CaptBeefheart
Posts: 2301
Joined: 7/4/2003 From: Seoul, Korea Status: offline
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Chickenboy: Restaurants here are more or less back to full operation. The missus tells me that she still eats lunch by herself at her desk at the hospital, which has been encouraged by management. She's not going to the employee cafeteria or any of the multitude of restaurants there. I'd say that's prudent for hospital workers. For white collar workers downtown, it seems that everyone's back to eating lunch at restaurants. I don't know what's going on at factories. I've noticed restaurant, bar, coffee shop, delivery, transportation (taxi, bus driver, motorcycle delivery), barber, etc. workers have been wearing masks since I think early February (they were definitely early adopters of mask wearing). Also, pretty much every business has hand sanitizer near the cash register or somewhere else prominent. Heck, the cabbie of the taxi I took to work this morning had hand sanitizer in the back pouch of the shotgun seat. As far as I can tell, Starbucks is the only chain which has reduced the number of tables and seats in its outlets (maybe by 30%). Of all the restaurants and bars which I frequent, and I have been frequenting them throughout this situation, I haven't noticed anything done to reduce the proximity of one customer to another (except at Starbux). Another thing is masks come off once you sit down in such an establishment--otherwise you can't eat or drink. I haven't noticed anything different at stores, either, other than the bigger ones usually require masks to enter. Costco was business as usual expect for masks. I don't see "X" marks anywhere where you might have to queue, for instance, like the ATM picture above. People queue with maybe a bit more distance in between than normal, but not much. We had a nationwide election on April 15, and I haven't heard of one case attributed to it. They did institute special measures at the polling stations. One piece of Covid theater I've noticed is plastic sheets with "Cu+" stickers (i.e. copper ion) have gone up to cover elevator buttons and door handles. I have no idea if this has any positive effect. I also once saw a couple of city employees doing some sort of desultory spraying on business fronts along a sidewalk. A lot of big buildings have people who will take your temperature, either with a handheld device or a thermal imager. When I want a temp check I can visit my nearby ATM. I saw pictures of churches on Sunday with people pretty well spread out among the pews. Our church hasn't gone back yet, probably because services were pretty packed before. I haven't talked to the pastor so I'm not sure what he has in mind. The video services are working for the time being. My daughter started pre-school a week ago. There are eight kids in her class. They all wear masks. I believe the main reason people are pretty much back to normal in their routines is there is confidence in the contact tracing system and a belief that people who should be quarantining are quarantining. You also don't see people making a show of avoiding others on the sidewalks or in other situations. At the end of the day, the number of cases here in Seoul is minuscule on a per capita basis and people seem to have internalized that. Sorry to hear about Singapore, but the way they cram their "guest" workers in the dormitories was asking for trouble. Taiwan is doing very, very well, and should be a beacon for the world. Too bad they're not a member of WHO. I also read the 'Nam is doing well. Japan, for all it's bad press, still has better per capita numbers than Korea. A buddy of mine who works for FedEx over there says he's been working from home for a month, but business is booming for the firm. He said their biggest problem is juggling crew schedules what with different requirements in all countries. He said pilots cannot overnight in China, for instance, or they'll get stuck, so they have to make sure they overnight at Narita. Cheers, CB
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Beer, because barley makes lousy bread.
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