Hellobee Boards

We have 0 cases in our province right now and things are slowly starting to open back up but everyone is very cautious still.

We are allowed a bubble family that you can be with and not have to social distance with. For us it is my parents and it has been so nice to drop the girls off for sleepovers, have family dinners together, etc.

We are allowed up to 10 people outdoors but need to social distance. That meant I could go for a walk with my neighbour last week , we just had to walk 6 feet apart.

Restaurants have opened - Dh and I went out for the first time today, to our favourite brunch. Every second table was closed off, paper menus, wait staff wearing masks... it was eerie at first to go but kind of nice to do something normal together for the first time in months.

Parks and beaches are open, but playgrounds are not which is what my kids really want to do.

Our borders are still firmly shut (because some of our neighbouring provinces/states are not doing so well). There are police at each border crossing denying entry to only the most essential of visitors. My sister is across the country and will likely not be able to come home for the summer as she usually does. That is really tough and a bitter pill to swallow, though I get why they are doing it.

I’m hopeful if we continue doing this well with 0 cases that this summer that we will continue to loosen restrictions... maybe even the provincial borders opening 🤞

I’m in New Zealand and we moved to “level two” last Thursday and the schools reopened today. We can have social gatherings of up to ten people but have been asked to keep a record of who we meet with for the purposes of contact tracing. Retail has reopened, restaurants and cafes are open with social distancing measures in place, hairdressers etc have more stringent requirements about wearing masks. Kids can go to the playground but we are still being warned to wash hands or use hand sanitiser and stay home if we are at all unwell.

As a matter of context we’ve had about twenty deaths attributed to Covid-19 and have had no new cases over the last few days (and the vast majority of our cases have been traced back to one of 4-5 clusters).

I live in a blue city in a red state (Montana) that has very low numbers and shut down very early given the number of cases at the time (blue governor). We haven't had a new case in my city since April 21st, and most new cases state-wide are from out-of-staters (0-4 new cases a day for the last month state-wide). Generally, people are still being pretty good. Some outside gatherings for sure, and the health department is working to make graduations happen, which makes me feel kind of sketched out. We have branched out to playing with neighborhood kids (but no touching) who have also been quarantining (only outside, usually biking). My (children's entertainment) work is still entirely shut down, but people are headed back to work in many fields. We have a family friend who was on the Covid-19 response team at the hospital, and the team has been disbanded. Most people I know have not returned to church, and the school district voted to stay closed (the governor left it up to individual districts, and I'm pretty sure only one tiny district opened). People are out and about, but it still feels...okay? We are still pretty locked down. I do wish more people were wearing masks, but some people certainly are. It feels risky, but also like we're going to be living with this for awhile, and our state probably is in a position to remove some barriers and see what works and what doesn't. Gyms are opening this week, but not for indoor classes, salons and massage places opened last week. Movie theaters and the like still closed for now. I don't intend to frequent any of these places (though we will still pay our gym membership). We have been ordering take-out, and doing curbside grocery pick-up. Parks are open, but playgrounds are closed (only in my city, state-wide many are open--our city added extra measures).

Many restrictions have been loosened in our state (Iowa). Our pretty rural county only has 3 current cases with 6 recovered. Salons were just allowed to open on Friday.
Restaurants have been able to open for a couple weeks but very few have. Bars and casinos are still closed as are playgrounds. Churches can open per government, but I don't know of any that are. Still a limit to 10 on gatherings.

I ventured into the nearest big-city yesterday and many non-grocery retail stores are still closed (old navy i believe is opening today, tj max closed, kohls had a door bell to ring).
The mall had maybe 10 stores open (had to go to get a diamond replaced on my wedding band - nice timing for it to fall out!).
Target was probably 50/50 with masks on. The mall was less so but also way less busy.

Except for bars and casinos it's pretty much up to the business owners now and I feel that most are being very responsible about when and how to open back up.

I just moved from MA to FL so things here are a lot different. In MA there are many more cases and more community spread and people there are still pretty locked down.

Here, we're in "Full phase 1" (as opposed to partial phase 1, which started first, lol). Some restaurants and stores are open, beaches and parks are open, but playgrounds are closed. Since we just moved we need a new daycare, but they can't take us until the 6' social distancing rule is lifted because they're running at a reduced capacity. But they are open.

I will admit, I've done some shopping (Target and a home store). Moving to a new, larger house, is really difficult during these times and there's a lot we need. I use a mask, we have several N95s. Probably 50-75% of people in stores use masks.

We are not comfortable eating in restaurants yet. We do a lot of drive throughs and take out and delivery though.

We also are now hanging out with my parents. They are in a high risk group, so we've tried to be careful. We didn't have any contact when we first arrived (they dropped stuff off for us and then waved from the car when), then we moved to outdoor gatherings with no physical contact, now we've finally gotten to indoor with some physical contact (hugs, sitting on laps, etc).

Also, as of today we have a baby sitter. Which I'm super excited about. We've just gotten to the point where getting any work done has been extremely hard. And I think the risk is now low enough.

People around here seem to be pretty over the restrictions. I noticed right away when we got to our neighborhood that social distancing wasn't as much of a thing. Kids playing together, adults having driveway parties, etc. It was a big shift from MA. But in reality, I think most of the current cases are tearing through nursing homes, which is driving the numbers.

We're in Texas. We officially started re-opening on May 1st, though I could tell a dramatic shift in public perception a few days ahead of that. Our family hasn't changed anything (1x a week to the grocery store wearing a mask, OB visits with a mask, family neighborhood walks sans masks (but no other people)) but what I see on facebook tells me people are itching to be out and about. There are rumors of people waiting in line outside Burlington for an hour because of "good sales". Lots of pictures of "small" gatherings of 10-15 people. The posts that bug me the most are the ones where people specifically brag about having a "socially-distanced" get together - and then show pictures 2 ft apart from each other, indoors, holding hands, etc.

Luckily, despite all this it's been 17 days and there hasn't been a spike in cases in my county like I was afraid of. There are only 5 active cases in the county at the moment and no hospitalizations.

@Becky: I hear you on the masks - that just seems like such an easy thing to do that might help, so why not? It doesn’t have the economic implications that keeping things closed does, just some personal inconvenience. My best guess is it’s hard to enforce so they suggest but don’t require. Like I just went into Target to get a few things you can’t do pick up for (they had hand sanitizer and some Clorox wipes!) and though they have a sign at the entrance saying local ordinance requires a mask, some people were not wearing them and I’m sure employees don’t want to get into it not knowing people’s mindsets. Our state government has actually specifically said stricter local rules can’t be enforced ... which seems crazy because some areas are so much more hard hit than others.

We live in TN. Things are opening back up, but we are staying home and still doing grocery pick up and only the occasional pick up or drive thru meal. I definitely notice more people out and about. Some are wearing masks. Certain places, like our library, are doing a very slow phased reopening. Staff went back today and I think they will be doing curbside pick up soon. Local colleges are only doing online classes for the summer. But then I also saw on Facebook that an indoor kids playplace opened back up!

We just moved to a larger house in the same county as they were opening up to Yellow phase. Masks are no longer 'required' (but that wasn't enforced anyway) and they are slowly opening up gyms/salons/rec centers, etc. Most businesses still have social distancing policies, but they've used this time to add plexiglass everywhere it seems.

I still use curbside pickup for everything, groceries, takeout, HomeDepot, even Kohl's. We've stuck to visiting family (we don't have grandparents or at-risk family members within 12 hours drive so I'm not concerned) and going out to outdoor locations like local gardens.

We did have a huge organized movement in our state to sew a ton of medical-grade masks and also supply a mask for anyone who requested it from the government website, so that has gone a long way to normalizing them.

Our worst 3 zip codes are still in Phase Orange, so masks are required and no gatherings of more than 10 I believe.

@DesertDreams88: also in Phoenix, AZ. I haven't done anything different yet since everything lifted. I'm pretty freaked out still, honestly. I was shocked to see so many people at the grocery store without masks! I'm trying to prepare myself for the news of cases going back up.

The worst part, for me, is I go back to work next week after being home from maternity leave. Just in time for everyone to start getting sick again 🤦‍♀️