Fear of Crowds

I live in a smaller town in Massachusetts and they have closed the library, town hall , pool at the school and all the schools of course. They said basically to only go out for groceries, medicines, gas and other wise to stay home. I was just reading an article on Italy and it was said that due to a lot of people being selfish and not social distancing when told, it went out of control. That is what concerns me is that people do not listen to guide lines for protection. Like in Florida they were saying there were bunches of people all over the beach close together. One thing that really got me was I was at a store yesterday and bought some candy bars and placed them on the counter. The next person in line who also worked at the store looked and my candy bars and picked one up. I was flabbergasted.
 
The banjo should be the ideal instrument to assist with social distancing. If you can still hear it - it's too close.

John Colter
 
Local Safeway's shelves are bare of toilet paper and meat and many canned goods. Oh well, if food is in short supply right now, toilet paper isn't all that essential, right?

Lots of canned vegetables left on local shelves. Even in a health emergency you can't get people to eat their veggies. :D
 
In my town in the south of Spain Easter, the year´s major festival, has been cancelled.
Tourism is everything here, it´s a spa town, but everything except the pharmacy and the food shops is closed and we are to stay in our homes.
My classes in uke, guitar and Spanish have ceased --- suddenly we are in a different world.
 
Things are getting serious here in Pennsylvania. All state-run liquor stores are closing indefinitely tonight. And if you want hard liquor and spirits, we don't have anything else but state-run liquor stores!

(Fortunately, many of the larger grocery stores are licensed to sell beer and wine, and they will be staying open, so there's still some hope!)

Obligatory Ukulele Content: The Allegheny Ukulele Soiree, scheduled for later April in Altoona, PA is canceled for 2020! :(
 
Obligatory Ukulele Content: The Allegheny Ukulele Soiree, scheduled for later April in Altoona, PA is canceled for 2020! :(

I canceled my reservation in the morning, and I got the cancellation notice about the event in the evening. Too bad. Funky Frets (October) began registration this weekend. I can't imagine any uke fest going ahead this year. If most people don't cancel, I bet most performers/instructors will.
 
I live in a smaller town in Massachusetts and they have closed the library, town hall , pool at the school and all the schools of course. They said basically to only go out for groceries, medicines, gas and other wise to stay home. I was just reading an article on Italy and it was said that due to a lot of people being selfish and not social distancing when told, it went out of control. That is what concerns me is that people do not listen to guide lines for protection. Like in Florida they were saying there were bunches of people all over the beach close together. One thing that really got me was I was at a store yesterday and bought some candy bars and placed them on the counter. The next person in line who also worked at the store looked and my candy bars and picked one up. I was flabbergasted.

Plenty of people probably touched that candy bar while on the shelf: stockers and, of course, customers digging through them feeling if they're broken or out of date...
 
I canceled my reservation in the morning, and I got the cancellation notice about the event in the evening. Too bad. Funky Frets (October) began registration this weekend. I can't imagine any uke fest going ahead this year. If most people don't cancel, I bet most performers/instructors will.

Same thing happened to me, Jerry. I canceled my reservation and then a couple of hours later I saw the email notice about the event cancellation. Let's hope this blows through by October, but I'm not about to commit to anything at this point. With luck, maybe I'll see you at Funky Frets.
 
Next weeks' concert by "Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain" ( scheduled since last year at University of Wisconsin, Madison ) has been cancelled. They were kind enough to provide full refunds, even for the 'processing' charge.

Got me thinking about all the performers from all over the world that may be getting caught up in all the travel restrictions and ... everything.

Our MAUI group (Madison Area 'Ukulele Initiative) has cancelled all of it's outings and group play-alongs. However, Andrew - our Chief Cat Herder - is arranging for weekly Live-Stream PlayAlongs. "Social distancing is NOT Social Isolation"

These will be referred to as "Coronakapila" ... a pun on the Hawaiian word, Kanikapila (impromptu music jam). Cute, eh?
 
Mighty Uke Day in Lansing, MI has been postponed until this fall, date TBA.
 
My friend from Seattle informed me that a member of his Uke group went to a kanikapila with 14 people. Later, they learned that 9 tested positive for the Coronavirus!! Everyone, stay safe.
 
Same thing happened to me, Jerry. I canceled my reservation and then a couple of hours later I saw the email notice about the event cancellation. Let's hope this blows through by October, but I'm not about to commit to anything at this point. With luck, maybe I'll see you at Funky Frets.

Yes! I'd gladly pay the extra $10 by registering late, but I'd hate to be shut out. I think organizers aren't going to have much choice about canceling events. If conditions are bad, they'll have to cancel. Otherwise, it will run as planed. You can't run a uke fest with a dozen attendees and no instructors.
 
Stater Brothers’ Market here in California said that they would open at 0745 now for seniors only to shop. Very nice of them. :eek:ld:
 
There's such a thing as being irresponsible.
This was ignorance rather than irresponsibility. This was at a leap-day kanikapila - over a week before this thread started, and several days before the serious social distancing recommendations came through and things started being cancelled: the big public meetups didn't start closing down until a few days later.

There was some serious counting on the fingers to see how long it'd been since I'd played with that group. By the time they showed symptoms and called out the warning it'd been 14 days for me, but it started feeling pretty real around then. I haven't been off my grounds since then except for a couple of necessary supply runs (and daily walks around the block).

It got more real last night when the first person I knew succumbed to COVID19. I didn't know Pat Nelson well - I'd been to several workshops with her - and I suspect others here knew her much better. If you did (or if you didn't) there are several tributes on her Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Pokeyone

Stay home. Stay safe. Play on.
 
This was ignorance rather than irresponsibility. This was at a leap-day kanikapila - over a week before this thread started, and several days before the serious social distancing recommendations came through and things started being cancelled: the big public meetups didn't start closing down until a few days later.

There was some serious counting on the fingers to see how long it'd been since I'd played with that group. By the time they showed symptoms and called out the warning it'd been 14 days for me, but it started feeling pretty real around then. I haven't been off my grounds since then except for a couple of necessary supply runs (and daily walks around the block).

It got more real last night when the first person I knew succumbed to COVID19. I didn't know Pat Nelson well - I'd been to several workshops with her - and I suspect others here knew her much better. If you did (or if you didn't) there are several tributes on her Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Pokeyone

Stay home. Stay safe. Play on.

Thank you for your posts.

I am in a "Shelter in Place" order in the Bay Area. The issue is the lack of testing keeps us in the dark as to who might be infected. Until this last week, the seriousness of the pandemic was downplayed and the availability of tests was lied about ("anybody can get one"... by Friday, we will ship 4 M more tests"...).

So it is completely understandable that those nine infected never knew nor were alarm bells raised at the time. Our uke meetups were not cancelled until the week after) I suspect that many in other parts of the country still are not duly informed or alarmed as to how serious this can become. If the virus does not affect you personally, the changes that are occurring should (businesses closing, no travel).

So prepare for the "Shelter in Place" order that will be inevitable in the entire country. If you, like many uke players, are in the higher risk age bracket, begin social distancing immediately. And then play your uke a lot and hope we get over this sooner than later and better than worse.

Stay safe and healthy!
 
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