there are many cases of COVID-19. She is thinking that it is just a matter of time before she is exposed to the virus, if she has not already been exposed to it. I wish she could just stop working, and let the younger flight attendants work the reduced number of flights that the airlines are providing. My Mother lives in an "Assisted Living" facility, which has closed it's doors to all visitors, in an attempt to keep the virus from affecting the many vulnerable residents that they have. She just turned 92 on the 5th of this month.

I feel lucky to be where I am, and to have a partner to spend my time with, but in reality, there is not any place that is entirely safe from this virus. I hope that all of you are doing everything you can to stay safe, and keep your families safe as well.

Please use this thread to share your own stories, but not a place to repeat what the news agencies are reporting day after day. Thanks for sharing (if you decide to participate).

We have been in a 14 day forced quarantine since Monday here in Sarajevo.

Can't even go to the shop to buy food or medicine and I have three small kids, two of whom have special needs and my wife is severely disabled with MS.

We aren't even ill. lol

Hope everyone else is safe and healthy God willing.

I was supposed to be working on a military base in Germany next week but it's been changed to be a virtual training session via Zoom.

All my other contracts from April to July have been put on hold now, so money will be tight unless I can do more virtual work.

Anyone need an Infosec/Ethical Hacking/Linux/Software Development trainer?

[ Edited by Intuition 21.03.2020 - 10:37 ]

Same in France, 14 days from 17-03 but ....
It may take much longer than expected.

Courage to all

BeWorld

Hi to everyone...

Here in The Netherlands it is almost the same. No total lock-down but most people stay voluntary at home. Iḿ a musician so now a do some music-arrangements and other things (gardening, repairing things, making small houses for the birds) and yeah, waiting to start again in conducting my choirs.
But I expect that this spring will be a long one....

regards to all, Tom

Quote:

There's no total lockdown here yet, we are under one because the immigration fascists here are racist pricks.

I also started making music again because i'm so bored lol

https://metapop.com/Intuition

Here from Spain. A total nosense. We have to stay at home but at the same time we can go out to work.

Here in Kansas, we are just taking it easy here at our new place we moved into last week. Glad to have the Quad G5 and my 4 year son and wife to pass some time, of course with my ham radio being set back up on 20 meters, interesting how often things get talked about. She works at the hospital here and she worries of when a confirmed case shows up here. She does take extra precautions and we try not to go to walmart or other places when we really don't have to. The thing is, if the extra help is needed out on the floor, she will really have no choice and come near it. So far we are in good health. Luckily, we all have hobbies and don't mind being at home.

[ Edited by Doffo 21.03.2020 - 11:33 ]

And they made fun of all the preppers. Guess who has the last laugh...

This is a huge desaster!

My profession is biology and cybernetics. Means: I know a bit about virises and I can calculate and simulate scenarios pretty well.
And I was shocked by the slow actions of many governments. Now most European countries have learned and take actions. But still many ppl don't take it seriously enough.

The only thing we can do until a vaccination will be available (my estimate: about christmas):
Avoid contact to others!

We see in Italy and in Wuhan what happens if SARS CoV-2 gets more wide spread. The only thing to avoid this is slowi down the spreading of SARS CoV-2 as much as possible!
Only tools to achive this yet: testing, isolation, quarantine.

And wear face masks in public - not so much to protect yourself, but rather to protect others from a not kown infection of yourself!
A simple face mask is better than nothing. If they are out of stock sewing them is easy. A simple face mask is better than no face mask at all.

Avoid contact to ppl outside your household!
You help yourself and you help society by this.

My heart is bleeding when I look to my beloved country Italy.
Spain hit hard, too and in the UK the next desaster is very foreseeable...
In Germany we also have quite many cases, but luckily the health system can still handle it (but also here the highest priority is keeping daily new cases as low as possible to avoid a crash of the health system!).

And I don't even want to think about situation once the virus has arrived all the refugee camps in Greece, Turkey, Lebanon etc.

And all this will take months (6-12) until it gets to something like normal again. And by then many will have died, and even more will get traumatized (threat of death, experience with death, loneliness due to isolation...).

Nothing else than a huge desaster!

Stay at home, avoid contact to ppl outside of your household!

[ Editiert durch Zylesea 21.03.2020 - 23:54 ]

Luckily children don't seem to be much affected by the virus.
Mostly elderly people are it seems.

Yeah, I agree. The only way to have not overburden the health systems is to avoid contact with others.
The situation where the doctors and nurses have to choose (or triage) whom to help in the hospitals would be a disaster.
But that has to be juggled with looking at economy as well. But certainly lives are more important.
Not a simple situation.


Manfred

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Remember that all is closed except supermarkets, pharmacies, and staples stores like food stores, the only work are the medical sector, clean and transport, and police and army. Pubs, barber shop, and other shops are closed and many companies too, other thing is when they open if the job positions will continue probably with the neoliberism today, not, we will the second problem the job crisis, more profits for the companies.
With penalties to people go for a walk happily, you only can go out to buy the necessary other thing is the people irresponsable.

The slow government response is even worse when you consider that we've known this has been coming since its predecessor SARS also came from illegal bat traders in China, a trade that has increased despite China's tough laws.

There was lots of research done on SARS, and the world's scientists tried to get funding for it, but the general response was, "Nah, it's gone now, it can't happen again." So come Covid-19 no vaccine, no control protocols, no antiviral stockpiles, and not even any real knowledge of why this coronavirus kills people and the hundreds of varieties that make up common colds don't.

One good thing though: I get to laugh at Ron Paul, who is so upset about his cherished political ideas being slaughtered in a few weeks with the realisation that only big government can deal with such outbreaks without mass layoffs or millions of deaths, that he claimed it was all a hoax. Then his son tested positive. Libertarianism, kids: not even once.

[ Edited by KennyR 22.03.2020 - 19:12 ]

I'm quite sure it would be much cheaper long term to 'isolate' and pamper the elderly and endangered parts of the population in 4star hotels&full service instead of shutting the whole economy down enterely and wait another 8+ months until almost everybody got it eventually and we can go on with our lives.

Example:
evaluate risks in one area, e.g. company, including relatives. Social distancing stays in place.
send home or educate everybody with relations to risk group members, let everybody else come in to work.
Example:
Some areas are less populated, maybe even over aged, so to speek. Pay more attention to those areas.
What i mean is: it might be much more efficient to put most effort into protecting and nursing the right target group instead of hostilising 80% of the population because the government is unable to make a logical decision while showing a straight face. Throwing out money to everybody who claims suffering from the circumstances (hm, Boeing) is stupid.

It is all about "flatting the curve", but nobody is looking for a solution to "rise the bar" above the curve.
Call in everybody with medical education to join.
Even plastic surgery doctors. mandatory.
Make companies build those breathing machines and masks and suits.
Don't have a patent? Grab it. It is an emergency.
Rise the salary for nurses and the like, drop taxes. don't clap or sing on balcony. pay double, by government.
don't support virtue signaling 'influencers' or rich people, prof athletes and so on.
Drop them. they are toxic.
Support local small business' instead.

[ Edited by amifrog 22.03.2020 - 22:27 ]

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This approach does not work out. Mainly for two reasons.
#1 SARS CoV-2 is dangerous for all the population, not only the elderely or known risk patients. With a hight infection rate within the "safer group" hospitals will fill up quckly and the health system wiull break down.

#2 elderly people and other risk groups need some care. The care personal does not "live on an island".
If the virus is spread within a society you cannot warrant that the caring and health seervice people do not get infected and eventually bring the viris to the specially protected ppl.

In summary: That approach does not work out. The only way is ti minimize the spreading of the virus among the _entire society_.
And that needs testing, isolation of infected ppl, social isolation and hygienic discipline (hand washing, self discipline not to touch into your face and face masks in public to protect others from your sputum/saliva).

We need to win time. Progress is made on curing CoViD-19 and research on vaccination, too. Very important is the availability of a cheap and fast test system.
But it needs time and the health system must not crash!

But for around 80% of the society infection means nothing more than a little incomfort.

Don't you agree that controlling safe access and nursery of a minority takes less effort than controlling the outbreak of a mere inconvenience to the majority of people including shutting down all systems that could help those in real danger?

I believe the targeted delay is the real danger, as it will not reduce the number of infected people: we almost all need to get infected to gain immunity.
But delaying this spread will cause damage; there is no way we can get out of this without most of the people catching this flu.


[ Edited by amifrog 22.03.2020 - 23:06 ]

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No I fully disagree - you cannot warrant something ike a safe access. This virus is a b*tch. The incubation time and lack of tests makes it impossible to warrant ceratin a heath state. The idea to selectively isolate risk groups is a typical half theoretical approch. Sounds handy but will fail 100%.

And indeed, for 80% of the infected ppl the SARS CoV-2 does not elicit the Severe Acutre Respiratory Syndrome, but for up to 20% it does. Start counting to 5, point finger and say "you're out". Tik-tok, I hear you...
look to Italy, look to Wuhan, look to Spain and think your ideas over.
There is _no_ alternative to minimizing infections within the entiresociety.

And again. Covid-19 is dangerous for _all_ ppl. The risk though roughly scales up with age, but it is way off from being zero for yougers. In France 50% of the severe cases are younger than 60 years.

As unfortuante as it is: there is no plan b. As of now (no vaccination, no real cure) minimizing infections is the only way to minimize deathes/severe cases.

Quote:

Two more things here:

#1 Availability of a vaccination will change it. And it is likely that a vaccination will be availabel within 6-12 months.

#2 slowing down the infections does help to keep the health system running. Not only for Covid-19 patients, but also for all the victims of csancer, heart attac or some accident.

@Amifrog
Quote:
Despite the relatively low number of infections we have right now, the wealthiest nations in the world are struggling hard to keep up and many medical facilities lack even the most basic necessities such as adequate supplies of hand gloves in order to properly follow recommended safety procedures.

There is no viable alternative to delaying the rate of infections until we are better prepared to deal with the inevitable.


Quote:
Zylesea has already commented on how effective this would be.

It also seems worth pointing out that the death rate statistics vary greatly between countries. Based on a new study from China, younger people are not quite as immune as initially thought. Also, countries such as France have a substantially higher percentage of deaths for people under the age of 65.

Here are two possible explanations: The first is that we still lack sufficiently reliable data to be able to accurately assess risks in terms of national or even global mortality rates.

The second one is that the virus is mutating so it changes its risk profile.

The first explanation seems more likely at this stage but who would be willing to bet that the death rates stay the same for all age groups as the number of infections moves from tens of thousands of people up to the billions while the virus continues to shift and drift?

Based on numbers from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the death rate for children between the ages of 10 and 19 is 0.2 percent. How many parents are going to send their teenage children to school if they are aware there is a 1 in 500 chance of them dying after an infection? I would not. Would you?

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About this point, it *seems* France has its own way of counting the number of deaths.
i.e. only counting people dying in hospitals while a lot of old people might be dying at home or in retirement homes...

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Hey Doffo, nice to know of a fellow ham who is also a morphos user!

@amigadave

Well, sitting here with the fevers, dry-cough and a slight ache in my lower throat and lungs (not as in pain, but more like "I sense them" being there. Normally you don't think about your lungs, they're just there doing their job, if you know what I mean, you never notice them or think about them). A bit like the flu perhaps, which it could very well be. A very mild flu in that case (which I can't remember ever having, my flu's has been "binary" - either it's not there at all or it's there in full effect).

No way for me to know if it's covid, the flu or something else, since Sweden (for the last two weeks or so) has completely stopped testing "normal" people with symptoms. In the beginning, before the outbreak turned domestic, they were very active in testing and back-tracing people. But that was when they still fought to prevent an outbreak within the country, back when all cases were "imported" ones. Since then the focus has shifted. Now they are only testing people with *severe* symptoms, people from high-risk groups and hospital personnel. The rest of us with symptoms are simply recommended to assume that *it is* in fact covid and therefore practice all necessary self-isolation and to stay at home, riding it out. Come back to the health care system only if you get trouble breathing, otherwise simply stay at home and let them focus on the people who really needs attention. I'm about to turn 45 years old and not in any particular high risk group, so I suppose that's what I'll do. Stay at home until the symptoms are gone or I get trouble breathing. There is nothing to do about it anyway. It seems like the younger you are, the less risk of getting serious symptoms. Some people have had the disease and hardly even noticed. I heard. I listen to that.

Not doing broad testing anymore also means that we have no way of knowing the number of infected people, because there is no meaningful statistics. There are statistics of people receiving intensive care treatment of course, and of deceased. I suppose they have other ways of getting a broad picture, like sick leave statistics, statistics of calls and inquires to the medical advisory services, etc. All in all they seem to be of the opinion that Sweden now stands just below the "explosive" growth pace in the well-known envelope, while statistics over the infected almost seems to flatten out.

Sweden has taken quite a different route compared to most other countries in this. No longer any testing other than of patients with severe conditions or people from high-risk groups. No closed borders, no closed airports or harbors, all trains, buses, mass transit etc still going as usual. No screening of travelers. No travel bans, only recommendations not to travel to certain places if not necessary. No new, special laws for authorities to control the population. No mobilization. There has been a ban of indoor gatherings larger than 500 people, in some other countries it's like 200, 100, 20, 10, 8, 5 (Germany I heard has as of today a max gathering of 2(!) people!). Schools are open, and the government and disease control authorities are actively defending this decision, which is broadly questioned by the public since everyone is watching the news about how other countries acts. But the rationale is that children and the youth, especially at the lower ages, are statistically not in any danger from covid, maybe they don't even spread it much, and the overall effect a school closure would have on the society at large would be devastating, where many parents (including people working in the health care system) would need to go home to look after their children instead. But since Wednesday all high schools and universities has transitioned to distance learning. But all lower grade schools and daycare is still open like normal. Had this virus been like sars (which affected children more than old people), things would most certainly be completely different.

The whole Swedish approach rests on people's willingness to *volunteer* in slowing down the outbreak by self-isolation. Work from home if you can. Etc. It's a very much debated policy though. People are looking at the rather authoritative measures taken by other countries and question if our authorities are really doing enough. But the government persist, they say it's all about doing *the right* things, and not doing things just for the looks of it that cause damage to the society and economy without really affecting the outbreak very much. Closing schools is deemed being such a thing. I suppose we'll see when it's all over who were right?

Something that *has been* done in Sweden, is a change in the sickness benefit rules. We have many tax-financed benefits in Sweden compared to the USA. Normally, when you call in sick and stay at home from work, you will have to endure one qualifying day of sickness without pay. After that you get 80% of your salary. Only after a week a doctor needs to check you up (doesn't cost anything of course, other than some $10 reception fee or whatever it is now) to determine if you qualify for further paid sick leave, or if you are well enough to go back to work. With the new temporary rules, the moment *anyone* feels *any kind* of symptom (cough, fevers, or whatever, even very, very slightly) you are simply *assumed* to leave work immediately, go directly home and isolate yourself from society to the best of your abilities, and you will get 80% of your salary for two weeks, no questions asked whatsoever! After two weeks, you must see a doctor (if you haven't needed one earlier of course). I believe this will make the world of difference. Self-isolation will be the only way to slow this outbreak down enough for the hospitals to cope until the population reaches flock-immunity and/or a vaccine gets developed (a tested, safe, commercial vaccine produced in volume may still be years away, so that's nothing to rely on at this moment). This policy (making it possible for people to stay at home) I think will be much more effective than calling out the national guard on the streets etc. It's painful to see the situation many people are in the US, people not being able to stay at home if they are sick during normal conditions. It is my understanding that many people (even senior citizens) are working more or less for tip in the service industry like tourism, in bars, restaurants and diners etc, people with zero economic margins in life and who will stand without any income at all if they don't work a day. So they will go to work even though feeling ill, because they have no real alternative option. Many of them comes in contact with huge amount of people through their work as well. This could be very problematic for the US IMHO. You risk being struck very hard this time by your lack of social safety net. Time will tell.

I work as a high school teacher, hence I meet many people as well on a daily basis, and I actually kind of *expected* to catch the bug. Schools *are* notorious in disease spreading, every parent probably have experience of this when it comes to the flu or common cold seasons. Anyway, I'm staying at home now. My 7 year old son and 5 year old daughter is at home with me. They both have a slight dry-cough, like something irritating them in the throat, though no fever or anything else. They are full of energy. I take comfort in the assumption that children will hardly be noticing this outbreak. My wife is also a school teacher, still no cold or flu symptoms. She is very worried though, which I think many people are these days. And there is a psychological side to all of this as well. It's hard to dodge the news, and the feeling that everything is spinning out of control. Many people are feeling bad about it. Personally I almost hope I have actually caught the bug and not just the flu. It would be nice to get it over with and be done with it. Preferably now, instead of when the hospitals run out of ventilators. And if whatever I am feeling now is as bad as it gets, then it's perfectly OK I would say. They say that most people will experience it as a flu or even less. Which is tolerable. And when we reach flock-immunity, this will protect the elderly and high risk groups, probably long before any vaccine is developed, tested to be safe and then mass-produced.

The real blow will be to the economy. It's already a fact, but we may not have seen the bottom by far yet. This is crippling to all small businesses. Restaurants and store owners, who overnight had their entire business erased. Nobody going out to restaurants, bars, clubs. Nobody shops, other than groceries. They have had their legs completely swept away by this, and they will land on their heads. Hard. This will change a lot. E-commerce has been pushing normal stores to the side for a long time. A process that could be fast forwarded by this outbreak by a magnitude. This blow could be one single spine-cracker that will cripple normal stores and malls forever. Changing the trade industry and in a way the world as we know it.

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I recently saw someone describe the Tories as "Right Wing Maoists", then Comrade Boris goes and nationalises the trains yesterday! LOL

In Spain the government has acted in general in a quite irresponsible way allowing big marches/concentration of people ignoring the recommendations of the EU, reacting late, not performing any test/quarantine to people coming from "infected" areas... and sending the ridiculous message that wearing facemask is useless and that the most important thing is washing your hands.


1. Avoid going out of home, even for buying food. If you go out to buy food get food for 1-2 weeks.

2. If you have access to face masks or can buy one, try to use it, because if you get infected you may not show sympthoms in 14 days. And after the illness starts you may still be contagious for 15 days even if you don't feel weak. So wearing a facemask is a good service for the community, because droplets stay inside the mask.

3. Washing your hands is important, also dissinfecting the goods you order


If you look at the direct relationship of many presidents/EU leaders with (famous and non famous) speculators the slowness reacting and allowing mass concentrations is suspicious... It's clear that some people profits from the begining with currency and "shorts" shares. and will have profits buying companies that went broke or have decreased value at great discounts. Banksters will have great profits: in Spain the government has announced that if a company can't pay the money lended by a bank the government will pay the debt to the banks (so banks win twice because they get the money back and also win because the government has to pay interests for that new debt. It could be as ridiculous as paying to bank X the debt of the broken company and asking money to the same bank in order to pay it, at the interest the bank wants)

Can someone just get rid of Trump while the USA's otherwise very competent government gets on with dealing with the crisis? The man's a useless idiot, and his self-contradicting tweets are downright confusing people when they need a simple and straight message.

So far the Trumpisms have been:

It's no worse than flu.
There'll be a vaccine in a couple of weeks.
Can't everyone just take flu vaccine?
The lockdown will end soon.
The lockdown is worse than the virus itself.

Many people will die because of this pointless orange nugget of poop.

Quote:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/peter-wehner-trump-presidency-over/607969/

Also, the Darwin award contenders have already started due to Trump... https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/23/africa/chloroquine-trump-nigeria-intl/index.html
https://amp-cnn-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/03/23/health/arizona-coronavirus-chloroquine-death/index.html