Corona (COVID-19)- is it affecting you?

@dudeglove: The news about the raids blew me away, still don't think I understand their intent but I guess we'll see over time. The Marseille and Lyons flare-ups are concerning. Not sure if you are saying you're in France now but best of luck.

@shindig: Good thing students're the kind of person to stay indoors and not mingle. The amount of "If you don't have COVID you can get COVID here to establish immunity" parties, the more recent stories of things like a party in the NW where they tried to have a standard of health & safety - So they only let in people who were currently positive for COVID. There's a BBC video of when revellers were first told about how the drinking places were going to close at 10pm. Vox pop, on-the street response: "Well...We'll just have to start earlier to get finished earlier". Besides, the NE is not all places that have Universities.

Hope you're well Shin, you've been on my mind since last. But bearing in mind how much the public health advice on this thing has been messed about, and how far away any kind of medical answer to the virus seems rn, people will tire of it and it'll spread again. Bleak af and utterly lacking in weekend energy so my apologies. Best of luck to you too. PM seems only interested in not being the one to cause a run, so I can't see us getting to New Zealand case numbers(Or even German ones) for a long time yet.

I really love to stay home haha. So no

It's kind of bizarre reading this thread 9 months deep into the pandemic and seeing the way people have reacted and approached it over time. I've been working from home in Australia (Im here on a work visa) since March and there have been two lockdowns, so I've basically been holed up alone for the past 5 months on the opposite side of the world from all my friends and family. The second lockdown here in Melbourne is one of the most strict in the world, I'm fairly sure? The rules were relaxed yesterday but for months you couldn't leave the house for more than an hour a day and only for food, medical care, or exercise. You couldn't go more than 5km from your home, couldn't meet in groups or invite anyone to visit, and fitted masks are mandatory at all times. I spent my birthday alone, I haven't had physical contact with another person since June, and there are big chunks of the day where I feel like everyone I care about is inaccessible even through the internet because of timezones. And then there's the default stress, fear, helplessness, etc. It's not been a particularly fun ride.

When all this first started I was pretty optimistic about it. I would joke that my hobbies (videogames, sketching, reading) naturally lent themselves to long periods of isolation, and that "I've been preparing for lockdown my whole life". Despite that, it's rough. I don't lean towards depression, but there's definitely an apathy and numbness that sets in after being in solitary confinement for so long. I go through random bouts of frustration, of high energy, where nothing will hold my attention or satisfy me. It's like endlessly flicking through Netflix channels and not being able to settle on anything. I find myself being self-destructive in other, less obvious ways; staying up late playing videogames for no reason, sleeping in long after I'm supposed to be at my desk, messaging ex-girlfriends... I love my job and I'm lucky that I got to keep it, and it's enabled me to spend the lockdown in a nice comfortable apartment, but... Well, if I'm having a rough time then I have no idea how other people are managing, to put it bluntly. Some people are in the same position as me but without videogames? No wonder they're starting to crack.

I'm still fully in support of the lockdown, even as I watch my mental health deteriorate in realtime. I have a pre-existing condition that would probably be exacerbated by the virus (Read: I'd probably die) so I've been extremely careful, paranoid, and welcomed the over cautious government rules in Australia. Despite that, I can empathise with the people pleading for the lockdown to end, even with the virus still circulating. I know there are many around the world who will be wishing their governments would impliment similar restrictions (Melbourne started the second lockdown with 750 cases a day. In the last 24 hours we had 2 new cases. This shit works) but when people talk about a mental health pandemic, they're not kidding.

@sweep: Australia's reaction to the Pandemic has been something to see. Complete outsider to AUS politics but the seeming tension in the debates over Victoria's borders and that some took it as seriously as they appear to have is a wild shift from here. I've been checking here(This thread) now and then because I feel the need to share, but honestly the perspective I get from reading is beginning to feel quite valuable. Makes me think of the news stories going round about airlines and I guess airline supply companies setting up "Eat dinner on a plane but it never moves" restaurant experiences. I'm always looking at the photos and feeling derisiveness beginning to flare my nostrils because it looks silly to me, people pantomiming something they feel deprived of. But I'm starting to be able to see they're just trying to cope through their own situation.

Even if I don't think I'm gonna pay for the opportunity to watch the in-flight and then de-plane to the same airport as I started at.

Hello from Melbourne, Aus.

After what feels like an eternity, we finally had some our lockdown restrictions lifted, and I've never felt a sense of relief quite like this. We're still not completely out of it, but we are getting close. I've been fortunate throughout this time though, as me and my partner live together, and both have been able to work from home. We also have a lot of parklands and local grocers within our 5km limit. However, not being able to see my family or friends in person for the last 6-8 weeks has been very tough.

I've seen a few people show their anger towards our premier, and I can understand it. However, considering we have dropped down from around 700 cases a day, to just 2 on Sunday, it wasn't for nothing. I'm just hoping other countries can get some systems in place to get their numbers down, cause seeing the numbers in Paris and the UK is terrifying. Hoping they and everyone else can get out of this.

I've had kind of a weird time over the course of lockdown. After years of trying to get my life and career into a place where I could make it happen, in February I finally landed a job that allowed me to move halfway across the country to a big city (I'm from the burbs of Dallas, which is a special brand of suburban hell). I finally got on the plane March 9th, signed my new downtown apartment March 17th, and I believe March 19th is when lockdown began in my state.

It's fuckin' weird. I moved out here because I was tired of my sleepy suburbs, and wanted to go out more, meet new people, try new things, generally really just live someplace I could explore, and obviously all of that went down the tubes pretty fast. I'm able to stay in touch with old friends from back home and my family (which was already scattered across the country), but there's something so strange about living in a city for seven months and still barely knowing anyone here, barely knowing my way around, not really having any sense of the place. On top of that, my city and specifically my block have been kind of something of a national focus for the last few months, specifically during the height of the protest (let's say my neighborhood got a little, shall we say, Autonomous), so going from "literally nothing ever happens in this bum-ass suburb" to "oh hey I can see my apartment building in the background of this national news report" is interesting.

In the end, I'm happy I moved here: the job is way better, the pay is excellent, and I do really love this city, even in its current state, and I'm still so excited to finally be able to explore and try new things and meet people when this is all over. On some level, I feel like I was somehow more psychologically prepared for all of this, like I'd already spent so much time psyching myself up for the major life change of the move and job change that the major life change of the pandemic just rolled seamlessly into it. This entire year still has such a surreal quality to it, though.

This has been the most surreal thing to me. I love that Dan is playing hardball with the lockdowns here, but hearing people in the UK reject and openly complain about their relatively casual lockdowns, despite having some of the worst case numbers in the world, drives me fucking nuts. Whenever I talk to my family back in England they're always so fucking arrogant and entitled; "It's just not in the British mindset to isolate" as though everyone else in the world has a much more subservient and docile approach to a pandemic which has killed over a million people. Elderly relatives attempting to persuade me that the risk to anyone below the age of 40 is negligible so they should all be sent back to work for the sake of the economy, despite the fact that has been proven to be not the case around the world multiple times. Just a total lack of empathy, compassion, or common sense. Drives me bananas.

@sweep: I've used this time to determine who those around me are selfless or selfish

Going into 8th month of working from home and it's slowly starting to get to me.

It's not that I miss colleagues or anything, I still keep in touch with my friends, I just want to go out, sit for a coffee or just not be home all the time.

@sweep Yeah, the UK, England in particular is really starting to get to me (I'm in South East London). As you say, the shear lack of conscientiousness of so many, and entitlement is really getting me and my partner down. It's like constantly paddling upstream.

I just went past 13 months of unemployment and broke the 500th application this last week but I know I'm not alone in this predicament. A tutoring job I went for had over 600 applicants - usually they only get 20 or so. If I have one positive thing to say/report, it's that I've finally managed to get some mental health support from Croydon NHS and they've been amazing - free healthcare is something everyone should get access to.

But with the current government I'm not sure how long there will be these services and this infection rate will just continue to drift on unchanged. Led by donkeys I believe the current adage is.

My day to day life here in NH hasn't been overly affected right now. Our state is in very good shape.

I find myself struggling with being able to enjoy things that I enjoyed before. I don't care about many games anymore, I get bored of them super fast too...that drive me crazy.

I love fitness and bodybuilding and find myself binge eating every weekend and then playing catch up. This week I am REALLY trying to get back in control of my food and training, but it is a big big mental struggle for me.

The best thing for all of us to remember is that we aren't alone and many feel the same way.

Keep your heads up!

The news story about Dr. Fauci's kids not coming come for Thanksgiving prompted me to ask my mom if we had any plans yet. We usually have a decently sized gathering (20-ish people), but I didn't think that was a good idea this year. I'm not sure if she spoke with anyone else or just made an executive decision, but we're not having a normal Thanksgiving this year. It'll be just my parents, sister, and I.

The same people gather for Christmas, too, but I don't think that'll happen this year either. I can see my mom and her sister doing something with FaceTime on their iPads instead.

@bane: I don’t celebrate holidays, but we have been using Zoom to meet up with older ones that may need some attention.

We also have friends who work in health care or have medical issues and don’t fee comfortable hanging out and have been using Zoom for that.

It helps! It’s a FAR second place to being in the same room but it’s better than not taking for 2+ years by the end of this thing....

I'm more than fine with staying/working from home. I'm contracting for an international office anyway, so I wouldn't be in an office.

The loss comes from all the complete lack of social interaction with our friends. Missing them alot.

Vancouver was doing well until Summer, then a bunch of idiots got antsy, spread shit to others, and numbers flew up.

Haven't posted in here for a while, mainly because the answer was drifting more and more towards "no" as the summer wore on. Sure, I wear a mask 6-11 hours five days a week and typically a "busy" service tops out around 40 people rather than 100 or 150, but the people who are coming out seem to be the people that genuinely enjoy the experience. Guest averages have been way up, wine bottle and cocktail sales (by percentage if not total volume) have been way up and I suppose most importantly, aside from larger buyout events the day-to-day income of the restaurant I work at hit a point where we could afford to be back to nearly full staff pre-pandemic (though mostly new faces front of house) and the tipped wages have been wild. I've maintained a steady bank account near five figures for the first time in my life for over six months now, and this previous pay period was the first time my paycheck had dipped below four figures since the first week of the pandemic.

In other words, I've came out of this experience with a life that honestly hasn't changed that much...except for this crippling self-hate, survivor's guilt sort of thing that's curdled on top of all that feel good momentum. I'm around the people I work with pretty much all day and night, as we fell back into the habit of going across the street to the industry bar for last call as soon as they re-opened, and life has pretty much gone on as it did before the pandemic except with this cloud of dread looming over all of it. Only one person I work with has contracted the virus, from an outside event, and no one in his family contracted it from him while he mostly enjoyed the opportunity to rewatch Deep Space Nine for the first time in years uninterrupted. We've hosted several weddings and not been contacted from a single one about a positive test afterward...but it's all just crossed fingers, right?

Anyway, I came back because despite all that, Nebraska is finally in the spotlight. I've checked the NY Times' trackers every morning and night since March 18th and we've almost never been more than steady aside from a mass outbreak at a meat packing plant in western Nebraska many months ago. We're back to our peak death rate and at nearly twice our daily case rate from the height of the pandemic in late spring. While my restaurant and part of town specifically experienced a bit of a slowdown the last two weeks, it seemed like generally the state and city in particular were getting back to business as usual.

So now we have our first health mandate in weeks (there's technically a mask mandate, but like a lot of red states the police departments have declined to enforce them, citing "freedoms") reducing capacity to 50% and some confusing language about weddings and private events being no more than 8 people (50% capacity at our venue, which measures a full city block, is about 70 people, though we only staff to seat about 25 at a time aside from said weddings) and being required to be seated at all times...unless playing parlor games? In other words, it feels a lot like March, when some really desperate, muddled maneuvers were made to make it feel like everything was OK for about a week and then the call was made abruptly on a Wednesday morning to shut everything down.

Back then, with Spring on the horizon, it was kind of exciting to be kept on staff and figure out how to survive as a takeout/delivery business when we'd formerly been casual fine dining, and it was really gratifying to have made it work and tough it out. But you know, we got to emerge into the summer and patio weather and Nebraska being relatively case-free aside from nursing homes, meat packing facilities and prisons (which is a whole other conversation, I'm aware) and that feels an entirely different universe from waking up to 37° and threats of sleet throughout the week.

On the one hand, I've been the voice of pessimism all summer, warning that we shouldn't be taking this summer for granted and crossing our fingers that most of our friends and loved ones aren't out of work come February, so in some ways I've always been prepared for this day, or at least this day before the day. As the dread starts to set in, though, I'm not sure I actually am mentally prepared for it. I'm not sure I could do the sit at a desk for 8 hours a day answering emails and organizing delivery routes thing while my boss is screaming internally every minute of the day over whether he's gonna have a college fund for his two kids at the end of the season. Part of me was even envious of the friends who were on unemployment this summer to begin with, it kind of sounded like a dream scenario, avoiding all the stress of trying to keep a business alive while making significantly more money than they were used to.

But then I'm also one of those people who would make for a great Aaron Sorkin character, who finds a lot of my personal identity and worth in my work...AUGH!!!!

Anyway, there's your update from the Breadbasket of the Heartland, I guess.

Same here. Like, my role hasn't changed much but it has changed in a way that makes me feel more important. I've been given more responsibilities and has a rather nice side effect of protecting my neck.

Keep busy keeping busy, basically.

Transitioned to wfh 100% of the time. I feel like a hermit and my love for video games as a hobby is becoming dull at this point because I have the time to play them more than ever. Didn’t realize how much I miss being social occasionally. Going out to eat or a movie or a bar or whatever just to hang out I miss the most. Some of those places are open but it feels so weird right now and I don’t know if or when it will ever be the same again.

Seeing my daughter find one of my masks and stand there trying it on but sort of failing because it was too big, but also because she's 2, was a very impactful moment. On one hand it was super clever, and cute and all that, but on the other...what is this world she is trying to figure out?

Covid has made it such a crazy first impression.

My company lost like 60% of its income and I got laid off several months ago and I haven't seen any friends or family for just as long. My county's numbers have been at a constant surge and I feel like smacking the jerk-offs that don't wear masks in public buildings. So, yeah, it's affected me.

UK central bank recently floated idea of negative interest rates. Idea of savings being charged for keeping money in banks to give them a benefit in these hard times is...Something I don't have unbannable words for. UK increasingly looks unusual compared to most nations over COVID reaction. Connection between Britain's imminent divorce from EU and behaviour over COVID feels inextricable. Bad timing I suppose. Bringing the talk about the interest rates here because while it still seems unlikely they will be implemented soon, I need people elsewhere to know. Both what we're seeing here and what else the future might have for other places. Too much love for the room not to, as bitter as it is.

Back to watching the government tell the crowd it's time to wave their Margaret Thatcher voodoo dolls in the air like they just don't

This whole thing has been starting to get to me much more than it previously was. My goal this year was to find stable work and maybe move to British Columbia, but that all went out the window when it became clear everything was about to get bad. I'm not comfortable moving somewhere I don't know well during a pandemic, which means I've been stuck where I currently live. That would be fine but job prospects here outside of working the service industry are basically non-existent since this province was heading toward a recession and was experiencing a brain drain before the virus hit. Luckily at least now companies are actually advertising for new remote work positions (some of which are basically "hey we'll hire you remote now and when this nightmare's over we'll help you move out to Vancouver", which I am 100% on board with).

The most frustrating thing for me is that numbers here are getting very bad very quickly and the cause is exactly what you would fucking predict it to be. One of the biggest recent outbreaks was a bunch of super conservative religious people creating a super spreader event in the form of Sunday mass and then spreading the virus to all their communities, and the other was a "country" bar here that predictably didn't follow guidelines or capacity recommendations and naturally was filled with the exact type of people who would pretend the virus didn't exist or didn't affect them and then spread it around. It's infuriating because everyone else here has been following guidelines but over and over, multiple times so far this year, it has been these same groups of people completely wasting everyone else's sacrifices and endangering everyone.

The only upside is that I've began getting way back into both reading and music. I didn't sit down and read a book for years because of all my time reading stuff for university but now I'm reading at least one book a week, if not more. I've also both been practicing mechanically various skills in music and have began doing a bit of songwriting, which I've never done before. Honestly right now I barely play any video games. Music and reading have both basically supplanted video games as my main hobbies, which I'm totally fine with.

A quick check-in for Ireland. We've had a pretty rigorous and compliant approach to the pandemic. Currently, we are experiencing regional spikes of infection again, which have resulted from people working in close proximity in factories, international travel, nursing homes and the increased attitudes of ambivalence that are bound to come from 'living in captivity'. The system here is not unlike the UK, with a series of levels ranging from 1 to 5 which denote various restrictions on gatherings, travel, the closing of restaurants, pubs ect. At the moment Ireland is currently in full national lockdown in a bid to flatten the curve.

Personally, I haven't been too badly affected, I work in digital media, so a computer is a computer in any room, and online collaboration and productivity have been good at my company. My wife and I have a 10-month-old son, so being at home has been equally draining and elating. So shout out to parents of small children everywhere!

I've been playing a criminal amount of Modern Warfare with friends in the evening when possible, seriously that battlepass is like a second job.

It almost like we're living the same life. Similar job and have a 1y old baby girl :D

My Son was born on the 1st of January, lockdown babies right! Hope you and your family are doing well.

I have to make a formal declaration of checking out. This is nothing to say about anything here at the site, my anxiety was always intolerable and right now I feel like I'm trying to hold back a star inside of me. I simply cannot be relied upon rn to either not be a volcanic flamebaron or use others' signal to amplify my own concerns about things at home(Not gonna blow up the spot, I like it too much). Personally there's still no positive tests in any of the small network of family I can be aware of, but another week and another positive test in my niece's school class. Her class was sent home, the other classes not. The drums are starting to feel quite close, thanks.

(just because I might not be back for a while: current lockdown not nearly enough - what are parents supposed to do, mask when children back home? also thermometers miss asympomatic cases which can also transmit)

Everything about the virus and it's experience in England has been so preposterously dumb that in any other year it might have been enough for me to wryly smile about the idiots who had let ambivalence over politics get us to the point where everything just gets consumed by "doing the politics dance". The government dashboard for UK COVID deaths is currently down, but the official death toll is ~48k, and the...idk..."other" death toll that has been presented so far(Which is people who died with COVID on the death cert, the official number requires them to be tested as positive within a period of a few weeks before death), was ~60k last I saw of it. And if you want to go into statistical projections for what the actual numbers are, go nuts. I've seen from 1X-4X the current official numbers. I'm both horrified and terrified at both the numbers and the rate of increase, but also that I've never felt more like I'm from a different planet in my life. People just aren't scared. "Lockdown II" just started and a shitload of people decided to get out on the lash and have firework parties(Attention gunpowder fetishists, your need for a rush sucks: Maybe go indoors and have headphones turned up past the beep instead, yeah?). Last flu season was ~8k. Then there's the impending waterfall that the smarter rats convinced everyone else to send us over in the oncoming January.

And this me trying to dial it down all the way. So I just can't. For now. Maybe I'll be back soon and make some kinda sheepish "lol, turns out not falling, turns out rain". Isle of Spite sucks guys. Stay safe everyone(Masks and distancing are your main defense until a functioning vaccine with high survival rates is found). Know that strength is accepting that freaking out is your body telling you that it thinks "it's on", and there is no shame in it. For the people living in places where the plague is no longer a widespread concern: 1. Keep it up, 2. Lucky bastards.

I literally don't know how long I'm gone but this is the first time since my last post that I've even looked here, which feels like years already(compulsive doomloader). I need to not have the temptation to do me here. Bye for now.

Toronto here, I've been lucky enough to be still working (I am the HR Manager at a Long Term Care Centre here in Toronto), so my work/life balance has stayed pretty much the same. Just working a whole lot of extra hours and mentally preparing my staff for when Covid comes into the home (we have to date been COvid free when a lot of other places are/were having nasty outbreaks).

I'm an introvert and really don't have much to do with people other than my wife, so I have adapted to the lack of human interaction but the complacency of some people on the streets or walking around really worries me and I can't tell if people are just giving up and willing to get sick to get it over with (not as in suicide).

I have staff constantly asking me if I know when this will all be over, as if I have some magical ability to just say "Hmmmmm, September everything should be good..." I'm just as anxious as them, I just have to hide it a whole lot better.

Thansk guys, it helps to type this out. Stay safe and healthy.

apologies for the slight necro- but as OP and as we're turning the bend on the 1 year (omfg) anniversary of this thing, i thought a quick check-in was in order.

as a nyc hospital staff member i received dose 1 of 2 for the moderna vax treatment yesterday. i was a little anxious in the moment (mostly just nervous energy), but it's thrilling to do my part and to have concrete evidence of the world responding to what often felt like an insurmountable challenge. that's not to diminish any of the trauma endured or yet to endure (god knows we're not out of it yet), but it's nice to be reminded- especially given the political situation in this country- nurses, researchers, schedulers- are still in the trenches doing the hard work on behalf of all of us. and that obviously extends to everyone outside of healthcare (grocery store workers, postal service, government benefit admins, etc.) that is holding this thing together.

i feel incredibly lucky to be offered the vaccine at this time- so it feels like the very least i can do is take it to reduce the risk for others. obviously everyone has their own decision to make- but i hope if your health and situation permits it, you readily take the jab once offered as well. word of advice- arrive to your appointment early! everyone is doing their best, but expectedly logistics are a bit of a poop show so expect long lines.

and although i've expressed it in other threads- a final word of gratitude to this community for being a place to vent and hang out through all this. it's been proof positive that despite everything- this is place you can come to find to some friendly folks to take your mind of things.

stay strong everyone- keep with that maskin and distancin!

Ten months have passed, and I still haven't gotten used to what they call the new normal.

Going out with masks, distancing, constant hand washing, but in the end to date it has been worth it, since I have not caught it and no one in my family has.

He has to continue fighting and I hope very soon that the vaccine can arrive

My corona story has been an interesting phase of my life. I had been unemployed for about 7-8 months after graduating university, felt like shit (Don't recommend trying to get a junior developer position in Iceland without knowing someone already with a job in the business, did not even get one face-to-face interview that whole time).

Finally got a job but in Norway. No problem, I have always wanted to live in Norway for a couple of years since I'm half Norwegian, no issue. Corona starts pop-in in Norway. I think to myself "It's going to be fiiiiine". Found myself an apartment without going to the place and without meeting my landlord, without knowing the area, a bit risky but hey, what else am I'm going to do. While coming back from moving some of my stuff to my parent's house which is like a 5-hour drive, my future landlord contacts me and tells me that Norway is closing the border tomorrow. Two weeks before my planned moving date and plane ride. I had no idea if I would keep the job if I were to wait until the borders would open up again and it's Sunday evening. Meaning I could not contact HR and get a confirmation of having a job if I were to stay before deciding on buying the last plane ride out of Iceland. My apartment in Norway was not even ready for me to arrive, there was still work being done to it.

Thankfully I and the landlord were talking about the situation that evening and I decided that I could not lose the opportunity of starting my career as a programmer. Booked the expensive ticket, unsure if I would be even let into the country. Spent all night packing the rest of my stuff so someone could take it for me to my parent's place, slept for 1 hour, and then went to the airport. Saw many flights of the other airline I could have taken being aborted. By luck, mine did not. Arrived in Norway, saw people in military outfits for the first time in my life, was stopped and asked if I had a place in Norway, I said yes and was told to quarantine for 10 days. I did not tell him that I could not stay in my place because I was afraid I would be turned back to Iceland since neither the work contract nor the apartment contract had officially started. I spent some time at the airport trying to find an Airbnb that would take me. Let me tell you this, it's hard to convince somebody to let you quarantine for 10 days the day of lockdown in a country. Ended up booking a place with no questions asked which set me back quite a lot, money-wise.

After 2 weeks of quarantine, I could move into my apartment which had no furniture, and start working at my new job. I slept on an air mattress for, I think 1-2 months before buying a bed. Worked from home, only met my CTO in person to get a chair from the office, since I didn't own a chair. :P

After 4 months I finally got to see the office and some other people from work in person in a park. Working from home did at first not affect me much since I had already been doing this while unemployed. But then the loneliness started to kick in. Got to work at the office for 2-3 months before going back to working from home, which was the pick me up I needed, finally some socializing and hearing daily Norwegian being spoken, getting to know some of my coworkers.

I have some family in Norway but it's a 1-2 hour train ride. Spent Christmas and New Year's eve alone, since covid was once more picking up and I did not want to deal with going back to Iceland for the holidays and I did not want to risk my Norwegian family members.

And here we are with a vaccine up and running, but looking at it with my current cynical eyes, it looks like it's gonna be another year at home, not meeting new people, not exploring the city, not socializing, not trying new things, not dating, just another lonely year.

But I look forward to when I can actually live in this country.

ps. Could have talked more about the hell of dealing with getting a national id and bank account and stuff like that while corona was starting. But this is already way too long.

I am a socially-anxious extreme introvert who hates driving, and I don't have kids, so I gotta say I've been having a "great" time. No parties to go to (or make lame excuses to avoid going to). Traffic has been maybe 30-50% better than usual. I still go to work, but I have a private office and there are usually only 1-2 other people here.

However, I hate going grocery shopping because nobody does social distancing properly inside the store. At least everyone wears masks.

Mostly, I just miss going out to restaurants with my 2 close friends. I miss eating my fave food, sushi (yeah I could get delivery but I feel like if it's not FRESH fresh what is even the point).

Unfortunately, I have an aunt who got Covid and she was on a ventilator for a month. She survived, but, since she was basically unconscious and sedated the whole time, she needs a lot of physical therapy. Thankfully we live in Canada so there won't be massive hospital bills to pay, but goddamn it is scary.

Miss going out to restaurants. But have in the working out at home. In order to keep sane. I will never take a day for granted at all. As can't wait for all of this to be done.

But gotten closer to my parents. As we three live with each other. And also miss going to the librarires.

So I'm usually the optimistic type, and don't let too much bother me. But after 2 years and the current situation we're in, my anxiety, depression, and sense of dread are all compounding and just sort of need to vent/maybe find some reassurance.

Little back story, besides being Immunocompromised(having no natural immunity and getting it all second hand through treatments), I also have had lung scarring due to a illness a number of years ago. So needless to say, I have been on edge since even January 2020.

Conflicting opinions and everyone suddenly becoming "anti Vax, but only this Vax" and the general disregard for people like me and my family who basically can't afford to take risks, have caused me to cut ties with A LOT of people.

Towards the end of 2021 I had finally started easing up a bit, things were looking like they had stabilized and might be okay. Then, within a span of a week I personally knew(not in physical contact with) 9 people to come down with covid. Luckily they are all okay right now, and aren't in any particular high risk group.

Now, with the current state of things, I have seen enough well made films/books and know enough about how society functions and remains stable to feel like well.....we may or may not have a society come 2023.

What really hit me is when I saw multiple accounts of EMS taking upwards of 30-45 minutes to respond to a scene just because there a) weren't enough staff period and b) any of the staff they did have were sick.

That combined with the mass and worsening breakdown of supply chains, and the overall rates of infections all over the world, have sort of put me in a place of hopelessness and nihilism. Legitimately being difficult to carry on with my day, feeling that anything I'm working toward is moot.

I'm 30, in what is probably the best relationship I've had. Was even considering proposing within the next month or two. Looking for a house(which that's a whole nother can) and just feel like there's no point.

Sorry for the extremely long and bleak post. In before times I was never one to share much, let alone deep seeded fears and issues. Anyone that reads this, I appreciate even taking the time.

And if we somehow make it out on the other side of this, believe me I will be making the absolute best of it I can.

Have any of the staff contracted coronavirus? Just asking because of Jeff G's bombcast comment about not wanting to go out to get a haircut. Was wondering if he said that based on prior experience.

DC metro area checking in. We mostly just went back to everyone wearing masks indoors as opposed to roughly 60-70%. The supermarket looked raided today when I went but that had more to do with the series of snow/winter mixes we’ve been getting the last couple of weeks. MD is definitely taking it more seriously than VA but that’s the difference between governor Hogan vs governor Youngkin from what I can tell.

I will add that as an anxious person who never dealt with any physical symptoms from said anxiety, I have definitely started to notice I’m suffering from mini panic attacks on the regular and have to press my fingers to my carotid artery and breathe slowly to bring my heart rate down. I don’t know what specifically causes it other than *waves around at everything* and it’s definitely diminished my patience with people and has made me rather terse when I sense friction in my day-to-day interactions. I wouldn’t say this shit is sucking the life out of me, but it is. Definitely killing my ability to experience joy.

Covid 19 influences on my mental health and many sectors of my life