I think we just got jeans approved for the duration??

I did some research on built environments and sensory stuff a couple years ago and open plan offices, it will surprise no one, are AWFUL. All the time, to everyone. But they are also like 10x cheaper to build so fuck everyone's mental and physical wellbeing.

Oh yeah. Mental is bad enough (unfortunately not easily quantifiable), but can we talk about the cold that hit LITERALLY EVERYONE in my dept in December? I jokingly call the monitors of the guy who sits behind me a sneezeguard, but jokey sneezeguards don't prevent you getting the cold that's going around when the guy on the other side of it is coughing his head off (but is contract, so can't really afford to take sick time).

Jeans are definitely a safer option in a pandemic!

I think that's right.

My face has never itched more in my life, now that I'm not supposed to touch it.

I figure as long as I'm at home and washing my hands, I can touch my own damn face if I want to. It's allergy season motherfuckers am I just supposed to BLINK away the histamines?

All middle and high school kids in our district took a survey today about their school-from-home capabilities (basically do you have a computer and access to the internet). If my kids are going to be quarantined with me, this whole working from home and not wearing outside pants situation's going to be a lot less fun.

I don't have any idea how I would run online microbiology labs. I sure as hell am not sending them home with more microbes than they already have!

There is actually a lab kit available through a place called "eScience labs" for Microbiology. The students get all the equipment to do the expirments at home and then upload their lab reports online. We run that here.

The odd thing is that our students will be being exposed because they will be going on clinical rotations in the hospital, and the graduate students are nurses in practice! But they will not be congregating in groups over 8 on our property.

I don't understand what working parents of pre-teens are supposed to do if the schools go on-line or just close. They have to quit their jobs too? this could rapidly spiral into a depression.

I'm trying to remind myself tonight over and over that the exhaustion I feel probably isn't COVID-19, but 10 days of stress and uncertainty.

FWIW, somebody I know here in MA is on home quarantine because their coworker in the next cubicle over has tested positive. So I'm kind of 2 degrees of separation now.

I have a coworker who is sitting right next to me and is in quarantine for almost two weeks now, but that's because he returned from Italy in the end of February and went straight from the airport home to quarantine.