chemist, pharmacy
What's the difference between these? I'm not familiar with the word chemist (used this way) but I would have guessed the chemist
was the pharmacist.
supermarkets, weekly markets
And what's the difference here? I'm not familiar with weekly markets. (ETA: maybe they're what we call farmers markets over here? Weekly gatherings of booths where farmers and others sell fresh produce, meat and eggs and sometimes handcrafts like soap and jewelry. They're usually open weekly. I really hope they can open this summer, for the sake of both customers and farmers!)
Here everything is closed except the essentials, which I think are more or less the same as you all have listed. The big question was whether liquor stores would stay open. MN is so straitlaced about alcohol that even beer and wine are not sold in grocery stores. Sale on Sundays has only been allowed for the past couple of years (they had to change the law when the Superbowl was held in Minneapolis!
). Thankfully, the governor has deemed liquor stores essential.
Newspapers are considered essential, but we're all working from home whenever possible. I've left the house for work twice in the past two weeks, and two or three other times for errands.
I went out on the 14th for a story about what was happening out there, as things like theaters and art galleries were starting to shut down but most stores and restaurants were still open. These two women had just opened a new pie shop and had a line out the door and down the street. They'd been selling pies out of a church basement for three years and had built up a big fan base -- they sold out of pies by noon. I spoke to people in line at close quarters and stood inside the small crowded shop. One of the owners, who is very warm and extroverted, was literally hugging many of the people in line. I wrote a story with a kind of wry humor -- the term "social distancing" was still brand new. The women had just received their license the day before, and this coincidentally happened to be Pi Day. "It's the perfect time!" one woman said. "Well, kind of -- except for [blah blah blah about the coronavirus]," my story said. I noted that she wasn't practicing social distancing, that people in line were blithely saying things like "Nothing should stand in the way of pie."
"This story won't age well," someone wrote in the comments. They were right. I didn't worry much about it at the time, but even by the next day it had become kind of shocking that people were cramming into a tight spot. Now, of course, it would be outright illegal.
I sometimes wonder how the pie shop is doing. They were takeout only, so hopefully their shop can stay open and still get business.
The only other time I've been out for work is to go to a historical museum where they were cleaning and sorting little pieces of prehistoric artifacts that archaeologists had found on an island. There were three other people in the building and we sat six feet apart as we talked.
Everything else I've done by phone. The challenge is to find things to write about when nothing is open, governments have mostly shut down and people aren't leaving their homes. I'm not on the team specifically covering COVID, thank god.
