I'm in Bar Harbor, Maine. We still have zero confirmed cases in our county, though the local hospital did have one confirmed positive test (it just happened that the person who took the test didn't live in the county).
The local schools all closed on March 13th, and are staying closed through April at least. Thankfully our superintendent reacted swiftly even before the state had issued guidance. Restaurants and bars all are closed, and many non-essential businesses have been closed for the past week. Work has been a mixed bag for us, as our employer is a critical infrastructure institution (and
is actively at work fighting). It is nice that our President and CEO is an MD/PhD who happened to run the Genome Institute of Singapore during the SARS outbreak (he actually earned a medal in Singapore for his work then). While he's not an epidemiologist, he knows quite a bit about what comes next. It has been quite reassuring hearing him speak about plans and how this can, and will, be faught and eventually defeated.
But, since we can't shut down or literally millions of lives will end, we keep operating. We sent most people who
can work remotely home throughout this past week, and they aren't supposed to return unless it is absolutely necessary. I'm the primary videoconferencing and "digital workspace" technician in Maine for JAX, so needless to say, I'm a little busy right now. My wife
works for Dr. Lutz, so she's also quite busy. Keeping an eye on our 8-year-old has been challenging, but we're making do.
I think most locals are following the guidance fairly well and avoiding congregating and whatnot, at least on the Island. Unfortunately, here on the Island where I live, the people "from away" have started fleeing their homes in NY, Mass, Florida, and wherever and are returning to their summer homes in Maine quite early. We saw a big uptick in activity in town this past weekend (including a few summer businesses with owners from away opening up months early!) This is absurd. First of all, if you are from New York, you need to stop moving around and bringing it up here with you (or picking it up on the trip). But more importantly, even if you aren't infected, you're going to come here where we have a hospital with 25
total critical care beds? Really?
Maine overall has 89 confirmed cases right now, so probably something like 2500-4500 total cases. This could bite us
badly, as we have (much like Italy) a very aged population in Maine and (unlike Italy) an extremely under-funded healthcare infrastructure. We have much lower population density, so it'll likely be slower, but with all the summer people panicking and fleeing to "the country" it could turn very bad, very quickly here. And our hospitals are totally unprepared for the folks who live here, much less an influx.
Personally... I don't know. One thing that is interesting (I guess that's the word, I don't know what to call it) is that just on March 7th I had my daughter at the doctor to be checked, as she had a low-grade fever, dry cough, headache, an earache, and some mild chest tightness which hadn't gone away for about a week. They gave her antibiotics and sent us home. She took them all. She's better now.
A week or so before my daughter first got sick, my wife had been diagnosed with "viral pneumonia" (with similar symptoms, but worse in the chest). She still has a lingering touch of a dry cough, though is otherwise fine. And, about 10-12 days before she got sick? I had the same thing. Mine lingered longer (but is now completely resolved). I never went to the doctor even though I did have some "fluidy breathing", felt fevery (though the 2 times I actually checked, I was in the normal-ish range), and a lot of chest tightness because I'm stubborn and "it's just a dumb cold". It was a weird cold though, as it felt flu-like (with the fever), and I was exhausted, but I never got the body aches, and it seemed to come and go more than the flu usually does.
And, of course, about a week before my first symptoms? I was supporting multiple events with a bunch of executives fresh from a plane from China. They were all supposed to isolate for 14 days, of course, but we had a Board Meeting scheduled (which is why they came back) and so they all went to the board meeting and I was right there with them for the whole thing.
None of us were tested. It was probably just Influenza-A (which has been going around and isn't blocked entirely by this year's flu vaccine), but how do we know? How does anyone know? Maybe I've been a typhoid Mary for this past month (including a 4 day business trip to LA in the middle there). I'll probably never know. But if so, my R0-value is
terrible. Sorry.
The lack of testing is a calamity.
Oh, and by the way, if you think back to the H1N1 "scare" (which actually killed a ton of people worldwide and wasn't a small thing at all) and think this is overblown? They'd tested 1 million people within 30 days of the first confirmed case of H1N1 in this country that time. So, you know, it is possible when the inmates aren't running the asylum.