How are you

[Jurgen Ver]

Hi all,

How is everybody doing?

In these weird times with Covid-19, everything can change quickly. Fortunately, we have the SIM to fill our days.

Here in Belgium there is disturbing news that things are not going well in the USA. Therefore my question.
I am at home for a long time, the virus does not catch me at the moment, but I am in the risk group according to my doctors. So staying at home, good hand hygiene, ... are now essential.

I hope everyone is doing well!
Much good courage and support for yourself and your family!

[The Harlequins]

Afternoon Jurgen,stay safe and get plenty of winners.

Frank

[Regina Moore]

I'm doing great in Colorado. We're under stay at home orders, but that doesn't affect my life much, since most of my life is conducted over the computer,, anyway. The biggest daily difference is seeing so many people out and about when taking my walks.

I'm a freelance bookkeeper and still have plenty of work, so really appreciate that.

I stopped watching the news last fall and never regretted getting all that negativity out of my life. I watch a little bit now, but have plenty of happier things to give my attention to.

I do have a dear friend in Texas who needs cancer surgery and merely getting it scheduled is turning into a big ordeal. (They're talking about road blocks between counties in that state.)

Mostly though, I'm grateful for all the many blessings in my life, and the SIM is definitely one of them!

[Louise Bayou]

I'm an emergency dispatcher who dispatches for a private ambulance company. We are also a UL monitoring station that dispatches for home/business burg/fire alarms. Since we are in the same building as our paramedics we are having to follow the same protocols they are. We have to have our temp taken to even come in the building. Its getting very bad here as Louisiana is now tied for 2nd in the country in cases. We just had to send a huge group of our paramedics to New Orleans because the New Orleans ambulance company had a large group of their medics catch this virus. Honestly I just feel like its a matter of time before someone in my department catches it. I hate to say that but its how I feel.

But something really nice happened because of this! For the last 10 years I always joke with the store manager of the Albertsons grocery store by my office. He loves Alabama football and being a life long LSU fan we instantly started giving each other a hard time. Super nice guy(besides liking Bama of course! lol) and Wednesday I went there during my lunch break to try and find clorox wipes, lysol and a few groceries since everything is usually picked over when I get off at 7pm. We were talking and he told me to come to the store at 615am the next morning before work and he would let me and my co worker in to shop before the store opened and after they had stocked. How freaking nice was that?!?! I seriously wanted to cry.

[The Harlequins]

Our Prime Minister Boris Johnson as been tested positive thats true demoncracy.

Good man Boris, and good for this country

[Jo Ferris]

I'm in Michigan, we're under stay at home orders that started on Tuesday that'll last at least till April 13th. Doesn't affect me much other than I was job hunting, putting that on hold until this is over, I'm at higher risk due to asthma, but still can go to the barn to work and ride my boy, also parks are still open so can still go there to get good runs in.

It's really bad in Detroit, more than 1/2 of the cases in the state are in the Detroit area, and it's still going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Detroit is one of the highest per capita rates in the country, it's spreading like wildfire there. Still seeing exponential growth, yesterday there was just over 800 new cases reported, a 28% jump from the day before

[The Steward]

Things are getting explosive here in California. We've been at home for almost 2 weeks now, which is really difficult because of the kids and this being a little apartment. But my daughter is really high risk so I'm terrified of her getting it. We've been doing video calls with their teachers and friends every day, but I also need the computer to work and hard to do with kids climbing on me. That said, once all the major tracks here are shuttered I will be out of a job(s) and I will really struggle.

[Bob Green]

I'm doing pretty well in our little corner of Iowa. Our first local cases just tested positive a few days ago though so I expect those numbers will start jumping up soon.

I get to be a small part of the effort to ramp up temporary hospital capacity. I work at a manufacturing job shop (job shop = we make parts for other companies rather than our own line of product) and we are currently working around the clock, almost literally, to start cranking out frames for hospital beds. Our entire engineering department is working the weekend, something entirely unheard of.

My own relatively minor contribution can be done from home, in my pajamas no less

[Gwayne's World]

The 2009 Swine Flu pandemic was BAD but the entire country/world didn't shut down?

Political correctness prohibits me from going any further on this topic!

You can draw your own conclusions!

[Bertie Bassett]

Out here in New Brunswick things are not as bad as elsewhere yet, but I guess that could change fairly fast. New Brunswick is a small province population wise. So far we have 44 cases in total. I live on a 280 acre farm, so self isolation is nothing new to me. Although my wife (who is very sociable and active in our community) is finding it a little more difficult.

Keep safe everyone:

Bertie

[Brad Fabman]

I live in Macomb County just outside of Detroit. I have not once been out of the house in 18 days. Not because I'm afraid of this. I'm not. Call me crazy but I also think this is overblown. Like Gwwayne Mike above me, I won't get into it either. I was ready, past ready, for the world to get back to normal by April 14th. Being now that this area is becoming a new hot spot, I'm sure that's not going anytime soon. We have 3 major casino's in Detroit. All tried their damnedest to stay open and while our governor was slamming the door on businesses allowed them initially to stay open. Big mistake! She makes a lot of those, by the way. I mean, what is germier, if that's a word, than a casino?

[Steve Leavitt]

Like Em, I'm also in California and have been following the Governor's daily briefings. Bad news from him, it's still taking too long to get test results, but his office is trying to work with the labs on what they need for a quicker turnaround. Good news, we're now testing over 10,000 people per day in the state. Kinda bad news, the state has distributed 1.4 million pairs of gloves with 1.5 million more in the system and being distributed, but we need much more. Good news, we have 1 BILLION pairs of gloves on the way (Mostly from China. The state is using their business connections in China to make deals and get supplies here quickly). Also good news, the state has already distributed 31.7 million N95 masks and has another 101 million in the distribution system, ready to go. The state has worked out deals with Fed Ex, UPS and hired additional charter cargo aircraft to fly supplies directly from China to California. Good news, Elon Musk used his connections to promise the state 1,000 ventilators, then was able to actually use those connections to provide 1,250 new ventilators. The state was able to get 1,000 more on their own, with more to be delivered in the next few days. The state has connected with several manufacturing businesses in the state and they are producing additional gowns, shields and test kits for the state. No word (that I can recall) on how many they will be providing. We have not run out of hospital beds or people to staff beds. We have 75,000 hospital beds in the state and the Governor has called for 50,000 more beds, with a plan on how to reach that number before they are needed. He always refers to all of this as "pre-positioning" equipment, supplies, and personnel. Not all of it is fully operational or running smoothly, and some supplies are still in short supply, but he and his staff seem to really be on top of this and doing their best to get everything out as quickly as possible. Overall, as a state, we seem to be in fairly good shape, but like many other places, we will be tested hard this coming week and for several weeks beyond. I find the Governor's "matter of fact" daily briefings, along with information about how he, his staff, and the state are all working together to make things happen, to be quite comforting. We'll know in about three or four more weeks if the preparations were timely and sufficient, but I feel, so far, Governor Newsom has shown good leadership in this situation.

I'm editing because I saw Brad's post about casinos after I posted mine. All of the casinos finally shut down in our area. One was holding out longer than the others. The "problem" is that they are tribal casino's and not subject to state mandates, and with no federal mandate for them to close, all closures were voluntary. Even then, I think they have quite a bit of autonomy separate from the federal government, so...

[Gigi Gofaster]

I'm in Washington, but in an affluent older suburban area, so it's taking a long time for the spread to reach here, and most people here really can weather this pretty well for quite a while - lots of white collar homeworkers and housewives that could really stop whining about how they are going to fill their days now Starbucks and the Pilates studio are closed. That said, the combination of boredom, anxiety, the self righteous sanctimoniousness typical of a homogeneous wealthy community, and the lack of any face to face social 'check yourselves' means our community facebook pages are showing their true colors. I always knew this was a pretty self serving and biased community, but I had no idea of depth of hate that my town harbored. It's all out there now. When this is over I'm going to find it hard to stay here now I see what my community is really like. It's always amazed my how so many wealthy people seem to be the ones that find it hardest to pull together in times of trouble, but maybe that's how they get wealthy in the first place.

On the other hand, maybe the tide is turning on Covid 19 in the local media - just yesterday somebody posted on a community page their rage and indignancy at the state proposal for gender ed in schools (which are closed now anyway). I hadn't seen that chatter for a couple weeks, so maybe we are getting back to our normal tartuffian ways.

On a personal level though we are doing okay. I'm one of those who can work from home and I'm a data scientist so I like being isolated anyway, my husband can work via skype, and my kids both have jobs in 'essential services'. We are in good health and apart from me we are 'low risk' but I can mange my own care, and our new local hospital was built way beyond current need so is coping well despite our community's older population. So, we are deeply grateful for the good fortune we have in this (at least for now) and we don't take it for granted.

[George Knatz]

I live in Nevada. We are finishing our second week of lockdown. I’m a retired high school teacher, so work wise this has no effect on me. My wife is still teaching so she is working via Zoom. She holds geometry class between 9 and 10 daily.

I have lived in southern Nevada for over 30 years. I never thought I would see a day when every casino in town was closed but now I have.

[Karl Smythe]

I live on the Toronto/Mississauga border.
Our track is closed other than the backstretch to keep horses training lightly.
Luckily has not affected myself/my mom (80)/my friends/my coworkers.
We are all staying safe and healthy.

I wish you all safety and health.