You could still get in your car and drive wherever you wanted, right? There just wasn't much to do. People were dying and we didn't know anything about the illness, though, so that wasn't that bad.
It's like claiming you were a prisoner of war because the theme park was closed for maintenance when you wanted to go.
Covid has had an effect. I like to do things like ski, backpack and such with my friends. We'd usually drive up together in a car, or couple of cars, which gave time for all sorts of yakking. With Covid you're supposed to take individual cars.
I was lucky in that my boss pretty much said the busy work was nuts. Go for a walk. Take some pictures. We can talk about our experiences before we do the stuff that must be done. (We were kept on payroll since we were expected to be available the day things opened up even the slightest and there was only so much professional development that we could do.) In other words, we were given a hobby to distract us from the pandemic and we built our own support network.
Unfortunately, the government was stuck dealing with the big picture: how to control the spread of the virus and how to handle the immediate fallout. They gave people money, but they did not offer much guidance in how to cope with the change. In a way it was not their place and in a way it's difficult to do so due to the diversity of the population, but some guidance could have helped.
you were not in NYC in march, were you? Lots of people just refused to go to work, or do outside things when the death toll started climbing in Italy, to the point it was all over the news.
Everyone knew it was a matter of time when it would hit NYC, and when it did, we were blind as there was no testing available to people unless you ended up in the ICU.
My soccer team just forfeited their mach, as team members did not feel safe to play while the virus was spreading. This was way before the lockdown in early march,
I stoped going to the gym too. People just didn't feel safe, and even if things were open, people would just not go out.
Almost, all places were at about 30% capacity. In the long run, they'd still have failed. People just wont/don't like to go out or travel.
You can still go in places like Albania, or Turkey, or Greece, who managed the virus/had low levels of it, yet their tourism is not doing well at all as many folks don't like risking it.
There were a few activities I did in the last week before I stayed home that definitely felt unsafe, and were the last time I did those things (in advance of official shutdowns). I went to the gym and it felt unsafe, I saw a play on Broadway and felt unsafe, and ran on the East River and felt unsafe, and then we settled in to not go anywhere anymore the next week (still a week prior to the official orders), but by then I'd already caught it. My first symptoms appeared on March 16th, meaning I'd most likely gotten it within the past week, and NYC didn't shut everything down until the 23rd, when I was already at the peak of the illness.
So I would have needed to have stopped doing things several weeks prior to the government actually getting off its ass and acting in order to be safe, but I didn't have the understanding of how widely in the community it was already spreading at that point, or how severely we were under-testing. As a city we were unbelievably late to act, and the over 10,000 dead in NYC alone (with ~750 more every day) are a testament to that.
It's the peak of absurdity to imagine the city somehow going on as normal under this unbelievable toll if only we weren't being told to shelter in place, when the only street noise you can hear a lot of the time is ambulance sirens.
Yes, commercial social venues were closed - bars and restaurants. If I were still in my 20's and living the city life I might see this as the majority of the world but it's not.
You could still visit friends and family, public parks, or even have private parties. And since you weren't being physically pulled into work, you could visit distant friends/family or even go on vacation and stay in a hotel. I'm not saying you wanted to do any of these things given the pandemic, but it's fallacious to imply that you were only stuck at home due to government fiat.
As far as why they worked, I ran into enough people who thought such a recommendation had the force of law (and I wasn't going to correct them). At the time I had a bifurcated living situation and was concerned about doing the commute, but looking into it I could continue going about my routine as usual.
That's fair - I definitely buy that during the pandemic people will go to open places that they can drive to, but his comments felt more like they were addressing the post-pandemic world.
1. I started driving a lot less, so I really couldn't get into a topic.
2. The conversations became very focused around the pandemic. There are pros and cons to escapism, but that was the main thing I wanted out of the medium.
Yeah, it's not great. I've been stuck in my flat with some symptoms for the past ... week or so now?
I've still been working from home, and video calls with co-workers + conversations with friends/family help; but it's not been the highlight of my year. No real idea when it will end, either.
I managed to get out and try to go for a walk at what I thought was a reasonably unsociable time, but it was still busy enough and I was passing people enough that it seemed irresponsible to repeat.
I personally didn't feel much like it was a vacation since I still had to go into the office[0], but I will miss the way the default behavior was for people to avoid each other on the street and absolutely no one attempted to start an impromptu conversation with me.
[0] except for the brief period where basically every employee had COVID, gee, how did that happen?
Not to mention we just came off a pandemic that was spreading like crazy and killing lots of people. It was a very strong reminder that public transit and offices are why you are sick all the time.
I’m not in US (and neither the person you asked), but I felt very nostalgic when covid situation only began in my city. It wasn’t a lockdown, only an advisory statement and a common fear of unknown. Empty streets, almost no cars passing by, which I could count on my fingers from a balcony back then. I wanted to just walk the city and feel it. Now that it got back to normal, it pushed me back to my apartment. Because when it’s “normal” I rather feel like a bug in an engine full of whirring cogs.
As someone in a low risk group (I’m 30 without co-morbidities), the risk of surviving but having an awful time is highly underrated. That’s part of why I stay at home now, I’d prefer to not experience that.
General pontifications aside, I’m sorry that you’re sick, and hope that you recover quickly and cleanly.
Seriously? In my big city, people are generally behaving as if the disease doesn't exist, at least on weekends. Restaurants are pretty full, stores are busy. The only time it feels different is during weekdays, when the city is empty from forced WFH. When people are given the choice, they are choosing to go out in the world, risks and all.
I think a majority of people stopped giving a shit in June[1]. The government's continued lockdown policies are 100% at fault for continued economic distress.
We had very strict Covid restrictions in my country (France) back when it started. Going outside for anything other than walking the dog was complicated, you had to sign a form that said that it was an absolute emergency. Yet, some of my friends told me that those few months were among the best of their life. Some of us really don't need to go outside to feel fulfillment, just the confort of their home.
Perhaps missing the obvious, which is that a lot of people did get sick or die due to covid, and quite a number seem to have persistent symptoms after the fact. It would be odd if that didn't lead to stress.
I'm a bit doubtful on the social isolation explanation, simply because we have a control. Some places never really locked down, or did so for a very short time span.
Not wanting to die is privileged? I walked to work pre-coronavirus, and had been nearly run over on 3 separate occasions. Jumping out of the way, hands on the hood level nearly. Yes, the walk sign was on. I was constantly breathing in pollution from construction and old vehicles/diesel/huge trucks. I live in a major metropolitan city in the southern usa. It was not a pleasant experience.
It's like claiming you were a prisoner of war because the theme park was closed for maintenance when you wanted to go.
reply