[turtle]

So true!

[_Ω_]

Originally Posted by Mac+ Where are you located Omega? Maybe NZ? If so, I rate Jacinda Ardern. Stay healthy and safe.

Yep, from Hobbiton. We are currently in that nice flat part of the curve, but get the feeling that nothing can stop the eventual exponential rise even with all the current measures in place. Also doesn't help that you can't easily get a test so our current number of 12 is probably woefully incorrect, but as they say, "Ignorance isn't bliss, but it does help you to get to sleep at night"

[Dr. Bobsky]

You've all seen the 'delay' curve concept.... the issue is that if nations don't agree to a time frame for this outcome, the virus can come in waves from disparate sources operating on different timelines.

Folks here in the UK still believe Universities and other similar infrastructure will re-open in two weeks. A clear eyed reading suggests it is more likely that the peak will pass in mid-summer, with institutions opening about four weeks later.

The infection in China is distinct because it had a single origin which was sealed quickly, every other nation in the world is getting infected from multiple locations with multiple strains of the virus. China had the easy task, the rest of the world a much harder one...

[PB PM]

Yes the delay concept, while good in theory, isn't proving to be very effective. Here in Canada, it seems to be a battle between what the politicians are doing to try and keep the economy going, while also trying to do what health officials think we need to be doing. Some of the steps they are doing now would have been more effective if put in place 2-3 weeks ago.

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 Drives home the little nugget of insight I saw online over the weekend: "I used to cough to cover a fart; nowadays I fart to cover a cough." Sounds about right. Sadly I have a feeling we're not too far from a "coughing man beaten to death by panicked, toilet paper-buying strangers" headline.

Allergy season is coming up fast, I just know I'll be getting a lot of dirty looks.

[kscherer]

Edit: Never mind! That bit has been moved to the political boogaboo virus thread place.

[kscherer]

Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I've sorted out one of the most pressing issues currently facing the world.

[turtle]

Didn't they have the "no contact" handshake in that movie too? They had it all right.

[kscherer]

I've been thinking hard about my position on this COVID-19 thing, and I still haven't formulated all my thoughts. However, I do have some things I would like to say to my beloved AppleNova community:

- Please take care out there. Be safe, watch out for your families and your communities, and don't do anything rash.
- Please don't hoard. There are people in need of basic supplies such as TP and such, as well as basic foodstuffs. Hoarding causes undo suffering. In times like this, it is truly best to buy only what you need.
- Be patient and kind. Others are going through the same thing, and many have it a lot worse.
- It is not the end of the world. We will get through this.
- Try and maintain a good sense of humor. Laugh when you can, smile a lot, let everyone around you know that we are strong.
- Cooperate with the authorities. Don't be a jerk.
- If you see someone truly in need, please try to help them.
- When at all possible, please support your local businesses. They need us right now. Online will be there tomorrow, but your local hangout may be gone.

I've been a member of this community for almost 16 years, and I love you guys. Our arguments and debates demonstrate that we are a community of caring individuals who actually give a crap, regardless our differences. Take care everyone, and don't give up on AN. If nothing else, we are here to talk and share our life's stories. Don't forsake that.



P.S. I'm sticking this thread until the danger has passed, and I've renamed it so that it reflects reality.

[Ryan]

I haven't gone outside since Tuesday.

[turtle]

I had to go to Walmart today because I'm out of distilled water. I tried to go to the local Food Lion but they were out. Walmart was really low but I have to use distilled water in my equipment so it really was a must.

We still don't have active cases in my area that we know of, other than 4 that had traveled and were isolated. It was still wild to see all the shelves bare. Like, regular water was gone. Heck, canned goods were even missing like people never bought food before. My son likes boiled peanuts and asked me to pick up a few cans of them while I was there. Only two cans were left! Who eats those things other than my son and yet the shelves were picked clean.

It was wild. Only a few people wore masks or something that made it obvious they were concerned. I wore cloth gloves (nice black ones with capacitive touch pads) the whole time I was there so I'd only have to worry about the pads being cleaned good and not stress about touching random crap.

Thing is, I'm more likely to catch the flu or cold around here right now but suddenly this virus had made everyone crazy about germs.

I haven't been in public if I can help it much though I do plan to go to church in the morning. I work a volunteer position that is pretty critical so I'm going to be keeping the hugs away now. Service will be really low in numbers anyway.

[_Ω_]

I am getting over what i think is a mild cold at the moment, but now the question is do i go back to work? Testing is not really a thing yet in hobbiton, and only one confirmed cases within 100km of where i live.

I am 99% go to work on Monday, but it is that pesky 1% that nags. Its the unknown and the uncertainty which is a real bitch. If there was a quick and easy test that said you have covid then i think a lot of the issues with this virus would be negated.

Also noticing not much info about what is happening in Africa, or in Russia.

[Mac+]

Allowing for a moment of levity, our state government has decided on a shutdown.

All I could think of (thanks to Drew perhaps) was the glorious reference to Sargnarg the Hardge Harg.

https://youtu.be/ywZt6igT5Dw

“Shut it down. Shut down the government Sargnarg.”

https://twitter.com/anthonysonego/st...177134598?s=21

[_Ω_]

Decided not to go to work on Monday - more laziness than anything

[turtle]

According to Engadget (quoting Twitter) you can now ask Siri is you are infected with COVID-19. I haven't tried, but at least it should be relevant to most of us on this forum.

[crazychester]

I fell into the mother of all communication blackholes for six days and only just managed to claw my way back out last night.

Fixed wireless went kaput last Tuesday morning.

Mobile internet at home was sketchy in pre-covid times. It ground along for about a day then popped its clogs just as I was going to look at your link on the previous page, Mac+. So a belated hi! Yeah, Scovid is a dead man walking......he just doesn't know it yet.

Pre-covid times, my phone reception was such that I had to stand in a specific 2 foot square area of my bedroom to talk and it was still unreliable. Nothing like waiting in a phone queue for half an hour, finally get through to a human only to have the connection promptly drop out. But initially voice calls were still technically possible.

Then I ran out of phone credit.

And that was just in the first day or so of me being stuck in the Great Tasmanian Covid19 Communication Blackhole of 2020.

I could go on but suffice to say the solution to escaping the blackhole involved a goddamn frickin' phone voucher! Yes they still exist. I'd forgotten about them until I was lying awake in bed Friday night plotting my next escape attempt. Next day, lady at the post office looked at me like I'd asked her if I could buy a carrier pigeon when I sought to purchase said voucher.

But I'm out now. It's been very, very, verrrrrry exhausting. So today, I'm gonna do some housework, catch up on the bills I haven't been able to pay and attend to the veggie garden.

Tomorrow, me and the dogs are going fishin'.

As for everything else, what ken said above.

PS turtle Google how to get gloves on and off correctly.

[PB PM]

Yes, taking gloves off correctly is important, one of the first things we learned in first aid training.

[crazychester]

Yes also mask fitting and removal.

Just watched Jacinda show 'em how it's done.

Again.

I know there are plenty of kiwis who don't think the sun shines out of her arse like every sane non-kiwi on the planet. And there may or may not be some justification for that in pre-covid times. Not for me to say.

But man, that woman - that courageous, compassionate, empathetic, intelligent, intuitive woman - was born to handle crises. Even ones that would have been unimagineable a few weeks ago.

[turtle]

Yeah, I was a medic so I'm very familiar with the proper techniques. Thanks for the reminder though. I'm sure there are plenty reading this that didn't know where was a right way to do it.

[murbot]

Originally Posted by PB PM Yes, taking gloves off correctly is important, one of the first things we learned in first aid training.

There's a liquor store here where the employees put on a pair of gloves to handle your cash, if you are such a heathen as to give them an infected piece of paper currency (ok, plastic, it's Canada).

The way they put these gloves on and take them off though.... might as well not bother, skippy.

Love the way they look at you like you're a fuckin' leper too all the while. Of course they have no problem grabbing the stuff you've touched and then scanning it without gloves, but then put on the gloves to handle your money... if I had the virus on my hands it's now inside your gloves, fuck stick.

Anyway, what a time to be alive.

[Mac+]

Originally Posted by crazychester But man, that woman - that courageous, compassionate, empathetic, intelligent, intuitive woman - was born to handle crises. Even ones that would have been unimagineable a few weeks ago.

Totally!

Margie - stay safe!

re: SCOVID being a dead man walking - politically I hope you're correct.

However, my concern is, potentially, this may not be the case.

First, read this: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/histo...ear-180965222/

My thoughts on twitter copied below...

---
1. You know what concerns me about this?

I believe that, traditionally, war-time governments are re-elected.

2. No matter how poorly they managed the situation, if they can control the narrative - and from that article that’s exactly what they set out to do - then they stand the best chance of re-election.

3. Unfortunately, and this may be my bias, I don’t rate our PM.

I certainly don’t rate some other political leaders either.

These are people who put their well-being and financial benefit above the good of the people... the same people they have been elected to represent!

4. My fear is that these same “leaders” will retain office and the world will be worse off long term.

5. Compare and contrast with South Korea’s foreign minister, Kang Kyung-wha.

I much prefer an approach of transparency and honesty with testing.

Korea foreign minister interview with BBC. COVID-19

[PB PM]

Yes, South Korea and Taiwan have done a very good job dealing with this situation. Taiwan learned a lot from SARs, which hit them hard, and acted right away.

[kscherer]

So far, things in Idaho are pretty good. Can't find TP anywhere, and the bastards ate all the flour! Plenty of cat food, though.

Otherwise, cases of COVID have been light thus far, but watching the rest of the planet, It would be unreasonable to think it will remain that way. Family is good. My daughter was student teaching in her final semester of her elementary education degree, but now a lot is up in the air. She's taking it in stride and trying to remain upbeat while her university looks for its ass. Wife is chipper and knows it will all be okay. Wants us to shut the hell up and talk about something else!

Just finished my remodel project in a one-horse town about an hour south of Boise. Literally, I finished it today! We stood to double our investment riding on the wild housing market here, but now—lé sigh! Who knows?

Our shop is remaining open until the gubmint says we can't, and a lot of people are happy about that. The Apple Stores won't even let people pick up their repairs, but we're still ticking. We had two guys who went to some music fest in San Diego two weekends ago, just as event cancellations were starting. Those things are already disease infested smut-fests, and then you go and throw in this mess. One of them got home and immediately came down with a fever, but seems it was just flu. But, as I've said, you can't cough in this town without people looking at you weird, and there are only 47 cases in the entire state*. People are on edge!

And what the hell is up with Italy?

*Boise has closed all restaurants to dine-in, and a crap-ton of layoffs are happening. We expect the city to shutter up tight at any moment.

[drewprops]

On Saturday I took my 89 year old mom to visit dad's grave, which isn't far from the house.

I was pretty confident (rightly) that there wouldn't be anybody around, and I set up some camp chairs so we could sit out in the sunshine for a while. A strong breeze chased us away after about 10 minutes of that.

The thing that bothered me was what I saw along the way, namely a lot of small businesses carrying on like normal – an auto shop filled with cars and customers, a car wash doing the same. Chain stores were acting responsibly, but the smaller places are carrying on and their clientele did the same. They don't want to stay locked up.

So, that shit gonna spread, yo.

On the friend front, a young-ish woman in her 30s I know who's been posting open invites on social for her friends to swing by her house for various meals over the past several nights. She's someone I wouldn't think to be so foolish, but there you have it. Foolish as heck.

That shit gonna spread, yo.
Like a fire burning through dry tinder.

Our state hasn't really locked down.
As of tonight we have 620 cases with 25 deaths.
And the testing just got underway last week.
My county alone has 13 confirmed active cases, no deaths recorded yet.
This coming week we'll see a ton more testing and a ton more cases.

How fast will this fire burn through?
How many times will it circle around?

Reports suggest that people who have been infected might remain infectious for a period of 5 weeks, and they'll be out there spreading it.

A lot of people I know are staying calm. A few are jumpy. One went on a diatribe across social media about the Chinese, buying into the the lab-grown theory and turning things into an us versus them scenario, much to my surprise. It's always surprising to see someone break weird, down a strange side path.


Anxiety is unavoidable and not all are able to withstand it unaided, and some of them are resistant to aid – and so I am now concerned about a rise in suicides. Several incidents this weekend among friends and acquaintances have prompted me to be more alert to that.

The efforts of our government have been unavoidably politicized, in large part by the tender ego of our Commander in Chief. Like everyone, I want off-the-shelf medicines to provide us with a cinematic miracle cure, but I know that medicines must run through a gauntlet to make it to market and that miracle is highly unlikely. So unlikely that it doesn't make sense to provide people with a false sense of security because you're only encouraging all those assholes who think this thing is going to be over in a a week and that they might as well go hang at the beach now.

And so I am deeply concerned with nightly pressers that seem designed more to calm the president's followers than to inform the nation.

But there is hope as well that comes from those weird rallies, and even though Captain Ego is at the helm I want us to win our local part in this global war.

Tonight we were told that emergency hospitals have been ordered, Army Corps of Engineers have been activated, and Navy ships will one day (or one week) stage themselves to deliver additional support to the badly affected coastal population centers.

Time will tell if it's enough to accommodate everyone, but you have to have hope mixed in with all that logistical concern or you'll just go crackers.


Anyhow, that's my current perspective.



...

[_Ω_]

Hobbiton going into full scale lock down as of Wednesday midnight for minimum of four weeks.

Shit be getting real.

[PB PM]

For those who still think things are ‘good’, just keep in mind that the positive test results in your area that you see today are two weeks behind the infection rate. Not to mention that your area may not have enough test kits, and that people with minor cases could and most likely are clueless as to their sickness. The latest info we have is that a sick person can transmit for up to 9 day, thus the 14 day lockup. People here who test positive must test negative twice before released from care.

Two weeks ago we had less than 50 cases, and one death, now there are hundreds and 10 deaths, and all business are closed or operating with restrictions on hours and customers. Social distancing is mandatory, and soon fines will apply to those who fail to do so. People who tested positive and have ignored quarantine have been arrested.


As for what’s up with Italy, they have a very high portion of the population of seniors, thus the large number of deaths. The baby boomer generation is in big trouble world wide if people don’t get their acts together.

[709]

MI gov just gave the 'stay at home' order for 3 weeks as well. Not a complete lockdown but it pretty much forbids all non-essentials from going to work; even forbidding gatherings of any size outside household. Still able to walk the dog, hit trails, bike and whatnot, so there's that.

Anna and I have worked in different cities for the last near-decade and only see each other on the weekends, which is a pretty near perfect arrangement imo. We grabbed what we thought we'd need from her place this past weekend and now we're both working from home here. Together. Every day. For at least 3 weeks.

While I'm pretty optimistic about us surviving the virus, I'm not giving the same odds to our relationship.

[kscherer]

Originally Posted by 709 I'm not giving the same odds to our relationship.

Dude, I don't wanna hear that. You make it work! You've been together too long to fall down over a bug.

She's your woman. Hold her hug her love her!

And maybe wrestle a bit, as Murbot would say!

[crazychester]

Originally Posted by kscherer *snip* She's your woman. *snip*

I do know what you're trying to say, but she's not anybody's woman. We're not for owning.

Will get back to you Mac+. Been looking for somebody to discuss the big picture stuff with.

But just a few things worth mentioning for everbody's safety:

- if you think you may have covid19 DO NOT take ibuprofen. Take acetaminophen/paracetamol

- if you think you have it, take it real easy. Do not soldier on. Can't find the link right now but one German (iirc) study suggests that not taking it easy may cause the virus to move from the upper lungs to the lower lungs. That's when you're in deep shit. It may also turn symptomless/mild disease into a serious case.

- one of the first things they teach in med school is don't go to hospital unless you really need to. Not now. Not ever. Why? Because they're filthy places. They're full of fuckin' sick people. I only did 3 years of medicine. Not a doctor. So of course keep that info in mind while also thinking sensibly and not taking unwarranted risks.

- having been utterly immersed in following this and absorbing as much info as I can since mid January, my personal view is that most governments are giving people "best case scenario" information about what we know about this virus. Time will tell if I'm right or not. But don't be surprised to find out in the coming weeks and months that a lot of their current claims are complete rubbish. One thing we already know is bs is that this is a disease that is only going to affect older people. Go hunt down the figures of 30 - 60 year olds currently hospitalised in some European countries. Upwards of 50% in some countries.

Of course those figures are partly influenced by triage. When hospitals are overwhelmed, us oldies will be pushed into a corner and given supportive treatment only or sent home to die. It's the way it must be but that doesn't make it any less depressing.

[PB PM]

Larry Brilliant, one of the doctors who helped eliminate smallpox, also believes that many governments are underplaying the situation. At the same time he doesn't think this will be the end of the world, or some kind of mass extinction event. [Edited, because I cannot find info from my original comment]

As for hospitals, yes, I avoid them unless needed. If it wasn't for tests I needed for kidney stones this past February, I wouldn't have gone in one for well over 15 years.

[turtle]

So one question that I know I can google but haven't bothered, is this something that once you have it you're immune or at least immune this strain of it? I'm just wondering and figure if I was there was bound to be someone on here who knows something more about it than me.