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addabox
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: oaktown
 
2020-03-26, 12:31

So hereabouts (bay area) there's a new fun game called "the social distance zig zag". That's where you go outside to take a walk or go to the grocery store and encounter people who seriously do not seem to have gotten the memo and you have to cross the street or jump into the bushes or whatever. Most people are being quite diligent about the 6' thing (BTW Amazon has a full selection of "Kindly keep your distance" t-shirts, you'll just have to wait a month to get them), but others (and yeah, they're mostly young) just come straight at you like nothing was going on at all. The worst is going to a grocery store (Trader Joes I'm looking at you) that is ostensibly being very responsible (only allowing a set number of people in the store at a time, taping off 6' increments for the outdoor line that creates, hand wipes everywhere) but then allows the staff to act like bored teenagers grudgingly pretending to obey some arbitrary parental edict. I get it, this is their job, they're probably not jazzed to be there, they are overwhelmingly in their 20s or 30s (which as we know is getting to look less and less like a get out of jail free card), and maneuvering between customers slows them down. But: I had one stock person walk about 2' past me, turn around, and yell something to someone across the store. She might as well have walked up to me and blown in my face. Like, if she was infected I most likely am now. I fully expect the first instance of a social distance "incident" to hit the news any time now. As this gets more immediate, more real, as the bodies pile up, more people are going to get way more intense about KEEP YOUR FUCKING DISTANCE. Since there are still going to be people who just don't give a shit, somebody's going to get punched. I know, that in itself throws distance out the window, but a flash of anger can override common sense.

All of which leads me to a question for the good doctor: Does a fleeting encounter (walking past at an arm's length say) represent any kind of actual threat? I keep hearing super alarming shit about the virus maintaining viability IN THE AIR for upwards of 3 hours, but I don't know what that means, exactly. Does it actually hang out as an aerosol? Or does it generally fall to the ground in that famous radius and the air thing is just a lab thing?

That which doesn't kill you weakens you slightly and makes you less able to cope until you're completely incapacitated
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