Coronavirus

Sorry to get so serious here, after all this is an entertainment forum. But, since this is an international forum, I'm wondering if any of our wonderful readers and authors are impacted by the Coronavirus, or covid-19. While I don't work for a grocery store, I'm in the grocery business and spend my days in various stores. I've seen behavior in the last several days that made me want to give some adults a hard spanking in the middle of the store.

I do have to say, this site is performing a service as a respite from what we see going on around us. For me it's a place to come to after spending a day in crazy grocery stores and forget about life for a few minutes or maybe hours. Thank you to Flopsy, Februs and all those who help to make it happen.

Please, everyone, be careful, be safe and take care of yourselves and each other.

In the words of Sgt. Esterhaus of "Hill Street Blues,", "Now, let's all be particularly careful out there today."

I can't speak for the cities like Paris, but in rural France everyone is sticking to the curfew and the supermarkets in the two biggish towns we shop in have full shelves and no one is panic buying.

Considering the circumstances life is continuing in a relatively normal way here.

As Steven says - keep safe everyone.

The school I work in has shut down so I'm at home. My nearest supermarket has been full of panic buyers and the shelves of pasta, tins and cleaning products and even bread get emptied as soon as they're filled. I'm not sure how people think they can store bread. They have announcements saying no one is allowed more than two of any one item, and there are staff at the tills taking things off people and putting them back on the shelves but I see couples each with a loaded trolley going to separate tills and, I'm told, people buy what they can, put it in the car then come straight back in. My daughter went in to buy Easter eggs to give her teachers on the last day of school and was worried she'd be told she could only buy two so got two chocolate eggs and two chocolate bunnies.

I'm working from home and trying to do the best of it. As I live in a not very densely populated suburb, it's quite safe (and allowed!) to take a walk in the woods and get some fresh air. Schools, universities, and a lot of businesses are closed. There was a bit of panic in the stores when everything closed, but now we seem to be back to more or less normal except for the distance betwen people.

I had an email from daughter's school saying that the website for online learning is down as so many try to access it. They said 'please bare with us whilst we try to resolve the issue'. I thought, baring ourselves seems a rather extreme suggestion...

I'm in isolation due to a chronic health problem - I'll be isolated for the next 12 weeks. Near me they've had to have riot police come into the shops due to people's violence and aggression when panic buying. It's ridiculous. I'm also trying to do my university work from home, which is proving difficult as it's a very physical, on-location course. My nephew's had the virus and recovered, thankfully, but lots of my family and friends have chronic illnesses and are in the vulnerable groups, so I'm quite anxious about it all.

My wife might possibly have been infected with covid. We are not sure, and she is probably not infected. But, in order to be on the safe side she is staying home from work, with her employers´ blessings. My wife works in a nursing home - so they have to play things really, really safe as far as the risk of employees becoming infected is concerned. Me, I am apparently OK and I am not worrying. What good would worrying about things do anyway?

I just finished a 2-week self-quarantine after a potential exposure, ending with no symptoms, but having had limited accomplishments while "working at home." I made my first trip to a supermarket, and then, seeing the silliness there, resolved to do whatever shopping I can at the little grocery around the corner from me where things are far more "normal." We're in for a long haul, folks.

(Not sure why this topic is in the "Storyboard" sub-forum)

I happen to have little work at the moment anyway, just as well as most of it is in people's homes.
There is approximately a 4 week wait for a grocery delivery, but panic buying has meant that the other shops have little stock, particularly of staples (other small nails are in plentiful supply though).
I'm setting up a video conference in place of our regular choir practice this evening, obviously e won't be able to sing together as there is too much delay. We have been talking about recording parts and mixing them just as well I had all that practice with the spanking parody songs.

The amount of panic buying has been very disappointing, but hopefully shortage of space and/or money will soon succeed in stopping it where conscience has failed. I heard someone say on the news that Japan had a spate of it, but then things settled down again.