Celkom zaujimave z redditu - pohlad typka zijuceho v Korei:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/ffqiyn/daily_discussion_post_march_09_questions_images/fk0238h/

I wanted to write up on how my everyday life has changed in the last couple of months living in Korea. It's long but felt I wanted to share it with anyone who's interested.

How we are dealing with CORVID-19.

It's been almost 2 months since most of my kids' classes has stopped altogether. Some earlier than others, but for a month now, everything's been cancelled. School and kindergarten should've started on Mar. 2nd. We've been told they'll start on the 23rd, but one, it's possible they'll postpone the date again, and two, we don't know how we feel about sending the kids to school even if they actually do open. We're starting to worry about how this will affect the older boy's school work and education, and we try to give him some sort of a homework for him to do, at least enough to keep him from forgetting stuff he learned in 1st grade. We had a teacher come and teach him math etc. for about 30 minutes every week, and give daily worksheet to do (fairly common in Korea). That 1 on 1 class is being held through a tablet app with video chat. Pretty cool, actually. Both kids are reading a lot of books, mostly because they get bored of playing all day. I get to read book after book after book for the little one, which I kind of like. They can't meet their friends which is pretty sad, and we are thankful that they have each other's company. I hear my colleagues with single child having much harder time trying to entertain their kids. The younger one asks me about once a day if the Corona virus is gone yet. It breaks my heart a little bit. We all need a haircut, like last month. But we're just letting it grow since we probably would have to take our masks off during the cut (or at least during the shampoo process). At least the hairdressers are all working with their mask on. I know because I've called them and asked. If words spread around the neighborhood that some restaurants or stores have employess working without masks on, that store's going to have zero customers.

My wife is a SAHM and she's been spending time with the two kids 24/7. They go out for a walk about once week if the weather's nice, all with their mask on. It's actually not that bad since there are few people on the street and nearby trails (other than dog owners walking their dogs). They get to take the mask off and breath in some fresh air, which is probably due to China stopped a lot of their factories leading to cleaner air in Korea. The boys (8 and 4) have learned to enjoy each other's company since it is their only option. They get along much better and that's some burden off of my wife's shoulders. We don't go out to malls or anywhere indoor at all. We used to be able to online order fresh food before midnight and they'd be on our front door at 7am the next day, but now they're often sold out. We have succeeded in ordering some stuff when we order early in the afternoon or so. We take turns going to the grocery, alone, again with our mask. I try to let her go as often as I can, so she can get at least a little time by herself, even if it's for a short drive to and from the store. We find ourselves buying less of fresh veggies and parishables because we don't want to goto the store often. We end up buying more frozen food than we'd like. She's come up with so many creative ways to pass the time with the kids, often transforming normal house chores into some kind of a game, but we both agree options are running out. She's very tired all the time and we're just waiting for all this to pass.

A lot of companies in Korea have decided to have their employees work from home. That is not the case where I work, but it could change in an instant if any one of our employees turn up to be confirmed of the virus. For now, masks are mandatory. Riding the company bus, taking the elevator, walking through halls, etc. all require masks. We have a big sign in the elevator that reads, "NO MASK, NO ELEVATOR". Koreans already tend to wear mask often when they have a cold or something, but now, you get weird looks if you're not wearing one within the company. Sanitizers are everywhere and we've gotten acustomed to just sanitizing our hands whenever we see one, without giving it a second thought. I've probably used it around 30 times today. In addition, when we goto the cafetaria, there are employees with sanitizers in both hands spraying every single employees before we get in. A few days ago, we had a plastic, transparent wall installed on our cafetaria table for every spot so people eating facing each other are blocked from any unecessary droplet infection. Most social and non-essential meetings have been either cancelled, delayed or are held over phones. We have thermo-camera things set up so everyone entering the company gets their temperatures checked, and one of our employee goes around the office taking everyone's temperature twice a day. People in hazmat-like suit came in the other day to disinfect/fumigate the whole office and we had to leave for 30+ minutes, which was nice because the coffee place closest to the office closed down after the whole virus thing. We were able to walk to a coffee place further away and finally get some good coffee. We didn't talk much because we'd lower our mask only to take a sip of the coffee. They say it's going to be a weekly event. Most business trips have stopped, especially to China.

We get several text messages from the goverment regarding CORVID-19. It used to be used for national emergencies such as earthquake warnings, heat warnings, etc. But nowadays, they're all about the virus. If a confirmed case in my city is found, the city immediately messages everyone (I do mean everyone in the city. I think it's a feature in all Korean phones and cannot be opted out) the patient's age/gender/location(down to which section of the city) and where they've gone in the last few days or so. It gets down to specific restaurant's name. We also get general reminders for washing hands, wearing masks, and not attending religious/social meetings. Starting today (9th of March), we received messages on how to go about purchasing masks.

Masks have been a huge part of our lives for the last month or so. We take them off at home, in our own cars, and in my cubicle while working (but I do keep them Butabout half the time even in my cubicle, just in case). We hear KF80, KF94 (probably a Korean mask filter-ability standard, not sure what the global standards are) are preferable, but I do have a couple hundreds of the cheap disposable ones that I bought a few weeks before the virus broke out (the ones that surgeons use), so I just use those and dispose of them after a day of use. My main concern is my habit of touching my face inadvertantly and people coughing/sneezing close to me. All the mask you can buy online are either sold out, or have gone up crazy in price. Ones we used to be able to get for less than $1 USD costs $3~5. Because of this, Korean government decided to limit Korean mask manufacturers on how much they can export compared to domestic sales (I think it was more than 90% but not sure), and the government is buying most of the mask themselves to sell to the people for reasonable price. Basically, it's martial law for mask sales. They tried a few methods (which had loopholes, obviously) and seem to have decided on the current method.

2 masks per person a week. They are sold ONLY at the pharmacy, because they already have system to make sure people aren't perscribed medication repeatedly. Simply put, they punch in your national ID number, and they can see if you've bought your ration of your masks for the week. You also have to be there in person, unless you're buying masks for kids 10 years or younger, or 80 or older person that you live with. Even then, it has to be your day. For example, I was born in 19x2. This means my day is Tuesday. I can buy two on Tuesday only. My son was born 2012. I can bring an official document that proves that we live together. Then I can buy 4, including 2 for my son. My wife can buy 4 on another day of the week (Monday) because she was born in 19x1, and my younger son was born in 2016 (1,6 on Monday, 2,7 on Tuesday, etc.). I will be stopping by my local pharmacy to pick up 4 masks for the kids tomorrow. This is the first week of the policy and I'm sure there will be confusion everywhere, but I think it's a reasonable plan. I personally don't think the masks I already have are inadequate, but you don't know how long this CORVID-19 will last so I'd like to buy them while I can.

All in all, our life has gotten much more unconfortable, but as people do, we've gotten used to it. We try to watch the news on TV but turn them off pretty quickly because it makes everyone sad. I do keep up with the news online for Korea and around the world. Everyone around me agrees that if it wasn't for that cult, we'd be in much better condition as a whole. We start fuming and cursing whenever the cult comes up in our conversation, and half-jokingly ask people around us to repeat the phrase, "FUCK Lee Man Hwee". He's the head of the cult, and "obviously" you won't be able to say so if you're part of the cult. Probably not true, but got to entertain ourselves somehow.