on Cuomo's nipples - maybe he's just an older guy w/ some fat on his pecs, big aerola, and it's cold in there making the aerola dimple

on risk: if the LW is driving between places and it's between 2 houses or wearing a mask in an apt. building elevator, frankly, I think it's an acceptable risk

RE millions dying - if USA was less freakin' capitalist, we'd have more hospitals (a whole bunch of hospitals were CLOSED in the last 2 decades due to "maximizing profit and efficiency and erasing spare capacity" by the MBAs)

we'd also have more ventilators, more stockpiles (fewer just in time global supply chains if you're not all about maximizing every last dollar for the CEOs)

if we had socialized medicine and decent central planning for all disasters (incl pandemics, earthquakes, hurricanes) - we'd be in a better preparation for a surge, for a pandemic, for all kinds of shit

and now, we wouldn't need so much quite so much social distancing because we wouldn't have to flatten the curve quite so much - a lot of this isn't about reducing the final total number of infections, it's that we have no spare capacity in the hospitals

and the economy would have been spared and ironically most businesses would be better off financially

fuck the billionaires and CEOs who structure everything for the 0.001% and fuck the stupid masses who keep voting in republicans and fuck the people who are thinking Trump is doing well and boosting his numbers

and we'd tax wealth - even Bill Gates is against that - which could pay for replacing 100% of lost wages, allow small business to continue, and allow economy to reboot quickly when this passes

my idea - all Republican supporters, who believe Trump anyway, should decide this is over by Easter and all go to large megachurches where they stay for 6 weeks, no need to burden the public health system let the weak die. bring all your guns too. the few who aren't dead can shoot each other.

Delat @ 2
Agreed. One of the reasons Sweden can afford no distancing- which may only be an illusion, we don’t know yet- is because their health system is so much more efficient and accessible and people actually TRUST the authorities.

Capitalism failure is indeed glaring, yet those on top are using the current crisis to further ratchet their control of the masses, be it the environment or natives’ rights. Apparently this is a global phenomenon as similar shit is happening in some ther countries as we speak.

In slightly less depressing news: where can one order the freak flag?

(Replying to CMDwannabe) This is "Squirm", the instigator of the Freak Flag. Its not currently for sale, the individual cost is too high. But if there is enough interest I'd love to do a production run. If you want to get on the (brand new) waiting list, please email me at squirm at rubberzone dot com (age 18+ contacts only at that address, thanks).

Great flag, and more info on words and their meanings.
Thanks Dan for sticking with routine here, it helps.
Stay safe everyone.

Dadddy @1: Congrats on the firdt. Apparently that's a precursor to good things.

I'm struggling to understand the logic behind the one household rule. I can kiss my girlfriend, who lives with me. But what if she lived next door? Across the street? Across town?

The bottom line is obviously minimizing contact with others. Provided I drive across town in my hermetically sealed bubble, and have no other contact, it's fundamentally identical to a single household.

Or perhaps I'm missing something?

@7 fubar
No, you're not missing anything, as we've been saying all week, when you put it well with the phrase "no material difference. I played with a hypothetical about married people living separately.

At first I found myself wondering (sorry Dan) ungraciously to myself if Dan were biased because his spouse didn't live separately, but then I grabbed myself by the neck, shook some sense into my stressed-out body, and instead proposed that as a public figure it makes sense for Dan to state it simply, as public policy probably needs to be stated, since people are already gonna take a mile if you give them an inch, and it does no one any good if you give them the whole mile (that makes sense if you talk about it in a way that's gonna be over the heads of the masses anyway) because then they're gonna take even more than the mile that makes sense.

It's more about influencing people to do the right thing. Which is what's important, not "rules". And neither can really be stated simply. Nor do I trust the masses to figure out what the right thing is if we give them the whole mile. (Sorry, I know I've put this metaphor on the metaphorical rack.)

(Particularly now when potential contagion on everything everywhere (including exhalations on wind currents) makes optimal behavior wildly complicated and require far more awareness and mental focus than most people have.) But I trust myself to do all this, so as always, rules will not influence me, what is right will.

But I think average people do need rules now in order to minimize how many millions of people will die because of Trump's ongoing historic crime against humanity.

Curious @9: I just spent a half hour at the grocery store. The people need clear rules. And still they scoff and bluster. It's disheartening.

@9 p.s.
And I think fubar@8 (sorry @7 was my typo)

"Provided I drive across town in my hermetically sealed bubble, and have no other contact, it's fundamentally identical to a single household"

applies to children of divorced parents, too.

I won't ask anyone to wrap their heads around this since I certainly can't, but this could go on a very long time. I'm gonna scream if I say how long.

Does anyone want the some number of the world's kids of divorced parents to only have one parent for a year or whatever?

I would agree that, as my married-couple-living-apart hypothetical might imply, poly networks are a different matter. And I'll leave it there.

@10 fubar
In the the SF Bay Area I heard there was a fist fight in a supermarket aisle. Which dumbfounds me when a punch bearing COVID can be fatal.

And part of why I live here is to try to minimize the number of idiots in my environment, I can't bear imagining what it must be like in the rightwing backwaters.

Dadddy: I 100% agree!

curious2: I think you hit the nail on the head!

I was very annoyed by Dan / this week's roundup... Thanks for helping restore my sanity commenters! :)

I think another factor is that people are very afraid. Terrified. Fear can get in the way of calm analysis.

Fear looks around at regions that locked down way too late--even worse if that includes the region one lives in--and reacts calling for the most extreme possible measures because fear doesn't think, it simply doesn't want to die.

But fear hasn't analyzed whether those measures are all practical and all of practical value.

\Break\
I've got fear too; I've got elevated risk and have been tremendously focused on doing what I can to be safe. I wish that instead of being single I had a partner; OTOH, now that would be another infection vector in my life, and one not in my control, so having that welcome hypothetical partner would also be a source of fear. Even if they also had elevated risk and like me were taking the proper precautions. (Because some risks can't be avoided; for example I've experienced some unavoidable risks related to the death of my fridge this week, and resulting vectors like a failed attempt at repair by a brave repairperson [for which I took some funny precautions], and daily trips to make dry ice purchases from opposite sides of a parking lot.) But would I keep seeing this purely hypothetical partner via fubar's "hermetically sealed bubble" if they didn't live here? I'm sure I would.

But if my purely hypothetical partner were on the front lines in a hospital, that would be a horse of a different color given my elevated risk, and my heart hurts just imagining the hypothetical choice I'd be compelled to make.

And if instead of being single I was in a poly network? Again, just too much risk for me, and I think for poly configurations above some since too much risk for everyone including society.

@13 correction Ooops, by
"I think for poly configurations above some SINCE too much risk"
I meant something like
"I think for poly configurations above some THRESHOLD THERE WOULD BE too much risk"

(Sorry I didn't finish re-working that one!)

Children are still moving between parents here, and so many are still going out to work, like my youngest who is a check out person. Gloves is what they give them, when as has been obvious from Asian countries, masks are necessary. He and his gf are staying separate, but he’s back and forth here. I’ve said I want to ring and complain, and have on their fb page, it’s a big grocery company. He declined, and given he’s an adult, what do I do? I keep my distance from all.

Dan, will you and Terry make a celibacy pledge in solidarity with us solo dwellers until this crisis passes? Your hard line would be much easier to accept if we knew you were suffering along with us.

Congrats to Mtn Beaver on a well deserved shout out!
And high five to SHAVE who can now once again enjoyably kiss his husband!

There are those of us who, like gay men during the AIDS crisis, can be trusted to be sensible. Like those who can "move through the city to get to Partner #1's home and then move through the city to get to Partner #2's home and then move through the city to get back home" without actually coming into contact with "countless others," or ANY others, who it does seem sensible to grant exceptions to. And then there are people who, like Fubar's shoppers, won't obey rules no matter how strict and/or sensible they are. Most of us are doing our best. And Dan does have to accept that mental health is important here. We are not going to flatten any curves if the number of lives saved from coronavirus are lost due to suicide or domestic violence.

BDF @16: In defence of Dan, his advice is "best practise". As Lava said, some people are still working as a necessity, but others are completely ignoring the guidelines. There needs to be a PR campaign to improve compliance.

Here in Toronto, police have been ordered to hand out $5,000 fines to non-cohabiting people walking within 6ft of one another. I don't suppose their target is non-custodial parents visiting their children, but rather the dopes - and there are a lot of them - that just don't give a shit. Extreme rules yield partial results, but better results than no rules, or lax rules.

Now they're telling us that we should be wearing masks, and Trump has gleefully ordered 3M to stop shipping masks to Canada. Sigh.

Look, it's hard to isolate oneself, especially when there's no real end to the emergency in sight. And of course, some people can't and have to work, and we all have to continue to bring food and--if one can find it--toilet paper and soap, etc. into our homes.

It goes without saying that this whole situation--the forced isolation, the loss of jobs/income, the fear of catching the disease, the fear of spreading the virus to vulnerable populations (for me, a greater worry than catching it myself), the lack of certainty about when it will all end, the concern about what a post-COVID19 world will look and function like, etc.--will take a toll (or has the potential to take a toll) on a lot of people's mental health. I am slipping deeper into depression with each passing day, myself.

I don't know what I would say if I had young children and was still sharing custody with my ex; I don't know what I would do if I were in a relationship with someone who didn't live with me.

I understand the temptation to be with those people we love.
I also understand the pull of libido.

But.

I know someone who cannot visit her elderly mother who is in an assisted-living facility where visitors are no longer allowed. Yesterday was the mom's 96th birthday, and the best my friend could do was to wave at her and blow kisses through the glass doors of the building. I had to call off my own planned visit to my dying father--literally on his deathbed--because if in my visit to him, I transmitted the virus to my frail, elderly mother, I would never forgive myself. I just read an article by a mother who can't hug her 12-year-old son who has a case of COVID and has had to self-quarantine in his home, because one of her other children has a health condition that leaves him especially vulnerable to catching what would likely be a particularly virulent form of the virus. This is a mom who literally CANNOT HUG HER SICK CHILD for the good of others.

In light of the severity of this, I find I have little patience for those who are complaining that they have to go weeks or maybe 2-3 months without having sex, either with their partner or a hookup. People go without sex all the time. Some have taken a vow of celibacy (even if this is voluntary, it's not easy; I know: I have both monks and nuns as friends). Some are single and celibate not by choice, but circumstantially. Some are in monogamous, long-distance relationships. They survive. Think of spouses/families where one member is in the armed forces and serving oversees, while the other partner is home. Think of scientists or technicians on assignment in Antarctica. Think of people in prison. Being involuntarily celibate (not an incel) is a common human condition, and for many people, it lasts friggin' YEARS, not 3 measly months.

Knock it the fuck off, stay the fuck at home, and know that you're doing your part to keep that immunocompromised person alive. How fucking hard is that to grok? Yeah, it's a drag. And?

@19 nocutename
"I am slipping deeper into depression with each passing day, myself"

Know that we're all here for you and for each other, n.

"In light of the severity of this, I find I have little patience for those who are complaining that they have to go weeks or maybe 2-3 months without having sex"

This sure is a complicated situation. For example, some people need to, and some people don't need to, go without (knowing who is who isn't so easy). It isn't easy to be patient with some people right now.

But just because there's a global nightmare afoot, doesn't mean that people aren't experiencing private nightmares from what might look pretty small to us.

I think a great number of people have always found it near-impossibly traumatic to simply be alone with their own thoughts. I ABSOLUTELY DO EFFING NOT THINK THIS EXEMPTS THEM FROM THEIR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES, but I also honor that they're facing a huge mental health challenge. One that could create magnificent growth in their life, or could break them. Just feeling forced to deal right now on our own makes every challenge potentially frightening.

I'd always been great at being alone, but some time ago something came up that made it difficult. I honor the huge challenge of the great number of people that aren't good at being alone. I hope they end up winning this trial by fire, rather than being defeated by it.

"3 measly months"

What an optimistic view!

/Break/
"Right Now, We All Need A Practice"
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/george-goehl/89823/right-now-we-all-need-a-practice

@20: I'm not trying to diminish anyone's real sense of loneliness or suffering. As you know from the email group, because I have my younger daughter virtually on top of me 24/7 during the crisis, I haven't even been able to masturbate for the past 22 days and don't expect to have enough privacy to do that for another 5-6 weeks or so.

My sympathies are with people who are lonely, who are struggling. But I am losing patience with those who think that they are somehow exceptions to the need for sheltering in place and socially distancing themselves.

And yeah, right now, I'm thinking 3 measly months. By late June, the virus should have died down in the northern hemisphere enough to make it possible for people to resume social contact again. And then yes, more people will catch COVID because it will still be out there, but hopefully the medical professionals will not be so overwhelmed as to be unable to care for them, and there should be enough ventilators and hospital beds to go around. The prediction is that the virus would spike again in Nov-December, before falling to lower levels again. It will return in waves; that's what plagues do. But by next spring, many of us will have had it and recovered and hopefully will be immune (we still don't know yet whether or for how long immunity is conferred on people who have had it), and a vaccine will be available. So while I'm not being so optimistic as to think that come July 1st, this will all be over forever, I do think that a lot of the social distancing issues will be resolved by then.

Thank goodness there are phones and the internet. Thank goodness there are a variety of ways to have conversations and see people we care about without being in actual physical proximity to them.

More than those who can't bone their non-residential squeeze right now, I feel for parents who share joint custody. My kids are old enough where that's no longer the case, but if they were still younger, I would discuss with my ex the pros and cons to having them stay in one place or the other and then I'd make a decision about which home was best, and leave them there. This would be hard. Yet people send their kids to boarding school. People send their kids to military school or summer camp or a junior year abroad even a high school year abroad. Children go off to college and live out of state. Parents of promising, Olympic-quality athletes let those kids live at trainers' houses (something I think is more dangerous than shuttling back and forth between parents in the time of Corona).

This is a public health emergency; it isn't just about you (not YOU, curious2, the universal and theoretical you).

Patricia Bosworth has died, from this virus, she wrote great biographies of Diane Arbus and Montgomery Cliff. She was eighty one.
This is real, and as for the future, no one knows how things will be culturally, once this ends. How we use our minds and treat our bodies during this time is preparation for how we adapt later.
The kids here.. this weekend five because the de facto son in law has his three with his ex, over. They are being creative when not having arguments about whose turn it is for the walkie talkie. Lucky, we have a good sized block here and they have built forts and bike hurdles. They are in the moment, and this encourages the adults here to stay in the moment too.
I stay in my space and hear them outside my window.

Sorry to hear about your dad, nocute.
This time for me, I can start to feel my grief and loss about my mother. Now I can’t travel south, the completion of her estate is on hold and I don’t have to deal with family of origin sludge.
My family here, is now my complete focus.
I’ve just watched the whole of entourage, a show the kids and I watched years ago. A terrible guilty pleasure for sure. So sexist and horrifying watching those lads in Hollywood, when it was as it was, Harvey still around. And such riches. What’s a feminist to do enjoying such a show?

Next I’ll watch the Marilyn Monroe box set I’ve got. Soon I’ll pick up my pastels again. How about some erotic tales in isolation, nocute?
Keeping a journal can help, try to get sun or have vitD tablets. I saw they have been giving VitC to virus patients, obviously they’d be using big doses. Yet.
It’ll be called The Virus, to me, from now on.

@ nocutename
"3 measly months...then...will catch COVID because it will still be out there, but hopefully the medical professionals will not be so overwhelmed"

You're right that looks like the direction our country's monstrous leader is taking us.

But it's doubly frustrating for me, because waiting to get it until hospitals are less overwhelmed is not so good an option if one is in multiple elevated risk categories.

"I would discuss with my ex the pros and cons to having them stay in one place or the other and then I'd make a decision about which home was best, and leave them there."

I've never had children, but is that practical for everyone at a time when childcare isn't an option? Don't most ex's depend upon sharing custody so they can do stuff like work when the kids are elsewhere?

An argument against my earlier suggestion of hermetically sealed trips across town is that, if you do happen to encounter a 3rd party (and maybe even if you don't), you risk transporting the virus to new pockets.

@25: curious2, I hope you stay healthy. I understand that those with more than one risk factor are even more nervous. I don't understand why you say that maintaining social isolation for another 2 months in the hope of flattening the curve is the "direction our country's monstrous leader is taking us"--as I recall, he's champing at the bit to get people out and the stock market performing ASAP. I doubt he'll stick by that suggestion to shelter in place until the end of April.

Also, as far as the kid-housing thing goes, I guess that figuring out which parent can do their job while homeschooling their kids is part of the "pros and cons" discussion.

@27 nocutename
"don't understand why you say that maintaining social isolation for another 2 months in the hope of flattening the curve is the "direction our country's monstrous leader is taking us"

A complicated question.

It's true that, as a sociopath, he's only reluctantly putting human lives ahead of the stock market now. (Much too late, but I'll circle back to that.) But I'm hopeful that he'll be forced to continue doing so longer than

"until the end of April"

; I'm hoping that his unrealistic (er, just for a moment I'll call it) 'optimism' is in part motivated by a desire to calm the stock market with a lie.

However that's only the direction from the current point. He also created the nightmare we're in right now.

For one, by making logistical coordination of equipment and supplies impossible. To this point at least, he insists (while doing little more than empty teasing about the Defense Production Act) upon making the nation unprepared by forcing states to all fend for themselves and bid against not just each other but also foreign nations (er, except yesterday Canada for masks) and also the federal gov't for supplies and equipment. So the nation's resources both human and material are not being brought to bear as demand call for, but in a manner more chaotic than in Lord of the Flies.

But more importantly, there was a way to not even be in this horror movie (and there's a way to navigate out of it); but it's at best the elephant in the room because it is not even now a goal of the President:

Various areas including South Korea have demonstrated a way to avoid this: test everyone. Once you test everyone, you know exactly who has it and thus who to 100% quarantine while tracking and testing their contacts. That approach could have and could still end this madness.

Yes, South Korea had a head start because it didn't have an inhuman imbecile President who'd eliminated pandemic response infrastructure. But we could have still moved to do it months ago; we could even still move to do it now. COVID could be locked down by testing everyone repeatedly. (Yes I know we don't have enough test kits for a third of a billion people, but AFAIK it's not even a goal we have.)

But unfortunately we have a vast void of leadership in the way. It's an expensive solution, but it would have been and still would be many orders of magnitude less expensive and horrific than false choices we've been offered such as a severe economic blow from long term lockdown, or a severe economic blow from letting it ravage everyone while millions of American die.

It seems to me the reason we're on this idiotic track, is that sociopaths like Trump and rightwingers including that troll we had a few days ago, are happy to be cavalier about letting hundreds of millions of people get sick, even though a quite significant number of them would not just be very sick but would die.

I consider this one of human history's great crimes against humanity.

@8 fubar: what you're missing is that the people in the same household have no choice but to be in the same building as each other, so that's an unavoidable risk. You, on the other hand, are choosing a completely avoidable risk because you think getting laid is more important than public health.

BDF @ 17: Fuck off. Your urge to get laid is not in the same category as suicidal people needing help and domestic violence victims needing safety.

We will get through this.

griz, I'm sorry, I have a new favorite COVID spin on a song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h2BqSS5R3U
Alicia Keys does "(You Can't Come to) My House"

While my situation is far from optimal I’m relatively ok so far and very sorry to hear of so many others who are struggling so hard.

BDF @ 16
Asking Dan to forgo sex in the name of solidarity with soloists is unfair. He’s only the messenger and also doing his best to inform the public, doing way better than quite a few highest-level elected officials.
Living situations have their own pro and cons. Imagine you being stuck 24/7 with a partner you were planning on leaving, there are 2-3 kids constantly running around the premises and worst of all are the neighbo(u)rs, playing loud 1970’s disco non-stop.

I'm a soloist myself yet all in favor of those who live with others having enjoyable safe sex. These are stressful times and sex is one of the things we humans go to for comfort and relief. When done responsibly sex is way better than over consumption of food, alcohol, or drugs. Side effects may include improved relationships and intimacy.

I’m still in favor of home stay, no copulation with other soloists regardless. Soloists can always enhance their computer skills, imagination, toys inventory, and reach out for connections for years to come. And come some more
Stay healthy.

CMDwannabe: Yeah, if the people living alone get to ask the cohabiting people for Moral Support Chastity, then what do the single people do in return? Somehow recreate the annoyance of having another person in your space 24-7?

On another note, at least 3 of the people in the freak flag picture are just a few months ahead of the times when it comes to fashion.

@32 eerily ahead of the times! Saw a cute Chinese guy in a surgical mask, great abs, masturbating on one of the porn channels, forgot to look at the time stamp - was he into surgical masks before all this, is he already eroticizing the fear? Or just making sure he can't be recognized?

@33 @myself not racist assumptions about his nationality - his profile said he was from China; and surgical mask porn at least for now is still a lot more rare than gas mask porn, even though surgical masks worn in public are a common sight in normal times in north east Asian countries

Traffic Spiral @29: It appears that reading comprehension is not your thing. I'm sheltering in place with my girlfriend, and at no time have I suggested that I "think getting laid is more important than public health." Apparently, we must follow blindly, and cannot have a discussion, and try to understand the actual risks to public health. Nice bit of virtue signalling.

@35: You almost got the whole bingo but you forgot "wake up sheeple."

Thank you, LavaGirl. It's made an unhappy time more stressful.

@36: More misrepresentation. Now you're trolling.

There seems to be a lot more of that going on, on Facebook and elsewhere. People are bored, I guess, and probably drinking too much.

I hear what you're saying fubar, and I see your points. Probably there are a lot of times where we're practicing overkill. Moving from one one-person household to another one-person household and back again without involving public transit, etc. would seem to be safe. But I see two potential problems:

1) As you have observed, most people aren't very good at following the social distancing recommendations/rules. So unless the rules come down hard against any social contact, a lot of people are going to behave more recklessly/stupidly than that example of the two people traveling between homes. This is why the "recommended dosage not to exceed" on over-the-counter pain medication like ibuprofen is far lower than the true amount that shouldn't be exceeded by--because it leaves room for human stupidity. If you say "3 is the absolute maximum pills (of anything) you can take" and 3 really IS the maximum, you're setting up for a lot of overdoses, because a lot of people will think, "yeah, I know, but this feels really bad--I'll take 5," and then a lot of people are sick. Whereas if you say "3 is the absolute maximum pills (of anything) you can take," and the actual maximum dose before things become problematic is 6, a lot of people will take 4 or 5 (and feel like daring, rule-breaking rebels, to boot) and still not have poisoned themselves. Likewise, you tell people to distance responsibly and people are stupid and reckless--so you have to create rules and norms which might be stricter than are necessary to allow for the human trait of insubordination or rebellion or plain old stupidity.

2) We really don't know whether we've been exposed or not. So a person may live alone, and want to visit her new boyfriend who lives 10 miles away, also alone; she gets in her car and drives to bf's house, spends the night, and returns to her home the next day--it seems pretty safe. And it might be. But what if she had been exposed to the virus through the gas pump when she filled up, or what if he was exposed during the necessary trip he made to the grocery store. Now they have spread the virus further.

Yes, in a lot of cases, it's overkill, but this is a very nasty disease and it's very communicable, and it seems to me that erring on the side of overkill for a few months is worth it.

I read something--not sure whether it's accurate--that said if 90% of people practiced social distancing and sheltering in place, we could be over the worst in 5 weeks; if 80% practiced social distancing and sheltering in place, it would take 12 weeks. But if as many as 70% practiced social distancing and sheltering in place, which sounds like a lot, but it means that 30% don't, the virus sticks around and kills people for a lot longer--there wasn't even a prediction of how long until the gravest danger would pass. Again, I don't know how accurate that was, but the bottom line to me is that it's worth the inconvenience (and I consider doing without partnered sex to be an inconvenience).

Oh, NoCute. I'm sorry about your father and your not being able to see him. My heart goes out to you.

Letter-writer here. I am not passing through any public space going between geographic locations. I'm in a private vehicle.

If you keep your bubble closed by commuting between two different geographical locations in a private vehicle, and it's a closed loop, is it not essentially the same as limiting contact to people you're living with? To put it another way, suppose all three of us lived together and they still went out and performed their essential job functions, and I continued my social-distancing outside the polycule (I wear a respirator mask and gloves whenever I'm picking up supplies or getting gas or whatever and hand-sanitize like a mofo). I don't see how what I'm presently doing adds more risk than the latter scenario would.

Nocute, my heart broke reading your comment. I'm so sorry. That is heartbreaking. <3

NoCute @39: for the record, and from my position of privilege (partnered, amply housed, with a well stocked freezer, pantry and wine cellar, plus a stockpile of legal weed), I agree with everything you’ve written. I feel for those that are alone, or worse, like you, cut off from loved ones. You know how to reach me, if there's anything I can do or say.

LW @41: the two scenarios you describe carry similar risk of spreading the virus, but as Traffic Spiral pointed out @29, there's an element of unavoidable risk when people in one household are stuck together, although pretending it's about "getting laid" is rubbish. Your letter was pretty clear about the difficulty you face, but as Dan said, not everyone can get a pass.

The best scenario would be that everyone self-isolate, and that includes the couples that Dan has advised to shack up or stay apart. The latter would actually reduce risk.

I'd written a few thoughts about how you can cope without increasing risk, but I'm not in the mood to get flamed, so I deleted them.

@40, 42, 43: Aw, thanks. He's still hanging on, but I have to fly to see him (or drive for about 27 hours), and I don't dare, and I don't know if he'll still be here when it's safe. I wish I could get an antibody test and find out whether I've already had it, so I could just go and say goodbye. To make things worse, he has dementia, and according to my mom, at least once a day he says, plaintively, "when is nocute coming?"

And still, it could be worse. He has my mom, his wife, by his side and he's in his own home. People are dying of COVID completely alone, because they're so contagious. It really is The Plague.

Ms Cute - Oh, I know; I keep thinking of all my players over eighty (probably about half) and wondering how many I'll never see again. I'll probably be quite at the tail end of those getting back to normal, if it ever happens, but so many have things far worse. At least solitude suits me.

I was wondering the other day which characters would be most pitifully off in modern circumstances and which would make the most desirable companions, coming up for the former with John Thorpe, Mrs Bennet and Sir John Middleton, and for the latter with Mrs Grant, Mr Knightley and Mrs Croft.

venn @46: It's a lot to think about. Like you, I'm well suited to solitude, but we can hope for a return to normal.

It does sound frightening, what happens to the body with this virus. And being on a ventilator leads to damage.
I read one article from a Dr suggesting we tell our family if we want to be put on a ventilator or not.
Agree nocute, we stay in place, wash hands and practice social distancing when out to buy food. Wear a mask/ something, and glasses. It can get in thru the eyes too.

I’d die without solitude these days, though when I walk out my hut, a pop up village is in the garden. We chat from a distance. The virus is not much discussed, though all are constantly checking their mobile phones.

@47 fubar
"venn...Like you, I'm well suited to solitude"

Probably a lot of us here on in an Internet community are.

Not sure I’d be keen to be in isolation with Mr Knightley, Mr Venn. He’d be on my case all the time about my bad habits.

Nocute @19, it sounds like your post can be summed up as "if some of us have to suffer, all of us have to suffer, whether that suffering actually increases risk to other people or not." If suffering protects others, then I agree we all have to face our lives being a drag. But if suffering accomplishes nothing but increasing the amount of misery in the world, then why should Dan and Terry, realistically, stop having sex? Would that actually help slow the spread of coronavirus? No it wouldn't. If two people who don't live together, but who are both low risk and only have contact with each other, spend half their weeks together and half apart, not exposing anyone to anything, does that increase the spread? No it does not. That's the point here -- containing the virus, not ensuring that the entire population of Earth has to give up any and all enjoyment of life. We need human touch. We need Vitamin D. These needs all have to be balanced against each other. We can't just say, "Everyone needs to deprive themselves of all the things that make their lives worth living, regardless of whether they can be done safely or not."

I disagree Fan, adults don’t need human touch they do need VitD. Babies and children need human touch or their development is thwarted, many adults live without human touch. Some go into retreat for years and never touch others or speak. We want human touch, and it’s healthy to have it.
Younger people are getting sick with the Virus too, people in their thirties and forties.

@54 LavaGirl
I agree that it's debatable whether human touch is technically a 'need' or not. But her central argument @53 is completely unaffected by that point, so should we assume that when you say you "disagree" with her you mean only regarding touch and not the the rest of her comment?

Ms Lava - Only if you were his equal in situation.

I'll add a new category of people on whom the virus would be wasted, given their ability to be so worked up over trifles - Mrs Norris, Mr Woodhouse and Mary Musgrove.

@BiDanFan: Characterizing my three comments regarding socializing in the era of Covid-19 as'"if some of us have to suffer, all of us have to suffer, whether that suffering actually increases risk to other people or not,'" is inaccurate and assigns a pettiness to my viewpoint I don't have. I'm not trying to encourage people to suffer.

I understand that humans need touch, vitamin D, social interaction. Fortunately, we can get the vitamin D by walking outdoors (alone) for about 20 minutes and social interaction via telephone and the internet (I know that not everyone has the internet at home). If someone has a pet, they can get their touch needs met that way, perhaps. I'm aware that this is less than ideal.
But read this: https://metropole.at/open-letter-yale-epidemologist/

@41 LW, sorry but your rationalizations don't make you any less dangerous or selfish. You said in your letter to Dan, "Partner #2 is a health-care worker who, while not treating coronavirus patients and in fact able to social-distance at work, doesn't have a big social network outside their adult children and is having a lot of anxiety over the whole deal." So, Partner 2 IS at risk from being around their co-workers and their kids; they are also being exposed to everyone that their co-workers and children may be seeing. That's a lot of potential spread, which you are bringing home to Partner 1. And, while social distancing reduces risk, it doesn't reduce it to zero. People can touch contaminated surfaces and then touch their faces without even being aware that they're doing so. Please, just stay the fuck at home. If people like you didn't keep thinking that rules don't apply to them, a lot fewer people would be dead now.

The people are inside, and the streets are empty.

I'm lucky if I know what day it is. It seems like the weeks it's been this way has been a year.

The empty streets have been claimed by others. By coyotes which we barely knew were here. By thieves.

Yesterday I sold something on eBay reluctantly, because I didn't want to go inside anywhere to drop it off. Thankfully the buyer chose Fed Ex so I could pay for, and place it on my doorstep this morning for, the contactless pickup.

At 8am while at my computer ordering some unobtainable things that will be out of stock for over 3 months, I noticed someone pull up to the garage near my doorstep on a bike. Like a guy in a nearby apartment very often does. Then I couldn't see him and heard something, but that seemed normal too.

And even if it hadn't, I need to avoid people, not encounter them.

A while later carrying my laundry, I discovered the package still there but torn open and empty. I had seen the thief arrive who stole it's contents, though I couldn't ID him.

My apartment building is out of sight behind another building so my doorstep has always been safe, but I guess thieves are emboldened with the knowledge that no sane person is going to get in their way now.

Then I ran into issues issuing the refund, which would surely have been easy to address...if either eBay or PayPal had anyone doing Customer Service during the now times. So the Buyer doesn't get what he needs, I get nothing not even a refund of the PayPal fee, and my morning was devoted to cancelling the pickup and an online police report, explaining to the Buyer, and mostly to figuring out there was nothing I could do about the issue.

The issue was stupid. Last night the payment got swept from my PayPal account balance into my checking. But even if it hadn't, it didn't include the tax. Would PayPal charge one of my payment methods to Issue the Refund? No, that has to be from one's balance. So I transferred enough to cover the refund (more than I got paid) from my checking, and one of these days it'll actually go through. Until then, each evening I gotta check my PayPal balance to see if I can issue the refund, lest another Auto-Sweep back into my checking undo this plan. Disable Auto-Sweep, you say? I would, but IIRC it's a legacy feature I'd need to get a PayPal rep to adjust off then later on.

Tomorrow will be a good day, I'll have a working fridge for the first time in 10 days. I won't miss my daily trips to get dry ice.

day Whatever, kids fighting about machines. Trump lies saying the US has more cases because they are doing more tests than other countries. Boris is in ICU.
In my heart USA, stay home and stay safe.

This weird new sense of time reminds me of the two occasions that, for a few hours, I was in jail for marijuana.

The first time, through the bars I could see people walking on a public street, free.  Which seemed indescribably both sweet, and painful to not be.  Time crawled, each minute seemed unbearably long.

But nothing is all bad.  Being in for pot made me a bit of a celebrity.  The first time, within minutes, my cellmate taught me how to smoke pot with nothing but a bible, squares of toilet paper, an electric outlet, and a pencil.

After he handed me the weed to prepare, he advised me that "in jail, you smoke the stems too".  Bleck.  But I obeyed; I wasn't the one who owed a favor to whoever smuggled it in.

A page from the Bible provided rolling paper.  We gnawed the wood off a pencil, and broke the graphite center into three pieces, two of which we stuck into the prongs of the electrical outlet.  We folded up a narrow strip of toilet paper which we wrapped around the middle of the third piece, and holding only the paper, completed the circuit between the first two pieces with the third piece while holding some more toilet paper above to catch fire when the outlet exploded with sparks.  I have to say it wasn't the mellowest high I've ever had.  I suspect the guard didn't completely believe me when I told him somebody blew the smoke into our cell through the bars in the door.

As I remember this, it seems like everything now is as cartoonishly inconvenient as that.

May Trump get Boris' justice.

That’s funny, curious. Necessity, the mother of invention.
Has Dan closed off Monday’s letter, to all, or only me, because I got told the page not found. Weird.
I don’t know if I’m up to letters of Virus difficulties, though I hope erotic writers are taking note.
This is serious and very very serious in the US. All answers have to be about safety first. There will be no erotic play in the future, if one is dead.

Lava @54, adults need human touch.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/03/lets-touch-why-physical-connection-between-human-beings-matters
There's no difference between "need" and "it's healthy to have it."

Nocute @57, sorry for singling you out. I've seen a lot of preaching and your comment was just the catalyst for me to respond to all of it. Now that I personally am feeling better and the sun is out, I have some hard-to-find egg on my face for my absolutist stance of a few weeks back and have come round more to Curious's way of thinking. It's not just Dan, I've seen loads of people who are happily coupled up and isolating in their houses with sunny backyards, grousing about "irresponsible" people who just want to snuggle up with their partners, have non-video-enabled conversations, keep in shape, recharge their batteries in the spring sunshine. Many of these "irresponsible" people have given careful thought to the risks involved in balancing safety versus our other needs and it's insulting to lump us in with those who have not, such as a certain prime minister. My post was a rant, rather than a lecture aimed at you.

Fan, there’s a difference between ‘need’ and ‘it’s healthy to have it.’ Need means one can’t live without it. And adult humans can live without human touch. Many monastics do and they are some of the healthiest people I’ve met. Both physically and mentally.
That’s very strange. Now the whole Monday letter has been deleted.

@65 LavaGirl
"the whole Monday letter has been deleted"

True; but it's Comments page hasn't been:
https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2020/04/06/43350663/shes-bicurious-and-her-friend-seems-to-be-flirting-with-her-and-should-she-go-for-it/comments

Ms Lava - Yes; the last daily letter is gone, another mystery.

Oh wait I spoke too soon, I reloaded and now the Comments page is gone too.

FYI here's google's Caches of the two pages:

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:YGNwXhY7dD8J:https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2020/04/06/43350663/shes-bicurious-and-her-friend-seems-to-be-flirting-with-her-and-should-she-go-for-it+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:8M0Jp5Zcl5kJ:https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2020/04/06/43350663/shes-bicurious-and-her-friend-seems-to-be-flirting-with-her-and-should-she-go-for-it/comments+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

(Cached pages are accessible via the little down-arrow at the end of the first line of google search results.)

Dan! What happened to Monday’s letter?

Maybe the LW asked for it to be taken down because her friend recognized herself in the admittedly unusual circumstances and the shit hit the fan.

Whirled @70, I agree. But I'm still kinda glad I had the opportunity to read it. ;)

Lava @65, surely you've noticed that like "daddy," "need" has several meanings, especially in this column where people talk about their "need" for kink indulgence, oral sex, multiple partners, etc. No one will die without these "needs" being met. Google Maslow and his hierarchy of needs. Human touch would come somewhere between oxygen and oral sex on the scale of needs. I meant "need" in the sense you indeed understood, meaning that one's health suffers without it.

@2 -- Socialized Medicine isn't exactly producing the miracle you suggest in the UK. In fact, they're dropping like flies. Yes, there are many fewer beds than there used to be here, but it's primarily because due to advances in medicine people don't need to spend time in a hospital for many surgeries or tests like they used to. Under normal situations, no one is lacking a hospital bed. If we had socialized medicine, would you be willing to pay for thousands of empty beds every night "just in case" of something?

@BiDanFan: Yes, a lot of people's mental health will suffer. A friend of mine who lives alone is really having a very tough time of it. Another friend just discovered his wife has been lying to him and the government about virtually everything and wants to file for divorce, but has to stay isolated with the crazy and mean woman for a couple more months. It's a terrible time, to be sure. For pretty much everyone.

For what it's worth, I agree that human touch is a need. But sometimes we can't even get all that we need. I guess right now, so long as we're getting some of what we need, that has to be enough to sustain us. The Jewish holiday of Passover is just about to start, and in the Seder (which I won't be having this year, because it's all about gathering with family and friends--well, that's not ALL it's about, but it's part of the observance), there is a song, "Dayenu," which translates to "it would be sufficient" or "it's enough." The song goes through all the things that the people of Israel got from god, starting with freedom and ending with the law--a sort of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, as it were!). At each gift, we say, "dayanu!" : It would have been enough (the point, I think, is that we got so much more than we needed and we are so grateful).

I'm trying to muster a "dayanu" mentality. I still have a job--at least for a month and a half--and therefore a paycheck--at least for another month and a half. My kid is literally on top of me--but that means I know she's safe and healthy.

For my part, I take some comfort in knowing that my sacrificing my wants--not needs, or anyway not NEEDS--might keep someone else from getting sick, perhaps from dying. And the only way to really be sure of that is to shelter in place and socially isolate and to wear gloves and a mask when we must go near others.

Curious @68: I hadn't read that SLLOTD, and now I'm thoroughly confused. Both Dan and the commentariat - but not the letter - mentioned the guest's child. One commenter wrote about the LW's and guest's children being playmates.

Whirled @70: Highlighting the danger of including too much irrelevant personally identifying information in a letter.

@75 there was a line saying how good it was to have the friend there, how her daughter was a playmate for their daughter, and how she helped look after the kids, making it easier for the lw to work from home. So the letter was submitted, then edited, and then finally deleted.

Fan, yes people are taking risks. I share a kitchen/ bathroom with a check out person, and I’ve read several of these workers have died in the US. It’s a front line job.
Then he and I keep our distance and I wash my hands multiple times and have my home made hand sanitizer in my hut. Used vodka rather than metho, which is now hard to get, better for the hands and there’s Aloe Vera in the garden. Not much of a drinker and it had been sitting there for months. The vodka I’m meaning.
Bottom line, Fan. None of us can negotiate with a virus. It only takes a few droplets and it’s in.

Oh Fan, you try it on. Human needs are air/ water/ food/ sunshine. We don’t need human touch to stay alive, except when we are babies/ children. Even then, as we’ve seen in some stories re orphanages where minimal human touch is given, life may continue just at a very reduced developmental rate.
I’ve lived without human touch for three weeks now, or is it more. Can’t hug my kids my grandkids. I’m fine. Not dying over it.
A virus gives no fucks about our words or justifications. You take your risks and I take mine.
/ Re Monday’s letter. I hope the LW came to her senses, saw what a nightmare she might be thinking of starting, and emailed Dan to pull the plug.
Sure, it might not have been a nightmare. With at least three children in the house I counted, best not to risk it.
If it had been the three adults, might be worth a shot. Months of play and drama could have got them thru.
Whatever happened, hope the LW is ok.

Thank god Dan has never published any of the letters I've written whilst shitfaced.

I’ve never written Dan a letter. Years ago it would have helped, maybe. I had to get all my ducks in a row before I could leave my marriage.
I don’t think the LW was shitfaced, I do think the friend a narcissist.

Shelter/ warmth is a need too. Anyways.. moving on.. How’s everyone doing?
Bit of rain here this morning, kids reduced to two, other three back with their mother. Quieter round here.

Tim @73, people in the UK aren't dropping like flies because we have socialised medicine. They're dropping like flies because our socialised healthcare system has been decimated over the past decade of Conservative rule; because our current Conservative leader did not take the situation seriously and issue realistic guidelines straightaway (indeed, his first reaction was to write off a percentage of the population so that we could develop "herd immunity," clearly not envisioning that he himself would be one of the acceptable casualties); and because we Brits have almost as strong a culture of individualism as you Yanks and refuse to not go out to a park when we have a rare nice day. Oh, and because most of the people who work in "essential" jobs have to take public transport to get there. And because there is a shortage of masks, and our prime minister refused a shipment of ventilators from the EU. The list goes on but does not include "because our health care is publicly funded."

To the question of whether a reasonable public health system would include thousands of empty beds just in case of a pandemic, I agree, no, it wouldn't. Would it include hospitals that were not profitable, and therefore still existed? Yes, yes it would, which is what Delta @2 was arguing, and I agree. Would it also be able to provide beds, masks and ventilators to whoever needed them? Again, yes it would. But no one could have adequately prepared in advance for this.

Except there have been several pandemics in the last years, and Obama set up a pandemic task force which outlined clearly the steps to take, which trump disbanded. Back in January we all didn’t compute what we were hearing out of China wAs coming for us. We didn’t heed the warning of these last epidemics, the Asian countries and New Zealand did.
Socialised medicine, is the only way to protect a country. It’s a way to acknowledge every cog in the wheel is important. Though given who the real essential workers are, some cogs might be superfluous after this bug gets subdued.
And all this forced self reflection, aloneness, who will we be as a culture coming out of it?
So much creativity coming thru on the web. A group here have got a virtual free festival going over Easter. Yoga, talk , music etc. I’ve signed up for it. Go humans!

@82 BiDanFan
What a wonderful reply!

@83 LavaGirl
"January we all didn’t compute what we were hearing out of China wAs coming for us"

I looked at the numbers and spread of SARS and hoped we'd be spared again.

But it was a few weeks before I knew it was more formidable because of being more contagious and having a longer incubation period.

Now back to:
@82 BiDanFan
"no one could have adequately prepared in advance for this"

That's true. One can't fully prepare in advance for all the potential apocalypses.

/Break/

Which is why one must have a government with the wisdom to take early, immediate, bold action. (Particularly if some orange sociopathic imbecile dismantled the infrastructure for response.)

Unfortunately that's pretty much the opposite of how most politicians are constituted. Particularly if one has had the bad fortune to put in place the kind of conservative idiot national leaders we have.

Progressives, on the other hand, aren't so burdened. Because my SF Bay Area is such a place, even though we had the nation's first community spread COVID, we're now sending ventilators to states with foolish leaders New York, New Jersey, and Illinois. Our curve flatlined, while New York's looks like a cliff face, because even after we led the way their leaders didn't follow. (Governor Cuomo deserves praise for eventually getting the picture far too late, but he also caused the problem he's getting praise for working on; he's minimizing how much blood is on his hands.)

And even the SF Bay Area's example was crippled by existing in the context of a national leadership void. The right national leaders would have done what South Korea did (even if unlike South Korea they were too foolish to prepare to). They would have swiftly moved to test everyone and do contact tracing; even now these idiots don't even have that goal.

Rightwingers exhibit a lower degree of psychological and spiritual development. The just care about those closest to them. They haven't expanded their circle of caring beyond that. They are amoral and sociopathic; they might not actively /want/ mass death, but they also won't pay a penny to avoid it, or even feel sad about it emotionally. I'm not saying this to vilify them. They simply must be kept out of positions of great responsibility in human society. As is also true of other lower life forms like scorpions.

Socialized medicine, eh?

NPR says that millions of Americans have lost their jobs - and their insurance coverage - due to Covid-19. Many more have had their hours reduced, making their coverage even more unaffordable.

In contrast, the number of people in Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand... the list goes on and on... who have lost their health care coverage due to Covid-19 is... precisely... zero.

I wonder if opponents of the human right of healthcare are even moved by that a global plague is the worst time for people to lose healthcare. Only people who care about people would care about that.

BDF@82, thing is, the problems with the NHS go beyond a lack of funding. Compared to many other European countries, it's a rather cumbersome, bureaucratic, poorly managed system. I'm 100% for socialised healthcare, but the question we should be asking post-COVID isn't "socialised or private?", but rather "centralised or decentralised?". The picture we're seeing now, is that countries with decentralised healthcare are doing better when it comes to crisis management (Germany is a good example of this). Smaller organisations have been able to move faster to get the supplies they need, and keep more people alive.

Just because the principle of socialised healthcare is solid, and NHS staff work their asses off, doesn't mean that the system itself isn't flawed and in dire need of reform. In the UK, we sure like to compare the NHS to the American system - and ONLY to the American system. Then we conclude that our way is better and more humane, and give ourselves a big pat on the back. Any problems are ascribed to a lack of funding, and anyone voicing an objection is accused of being ungrateful, overprivileged, a Nazi, etc. It's called a false dilemma fallacy and it bugs the hell out of me.

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