It’s great hearing from you all, many who we had the pleasure of meeting during our previous travels!
Here in the SF Bay Area, we’re on day #3 of an ordered “shelter in place”. That means stay home unless you have to go out for groceries or a doctor appointment. All schools, restaurants, theaters, gyms, shops are closed (except people can order take out or delivery from restaurants). You can take your dog on a walk, but need to stay 6-10’ away from others. Annie and I have been doing this for at least a week before this began.
For people over 60/65 (like Annie and me), we’re not supposed to go to stores at all, so have been relying on Amazon, Costco deliveries through Instacart, and a local service, Imperfect Foods, that delivers produce that stores don’t want because it has some blemishes or are weirdly shaped.
This shelter in place order started with 6 Bay Area counties covering about 6.7M people. It has since expanded to about a dozen, and growing daily, covering at least 20% of California’s population. I’m hoping the entire state is included soon. Since each county is making its own decision, having our governor declare an edict would be best. This is supposed to be in effect through April 7, but I’m expecting it to last months. Possibly 12-18 months until a vaccine is tested and available.
Unfortunately, this almost definitely means we won’t be coming to The Netherlands in June this year.
Annie and I are pretty fortunate. Besides having a nice backyard, we already work at home, so other than the imposed part of this, and the anxiety that we might mess up and still get infected while walking the dog or touching a delivered package, or the whole delivery infrastructure collapsing at some point, we’re ok.
It’s upsetting to me, though, to see videos of college kids partying at beaches, or hanging out in groups, as if they weren’t at risk of getting sick, and prolonging the pandemic! I think government enforcement will be required to wake them up to realize it really is serious.