How has COVID-19 affected you personally?

Crowthorne said:
I don't know how anyone else in the UK feels, but I'm feeling very lost, what with all the uncertainty. Will there be a lockdown/won't there be a lockdown? Will I be in the office next week, or working from home? Are we heading for Italy or Spain style lockdown, or something else? Will I ever be able to buy loo rolls again?

If there was some kind of clearer, more concrete outlines from the government, rather than the somewhat wishy-washy guidance we've had so far, I'd probably be doing better than I am right now. As it stands, I feel very baseless, unsure and uncertain about what is happening and what will happen next, with a resulting level of constant low to medium level anxiety running underneath it all.
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Could you consider staying with a friend or relative right now? Anxiety is lessened by sharing, and it would seem very likely that your museum will close to prevent the increased transmission odds in groups of 50 or more. Many companies are trying to get staff to work from home so that the fewer people who must be in-house to do physical tasks can remain in safe number. Why not ask if you can work from home? You could then choose a location such as a relative in the country where you might feel less anxious and less risk. And a guaranteed spot to buy lol roll.;):);)
 
Thank you @AmbikaFan :) I'm keeping an eye on the work situation, and have my work laptop with me just in case. I'm visiting family tomorrow, thankfully I'm very close by on the train. Will definitely think about staying there if there is a full lockdown, being alone in my flat for two weeks probably wouldn't be healthy! I think it's just the uncertainty that I find so stressful. Uncertainty always makes me antsy :confused:
 
Just finished a very busy term at uni, hence my complete lack of posting in the forum for a couple of months, and today is the first day of the Easter vacation. At Oxford everyone moves out and goes home for the vacations, generally student accommodation is emptied completely and used for other things for 5 weeks. But my parents live in Poland where there is a complete shutdown of borders entirely to non-citizens (including myself) and I simply can't go back. Nor can they visit me, whatever happens.

So I'm now stuck in Oxford on my own when the vast majority of other students have gone home, with no prospect of seeing my family for a while. Luckily I have been allowed to remain in student accommodation because otherwise I would be homeless. I haven't seen my brother since September last year, it will now be a full year without seeing him, and it will be about 5 months without seeing my parents too. This closure was announced less than 24 hours ago and all of a sudden I'm totally cut off from being able to see my family while everyone else goes home.

So looks like I'll be living in totally deserted student accommodation for the next 5 weeks revising for finals exams for my degree in May that quite possibly won't happen, or will, who knows. A lot can change in 7 weeks.

At least I haven't got the coronavirus... Yet... Meanwhile living in BoJo's open Petri dish while he 'flattens the curve' by doing pretty much nothing other than telling people to wash their hands. 6 diagnosed at my university so far but there's basically no testing anymore so who knows. It will be interesting to see the scale of the level of infections after the fact by comparing the death rate in the UK to that of a country like South Korea that did proper testing and to see how many orders of magnitude it's been underestimated.

And to think, this punk-ass bit of RNA just happened to have the right mutations to jump the species barrier to humans and establish a phenomenal transmission rate for a zoonotic. And here it is bringing the economy to its knees and terrorising all us God-fearing cellular organisms.

Fortunately I'm not an at-risk group, my 86 year old Grandma who lives in London on the other hand...
 
TeaLovingDave said:
To some degree I think humour is required to best get through a murky and worrying future!
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To be fair though, laughing or making jokes about bad/stressful things as a coping mechanism is a very British personality trait (shared by others around the world including Australians!).

Some other cultures don't share that same personality - at least not to the same degree.

So while many of us will get it and appreciate the humour, we should also recognise that for others it may actually have a negative impact.

Not saying we should stop - but at least understand that other people may not find it funny.
 
Crowthorne said:
Thank you @AmbikaFan I think it's just the uncertainty that I find so stressful. Uncertainty always makes me antsy :confused:
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I sure understand that!
At this point it seems best to prepare for more restrictions, assume the most stringent policies are coming and think about how you will be prepared. France just closed almost everything and more and more countries will soon. Better to be ahead of it than behind. You'll feel like you're doing something and you'll sleep better
 
Seems like France are ordering the temporary closure of non essential public places too.

Oh well, just checked on Pairi Daiza and Beeks Bergen to see that they will be closed for my week off, so am guessing this will be the same across Belgium and Netherlands.
 
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Simon Hampel said:
To be fair though, laughing or making jokes about bad/stressful things as a coping mechanism is a very British personality trait (shared by others around the world including Australians!).

Some other cultures don't share that same personality - at least not to the same degree.

So while many of us will get it and appreciate the humour, we should also recognise that for others it may actually have a negative impact.

Not saying we should stop - but at least understand that other people may not find it funny.
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Perhaps it's a British thing, I don't know but from my experience, anyone who's been to more than a couple of funerals will have heard some one make a joke during a eulogy. This trends to get a bigger laugh than it should, perhaps because it gives people permission to laugh and lighten up at a point that people are in need some light relief. The take home point being... These are troubling times but take fun and light relief where you can. We'll get over this.
 
Simon Hampel said:
To be fair though, laughing or making jokes about bad/stressful things as a coping mechanism is a very British personality trait (shared by others around the world including Australians!).

Some other cultures don't share that same personality - at least not to the same degree.

So while many of us will get it and appreciate the humour, we should also recognise that for others it may actually have a negative impact.

Not saying we should stop - but at least understand that other people may not find it funny.
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I was going to say Americans are like this, too, and then I realized that might just be me and my friends because a lot of Americans offend easily :p

~Thylo
 
In other news, my job has announced that, should anyone feel ill in any manner, they are allowed to take as much time off of work as they feel they need without any penalty. While this is great in concept and surely takes a lot of stress off of our shoulders, many people are clearly abusing this to get a mini unpaid vacation from work, leaving those of us still going in with a lot of extra work to finish.

~Thylo
 
Ned said:
Perhaps it's a British thing, I don't know but from my experience, anyone who's been to more than a couple of funerals will have heard some one make a joke during a eulogy. This trends to get a bigger laugh than it should, perhaps because it gives people permission to laugh and lighten up at a point that people are in need some light relief. The take home point being... These are troubling times but take fun and light relief where you can. We'll get over this.
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I did the same thing with the eulogy for my father, a very beloved elementary school principal who still knew all his students when they were middle-aged lol. The one thing everybody poked fun about was his extreme frugality in wearing the same five suits from 1970 until the end of his life. He would show up in the threadbare one with the giant blue plaid and declare that there was nothing wrong with it and predicted that The Salvation Army would ensure that they would all be appreciated and used for decades to come! This was not only a recurring note in my eulogy, but everyone just roared with surprise when they learned that all the little "favors" they had picked up on their way in--cloth filled with his favorite hard candy and tied with a ribbon--were made by me from none other than those five suits that I had taken the scissors to. The assemblage laughed and laughed, as if quite sure it was the tattered suits that had "died" and that he was quite present, looking down with a wagging finger and a smile, laughing at being outfoxed.
 
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Hipporex said:
As a Californian in a very sensitive state I can attest to this fact. I have to be very careful with what I say depending on who I'm around (see the example on the last page)
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Too true... typically it's just easiest to not say much of anything in public unless it's job related. Obviously be nice, but people offend too easily. Much of it is politics, current governor has ticked off the northern and mountain counties considerably, and the state conservatives in general. Wisest to just avoid politics around here unless you actually want an argument.
 
The ABWAK Symposium that I was meant to attend later in the month has been postponed... This is a real shame, it was a chance to see many "zoo friends" for my 21st birthday celebrations. I may still be visiting some zoos later in the month with a fellow zoochatter... But I imagine the UK will impose restrictions similar to that of mainland Europe.

Family members that I'm currently living with are on holiday in Spain, and are due to return early next week. They are choosing to self isolate as they're staying in one of the worst hit areas... Luckily, I'm living on a separate floor of the house, with my own bathroom and access outside. In the worst case scenario, I should be "fine"...

Otherwise, it's just business as normal with work until told otherwise. If restrictions come into place, then we will certainly close...
 
I have so little family that I never dreamed I could be the first one here affected by COVID-19, but I have cousins in Washington state, the hardest hit area in our country. I just got an unfinished email from one who has never emailed me, and I don't know what he wants to tell me. And now I'm getting no answer. I don't know what's going on, but as each minute goes by without a reply, I now know what COVID-19 dread and fear feel like. Please pray for my cousins.
 
My university (a campus with 50 000 students) has just announced a week-long closure and a temporary pause on all classes, online and in person.
My cousin in Colombia tells me that her university is also in the process of placing all their classes online.
 
ThomasNotTom said:
The ABWAK Symposium that I was meant to attend later in the month has been postponed... This is a real shame
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The most significant effect for me is, as @ThomasNotTom referenced in the zoo/conservation thread on COVID-19 (COVID-19 effects on zoos and animal conservation), the cancellation of the EAZA Welfare Forum, at which I was due to co-present. While it's disappointing to not be able to partake and share our work, this was an inevitable outcome with (among others) Italian and American attendees having to cancel anyway and EAZA have taken the wisest and most pragmatic option.
 
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ThomasNotTom said:
The ABWAK Symposium that I was meant to attend later in the month has been postponed... This is a real shame, it was a chance to see many "zoo friends" for my 21st birthday celebrations. I may still be visiting some zoos later in the month with a fellow zoochatter... But I imagine the UK will impose restrictions similar to that of mainland Europe.

Family members that I'm currently living with are on holiday in Spain, and are due to return early next week. They are choosing to self isolate as they're staying in one of the worst hit areas... Luckily, I'm living on a separate floor of the house, with my own bathroom and access outside. In the worst case scenario, I should be "fine"...

Otherwise, it's just business as normal with work until told otherwise. If restrictions come into place, then we will certainly close...
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I was looking forward to ABWAK as well
 
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AmbikaFan said:
I have so little family that I never dreamed I could be the first one here affected by COVID-19, but I have cousins in Washington state, the hardest hit area in our country. I just got an unfinished email from one who has never emailed me, and I don't know what he wants to tell me. And now I'm getting no answer. I don't know what's going on, but as each minute goes by without a reply, I now know what COVID-19 dread and fear feel like. Please pray for my cousins.
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My cousins are OK, thank God. I spent hours trying to find lists of the 40 dead in WA, and of course no one publishes names. It turns out he was checking in on me. All in all, a happy reunion from someone who hates to write, with plans for frequent calls that have already begun. Thank you for your thoughts. I really hope NONE of us have the occasion to feel the dread and fear I felt. Please be careful and err on the side of caution in all you do.
 
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