It's very common in London to see people of East Asian heritage wearing face masks. It's not so common to see Caucasians wearing masks, unless they're cyclists, or very occasionally on the Tube, to combat air pollution. However, in the last week, I've seen more Caucasian pedestrians wearing facemasks than in the last 10 years of travelling around London.
The Chinese, Japanese, Koreans and others who have long made the wearing of face masks a normal public health practice have led the way. The rest of us have some learning and catching up to do.
It is however questionable how effective face masks, as in most cases they are used wrongly and give a false sense of security at best. They might be effective against smog, but most types aren't against an airborne virus.
As I understand it this is what people who are sick ought to do if they go out. Little help to healthy people who don masks.
Depending on the mask, they're not much help against smog either; to be smog-effective, they have to be close-fitting and filtered, so the paper ones are useless in both regards. Cyclist masks are probably the best bet against anything airborne. I nearly got one the other year when I was commuting on one of the deep Tube lines, which are some of the oldest and dirtiest lines, with the poorest ventilation, and with the oldest rolling-stock. You could stand at one end of a platform and the other end would look hazy with airborne particulates. I dread to think what I might have been breathing in all that time. There was a UCL study done a while back that found 20 minutes on a deep-tube (specifically the Northern Line) was the equivalent of smoking a cigarette. Just awful Paper masks are probably a good start for keeping your germs to yourself, as @aardvark250 says. Not sure how effective they are in epidemic/pandemic situations, when if you're not well you should probably stay home, but in more usual times, they're generally a good idea from a public health standpoint.
I had to cancel my trip to Israel that I had been planning for 2 years, due to Covid-19. Israel has a mandatory quarantine of 2 weeks to anyone entering the nation, so it's obviously not feasible. Instead I decided to stay in the United States and will be visiting several national parks in Arizona and Utah.
That's awful about having to cancel your trip! At least you're making the most out of it, though. ~Thylo
I am no longer attending the NARBC Tinley Expo this weekend due to the cases in Chicago. I have also heard that people from my school that were planning on doing exchange programs had to cancel.
Getting closer to home, fully expect to be working from home by the end of the month. Schools are cancelling all foreign trips too, so unhappy child. I do wonder how many people have it but do not realise.
It definitely sucks, having never left the United States before. But as of now am planning to do the trip in 2021. Utah and Arizona have some cool zoos (Hogle, Tracy aviary, Phoenix) to visit and amazing national parks (grand canyon, zion, bryce & capital reef), so i’m sure it’ll be fun. Attendance because of international restrictions & decreased domestic tourism should be lower at least at the National parks. Also as a birder their are several species that I really wanna see in the region, especially the California condor. Overall i’ll still get to see a large salty body of water and arid landscapes.
We haven't technically cancelled our planned 4 week trip to Colombia in July - only because we hadn't yet booked anything. Instead we have decided to postpone it. Our concerns are specifically about the ability to source travel insurance with adequate coverage.
All schools are closed as of tommorow. All events with 100 or more anticipated visitors are prohibited, this includes fairs, cinemas, folk festivals, large weddings and so on. Situation is changing daily for the worse. Today I was shopping at large discount store, cca 1/3 of usual items were sold out, people had full trolleys of food and all cashcounters were operating. People prepaire for home quarantine. Family who owns the company I work for have evacuated their more vulnerable members (children, grandparents etc.) into their mountain cottage. Company is still operating, but we have strict security/heath rules now, no meetings, no international travel, home quarantine for people returning from holidays etc. We have contingency plan to close for 1-2 months if situation in Prague should get much worse. Govermental offices and healthcare sector is bracing for full impact in next days. If you plan a trip to CZ in next weeks, cancel it.
I unfortunately had to cancel a planned trip to Greece only a week or so in advance (I would've left on March 13th). On the bright side, I will be going on a road-trip where I will be visiting the Saint Louis, Indianapolis and Louisville zoos.
In CT some schools have already closed down both on the public and private side of things (including at least one university so far). Have to say, I'm becoming a tad worried about my trip to Florida next week simply because it's now becoming a real possibility that individual states will be closing their borders to reduce the spread of disease. ~Thylo
Today, I guess, there was a case found in the county next to mine. This is very alarming with grandparents in the 80's and 90's.
A town about 25 miles from me, in New York, is going into lock-down in the next day or so so that the National Guard can scrub schools and public offices. I cannot comprehend how this is going to be helpful, but it will be the first of many I expect. Coronavirus in N.Y.: ‘Containment Area’ Is Ordered for New Rochelle
The Economical crisis seems stronger in Norway, than the pandemic fear, so far. I am working for the biggest hotel chain in Scandinavia and we experienced severe cancellations for the last two days. The health authorities strongly advice against gatherings of over 500 people and all sport and public events are canceled. The daily life is still looks normal, though. I was planing to visit few zoos UK zoos + Beauval and Due la Fontaine in April, but will most probably postpone it.
