What Does A Quarantine Due To Coronavirus Mean For Truckers?

As I understand it, specialty day-cab carriers such as Sysco are tailored more towards end-user retail and restaurant chains which, as JuiceBox points out, are taking a huge hit right now.

OTR carriers including myself at WM are largely serving the grocery chains and DCs, which are killing it atm due to panic buying.

I got furloughed from sysco a bit ago. I feel it

GREETINGS ALL,

How MANY Of Ya have a separate Piece of Paper from Your State or Federal Office (or 2 pages) stating "You Can Drive (Work) in restricted Conditions (like curfew and other) as long as you carry (retain) this page (or pages)????

I have a single type page from my Short/Long Term Driver Employer Service. Not likely I'll use it since I've been at home (except for short Food, Medical runs) for over 2 weeks and not interested in Slip-Seat operations, nor the cleaning of (before driving) the entire Day-Cab Interior.

THANKS Y'ALL!! STAY HEALTHY!! CHEERS!!

I can't for the life of me understand why we aren't opening our economy back up. What we're doing is completely unsustainable. Our whole monetary system is based on the free market. There's nothing "free" about what we're doing right now.

Our President is taking the lead from his advisors. Those same advisors know that there's no cure for a virus. Sure, it's a bad one, but probably not anywhere near as bad as they make it out to be. We don't have any kind of accurate numbers, due to limited testing, to bear out their claims.

Meanwhile I'm feeling like the government is over-reaching into our civil liberties in an unprecedented way. The American public and businesses are creative enough to deal with this. We don't need to be sent to our room and grounded like an eight year old child who has blatantly disobeyed it's parents. It's preposterous!

I said at the beginning I sense one of the greatest financial opportunities in my lifetime developing in this. I still see that and am acting accordingly. If a dumb blue collar truck driver can see that, then whoever is behind this certainly has a huge financial incentive in what they're doing. I don't know where we are heading with all this, but somebody holding the strings in this puppet show stands to gain either some real power, or money, and probably both.

I have a lot of respect for the results President Trump has achieved, but I was just dumbfounded when he mentioned adding another 2 trillion dollars to the next stimulus bill for infrastructure. The problem for me was the reason he gave... "Let's do this now while the interest rates are zero." C'mon man!

We know those rates are artificially manipulated right now. The Federal Reserve has been teaching us to play with Monopoly money for so long that two trillion actually sounds reasonable to us. But wait a minute! What investor is going to finance this by purchasing long term treasury bills at zero interest? NOBODY! So, what's going to happen? Those interest rates have got to go up substantially in order to finance that two trillion dollars. Duh! Again, I'm just a plain talking ignorant truck driver who understands that.

They are going to have to realize we are not a herd of stupid sheep. We will not be driven off the edge of a cliff! I suspect we will have to roar like a Lion to be heard, but I also know we are capable of that.

Hows flatbed freight Old School? I feel likevim seeing less of them on the road out here and Ive noticed alot of flatbed tractors and tanker tractors hooked to leased dry vans. I talked to a Oakley tanker driver who said they had recently rented quite a few dry vans when i was docked next to him at a beer distributor. I got a chuckle out of him trying to figure out his tandems , i helped him out and he said he hadnt slid a tandem in 20 years!

As I understand it, specialty day-cab carriers such as Sysco are tailored more towards end-user retail and restaurant chains which, as JuiceBox points out, are taking a huge hit right now.

OTR carriers including myself at WM are largely serving the grocery chains and DCs, which are killing it atm due to panic buying.

I got furloughed from sysco a bit ago. I feel it

Make sure to file unemployment. You'll get your state unemployment and an additional $600 a week from the feds through your state for four months.

My brother is an MD in California. He teaches at Loma Linda University (teaching) hospital, and is in charge of a pediatric rehabilitation facility. He has many regular contacts with county public health offices. He has no reason to be anything but straight with me on things medical. Dave told me that this edition of the Corona Virus (COVID-19) is particularly contagious through those "respiratory droplets" (sneezes, coughs, and wiping your mouth with a hand). I'm not interested in finding this out for myself.

The idea of having everyone stay home/6 feet apart and such is to prevent the spread of the virus. People who do contract the virus might feel fine for several days before they "come down" with it. In those five days the chances jump up for its spread, even though the "sick" person still feels fine and doesn't realize they might be helping to spread the virus. So the effort to get people to say inside is a way to eliminate one way the disease gets transmitted. Yes, staying home means stay home from work (earning money) and most places you spend it, like restaurants and theaters. "Closing down the economy" is actually a result of everyone stopping earning and spending.

The over reacting part is because of the effort to keep people away from each other.

I posted earlier that because of the way OTR driving works, drivers are pretty much keeping to themselves, and aren't likely to spread it as much as, say flight attendants might.

In the final part of my diatribe, a fact: the only person (by office) that can actually compel (legally tell) you to stay home is the Surgeon General, down to local public health officials. The police can't, State Troopers can't, the Army or Marines can't. But the authority of the Public Health office or Surgeon General can. (Keep in mind Law Enforcement can work under orders from the Public Health people.)

So to prevent the spread of a contagious and more deadly than usual disease, hunker down. The economy needs to stop non-essential things. But people will still need utilities, and food and stuff. But for now they should put off buying new clothes, going to movies, and stuff. Plants (wheat, corn, etc.) will still grow and be taken to market. If people stop going to restaurants, they still need to eat. That's why grocery stores have empty shelves - more people are eating at home, and fewer are mixing it up in restaurants. (If you get pizza or other delivery from a restaurant, tip big.) Truckers are what will keep the U.S. going. Don't get sick yourselves.

If you expect to pass through Memphis (that's I-55 and I-40) and have time only to pull through a truck stop, contact me for a free face mask.

I forgot to add this link. "How a virus can spread".

Ulimate Chain Reaction - presented by Pepsi MAX. (2:22)

(The video is more about ping pong balls and mousetraps, but the action is very close to spreading disease.)

Just my personal take here. Ive been for the most part making light of the situation until i talked to a close friend of mine who's wife works at John Hopkins. It sounds bad. Worse than I thought. Worse than the normal flu. That is if you are catching the strand that is causing phnemonia like symptoms. Waking you up in the middle of the night gasping for air with a 104 fever. But thats what is happening to the folks who are ending up in the hospitals. I do agree with Midnight Fox. And Brett. All they really can do is put you on a respirator and hope for the best, but if you're loved one needs one do you want to be hoping for the best in an intensive care unit or a hallway? Is the goverment overreacting? Is there a secret agenda? Are they reacting how they feel is best? Guess we really dont know. Id say buckle up. It sounds like it is in fact going to get worse. Both politically and virus.

As I understand it, specialty day-cab carriers such as Sysco are tailored more towards end-user retail and restaurant chains which, as JuiceBox points out, are taking a huge hit right now.

OTR carriers including myself at WM are largely serving the grocery chains and DCs, which are killing it atm due to panic buying.

I got furloughed from sysco a bit ago. I feel it

Make sure to file unemployment. You'll get your state unemployment and an additional $600 a week from the feds through your state for four months.

Oh I already recieved my first $740 on Friday. (Minus 15% witholding). I don't know when an extra 600 would start

Below is a link to the CDC's web page regarding legal authority for isolation and quarantine.

CDC Legal Authority for Isolation and Quarantine

Note the link to the actual order template that specifically applies to COVID-19. You will notice that it is very specific as to findings with regard to a specific person and definite with regard to that specific person and their limitations. Note, that it also contains a specific section with regard to court review.

Nothing in the order involves a community wide "stay at home" order. In fact, the "order" issued by the Missouri is very vague and contains no specific penalty. As such, by law it is advisory, and not legally binding.

Most of these "orders" are like the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes. They want you to believe that the police will cite you if you violate the "order," but other than one instance in Florida, I am unaware of any real enforcement of these orders.

As far as I'm concerned, most of these orders are political rather than legal. The ones that I have seen are carefully crafted to make them sound like legally enforceable orders, but they don't want them to be legally enforceable because it exposes the governmental to lawsuits after this is all said and done.

As you may recall, there are certain provisions of the U.S. and State Constitutions that limit governmental authority. While some of the people that I have discussed this issue with object to my "getting all legal" and "throwing up the Constitution," there is nothing in Constitution that allows the government to suspend the Constitution when "things get REALLY bad." On the contrary, it's when things "get REALLY bad" is when you need to scrutinize governmental overreach.

I am intentionally, not addressing the issue of whether staying at home and social distancing is effective to prevent the spread of this virus. I'll let Brett take that one. But, IMO, that will be the trillion dollar question after this is all said and done: were these measures effective AND necessary to save whatever number of lives people claim were saved. And will we as a citizenry decide that the government can "do whatever makes sense" when things get "really bad."