Parks are closed here, for this very reason. Local police patrol on foot and send people away. And they’ve started arresting and prosecuting people who stupidly violate the rules; a man was sentenced to 4 months yesterday for driving, not sure if it was driving during curfew or driving on the wrong designated day. The 4 months was basically an ‘instant’ plea bargain, avoiding a likely sentence of 1-3 years.
Which is to say, they aren’t kidding.
In the column for good news.
In January, the EU donated around 50 ton of protective gear to China. Now China is returning the favor, and will be sending 2 million surgeon masks, 200K N95 masks, and 50K testkits to EU. Good to see some solidarity still in these times.
Spain’s cases jumped 25% in the past 24 hours.
London (UK) seems to be listening to the advice. The morning trains into London have normally been so packed you sometimes need to wait for one or 2 to even have a chance of getting on in a packed crowd of people.
This morning, my wife (who is a teacher in London and will likely be going in for the foreseeable future to watch over children of critical workforce) sent me this picture of the train:
It took a day or 2, but non essential travel has pretty much stopped, at least when it comes to work commutes. Everybody works from home or has been told the company is temporarily closing now.
Jesus what a fucking tool Musk is.
And then you get on The Tube
715 this morning.
No mass transit closures by govt. No stay at home laws. Obviously TFL are doing so regardless on quieter stations but elsewhere its packed.
Socmedia is full of Tories defending the governments actions and the usual right wing contrarianism. Killing your granny to own the libs.
Matt_W
5214
Why the ever living fuck are grocery stores limiting their hours? That concentrates customers. Just tried to get groceries from the local 24-hour store at 5am. Closed.
KevinC
5215
That is painful to look at right now. I’d run screaming from that subway car.
the 24hour ones near me were shut down due to late night fighting taking up too much police time.
Even good ideas, ie quiet hours for old people aren’t working
KevinC
5217
When they did it arround here it was because they needed the time to take in extra shipments and restock because the volume they’re going through now is crazy.
Matt_W
5218
Yeah, all of the 24 hour stores are only open limited hours here now. It’s just convenience stores that seem to be open later/earlier. Guaranteed to put more customers into stores at any given time. yay
as @KevinC said it so they can sanitize and restock. I went to Wegmans today at 7 AM, which is right when they now open, but they have not had a chance to restock the vegetables sadly. However, I was able to pick up most of what I wanted including TP and paper towels, but I had to go to a second grocery store for those.
Also, Wegmans was freaking crowded and people were not social distancing at all.
Theay are about to increase tests to milder cases, so there will be a higher jump. There are 20k+ non-confimed cases with symptoms in isolation in Madrid alone.
I mentioned to a friend of mine yesterday that the two most dangerous careers will soon be “medical worker” and “grocery store employee”.
I know being a stocker or checkout person isn’t the most complicated in the world, but it still takes a certain amount of skill and practice. You can’t just grab someone off the street and say “stock the shelves”, or “ring up sales”. It still takes a considerable amount of time to train the new employees. Consider what would happen if a local grocer had multiple cases of COVID-19 all at once and had to shut down.
Hell, most of us dread going to the store right now and these folks are going in to work in that environment every single day - and their jobs are getting harder and harder by the minute.
Unsung heroes, indeed.
What state?
The dumb Wegmans hours prevent me from shopping there till end of my work day. As I start before 7am. And by the time I get out they have been out of TP again every day this week. I am hoping my curbside pickup set for Sunday after work (the earliest offered) doesn’t get canceled due to OOS on TP.
And don’t forget that most frontline grocery store employees don’t make much more than minimum wage, so when they hear they’re going to get $2k/month free they may just say fuck it and walk away. The risk isn’t worth the reward. I can’t say that I blame them.
The next time I’m forced into going to the grocery store I’m damn sure gonna thank every one of them. Profusely.
I went grocery shopping last night, and the overhead PA was almost entirely “We’re hiring 2,000 new workers in the Seattle region during this difficult time. Apply now!” instead of muzak or their normal “Check out our latest Safeway specials on our app!”
Carto
5226
My local WinCo said it was getting more crowded overnight and they needed the time for their staff to safely stock and clean the store. I’ve also noticed that some of the grocery and convenience stores look like they’re short on staff.
I can’t keep up with this thread so apologies if this has already been discussed, but a bit of sunshine in this darkness is always welcome. Many distillers are stepping up by producing hand santizers.
