Not enough tests. But my wife and I are told to take all the precautions as if we are positive.
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This adds to the general impression that the official number of COVID-19 positives is WAY lower than the actual one.
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It is. There was a study in Heinsberg, Germany with exactly that result: We have a lot more positives. The interesting thing is that most/a lot of them hadn’t symptoms at all.
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Yeah, based upon the symptoms, the odds are that you’ve had it. Glad you’re fine now.
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What store is that?
Chez *beep*ing Ransome ?
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I know that feeling, here it was the same, 3 weeks ago.
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I can’t quite decide whether it is meant dead serious, or if there’s some sort of over the top humor on display. I hope it’s the latter, but if I had to enter I’d probably stay on the safe side and assume the former. Meaning I’d rather buy my stuff elsewhere.
Here there are also restrictions on how many people are allowed in a shop at once, but judging by today’s experience the limit must be rather high. The assistant at the entrance was also more occupied by her phone than anything else. But maybe she’s not supposed to be counting and only there to guard the hand sanitizer.
@yrface how are you and your family doing?
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Hey there. We’re still quarantined. My wife has good days and bad days after contracting pneumonia, but hasn’t had to be hospitalized yet thankfully. Hospitals are crazy, so I’m hoping we can avoid that.
The neighbors anxiously await 7pm every day when everyone comes to the window and starts banging pots and pans and cheering. There’s always this one guy who keeps drumming away after everyone else has stopped.
I’ll be happy when the kids are back in school!
Trying to work and make sure they’re doing their online school like they’re supposed to is stressful.
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Today, April 25th, is an important celebration. No, I don’t mean the Penguin Day.
Today is Italy’s Liberation Day.
The day in which we celebrate the end of World War II, the fascist dictatorship and the german occupation.
Not everybody in Italy like to celebrate this day. A long time (and scantily disguised fascistic) right-wing rhetoric instilled in people the idea that celebrating the Liberation Day and singing Bella Ciao was “a communist thing”.
It is true that you don’t understand the value of freedom until you’re deprived of it.
And since this pandemia took away our freedom, I really can’t recall such a strongly felt Liberation Day as this year’s.
I can’t recall so many people singing Bella Ciao on their balcony. I can’t remember so many people (even known right wing electors) celebrating on their social profile the Liberation.
I must say thank you, this time, you bastard virus.
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@yrface Yikes, I just read this and I hope you all are doing well!
It’s been more than a month since anyone updated their situation so I’ll revive this semi-dead thread. We’re starting to reopen the economy after several weeks in which we had single-digit numbers of cases, so naturally we’re having the expected second surge. Haven’t seen yet if the BLM protests will cause another surge. Restaurants have been open and gyms were allowed to open yesterday with some restrictions, so we’ll see how that goes…the gym is not exactly the best place to be if you want to avoid inhaling other people’s droplets. 
Take care, everyone!
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Here in Italy the situation is current under control. There are more cases in the north, but overall the curve is flatten.
Shops are open, using the social distancing.
We are returning to the normality.
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Similar situation like @ZakPhoenixMcKracken: Here in my area in Germany most things are going back to normal, the numbers are low. With one exception: We have an outbreak in a big slaughterhouse. (Currently >1000 positives.) At the moment it seems to be under control - but who knows.
And my concerns are the young people: They don’t care anymore in many situations.
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Not quite sure if there’s a particular age group to be worried about, but I am also under the impression that not everybody remains as vigilant as they probably should be. And as the situation at the slaughterhouse shows, especially crowded indoor places are still a potential risk.
For me personally, little has changed yet. Still working mostly from home, but the rare days I spent at the office we did go out to our usual lunch place, which is back open since a couple weeks now. I also made the 400km trip to my parents as soon as that became possible, but avoided seeing other relatives while I was there.
So still far from the old carefree normality, but hopefully with a bit of discipline from everyone we’ll manage to get by without another rigorous lockdown!
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Here at my place mostly 14 to 18.
And surprisingly a lot of older people at 70 and up. They wear a face mask where required, but they don’t care about distancing.
Indeed, I have the same impression.
At least sweat isn’t a problem. Are they required to wear face masks/shields during workout?
Oh those slaughter factories! There were a lot of problems in the USA too.
Yes, a lot of people have a vigilance fatigue. The problem with younger ones is probably that they are going partying again, and you can’t expect a lot of social distancing under influence…
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Thanks for the concern! We’re doing fine now, everybody’s healthy and kids finally got to see their grandma and give her a hug last weekend.
It seems the curve has flattened in NYC at least. New cases are reported around 300/day, which is much better than 6,000 a day at the peak in April. I think people are becoming more hopeful, and although I’ve seen BLM marches in our neighborhood things have been fairly peaceful. I’ve heard about spikes in other states, but that hasn’t happened here.
My wife insists we all wear masks and gloves whenever we go out, which means the kids complain and just end up staying inside all the time.
Unfortunately people seem to be getting more lax with social distancing. We drove by one of the trendier neighborhoods here and half the people are walking with no masks, Starbucks iced coffee in hand, oblivious to the fact we are living in a pandemic! This has probably killed 10x more New Yorkers than 9/11. It makes me want to scream! I know it’s annoying, I hate jogging with a mask on, but this is a life and death situation, so you gotta do it!
Anyway, hope you’re doing well in your part of the world.
Getting the new Delores mini-adventure has definitely been a silver-lining in all of this. 
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Things are going fine here in Switzerland. From the numbers, my experience and the tales I read here and there, I think Switzerland survived perfectly.
We’re now almost back to normal, restrictions are lifted but still - at least here near the Italian border - people are wary. Cautious. Lots of face masks, lots of people that still reduce the time spent outside, social distancing. Schools reopened one month ago, and we expected a new wave since children can’t possibly keep distance. But things went surprisingly well.
This week I went to the restaurant for the first time in months. It’s strange to see my favorite restaurants with half the tables, but still better than nothing.
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Geez, I don’t know.
I mean, the situation is under control by now. But that doesn’t mean things can’t become slippery again in a second. People here seem to have learned nothing. Period. So stupid.
Anyway, if I have to see this with selfish eyes… What did the virus bring to me? Well, I’ve lost some freedom. I’ve seen many collegues getting ill and one of them dying. I’ve seen many patients dying. I’ve seen my sister getting through it with just some transitory smelling deficit and no other symptoms. I’ve changed completely my job for two months. I’ve lost a reasonably high amount of money. I haven’t seen my father for 4 monts.
Now that everything is quiet, here in Italy, I feel guilty for the other places in the world in which the crisis hasn’t reached its peak yet.
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I live on an island AND a small town on top of that, so I’ve been pretty sheltered. I was already working from home before. We haven’t been hit hard at all with just a few confirmed cases. Unfortunately, this has led to the locals not taking it seriously at all.
People don’t seem to understand that this whole thing started with 1 infected person, and 1 infection is all it takes to blow up anywhere.
My fitness and music classes are now online, and personally I will remain in lockdown mode for as long as it takes, as I live in a household with several at-risk people.
The biggest impact for me is that my mother, my sister and I live on 3 separate continents and I worry about the availability and affordability of air travel for the rest of our natural lives, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see (and also count our blessings, what with free videoconferencing and all that).
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