@tacpoly wrote:
@Revelate wrote:I'm doing the admittedly "not recommended/selfish thing" and packing up my crap and driving across the desert this weekend back to Texas, I'm not sure what I'm going to find on the road in terms of food and shelter if needed as I know a bunch of hotels were flatly shutdown but life has to go on.
I assume you will be driving your Tesla. I'm curious, as someone who hasn't owned a car in well over a decade, are there enough charging stations throughout the US to be able to drive across the country or part of the country as you are doing in a fully electric vehicle?
@Revelate wrote:Well there's more chatter in the public now about simply isolating the at risk population (everyone over 60 or whatever) and everyone else: back to work and school. If we can't fight this through quarantine and isolation orders anyway let people who aren't at serious risk get back to their lives and just understand zero contact other than phone / video with some loved ones that are in at risk groups.
I wonder what will be defined as "high risk" considering 58% of COVID-19 hospitalizations are of people age 45 and younger. Old folks make up a large majority of deaths, but it's not like younger folks aren't being affected.
China initially tried isolation (separating the sick from the population) -- it's usually the first thing to do during an outbreak -- then quarantine (separating families of the sick and infected from the population). They didn't work, so they had to limit all movement. It's worth noting that China, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and other countries on the downward slope of their epidemic are trying to avoid reintroduction of the virus by severely limiting incoming travel. It's still difficult with borders, but how is the US going to control flare-ups when people can freely travel? One can easily go from a hotspot, like California, to a place relatively COVID-19-free -- like what you will be doing. And there will probably be many legal issues with limiting the movement of certain groups but not others.
Yeah I don't know what the full scope is going to be, but clearly there's a lot of sentiment that the cure may be worse than the disease. It will be interesting to see how that plays out over the next two weeks or so. It's a good point about the hospitalized folks, but I don't know what percentage of those are seriously ill: I know there's been a bunch of medical professionals saying if you're not desperately sick, STAY HOME. What I think is missing is rigid clarity: if you have X, Y, Z symptoms get your ass to the hospital ASAP... everything else, stay home. Maybe we don't know yet and so can't give that information still a lot of uncertainty which means fear for all that the market at this point every single stock I own is in the green other than Netflix which is down less than 1%. Happy news for once I guess for all that I'm not paying that much attention.
In my case yes indeed, taking my beloved Tesla on a road-trip; the Tesla supercharger network is actually very extensive along I-10 and I'm not really worried about that portion of it. It's one of the reasons Teslas have been so well adopted and why any realistic EV competitor has to get a similar network up and running though there was a VW-backed (from emissions scandal) project that will probably make it realistic for any EV. The major difference is it takes longer to charge... while I can somewhat plan these around breaks for snacks / food if I were going straight through it'd probably add about 2-3 additional hours to the 19 hour total drive time compared to a gasoline vehicle. It's a concern but if I'm not pushing hard shouldn't be too much of a problem. Trick is to run the battery down and then don't charge all the way and stop more frequently as for various reasons the higher your battery charge the longer each incremental unit of charge takes.
@GApeachy I may bring some food with me; I admittedly once drove straight through Texas to California on Mountain Dew and Chips Ahoy but I'm not expecting to be able to do that anymore haha. Pretty much everything with a drive through is open though and I can live off fast food for a few days, which means there should be plenty of places in rest areas along the way. I think the one change though is I'm going to be sitting in the car eating like I see people doing outside my place next to the Subway which is closeby. Lot of people taking their lunch break in the vehicles apparently for those industries that haven't shut down.
Lodging wise I was just looking through Hotel Tonight and a lot of things apparently have closed but there are several things open too just not of the major chains. Hardly any Marriots or Hiltons on the list which I know are in El Paso for example though did see a Hyatt or two in various places along the way. Figure I can at least make it to El Paso even with my substantially more advanced age in a day of travel, then across western Texas the next. Thought about driving straight through but it's not necessary and I'm going to have crap to do on Monday in Austin (DMV, Internet hookup, Chase visit if I can't do online, etc) and it would almost assuredly be better to be rested and ready for those shennanigans.
