The corona thread - write your story

[Stan]

Hi, it seemed a nice idea to do a thread about coronaand living in (semi) lockdown. How do we pass the day and other things that preoccupy us.

Here in Belgium we live in a lockdown that isn't called lockdown since last wednesday. By the time me and my family (2 parents and two big kids: 20 and 17) were all sick. Do we have covid19? I have no idea at all because we weren't tested. I don't think so, because none of us has had fever. And the symptoms aren't very serious.

At the moment i'm the only one who is still (a litle) bit sick.

Belgium is living in semi lockdown. We work from home, schools are closed. My son is 17 year old and most likely he will not haver school for the rest of his school year (wich normally end at the end of july). My daughter is at a school similar to university, but not university. She is in an exam week. She does her exams online. She has to record herself with 3 different camera's while doing the exam. The laptop camera records her frontal, on the right side she is filmed by an Ipad camera and on the left by the camera of her smartphone. Quite awkward, she doesn't like it at all.

We still can go outside for a walk or for a bike ride, but only with our family. If we go out in Belgium we have to adhere to the principals of social distancing, i.e. at lest 1,5 metre of distance between ourselves and persons that are not from the same family. We also can't mix different generations: it's alright to be together we our childeren, but not with their grand parents.

Shopping has become an ordeal If you go to a supermarket at the entrance there are security guards who has to let you in. We can only go in by 5 or ten people in the supermarket. Since i'm sick, i can'tgo to the supermarket. My wife does that. It is very hard to find basic things like potatoes, pasta, rice, milk and toilet paper. People panick and buy way too much. That isn't necessary because there is plenty of everything but not always in the shops.

If we go to another shop than a supermarket. Only one person at the time can enter the shop. Outside the shops one sees cues everywhere. More and more people wear masks and gloves.

What do we do? My wife and i are working like we always do, except that we work at home (i already did this two or 3 days a week and quite enjoyed it). My son gets homework every day. He gets mails from his teachers and they give him deadlines. Everyday he has to work at least 3 hours for school. When my daughter has finished her exams, she can follow her lessons from home on her laptop.

My son plays a lot of Playstation, my daughter watches netflix on her laptop, my wife watches television and i read and listen to music when i don't work or cook.

We think this lockdown situation will last until the month of may (officially until april the 3th, but most people realize that it will last longer) or june. We have work meetings with skype or Teams. We mail a lot with our colleagues from work.

Meanwhile every day at 8 PM people applaud for the nurses, doctors, health careers, supermarket personnel (CW, you are a hero!). In cities, people come on their balconies and sing songs. In Belgium the tune that is most sung is Mia by Belgian band Gorky (or Gorki, the changed name). The songwirtier died a couple of years ago and this song is sung at football matches and is in the top ten of best ever music charts (Pearl Jam's Black is usually number 1 here in Belgium, but Mia is often 2 or 3 before songs like Smells like Teen Spirit).

Friday i got a very saf message on messenger. One of my eldest and best friend was in hospital. He got severe problems breathing and was convinced he had catched covid19. He was tested but found out he was negative. It turned out he has terminal trachea cancer which has spread to his liver, longs and cervical vertebrae. He was in hospital but visitors weren't allowed because of corona. Fortunately the day after he got permission to go home. He wrote me that he hopes to die in his own bed. This made me very, very sad. I can't even visit him.

This is how life in corona stricken Belgium is.

Later more.

Take care of yourselves and please behave reasonable and be careful.

 

[Alx1234]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Last paragraph highlights how evil this disease is. Sorry to read this.

My story :

Wash hands.

If I go out to the shops (now less since lockdown), I wear a scarf over the mouth and nose or a long-necked jumper (or a mask if I've got one) outdoors - this is BOTH to protect myself and anybody in my proximity. There was a case when this kicked off here about a silent spreader so that's my thinking here..

Wash hands.

I look out for fever/cough - if they happen, I need to self-isolate.

Wash hands.

Play some PES + check some evo-web.

Wash hands.

Go out to buy some more soap to wash hands with.

Repeat.



We can beat this - summer's incoming and the sunshine may help the mood and reduce air moisture. As for us humans, sometimes the best thing actually can be doing nothing (or staying at home playing some FM/PES). That depends on whether you're useful on the front-line or not.

Yeh. Stay safe all.

 

[bsmaff]

I think the situation is different for everyone.
Where I live in a place in Welwyn Garden in Hertfordshire, obviously everywhere is closed and only supermarkets open.
But hardly any actual food - Me and Mrs normally always cook fresh, but at the moment we are eating frozen food (Chicken Burgers/Pizzas) and can't get any actual meat, cereal, crisps... All gone.

The worse situation though is today, myself and our whole IT department apart from the IT Manager have been placed on "Furloughed Leave", starting 1st of April for the next two months.
Unless we go back to work earlier, then I will go the next two months luckily with full pay as the Government will pay 80% of my wages and my company have agreed to pay the other 20%.

I am not sure how many other companies are currently doing this over the UK, but I suspect more and more will start doing this.

 

[Stan]

Good luck bsmaff, take care!

 

[bsmaff]

Good luck bsmaff, take care!

Thanks Stan, but my situation is perfectly fine at the moment.
I spoken to a few people today, and it seems more and more people in the UK are going into "Furloughed" leave.

I just hope this isolation ends soon, as being stuck in most of the day is going to get a real problem, I am only keeping myself sane at the moment by getting out the house running.

The people who will be most suffering in the UK will be the self employed and contractors, although the government have said they will now start helping them too, it will probably be a small amount of what they actually earn.

 

[Emroth]

Ireland tackled the problem in fairly swift and proper manner. So far hospitals can cope and most people took it very seriously.

Obviously - its worse in bigger cities, with apartment blocks and estates full of scumbags, who are playing a new game called "cough at the elderly", but most people are behaving ok.

As for the virus itself - i think me and my family had it. Im 90% sure of that. Unfortunately we werent tested, coz when we got sick - they were only testing people coming from abroad. It was just a start of pandemic. When they opened up to the public and started testing everyone - I was at the peak of sickness and I could not move. Would not make it to the test centre.
After that we got better and decided there is no point wasting time and resources on us getting tested, since there are more urgent cases around the country.

Anyway - it started on Sunday teo weeks ago, with my wife. After she started showing symptoms I was told to stay home and isolate for two weeks by my manager and GP. I was the last one to get it and I am still at home, coming back to work on Monday (at this stage im fully recovered)

As for the sickness itself - Im 36, last 20 years I havent been to a doctor once. I dont get sick and if I do - Im fighting it off very fast. I was very very sick as a child and I built up immunity system of a fecking horse.

This shit, however, had me on my knees, lads. It had me on my kness for 7 days, +2 days each side where I felt sick, but it was manageable.

I normally start of sore throat, there was no sore throat this time. It started from body aches and hot and cold flushes. That was day 1 and 2. From the third day onwards I was in absolute bits, with fever up to 39.5, which I was only able to drop down to 38.5°C with aspirin. Paracetamol was like a clockwork. It says on the package "take every 4 hours" and it was to the fucking minute. 4 hour mark I was starting to get shivers and every part of my body was hurting.

Then came cough. Fever went away. Dont know which was worse to be honest. Cough was to a point where I was vomiting. Could not stop the cough attacks. Horrible..

My 5 year old flew through the illness like a champ. Altho - she never ever had a fever, since she was born. This time she did. Still - she fought it off fast and much better than both of us.

This shit is absolutely nasty and I urge you all to really take it seriously and look after your families. Its not worth to risk.

 

[Isslander]

I'm actually not feeling well at the moment, but I have no fever or cough so I hope it's something else. Still, a bit tight in the chest so I am certainly not ruling it out. It's only been about four days with symptoms, and although today is the worst so far, they are still quite mild. Fingers crossed, eh?

Iceland has shut down College and University buildings, but the classes have simply (or probably not so simply) moved online. Schools for lower age children are still open, with restrictions. Also, many shops are still open but only with a 2 meter distance rule, also there is a ban on more than 20 people congregating. Food and drug shops have looser rules.

I have now bought groceries a couple of times online, but I still have to go into town to get them handed over at the store. Like I mentioned in the football thread, I live with my 79 year old mother, and am very afraid that she might catch this thing from me (if I have, or ever get it). Thankfully she has shown no symptoms. there hadn't been that many infections in this region the last time I wen't to town so I didn't bother with it last time, but I will deffo be wiping down some of the food containers next time. Other things I had to buy for the farm I just kept in the car until it felt safe to take them out.

Here in the countryside the schools are still open, but a lot of the farmers have simply stopped sending their kids there. It's hard to get someone to cover for you in the best of times, if you get Covid 19 people probably don't line up to come to your place and use your things. For the next weeks I have to mentally adjust to the idea of a whole lambing season by myself, it's mental work for about 3-4 weeks, by far the hardest part of sheep-farming. Still, if I, my mom and my family and friends get spared by this virus, I'll happily do it.

There are daily televised press meetings here where the top people on the virus press bring out the numbers and what is being done. Today we have 802 confirmed infections, 17 are in hospital and 3 in intensive care. 82 have recovered. Two deaths, one was a tourist who died very suddenly from pneumonia (this one actually freaks me out as he had barely any symptoms before rushing to hospital) and an older woman with underlying lung issues.

Yeah, not gonna lie, this scares me. Sending my best wishes to you all. Let's get through this!

 

[Stan]

Good luck Isslander (and everybody else on evo-web).
I'm sick for 14 days now, but i'm mildly sick: it started with a sore throat, then sneezing and a running nose (if that is English) and lastly coughing. I'm still in the coughing phase. I never had fever and i never felt really sick like Emroth did.
What annoys me most is that in the morning i feel good and since 3 or 4 days, every morning i think it's all over, but comes the afternoon and start to have complaints. A litle bit of headache, a litle bit unsteady on my feet and i feel very tired (although sometimes i can't sleep at night).
The fact that the illness doesn't really go away might well be because of age, after all i'm 58 years old, not exactly a young age anymore...

The big question remains, is it covid19 or an ordinay flu? I guess i will never know.

ON television we also have these speccilalist people who show graphs with people who have covid19 (who were tested) and death toll. Yesterday there were 42 deaths and 536 new patients in hospitals in Belgium. We try to do everything to avoid what happened in Italy and Spain, i.e. not having enough beds in intensive care when covid19 peaks. Specialists thinks the virus will peak in Belgium around mid april, but from next weekend we might see the results of the semi lockdown that is forced on us since march the 18th (i don't care that it is forced on us, imo our minority government that was formed in order to combat COVID19, is doing a good job - we were without fedral government since may 2019 - this often happens here in Belgium, poliitcally we are a very strange country 5 different countries and lost of minister - we have 8 ministers that are responsible for health for example, it's a mess).

Just like Isslander it also scares me and to be honest if it doesn't scares you, you are either lying or an idiot. On television we still see people who behave extremely irresponsibel. I don't understand that. On the other hand there is also lots of solidarity between people.

 

[Emroth]

What annoys me most is that in the morning i feel good and since 3 or 4 days, every morning i think it's all over, but comes the afternoon and start to have complaints.

Hang in there, pal.
I had the same during last few days of sickness. Morning felt like its finally over - evening I was in bits again.. you're on the finish line there.

 

[gabe.paul.logan]

I also had fever like symptoms (without fever) almost two weeks ago, headache, felt tired, kinda burning windpipe (but maybe just imagined it). All it went by in two days. Nothing since im in home office/quaranteen in the past two weeks.

Doesnt say much as i have like 10 registered sickdays in the past 10 years. Everything goes through me in two days top. Also the weather was like 20 degrees one day and lately it was snowing here so we are in the seasonal flu time of the year.

Get well soon guys.

 

[fd1972uk]

Hope all is well for you all on EW, Gerd, sorry to hear about your friend, as we fear this new threat we still have the old ones to consider.

I changed Job a few years, my old job would have resulted probably in me being isolated with the exception of shopping for myself and parents, however now I'm just a basic pharmacy delivery driver. So now it's front line for me, we're basically NHS contractors.

So I'm worried about catching it, I do have a little sore throat, but no symptoms. Into the bargain, its around the whole cold/flu time and even allergy time.

More worried for my family, wife, kid and parents, as well as my brother and kids and Inlaws. You're just a bit scared you are the reason should it hit any family.

Not having the freedom to move around and see family, do shopping etc is hard.

It's my daughters 14th birthday today, we had planned out stuff to do over the birthday weekend but now nothing will happen.

Very hard and scary situation and we're just about to go into the real scary part, unfortunately our figures are scarily mirroring Italy, but hopefully we fair better than those poor guys.

Take care all.


FD

 

[Stan]

Good luck to you and the people you love, Frank. Be careful, buddy.

 

[*aLe]

Writing this from one of the zones that have been hit the hardest (Lombardia, halfway between Bergamo and Milan). This is by far the worst period I've witnessed in my life.

Many people around me catched it, a couple of friends of mine even lost a relative.
Luckily enough, no family member and no close friend of mine suffered badly and "personally" from this: a couple of them got it, but they've defeated it and now they're fine.
Wife is locked down at home, I'm still commuting (by car, luckily) but it's a short trip and I'm pretty much alone at the office so it's no big deal.
Actually I feel I'm pretty lucky, as I can spend some hours away from home every day.

Staying as safe as I can (latex gloves at work, another pair of latex gloves in the car, bare hands at home but washing them way more often than needed), avoiding unnecessary contact with people (as I said I'm pretty much alone at the office and I wear a mask any time I have to deal with a colleague, no matter what) and going out only to reach the workplace and to buy food/necessary things are the things that I do to keep this beast as far as possible from me and from the missus...

I hope this will end soon, even if I know that when we get past the "medical" crisis we'll have to face an economic one.

 

[Stan]

Good luck aLe, i realise that you live in the worst possible area.
We decided that one of the following we're coming on holiday in your region to support the region (in a very modest way).
Take care.

Concerning mouth masks, it's my sixth week now in semi-lockdown, i haven't come across a single mouth mask. Here in Belgium we don't even have enough of them for nurses and doctors. Our government bought 3 million mouth masks, but they proved to be bad ones, they were cheated.

Finally two companies here in Belgium decided to start producing mouth masks. I know that a Begamo manufacturer of cycling clothing is making mouth masks for weeks now.

In the Easter weekend, people did not respond very well to the rules of social distancing and semi-lockdown. I think it's a small minority but there are people who don't seem to care. There were barbecues with over 30 persons, how careless can one be?

 

[Alx1234]

....... On television we still see people who behave extremely irresponsibel.

Mate, there are people in my locale who I see through my window coughing and sneezing and don't give a rats ass about their germs. Maybe they don;t understand or maybe they don't care or are selfish. In modern times I dare not say anything for fear of starting some aggro and getting stabbed. IMO, in these bad times, wearing a mask or scarf needs be to be made compulsory for this reason.

Anyways, I just came to write that we seem to be playing 3GKs and 8 in defence at the mo.

Proper parking the bus while opponent plays tiki-taka waiting for 90th min winner.

Need to take Messi and CR7 outta GK positions in this World XI team and counter-attack.

But got to wait for the right time. The tiki-taka is strong right now.

Maybe consider bringing super sub Solkjaer on at some point.

 

[Isslander]

Here in Iceland things are looking better, peak seems to have been reached, although we could stay at peak for a bit before going down again. Some restrictions will be lifted on May 4th, and 3-4 weeks after that they might lift more of them, in steps. There will still be heavy travel bans probably throughout the year at least.
So right now it doesn't look bad here at all, shout out to anybody from Sweden, they have around 1200 people dead right now, twice as many as Denmark, Norway and Finland combined, because they are not enforcing any lockdowns. Vulnerable groups are paying a heavy price for this, not sure what they are thinking.

 

[Stan]

Here in Belgium we have 4.857 deaths until today. Today was the worst day with 417 deaths.
Since a couple of days more people are streaming out the hospitals than going in.

Most of the deaths are in our elderly homes.

Our death toll is high because the way we count deaths. If a person perishes and it's not sure that he didn't die from covid, we consider him a covid death...

 

[*aLe]

Good luck aLe, i realise that you live in the worst possible area.
We decided that one of the following we're coming on holiday in your region to support the region (in a very modest way).
Take care.

Thanks pal!
There are lots of beautiful places in Lombardia, and Bergamo is definitely one of them. Too bad I don't know when I'll be able to visit Bergamo again.
Mouth masks are a problem also here, but at least I'm given two of them a week at the workplace and from time to time you find them in pharmacies. Better than nothing.

Finally two companies here in Belgium decided to start producing mouth masks. I know that a Begamo manufacturer of cycling clothing is making mouth masks for weeks now.

Yeah, it's true, Santini started making them. But they're not the only ones... Ferrari (yeah, that Ferrari) started producing valves for respirators, Ramazzotti (an alcoholic drink brand) started using alcohol to produce hand sanitizers, and so on.
It's a great display of unity in this awful period.

And don't get me started on people not respecting the rules... Look at this.
Here in Italy we have a saying, "tutto il mondo è paese", which translates into "all the world is a country" meaning that after all similar behaviours are found in very different countries. This is the case.

Some restrictions will be lifted on May 4th, and 3-4 weeks after that they might lift more of them, in steps. There will still be heavy travel bans probably throughout the year at least.

Same here, more or less.

Vulnerable groups are paying a heavy price for this, not sure what they are thinking.

The same is happening here, I'm thinkin about retirement homes for example: many people died in such places, all over the region.

Since a couple of days more people are streaming out the hospitals than going in.

Good news, at least.

Our death toll, well, better not to talk about that.
It's the official count of people that have been hit by Covid that doesn't seem right to me. Here in Italy you don't get tested for Covid unless you have heavy symptoms (or you're rich and famous), so God knows how many people catched it and don't even know they had it.

 

[Placebo]

So wife and I decided it was time to come out of hibernation on Wednesday as the weather was rather nice, we went for a bike ride along the sea front and north to a lake called Maren which we're planning to fish, took some photos and video along the way so hopefully you'll forgive me for sharing them here! The photos are rather large so I uploaded to a hosting site rather than on here:

And a couple of short videos:

 

[Mr. Mine]

to @geeeeee

The're no any lockdown in our country. We're going by swedish model without any restrictions... Our hospitals are crowded with people, suffering from pneumonia and other diseases, caused by COVID'19.

And last (but not least) - yesterday was community work day, when people should clean streets and so on. 2.1 million people took part in it...

I can descibe situatuon in Belarus by only one word - shame.

 

[eddiekovi]

to @geeeeee

The're no any lockdown in our country. We're going by swedish model without any restrictions... Our hospitals are crowded with people, suffering from pneumonia and other diseases, caused by COVID'19.

And last (but not least) - yesterday was community work day, when people should clean streets and so on. 2.1 million people took part in it...

I can descibe situatuon in Belarus by only one word - shame.

Totally agree, it`s a real shame. Maybe it is good for Sweden and their facilities, but I suspect it is not a good idea for country like Belarus or Russia as well. My hometown is nearby to your border ,near to Gomel city, but in Russia. It`s all about pneumonia and etc., but not about COVID-19. Hard to imagine, that lots of workers has come back from Moscow to my city and they have not virus at all.

 

[eddiekovi]

My story is quite funny for someone, but not for me at the moment. I was looking for a job in a hotel business for a long time and finally it was succeed. I was practice at the new hotel, everything was superb and after my dayshift I was invited to the HR-department to sign my contract, I hoped so. But unfortunately they said that it`s such a difficult time for everyone and they have a good offer for me, but... Because of virus, it is impossible to hire someone. They had some restrictions from their Head Office just half an hour ago. Just 30 minutes and it could be a nice joke. Sad but true. Well, I`m still looking for a job now

 

[PRO_TOO]

My story is quite funny for someone, but not for me at the moment. I was looking for a job in a hotel business for a long time and finally it was succeed. I was practice at the new hotel, everything was superb and after my dayshift I was invited to the HR-department to sign my contract, I hoped so. But unfortunately they said that it`s such a difficult time for everyone and they have a good offer for me, but... Because of virus, it is impossible to hire someone. They had some restrictions from their Head Office just half an hour ago. Just 30 minutes and it could be a nice joke. Sad but true. Well, I`m still looking for a job now

Keep your head up mate!! Stay positive!
Fingers crossed you’ll find the job that suits you well soon!!

 

[eddiekovi]

Keep your head up mate!! Stay positive!
Fingers crossed you’ll find the job that suits you well soon!!

Thanks mate, I hope so!

 

[Stan]

Good luck eddiekovi and Mr. Mine.

What i wanted to ask. Are people still working.
Me and my wife work from home (my wife has to go one day in the week to Brussels, monday).
I'm working already 8 weeks from home. We have very good internet connections and i'm used to working from home. I already did this 2 or 3 days a week before corona.
We do reunions with Skype or Teams. Works very well.

The kids are having lessons from home too. Fortunately we have 5 laptops at home (we are a family of 4). My son is 17 and he gets lots of homework and projects (last week 17 wich is a lot). My daughter is 20, she is at university and she has to do it all by herself, there will be no more tutorials/lessons for until the end of the academic year.

She had to do exams on her laptop while filming herslef from 3 sides by laptop (frontal), smartphone (right side) and tablet (left side) wich is frankly ridiculous.

 

[Mr. Mine]

@eddiekovi, hope, you'll find some job soon. My friend is not working for some time in usual way, he is trying himself in LINK REMOVED - NO ADVERTISING and can provide himself and his family. Maybe, temporarily it'll suit you.

@Stan, thanks, take care too! I'm working remotely since march, but many people in the country are working on their places. Some industrial factories set three-days working week, because they don't have any orders on their products. My mum says, that in subway/buses there are significantly fewer people. But most people still go to work, unfortunately.

Parents are ingoring the goverment and don't send children to schools.

 

[Flipper the Priest]

I've been working from home for four weeks now. For a not-for-profit/social enterprise my work is geared up incredibly well for this. And because a few close colleagues have been placed on furlough I've had plenty to do which is handy because it's easy to get distracted at home when you've little work to contend with.

Compare that to my girlfriend whose work just doesn't have the infrastructure and placed everyone on furlough. Multinational, multi-million oil and gas company. Pretty embarrassing for them. Plus there are senior dinosaurs for whom working from home equals skiving. See if you don't trust your staff to work from home; you don't trust your staff. Might as well sack them!

But while my work is well-connected and we see each other often through VC, I'm missing not seeing people in the flesh. I hope this period of time alters perspectives in business. We're finding the worth of working from home and being in the office. Digital and physical.

 

[Isslander]

She had to do exams on her laptop while filming herslef from 3 sides by laptop (frontal), smartphone (right side) and tablet (left side) wich is frankly ridiculous.

A deadly virus sweeping the globe but let's make sure nobody cheats on exams. Also, a lot of people own these three things but not nearly everybody. As you say, ridiculous.

 

[*aLe]

What i wanted to ask. Are people still working.

Yes, I am. I haven't missed a day at the office since the outbreak of the disease.
Most of the work I do (like managing Exchange and Teams) can indeed be done from home but not all, unfortunately... Networking issues for example still require troubleshooting and solution on-site. Try replacing a misbehaving network switch from home! 😄
So here I am, at the office. As I probably said earlier, I consider myself lucky as this allowed me to leave home even during the worst part of the lockdown. 🙂

We've been given hand sanitizers, gloves, masks and many people are currently working from home (I've been alone on my own floor for more than a month, and today there's three of us here, and we used to be twelve) so I feel pretty safe up here.

Wife has been left at home when this all started and will still be for several months (during the lockdown we found out she's pregnant), but she was just going insane. Luckily enough here in Italy some of the restrictions have been lifted, and she can now go out for a walk or see her parents.

We do reunions with Skype or Teams. Works very well.

Now Teams does work great, I agree.
Seeing it from an IT standpoint, though, setting it up and making it work has been a pain, especially during March.
Microsoft's servers weren't quite ready for the spike in usage so it resulted in a general slowdown of the service with several hiccups/interruptions, and on the other hand our users weren't trained so it added to the confusion.

 

[Stan]

Congratulations, you will become father...
I'm still working form home and will be until at least august 31. But i really love it. Of course i miss my colleagues, but our life is much more relaxed.
Of course i want Corona to end; but when all this is over we have to rethink our way of life... Things really need to change. We are killing the planet we live on... this is madness.