How secure would you feel

[BGBD]

Going back into public if the current outbreaks of COVID-19 died down but there was still no vaccine?

Would you be willing to go back to the grocery store? A sporting event? A movie? Eat out? Go to the mall?

Would you still be using online orders for groceries and staying home?

Would you take a vacation? Fly?

I'm curious where everyone is on this because I keep hearing how the economy is going to storm right back to life as soon as we "open back up." I just don't buy that. I think people are going to be much less likely to do things because they are still going to have coronavirus on their minds. I also think that there is almost no chance that all of the people who have been laid off are going to get their jobs back. Once a company lets someone go and does the job without them, they are going to be less likely to rehire that position or rehire back to the level they had previously.

I also think that testing won't be enough to stop outbreaks before they reach stay at home levels again. We know that COVID circulates in an area for several weeks before the first cases are detected. How aggressively would be need to test to find those silent cases before a severe one pops up to get attention? I think by the time we are going to find the first case, there are going to be too many mild cases to do effective contact tracing and isolation.

I think for the next year (at best) we are going to be seeing outbreaks in random cities around the world pop up, force the city to shutdown for several weeks, and then fade away. There isn't going to be enough stability for people to feel confident in resuming their normal lives and there likewise isn't going to be enough confidence to resume normal business activities either.

This doesn't feel like a blip to me, or something that is going to suddenly reverse.

[RandySF]

1. I'm an "essential worker" and encouraged to work it home.

And I must wear a mask if I had a good reason to go to the office. I don't think they'll have me physically there anytime soon.

[live love laugh]

2. Nowhere near ready for reentry. I'll be reluctant thru

the end of the year.

[uriel1972]

3. wait for the second wave,,,

then the third... etc. It aint goin' away anytime soon. Unless we get our heads together, vaccinate and deal with countries that have severe problems (yes, those countries that report zero cases come to mind) things wont improve.

Oh yeah deal with inequality, the homeless the underprivileged as well. These blights (the situations, not the people) on society make it so much harder to deal with contagious diseases.

[iemitsu]

4. All good questions.

I am old enough that no one wants me back at work unless the rest of the workforce is too weakened to perform which might happen if Covid 19 is recurrent like malaria.
I plan to stay at home.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

5. I plan to remain in isolation for a long time.

I quit my job over this outbreak because my employer was reckless about it, and I was dealing with Trump supporters who did stuff like cough in my face “as a joke”.

It’s NOT an essential business imo, but they’re still open like I expected. The President of that company “assured” everyone that we’d remain open because SOME of the customers used our adhesive products for food and medical labels.

I’ve been saving money for years, doing stuff like buying 20+ year-old cars that still run well, for this kind of emergency.

The “emergency funds” were intended for my psychological recuperation after working around a bunch of people that secretly drove me nuts, but the pandemic sped up the process.

I’m basically doing voluntary home-schooling now (learning more about subjects that interest me), and that gives me far greater pleasure than being part of a team of people who are producing a bunch of trash just to make money.

I’ll still need to venture out to grocery stores periodically, even before I think it’s safe.

Many thanks to my past teachers who opened up a wonderful world to me years ago, full of brilliant people that I’d likely never meet in real life, sharing their thoughts and ideas across time and space!

[BGBD]

6. Good choice

I'm actually not far behind you.

My company got sold a couple of months ago (after several years of trying). The new owners have us all working on contracts through June before becoming regular employees again. However, I have been really thinking that I am not going to remain after the end of the contract.

I actually like most of the people I work with. One of these I consider among my best friends. I even like most of the people with the new company that I'm working with, but I'm very much not liking the top boss.

One of the last straws was that I've basically been forced to come into the office despite that I am fully capable to doing everything I do from home, and we have the technical capabilities to do it right now. I actually got called to the carpet for saying that I was planning to work from home when I found out that many people in a different branch were going to be.

So, come July I plan to leave my current job and begin working full-time on running my own GIS consulting business. I set up a company a couple years ago and have done a little work through it, but I've essentially been keeping it back burner-ed to work this job. Now I'm getting ready to start actively going after clients in the coming weeks.

My wife works and I will still have my side hustle as an online college adjunct that I do pretty good with.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

8. The consulting business sounds great!

Best wishes to both of you, and your continued health!

[smirkymonkey]

7. I will still remain cautious until there is a vaccine.

Meaning no excess activity other than work or the occasional errand and will still most likely have everything delivered. Boston has been pretty hard hit. Not as bad as NYC, but still for a city of our size we have our fair share of cases and deaths.

[murielm99]

9. I am going to continue to take precautions.

I will not go anywhere where there are large groups of people. I don't want to go to a sporting event, movie, restaurant, or to the mall. I will avoid all of those things through the end of the year. I often attend events for the Democratic Party where there are crowds. I won't be doing that, either.

I don't think this will be the only shutdown.

My husband and I have been the only people inside our house for about three weeks. I am going to continue that practice, too.

I would like to be alive in November so that I can help vote the orange madman out of office.

[Stonepounder]

10. I don't know how long it will be before I will be willing to leave my home.

The Mrs. and I haven't left our yard in over a month and don't expect to do so any time soon. I put on gloves to open the mailbox. My lungs are already compromised and I figure that adding COVID will kill me and I'm not ready for that.

We have new neighbors who keep having friends over and even invited the neighbors on the far side of them to come over for drinks and to bring their newborn baby! Personally I think that they are either nuts, dumb, or MAGAT's. I haven't bothered asking.

Thank goodness we have structured our lifestyle to live reasonably comfortably on our Social Security so I don't need a job and I have no problem playing computer games and watching TV most of the day.

[AlexSFCA]

11. antibodies test is key

it started this week for healthcare workers and is supposed to ramp up to general public. I’d like to take one asap. I may have already had the virus so don’t need to be paranoid.

[peggysue2]

12. I'm with Dr Fauci

I do not think we're returning to normal pre-Covid-19 status until a vaccine is universally available. Parts of the economy will open up once this current wave is deemed manageable. But the days of unlimited travel and contact with anyone, anywhere is going to be pinched by caution. The young may think they're invulnerable but Covid-19 has crushed that fantasy. Pretending that this pandemic is simply an ordinary flu bug has also been proven tragically wrong.

How many people are going to be jumping on cruise ships or airlines? How many Americans will be willing to visit crowded retail stores or return to movie theaters or favorite eateries under current circumstances? Vacation, anyone? To the beach, to your favorite resort spot, to an amusement park? How many will feel comfortable on public transit, a crowded train, subway or bus?

The list goes on and on, things we took for granted that now usher up real hesitation.

Trump may despise the thought of delay but this virus has put the fear of God in a lot of people who will not be eager to return to business as usual. Economically speaking, we're in for a very rough ride, as is the rest of the world. I just don't see a full recovery until a vaccine is up and readily available. And that's without considering a second wave sometime in the fall, a surreal possibility.

Despite Trump's bellowing, the return will be in slow motion.

[MarianJack]

16. Dr Fauci is the rarest of things in the Dolt45 "administration."

Competent!

As always, Donald Trump is an idiot and an ass hat.

#notmypresident

RESIST

[BigmanPigman]

13. I've been thinking about this over the past two days

and that is a realistic assessment to me.

[Raine]

14. A test and a treatment will make me more comfortable

though I'll still do social distancing, masks, sanitizing and definitely not go into entertainment events with crowds of people.

[Dem2theMax]

15. There's no place like home.

And that's where I will remain until further notice.

I won't be spending much time out in the world until we have a vaccine, test for antibodies, because I may have already had the Coronavirus, and Trump out of office.

I need that last part for my overall well-being.

[safeinOhio]

17. No one would take note if you

walked into or out of bank wearing a mask. Bank robbers can smile.

[Victor_c3]

18. It would make no difference to me

I have a history of severe PTSD going back to my time in Iraq as an Infantry Platoon Leader in 2004. I haven’t worked since May 2015.

I very much don’t like doing almost anything that involves crowds. I stayed away from crowds before the pandemic and I’ll stay away from them after the pandemic.

If anything, I’m kind of loving the isolation right now.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

19. Let's get real. Little has changed since the beginning other than....

our understanding of the virus has expanded and the effectiveness of countermeasures such as isolation and sanitary precautions has started to be proven. We currently have nothing we can take to prevent us from getting it.

I'm betting there's millions of Trumpsters and other unrelated dumb-asses sitting on edge and chomping at the bit to get back to work and highly active again, and at the drop of his hat they will do it with abandon.

We currently have had only about 0.3% of the U.S. population that has been infected and human immunity has yet to be proven for this novel virus. The reason we'll go through a peak and then a decline in infections is because stay-at-home is working. We need a long period of decline so our health care systems can recover.

My family and myself will continue to isolate as best we can until a vaccine is widely available.

What the hell do they propose has changed that would allow easing of social and workplace restrictions?

[Jane Austin]

20. Not me.

I'm in the worrisome age group, and despite my best efforts I'm on the chubby side and am short of breath on my best day.

[scarletlib]

21. No.

[Pobeka]

22. Until a vaccine appears, it totally depends on testing.

1. A good randomized sample to determine the immune population percentage over the entire country would give me confidence that there is enough herd immunity to protect me. We just don't know what that level is until studies like this can be performed.

2. In lieu of that, I'd like to know via a test if I have had it, and carry the antibodies. I'm in the 60+ age, was sorta low on energy levels for about 3 weeks (had to shorten my 7 mile walk down to 5-6 a few times because it was just weirdly hard), and had a mild sore throat during that time. So maybe I had it, maybe not. But I sure don't want to find out the hard way I didn't have it!

So yeah, to answer your question, i'm not going "out" unnecessarily until one of those two things happen.

[BGBD]

27. I agree

A little over a month ago my SIL got sick, like worst flu she's ever had kind of sick. She's a nurse and was tested twice for flu but negative each time.

Within a couple weeks of that my son started running a fever, also tested negative for flu and strep. A few days after that my wife got sick and stayed that way for about a week. She mostly ran a fever, sore throat, and said she was ultra fatigued, worse than when she had mono. A bit after that I got sick with a sore throat, malaise, and a bit of a cough. I kept that for a little over a week which is about twice as long as I usually am sick with something like that.

Now, none of those were the kind of severe illness that we see with a lot of COVID patients, but it's not really out of line with the type of thing you hear about with someone on the very mild end and it may be that most cases aren't being detected because that is about all people get in those cases. We have no testing for anyone like what we had and I didn't even show up to a Drs. office like the rest of them did.

On another note there are 4 endemic human coronaviruses that circulate all the time and produce common colds that can occasionally, but rarely, result in a severe illness with pneumonia. I think I had one of those last year. I was sick with whatever that was for about two weeks, I could feel my lungs rumble when I inhaled even. I've never felt that before. The Drs, then were worried enough that they put me on steroids and an inhaler. I had to use that inhaler for close to a month after I got over that one before I was back to normal. If I had that this year I'd have been sure it was COVID, but it couldn't have been unless it has circulated for WAY longer than anyone believes. I think that was a regular coronavirus that hit me especially hard.

[Baclava]

23. People have to eat so grocery shopping will go on, but 60,000+ in sports stadiums? Forget it

[BGBD]

24. But will they go in or just order?

If you are in the store you are likely to spend more money than ordering from home. You'll see things and drop them in the buggy.

[Baclava]

25. People will still go shopping, its a tiny fraction that get deliveries, many dont have that luxury

[BGBD]

29. I mean more along the lines of

the pickup services most of the grocery stores have now. You order and pull into the lot and they come out with the order.

I think most major stores have that available now, it's even available here in the sticks where I live and we are last to get anything.

[Baclava]

30. Maybe, if they can get, I see less shopping, once every two weeks or so, then go get what you need

For another 2 weeks, people still want to shop in stores, taking what is available that they see, not off some list that others pick up.

[SoonerPride]

26. I'm not even thinking about a return to "normal" without a vaccine

No amount of "flattened curve" is going to get me in restaurants, movie theaters, shopping malls, sports stadiums, or anywhere with crowds until I am vaccinated.

[kentuck]

28. Some folks have no choice.

They have to feed themselves and their families. They have no choice but to go work.

They live day-to-day and week to week. They cannot remain quarantined indefinitely.

They are confronting a different reality than many here.

[GemDigger]

31. I was told that I would be evicted (I live with my son)

if I did anything stupid. Going out too early would be stupid.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

32. As soon as they let us... I would resume all normal activities

I go to the grocery store a few times a week right now.

[customerserviceguy]

33. Until there's a vaccine

we will probably keep going the way we have for the last month or so. We're in our mid-60's, with some underlying health problems, and while C-19 might not kill me, it would probably be very serious for my lady.

There's nothing wrong with picking up a pizza at the local place, we did that a couple of nights ago, and followed proper precautions. We tried online ordering and pickup of groceries, and that seemed to work well.

If it makes a vaccine come quicker, then all the better.

As for all of the other stuff that you mention, maybe a lot of us have learned that we can live without it. It's not so bad to wait for a movie to come out on DVD rather than go to a theater with a bunch of young people texting throughout the film.