Based on your personal experience, how bad is the Covid-19 pandemic?

I believe it's a manufactured event. The unprecedented actions taken were not warranted for the situation. Many tests false positive due to covid being related to other common viruses. A few people have become even wealthier while many have become even poorer.

I have Schrodinger's Covid... it's possible I had it, or not... and may never know. I tested negative once, but those tests are only sensitive to ongoing infection.

I had co-workers who definitely had it. I've been short of breath ever since. I stayed upstairs by myself for a month, and then had a boatload of tests. Never had a fever, and things only tasted weird for a day.

I've had a f*ckton of tests, including a probe in my heart... so I'm not likely to just drop dead. I'm left with "it might be asthma" or reconditioning.

By the time all the testing and resting was done... after 12 weeks I was finally clear to go back to work... and laid off 1 hour later, over the phone.

The last few days, has been worse than the new normal. Right now I'm a bit dizzy just sitting and typing. My pulse and oxygen levels are normal, though. It hurts to breath in deeply.

I have a close friend with an almost identical symptoms and history. It really sucks not to be able to even go to the store without coming home and needing to rest for an hour or two. I feel like I've aged 10 years in the past 6 months.

All the focus on the dead ignores the side effects, which are going to hit this country like a hammer because leadership failed to contain it, and now we've got almost 1/4 of all the cases in the world.

Stay home, wash your hands, and wear a mask.

I'm from Pennsylvania (US). I don't personally know anyone who has been hospitalized or died from Covid-19.

We are now remote, but the very beginning of this my work notified us that some people tested positive (you had to have the symptom at that time to get a test, so probably accurate), including someone from my building. No one was wearing masks at that time. Around this time, I caught something that felt like the flu. I never got tested, so I have no idea what I had. I had a friend who had a similar experience and thinks it was Covid-19.

Some of the restrictions in my state made sense, but some where an overreaction. Most of the overbearing restrictions have been lifted. The legislature here has passed a resolution to end the state of emergency and the accompanying restrictions that the governor is supposed to follow. The governor hasn't followed the law and will draw this out in court. The court and many other government systems are a mess right now because they were closed for, I think, a couple months. Now theh have to catch up.

Two members of my extended family recently passed away from "community acquired pneumonia" and complications from pneumonia, including sepsis and cardiac arrest, within 1.5 weeks of each other in something of a hotspot. Neither as far as I know was declared covid, but it is suspicious to me.

Regardless, I think there are some activities that are high risk and some that are low risk given the information we have on contact tracing at this point. Generally I do not think the response is too much in my location, and I'd rather there be a few additional restrictions, but it's an okay balance currently, given that Covid is already widespread here so a harder lockdown at this point may not be very effective. I'm not afraid, though I think of myself as pragmatically cautious.

I live in Texas. I know a few coworkers who have had it but don’t know anyone who has died and I don’t know anyone who knows someone who has died. Don’t know anyone who has been hospitalized either.

I think we reacted appropriately at the beginning given the lack of knowledge about it but now that we have flattened the curve we are overreacting in a big way.

I’m a bit afraid of covid as there could be long term health effects we don’t fully understand but I know I won’t die from it. At the same time we have to live our lives and repair all the livelihoods we destroyed with the lockdown. We need to wear masks and be cautious but try to get back to normal.

> Do you know many people who have died? Who have gotten seriously ill? Are you afraid? Do you think the response in your own location is too little or too much?

I live in France. I know of three people who have died and of many people who’ve been ill. I’m not afraid myself, I avoid crowded areas and getting physically too close to anyone (other than my wife). I think the response by the government here in France has been acceptable, other than that for a long time there was a shortage of both masks and tests. (It would have been better to have had both a stockpile of masks available and the capacity to manufacture them here locally.)

USA medium town here. Day to day you wouldn't know anything is wrong beyond everyone wearing masks.

I believe I caught it myself several months ago. I had what felt like bronchitis in the lungs. A slight burning or tickle feeling in the lungs. Occasionally I still feel this, months afterwards. I've suffered no ill effects though. No fatigue.

I don't mean to downplay the real danger. Even some young healthy people are dying from this. But it's not like the medieval plague with bodies piling up in the streets.

Michigan here but friends in many places around the world.

In the first few weeks after it hit the US in March, I knew at least three friends of friends who died—one in 70s probably, one I think in 40s, and in one early 30s.

I know at least three friends who got it and said it was really rough, including one in his 20s who is a pretty elite athlete.

My mom started chemo at the end of February and just had her last one a week ago, so I am personally very grateful that the Michigan took it quite seriously. I believe strongly the problem with something like this is if we take the necessary precautions and cases don't happen, people will say we overreacted.

I'm scared to get it as I think we have little understanding about the mid to long term effects. I also fear I will spread it to my parents who are in their 60s.

I believe we shut down well to stop the spread but then didn't have a comprehensive national plan to test and trace so that we could reopen and monitor the situation. So I think the testing and tracing didn't receive enough united national push to have a large-scale coordination and then the "team" started to fall apart.

Overall, I have been quite impressed with just how much American citizens have helped each other, implemented social distancing, worn masks, and generally took care of ourselves and each other. Sure, there are cases where people don't, but I think those are strongly exaggerated—the people who are loudest on the internet are not typically the most representative of society.

I believe one of the biggest failures of the US national government was to not see this as a huge opportunity for the US to lead the world. To dedicate so much of our time and resources to figure this out for Americans so we can figure it out for others. Seems we overlooked how much this is a global problem and covid-19 anywhere is currently a threat everywhere.

Also, giving ourselves a little bit of grace compared to Asia, as many Asian countries have had recent practice with a respiratory epidemic, whereas we haven't. That being said, I believe we still dropped the ball in terms of coming together as a country to solve it, and I strongly blame the leaders in Congress and the White House for not galvanizing the country behind the advice of the epidemiological experts.

South Nj, usa. I do not personally know anyone who got it. Friends of friends only. Only one fatal, and only one seriously ill. Both had other health issues that combined with Covid made it hard.

I am not afraid, but I am cautious. I feel comfortable being out but avoid most indoor situations if I can. I already worked from home prior, and would not accept going back to an office. Specialty now.

Hard to say if it was overkill. But it was at least appropriate, if not too much.

I've had it (and highly recommend not getting it!) but know surprisingly few other people who have considering I was in London at the time. Response in the UK has been overcompensating for reacting too slowly and doing the wrong things at the beginning. Friends in Asia say in many respects measures are more relaxed there, but they didn't get a huge spike from cheerfully carrying on as normal at the peak.

I live in downtown D.C. and I do not know one single person who has has tested positive for Covid. I don't think I even know anyone who knows someone who has tested positive.

Everything is shutdown and everyone is wearing mask, so socially it sucks, but no ill health effects.

I am on an army base in Kuwait. Masks are required indoors, civilian employees are only recently coming back on base, and there is a required two week quarantine to get here. When you get sick here you relocate to an isolation compound.

Covid is extremely rare here and well controlled.

How would we know? A friend in hospital with blood clots in both lungs is tested for everything EXCEPT Covid-19. Having eliminated everything they can test for, they shrug their shoulders and send her home. EDIT: I live in small-town, western USA.

I know no one who has it, or had had it. One of the spouses of someone in my organization had it.

North Carolina, USA

Live in NYC. I know of a few people who have sadly died. No direct friends or relatives, but heard of relatives of coworkers who passed. Brother in law got it and was very sick for 4+ weeks and had to isolate.

Mar/Apr was a very scary time to be in NYC, it felt like you could catch it from just opening your window or touching the wrong elevator button. Now it feels less scary and less "real" here—even though I know it's dangerous to let your guard down. I am glad to see most people wearing masks diligently. Also happy to see people come up with ways to still patronize restaurants (they have all built makeshift outdoor dining areas).

I am shocked at how many people I overhear touting conspiracy theories about this or that [country/rich person/religious group] creating the virus, or that it will magically disappear after the US elections in Nov.

I don't think we'll get anywhere close to normalcy until we have a proven, safe vaccine being distributed widely. But I hope we've seen the worst as far as peaks, outbreaks and deaths.

Sweden. My grandmother had it and I worried. But she survived and didn't even get any symptoms. I think it's a sham. I don't wear a mask but I'm careful with my hands and wash them a lot. I avoid crowds too.

I'm in Germany. Given the circumstances, I'd say the situation looks pretty good over here. Overall, up until now the pandemic has been managed quite well. So far, I personally don't know anyone who got COVID-19. I'm not afraid but I try to follow precautions diligently.

The response during the onset of pandemic (which amounts to roughly the end of February over here) and the first few months that followed in my opinion was appropriate and the outcome to some extent proved this as the infection numbers went down rapidly by mid-April.

Some of that was due to decisive action and a rather well-organised public health service but a fair bit of luck certainly was involved as well.

I'm more ambivalent regarding the mid- to long-term development, though. In general, I think that Germany, and Western Europe, for that matter, will weather this situation quite well and will mostly do fine. However, the wider economic repercussions still seem to be largely ignored. By autumn this year this is going to become interesting because that's when many SMBs eventually will have to declare bankruptcy.

At this point, during this phase of the pandemic, from my point of view there's also too much focus on the mere infection numbers. While those numbers have been increasing again lately - not the least because of massively expanded testing, which is a unanimously good thing - both the hospitalisation rate and the mortality rate remain remarkably low or are even declining. Hence, easing some measures, such as strict social distancing and the allowed attendance numbers for public events, and the consequences those entail for many businesses, might be justified.

This is going to be an interesting political discussion, to say the least, because while we now might indeed move into territory where COVID-19 in some places isn't any more dangerous anymore than the flu (due to better medical procedures and treatments, measures such as wearing masks, and indeed the virus apparently becoming less dangerous but more infectious over time), the narrative might shift from justifiably trying to prevent a healthcare disaster with potentially dire consequences to attempting to eliminate any remaining risk. Politicians might be tempted to argue that measures should remain in place until a sufficient part of the population is vaccinated.

Another aspect I find both encouraging and worrying for Germany specifically is innovation in general and digital transformation in particular. I was amazed at how quickly businesses adapted to new ways of working (which actually of course can't really be considered 'new' anymore) such as remote work, which they have been very reluctant towards before. How the federal government organised efforts such as the #WirVsVirus hackathon in March and the successful development of the local COVID-19 tracing app as open source software was no less amazing.

This transformation is still happening way too slowly, though.

Local health authorities for example often are still woefully stuck in the 80s and 90s in terms of processes and technologies used. Just recently, there have been several cases of thousands of COVID-19 test results being lost because authorities processed that data on paper and transmitted information via fax.

So, while the vast majority of people do their share and many businesses are struggling, some authorities still can't be arsed to update their processes. This is especially aggravating because the federal government provided ample funds specifically for that purpose.

From a major urban center in Pennsylvania. I don't know a single person (by name) that has had it. Talk to friends and they don't know anyone either. The numbers the government puts out don't add up. The restrictions are senseless. I try not put too much thought into conspiracies but I'm really starting to think this is being perpetuated to influence the election.