Speaking of school cancellations, which I think are a smart move BTW, my sister brought up a point about that the other day when we were talking about it. if schools were to get cancelled for the rest of the year, that's all well and good for middle and high school students, who have their curricula online for the most part. But what about elementary age kids? I suppose online classes probably exist for them, since homeschooling is a thing, but are they going to all be held back a year because they missed out on critical social development and stuff like that? My sister seemed to think so. of course, my niece is 5, so I can see why she would be concerned about that, but if it's true, that hardly seems fair for the kids, particularly since young children seem to have a diminished response to the coronavirus than adults do, which is the exact opposite of how these things usually work. i found that little factoid interesting since I read it a few weeks back.

One upside to me being away from home at the moment is that I get to hear lots of different perspectives from people about what they think the situation will be like in the upcoming weeks and months. Most seem to agree with me that a complete shutdown of all services except hospitals is inevitable, so clearly, it's not just me who sees the danger lying ahead. One person we saw yesterday was telling us how he thought all this social distancing and closure of non-essential services is BS and will have the opposite effect of what's being hoped for. He was describing how kids aren't in school anymore, but they're gathering in parks and on playgrounds and playing, so it's still the same effect. he also said that it's been discovered that the virus can live on surfaces for up to 10 days, but I don't know how true that is. if it is, that certainly is a bit scary. But then I got into a debate with this person about whether or not the military could control the American population as effectively as the Chinese government did in order to halt the outbreak. While my mouth was forming the right words, trying to reassure myself as much as the other person that such a thing wouldn't work here because the Chinese are conditioned to obey their government or else, privately I was, and still am, scared that if we, and by that I mean the officials, don't get this thing under control, they're going to say, "well, it worked in China, let's do it here." I think they're already making tentative plans to do just that. Today, we were told that there were a lot more cops out than usual, and that they seemed vigilant. That lead to more than a few jokes about laziness and doughnuts, but I still couldn't help but realize that they're gearing up for something huge, something our government has never done before, and hopefully will never happen again. But then, the reason it would not has little to do with the virus itself, and everything to do with how quickly and violently the people will revolt against such action.

177, what? Are you advocating a civilian coup against the government? While many see the restrictions and travel bans, even shutdowns as rights violations, the reality of the situation is that these are necesary to prevent the spread of the virus, and to prevent a situation like italy, with tens of thousands of infections. Also keep in mind the United States  has many times the size and population of italy, so the death tole and sick would be alot higher proportionally.
Whıle some may think they have  the right to do whatever they want whenever they want, this should not be the case. Noone should have the right to threaten the safety and livelyhood of others by spreading a pathogen with a high fatality rate. I think that knowingly not disclosing  a possible exposure to covid-19, or  violation of a quarantine order should be met with jail time.

@179, I definitely don't agree with your last sentiment at all. Jailing people for not disclosing that they have a particular disease is dangerous. Should that actually become a law, people would pretty much be required to notify law enforcement of every public place they visited, because all of those public places are possible risks. That then opens the floodgates to a further suppression of rights and privileges in the name of COVID-19 and public safety/health. There is a line that should not be crossed, and doing what your suggesting is crossing that exact line.

@182, I disagree. There is a line that cannot be crossed when it comes to control of anything. I agree that hospitals should be allowed to order someone to remain in quarantine, but only if they have positively identified that the person in question has a disease. They are medical professionals, after all. But it should not be a criminal offense if a hospital does not so order it. Tracking someone for compliance gets into privacy issues. Furthermore, how is the particular incident you cited criminality? Is it illegal there to violate quarantine? If so, its not necessarily the woman's fault for violating it, because the hospital shouldn't have allowed her to check out in the first place. Hence, the blame can be squarely laid at both the woman and the hospitals feet. If, however, it was not illegal at the time, then it is not criminal. It may have been criminal where she went to, but it was not illegal until she arrived at her destination.
Also, privacy cannot be ignored and should be acknowledged. You should not be required to disclose medical information if you do not want to. As I said in a previous post, jailing people, or otherwise making them disclose information that is private, because they "might" (not "do") have a particular disease is a dangerous precedent that should not be set.
Finally, how is Coronavirus a lethal weapon? It was not a biological or chemical weapon manufactured by man. It is a perfectly natural disease. If you can produce proof that it is a weapon, and is actively being used that way, I'd like to see it.

@184, got it in one go.

here, we are now at about 110 cases or so ... confirmed. Unconfirmed probably many more, because of what I had been talking about in regards that some people will only report things when they are minutes away from dying and those who are just too irresponsible. Regardless, I can see the exponential growth piling up already. I think we will be hit harder than Italy to be honest. And I really really wish people could keep informed as much as they could about the virus itself and what is going around the world and not just your own town, state or country, because new things are being known all the time, and then post a more reasonable opinion.
For example, the virus as of today has the following abilities:
1. Be ready to activate if its caught on stainless steel and plastic surfaces for approximately three days.
2. Younger people who catch it and then fight it for about 14 days that it can last inside a human may actually feel absolutely nothing, even during these 14 days.
3. It can still stay assembled in the middle of the air and be ready to be activated, for up to about 3 hours.
Here is the backed up source just in case someone  thinks this is pure conspiratorial bs.

@Jayde, 186, absolutely.  Safety first, and freedom, true freedom, anyway, does not come without virtuous responsibility, so in that sense I can agree with you.  If you're deliberately going out of your way to do things you know aren't safe just because freedom you're pretty bad.

Ethin, I'm afraid I disagree with you, at least to some extent.
You have a worrying tendency to overcomplicate issues. We aren't talking about cryptography here. We're talking about whether or not someone has a potential fatal and communicable disease.

Privacy, and the invasion of privacy, are not always hot-button topics the way you pretend. Yes, in some cases, you are absolutely, no-doubt-about-it correct, and I side with what you're saying. But in this instance, I think privacy can and must take a back seat, especially in specific circumstances.

For example, I don't think that it's okay for the government to break into your house and ask personal questions of all the residents that have nothing to do with the pandemic. That would be a breach of privacy. However, I -do think that demanding that you disclose relevant medical info, or financial info if you're applying for some sort of monetary relief, is not a breach of privacy. Authorities have a right to know pertinent types of information, and they should have the right to pursue that info if you are not immediately forthcoming. Obviously there have to be limits as to how, when and why this is done.

Now, you say that individual privacy is more important than the collective. Except...uh, you're missing the point again. This isn't just a matter of personal privacy. Privacy is potentially being stacked against who lives and who dies. And I think you'd have to be stark raving mad to think that all of your precious personal freedoms should remain absolutely inviolate, if doing so means that those around you might be at more risk. Unfortunately, if there is one thing that this pandemic has proven, it is that you cannot trust individuals, or even groups of individuals, to act in the best interest of group survival. Hoarding is just one example, but there are others. In other words, you can't say "well, people will do the right thing" because they manifestly won't, if they're too scared, too selfish, too misinformed or simply too freaking stubborn to listen.
Put another way, we know that people won't always do the right thing, and so, we sometimes have to use more direct action to ensure group safety. My life, your life, any one person's life is less important than the survival of the group. That is simple mathematics and ethics at play here. Ideally, nobody has to die, or suffer, or have their rights violated. That's a perfect world. And again, I'm not saying that the government should do what it wants, while we bend over and take it.
What I am saying is that you can't cry "privacy breach!" just because the government is demanding that you give up info that you don't want to give up, if said info is germain and may help others or help assess your potential as a threat. In the big picture, your privacy doesn't matter as much right now. Your happiness doesn't either. If you're annoyed because you're being asked to stay home, tough luck. If you're a business owner who can't go to work, that's too bad. Yes, it sucks. Gripe if you want. Lots of people are, and hell, it makes people feel better. But it's being done for everyone's good, not just yours.

The selfishness that has been exposed not just here, but virtually everywhere, makes me sort of want to curl up in a dark place and sleep for a long, long time. Like three years, maybe.

@ethin, alright, lets try this and see if it makes a little more sense for you, and no, that's not me trying to be condescending, either... I just happen to be going through this so figured I'm qualified to weigh in.
My mother-in-law works as a perish-home health nurse.  That means that as a matter of course she deals with terminally ill patience, people who will die at any moment.  She went on a cruise a couple of weeks ago.  Her boss told her to stay home as the result of it.  What does she do?  Ignores her boss and goes shopping because she feels like it.  As someone who is supposed to be a responsible nurse, does that seem right to you?
Elsewhere, I posted about the fact that my wife and our youngest daughter are both immune-compromised.  Do you think I want her showing up at my house right now given what she may or may not be carrying?  Absolutely not.  Does she care?  Given that she's going against what her boss specifically instructed, I highly doubt she does.

Ethin, this is where you're not fully grasping the enormity of the situation.

The reason that social distancing and self-isolation are being suggested is because this virus can go relatively undetected for the better part of two weeks, and even healthy individuals can carry it without infecting others. This means they might even show up negative on a standard test but possibly be able to infect someone else.
Under normal, non-pandemic circumstances, I would agree with you completely. But under these circumstances, I think that we must, absolutely must, err well on the side of caution. This means that even if you think it's unlikely you've had the chance to get infected, it's a good idea to minimize your social exposure. You wouldn't want to be wrong. What's more, if you and a bunch of others in an area were wrong, met up somewhere on your various errands, and even one of you was actually sick, or carrying, then there goes the ball game.

I'm not saying that absolutely everyone is a criminal just because they are statistically capable of being ill. What I'm saying is that everyone has a responsibility to do a few things, in my opinion:
1. Disclose to anyone with whom they come into contact if they are ill
2. self-isolate within reason
3. keep appropriate social distance, and maintain very good personal hygiene (washing hands, etc.)
I had food delivered last night (just some wings and such). Very tasty. Anyway, if I had been asked, either by my delivery person or by the restaurant, if I was sick, or suspected myself of being sick, I'd have told the truth, no questions asked, no hesitation. And I think anyone who would balk hard at this, at this point, is taking their own right to refuse, and thus their own privacy, way too seriously.

Ethin, you keep bringing up the slippery slope argument, that if we do X, it will lead to Y. This is a fundementally and fatally flawed  argument. I do also disagree with you on encryption, but that is beside this topic. I think not only should  people be required to disclose possible infections to offitials, but to people around them as well. There is actually  laws in several states that make it a criminal offense to withhold HIV posetive status from sex partners. The same principle should apply here. Also, hospitals should not only enforce quarantine for posetive cases, but for those presumed posetive, or likely to be posetive, or  someone exposed to someone who was posetive.

Ok. You're upset about not getting privacy and people being forced to stay Quarantined in one place?
Tell me this. If you were around someone who could possibly transfer it to you, would you want them going near you or anyone else for that matter? I don't know about anyone else, but my answer is no.
If they don't test positive for it, then great. But like Jayde said, we're better safe than sorry.
Also, I have another update. Walmart has changed their hours again. I'm not 100% sure on the exact times, but I heard something like it will be open from 7:30 in the morning to 8:30 at night. I could be wrong but I know it was something like that