Have you tried some small, local shops, or more expensive ones? They were the first to have basic stuff again in Poland after the initial shortage on everything everywhere. And now, after a few days, it's much easier even in Aldi and similar stores – I guess many people bought so much that now they rarely go shopping, and do it only for things they would normally buy.

On the other hand, I wonder for how long is it going to stay so "normal" – because of closed borders trucks transporting food are getting stuck, and I can only imagine what it does to fruits and veggies. :/ My mom works in a fruits&veggies warehouse, she barely has anything to do now, and at the same time drivers report they're spending about 20 hours waiting to cross the border, without any shops or even toilets nearby.

20 hours waiting to cross the borders??? Wow.

I too am worried about the long term effects of the virus...

Yeah we have tried all the shops near us, with no results :/ oh well, I will keep looking.

I think we should all stop and think how lucky we are that we have a roof over our heads at this time. Last year around this time there was flooding in my area. We ended up being able to stay at my in-laws' house. Most of the people around me had to go to a shelter. We at least can stay home now and not be stuck in some kind of shelter on top of the virus concerns. We can do as we please as long as we stay home. We can't control the situation, but we can control our reactions/attitudes.

Everyone, please know that I love this site, though I haven't been on it much lately, and the players and staff. You all are great people. We will get through this together <3

Yes I have one and filled it up in about an hour :/ I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS)

I hear many women with PCOS get NO cycle at all. I'm the opposite-getting 2 very heavy ones each month

Thank you for the suggestion anyways! ^_^

No problem, it seems they don't work for both of us for similar reasons, then. :/

I just returned from shopping, from one of most popular supermarkets in the area, and tampons and pads are back in. :D But there was only some expensive, organic lentil left – strange, usually people don't buy it almost at all, even the cheaper kinds. Only milk was still gone, but there were some plant alternatives. Also, just a few people in the whole market.

Now there are 31 confirmed cases in the city where I live. One man suspected of having the virus tried to escape a hospital, jumped out of a window and now is in serious condition. Silly people are silly.

Still no tp in my local stores but luckily I don't need any, but it took me 3.5 days just to buy a thing of milk and chicken broth as well as carrots, so I was just eating snack food for 3 days and broccoli as that was all I had.

The most stressful thing for me, is that I am a full time artist. My only job, is going to cons and selling my stuff in the artist alley, and the winter is basically just downtime where I sell almost nothing.

So right as all of the events were JUST about to begin they were pulled out from under all of us, and I agree - slowing things down will be good and help keep people alive and safe.

I'd legit go get a job with amazon or UPS right now if I could but I can't chance it because I live with high risk family, so I'm in permaquarantine.

I'm willing to very cautiously run to the post office to send things out, so I can at least do that, but there's just so much stress right now.

I've been spending just about all of my waking hours anxious that I had to go out to stock up at all, terrified my dad or grandmother will catch this, and trying to figure out how to juggle all of the things I hadn't gotten to with life related things, so there's even a small chance at making it through this next year safely.

All without a saftey net -_-

This sucks so much.

On one hand, most of us don't want to be insensitive asses and have someone else die from the virus, so I get why there's mass imposed restrictions. On the other hand, more people will ultimately get screwed over by the restrictions' effects on the economy in their day to day life.

It's like.. choose your poison...

blanket economic and mental health deterioration to limit deaths, compounded by the issue that the global economy is more in debt than ever before, making it more likely to be screwed over OR accepting that deaths from COVID-19 will happen and we go about as usual (or with less dire restrictions than currently) but seeing way more people deteriorate / die and health services being overwhelmed like never before with moral dilemmas about who to save. I mean there are advanced resuscitation decisions made anyway for people who come into the hospital for whatever reason; the UK has do not attempt resuscitation (DNAR) orders which are meant to be made well in advance of falling ill based on pre-existing conditions like you know, dementia, other reasons for frailty etc but I guess the moral dilemmas come into play when people who wouldn't be for DNARs get sick and there's not enough time or healthcare to go around to save those that under any other normal circumstances would have been resuscitated. Same applies for intensive care unit care and anticipatory care planning.

No one wants to be that ass to suggest the second poison either.

This reminds me of the debate about re-directing a train to kill three strangers to save one person you know. Should it be done? Because it feels like we're doing just that over the longer haul if we're imposing restrictions for what appears to be most of the year (speaking about the UK). I know it's not exactly the same scenario but similar. I wish this was more explicitly talked about on mainstream news. Because this is the dilemma countries' leaders are saddled with. I wish more was being spoken about longer term effects in very plain black and white terms.

Basically, all of this sucks, and I hope people keep safe and well. ;3;

i don't have much to contribute but i hope that everyone is taking time during this to check in with yourselves mentally: write through your feelings, or paint or compose or do whatever you do to express your emotions usually. i know it's not an ideal situation for many of us, especially those who don't have job security/are unsure of where money for food, resources and bills is coming from next but the smallest thing we can do is make sure we're honoring our feelings and expressing ourselves/getting the anxiety and heaviness out and onto paper instead of letting it weigh us down. sending everybody love.

Yes it would be wonderful to hear more discussion about this, especially the ideas for negating (not sure this is even possible) or minimizing the impact on the economy. Both where I live in America as well as internationally. Because just giving out money we don't really have doesn't seem like a viable solution.

You are right it is an awful decision and I do not envy the people who have to make it.

Would also be nice to discuss how our countries will handle shortages. And maybe for fun our ideas for substitutions and alternatives.

I love how general social media is all like JUST STAY HOME ... okay, short-sighted much? not everyone can afford to stay home and not everyone's jobs are playing nice either with paid leave etc. Staying home is the easy part, the hard part is what happens next. It hasn't even really started and people are already getting fed up.

Would love more discussion beside the here and now on the news. We need analysis!

The advice to stay home is really about non-essential activities. If you have to go to work, go to work. If you must get groceries go get them. But nobody needs to go hang out at the bar or cluster in groups at the mall or play tackle football or throw a big party at the beach or whatever. It's not about perfect isolation, it's about being sensible. Please be sensible.

(I say this as someone who is going to work and will be continuing to go to work as I have an "essential" job. I go to work and then I go home. It's not that hard.)

I live with my elderly aunt so I am restricting myself to only taking the dog out. It sucks because my sister came home for my father's death and now she has to stay away the entire time she is home.

Yeah that sucks. My great aunt passed away just a few days ago and her closest family can't even come because of their poor health and how far away they live.

Screw the arrogant twits who amongst all this NEED to have their holidays and go travelling, possibly spreading infection in airports, gas stations, buses and trains, then getting sick somewhere without sufficient medical facilities. Assholes.

Here they have closed dining rooms, schools, public events, and other social gatherings. The mayor has also closed our beaches. Most of the stores (except Walmarts) have limits of items like meat, tissues, and meds.

I'm already seeing some of the economical impact from looking within my social network here in America. I know 3 people who lost their jobs because instead of furloughing, the companies just decided to lay them off with a possibility of maybe rehiring them. At my job (which is considered non-essential for shutdown purposes) today they did a poll to get employee input of closing the company for a few weeks. Most, me included, had opted to continue work unless state ordered because staying at home without pay is NOT an ideal choice. I managed to pull myself out of a terrible situation last year, I do not wish to go back into one.

Stress and worries aside, there is a nice trend happening tomorrow (3/24) to help the restaurants, The Great American Takeout! I'm excited to help one of my two (haven't picked yet!) local favorite places.

Now they are fining anyone who doesn't isolated when entering the province. I'm going stir crazy but it is for the best. I do need to go out this week and attempt to get some groceries or even have them sent to me.

It's madness here in Poland. Yesterday my boyfriend wasn't feeling fine, he had headache, muscle pain and slightly lowered temperature. Nothing more. He's working from home and has to spend 8 hours daily in front of a computer. Today he still had headache and couldn't focus on work, so he called a doctor. Results? A lot of questions, 10 days of sick leave and a lot of instructions: he's not supposed to leave the house, he should be keeping a distance of 1 meter (1? wasn't it supposed to be at least 1,5/2 in case of covid?) from all the other people at home, he should be sleeping alone and wash the sheets daily, he shouldn't use the same cutlery as others, he should disinfect a toilet after every use or use a different one than the others... geez. It's not an official quarantine, but sounds pretty much like it. And me? Well, I'm allowed to do anything.

Also, people are obliged to wear masks since last Thursday (any kind of masks, scarves, bandanas and so on are also fine), but majority can't use them properly (they keep the same mask on their faces for many hours, they touch the masks all the time...), yet no one cares. And since today we're allowed to go to parks and forests. The weather is really nice, there's just a lot of people everywhere, especially in public transport. Which I have to use. Yay.

They started opening beaches in Florida which is ridiculous but the parks are being monitored by police and are blocked off. It makes absolutely zero sense with how they are handling it.