So how are things in your countries? They've shut down just about everything in Poland and people were panic buying stuff 2 and 3 days ago. It seems to have calmed down a bit, but almost everyone I know who has an office job will be working remotely for at least the next two weeks, including me. The number of cases is rising rapidly, but so far it's nowhere near as bad as in western Europe.

I wondered if I should of started a title like this but I was fearful the conversation would go south.

Honestly, I was curious about how our Italian friends are doing since that (currently) seems to be the place hardest hit.

If I can speak for all of the United Sates, we seem to be at the level you are in Poland. There are a few really bad clusters of CV-19, particularly in Washington state (read: Seattle) and New York. Almost every state has at least one or two people known to have it. My state has 11 infected with 1 death. Most of those people are in the hospital as they have a pre-existing condition or are over 60. The hospitals are not overwhelmed....yet. But most stores are open, people are out but in lower numbers in my area.

But the real panic is just starting. We ran out of toilet paper a few weeks ago, then hand sanitizer, clorex wipes, etc. Now people have turned their attention to food and you have this:



That's because they just closed the schools here locally (and in many other places in the US) and that changed the game for people. Made them view it with a new seriousness. Now people are set with thought of being home for 30+ days with their kids and they are beginning to lose their minds.

A lot of businesses are allowing teleworking like mine but sadly many small business have already began to suffer. There is going to be a bad spat of people getting laid off after this.

All sports events, concerts, gatherings are shut down. Particular to this site, a ton of film and TV production has shut down.

The real problem seems to be a lack of testing kits. Testing and quarantining seems to be the way S. Korea got their situation under control and could work well for other countries but you need the kits. Here in the States they are trying to bring online 250,000 - 400,000 kits a day...which tells you where they think it's going.

Really the people's reactions are worse then the disease at the moment but I expect that to change since this sucker spreads exponential. Today could be fine, tomorrow might not.

Never seen anything like this in my lifetime.

My perspective is a bit limited because I was frequenting some online forums where this stuff was discussed a long long time ago, so I already stocked up on food weeks ago and barely went outside since, so I can't say much about the current situation outside of my own home, but back when I was stocking up, things seemed fine and normal and almost everything was in stock at the stores.

Personally I hesitate to call these things a panic. When I went to the store to stock up, I wasn't frantic or in panic, I was just being cautious, I think this is what it is for most people, but when such a change in behavior happens on a large scale, it appears "panick-y" I think. One sees empty shelves in stores and has an image in one's mind of panicking people jumping all over the wares, but I think - with some exceptions - that's not how it goes down in most cases.

Otherwise, I watch some doctor on Youtube every now and then and he believes this will stay with us for months and what we are seeing now is merely the beginning. Governments are trying to slow it down actually, so the peak ideally happens somewhere in summer or so. Here's what I'm referring to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYTFk34nhoI

Even though I think health-wise most people will be just fine, I do worry for the businesses that rely on large groups of people... sad story. We'll see how things turn out.

It seems to be the same story everywhere: empty shelves in stores, schools shutting down, people working from home, and so on. Regardless of the number of cases in your country/region, people's and governments' actions are going to be essentially the same. That said, I'm curious to hear about Italy as well because it's been hit so hard.

Yeah, in Germany I won't call it panic, as Tom already stated.
I just caught a cold 3 weeks ago, and it feels very strange to show signs of that (fading) cold in public.
(I am sure it wasn't Corona, because I caught it before it really was spread Germany wide, and I had it after 4 days I had to deal with someone having a cold...)

I think almost every government reacted to late. Tomorrow almost all schools are closed down for some weeks in Germany. But that already should have happened two or even three weeks ago.

Today I'll have to travel back to the city I work at the moment, but I am not sure if the company locks itself down due to Corona. And I have to check, if trains are going.

German health care is always under pressure, but as far as the news say there countries with far worse health care...

I'm out of my home country since several weeks, so I do not know directly it is there... but I follow the news, and it's a mess.

At the beginning, they did not nothing, then put on quarantine few zones, then shutting down schools, then closing almost everything but food stores, pharmacies and few other, and people are forced to stay at home unless for going to work, hospital and few other reasons (walking the dog, for example!)

Many jobs are now executed on remote, but we are pretty limited in this field, so many business are closing because of that...

Dunno what will happen now... we can only sit and wait!

P.S. In Lithuania and Latvia the situation starting to be the same, except for the fact people are not forced to be at home (yet).

Same here, people have panicked and the supermarkets have been stripped off all the basic food merchandise.

This is actually the worst impact (shelves will be refurnished next week) because suddenly food become a scarce commodity due to idiots panicking.

All the stores, restaurants etc are close on indefinite since midnight today.

The death toll actually is nothing to wonder about, in fact we are too many people on the planet so Darwin needs to do it's work and this is not worst than many other flu death year in year out everybody ignore.

Now the problem is, as an indie, I'm out of work. Can't sell shit on ebay anymore, and no money is coming in and will come for the next 6 months.

I'm thinking of starting a funding just to help buy food.

This is what will be the worst thing to handle for many others who aren't lucky to have a salary monthly job.

Sorry to hear that Stamper. Why can't you sell stuff on eBay anymore, has package delivery stopped as well?

Could try applying for unemployment benefits for the time being.

All the sales have stopped since the crisis reached Italy last month. It was dwindling since december.

I have other accounts on different sites as I sell DVDs, BR, records, magazines, books and no one is buying anymore.

The priority is getting food not DVDs LOL.

That's crazy, wouldn't have expected that kind of impact on a business that doesn't really have much reliance on human contact and crowds. Hope you get through all of this well.