> On 26 March 2020 at 22:52 Christine Aguila <[email protected]> wrote: > > > We just got an emergency alert via our mobile phones that the City of Chicago > is closing down the lakefront, beaches etc, which I think is a good idea.
Things are pretty quiet here. Spouse working from home doing essential Police support work, daughter also gobbling bandwidth, ostensibly for online schoolwork. I am still at work, as I can work alone preparing stuff for the resumption of classes. I'm in the support side of the science department in an FE/HE college. I don't do classes so no need to be transferring stuff to online, although I'm helping our more technically challenged lecturers to do that. The rest of my team are doing the same thing in other centres. Traffic is down to what I estimate to be 1970s levels, unfortunately with an increased percentage of toerag drivers. I could consider cycling if it wasn't for the aforementioned people and the presence of a couple of substantial hills en route. I don't think my knees (the reason I gave up cycling in the first place) could cope with that. Food and other essentials are reappearing in the shops after the mass panic buying of a week or so ago. Rumour has it that we had the first loss of life at work in the last few days. It's being kept incognito at the moment, presumably while the College authorities contact the person's contacts. I don't think we're anywhere near the peak yet. Hopefully, the government's (confused and contradictory) advice to flatten the curve will work. What I'm finding really interesting is the British Red Cross's reaction to the situation. Until December, I was a long-standing, highly trained volunteer in the first-aid section. In its wisdom the BRC closed that section down as it wasn't making enough money. Volunteers could transfer to other sections or leave. Nice. I transferred to the section offering emergency relief - it's not very skilled work but it's service. The plan seems to be that the emergency relief volunteers will provide home services (shopping, etc) for those housebound for various reasons. I asked what the protocols and supply of PPE was like for the incursions into possibly infected households. The "manager" told me I could hold my breath whilst delivering, at which point I considered myself retired from Red Cross life. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
