No Time to Die... from COVID-19

[robkelk]

Still not sure how to best get groceries during a pandemic? Health experts have some answers

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How the Amish are responding to COVID-19

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xkcd weighs in:



Mouseover text: "We're not trapped in here with the coronavirus. The coronavirus is trapped in here with us."

Source

[Norgarth]

[Rajvik]

Florida has, or at least will as of midnight Thurday night/Friday morning, Shut down.

This means nothing for me because my job is deemed essential, the bastards, i could use a few weeks off

just because the business i work for supports plastic manufacturing damn it all

[Norgarth]

My brother can sympathize with you Rajvik, he's a supervisor at a place that makes disposable cups and plates, their customers include Hospitals, so they are running full bore. He's working 10 hr shifts (and he salary, so not even any overtime)

[classicdrogn]

A notably sober, factual (and non-political) interview with Dr. Fauci was on The Daily Show:


non-embedded

At least there's one person in a position that could be called "in charge" who definitely knows where his towel is, and how to make a public statement without truckloads of added fertilizer. People saying Gov. Cuomo should run for president is apparently a big thing right now for similar reasons despite the repeated flat "No" when asked about it, but I'd rather have this cat myself. Maybe put him in as veep on the Cuomo ticket

[Labster]

Oh hell no I'm not voting for Cuomo. At least choose Inslee or Newsom or DeWine, one of the governors who implemented stay at home orders much sooner. But someone needs to make Tony Fauci 2020 merch.

This means nothing for me because my job is deemed essential, the bastards, i could use a few weeks off

I hear you man. Got in a tiff with a coworker today, and realized that I was being a tall poppy. So I just decided to own it, messaged the CEO and told him that he can lay me off first. I know it's tempting fate, but I don't have children to support and I really could use the time off. Every online test I've taken says I'm at high risk of burnout.

[robkelk]

5 myths about preventing, detecting COVID-19

Drink hot water with lemon only because you like the taste - it won't block or cure COVID-19. Read the article for the other 4.


Grocery store staff fed up with 'social' shoppers who flout pandemic rules

[LynnInDenver]

5 myths about preventing, detecting COVID-19

Drink hot water with lemon only because you like the taste - it won't block or cure COVID-19. Read the article for the other 4.


Grocery store staff fed up with 'social' shoppers who flout pandemic rules

They had that problem in Italy, as I recall... people taking any excuse they could to basically do the social and ignore on some level the order to distance themselves. I get it, it's tough to limit yourself to only seeing your household and a subset of your coworkers for weeks on end with no end in sight, especially in response to an invisible threat... but they haven't been asking just because they think we should stay at home all the time.

My husband went today by himself while I was at work, as they've asked locally that we shop solo whenever possible.

[hazard]

The ones hardest hit by the isolation order are the extroverts. Introverts? Most introverts are very much appreciating not having to observe the social customs for once.

I know I'm one.

[robkelk]

Mexico stops brewing Corona beer, deemed non-essential in epidemic

Mexico’s Grupo Modelo said on Thursday it will temporarily stop brewing Corona beer and other brands exported to 180 countries after its business activities were declared non-essential under a government order aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus.

[Dartz]

I still have a case of Corona in the office.

I keep forgetting to bring it home.

Shops are open and well stocked. I've 2-weeks forth of frozen food set aside and have just been keeping fresh stuff every couple of days to avoid breaking the reserves. Worst comes to worst, most places near here still deliver. And the off-licenses are still going.

Fuel is down to 1.27 a litre. Ludicrously low. Too bad I've nowhere to go and burn it.

Work is rumbling on - between getting ready for when things come back, finishing off things that've been started and otherwise keeping the adpidistra flying.

Ireland, thus far, continues to do reasonably well. Testing dropped off because someone bought up the re-agents needed, but Biopharma is a national industry and the precursor chemicals are out there so we can make our own. Most clusters are down to 2-3 individuals where the virus gets into a household and contacts have gone down from 20 to 3 - which simplifies a lot.

Most fatalities are in nursing homes where it's gotten itself rampant.

The virus may be more prevalant in society than thought - a quarter of known cases are health workers - but very few of them got it from known cases in the hospital. Most were infected beforehand from god-knows-where . Of the 4000 cases - 1000 have needed hospitalisation, 120 have needed ICU, and 120 further have ended in a fatality. Most of these are nursing home residents who don't make it to hospital.

My parents got it. They got it after they isolated themselves. And yesterday I found out they got it by going for a meal with someone they thought had the disease - not who got it after they were there. I've got no words for that. They're doing well now. The mam lost her taste - the oulfella got the cough too and was fairly sick but hasn't gotten worse.

[LynnInDenver]

My husband's going to lop off a couple of inches of my hair tonight; I wasn't able to get to my regular stylist when I needed to, and then the lockdown occurred. When I go to drop off our tax paperwork tomorrow, I'll likely stop by the store for some hair dye when I'm out (I've had it dyed twice), my husband is adamant we have a little fun.

We're now in with recommendations to wear masks when out, part of the "we all assume we have it now". We have a set of the "not even lip service" masks that came with the resin printer that I'll be using one for the trip tomorrow, and I'll be going through the fabric stash and see if I can make a couple. And picking up some MERV-13 filters for inserts for them.

Denver chained up the doors of a local business that insisted they were an essential business while Denver was saying they weren't - an appliance store. Everyone else has finally closed when asked. I'm suspecting that business won't be reopening once this is all over, at least not without a thorough review of their business versus the license they were issued. Businesses that are still open are starting to get (understandable) flack for selling non-essential merchandise. Summit County does have an order in place limiting sales to food, medicine, and other immediate essentials.

Our hospitals are setting up outdoor triage tents and other setups in anticipation of the surge in patients - the idea being that, if they're ready and it doesn't hit that hard, it's not a big deal, but it would be a big deal if they don't prep and it hits even harder than expected.

I'm starting to wonder about the "14 days" period on the virus, given the way it's been working. It's actually possible that it either has a much longer infection period, or that way more don't show symptoms at all. Although we also have the problematic culture of "you work even when you're sick". Hopefully this is the first point that it shows that this is not only a bad idea, and has always been a bad idea, it's now a phenomenally bad idea. But we also need National Sick Leave mandated for all businesses, regardless.

[hazard]

The virus may be more prevalant in society than thought

Not 'may' be more prevalent. Is more prevalent. As a rule of thumb, presume that at least 10 times as many people in the country are infected as are reported to be infected, and 30 to 50 times as many is a safer bet. They just aren't symptomatic or are mistaking it for a flu or cold. The only way to find them is by comprehensively and aggressively testing for the virus.

My parents got it. They got it after they isolated themselves. And yesterday I found out they got it by going for a meal with someone they thought had the disease  - not who got it after they were there. I've got no words for that. They're doing well now. The mam lost her taste - the oulfella got the cough too and was fairly sick but hasn't gotten worse.

... They thought somebody had caught a nasty infection that is known to be highly contagious and they still went and visited? I have words for that and they aren't nice.

Denver chained up the doors of a local business that insisted they were an essential business while Denver was saying they weren't - an appliance store. Everyone else has finally closed when asked. I'm suspecting that business won't be reopening once this is all over, at least not without a thorough review of their business versus the license they were issued.

That certainly seems likely. Pissing off the government in a time of crisis is never a good idea.

Our hospitals are setting up outdoor triage tents and other setups in anticipation of the surge in patients - the idea being that, if they're ready and it doesn't hit that hard, it's not a big deal, but it would be a big deal if they don't prep and it hits even harder than expected.

Smart. It also means that they know where everything is and in what condition it is in case you don't get hit that hard by the virus you can ship those supplies and facilities to harder hit places confident it'll meet the required standards.

I'm starting to wonder about the "14 days" period on the virus, given the way it's been working. It's actually possible that it either has a much longer infection period, or that way more don't show symptoms at all. Although we also have the problematic culture of "you work even when you're sick". Hopefully this is the first point that it shows that this is not only a bad idea, and has always been a bad idea, it's now a phenomenally bad idea. But we also need National Sick Leave mandated for all businesses, regardless.

There's a few different factors at work here. First, COVID-19 appears to be a disease that can be transmitted while incubating in the host, which is somewhat uncommon, it makes it more difficult to work out where and how long to quarantine. It's not helped by the fact that we don't know how long it takes from first infection to start showing symptoms. Second, it's an extremely infectious disease propagating through airborne droplets, which is one of the harder to deal with transmission vectors. Third, without comprehensive testing programs we have a limited grasp of the virus' spread because those who are tested are those who are already showing some symptoms, while most of those who don't show symptoms but do have the disease and can infect others don't get tested. Fourth, a rather sizable chunk of the infected population are either asymptomatic or show symptoms that are congruent with a flu or cold, at a time where flu and cold season definitely haven't passed yet.

To put it simply, COVID-19 is a nasty bug not because how lethal it is, even without treatment it won't top 5% of all cases. Not that that's great, but there's more lethal diseases out there.

What makes COVID-19 nasty compared to those more lethal diseases is because of how easily it spreads. Because those more lethal diseases? They don't spread anywhere near as quickly, and nowhere near as quietly as COVID-19 is doing. It's not easy or without casualties, but stuff like ebola you can halt the spread of, because that disease doesn't transmit nearly as easily and nearly everybody who gets infected shows symptoms.

COVID-19? You could have not a single symptom and spread it to everyone you meet anyway. And sure, it won't kill you, you are resistant enough to be asymptomatic. But that's not true of everybody around you, most of whom you wouldn't have infected if you knew you were carrying the disease.

[classicdrogn]

if they're ready and it doesn't hit that hard, it's not a big deal, but it would be a big deal if they don't prep and it hits even harder than expected.

On a similar note, here's a cheerful thought to keep us all occupied while we hunker in the bunker: Hurricane season starts in June, which only the most optimistic (aside from Trump's daydreams) projections have the NA peak COVID-19 case load tapering off by. Sure hope the various emergency management authorities have a hand or two turned to planning how to deal with evacuations and flooding, etc. without matching the storm surge with a viral surge a week or two later.

[robkelk]

I just posted a relevant video to the current video thread, here.

[robkelk]

Ontario just got a pair of Presidential-Alert-equivalent messages (one in each official language) telling everybody to stay home during the pandemic.

what sort of communications are other people getting?

[Norgarth]

That's at least the 3rd time over the last couple weeks I've gotten them.

[LynnInDenver]

We've just been getting ours from the news and from our workplaces.

[Dartz]

Radio messages in the morning, mostly.

It's also about the only thing in the national news media. But our media's generally fairly sane.

[Norgarth]

For me and Roblelk, the texts came over the national(?) 4G emergency link. Usually I just receive Amber Alerts for missing/abducted children

[robkelk]

Provincial, in this case, not national. But they could be sent across-country if the federal government saw fit to do so.

[robkelk]

Anybody here know COBOL and live in NJ?

The governor of New Jersey has asked COBOL-capable coders to volunteer their skills as the State’s mainframe computers have struggled to cope with a surge of requests for benefits to help citizens through the coronavirus crisis.

In his daily press briefing on April 4th, governor Phil Murphy said: “In our list of volunteers not only do we need health care workers but given the legacy systems we should add a page for cobalt [sic] computer skills, because that's what we're dealing with in these legacies.”

As Murphy’s April 4th remarks suggests, technical debt has come back to bite the State’s Department of Labor and Workforce at the least-convenient possible moment.

[Star Ranger4]

Bugger. I know Cobol, learned it in school all those years ago. Don't live in NJ though.

[robkelk]

Maybe you could telecommute?

Although if they're running 40-year-old systems, they might not have that capability.

[Bob Schroeck]

I had a couple weeks of COBOL back in my first year of college, 39-1/2 years ago... I remember nothing of it. So even though I'm in NJ I'll be useless.

And Rob's right, they may not have that ability, unless there's a contractor closer to state-of-the-art maintaining those systems, like my former employer CGI does for the DEP systems.