How are you all dealing with coronavirus and the restrictions many of us have to live

Break, I see so absurd to do little breaks like the one for Christmas. If we have to take a number of measures, let’s take them whichever epoch of the year it may be. Virus doesn’t understand about our feasts and needs.
I don’t like a total lockdown at all at this time, after all what we learnt about how to protect ourselves from the virus. I’m more into the opinion that several measures keeping long term are the best at this moment. But if we relax the restrictions according to our feasts, I’m sure later we will have to pay for it.
I totally agree with you.

Yeah, there's another huge protest against corona rules planned in my city around new year's We don't want those bloody covidiots here!

I think the people against it are just very loud, but not necessarily a majority. A lot of people are seeing how stupid others are behaving and want to have tighter restrictions to end this mess.

The good thing is even if the country as a whole doesn't go into a stricter lockdown, states can still decide their own measures. And cases here are crazy high so they HAVE to do something.

Exactly.

Stricter lockdown here would be all non essential stores closing. And be sent into home office again. Which we already are anyway. I hope we'd never go into not being allowed out anymore. I'm now trying to go out for a run or walk in the morning. Since this week I start work at 7:45 I'm forced to go very very early when the streets are quiet, so I'm gonna try to keep up this schedule even when my work times change.

@BreakForTheLight Yes, same here, I feel they are a very loud minority, the protesters. None of their rationale holds up when you examine it

Enjoy those early walks/runs. I think early morning is a special time of the day. Sometimes I run very early (before 7am) along the coast and the sunrise is beautiful, it reboots me for the day ahead. Around here there are quite a few people out running and walking then, in semi dark. They are mostly kindred spirits and considerate of each other's space. Enjoy!

I totally forgot my mask. Walked in the store got two carts, one for mum one for me. Then stood behind her wondering what. She was messing with. She looked at me with a mask on and my hand flew to my face, no mask! Fortunately the store gives out masks and I didn’t have to walk back to the car! I’m totally 100% pro mask, but it totally slipped my mind.

I've done that too a few times, Nammu.It just slips my mind every once in a while.

I've done it, too, twice now over the last few months. Being pre-occupied is the number one cause of forgetting things. And I have been VERY pre-occupied.

I've been unusually anxious about going out again, too, for two reasons:

1.) Infection rates are up in our area, even though most people seem to be behaving themselves in public (so I assume they're getting sick at private gatherings). It could easily mean long lines outside of stores again, along with the inconvenience and anxiety that go with that; as well as the possibility of husband's job vanishing, too, if we are forced into a new alert level.

2.) Ever since the announcement that a vaccine is "coming soon", I am worried people will drop their guard and begin adopting less safe measures, mostly by being less considerate of other people's needs in public. (And some people, like the so-called 'gentleman' I encountered this evening, don't behave all that well, now!) (((Sigh.))) That's just human nature for you. But it could still be a full 5-6 months before we receive a dose in the area where I live, and for my age group. Plus, nothing is written in stone---these are new vaccines, for a new virus. It's going to be some time before we're certain it covers what we hope it covers, and does its job.

I REALLY understand how it's making you feel, Jennifer! I put off going out to get some basics for 2 days in a row. I haven't been this anxious in months.

Yeah, the meeting outside thing.... I work in customer service and have had to deal with a lot of disappointed or angry customers this week because most of our patio heaters are sold out suddenly everyone wants one for Christmas.

I try to put myself in people’s shoes. For example, people who are extrovert and have a big social net and I can understand that they need to meet their friends and these friends are many.

For me it’s easy to keep distance and avoid crowed meetings but I won’t be able to cope again with a total lockdown or more restrictions than the necessary ones. I don’t want to pay while others take their time to relax.

I want to go to a concert, want to visit new cities and mainly, enjoy next Spring outside and I don’t want even to think for a single second than this Spring we will have to suffer again the same restrictions as last year. It was a totally lockdown for two months and my depression and anxiety triggered so badly.

This, so much! I miss concerts and traveling. But I understand that now is just not the time. We have to miss out for a while so we can enjoy all these things again later. But I guess some people's brains never progressed from toddler age. They need instant gratification.

It's the same as if you were saving for a big trip or a house or a wedding or whatever. You have to cut down your spendings for some time. Now we have to scale down our contacts.

A stricter lockdown was announced starting Wednesday. Only essential stores are allowed to stay open, school are closing.
Christmas in smaller circles but like I said before, I'd be happy if I even had 1 person to spend it with.

The supermarket in my street has a sign outside saying to spread out the holiday shopping. Which is nice in theory but I know it'll be super crowded in the days before Christmas anyway. We live in a big city, lots of people don't have a car and can't just do a huge shop a week before Christmas.

P.s. To me, being an introvert means that it costs energy to interact with people, whereas extroverts get their energy from being around others. It doesn't mean that I don't need anyone else around or don't get lonely. I'm still human. I still suffer from touch deprivation.

Oh wow, my state has decided on a FIVE person max. for Christmas! From no more than 2 separate households.

Still wishing I had just one person. I don't even care about Christmas that much but the isolation will be tough. I feel it every weekend. Saturday is not as bad as I work some overtime and go grocery shopping, but on Sundays it really hits me.

Here, a 10 people meeting is gonna be possible and nothing has been said about if they may come from two or more households.

It seems the main restrictions are being addressed to restaurants for example, they are going crazy for the changes in opening and closing time.
In my community, they will have a first time opening phase until 6 pm. Then, a second phase, when they will have to close at 6 pm, open at 8 to offer dinners and then close at 10:30. A totally madness.
The Community president says that it has been well studied it, to avoid those hours during a day where more relaxation may exist in the population but I’m not strange that so many demonstrations on people who works on restaurants are taking place, to protest against this madness.

I have some medical tests scheduled for the end of the month, right after Christmas. But I think I will postpone them. I want to wait until after the surge. I'm sure people won't heed the warnings by the CDC about holidays. I want to isolate as much as possible. I am starting remote physical therapy on my wrist. I prefer to get an injection, but I don't want to go to a medical facility right now. I'm hoping exercises will help until things calm down. ICU beds are scarce. Hospitals are at near capacity. I want to protect myself as much as possible. I have to do blood work today, but I won't be at the doctor's office that long. So I'm not too worried.

Another stupid thing about the restrictions is the plant nurseries here are closed down on weekends since they are considered non-essential. Our area has a lot of them and my husband and I had planned to go this past weekend to look at "natural fence" bushes, basically bushes that can grow to about 2 meters. Our neighbor put up an eyesore extension of the wall between our properties. We figure the plants will make it a lot less noticeable. The guy did ask my husband, who said yes just to keep the peace, but we had no idea how ugly it would be. Of course, we weren't able to go.

The thing is that we went to 2 nurseries to get some other plants for the yard a few weeks ago when we were in phase 4 (much less restrictive). We bought the house from the builder and nothing was done with the yard, so we are slowly working on getting it to our liking. The nurseries seem to be about the least likely place to get Covid you can imagine. First of all, they are outdoors. In each case, there were around 6-8 customers besides us, all wearing masks and keeping a good distance. Besides that there were 2-3 employees tending to the plants and helping customers. Each had one manager in the office. In both cases, the offices were ventilated with the door and windows open, and they let one person in at at time to pay.

There’s being a lack of common sense along the pandemic. I totally hear you.
I’m silently laughing now because I know it’s easy to blame others and vent but if we had any doubt that the planet was full of assholes, we have now our answer. And I don’t consider myself more intelligent than most of people.

So frustrating and confusing too.

In the UK plant nurseries were reclassified as essential shops. This means even in full lockdown they are open like supermarkets are.

@BreakForTheLight - I wonder if there are strategies you can plan now to help you cope both with Sundays and the Christmas period?

Are there people you can talk to on the phone? Do you like to chat to people online? My adult son does video gaming online and he has this year it saved his sanity, there was always someone to talk to online.

If nothing else the chat rooms here on PC are very likely to have people to talk with on Christmas day. Or you can come post here, we will always be here to listen.

@Discombobulated - that's good that the nurseries are considered essential. Too bad it's not like that here. I'd prefer to support our small local businesses than go to the big box home improvement store chains, which are allowed to open on weekends.

The rush to the malls during the week started yesterday, since most mall stores couldn't open on weekends either. One has already been fined for not keeping track of the number of people coming in and exceeding the limit. Everyone was wondering what the government was thinking?!?! IT was pretty clear that would happen. I will be ordering everything I can online to avoid that mess.

I am confined to home anyway because of back and knee injury, so not too much different. I'm getting my groceries delivered, texting people instead of seeing them. Mostly i've been cooking so I'm getting fat! Even that doesn't bother me too much because I know the weight will come off in the spring. I'm resigned to it all.

Oh, no, our government is going to tinker again with the different phases, making up different rules for each region and their "reality". Another thing that is likely to be a failure. I think it is just going to cause a lot of confusion. Plus, as part of the Metropolitan Region, we will be lumped in with all those crowded, urban areas that are so different from where we live. I think it means the restrictions will be stricter in this region than elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Punta Arenas down south is in the same phase as us (phase 2), having just been let out of quarantine. Basically, people there just stopped paying attention to the rules. For example, some restaurants started opening for dine-in service which is not allowed, and the government gave up and let them move to phase 2. Punta Arenas has over 6 TIMES the number of active cases per 100,000 than here (close to 300 per 100,000). I sort of feel like that is going to set an example and areas that get tired of quarantine will just start doing whatever they want. If enough of that happens, any type of enforcement will be impossible. This could get interesting - and possibly very bad.