Hobby vs Coronavirus

[Filkarion]

Hi guys! I have seen here and there that this spread epidemics thing have in some ways hit some of us in this community in some ways

 

As you could know from the panel on your left I am Italian, so... well you know

This is a very strange situation, because the enemy is invisible, so you have impacts in your life but things seem to be ok otherwise.

I will not describe it in great details (you can PM me if you want some first hand witnesses), let us just say that everything is "normal" except you have to stay home as much as possible.

 

Arkhanist explains what should be done to avoid virus spread better that I could here

 

Anyway almost all people from Italy and lots of people worldwide have or are going to have a lot of time to spend home.

While it does not change a lot for me, as I already worked from home and having 2 children keeps you busy all the time (I am just about to pick up minis after a 2 months hiatus), my friends in the hobby are really climbing their gray backlog, so much that we are thinking about playing a game together when this madness will end, with the stuff we painted meanwhile.

 

Anyway I just wanted to ask you... have this epidemic touched you and is the hobby helping? This is a good moment for less gaming and more building and painting! You can actually help the world by doing this, really!

 

I will post my works here, when I will have them and those of my friends, if they will let me

 

Post yours!

[Panzer]

So far it didn't change anything for me except for increasing the number of facepalms when reading/listening to the news or various social media. I'm really not bothered by this whole thing. The deathrate is incredibly low compared to many other things healthy people usually don't even think twice about.

 

That being said, if I were forced to stay home by the police or whatever, I probably wouldn't get that much more painting done. The internet and videogames is still a thing and won't go away. 

[Filkarion]

Thanks for you reply! I do not want to turn this into a Coronavirus debate, let just say that you are right (my opinion was similar), but the problem is it spread very fast if unchecked.

 

Anyway, you are right! For example I am here and I managed not to get my minis still. But I have seen fellow hobbyists make good use of their extra time for painting and I hope opening this topic will in some ways motivate me to do the same

 

So, to the Painting Station! 

[Lord_Ikka]

I was planning on going to Legoland on vacation with my 5 year-old, but the wife and I decided to cancel to just be on the safe side. So I've got a week and a half off starting Saturday, and I plan on finally using the airbrush I got at Xmas to paint up some Harlequin Xenos. Should have enough time to get a decent idea of what I'm doing.

[Arkhanist]

My wife and I both work in schools, and have young children, so I've spent a fair bit of time in meetings lately about our escalation stages - estimates vary, but we reckon we're about 1-2 weeks behind Italy in the UK and school closures are almost certainly coming. I'd have to remain at work (not a teacher) while my wife would be expected to teach from home remotely while also looking after our kids - and that's a fulltime job in itself, so I'll be burning through holiday just to give her relief. I do not envy Italians right now!

 

The thing about pandemics is the exponential spread - IIRC from china each covid-19 victim, on average, infects 2.5 other people - which means some infect far more than that. So it can spread, really really quickly without drastic control measures, and with a mortality rate around 30 times higher than season flu it's an eyewatering potential casualty rate - each and every one someone's parent, or spouse, or good friend... The risk of complications is also substantialy higher than the mortality rate, around 10-15% depending upon underlying health; And as the hospitals fill up to overflowing with patients struggling to breath, that has a heavy impact on all the *other* patients hospitals should be helping - and cancer patients, for just one example, can't just wait for it to all to blow over.

 

The greatest risk is close contact, i.e. family, but also friends and people who spend significant time close by, like, as a random example, playing a game of 40k... It can also live on hard surfaces for hours or even days - and contaminate the hands of people who touch that surface, such as door handles. Or gaming tables.

 

It's a tricky balance of what to do. Play football matches in empty stadiums? People go the pub to watch it instead, and spend a couple of hours in close proximity to a bunch of strangers.

Temperature screen flights? You get a *ton* of false positives and expose airport workers to close contact with potentially infected people all day.

Close schools? Now you have huge amounts of people looking after their children instead of working. Maybe they'll have grandparents take care of them at times so they can still work (and get paid) and you've just exposed a group that is at the highest risk to regular visits from their children and grandchildren.

Don't close schools? Now you've hundreds of childrens and adults in close proximity all day, every day.

 

If you have to implement draconian measures, as both China and now Italy have had to, how long can you keep them in place before people get so bored and blase they just start breaking them?

 

And that's not even considering the economic impact of all this - and there's far too many people living paycheck to paycheck as it is.

 

But I'm sure those of us living in the US and UK can trust in our reliable, competent and truthful governments. *dry cough*

 

I'm trying to paint - I can highly recommend grotsmasha's monthly challenge for a low-stress group where we're all just painting what we fancy - but I have to admit, every time I sit down at the table my mind starts wandering onto grimmer thoughts. I think I may need to switch from painting Nurgley Death Guard for a while!

Edited March 11, 2020 by Arkhanist

[Filkarion]

Good call, I sadly have to say.

 

I do not own an airbrush, but from what I know 80% is figuring what to do and 20% is doing, and I guess you will have enough time to figure out well!

Sad (but not so sad) story, I managed to fetch the minis, figure out what to do, wet the palette... and suddenly things to do reached me... guess I will get something done later!

[WarriorFish]

This is nothing to do with the hobby. Please respect the rules - simply adding the hobby to something does not make it suitable for the B&C.