Fori, you are so right about wearing a bandana or whatever in front of your mouth. To update: Some good news or not, depending on what this will do to the way we look. This video, by the same group, shows how a simple washcloth in front of the speaker's mouth basically contains pretty much all the droplets (> 99%) that are normally emitted when talking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OSz5Gr7gG0&feature=youtu.be

This is really hard on my parents, who live next door to us. My mom watches my brother's 2 kids M-F and the oldest (4 yrs old) keeps seeing my girls in our backyard and wanting to play. We have been strictly complying with social distancing for the past 3 weeks so, even though we live next door, we don't. To make matters worse, one of our closest friends have 2 children and both of their jobs are considered essential so they HAVE to go to work. They didn't want to put their kids in a daycare so I've agreed to watch their kids. Their jobs aren't public facing/medical so it is a lower risk and I would much prefer for my pseudo niece and nephew to NOT be in a daycare environment, especially considering a kid at a local daycare tested positive. Only the kids come inside, and they change clothes and wash hands immediately. Then I sterilize anything they touched. When my mom saw that I had other children over when I wouldn't let my nephew come over, she got very upset. I explained the situation and she understands but it is still hard on her, and REALLY hard on these kids who don't understand why it is they aren't allowed to play with the kid they can see next door, or walking down the street. As for me, school @ home for 4 has become school @ home for 6 so...at least I'm kept busy!!

Hi everybody! When I got to the doctor, I was told I didn't "qualify" for a test because I have no fever. We can't get antibody tests here. We can't get anything if we don't have a fever or have been out of the country, or we've been previously diagnosed with COVID-19. Isn't that ridiculous? In the wealthier communities, like Naples and The Villages, they had drive-thru testing, but not here in Gainesville. I did get a chest x-ray, and my doctor said I have some congestion, but he doesn't see the typical COVID damage, so that's good. He says he'll put me on the list for antibody testing, and I can have one as soon as he gets enough. Anyway, I'm fine now. I've been taking loads of vitamins and supplements and my energy is back. I've been gardening a lot, really literally tearing things up. I'm getting rid of a lot of ornamentals in favor of trying to grow more food. I really want to see just how much food I can produce in my tiny space. Joe, here's how those free tests go: They take your temperature. If you have no temperature, they pretty much write it off as allergies and send you home. If you do have a temperature, they test you for flu. If it's not flu, they test you for something else, then if it's not that, they test you for COVID. It's insane. I went out grocery shopping for the first time in weeks today. I tend to go shopping about every 2 weeks, then self-quarantining after just in case. This was the first time I wore a mask, and it was a homemade paper towel mask I saw a doctor making on YouTube. 5 layers, so pretty safe -- for everyone else. I can't find any other kind of mask anywhere, and I'm not paying the prices they have on eBay and Amazon for a 50-cent mask. I did find latrile gloves in the cleaning department at Dollar General. I remember when they were 10 prs/$1, now it's 4 prs/$1.50. Price gouging at its finest. When my husband was doing house renovations, the n-95 masks for $20.00/100. That was a long time ago, sure, but now they're $30.00+ for 20 from Grainger, but they're perpetually out and aren't taking orders. This is a strange time we're living in. They tell us to wear masks, then the government buys them all up and we can't find them. I'm going to be forced to start cutting up old clothes soon to make my own. Worst part is, I can't get filters for my vacuum, which uses -- you guessed it -- HEPA filters. So construction people can't get masks and we can't vacuum our homes. Wonderful. I've gotta get out of this place.

If Ohio's reported cases are declining in the metro areas, that's wonderful. In the mostly rural southern and southeastern counties that had only a few early cases, new cases seem to be on a slow increase. Vinton was the last to have no reported cases, then in the last weeks they've jumped to 16. That might reflect testing for someone's whole family, co-workers, a nursing home--I don't know the details--and I know that seems to be a small number compared to other areas. Kathsgrdn, I have been very impressed with KY's stats (as well as WV's). We have relatives in a KY county which borders the river, and one of my brothers works in WV, so I check their stats often. My father is ecstatic that the local Bob Evans is opening for inside dining tomorrow. I'm not so thrilled, since he is 83 and won't wear a mask or properly distance himself from others. ETA, here's our 21-day trend--unfortunately up almost 250 more cases than yesterday (484):