Well, we are postponing booking some international travel plans. I’m less worried about getting sick and more concerned about having points of interest closed.
Other family members were supposed to go on a cruise starting from Venice. They are preparing for a cancellation.
I am trying to be zen about all of this but my S is getting married in 3 weeks, with some of our 200 guests traveling domestically. They are also planning to leave for their honeymoon in Thailand the day after the wedding. I suspect any changes to the wedding or the travel will be a game-time decision. Event and travel insurance does not cover pandemics so we will be at the mercy of the venue if postponement becomes a rational decision.
As for changes, I’ve added Purell to the welcome bags (more for optics and my sanity than health benefit) and ensured I have some basic staples in the house in case anyone gets sick and we have to quarantine. My kids all live in NYC, ride the subway, and are in contact with hundreds of people a day. My greatest concern is my 88 y/o mother and not my 15 month old GS. Me, I’m 63 with mild, controlled hypertension but I don’t even think of myself in a high risk category though my S pointed out the opposite, given the current guidelines. We’ll be washing even more frequently, and consciously try to avoid touching our faces. It will be what it will be.
What exactly is the difference between “stocking up” on supplies and “hoarding?” Number if items purchased? Who is doing the purchasing: you vs. others?
I’m hoarding coffee and wine.
I’m mostly stocking up on food items in case I get sick or someone in my house gets sick. I wouldn’t want to have to go out shopping at that point and spread it around my community. I’ll be OK but I have elderly neighbors and I live in a densely populated area. It just seems like the responsible thing to do.
Plus I’ll get to that coffee and wine eventually, right? Right.
I am a research chemist. I absolutely can NOT work from home (unless I can somehow build a fully functional fume hood in my basement in the next few days…) There’s only so much grant-writing/manuscript-preparation/ literature-reading I can do away from lab.
I also see a lot of this attitude: “if I don’t get sick then I don’t care.” Or even “if I get sick it’ll be like a cold, so I don’t care.” (It’s not so much in this thread but in the community at-large.) Well, I’m sure I would recover if I got it, but I’m not so sure about my elderly relatives or my friends with cancer. And I think the economic repercussions could be pretty severe.
Up thread I wrote:
“My husband is a physician at a major medical center and nobody there is on edge or worried. (Of course HE has an N95 respirator which is refitted every year and for which he receives yearly updates/training on how to use properly.)”
I’m getting some pushback on that statement. There is reasonable concern and planning but not “worry”, at least not worry or feeling of being “on edge” as of Friday.
I’m sure that is subject to change as this virus threat continues to develop.
However, this particular medical center has a specific, defined and mostly young, healthy, limited patient population, and the general public does not have access to its outpatient or inpatient services or to its ER. This may help explain my statement.
Regarding health care workforce and concern.
Of course a health care administrator is going to be concerned. This adds a specific layer of integrity that needs to take place throughout all their services - from the information receptionist to the crew in the surgical rooms and the food service workers prepping food. And who wants a medical snafu or attention because of this? No one. So administration should be concerned and planning and overplanning - just in case.
Regarding health care workers. You have to do your job daily. Patients need tests, surgery, inpatient room care, blood tests, meds administration, procedure, etc. But there are ALWAYS universal precautions in place for germs and transmission. ALWAYS. Life in a health care setting. Of course they should be extra cautious and informed. They will hope that the communication from the administration above will keep them informed and put precautions into place.
At work today. Small office. Health care setting. One person returned today after a week off with some type of flu like illness. She is still hacking up a storm. Another staff person has been coughing for the past three weeks. I’ll wash my hands after using the bathroom and after using our staff kitchen (microwave and such). And I’ll keep my door partially closed to not encourage people stopping by for chit-chat - which I don’t love through the day anyway!!
I had a stupid fight with hubby the other day because of COVI. He was at Costco and kept texting me if I needed rice, I said I still have plenty. He texted again “are you sure I shouldn’t buy rice?”. I said yea. Then he called me and said “I think I should get a bag of rice”. At that point i pretty must lost it, i screamed “if you want a god damn bag of rice then just freaking get it, who the hell care just get whatever you want and just b/c i am Asian doesn’t mean i am stuffing my face with rice every meal, curse words cursed words cursed words $#@#!!” 
Anyways, So I guess we are good for at least 2 months worth of food (especially rice!) if we are in locked down mode.
So far, we haven’t made any changes. We have some hand sanitizer, but not tons of it. We have enough food for a few weeks, but not because we stocked up - just what we normally have in the pantry and freezer.
A few personal concerns:
DH volunteers at a couple of museums and is in contact with tourists. He takes public transportation to these museums. We are planning a car trip to see S, DIL and grandkids in 11 days. Should DH contract coronavirus, he may not know he has it and could subject S’ family to it, let alone me. If it were me, I might skip the volunteer work, but that’s not likely what DH would do.
I’m about to register for exercise classes at the community center. I’m having 2nd thoughts about whether now is the best time to be in a group class. I’ve got 1/2 hour to decide.
@Nhatrang. For us husbands that feel the need to ask our wives… Just say OK next time. We (he) means no harm.?.. Funny we just got a rice maker at our local HMart. Not an expensive one with like $39.00…
OH… That is what Rice is supposed to taste like… Lol… Like the best investment ever!? ?
My father is a healthy 94 year old. I am going to visit him next month. I am trying to determine the best way to travel so that I don’t contract the virus and inadvertently transmit it to him.
My company (large international software) recently cancelled all non-essential travel. My manager told the team we could work from home for the duration if we wanted to.
Of course my first irreverent thought was, “I just got Platinum status on American Airlines and now I’m going to lose it without even getting to use it!” I think all the 100k, concierge key and platinum pros, etc will be down to plain old gold or totally non-status if this keeps up. I wonder if the airlines will do a complementary one-year extension of status?
Anyway, no personal changes on my side. Especially since we already have several months of ancient unidentified old leftovers in the garage freezer. I guess it’ll take a covid apocalypse to get us to eat them, but we won’t starve!
So for Purell or the like our Menards had their version of it one day last week. The next day (yep seems like I am always there… Lol) they were completely out. Same for many stores in my area of Chicago.
But I took my daughter back to Beloit College yesterday and it seems the Walgreens is fully stocked up on it and other stores there. So if you need some that is where it’s at. Lol…
I had flu like symptoms or food poisoning last week even canceled patients for 1 day then off the next then I felt great. But my office assistant has had a small cough for 3 weeks but mild. Her husband travels around the world for the US women’s Soccer team… I told her to stay home if she feels ill but it seems like a common cold.
I have had rubella, Hong Kong flu, German measles, mumps, pneumonia etc at some point as a kid. Chicken soup worked then… Lol??.
Hmm, this scenario sounds familiar. You see, this is why coffee and wine was high on my list as quarantine items. Life saving supplies, right there.
I’ll admit we just put some $$ into 3M (makes masks), Mylan (makes Cold Eeze), Fortuna Silver Mines, and Seabridge Gold. I foresee economic issues and I suspect more will go for meds and masks as more cases are reported. Time will tell if I’m right. I figure it’s as good a guess as anything else. Can’t change what’s happening and need to make our best guesses for retirement.
Today we arrive home. Tomorrow I’ll head to the grocery store to stock up, not due to panic, but due to being away from home for a little over a month. I’m not worried about supplies being low. I guess I’ll find out.
Please do not interpret my post as anti-Chinese. Just explaining to the poster how the virus could have made it into these areas of the US first (and not to Kansas, for example).
@Nhatrang. I have already been called a racist from my kids about that exact topic (which I am definitely not). The logic to me seems that way but they also both go to schools with high Asian students…some that were visiting families or on study abroad trips etc. But again that can be any kid away or on study abroad trips also. I am just telling them to use purell, wash their hands more and things like that.
Not at all @BunsenBurner It makes sense from the probability perspective it helps explaining the origins. I just relate it to the reaction around China town. My best co-worker is Chinese and every Monday we go lunch to to the dimsum place, it’s an authentic chinese restaurant (not americanize chinese). And she doesn’t want to go there today. Over reaction much? sure, i would go but she wouldn’t. Neither she nor I anti chinese,everyone just tries to be safe these days and i can’t blame them. That was the point of my post.
It’s fascinating watching the sanitary steps health care workers carried out in my mother rehab place. Sanititizer, snap on gloves, do whatever needs done, wipe down surfaces, take out trash immediately, snap off gloves, sanitizer, all before leaving room. No cross contamination. My sister is a nurse, she always changes clothes in the laundry room before stepping into the living area.
We visit my mother daily in the family home so we keep ourselves healthy and hopefully virus-free for their sake.
We have so many family vacation trips this year already planned - I really hate to think that we may have to cancelled, or being cancelled on us 
10 days in Greece in July (Athens and Santorini).
10 days in Vietnam end of May (after D19 finished her spring semester)
1 week in Italy in June.
And my daughter and her 2 friends are also going to Italy again for 3 weeks after we are back from Greece in July.
We figured this summer we go all out because next summer and beyond, D19 will be busy with research work and/or internship and whatever else.
I do wonder if we have to cancel any or all of those trips
And, I am not worried as much about contracting the virus, i am more worried about being stuck in foreign country due to closed borders…sigh
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
The topic of this thread is “What are You doing ( if anything) to prepare/ What are you personally observing?”
The general thread discussion is here:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/2171687-coronavirus-in-the-us.html#latest
I’ve merged off-topic posts into the regular discussion thread, but further OT posts will be deleted without comment,