This quarantine shit’s getting real

[Bloop Bloop]

We aren't cutting ourselves off from everyone. If we need a break from our kid, I have no problem taking him to his grandparents for a day. Additionally, my wife can keep him alone for a few hours while I go play golf, or I can keep him for a bit while she goes for a walk with a friend.

We're avoiding large gatherings, but we aren't cutting ourselves off from friends and family entirely. We're two months in, and I still don't personally know anyone who has tested positive. We have to balance the risk with our sanity.

That seems pretty reckless with the lives of the grandparents.  You mentioned that you and your wife are not isolating yourselves from others (hanging out with friends), so during the period you've contracted the virus and are transmitting it without symptoms it's pretty likely you'll give it to them - and their age will put them in the high risk group.

Again, we (and the grandparents who want to see their grandchildren) are weighing the risk v reward and are deciding that it is not so risky that we shouldn't see each other in person.

Calling it 'pretty likely' that we'll give them the virus is completely false and fear mongering. The odds are well below 1% that we'll get the virus, based on our social interaction.

If there was a jar that had 200 Skittles in it and one of them would kill the person who ate it, would you eat them anyway?

That's a terrible metaphor; I'm not sure why people keep using it.

The reward for letting my in-laws watch my child are numerous:
1. They get to spend time with their grandchild.
2. He gets to spend time with his grandparents.
3. We get a much-needed break, which keeps us sane.

The reward for eating a skittle is a fucking skittle.

A better metaphor would be something like this: "If you had a migraine, and I gave you a bottle with 1,000 pills, 999 of which will cure the migraine and 1 that will kill you, would you take a pill?" The answer to that depends on how bad the headache is. In our case, a 0.1% chance (or more likely less) chance of contracting and spreading the virus is worth the benefits we get from letting our child spend a day with his grandparents once every couple weeks.

People keep using it because some people don't grasp how significant 1% risk is.

I don't live in the middle of nowhere, so I'm choosing to not visit family and friends -- I can do that later once things settle down. ~1.5% of the residents of my state have tested positive (and anybody with half a brain knows we are not testing nearly enough to have accurate numbers).

1.5% of the residents of the state testing positive doesn't mean a 1% risk of dying. Even if the testing is vastly underdone and actually 10% of the residents are actually positive, of whom 1% die, that would imply a 0.1% chance of dying overall.

[ReadySetMillionaire]

Count me as someone who is pretty much done with "quarantine."  Am I social distancing? Yes. But I'm pretty much done with "stay at home."

The entire purpose was to flatten the curve so hospitals would not get overwhelmed.  I am in Ohio and we are nowhere near that threshold.  In fact, my sister-in-law is a PA in Ashtabula County, and every urgent care clinic in the county has closed due to lack of demand. I also live in a county that had a field hospital ready to go that saw zero patients.

Note that I did my part.  I did not go anywhere for three weeks except my private office (zero employees, just me, and I have my own private entrance) and home. 

But now, I'm basically done.  We have to learn to live with this virus.  For me that means:

(1) Inviting people over for "social distance" pizza parties in our back yard;

(2) Hanging out on the front porch (I bought four new rocking chairs, each about 8 feet apart);

(3) Letting my parents see my son (from a distance);

(4) Hanging out with friends, properly distanced and preferably outside;

(5) Running errands when I feel like it (and wearing a mask if it's a crowded store).

I do plan on going out to eat when that's opened back up.  The statistics are so benign for people like me (32 years old) that I'm just not worried about it.  But, I still will take extra precautions around the elderly.

I've basically just learned to deal with this.  The virus is here to say.  Those who think we will have an accelerated vaccine are loons not only for thinking it's possible, but to think the population will rush to have such a vaccination in such rushed circumstances (only 70% get flu vaccine, and I imagine this would be way lower due to uncertainty).

I should add that I've chosen the listed activities for mainly three reasons:

(1) Good mental health leads to good physical health.  It's not sustainable for me to be so isolated.  I'm a very social person.  I started having significant sleep and digestive issues towards the end of quarantine that have completely resolved since turning my social life "back on."  Might be coincidence but I don't think so.

(2) Vitamin D is excellent for your immune system and for your health in general.  I think staying indoors is detrimental to health.  It's why I go on hour walks almost every day, regardless of weather (and have done so for years).

(3) Fresh air is also good for you.  The evidence so far points that transmission is very low in these types of environments but very high in enclosed environments.

I think it's very possible to have a social life but do so with responsible social distancing.  Be creative.  It's been great for me and my family.

[wenchsenior]

.....  One of the only 'consumption' reasons I wish I were really wealthy is so I could design a U-shaped house with a courtyard in the middle and a 2 lane lap pool running down the middle (I even have a greenhouse 'walkway' that crosses the pool designed in my imagination LOL.

Hey, that's the layout of my dream house. With wide walkways along each wing.

Now someone just needs to drop a cool couple million $ on us....

[StarBright]

I fully agree 'the shit's getting real'.

Another month or two and our kids will have done so much damage to the house that we'll not only lose our deposit when we move eventually but likely be charged extra just for damage repairs.

We have three boys - 5, 2.5, and 6mos, and my Mother (who had the same number and rough age spread) has told us repeatedly that she doesn't think she would have been able to hold it together had similar circumstances arose when we were young.

My wife and I are not, inherently, entitled to a break from our kids (and we do love them), but holy fuck being stuck inside with them for coming on two months is really testing our limits as parents. I'm 100% serious when I say that had someone told us a global pandemic was going to occur and that we would be without support indefinitely, we would have had fewer kids.

We just want a break. A babysitter. Our parents. Our siblings. Rec center childcare. Any-fucking-thing to allow my wife and I to have more than 30 minutes out of the day together that our kids don't need our attention.

We're turning into bitter people, watching most of the people we know with 0-1 kids (or kids older than, say, 8), go through this quarantine being able to 'relax' or keep the damn house clean for longer than 5 minutes.

I'm incredibly fortunate to have kept my job without salary cuts. I've effectively run out of meaningful work to do (see: my username - can't take a Chem lab home with you!) so I can shoulder a lot of the burden that my wife usually carries. But, there is going to come a point where we say 'fuck it'.

You are not alone! We feel the same way.  My kids (kindergarten and second graders) were absolutely champs for the first month+. And now they are so sick of each other that they wake up fighting. My husband and I somehow see each other less even though we are in the same house together 24 hours a day.

Working from home parents with young kids are in a particularly weird situation right now: trying to be grateful that they still have jobs while being absolutely gutted energy-wise from burning the candle at both ends.

We'll all make it through, and we're lucky, but that doesn't mean it isn't absolutely, awfully, hard.

[Dee18]

I am retiring this month.  I sold my house and downsized to an apartment so I could easily spend most of my time traveling, including to visit my only child who is living in China, my only sibling and her husband, who live in France, and my mother who lives hundreds of miles away (alone in the house I grew up in) and turns 97 this month. Of course I am disappointed that my plans have been disrupted, but like so many others here I am incredibly grateful that I am fine financially, and well.

 I am finishing up a lot of work now, but have mixed feelings about all my impending free time. Most days I appreciate that I don’t have to go go into a workplace, but I would like to be able to pick up some things from my office.  I am continually struck by the somewhat contradictory rules currently surrounding me. The (crazy) state I live in is opening all stores, despite inadequate testing and no decline in infections.  But my university is on total lockdown that began March 16.  No faculty are even allowed on the campus, much less in a building. They recently said we will probably be allowed back in July.  I live 1/4 mile outside a city that requires face masks at all times, in a township that has no such rules. 

Most of all I am dismayed at how the US has handled the pandemic.  I want us to pay our share to international organizations.  I fear that our leader’s arrogance is going to result in our missing out on key research and possibly even on key treatments and vaccines, not to mention making Americans personae non grata around the world.

[ender]

People keep using it because some people don't grasp how significant 1% risk is.

It's a dumb analogy.

Let's say for sake of argument the fatality rate is 1%. Is that even a meaningful statistic by itself?

No, it's not. In your skittle example, if someone is 35 vs 85, their jars are not even close to equal. The 85 year old jar might be 25% poison skittles and the 35 year old might have.... 0.01% poison. Or even less. And statistically, from observed deaths, percentages by age group are not remotely close but rather multiple orders of magnitude off.

But even still, those percentages only apply if you contract covid.

You also have to multiply your skittles-death-factor  by how likely your risk factor actually is for contracting covid. My state has tested close to 2% of the population by test/population. Of those tests, around 10% of those tested have covid.

Let's just generously say that if you choose to go out and about you have a 50% chance of contracting the disease to avoid guessing what someone taking otherwise reasonable precautions might have for getting covid (which in my state would be very, very low right now). You now have to drop the skittle % for death rate in half to account for this risk.

What is your risk factor for those skittle jars now? Well, for someone not in a high risk group, it's practically zero. Which is why that analogy is stupid - it's terrible because people who are not high risk who think about it for anytime at all realize "oh right, I'm not personally going to be impacted at a statistically meaningful rate if I even get covid let alone am perhaps at a low risk for getting it at all" and so it encourages less social distancing amongst the population that it matters nearly the most - asymptomatic carriers.

The goal of social distancing or closing daycares/schools isn't to protect children or even their parents in most cases. It's to prevent covid from spreading to demographics like nursing/assisted living homes. 80%+ of the deaths in my state are people 70 or older with a median age of 83.

Statistically that skittle jar is unlikely to cause anyone young, particularly younger than 50, from having their skittle kill them. It's practically 0%. But that's not the point at all and among other reasons why the analogy is dumb. The point is to prevent them from spreading it to the point that it becomes impossible to keep from hitting everyone that is older and/or overloading the hospital system.

[JLee]

We aren't cutting ourselves off from everyone. If we need a break from our kid, I have no problem taking him to his grandparents for a day. Additionally, my wife can keep him alone for a few hours while I go play golf, or I can keep him for a bit while she goes for a walk with a friend.

We're avoiding large gatherings, but we aren't cutting ourselves off from friends and family entirely. We're two months in, and I still don't personally know anyone who has tested positive. We have to balance the risk with our sanity.

That seems pretty reckless with the lives of the grandparents.  You mentioned that you and your wife are not isolating yourselves from others (hanging out with friends), so during the period you've contracted the virus and are transmitting it without symptoms it's pretty likely you'll give it to them - and their age will put them in the high risk group.

Again, we (and the grandparents who want to see their grandchildren) are weighing the risk v reward and are deciding that it is not so risky that we shouldn't see each other in person.

Calling it 'pretty likely' that we'll give them the virus is completely false and fear mongering. The odds are well below 1% that we'll get the virus, based on our social interaction.

If there was a jar that had 200 Skittles in it and one of them would kill the person who ate it, would you eat them anyway?

That's a terrible metaphor; I'm not sure why people keep using it.

The reward for letting my in-laws watch my child are numerous:
1. They get to spend time with their grandchild.
2. He gets to spend time with his grandparents.
3. We get a much-needed break, which keeps us sane.

The reward for eating a skittle is a fucking skittle.

A better metaphor would be something like this: "If you had a migraine, and I gave you a bottle with 1,000 pills, 999 of which will cure the migraine and 1 that will kill you, would you take a pill?" The answer to that depends on how bad the headache is. In our case, a 0.1% chance (or more likely less) chance of contracting and spreading the virus is worth the benefits we get from letting our child spend a day with his grandparents once every couple weeks.

People keep using it because some people don't grasp how significant 1% risk is.

I don't live in the middle of nowhere, so I'm choosing to not visit family and friends -- I can do that later once things settle down. ~1.5% of the residents of my state have tested positive (and anybody with half a brain knows we are not testing nearly enough to have accurate numbers).

1.5% of the residents of the state testing positive doesn't mean a 1% risk of dying. Even if the testing is vastly underdone and actually 10% of the residents are actually positive, of whom 1% die, that would imply a 0.1% chance of dying overall.

NYC's death rate of reported cases is 10% (likely due to vastly inadequate testing depressing the positive-case numbers), but ok. You do you.

[DadJokes]

I don't even think it's a stupid metaphor for the same reasons you guys are mentioning (death rate). Let's assume that 1% of skittles only makes you very ill (look at Paula Pant's case of covid as an example) instead of killing you. It's still a terrible metaphor because your reward for the other 99% of skittles is still just a skittle.

So your metaphor is terrible in the fact that my chances of both contracting and spreading covid to my in-laws is way less than 1%, and the reward for offloading my kid every couple weeks far outweighs the minuscule risk.

[Kmp2]

I also have 3 young children at home (just 2, 4 and 7). We are both still working from home, and the only way that was going to work was if we split the day and both dropped to part time, I quit/leave of absence... or we hire a nanny. My friend was a lunch lady at a school (she still has some duties for distance learning) - and lives alone, and did not want to spend isolation alone... so we joined households. There's 3 adults balancing 3 jobs around a 1st grader's remote learning schedule. But I am soooo grateful for the extra help. DH and I can take a walk after the kids are in bed together :) we haven't done that since before the first was born.

Our standards are almost as low as when my 3rd was a newborn. We keep the house clean enough to be safe (ie kitchen cooking surfaces)... but there are toys everywhere.

Our local regulations do allow a 'quarantine' family. Where two isolating families with no at risk people can team up as long as it's only with each other. Playdates with said family, babysitting time so parents get a break... and for single parents no need to take kids on errands.

[use2betrix]

Well, I have been working 4-5 days a week interacting and sitting with dozens if not hundreds of people. This includes meetings, job site inspections, etc.

If restaurants opened at 25% capacity, we would go. We’ve had friends over for dinner and other things. It hasn’t been a huge issue. We’ve had takeout a TON.

We are taking precautions, washing our hands a ton, etc.

I’m not going to quit my job, and I’m fine with the very minimal risk in my area of continuing with certain activities.

[firestarter2018]

It's definitely tough, but we are surviving. We are in a state that locked down early and people have been taking it very seriously, and not surprisingly we have one of the lowest case rates per capita in the country.  DH and I are both working remotely which is very hard with a 5 year-old with special needs and a 7 year-old, but we tag team and do the best we can. We're pretty lucky to have a lot of autonomy in our remote work; with COVID, my workload has dropped and I have few meetings, so I'm able to supervise the kids and still be available if a work issue comes up. We're only leaving the house for groceries, occasional dinner take-out, and drives with the kids to get them out a little bit.  We can't take the kids to any parks because the 5 year-old will see a playground and want to play on it and not understand why he can't. I really miss the library. Like *really*.  I don't like to buy books and I don't like e-books, so I'm focusing on other crafts and hobbies until the restrictions are lifted a bit.

In our area people have been very harsh on social media berating those who dare venture outside without a mask or who don't move aside quickly enough when they pass someone on the sidewalk. Nevermind that there's little evidence that COVID is spreading through minimal outdoors contact -- the hot spots are all nursing homes, prisons and meatpacking plants, Ms. Judgey Judy on Nextdoor.

Our 5 year-old is regressing somewhat without the structure and support of his school, and that's been hard. Parents of kids with special needs rely on the school/medical/disability systems SO MUCH to keep their kids coping well, and with all that gone in a flash it's really hard. We had his kindergarten IEP meeting via video chat a few days ago and admittedly, it kind of sucked, because I had never met these 10 people who were now making decisions about my kid's placement.

All that said, I still feel lucky. We're both employed, haven't had to take a pay cut, and all in all our kids are doing OK. What I look forward to the most when life gets back to "normal" is being able to take my kids to the park and the library. It's the simple things!

[OtherJen]

I also have 3 young children at home (just 2, 4 and 7). We are both still working from home, and the only way that was going to work was if we split the day and both dropped to part time, I quit/leave of absence... or we hire a nanny. My friend was a lunch lady at a school (she still has some duties for distance learning) - and lives alone, and did not want to spend isolation alone... so we joined households. There's 3 adults balancing 3 jobs around a 1st grader's remote learning schedule. But I am soooo grateful for the extra help. DH and I can take a walk after the kids are in bed together :) we haven't done that since before the first was born.

Our standards are almost as low as when my 3rd was a newborn. We keep the house clean enough to be safe (ie kitchen cooking surfaces)... but there are toys everywhere.

Our local regulations do allow a 'quarantine' family. Where two isolating families with no at risk people can team up as long as it's only with each other. Playdates with said family, babysitting time so parents get a break... and for single parents no need to take kids on errands.

My husband's cousin and his family are quarantining with another family. Only husband's cousin goes out to buy groceries and supplies for the whole group, and they only socialize with each other. I think it's a great idea.

[mizzourah2006]

People keep using it because some people don't grasp how significant 1% risk is.

It's a dumb analogy.

Let's say for sake of argument the fatality rate is 1%. Is that even a meaningful statistic by itself?

No, it's not. In your skittle example, if someone is 35 vs 85, their jars are not even close to equal. The 85 year old jar might be 25% poison skittles and the 35 year old might have.... 0.01% poison. Or even less. And statistically, from observed deaths, percentages by age group are not remotely close but rather multiple orders of magnitude off.

But even still, those percentages only apply if you contract covid.

You also have to multiply your skittles-death-factor  by how likely your risk factor actually is for contracting covid. My state has tested close to 2% of the population by test/population. Of those tests, around 10% of those tested have covid.

Let's just generously say that if you choose to go out and about you have a 50% chance of contracting the disease to avoid guessing what someone taking otherwise reasonable precautions might have for getting covid (which in my state would be very, very low right now). You now have to drop the skittle % for death rate in half to account for this risk.

What is your risk factor for those skittle jars now? Well, for someone not in a high risk group, it's practically zero. Which is why that analogy is stupid - it's terrible because people who are not high risk who think about it for anytime at all realize "oh right, I'm not personally going to be impacted at a statistically meaningful rate if I even get covid let alone am perhaps at a low risk for getting it at all" and so it encourages less social distancing amongst the population that it matters nearly the most - asymptomatic carriers.

The goal of social distancing or closing daycares/schools isn't to protect children or even their parents in most cases. It's to prevent covid from spreading to demographics like nursing/assisted living homes. 80%+ of the deaths in my state are people 70 or older with a median age of 83.

Statistically that skittle jar is unlikely to cause anyone young, particularly younger than 50, from having their skittle kill them. It's practically 0%. But that's not the point at all and among other reasons why the analogy is dumb. The point is to prevent them from spreading it to the point that it becomes impossible to keep from hitting everyone that is older and/or overloading the hospital system.

This person does inferential statistics :)

[penguintroopers]

The most frustrating thing for me is not being sure when I'll be able to visit friends and family that live in other states.  My boyfriend lives a 20-hour drive away, and right now my state has a requirement for anyone coming from out of state to quarantine for 2 weeks.  So even if he drives 20 hours and sleeps in his car to come see me, I can't go to work for 2 weeks without breaking the spirit of the quarantine.  We think we might be able to manage it in early July, but by that point it'll be 4 months apart.

Similarly, my parents live in another state. I could drive there in a day, but will it be safe to go visit them for Thanksgiving and Christmas?  This might be the longest I ever go without spending time with them in person :(

My husbands family lives 2.5 hours away in a neighboring state. We've had one trip to visit them thus far and are planning another one. We can make the trip without stops, so we gather enough groceries and everything to complete our 14 day quarantine in our own home before we visit. When we come back our only trip out is for me to grab enough food for us to go several weeks again, because we shouldn't be going out and about spreading the germs we brought back with us. Its been working fine for us while husband is WFH and I'm on furlough. When (if?) I'm recalled we will have to suspend visits again.

[FireLane]

Before this pandemic started, I tried to always have a trip or special occasion to look forward to. Now all my plans have been wiped off the board, and there's no way to know when I'll be able to go anywhere or do anything again. Even if the stay-at-home order is lifted in a few weeks, there could be a second wave of cases and a second lockdown in the fall, and everything that was resuming will slam to a halt again. It's frustrating.

I can live without commuting into the office or going to restaurants or flying to overseas destinations, but I'm feeling increasingly comfortable with having small family gatherings in the near future. The risk isn't zero, but it's a risk I'm willing to accept.

After all, even in the best case, there won't be a vaccine for a year or more. There may not be a vaccine for five years. There may not ever be one. We can't shut down the economy and outlaw all social interactions forever.

The point of social distancing isn't to completely stop the spread of the virus, because that's impossible, but to flatten the curve and keep hospitals from being overwhelmed. I'm willing to cooperate to that extent, but I'm not willing to sit in my house indefinitely and accept that my son may never see his grandparents in person again. That's not escaping risk, that's just taking a different kind of risk.

[Bloop Bloop]

We aren't cutting ourselves off from everyone. If we need a break from our kid, I have no problem taking him to his grandparents for a day. Additionally, my wife can keep him alone for a few hours while I go play golf, or I can keep him for a bit while she goes for a walk with a friend.

We're avoiding large gatherings, but we aren't cutting ourselves off from friends and family entirely. We're two months in, and I still don't personally know anyone who has tested positive. We have to balance the risk with our sanity.

That seems pretty reckless with the lives of the grandparents.  You mentioned that you and your wife are not isolating yourselves from others (hanging out with friends), so during the period you've contracted the virus and are transmitting it without symptoms it's pretty likely you'll give it to them - and their age will put them in the high risk group.

Again, we (and the grandparents who want to see their grandchildren) are weighing the risk v reward and are deciding that it is not so risky that we shouldn't see each other in person.

Calling it 'pretty likely' that we'll give them the virus is completely false and fear mongering. The odds are well below 1% that we'll get the virus, based on our social interaction.

If there was a jar that had 200 Skittles in it and one of them would kill the person who ate it, would you eat them anyway?

That's a terrible metaphor; I'm not sure why people keep using it.

The reward for letting my in-laws watch my child are numerous:
1. They get to spend time with their grandchild.
2. He gets to spend time with his grandparents.
3. We get a much-needed break, which keeps us sane.

The reward for eating a skittle is a fucking skittle.

A better metaphor would be something like this: "If you had a migraine, and I gave you a bottle with 1,000 pills, 999 of which will cure the migraine and 1 that will kill you, would you take a pill?" The answer to that depends on how bad the headache is. In our case, a 0.1% chance (or more likely less) chance of contracting and spreading the virus is worth the benefits we get from letting our child spend a day with his grandparents once every couple weeks.

People keep using it because some people don't grasp how significant 1% risk is.

I don't live in the middle of nowhere, so I'm choosing to not visit family and friends -- I can do that later once things settle down. ~1.5% of the residents of my state have tested positive (and anybody with half a brain knows we are not testing nearly enough to have accurate numbers).

1.5% of the residents of the state testing positive doesn't mean a 1% risk of dying. Even if the testing is vastly underdone and actually 10% of the residents are actually positive, of whom 1% die, that would imply a 0.1% chance of dying overall.

NYC's death rate of reported cases is 10% (likely due to vastly inadequate testing depressing the positive-case numbers), but ok. You do you.

That's because NYC doesn't have good testing protocols. I acknowledged that when I boosted the figure you gave (1.5%) by 7-fold to 10%, to account for better testing. If I wanted to compare apples with apples, I could have simply taken 10% (the NYC death rate) of the figure you gave (1.5% positive tests) to get a final figure of 0.15%. Either way, a huge deviation from your figure of 1%. There is nowhere that is having 1% of its population die.

[charis]

We are basically quarantine partners with two neighbor families in our immediate area. We kept the kids apart for several weeks, but they've started to play together again, only outside and generally a couple feet apart. The adults chat outside and keep 6 feet distance but occasionally come into contact with the kids.

There's still a risk obviously, but it's the best we can do at this point.  Grandparents are over 70, which is the #1 risk factor, but they have no other conditions, so we engage in-person, outdoor meetings in masks with them.  Of course they would like normal activities, babysitting/drop offs, etc. But they would ignore the risks to see them more. So I see it as our job not to infect them.

I frankly don't care that the risk is small, if they get infected, it could easily be the last we, including their grandchildren, see them in person.  It's not even a hard decision even though we would desperately love a break from the kids.

[honeybbq]

I just bought a trampoline for the kids. Might have been the greatest accomplishment of my life.

Also picked up a hillbilly pool for the heat. Gonna be a DIY summer I guess.

What trampoline and from where? We are also considering this, for sanity purposes.

[Mr. Green]

We have been discussing this a lot over the last two weeks. It's become clear that the general population of the US will not tolerate an extended, comprehensive lockdown, and that is the only thing that would yield a solution other than the disease burning through the majority of the population until herd immunity is reached. All the input I've seen from experts in the field of virology and epidemiology say they'll be surprised if we have a vaccine in 12-18 months because it's never been done before. There's a first for everything but the hardest part of a vaccine is the trials. Just because we have several candidates right now doesn't mean any of them will be acceptable, though it wouldn't surprise me with this administration to see them pushing the first vaccine candidate that showed promise, even if it had abnormally high risks of side effects. Then you'll have to make the choice to get it or wait for a safer one.

How long will it take for all that to play out? It seems like everyone that actually knows what they're talking about is suggesting it will likely take years. Years. People aren't going to stay away from their parents or children for years. Just not going to happen.

We've been discussing a trip to see my mother and grandfather, and my wife's parents for Mother's Day. An argument could be made that this will be the safest time until a vaccine is available for us to see them. We have been quarantined for over a month. My mom works outside in a job that involves almost no human contact. My grandfather has been isolating as well. Her parents have had more contact so our socializing with them will have to involve more space. As people become less strict in their quarantine efforts due to fatigue, and more people go back to work, creating a web of interaction with others, risk will surely go up for asymptomatic transmission, compared to right now.

To further mitigate risk we've been discussing gathering outside. To my knowledge, there is no evidence that it's even transmissible outdoors if you're not standing on top of one another or touching each other. This makes a certain kind of sense. Air currents dilute the volume of virus expelled from an infected person and if you don't touch them, or surfaces their touching, or breath their air it's not possible for you to get it. So there are some ways that people can safely visit others if they're willing to use their heads and stick to a set of rules, like no touching or getting too close. It'll be a little awkward at first but not as awkward as not seeing your own mother for two years (for those used to frequent contact).

Unfortunately, the general population just can't handle a sensible set of rules like that. Hell, there are people so indignified at the thought of wearing a mask that they think it tramples their freedom. But on an individual level, if people can be smart about how they interact with others this doesn't have to be an all or nothing situation.

[mm1970]

We canceled our trip to Hawaii and I'm wondering if we are even going to be able to reschedule in the timeline allowed by United?  Will next summer even be possible?

[Jon Bon]

I just bought a trampoline for the kids. Might have been the greatest accomplishment of my life.

Also picked up a hillbilly pool for the heat. Gonna be a DIY summer I guess.

What trampoline and from where? We are also considering this, for sanity purposes.

Funny you should ask, I made it my mission.

Amazon/walmart/target etc would deliver me one in JULY so that was not gonna fly. I just threw something up on my local FB group and my neighbor had one that he girls had outgrown. I was able to take it apart and set it up again in 2 hours and this is with the help of the world smallest and least helpful construction workers!

Kids out grow them long before they are worn out. So we got lucky.

[Rosy]

We aren't cutting ourselves off from everyone. If we need a break from our kid, I have no problem taking him to his grandparents for a day. Additionally, my wife can keep him alone for a few hours while I go play golf, or I can keep him for a bit while she goes for a walk with a friend.

We're avoiding large gatherings, but we aren't cutting ourselves off from friends and family entirely. We're two months in, and I still don't personally know anyone who has tested positive. We have to balance the risk with our sanity.

That seems pretty reckless with the lives of the grandparents.  You mentioned that you and your wife are not isolating yourselves from others (hanging out with friends), so during the period you've contracted the virus and are transmitting it without symptoms it's pretty likely you'll give it to them - and their age will put them in the high risk group.

It may be reckless but I think there are a fair number of people choosing to go that route.
The way a good friend explained it to me (over the phone:) they continue to take care of the grandkids, an almost one-year-old and a three-year-old so Mom can work from home and dad can still take roofing jobs.
They chose to do this for financial reasons, they would lose everything if they didn't - one income would not be near enough they are in way over their head financially.
Even if it were not - how could she possibly work from home and still take care of a baby and a toddler?

My friend tells me they go nowhere else except to each other's houses but of course, there is shopping and there is dad who works outside the home.

This isn't a perfect world and this isn't a perfect solution, these are simply people trying to deal with their circumstances, accepting more risk to their health for the good of their family - as they see it.
Both grandparents are in their early sixties, one with a heart condition and the other with a multitude of conditions living on pain meds, how she manages to take care of the house, garden and kids I have no idea - she's made of stern stuff.

Many of us have to deal with difficult situations - like my son, who quarantines with his wife and MIL both of them have MS, and his FIL who is in his late seventies and mildly demented.
He has become the sole shopper and everyone else only leaves the house when it is necessary to visit the doctor.
I don't know how he stays sane.
He is super careful and vigilant about everything, mask, gloves, cleaning, showers - the works.

He is terrified of killing his wife (just hit 40, MS, diabetic, overweight - death sentence) by bringing home the virus.

[ReadySetMillionaire]

We have been discussing this a lot over the last two weeks. It's become clear that the general population of the US will not tolerate an extended, comprehensive lockdown, and that is the only thing that would yield a solution other than the disease burning through the majority of the population until herd immunity is reached. All the input I've seen from experts in the field of virology and epidemiology say they'll be surprised if we have a vaccine in 12-18 months because it's never been done before. There's a first for everything but the hardest part of a vaccine is the trials. Just because we have several candidates right now doesn't mean any of them will be acceptable, though it wouldn't surprise me with this administration to see them pushing the first vaccine candidate that showed promise, even if it had abnormally high risks of side effects. Then you'll have to make the choice to get it or wait for a safer one.

How long will it take for all that to play out? It seems like everyone that actually knows what they're talking about is suggesting it will likely take years. Years. People aren't going to stay away from their parents or children for years. Just not going to happen.

We've been discussing a trip to see my mother and grandfather, and my wife's parents for Mother's Day. An argument could be made that this will be the safest time until a vaccine is available for us to see them. We have been quarantined for over a month. My mom works outside in a job that involves almost no human contact. My grandfather has been isolating as well. Her parents have had more contact so our socializing with them will have to involve more space. As people become less strict in their quarantine efforts due to fatigue, and more people go back to work, creating a web of interaction with others, risk will surely go up for asymptomatic transmission, compared to right now.

To further mitigate risk we've been discussing gathering outside. To my knowledge, there is no evidence that it's even transmissible outdoors if you're not standing on top of one another or touching each other. This makes a certain kind of sense. Air currents dilute the volume of virus expelled from an infected person and if you don't touch them, or surfaces their touching, or breath their air it's not possible for you to get it. So there are some ways that people can safely visit others if they're willing to use their heads and stick to a set of rules, like no touching or getting too close. It'll be a little awkward at first but not as awkward as not seeing your own mother for two years (for those used to frequent contact).

Unfortunately, the general population just can't handle a sensible set of rules like that. Hell, there are people so indignified at the thought of wearing a mask that they think it tramples their freedom. But on an individual level, if people can be smart about how they interact with others this doesn't have to be an all or nothing situation.

Great post, and I've bolded what I agree with most (as I've alluded to above).  Almost all the studies show being outside and properly distanced is good for your health and unlikely to transmit the virus.  I've basically resumed somewhat of a normal social life, just outside.

[Hula Hoop]

We're in Italy, so things have been "real" for us for a long time.  Our lock down happened on March 9 and was a lot more extreme that the lock downs in many other places.  We also live in an apartment with 2 kids with no balcony or other outside space. The only outside space we have in our roof.  We were only allowed to leave the apartment for almost 2 months to go food shopping, go to the pharmacy or go to work if we were essential workers (we're not).  Our kids were not allowed to leave the apartment.  We were only allowed to jog or walk dogs within 200 meters of our apartment -approximately 1 city block.  All parks were closed.

Anyway on Monday, they eased up the restrictions here a bit.  Parks (but not playgrounds) have reopened and we are allowed to exercise in them while social distancing and wearing masks.  We're now allowed to meet friends but we are allowed to meet family members while social distancing.  I took the kids to the park yesterday and it was amazing.  There were a lot of police around checking everyone and everyone was behaving.

The shit's also real for us as my husband owns a tourism business.  He is now a stay at home dad and, thank goodness, I'm able to work from home. Kind of put things into perspective.

[bluebelle]

I'm really struggling.....my mother is in a LTC facility.   They went in to lockdown March 14th.....I haven't seen her since and it is weighing heavily on her.   Phone calls aren't the same.   They started doing facetime visits 3 times a week, so that has cheered her up a little.   Because the folks in LTC are the most vulnerable, it is hard to predict when they will let me back in to see her.   It breaks my heart to hear her so sad and lonely.

I can deal with the grocery store line-ups and the spotty stock once inside, but it's the human side of things that I'm struggling with.   My brother's first grandchild learned to walk without us being able to see it.  Videos and facetime just aren't the same (but still grateful for the technology)

[MudPuppy]

My spouse and I are both essential workers who deal with the public, so it’s been real for a while, I guess.


The hardest part of all this for me in my personal life is that my dad has an end stage condition and I can’t risk visiting him. A few times I’ve gone to his house and sat in a chair in his yard about 10 feet off his porch and visited for a while, but it isn’t the same. Just sucks knowing that to avoid the risk of making his limited (~2 years) time left even more limited, I need to limit my contact with him.

[ender]

I'm really struggling.....my mother is in a LTC facility.   They went in to lockdown March 14th.....I haven't seen her since and it is weighing heavily on her.   Phone calls aren't the same.   They started doing facetime visits 3 times a week, so that has cheered her up a little.   Because the folks in LTC are the most vulnerable, it is hard to predict when they will let me back in to see her.   It breaks my heart to hear her so sad and lonely.

One of my extended family said something like "it sounds like grandma is in jail" which feels kind of true.

She is in an assisted living facility and everyone is stuck in their rooms all day with meals being taken directly to their room.

I do not really know a better way to keep folks safe other than expecting unreasonable things from the staff but it makes me feel for people in that situation. She socialized a ton, too, especially at meals. It's really all folks at that age (90+) have going for them.

[OtherJen]

My spouse and I are both essential workers who deal with the public, so it’s been real for a while, I guess.


The hardest part of all this for me in my personal life is that my dad has an end stage condition and I can’t risk visiting him. A few times I’ve gone to his house and sat in a chair in his yard about 10 feet off his porch and visited for a while, but it isn’t the same. Just sucks knowing that to avoid the risk of making his limited (~2 years) time left even more limited, I need to limit my contact with him.

I'm so sorry. I watched one set of cousins go through this with their dad last month (we lost my uncle 3 weeks ago), and another set of cousins are currently going through this with their mom (just went on hospice). It's one of the most heartbreaking things about of all of this. We can't say our goodbyes or grieve as we normally would.

I'm glad that you are able to have some contact with your dad. I hope that rapid testing will soon give you more peace of mind and more freedom to spend time with him.

[MudPuppy]

I’ve been tested plenty, but due to my continued exposure at work (I am a nurse in a hospital setting) I will likely not feel safe enough for a long time.

Doesn’t help that my state had a “phased” opening that is kind of a joke.

[JLee]

We aren't cutting ourselves off from everyone. If we need a break from our kid, I have no problem taking him to his grandparents for a day. Additionally, my wife can keep him alone for a few hours while I go play golf, or I can keep him for a bit while she goes for a walk with a friend.

We're avoiding large gatherings, but we aren't cutting ourselves off from friends and family entirely. We're two months in, and I still don't personally know anyone who has tested positive. We have to balance the risk with our sanity.

That seems pretty reckless with the lives of the grandparents.  You mentioned that you and your wife are not isolating yourselves from others (hanging out with friends), so during the period you've contracted the virus and are transmitting it without symptoms it's pretty likely you'll give it to them - and their age will put them in the high risk group.

Again, we (and the grandparents who want to see their grandchildren) are weighing the risk v reward and are deciding that it is not so risky that we shouldn't see each other in person.

Calling it 'pretty likely' that we'll give them the virus is completely false and fear mongering. The odds are well below 1% that we'll get the virus, based on our social interaction.

If there was a jar that had 200 Skittles in it and one of them would kill the person who ate it, would you eat them anyway?

That's a terrible metaphor; I'm not sure why people keep using it.

The reward for letting my in-laws watch my child are numerous:
1. They get to spend time with their grandchild.
2. He gets to spend time with his grandparents.
3. We get a much-needed break, which keeps us sane.

The reward for eating a skittle is a fucking skittle.

A better metaphor would be something like this: "If you had a migraine, and I gave you a bottle with 1,000 pills, 999 of which will cure the migraine and 1 that will kill you, would you take a pill?" The answer to that depends on how bad the headache is. In our case, a 0.1% chance (or more likely less) chance of contracting and spreading the virus is worth the benefits we get from letting our child spend a day with his grandparents once every couple weeks.

People keep using it because some people don't grasp how significant 1% risk is.

I don't live in the middle of nowhere, so I'm choosing to not visit family and friends -- I can do that later once things settle down. ~1.5% of the residents of my state have tested positive (and anybody with half a brain knows we are not testing nearly enough to have accurate numbers).

1.5% of the residents of the state testing positive doesn't mean a 1% risk of dying. Even if the testing is vastly underdone and actually 10% of the residents are actually positive, of whom 1% die, that would imply a 0.1% chance of dying overall.

NYC's death rate of reported cases is 10% (likely due to vastly inadequate testing depressing the positive-case numbers), but ok. You do you.

That's because NYC doesn't have good testing protocols. I acknowledged that when I boosted the figure you gave (1.5%) by 7-fold to 10%, to account for better testing. If I wanted to compare apples with apples, I could have simply taken 10% (the NYC death rate) of the figure you gave (1.5% positive tests) to get a final figure of 0.15%. Either way, a huge deviation from your figure of 1%. There is nowhere that is having 1% of its population die.

Great job, sherlock. If you're going to be so insistent that numbers match perfectly in a rough analogy, I'd love to hear how you came up with my "figure of 1%."

Clearly you're going to do whatever you want no matter what's going on - I just hope you don't kill someone.  One of my coworkers is out today because his grandmother just died from this.

[charis]

I've also had a few coworkers who lost older relatives to the virus recently.  Maybe that's why I'm uninterested in risking my parents' lives, even if the risk is relatively small.

[JLee]

I've also had a few coworkers who lost older relatives to the virus recently.  Maybe that's why I'm uninterested in risking my parents' lives, even if the risk is relatively small.

Yuuup. It's not worth the risk for me.  Different people have different risk equations, and risk also varies wildly based on locale -- but with 0.23% (19,198) of the people living in NYC (8.399 mil) having died from it so far (and 3.9% of the population with confirmed cases), and with NYC being visible from my backyard...it's just not worth it. 600k+ people normally go through Penn Station every day (including many of my coworkers, but fortunately we've been mostly work from home for ~2 months now). If we estimate that we've tested half (and based on the below link, that's massively optimistic) and the other half are asymptomatic carriers, that would be over 23,000 carriers going through Penn Station on any given day.  With quarantine that's massively reduced, thankfully.

Two weeks ago, they were estimating 21% of NYC residents had coronavirus at one point: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/23/842818125/coronavirus-has-infected-a-fifth-of-new-york-city-testing-suggests

[MoseyingAlong]

...... I watched one set of cousins go through this with their dad last month (we lost my uncle 3 weeks ago), and another set of cousins are currently going through this with their mom (just went on hospice). It's one of the most heartbreaking things about of all of this. We can't say our goodbyes or grieve as we normally would.

For people in your aunt's situation (known limited time left), I wonder what they would choose between
a. Being physically close to their loved ones with a high risk of infection and thus even less time or
b. Probably more time with no/extremely limited physical contact with loved ones.

Especially considering that many people in hospice are in a great deal of pain. (Hence the desire for legalized assisted suicide.)

Sitting here today, I think I would choose the closeness of loved ones but who knows what I'd choose in the actual situation.

This is such a tough situation for so many people. The individual. Their loved ones. Their care providers. The public health authorities. My sympathies to all.

[NorCal]

I know I'm a bit of an outlier here, but this new reality hasn't been all that bad for me.  In many ways, this has been a preview of FIRE for me.  I am incredibly grateful for our savings, my wife's continued employment (although it is at risk), and some lucky financial moves that only impacted our NW by ~5% in the market downturn.

Sure, there's things I miss doing and places I wish I could go.  I'll be disappointed if we can't do the group camping trip we planned for my 40th.  But on balance, this has actually given me the opportunity to spend time on more of the things that are truly important, and less time on the things that aren't important.  Although I'm annoyed that TV has crept back into my life.

I am both grateful and lucky (in timing) that I chose the end of 2019 to become a stay at home dad.  I had planned to spend more time with my kids (3 and 6).  I just get to spend a lot more time with the 6 year old than I originally bargained for.  Home schooling for Kindergarten is tough, but rewarding.  We keep our standards low and don't take it too seriously.  Even so, my daughters are clearly thriving and learning plenty.

I'm also getting a chance to do house and yardwork that's been put off way too long.  I'm also cooking more and better food, and trying to make my own wine again.

[FireLane]

For people in your aunt's situation (known limited time left), I wonder what they would choose between
a. Being physically close to their loved ones with a high risk of infection and thus even less time or
b. Probably more time with no/extremely limited physical contact with loved ones.

Especially considering that many people in hospice are in a great deal of pain. (Hence the desire for legalized assisted suicide.)

Sitting here today, I think I would choose the closeness of loved ones but who knows what I'd choose in the actual situation.

This is such a tough situation for so many people. The individual. Their loved ones. Their care providers. The public health authorities. My sympathies to all.

Yeah, I think this is a moral calculation that more people need to be making. It's a good impulse to do everything possible to protect our elders... but let's say you refuse to visit your grandfather (or whoever) for his own safety, and then he dies from a heart attack three months later. In that case, the only thing your precautions accomplished was to make the last months of his life lonelier and more painful than they had to be.

Like I said before, there's no choice that's free of risk. You just have to choose which risks you're comfortable taking.

[Fish Sweet]

I've also had a few coworkers who lost older relatives to the virus recently.  Maybe that's why I'm uninterested in risking my parents' lives, even if the risk is relatively small.

Same here.  The chances are pretty slim-- I rarely leave the house these days, my dad is jjjjust within the high risk age range (60+) and in great health otherwise.  But I live with several other adults who-- while practicing good social distancing-- are still going grocery shopping, getting takeout, running errands.  I'm not too worried about my health but I know too many people who've gotten seriously sick and/or lost family members to it to be cavalier with his.  We all have to weigh the risks, but for me, even if it was a one in a thousand, ten thousand chance-- fuck no.

That's not even touching on my grandparents in their 90's.  Thank goodness they're not in the US, or I would be seriously worried about them.

[Monoposto]

Lots of virtue signaling in here. Geesh. Busting a carbon budget for having multiple kids - GTFO...

Amen.

This thread is the epitome of why I loathe some of the negative mindsets on the MMM forum.  what's next are you guys going to tell people what can and can't make them happy?

Oh wait, some of you already do that. lol

GTFO indeed.

[MudPuppy]

Wtf are you talking about

[frontstepdesign]

Around me there's accumulating quarantine fatigue and lifting restrictions - no surprise, we're pretty rural and the community is perhaps deluded in its isolation/self-sufficiency...but it's getting closer, and I'm starting to hold my breath for an explosion.

My 'essential infrastructure' (utilities) husband came home last week with the news that his coworker's wife (an urgent care nurse) has a coworker that she sees everyday who tested positive.  This is the closest that it's come to us yet.

I wasn't scared last month, but I am wrestling with it now.  I give two, maybe three weeks before we catch it.  DH tells me that he's got a lot of solitary field maintenance for the next couple of weeks, and hopefully that'll reduce exposure from his colleague.  They have small children - no one expects the nurse to be able to keep the virus to herself in their household.

[simonsez]

I've also had a few coworkers who lost older relatives to the virus recently.  Maybe that's why I'm uninterested in risking my parents' lives, even if the risk is relatively small.

Yuuup. It's not worth the risk for me.  Different people have different risk equations, and risk also varies wildly based on locale -- but with 0.23% (19,198) of the people living in NYC (8.399 mil) having died from it so far (and 3.9% of the population with confirmed cases), and with NYC being visible from my backyard...it's just not worth it. 600k+ people normally go through Penn Station every day (including many of my coworkers, but fortunately we've been mostly work from home for ~2 months now). If we estimate that we've tested half (and based on the below link, that's massively optimistic) and the other half are asymptomatic carriers, that would be over 23,000 carriers going through Penn Station on any given day.  With quarantine that's massively reduced, thankfully.

Two weeks ago, they were estimating 21% of NYC residents had coronavirus at one point: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/23/842818125/coronavirus-has-infected-a-fifth-of-new-york-city-testing-suggests

Sounds like you're making an educated choice, glad that's what works best for you.

Luckily I live hundreds of miles away from that area and it's pretty tame to have a friend (who has also been staying at home) over to the back patio, sit on opposite couches, pick up a little Vitamin D, and generally shoot the breeze.  No hugs, plenty of sanitization, gloves, protective eyeware, no public transit, social distancing, masks on, no immune-compromised people I'm seeing - it definitely seems like there are many more than 200 Skittles in the bowl I'm grabbing from.

Our mileage all varies.

[Mrs. Fire Lane]

it has become very obvious that some people, not necessarily those commenting in this thread, have been treating schools as convenient babysitters and would have trouble coping with having their kids full time whatever the circumstances, which doesn't say much for their child-rearing skills.

Not a great look to criticize the child rearing skills of parents in an unprecedented situation.

Assuming that schools would *exist* is not poor planning or poor parenting.

In the history of humankind, ”the nuclear family” as we know it is an anomaly made possible by the post WWII economic boom. Most people in the history of people raised their children with extended family, neighbors and friends to help so that they could have a break sometimes. It’s perfectly normal to be stressed out when losing all forms of family and community support.

[HPstache]

I fully agree 'the shit's getting real'.

Another month or two and our kids will have done so much damage to the house that we'll not only lose our deposit when we move eventually but likely be charged extra just for damage repairs.

We have three boys - 5, 2.5, and 6mos, and my Mother (who had the same number and rough age spread) has told us repeatedly that she doesn't think she would have been able to hold it together had similar circumstances arose when we were young.

My wife and I are not, inherently, entitled to a break from our kids (and we do love them), but holy fuck being stuck inside with them for coming on two months is really testing our limits as parents. I'm 100% serious when I say that had someone told us a global pandemic was going to occur and that we would be without support indefinitely, we would have had fewer kids.

We just want a break. A babysitter. Our parents. Our siblings. Rec center childcare. Any-fucking-thing to allow my wife and I to have more than 30 minutes out of the day together that our kids don't need our attention.

We're turning into bitter people, watching most of the people we know with 0-1 kids (or kids older than, say, 8), go through this quarantine being able to 'relax' or keep the damn house clean for longer than 5 minutes.

I'm incredibly fortunate to have kept my job without salary cuts. I've effectively run out of meaningful work to do (see: my username - can't take a Chem lab home with you!) so I can shoulder a lot of the burden that my wife usually carries. But, there is going to come a point where we say 'fuck it'.

Random Coincidence, we also have 3 boys age 5, 2.75 and 6 mo... lol

[MudPuppy]

@MoseyingAlong my father is in perfect mental health and he understands (and participated in decision making, although I might have pressed if he had drawn a different conclusion) what we’re doing although it hurts him, too. I don’t hug him now I’m optimism that I’ll have him to hug later.


FWIW my spouse and I are not single household quarantining. Our neighboring house is two nat’l guard members that are deployed to testing sites and we made the conscious choice to treat our two houses as one for the duration of the crises, since we are all four high exposure persons. Currently they are not able to come home and their two dogs are having a grand sleepover.

[scottish]

Sounds like Sweden may have had the right idea after all.    We can't keep wide swaths of the economy closed indefinitely even if our citizens were willing to do so.

[GuitarStv]

Sounds like Sweden may have had the right idea after all.    We can't keep wide swaths of the economy closed indefinitely even if our citizens were willing to do so.

Indefinite closure has never been the part of anybody's plan.  The real question is - will people be responsible enough to allow a faster re-opening and an economic recovery?  Or will they be so stupid that they cause multiple re-closures and a lot of needless deaths because they fail to follow safe guidelines regarding masks, distancing, and keeping the hell away from high risk groups (like anyone over 60)?

The choice is ours.

Unfortunately the people who seem to be most interested in re-opening are also the least interested in preventing another closure soon . . . because they fail to realize that things have fundamentally changed and things aren't likely getting 'back to normal' any time in the next couple years.

[K_in_the_kitchen]

It has honestly been pleasant to quarantine with my husband, two college aged sons, and our two dogs. DH is working from home, and the boys' community college classes transitioned to online after their spring break.

Our house isn't big, but having grown up with 6 people in 1000 square feet, our 1700 square feet feels like a mansion. It's an old house, with 3 bedrooms and no dedicated family room, so we turned the large master bedroom into a "family" room, taking us down to 2 bedrooms. Once the boys hit college age they didn't want to share a bedroom (one's a night owl, one's a lark), so our oldest uses the "family" room as his bedroom. Each morning he takes the bedding off the eurolounger and turns it back into a couch, gets dressed, and exits the room so DH can use it as his office. Come evening we all pile in to watch a little TV or a movie (something we've taken up during the pandemic -- I'm don't usually watch TV everyday), then my son turns it back into a bedroom.

We homeschooled K-12, so togetherness is part of our family culture, and our boys grew up with each other as friends and playmates, not just siblings. I'm honestly happier with everyone at home. I also appreciate how strict we were with screens when the boys were growing up, because we are all better at entertaining ourselves because of it. As I type there's an animated game of Star Trek Uno being played, and before that the guitars were out. I've realized our days now aren't unlike our homeschooling days when the boys were younger, except back then we were able to go on field trips, attend a weekly park group, and hang out with friends. I am absolutely accustomed to being with my boys all of the time.

There has been a blessed break from errands and grocery shopping and family gatherings and other obligatory social functions and bike races. I am sinking into the freedom from busyness and anxiety (just don't make me Zoom!). I know which activities I'm willing to let back in, and which I will say no to more often.

We occasionally stop and visit with neighbors outside, staying at least 6 feet apart. Since 3/12 we've had no other contact with people other than my son and I chauffeuring my dad to and from an outpatient procedure 3/16. My DH is working from home, and my boys are on leave of absence from their employer.

We also came to realize this may be how it is for quite some time, easily through summer. It seems unlikely the boys will be back physically at college in August -- I expect the semester to start online.  DH will work from home as long as he is allowed to, and since the commute is a 5 minute bike ride, he will negotiate staying home even if most people return to the office, since he can be present at meetings easily. We won't have our summer concert series to attend. Bicycle racing isn't likely to resume this year. At some point, however, I expect our parents to start pushing for visits, especially if social distance guidelines are loosened. Both my MIL and my dad are not adhering to social distancing strictly, although my MIL is trying (my SIL lives with her and isn't doing such a great job). My dad works in an essential business, and frequents stores almost daily. I do kind of understand though, since he lives alone. He plans to move across the country in late summer, so hopefully we can figure out a safe way to help him (and see him) before he goes.

[Bloop Bloop]

We aren't cutting ourselves off from everyone. If we need a break from our kid, I have no problem taking him to his grandparents for a day. Additionally, my wife can keep him alone for a few hours while I go play golf, or I can keep him for a bit while she goes for a walk with a friend.

We're avoiding large gatherings, but we aren't cutting ourselves off from friends and family entirely. We're two months in, and I still don't personally know anyone who has tested positive. We have to balance the risk with our sanity.

That seems pretty reckless with the lives of the grandparents.  You mentioned that you and your wife are not isolating yourselves from others (hanging out with friends), so during the period you've contracted the virus and are transmitting it without symptoms it's pretty likely you'll give it to them - and their age will put them in the high risk group.

Again, we (and the grandparents who want to see their grandchildren) are weighing the risk v reward and are deciding that it is not so risky that we shouldn't see each other in person.

Calling it 'pretty likely' that we'll give them the virus is completely false and fear mongering. The odds are well below 1% that we'll get the virus, based on our social interaction.

If there was a jar that had 200 Skittles in it and one of them would kill the person who ate it, would you eat them anyway?

That's a terrible metaphor; I'm not sure why people keep using it.

The reward for letting my in-laws watch my child are numerous:
1. They get to spend time with their grandchild.
2. He gets to spend time with his grandparents.
3. We get a much-needed break, which keeps us sane.

The reward for eating a skittle is a fucking skittle.

A better metaphor would be something like this: "If you had a migraine, and I gave you a bottle with 1,000 pills, 999 of which will cure the migraine and 1 that will kill you, would you take a pill?" The answer to that depends on how bad the headache is. In our case, a 0.1% chance (or more likely less) chance of contracting and spreading the virus is worth the benefits we get from letting our child spend a day with his grandparents once every couple weeks.

People keep using it because some people don't grasp how significant 1% risk is.

I don't live in the middle of nowhere, so I'm choosing to not visit family and friends -- I can do that later once things settle down. ~1.5% of the residents of my state have tested positive (and anybody with half a brain knows we are not testing nearly enough to have accurate numbers).

1.5% of the residents of the state testing positive doesn't mean a 1% risk of dying. Even if the testing is vastly underdone and actually 10% of the residents are actually positive, of whom 1% die, that would imply a 0.1% chance of dying overall.

NYC's death rate of reported cases is 10% (likely due to vastly inadequate testing depressing the positive-case numbers), but ok. You do you.

That's because NYC doesn't have good testing protocols. I acknowledged that when I boosted the figure you gave (1.5%) by 7-fold to 10%, to account for better testing. If I wanted to compare apples with apples, I could have simply taken 10% (the NYC death rate) of the figure you gave (1.5% positive tests) to get a final figure of 0.15%. Either way, a huge deviation from your figure of 1%. There is nowhere that is having 1% of its population die.

Great job, sherlock. If you're going to be so insistent that numbers match perfectly in a rough analogy, I'd love to hear how you came up with my "figure of 1%."

Clearly you're going to do whatever you want no matter what's going on - I just hope you don't kill someone.  One of my coworkers is out today because his grandmother just died from this.

You're right. The figure you put wasn't 1%, it was 0.5% (1 skittle out of 200). It's still off by a factor of 3. So your numbers are still fudged.

I am going to do whatever I like. My state reported only 14 new cases today, out of 10,000 tests done, and 13 of those were connected to a known outbreak which is being quarantined. In other words, only 1 new case aside from a controlled outbreak. 1 out of 5 million. I think I'll take the odds on that and enjoy a nice road trip today, since I've earned it.

[Bloop Bloop]

Lots of virtue signaling in here. Geesh. Busting a carbon budget for having multiple kids - GTFO...

Amen.

This thread is the epitome of why I loathe some of the negative mindsets on the MMM forum.  what's next are you guys going to tell people what can and can't make them happy?

Oh wait, some of you already do that. lol

GTFO indeed.

People can do whatever they like but having children is just as bad for the environment as jet setting. That was the point of post which you are critiquing.

MMM criticises plenty of over-consumption things like "clown cars" so I don't see why you should be so sensitive to the truth that cars, international travel and children are all luxuries which we choose as lifestyle choices.

[ReadySetMillionaire]

Lots of virtue signaling in here. Geesh. Busting a carbon budget for having multiple kids - GTFO...

Amen.

This thread is the epitome of why I loathe some of the negative mindsets on the MMM forum.  what's next are you guys going to tell people what can and can't make them happy?

Oh wait, some of you already do that. lol

GTFO indeed.

People can do whatever they like but having children is just as bad for the environment as jet setting. That was the point of post which you are critiquing.

MMM criticises plenty of over-consumption things like "clown cars" so I don't see why you should be so sensitive to the truth that cars, international travel and children are all luxuries which we choose as lifestyle choices.

I think the point is that merely looking at kids in terms of their carbon footprint, instead of everything they might accomplish in their lives (including inventions and discoveries that are great for the human race and planet), just comes off as mean and over-simplistic.

But I really don’t want to go down this rabbit hole, so I’ll again repeat:

GO OUTSIDE. It is good for you.

[Trudie]

I have a great deal of sympathy for people stuck in unsatisfactory conditions or unable to give small children the exercise and company they need or get a break for themselves.  And there are many people even worse off than that, even without taking into account those who have been ill or died from this virus.

But I am finding it dispiriting that there are people whose main complaint is that they don't want to have to wait in order to bust their carbon budget and destroy the planet by starting to fly around the world again.

Technically, the people having multiple kids are busting their carbon budget and destroying the planet waaaaay more than the people who fly a couple times a year and don't have kids.

Lots of virtue signaling in here. Geesh. Busting a carbon budget for having multiple kids - GTFO...

Yes.  The sanctimony is overflowing.  GTFO is right.

Amen.

This thread is the epitome of why I loathe some of the negative mindsets on the MMM forum.  what's next are you guys going to tell people what can and can't make them happy?

Oh wait, some of you already do that. lol

GTFO indeed.