Please keep it civil everyone. @Akhenaten ignore the nasty remarks, this thread is a good idea.

No offense but, I've seen too many people have their lives ruined because of half truths and out right lies told by the national media. You'll forgive me if I'm a little skeptical of their motives. They all have bosses. Even the decent ones admit they have their marching orders. Be that as it may, I agree that we should be careful and stay safe.

I'd just summarize my current situation in this pandemic: it made the people and the economy go mega-nuts. 

Okay, maybe I was a bit too harsh. I understand that journalism is an important job and keeping the public informed is essential for a free society. Anyway, I don't want to derail this thread any more. Let's focus on the virus and how it's affecting those in forum and around the world.

Can we focus on the positive sides for a change all this negativity will drive every member nuts

I'm going to go ahead and state my opinion because why the fuck not. My roommate works in supply chain for a local hospital and that is the true reason for fear with this virus. Most people will be absolutely fine but it is still important to stay cautious because this is an extremely infective disease and though most people will be fine, a lot will need hospitalization. The usa does not have the resources in place to hospitalize the people who will need to be hospitalized. The best way to look at it is with numbers. According to Ourworldindata.org, they are splitting up coronavirus cases into 3 categories critical(5%), severe(14%) and mild(81%) the critical and severe cases will need hospitalization. Now I believe that what the government is doing is preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. What's the worst case scenario? Everyone gets it. That means that 19% of the united states population will need a hospital bed. 19% of the us population is 62,168,00. The US has 924,107 staffed hospital beds according to the American Hospital Association. That means that there will be about 67 sick people per hospital bed. And that's not including any other illnesses that's already occupying those beds. That's also not including supplies or staff. THIS is the problem.its not that the coronavirus will kill us all, it will kill our hospitals and take a bunch of us out with them.

Didn’t Italy start to not help those who were deemed too ill to be saved in the hospitals?

My job is deemed "essential", so I still have to go in and face customers every day. I use hand sanitizer in between every customer, and I never leave my apartment except to run necessary errands. It's all I can do. I'm thinking that there's a pretty decent chance that I'll get it, but I'm young and healthy, so I'm trying not to psyche myself out too much.

(March 18, 2020, 8:41 pm)auraman9005 I'd just summarize my current situation in this pandemic: it made the people and the economy go mega-nuts. 

That's the main reason why I've steered clear of any discussion of it until now. There's too much doom and gloom talk everywhere I go. You gotta be positive during this time instead of feeding into the fear.

To everyone who's already quarantined at home, cheer yourselves up. Eat your favorite snack or Bing watch an entire season on Netflix or Hulu. Catch up on some reading that novel you've haven't touched in a while. Or even dust off your console and play some games. Take this time off of work and school and enjoy yourselves.

Being positive in a dark time is the best thing you can do, and right now we need more positivy than ever before.

Perfectly Fine at the Moment