#PeoplesLockdown

[liv]

Cut because lots of people are avoiding plague or politics or both.

I have been pretty unimpressed by the government handling of the pandemic from the start, but now it's an utter shambles. It's pretty clear that not only are they banning activities that are safe and permitting activities that are highly dangerous, but by now they have no intention of actually enforcing anything. (Unless they want to target political undesirables, in which case there's almost certainly some kind of offence they can claim someone has committed, and due process is an unaffordable luxury during a pandemic.) The law and guidelines change almost randomly every five minutes, and there's not even a figleaf pretense that anything is self-consistent, let alone consideration for how it is supposed to be possible for businesses or individuals to comply in practical reality.

As we are all painfully aware the pandemic isn't even slightly over. Even the most generous estimates that are barely more than propaganda are suggesting an R number close to 1 and hundreds of deaths daily. So basically I am giving up even tracking the law / guidance / advice / government briefings / media reports, because it's all nonsense. I think we're on our own, we just have to do our best to avoid getting sick or infecting others.

Also, jack is understandably getting fed up with me constantly worrying over this. So if there's anyone who has opinions about what people in England should be doing and wouldn't mind helping me think this through, I would be most grateful. Note: I have no interest in discussing what you think the law actually states, or ~hilarious~ edge cases like being allowed to have sex with someone if you pay them. The law is toothless and dangerously muddled, the guidance is IMO meaningless. I'm interested in discussing what you personally judge is safe behaviour during the current stage of the pandemic. And yes, I understand that completely avoiding any interaction with other people has its own dangers.

Equally that breaking the law carries a risk in its own right, depending on your personal circumstances. I know it can be unwise to post on social media that you intend to break the law, but I really really doubt that anyone's going to arrest me for speculating about whether I might hug a partner who lives in a different household from me. If you feel uncomfortable with joining in this discussion for this reason, that's completely understandable; anon comments are on if that's a level of security that works for you.

I intend to continue staying mostly at home. I'm basically happy to go out for walks a few times a week, avoiding crowded areas. I'm going to make effort to maintain at least 2m separation and more if possible, including swerving to avoid people (which has been my practice since early March anyway.) I haven't up to now been wearing masks outdoors but I'm thinking that possibly I should if only to help to shift social norms. I'm equally happy to sit around admiring the view as I am to do active stuff, but if I go to a beauty spot and find it crowded I'm going to turn around and go somewhere else. I'm also fine with cycling, again avoiding crowds and pinch-points but not worrying too much about a second or so of passing another person.

I am not going to go to work. I am fortunate that my employer entirely supports me in this; they are planning for office workers to be remote probably until the end of the year. I am making a plan to make a single visit to campus to film some material, and have discussed with the videographer how we will maintain social distancing by doing so. I am not sure how I'll get there; taxi seems the least bad option but I'm a bit nervous about that.

I don't have children. If I did I think I probably wouldn't send them to school, but there are lots of factors affecting that decision, including the feelings of the hypothetical children and how hard it was to work while they were at home.

I am doing my best to avoid entering physical shops, though I might do so if there were no other way to obtain something I need. If I did go into a shop I would definitely wear a (non-medical, cloth) mask. We are fortunate that we can afford and have access to pretty much everything we need by delivery. I haven't been in a shop at all since mid-March, and jack has only entered shops a couple of times since then. I'm not planning on going to any pubs or sit-in restaurants any time soon, even if they maintain physical distancing between customers. I'm sticking to ordering takeaway that can be delivered, not takeaway that has to be collected.

I'm not going to synagogue. The synagogue is currently closed and has no plans to reopen. If it did I would probably continue joining from home (they're definitely going to make that option possible.) If we went back to the plan we had before the official lockdown, where three or four people leading the service attend in person, maintaining social distancing while broadcasting the actual service from the synagogue itself, I would consider joining the service team. But I'm not sure about that because it would involve singing, and even four people singing from two metres apart inside a closed room looks like it's a risk. The main advantage of that would be that we could use our Torah scrolls again, and... yes, I do miss reading from a real Torah but I'm both sufficiently Reform and sufficiently pragmatic to accept that reading from a book is very nearly as good given that's safe and the more ritually appropriate option is risky.

I am not at all happy with taking public transport. I would if it were a medical emergency, but I think not for any lesser reason than that. Driving... driving is something I feel morally conflicted about even in normal times, and it's worse because I personally don't drive, so it means relying on jack to give me a lift. I think driving short distances isn't itself unsafe; I mean, all the time you spend on the road increases the chances of an accident, so I would not be in favour of driving all over the country every day. We have once gone out just 'for a drive', going to a village that's a bit further out than we're comfortable cycling, and I think that's probably ok occasionally though I'm not going to make a regular habit of it. We have also driven a couple of times to collect things that couldn't be delivered. We plan to make a car trip to London (a part of it that's reasonably accessible by car!) to drop some needed possessions off with a friend who is precariously housed and is currently storing things at our place. I am not comfortable with offering lifts to anyone else in our car (though if it was a medical emergency I'd make an exception.)

Seeing people. This one is the hardest. My interpretation is that the safest thing is to pick a small, closed group of people and just interlink them. So spend time together in normal ways, indoors or outdoors, as near each other as you'd normally want to approach. But currently the people I'd most want to link with, my non household partners, are not comfortable with that so it's not going to happen in practice. I'm not at all excited about meeting ever-changing groups of up to 6 people outdoors at 2m distance, because that means lots of potentially infectious contact with lots of different people, and also the distancing is going to encourage shouting which somewhat defeats the point of the distancing. I do meet my partners who live less than a mile away, only a couple of times a week at most, and we always stay outdoors and 2m apart. So currently I can't really agree to hang out in person with anyone else because that would change my risk profile for how I interact with them.

I'm not going to visit my parents since they are over 70 and my significantly disabled brother is currently sheltering with them. (We did visit that household once to bring him some medication; we travelled by car, and left the medicine on the doorstep, and had a brief conversation from at least 2m away.)

So, what do you think? What's the best way to keep safe at this point? Or rather, the best way to balance risk of infection with risk due to isolation, and financial loss? I would like to have this discussion from a position of balancing harms, and I will delete judgy comments directed towards people participating in the discussion. If you consider my or someone else's practice unsafe, or over-cautious, fair enough, but name-calling isn't going to help.

Comments

[cosmolinguist]

I haven't up to now been wearing masks outdoors but I'm thinking that possibly I should if only to help to shift social norms.

I started doing this last week, for precisely this reason.

[ewt]

I've been thinking about it, too, for similar reasons.

[rosefox]

I do it for this reason even though I now have no practical need to.

[ambyr]

Driving... driving is something I feel morally conflicted about even in normal times

This is off-topic for the pandemic, but I share these feelings. I almost never use these words because it's so hard to talk about my feelings about the morality of driving without putting, well, basically everyone in my life on the defensive. But, yeah. Morally conflicted. K and I have been talking occasionally about buying a car, and sure, on a personal level, there would be benefits to having a travel radius of more than five miles, but it still makes me flinch every time.

In the meantime I keep practicing my biking and trying to build up my travel radius that way. And missing transit desperately, absurdly.

[ambyr]

I guess this doesn't actually answer what my practices are . . . but my answer to that got rather tl;dr, so maybe I'll post it in my own journal instead.

[davidgillon]

I'm basically planning on ignoring the easing of lockdown. The regional R numbers released by Andy Burnham at the end of last week (because the government refused to release them), show that easing lockdown only makes sense in the East of England up to the Humber where R is 0.7*, everywhere else in England and Scotland is at 0.8 or even 0.9. I'm in the South East, so theoretically it's potentially safe for me to risk increased exposure, but I don't need to, so why take the risk?

I've only been out three times since lockdown started, all to collect click&collect shopping orders, and on a couple of those a prescription as well. Oh, and a single trip for petrol, but all appropriately socially distanced. OTOH it's not actually a major change in my daily life, I didn't go out that much before lockdown either, so I'm used to living life in one space.

What I'm finding difficult is not being able to see family - it was my mother's birthday yesterday, and I missed my sister's in April as well. I'd normally have travelled up to Durham for at least one of them. But I normally travel by train, and nope, not doing that. When I'll next see them is unclear given they're both vulnerable and my brother-in-law is extremely vulnerable, so even a lifting of standard lockdown wrt travel wouldn't necessarily allow me to see them. OTOH I'm talking to them more than I normally would, every other day with my mother, and texting/messaging with my sister on a daily basis.

ETA: Forgot masks! I've been wearing a neckwarmer thing as an improvised mask when outside since this started, but it's basically winterwear, so getting a bit unpleasant as the weather improved. My sister sourced us a bunch, a friend of theirs has been producing them, but the elastic is a bit short - as in either your ear folds and lets it pop off, or it'll rip your ear off - so she's waiting on some replacement elastic.

* Wales is at .7 as well, but they get to make their own decision

[azurelunatic]

I like the headband with buttons and the other behind the head gadgets for the ear strap masks.

[davidgillon]

Yeah, my sister sent me one so I could do a fit test and work out how long the elastic needs to be. If I need one in the meantime it's getting adapted with a piece of string!

[seekingferret]

My other thinking about wearing a mask outdoors, besides signalling, is that when I go outdoors I don't know what's going to happen. I may need to use a bathroom and a shop bathroom may be closer than home. Someone on the road might be injured and if I'm going to try to help them it'd be better in a mask. There are all sort of scenarios where I start out thinking that I'm just going for a walk outdoors, I don't need a mask, and that then transform into a scenario where a mask is better advised. And sure, I could just throw a mask in my pocket, but I am not that reliable about things in pockets.

[azurelunatic]

The usual scenario around here is someone else unmasked passing too close.

[seekingferret]

True. I live in suburbia and I'm pretty mobile, so when I'm out on walks that's not a huge concern. It's almost always possible to give other people a wide berth. I recognize that's not the case for everyone, particularly people in more densely populated areas and people who have difficulty with moving quickly. From what I can tell, there's not a lot of scientific consensus about whether someone unmasked passing too close while outdoors is significantly risky, anyway. If they happen to sneeze into your face as they walk by, perhaps.

[ewt]

We are planning on basically continuing as we are until the numbers look much, much better for at least three weeks (the rough lag between interventions and when increased deaths start showing up). We have access to grocery deliveries, hairyears is able to work from home, I'm finishing up my PhD and going to the allotment a lot (where I wear gloves for handling the lock and gate). Once a week we do strength training in a local studio: we have keys (one set of six), and wipe down all equipment we use after use, and the trainer is supervising us via videoconference. In the few weeks I didn't have this my joint pain got a lot worse, so I'm considering it essential, as well as supporting a local business that is in a pretty rough position (our trainer is in partnership with his wife, who works as a massage therapist... they are not having a good time right now). We have had takeaway once, but might have it more often now that our local Chinese restaurant is offering contactless delivery, as well as our favourite Italian restaurant offering something similar.

I am fine with going out for essential exercise more than one time per day as long as distancing can be maintained. When we go out for walks we've been trying to go at less busy times.

As someone who cycles regularly, and whose main regular journey right now is two and a half miles (to the allotment where social distancing is actually easier than in the local park), I would really like it if people would drive much, much less, and keep their cars at least 2m away from me when they do. Walking around in the park with some people carefully observing distancing guidelines and others being oblivious to them is not that far from my usual experience of car traffic. I don't want to be judgemental about other people's reasons for driving, I know there are people for whom it is the only reasonable option and there are lots of good reasons to make a journey even now, but it does feel like not all the cars currently on the roads can possibly be doing essential journeys, and I find that frustrating.

The seeing people thing is hard! I am grateful to have allotment neighbours to chat to, and to know my next door neighbours on one side. I've been for a socially-distanced walk with a relatively local friend, and rode my bike to visit with someone else in his garden, and the vicar rode her bike out here to drop some things off and stood at the gate for a while. At some point I will probably end up cycling to church and doing something in the garden there, or possibly helping at the soup kitchen or food bank -- but they currently have plenty of local volunteers and it's a little further than I'm comfortable travelling regularly. I think there are vague plans by the C of E to eventually open buildings up for private prayer under very strict cleaning requirements, but it's hard to know how that will work given that St John's is currently operating as a food bank 3x/week and soup kitchen 2x/week.

I will be participating in one "up to six people outdoors at 2m distance" meetup, in order to witness some (urgent and important) legal/medical paperwork for a friend. I wouldn't do it for purely social reasons, but I already have a good amount of social contact for me.

I think one of the difficulties of balancing risk of infection with risk due to isolation is that risk due to isolation is hard to quantify. How do you measure the effect on your relationships of going without touch for months? (And this will be different for different people and different relationships, of course; some people who live alone are vulnerable in a way that people who live with at least one other person are not, some people who live alone are fine.) The mental health measurement tools we have are not always very subtle. Is it better to increase infection risk, or to take antidepressant medication to mitigate the mental health effects of loneliness?

I think there's an argument for isolating as well as you can in a way that's sustainable for you. It's fairly easy for us to not go into shops, so we aren't doing that. (Yes, delivery drivers are exposed to risk in their work -- but on the whole, less risk than supermarket cashiers.) Not going to the allotment would make me miserable, not doing strength training would mean a lot more joint pain, so we are doing those things -- with care and modification to make them safer. We've settled into a routine that we can maintain for quite some time, and that's important because it looks like it will be necessary for quite some time.

[el_staplador]

Yes, I'm planning on continuing as if lockdown hadn't been relaxed (and am in the fortunate position of being able to do that). Keeping on working from home, restricting shopping trips, etc. We don't have a car so can't get far out of Ely without using public transport, and church is staying online for the next month and probably longer (we're having a discussion tonight based on a document called Everyone Welcome Online, which I haven't read yet).

I have been wearing a mask in supermarkets, and am extending that to 'wandering around town' scenarios, but not for my morning walks. As others have said, it's more to show that I believe that this is a situation that needs to be taken seriously.

I've been doing a lot more shopping online - we always had milk delivered, and a veg box, but previously I would have made a trip out for house and garden things. Not any more.

[oracne]

It sounds like you're doing everything you can. I will follow this discussion with interest.

[rmc28]

We are staying at home. I have been the only one going into shops, and I already decided I'm not doing so again until at least the end of June, and will review again then.

I am not spending any length of time closer than 2m to anyone outside my little household for the foreseeable future. We might expand that to another household within walking distance (e.g. my brother) so long as the entire group was a closed bubble, if we felt that need, but we haven't so far.

I'm ok with walking daily while keeping 2m from other people for the vast majority of the time. I don't mind a few seconds closer than that in passing, but I'm also a bit wary if it happens too often, so I'm favouring times and places to walk where I basically don't meet people. I'm also ok with having distanced conversations with one or two other people in my front garden or in theirs. I have folding chairs I can set up, and empirically I haven't found any need to shout while standing in my garden or someone else's. (Though I feel now that I would feel better if one or both of us had a cloth face covering.)

I'm wearing a cloth mask when going further than my front garden, mostly to be the shifting norm I want to see. I have read enough to convince me of the public health measure of everyone wearing at least a cloth face covering. Not so much that my mask protects me, but that it protects other people *from* me, so I don't inadvertently transmit the disease.

I think I'd be willing to send the children back to school if/when we have:
* regular, reliable Covid-19 tests for all staff (and bus drivers, if C has to go by bus)
* temperature tests on arrival at school for all staff and students
* sending staff and children home at any sign of high temperature / illness and testing them for Covid-19 if so

Right now, I'm not willing to use public transport: I don't have a need to, and I don't want to take up one of a much-smaller number of available seats, and I'm really uncomfortable about being in a small enclosed space with a bunch of people-outside-my-household. And uncomfortable about C being in such a space to get to school. That might change if face-coverings and open windows on the bus become a norm though.

I got an email this weekend about sports centres possibly reopening: again, much as I love ice-skating, it doesn't seem wise to go into an enclosed space with people outside my household to engage in an activity that makes me breathe hard. Ditto indoor swimming pools. I'm possibly a bit more comfortable with open-air swimming pools, with tight limits on the number of people allowed in both the pool and the changing areas at any one time, but probably not enough to risk it this summer in any of the local pools.

(Even with a norm of wearing face-coverings, the rink just seems risky. Maybe if they have some way of greatly increasing the airflow through the building from outside, to dilute any build-up of viral particles, but it doesn't have any big windows or doors that I'm aware of, and bringing in lots of external air presumably raises the running costs of keeping the ice cold.)

And I can do all this staying home and keeping the children home because my employer is entirely happy to have everyone work from home for the foreseeable future. We do not have any active plan to refill the office.

[antisoppist]

I've been staying at home because I have asthma and I've also had a chest pain breathless exhaustion thing that might have been hayfever but now I'm feeling better, I'm feeling I can't stay in my house for the next year and have to find a way of engaging with the outside world. After a click and collect food order when I couldn't get a delivery resulted in me having to wait surrounded by people by the tills at Asda, I've decided I'll use my village shops instead if I can't get deliveries. People are distancing and queueing and it feels like risk is lower in a community of 300 than in the nearest towns. And I want to support local businesses. I work from home in any case and I am in a part of the country (SW) that has not had many cases comparatively (yet).

I will send children back to school, although I pulled them out before lockdown in March, because they need it for their mental wellbeing I think but they are ages (12, 15) that probably won't be back until September. One will be starting sixth form college 12 miles away and I'm OK with him going, I think, but not really about the bus. Perhaps this is inconsistent. I don't want to drive him in every day but I will have to think about this by September.

The most pressing decision at the moment is that my eldest's Cambridge college wants us to empty her room, not using public transport, with only one other person, bringing your own food and drink, and this is a drive of 5 hours each way (once it took 7). I can't stay anywhere overnight (I have used the Travelodge) and the younger children can't stay with anyone else overnight while I'm away either. I'm not happy about doing either of those things even if the government allows it. She has booked the latest possible slot in 4 weeks' time but I'm not sure I'd be happy driving across the entire country even then.

I'm in a choir and they are considering starting again in September but possibly not. At the moment I would not be happy to be even 2 m away in a closed room with 60 people singing for 2 hours, and having coffee, when the majority are over 60.

[aldabra]

Hello. I'm in Cambridge. I think it clearly makes objective sense if I do the college room clearing instead of you driving here to do it. (People have helped me out of similar binds in the past; this is paying it forward.) I'm not up for a ten hour drive, but if you don't have a better offer I would be up for packing a room into boxes and holding onto them in the attic until some more sensible option arises. I have an adult daughter and access to a zipcar, and spare time. If your daughter is allowed to sign a waiver and not be there, and if you don't have anyone you actually know who can do this, let me know. (Same name as here, at gmail.com.)

[antisoppist]

Thank you for the offer. I will ask my sister in Essex who is a possibility and see what our options are otherwise.

(frozen) from a distance, and thinking out loud

[redbird]

I'm on the other side of the Atlantic, so the actual rules here are different. As of yesterday, Massachusetts had a "safer at home advisory," which involves some easing of restrictions on businesses, gatherings of up to ten people, and "please be careful."

Like you, I don't drive, so anything further than walking distance is either public transit or hiring a cab/ride-share car. I'm pretty sure I want to avoid the subway/metro for now, and might risk a bus because if the vehicle gets crowded and I get off, I won't be in a crowded station with chokepoint exits.

I've been wavering between "is it really that much riskier to see my girlfriend than to get a haircut?" and a feeling that given how many other people are taking stupid risks, someone has to be the grownup. I am planning to put on a mask and take a walk today, in my quiet residential neighborhood where social distancing was easy a fortnight ago. Everything else is up in the air, even if the only risk here continues to be the virus.

[aldabra]

This whole thing works super-poorly with poly.

I'm watching the government advice closely, but I don't think they're motivated by the well-being of individuals and I don't think they're intellectually honest. We're not doing things *because* the government tells us they're safe, but there are things that are currently prohibited that would be within my risk tolerance if they were allowed, and I'm much more concerned about risk than legality. Fortunately K's instincts are closely aligned with mine; we have no significant intra-household disagreements on what is appropriate behaviour.

The closed-bubble deal isn't going to work for us, though I would totally do it if it did. But I have a boyfriend and K has a boyfriend and K has a father who lives elsewhere and K's boyfriend also has a father who lives elsewhere and we are already into uncontrollable multiple-household nightmare at that point. There's no way of drawing a boundary. OTOH, I trust the risk-responsibility of the individual households (not as far out as K's boyfriend's dad, about whom I have no reliable information, but out as far as K's boyfriend who presumably does...). We're currently doing occasional outdoors socially-distanced meetings with one chap each, and we met K's dad for a socially distanced lunch in the park on Friday, which I think was technically illegal then but wouldn't be now.

I'm not seeing my other chap at all, because that's a train ride to That London. I'm probably not going to see him this year, if the second wave pans out as I'm expecting.

Maskwise, I've recently started wearing cloth masks in shops and in queues, so once going on twice a week. I'm not wearing them in the street, partly because I think they get less effective after about fifteen minutes and I'd rather they were maximally effective in the damn shop. I think there's a strong social signalling component to this: I don't think it does much good individually, but it would be great if everyone did it. I'm tetchy about people running and biking on the pavements, which there is a lot of on our bit of Arbury Road; they tend not to do distancing, so I have to for them, and I bet two metres isn't far enough when people are breathing heavily with exertion.

I'm driving to Tesco, in a zipcar, about once a week. I never did this before lockdown; I did little shops to pick up supper on the way home from work most days. Now I'm doing household-weekly-shops, for us and for Jemima (who is 82 and shielding), and the bike isn't a runner. I feel less safe in the zipcar than I would in our own car, if we had one, but not enough so to be disinfecting it. (Driving in my own car would be well within my covid risk tolerance, if we had a car. Going to the allotment is well within my risk tolerance.)

[rosefox]

This whole thing works super-poorly with poly.

It really does. As soon as we got our positive antibody tests, J's partner S came over, and S mentioned that hir husband's girlfriend was visiting for the weekend because her parents are moving in with her soon so she's about to self-quarantine for three weeks to be certain she's safe for them to live with, and I had quite a moment of feeling this was already more people than I wanted in my bubble even though I can't catch covid again! (I know all the caveats for that claim.)

I have found it interesting to see how many people I know who are or have been in the play party scene are adopting a very similar risk reduction approach: get tested regularly, ask the people you interact with to do likewise, use barriers more than you'd like but maybe not as much as health officials think you should, keep having fun because life's too short to isolate yourself forever.

[seekingferret]

I'm sorry, I hadn't heard the idea that masks lose effectiveness after fifteen minutes. What's your reasoning for that? Is this a particular kind of mask you're talking about?

[aldabra]

Cloth masks, because they start to get damp from the moisture from your breathing. I'm not following this closely and I don't have references; I reckon they're primarily there to catch coughs and sneezes, and they'll do that even if damp, and they're not going to be worse than not wearing them even if damp. I'm only wearing them for socially-distanced shopping; if work made me go back to an actual office I would look this up again and see if I still think it's true.

[falena]

I just want to say that this post is super interesting, your comments and your circle's comments on how you plan to keep on protecting you and yours are thought-provoking and inspiring. Thank you for hosting this discussion.

[naath]

I'm going out to cycle, and for necessary medical appointments (at the hospital); I feel this is quite enough risk for me right now; I'm probably going to let carpet fetters carpet fit in a socially distant way at some point fairly soon. We are lucky in that we have no need to go to any shops regularly. R & A are doing socially distanced garden dinner.

Combining your household with one other household without actually moving in seems probably safe, as long as you trust each other's risk taking decisions and live close enough for practicality.

[karen2205]

I think physical shops now have to be approached at times when they are relatively quiet and avoided when they're busy, even if that means doing shopping at odd times and being prepared to walk away if it's too busy. I'd like to be able to get food deliveries, but I've not looked at them seriously for a while. I don't really want to use slots more vulnerable people need in a way I don't, even though I count as COVID-vulnerable because I'm fat.

Much as I really don't like covering my face, I've been going with a face covering for the past couple of weeks when I've been in shops. I've decided it's too risky to wear when driving due to the potential for steamed up glasses.

The same is true for public parks - fine to be, providing there aren't too many others around.

Driving short distances feels OK. I've still not driven 5 ish miles to a Screwfix for a bath panel that I've been planning to do for ages.

Knowing what the law is feels important to me, but not in the sense of guiding my behaviour from a public health perspective. It's more around the civil liberties aspects of some of the law - criminalising having one extra person inside your house.

[jenett]

I am not back in the office until at least late August (and I suspect quite a bit longer than that, or only sometimes while mostly working at home for a while to reduce density in the building.) I'm very grateful work is being really cautious about this.

I wear a mask when I'm anywhere other than my immediate (quiet residential) neighborhood (I have asthma, so if I'm walking at a pace for exercise, the mask affects my inhale enough to be an issue). That includes going out to the busier main streets near me, or the bike path. I have a couple of masks with silk or linen coming to see if that helps with some of the heat issues.

I am doing all my shopping by delivery (I tip generously), but will be starting a CSA pickup next week (with good distancing in place).

I am trying to figure out what my religious community stuff looks like medium and long-term, which is complicated (religious witchcraft coven: we are meeting on about our usual schedule by web chat, but there are things that do not work that way).

Specifically, there is one important but not calendar-linked ritual piece - initiation - that cannot be done remotely, and my current group of students is getting to a point where we'd ordinarily be looking at thinking about that sometime around August or September. So it's the question of "Do we postpone that indefinitely, which has some consequences" or do we figure out how to do a very carefully managed and coordinated gathering of me and them (of necessity in my apartment) with as many precautions as can be managed and what the criteria are to do that.

(My sort of baseline minimum requirements are 'I am back in the office regularly, and local guidance permits small gatherings inside as a thing people can do with some precautions' but there's some nuance about what that looks like. It's possible there may be a smallish window in which those things are true before things change again, so I want to be able to make plans promptly if the option is available.)

My mother (84, lives in a mother in law unit in my brother's house) makes occasional noises about how I could go there if I got sick, which I keep going "Oh, gods, no, Mom" about in slightly less direct terms, but I do not see her in person more than every couple of months normally. (We are talking on the phone more often, but .. well, it was about once a year before.) Mostly I am really glad she is being sensible. She's about 2 hours away, so if things ease up sufficiently, I could see a visit down there where we could hang out outside at some point.

ETA: I do not have laundry in my apartment, so I am and expect to continue doing that by pick-up wash/dry/fold service once or twice a month. It's one of the trickier things with opening up, since a lot of the advice I'm starting to see has cleaning advice that involves a lot of washing of things, which is... um, not an easy option for a bunch of us.

[hilarita]

My personal risk tolerance has, if anything, got more paranoid since the start of lockdown, because we're opening up restrictions without obviously having brilliant track & trace in place. I'm in an at-risk category, but not the shielding category.

I plan to continue as before - go out when it's not busy for some gentle exercise, avoid the shops (G shops, with a mask), get some stuff by deliveries, have rare conversations with people delivering me stuff I can't get myself at a 2m distance, usually with one of us masked. And work from home, which currently I can continue to do without penalty.

I personally would be happier with people forming themselves into small "cells" that see each other, than with this random group mixing mostly outdoors. This would address some of the mental health issues with lockdown, while not making track & trace ludicrously hard.

I have relatives who are in the shielding category, and I do not intend to see them until we've been vaccinated (or possibly until levels in the UK are so low that we can rely on track & trace to isolate cases before they spread in the community).

[azurelunatic]

My partner's workplace hasn't opened back up in person yet, so we're only leaving the house for exercise and errands.

Between the time of opening this entry to read it and leaving this comment, I fielded a call from a recruiter. I am only considering 100% remote work until there is a vaccine.

We are wearing masks when we go out. Our neighborhood is structured so it's very difficult to get by without a car. I tend to go with Belovedest shopping: they have the funds, I am the main pantry manager.

Our housemate has asthma and Sensory Woe, and can't wear most masks without feeling like they can't breathe. They haven't been going out at all except to our yard.

We're likely to have a serious household discussion of risks when Belovedest's work starts opening. It's a library, so it will open in phases. First phase will likely be a few staff in the building. I think I'm okay with that provided it's not unmasked people right up on each other.

[worlds_of_smoke]

I'm going to be continuing isolating myself and wearing a mask when going out, until at least a couple months after I have my spinal fusion surgery, regardless of what our government says is appropriate. I'm immunocompromised, and the very last thing I need is to catch COVID-19 going into or coming out of the Exorcism of Demon Spine. It's not really much different from my life before COVID, since I'm pretty housebound because of my disabilities and not having easy access to public transportation.

My roommates (as of right now) are wearing masks to work, though I haven't talked to them about what happens when the state finally lifts that requirement. I suspect that at least Jenn would continue wearing a mask, since she works in a grocery store. Kat works in an office building and has her own office, so she may decide to stop wearing masks since her contact with people is really limited.

My biggest worry is that I'll be in the acute care hospital for at least a week after my spinal fusion surgery and then, very likely, in a rehab center for a few weeks. A LOT of our cases (like 60%) have been in care facilities. But they're strongly linked to long-term care facilities, so hopefully I'll be okay.

[green_knight]

We (me: chronic bronchitis, partner: asthma) have been self-isolating apart from shops and medical appointments since early March and we intend to continue to do this. (We look at Scotland/Wales for advice, the Tories are useless).

Basically, we're relatively confident we had the virus, but until there's reliable testing, I am Schroedinger's patient: I must assume I have it, and take all precautions not to infect others (wearing a mask, keeping my distance) and must assume I don't have it, and take all precautions not to catch it (not come into contact with people, especially indoors, if I can possibly avoid it.)

We've been shopping at the start of it, once before lockdown, and three times while picking up prescriptions (Tesco pharmacy, so had to go into the shop anyway).

I have a couple of masks that I can cycle in without problems.

The car has been a lifesaver for shopping: not having to dodge lots of people on the way to the shop and being able to get a month's shopping in one go. Usually, I walk or bike to the shops several times a week; but right now, I'm glad I don't have to.

[davidgillon]

Oh, forgot to mention Nicola Griffith's blog as a useful resource in all of this. Lots of useful advice and thoughts, especially if you're medically compromised in any way, and the latest one just arrived while I was reading the posts here: https://nicolagriffith.com/2020/06/01/self-care-in-the-time-of-coronavirus

[(Anonymous)]

I've been shopping in a supermarket once a week since the lock-down started; I am now no longer going to refuse to go any other time if I need something, but that doesn't mean I will as yesterday I headed over but the queue was really long and getting in would have eaten heavily into precious sunbathing time, so I turned back

I am hoping to get infected during the summer, because I think there's clear signs of the virus being seasonal and I'd rather get it over with — which is necessary as both on a personal level because once I'm immune I can relax about possibly infecting other people and on a population level because this isn't going away as a danger for the old and infirm until we've built up a significant level of population resistance, which requires those younger and healthy to become immune through infection — during the summer months before the demands on the health service increase as winter approaches.

If it is seasonal and we don't sensibly spend the summer months spreading it around to build up population resistance, but instead try in vain to suppress or eradicate it, then the winter is going to be Hell.

(Ideally I would volunteer for a variolation scheme, so I could get a controlled dose on a known date so I could make sure to isolate myself while it runs its course, and have a number to call in case of emergency, but for some reason nobody is organising that).

I absolutely will not ever wear a mask unless legally required to do so (and then I will complain constantly) as I don't see why spraying virus-laden water droplets upwards and off to the sides and behind is any better at all than spreading them forward, where at least people know which direction you're facing and can be careful.

[rosefox]

Unless your mask is made of polished metal or something, the absorbent material will make quite a difference. You're not coughing into a deflector, but into a sponge (which is why you have to wash it or throw it away). There's abundant scientific research on this and I encourage you to read it.

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe for the first couple of breaths, until the mask gets waterlogged. Have you never tried to tuck a cloth ski-snood into a mask, and then been blinded by condensation a minute into a run? Water droplets don't just go straight out of your mouth until they hit something and then stop. They find a way out through every tiny opening (and the tinier the opening, obviously, the greater the air pressure with which they will be expelled and the farther they will travel).

Masks are great in a clinical setting where the patient is in front of you and directing germs away from them, and behind you and to the sides, is a good thing.

Out in public, with people all around you, you're just changing which people you're spraying with your breath (as well as sending some of it straight up to drift around above head level before it falls down all around), and I don't see why there's any benefit to anyone to that.

[silveradept]

I am generally off the opinion that far too many entities are rushing to reopen against advice.

I'm also the able-est in the household, so what risks I take are really more informed by what risks would be acceptable to the people more likely to suffer worse from an infection.

We've basically agreed that we won't go out but for necessary things like doing the shopping, and I take a masked walk to the park and back because sometimes playing silly walking games means I get exercise. Past that, though, I'm lucky enough to be able to work from home if need be and control what risks I can take when my employer starts offering very limited and distance-based services.

So, really, as much as possible, staying home appears to be the best for mitigating harms, at least for me. Going out, possibly interlinking families or groups that only see each other, all of those things seem like the kind of thing where the calculus is more about what harm it might do to others, and how it might become a vector, so doing things to the minimum of possible infection that still allow a person to have good quality of life sounds like a good benchmark to me.

How nice it would be if those people deemed essential that have had to keep working were compensated and supplied properly for their work.

[damerell]

If anything, to increase caution. The combination of Cummings wiping his bottom on the regulations and the government now practically encouraging all the idiots in Britain to rush outside and lick each others' faces means that people are going to become more deadly, not less. Definitely not to try and form a small isolated circle who get close because it can't be done; I can't reduce my risk to zero and nor can anyone else, and such a circle lets everyone in it pass their risk around.

Specifically, until now I've been shopping IRL, but as infrequently as possible (a trailer-load is about a freezer-full and lasts about 2 weeks); I'm hoping, even in Cambridge, as all the idiots switch to face-licking it will become possible for people who didn't have existing online grocery delivery to get slots.

[sfred]

I'm pretty sure I've had it, so I'm seeing my actions in terms of protecting other people more than protecting me (but still aware that I might be wrong about having had it).

I am wearing a mask when I go to the shop but not when I go for a walk. I'm going to a small, local grocery shop about once a fortnight, when my dad asks me to, because the alternative is that he goes, and I'm not having that. Most of our groceries are delivered.

When I take groceries to Dad I leave them on the doorstep and talk to him from the far side of the front yard, and I strongly encourage him to set all the shopping aside for a couple of days and wash his hands after handling it.

I am OK with doing carefully-distanced, outdoor meetups with four households - my two sisters, my best schoolfriend and my dad. All of these are about balancing mental health with physical health on all sides.

I share your feelings about driving. I think it will be a very long time before I'm happy to get on a bus, tram or train. I would rather cycle or walk everywhere.

[nameandnature]

Household of 2, I'm at "moderate risk" because I take immunosuppressants (although they don't seem to hurt my ability to fight off colds).

Both of us work from home, and have done since before the official lockdown, as medical and pharma companies took it seriously before govt did.

Able to get supermarket delivery slots (not sure whether we're being prioritised because I was initially on the shielding list or whether we're just lucky) and will continue to do so. I have not entered a shop since lockdown started and won't until there's a vaccine/drug or very little virus circulating. My partner went once before we started getting deliveries. Not hearing great things about Milton Tesco so would probably drive somewhere else if we had to. Ordering food boxes from Hello Fresh (we were customers before this started and they kept delivering), Gousto and local farm shops, takeaways from the local pubs (some of whom are doing contactless pickup). Amazon Prime does the rest.

We get out and about walking or running, without masks as we keep our distance where we can: I'm not bothered about briefly passing people at less than 2 m distance (e.g. on narrow footpaths) as outdoor transmission from passing contacts seems unlikely, but still divert around people if there's room. Wouldn't sit outdoors anywhere crowded. Will drive to nearby places for exercise, but haven't been further than 30 mins from home since this started.

I haven't done the socially distanced meetup outside yet either, but that's mostly because I'm crap at organising socialising at the best of times. My family are an hour away, partner's are even further, not sure about risking that drive in case we break down.

[chess]

I have a shielding letter and I haven't left the house, and don't intend to for the foreseeable.

We did have Schrodinger's Covid near the start of all this (I was bed-bound for days and only oral steroids kept me out of the hospital, then not really functional for over a month afterwards) but my immune system is garbage so that might not have helped.

Fortunately my husband is here, we have a good view, my work is fully remote and deliveries in the area are good.

It's possible that in the next few weeks my husband will go back into his workplace, where they have instituted fairly stringent distancing and cleanliness measures. He's been out a few times for various things and done fairly standard decontamination (dump clothes in foyer and leave for a couple of days, take a shower) afterwards.

We've not been very stringent about deliveries (including my husband going into the communal staircase to retrieve them) because I like food.

It's quite possible I got the Schrodinger's Covid from takeaway containers - while surface transmission is unusual, I got several deliveries of lovely cinnamon sugar covered desserts from the same place where I spent a lot of time getting the last of the cinnamon sugar off the packaging, which is about as high risk for surface transmission as you can get...

I can't sensibly wear a mask with my breathing issues even if I wanted to.

[meepettemu]

Hmm.

I have had very careful conversations with my people. My one partner lives with her husband and two kids. They have all been at hone and have food deliveries and only go out for exercise with themselves.

I have seen her at a non-socially-distanced rate (and all of them actually because I emptied my office mostly into their house).

I have seen one other person who is very careful about her work- in every day as she is a key worker, but completely trust her sense of safety.

I am meeting a friend this weekend for a thing. Also not social-distanced. Also as a result of careful conversations about who is doing what etc until now so we know where we stand.

My housemate has a pod of sorts here- one of their partners is local- housemate and I had conversations about what felt ok. No-one is local to me so I dont get that benefit. My partner’s daughter is yr6 and goes back to school Monday. If my housemate is not ok with that then I won’t see her again until my house mate is ok with it.

[meepettemu]

My only other ‘out’ is to the shop and for exercise, which I’m quite careful about

[mathcathy]

I'm tired of the whole thing but we are keeping on keeping on.

At home. Since I injured my leg in London and helped to travel home with mobility assist and wheelchairs through the station on the first Friday in March, I've left home for more than just a walk around locally deserted country lanes just five times. (to help my sister with childcare before the schools closed, one supermarket trip, one pharmacy trip, one vet trip and a walk around a random lake with my parents for dad's birthday last week).

I hugged my mum and we shared food and didn't socially distance.

I want my parents to come and stay with us for a week or so and they've agreed to (as soon as it is allowed).

We have cancelled our much delayed wedding celebration party (it will be be in 2022) but our caterers are happy to do something smaller for anyone who is still willing to come and have an appropriate party in our field, if the government allow more than six people to meet together outside on private land by early July.

Today will be my sixth trip out in three months. I've been having tension headaches leading to vomiting and the doctor told me to see an optician in case my prescription has changed. I will wear a face mask to protect me and to make the optician feel safe.

Our gardener never stopped coming and our cleaner starts back this week. We talk to all the neighbours, over fences and in their fields, basically we have four or five adjoining properties and we have been into their gardens or they into ours. We helped make a teenage neighbour's birthday better by going to the courtyard and singing happy birthday when the cake was cut, we borrow tools and have taken tours of various local sheds to try and decide what will suit us best since we pulled down an old rotten one here and broke up the concrete base, decanting it into a skip a few weeks ago. These flits across fences don't feel like going out and aren't socially distanced any more, and didn't happen in the first couple of weeks until everyone was sure none of us were individually infected. No one has left the area for months and most of our neighbours are vulnerable so are being even more cautious than we are. They've cooked us treats and we bought things for them on our one supermarket trip.

We can continue this way forever, gardening, planning, working harder than I've ever worked before (this bit I can't continue, I gave up yesterday and called in sick halfway through the day after the bullying pressure got too much and haven't decided what to do about today yet), cooking new things to not get bored and playing with our kittens who never let things get too dull as they are experiencing their first ever season of baby birds to chase and springtime trees to climb.

We have an easy lockdown compared to many and keep reminding ourselves that we only do, because last year we had such a difficult time that we were forced to leave London, without ever having wanted to. We could never have known what an advantage that would be.

[rosefox]

The risk factors are pretty clearly proximity and duration of interaction with someone infected. My understanding is that reliable tests for active infection and antibodies still aren't widely available where you are—is that right? Until they are, you have to assume everyone's infected and that's very restrictive. Once you're able to know your own immune status as well as your own and other people's active infection status, it will make a huge difference to the social part because your risk assessment and protective measures can be so much more specific. If it makes a difference to your mindset, you can think of whatever measures you decide to take now as temporary things that you'll revisit once accurate testing becomes available to you and everyone in your social group.

Now that we've had positive antibody and negative active infection tests, our calculations are mostly about keeping other people safe. We still don't go to stores or ride public transit, because an additional person in an enclosed space makes social distancing harder for everyone else. We wear masks when we go out and swerve to keep our distance from other passersby because those are good social habits to encourage and normalize. We're hiring a nanny but only interviewing candidates who live within walking distance, because we don't want to ask anyone to put themselves at risk by riding the subway to us every day. (Or cycling, which is quite risky on city streets even with reduced traffic.)

We have had two visits from friends, both of whom drove to see us. We're obviously not planning to throw a party for my birthday in two weeks, but we could plausibly have friends over one at a time: we're no risk to them and they're no risk to us, and if we space them out they're not a risk to one another. It still feels weird, though, in a slippery-slope way. I don't think anyone in our circle wants to be in the habit of paying social calls.

My mother's doctor approved me visiting her but says I still shouldn't hug her or go into her house, because she (78, sturdy but with an autoimmune condition) and her husband (93, frail, every pre-existing condition you could name) are so high-risk that it simply isn't worth even the microscopic chance of me somehow conveying active virus to them. They're well out of walking distance for me, so I'd have to go by cab/Lyft and could just conceivably pick up something on my clothes. I think Mom and I might try meeting in a park, putting on brand new plastic ponchos, and standing back to back so we can lean on each other; less absurdly, we could put on clean gloves and hold hands. Human contact is so vitally necessary, and at some point people find ways to make it happen.

We considered buying a car—Hertz is going bankrupt and selling off its fleet for very good prices, and we could get my ideal car for probably about $10k cash—but I just couldn't make myself do it. We'd hardly use it and it would be a huge hassle to park and maintain and there are other things we'd like to spend $10k on. Cycling and transit aren't options for reasons given above. So for now we're staying within walking distance from home, which for J and me is about a 3-mile radius (when my lungs are happy, which they still occasionally aren't) and for X is about a 1-mile radius. And mostly, to be honest, we're still staying indoors, because we're in the habit of it now.

[swaldman]

I have no special reasons to consider myself high-risk.

I'm largely staying at home.

I'm occasionally driving out into the countryside for nice walks in non-crowded places, because the police won't object to that now and it's good for my mental health to get away from the city. Also, far safer in terms of keeping away from people than trying to exercise on pavements.

Colleagues and I have been doing 2m-distanced social things outside, eg bring-your-own picnic, in non-crowded places. We're continuing to do that. It continues to be illegal because there are >5 of us.

When I go shopping, I wear a mask. I am usually the only person doing so. I can't avoid shopping every 1-2 weeks, because I have a tiny freezer and I think that delivery slots should be left free for those with greater need.

I am filled with despair and pre-emptive grief over how this country seems to have given up on trying to save lives. I have anxiety over whether I'm going to be expected by my employer to sit in a poorly-ventilated room for hours with my students in September, on the basis of "you're all 2m apart so it's safe". Then again, the news this evening is that Boris wants to drop the 2m rule to make life easier for restaurants.......

[hairyears]

That's where we are, in Punsylvania, give or take K meeting a very small number of friends from outside the household, one at a time and socially distanced.

I *thought* I could stop my once- or twice-monthly pharmacy visits by getting prescriptions delivered by Boots, but that's probably a bust: I'll be back to queueing outside in a mask, on a narrow pavement, twice a month.

Daily exercise outdoors is becoming difficult to do, as far more people are outside now, and far fewer of them respect social distancing.

The future: much the same for me, providing I can stay in work. But I do foresee, as you do, a second wave as the folly of lifting restrictions becomes horribly clear - and there will be no U-Turn on that for as long as efforts to suppress reporting and reassure the public are succeeding.

That second wave will have very serious economic effects, in and of itself; and the reactions of our trading partners, and the currency markets, will be ugly.

[ephemera]

Both my partner and I are to-some-degree vulnerable, so have been pretty self-isolated (working from home - I'm going out one or twice a day to walk, keeping my distance and donning a cloth mask when things feel too crowded to nearly-always keep 2-metre passing distance - but have been to the pharmacy once in three months, and otherwise not been in a shop since early March - groceries are a mix of delivery options, and I don't see that changing soon, although so far all attempts to get my prescriptions delivered have failed. For the moment, working from home isn't an issue - it may become one in August, depending on what work decides about our fall programs - and I live too far from all my family and nearly all my friends to make meeting-up without using public transport is a moot point, but I'm starting to think about would I make an appointment if/when my massage therapist is able to re-open for appointments... Useful to where your circle are setting their personal boundaries.

[switterbeet]

I'm in Ontario, Canada. My area is pretty rural but we've got >120 cases/ 100k population, if that helps with context. Several outbreaks in long-term care facilities (including one a block from me), and now migrant workers. :(

My partner and I had Schroedinger's covid in early February, I'm in my mid-30s, and have no high risk factors, except for maybe being overweight. So I'm less worried about getting it and more worried about spreading it.

My partner's been taking online courses since March and basically doesn't leave the apartment except for getting takeout once or twice a month. We both wash hands whenever leaving and entering the apartment and wear masks when we're going to be in a store. I have hand sanitizer in my car and use it immediately whenever I get into the car. Living in an apartment means that I've got to touch a minimum of 3 doors and elevator buttons each time I enter/leave. I may start wearing a mask when doing laundry, because other tenants don't respect the "1 person in the laundry room at a time" sign the superintendent put up and I'm worried about people trying to get into the elevator with me.

My work is split between office tasks and fieldwork. I do my office stuff at home now, but I occasionally go in to print things and try to do this in batches/when I'm going to be in the area for fieldwork. I wipe down door handles/printer etc with disinfectant when I leave and wash my hands regularly when there. Our office is 7 people, and technically we're allowed to work there right now (which I think is too soon), while remaining closed to the public, but all of us have elected to work from home, which I'm very grateful for.

My fieldwork resumed in late April - I try to do as much of it solo as I can, however I work with a coworker when there needs to be 2 people for safety (e.g. chainsaw work). For the most part, we're outdoors and can keep apart and I think it's way less risky than being in an office. We're not allowed to share vehicles, which seems really wasteful when two people drive separately to the same site, but I'm glad it's a policy and we're not getting pushed into uncomfortable situations. That said, there are some tasks where it is pretty challenging to maintain a 2m distance and not cross-contaminate equipment when working with someone else. Right now it's just me and my coworker and we both feel okay about that, but if I get an assistant (hopefully soon), I'll need to re-assess. I have had to meet other people in the field but we are able to keep >2m apart easily.

My partner and I are both introverts and don't have local friends, so aside from giving up our martial arts class, we haven't really noticed much difference socially. I did like going to events by myself sometimes, but they're not happening any more, so it's moot. My mother requested a birthday visit with me and my sister a couple weeks ago. My sister set up her porch with chairs spaced apart, which made me feel okay about it, but it's not something I'd do again without a compelling reason.