How concerned are you about Coronavirus?

[frodi]

Shit starting to get real close to home.
The first Covid death lived only a few hundred metres from the pharmacy.
Guys in full haz-mat suits seen today about one mile from pharmacy.
One of my patients (that I know about) is in self isolation. He's the son of a motorbike friend who has special metabolic needs.
Then BINGO tonight. A phone call from Cormac at 6:30. He works in a call centre for a betting company. Could we come and collect him from work. They have all been evacuated. A sister of somebody working on a lower floor is a confirmed case. Word went out. Don't even finish chats on the PC . Just get up and leave.
A deep clean team is coming into the centre tonight. They will be contacted in the morning. Some of them had already been issued with laptops to enable them to work from home.
The cynic in me says that they have made their money from Cheltenham and there is no more sports for the most part for the next few weeks so they will need fewer staff. Great time to lay everybody off.
Meanwhile in the pharmacy I have had one of my busiest weeks since I opened. I can't get any more of the main ingredient for my home brew sanitiser and the bottles are scare as well. Some main stay lines are short from the wholesalers as several chains stockpiled last week and cleared them out. And to top it off my main wholesalers website is a piece of shit and can't cope.

[Jim]

Mar 13, 2020 12:57:49 GMT -5 Jim said:

Well, I am on the verge of being required to WFH. My after hours Uber activities *might* be enough for them to tell me to keep my ass at the house. Waiting to hear from HR.

Damn. I didn't have a good enough excuse.

[Juli]

There are now two confirmed cases in my county , they got it at a political event in DC.

A couple of days ago, my manager texted everyone to find out who had a computer and internet access, and so could work from home, if it came to that. It got my hopes up...

[fritobandito]

Starting yesterday our office has everyone working from home, at least through the end of the month. Lots of businesses are doing the same. Schools are shut down, with online classes when possible. Musicians are looking for work giving lessons, doing house repair or odd jobs since places with live music have cancelled. Pretty much all large gatherings are cancelled. Life is going to be a little different for a while.

I'm lucky enough to have a good stockpile of food, paper products, sanitizing wipes, and booze. So I'll just be riding this out.

My scuba club is going to the Newport Aquarium this morning, but I bailed on that trip. Too many unknowns. I did meet up with a couple of friends for happy hour yesterday. The restaurant was about half full. Their heightened sanitary procedures were obvious, like many places have been advertising. I don't plan on becoming a hermit.

[Stan]

Leaving today to pick up my puppy. I'm a little bit worried about hotels; but my baby needs to come home.

[martycanuck]

So a buddy of mine sent us a video of some dumb guy in a grocery store making a video. He’s holding a can of Lysol and reading the back where it lists “Coronavirus” as one of the things it kills and is complaining that if we had a way to kill it why wasn’t anyone told or something to that effect. Of course the current Coronavirus is specifically Covid-19. SARS was also a Coronavirus. My buddy’s brother is a genius and a Doctor with more medical degrees than I can count. He really knows his shit lets say and he sends a reply back to my buddy about the video;

“ This is the most stupid uneducated shit I have seen. Becoming a scientist takes decades of work. First of all yes coronaviruses have been around for a very very long time. Most colds are coronaviruses. We call them that because corona means crown. It’s the shape of the proteins that insert into the main protein shell. Second there many types. The covid19 is the newest one and the way it attached and infects is different. This is a mutation that came from fucking with animals for food in ways that are not ok.

I told you specifically 25 years ago that China will have an airborne outbreak. This is nothing. If we keep messing with animals we are going to continue mutating these viruses.“

[Gimpy]

I'm somewhat concerned about the social aspect. At 81 I may not survive and if I do what will our world look like? Bipartisanship making a comeback would be nice but what businesses will the shut down of everything affect? You favorite bar or restaurant might not make a 2 week shut down. Grocery stores and supermarkets will survive but will Khol's and Macy's?

I don't plan to be a hermit but to intend to stay in more than usual. I'm OK on food and TP

[Rob]

The grocery stores in my area are cleaned out. How about yours?

[brandon]

I totally understand what you are saying Gimpy, and I wonder if all of this shutting down of everything is really, 1) warranted 2)helpful 3)going to be the new normal.

I don't get why this virus is getting so much attention and why we are basically being told to stop living our lives for 3+ weeks.

As a side story, I am being to think that this idea of shutting down the k-12 schools was a very bad and poorly thought out idea. I know people that have kids in school with after school programs that work in jobs that cannot be done from home. Even the ones that can work from home, have you ever tried working from home and watch your kids? You really can't unless they are 10+ and pretty much on their own. What are these parents to do? The ones I know are looking to the grandparents to come and help out. Which to me seem counter-productive since the older generation is the one that needs to be the most careful.

[Jim]

Mar 14, 2020 13:22:26 GMT -5 Rob said:

The grocery stores in my area are cleaned out. How about yours?

I stopped into a specialty market last night, not the kind of place you would usually do a full grocery shop, and they were well stocked. They even had TP.

When I dropped someone off at the mall last night, the place was dead compared to a normal Friday night.

Picked up a dispatcher from the PD today and she told me that non violent offenders are being released on Promise to Appear orders as the courts are closed. Drunks are being brought in just long enough to sober up before they're being sent out again.

[frodi]

It gets better.
Cormac was on call today from 2PM to 11PM in case they managed to get a laptop for him. About 7:30 then rang to say that they had one and that he could call in and collect it. I gave him a lift and after 10 or so minutes out he comes with a trolley with two monitors, a tower unit and a bag ful of accessories. Basically they are stripping out the desktop PCs and sending them home with the staff with instructions to ring the technical team to help set therm up. Cormac follows the directions but cannot connect to the web. While he's waiting for the technical team to get back I have a quick look. It will only work with ethernet, there is no wifi reciever built in. In the office they are all hard wired. He is quite happy to sit back getting paid to play on his PS4 while the technical team work this out. Just over an hour and he is off call.

Meanwhile I got a message from my mate. His wife is also in isolation and is not happy. She is a carer for her elderly mother who is not well. I thought that his son was just in isolation as a possible contact. Instead he sent the message to say that his temperature is now back to normal. He spent the day over at his brothers house and picked up the shopping on the way home.

[Jackie]

Our five year old granddaughter spent the night last night. This was a sleepover that had been planned since last week. Normally we would have picked Arya up yesterday morning and taken her with us to go out to eat and then on to Augusta for our normal Costco trip. Well after seeing pictures and video of the lines at Costco we decided against going there. There were some things I had to get at Walmart. The closest one is in Thomson about 20 miles away. We decided to do our shopping before getting Arya. With no idea what kind of crowd there would be in Walmart we just thought it best to leave her home.

I was happily surprised to see that particular Walmart wasn't much busier than it normally is on a Saturday. The shelves in some parts of the store weren't fully stocked like usual but as far as I could tell the only thing they were completely out of was hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes. There wasn't a whole lot of toilet paper but they weren't completely out. The grocery part of the store was well stocked.

The schools in our county will be closed this coming week and at the end of the week they'll decide if they will reopen the following week.

[martycanuck]

I may be one of the “Scared-mongerers” but when this thing actually drops in North America it could be a nuclear bomb.

The Utah Jazz player Gobert was making a mockery of it and ended up infected himself. Now he has stepped up and atoned in a pretty big way so at least he learned from it. But many others will be dismissive of the risks and not take adequate precautions.

Again I don’t think I’ll get very sick if I get it but there are a lot of vulnerable people I don’t want to give it to. And I don’t want there to be more people who are seriously ill than the medical system can handle. I read an article and there are shockingly few hospital beds in the US per capita. In Canada a virologist said that 90% of the available ventilators in Canada are already in use (not for Covid) leaving only 1/100,000 available.

[Jeannette]

I have to say I'm more worried about the trickle down effect from everything closing. I just can't see a lot of business staying in business if this goes on for more than a few weeks. All those people who work at the sports/concert complexes, the hotels and restaurants around it and they're employees. That's a lot of people not making money.

[Jim]

That'll be the most interesting part. Our governor just put a law in place that will prevent utilities from being shut off during this lock down, but, how long will that grace period last?

[Gimpy]

I keep seeing comments about the media making this worse but I don't see that where I'm looking. The governor just closed all bars and restaurants in Illinois for 2 weeks. The financial impact on working people boggles the mind!

[MalcolmR]

The British government has asked car manufacturers to look at making ventilators, because most of ours come from either Germany or the far East and both are keeping what they make for themselves.

What do car manufacturers know about medical ventilators? Most of them are just assembly plants and won't be able to source the parts.

I'm waiting for the phone call "Hi, Malcolm. Do you fancy a few weeks work?" I remember the mass panic we had in 1990 when it kicked off in the Gulf and our hospitals were told to prepare for thousands of troops with gas poisoning. I was working 16 hours a day, 7 days a week.

[Rob]

I hope people are allowed to keep working to produce food and other necessities that we're going to need.


Anyway, European arrivals jam some US airports amid virus screenings.

[martycanuck]

Mar 15, 2020 16:21:04 GMT -5 MalcolmR said:

The British government has asked car manufacturers to look at making ventilators, because most of ours come from either Germany or the far East and both are keeping what they make for themselves.

What do car manufacturers know about medical ventilators? Most of them are just assembly plants and won't be able to source the parts.

I'm waiting for the phone call "Hi, Malcolm. Do you fancy a few weeks work?" I remember the mass panic we had in 1990 when it kicked off in the Gulf and our hospitals were told to prepare for thousands of troops with gas poisoning. I was working 16 hours a day, 7 days a week.

If they can get parts, they are experienced at assembling which is really all car manufacturers do now. Put together a bunch of parts that were made elsewhere.

[Juli]

Effective 9pm tonight, all restaurants in Ohio will be to-go only, bars will be shut, though. On Facebook, there's a suggestion that parents ask people who'll be temporarily laid off if they'd be willing to be sitters/tutors.

ETA: Yesterday, those of us on the weekend shift were asked to take our authenticating fobs home and try to access the virtual machine. The instructions were from 2011, things have changed on the website, so I had a sputter before being able to get into our work desktop. I'm looking forward to the prospect.

[martycanuck]

That hold your breath for 10 seconds without coughing and you are OK was called out as total BS by a Toronto Virologist.

[kellylorraine]

I'm still not overly concerned but I understand the concept of flattening the curve for those most at risk. Little Man has school all this week and begins shutdown through April 14 at 4p this Friday (unless our county gets a positive before then, in which case they'll shut down all schools on Wednesday). I keep seeing a ton of posts about places for him to get some education and his school is putting together online lessons. Even in the absence of those online lessons, I'm not worried about him missing the academics. He's a smart kid and will figure it out BUT he's an extrovert to the extreme and high energy. He gets as much (if not more) from the social aspect as the academic. I don't see video chats being enough, but we're going to do our best. And I can't throw him outside to burn off some of that energy because next week's forecast (when our school shut down starts) is highs of 50 and rain all week. Don't get me wrong, I completely get it and we'll get through it, but I'm not looking forward to the upcoming weeks. I won't lie, I'm grateful our County Executive gave parents the week to figure it out. All counties surrounding us made the announcement over the weekend that it was immediate. I'll have a chance to discuss "funky" hours with my boss and come up with a list of activities for Little Man to do.

My MIL has an apartment connected to our house. We'll be doing her shopping until this blows over.

[graham]

Mar 15, 2020 16:06:44 GMT -5 Gimpy said:

I keep seeing comments about the media making this worse but I don't see that where I'm looking.

The media are making it worse by, for instance, putting undue emphasis on the number of deaths, rather than the number of people who survive.

Not long after the whole thing started, one of the newspapapers over here was talking about some medics going to help out in China and they referred to it as a "Suicide Mission"!

Now it's a case of "Well, the media are saying that X country has done this, so we must be Seen To Be Doing Something(tm) so we've got to do that too!"

[graham]

Mar 15, 2020 16:21:04 GMT -5 MalcolmR said:

What do car manufacturers know about medical ventilators? Most of them are just assembly plants and won't be able to source the parts.

There's also the issue that those ventilators need *Trained* medical staff to operate them!

It's a good job the Tories haven't forced massive cuts on the NHS such that many of those staff no longer work there...

[graham]

Here's a very useful and sensible non-scaremongering chart created by an Infection Disease Doctor and Researcher from UCSD School of Medicine.

[Jim]

Just heard on CNN that the Mayor of NYC has said schools will likely be closed for the remainder of the school year and there's a possibility that they may remain closed through the end of the calendar year. I don't know about NYC Schools, but, normally, our school year ends in mid June. State Law says it cannot go beyond June 30th.

[Rob]

Mar 16, 2020 9:14:25 GMT -5 Jim said:

Just heard on CNN that the Mayor of NYC has said schools will likely be closed for the remainder of the school year and there's a possibility that they may remain closed through the end of the calendar year. I don't know about NYC Schools, but, normally, our school year ends in mid June. State Law says it cannot go beyond June 30th.

 They might mean there's a chance the NYC schools won't reopen in the fall.

Everything in Michigan is closing. Schools, restaurants, bars....

[Rob]

Brothers who hoarded 17,700 bottles of hand sanitizer forced to donate to charity

[martycanuck]

Our Prime Minister just closed Canada’s border to all but Canadians, permanent residents and Americans and goods and services. A few minor exceptions for flight crews and diplomats and immediate families.

[Jim]

Mar 16, 2020 11:59:03 GMT -5 Rob said:

Mar 16, 2020 9:14:25 GMT -5 Jim said:

Just heard on CNN that the Mayor of NYC has said schools will likely be closed for the remainder of the school year and there's a possibility that they may remain closed through the end of the calendar year. I don't know about NYC Schools, but, normally, our school year ends in mid June. State Law says it cannot go beyond June 30th.

 They might mean there's a chance the NYC schools won't reopen in the fall.

Everything in Michigan is closing. Schools, restaurants, bars....

Yeah, they're talk about schools closing until January as a possibility. Very likely they're done for this school year.