Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

Chat about stuff other than Transformers.
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Denyer
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

Post by Denyer »

Serco might just be stunned at anyone answering phones / not having preemptively blocked them.
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Clogs
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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Denyer, you might be right, there.

I was, very seriously, today advised that I can spend time in lockdown pursuing hobbies such as knitting, doing housework, taking up new crafts or baking. The guy calling then asked me what I intended to do, so I told him: the Shadowlands pre-patch is out on World of Warcraft shortly, so I’m prepping for it and intend to lead with my Demon Hunter tank. There was silence for a few seconds, then: is that a computer game?

I have no idea who wrote the scripts, but they’re sexist and ageist.

And I never even mentioned that I’m binge-watching Transformers: Prime on Netflix. Maybe next time...
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Denyer
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

Post by Denyer »

Probably isn't a script for that part beyond guff about rapport with example questions which some of them have taken literally. And almost certainly nothing supporting contractors who are being sexually propositioned or dragged into domestics.

Apart from a lot of them being under-utilised at a guess the performance metrics reward volume as much as or instead of coverage.
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Clay
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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Skyquake87
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

Post by Skyquake87 »

I am enjoying the confusing Wedding Cake system we now have (it's made up of Tiers. Or Tears, if you will). And Wales now going into a complete lockdown for 2 weeks.

For me, well, I've had a funny time lately. This whole situation has put a lot of strain on my relationship with my partner, and we split up in early September, and I am now in a flat. Seems to have done us both good. She seems better and I'm enjoying having my own space. Just got the headache of trying to get all my toys out of her house! Got the internet switched on on Friday and just picked up a Chromebook so I can type and say 'Hi' to you all. So 'Hello!', hope you're all doing alright :)
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Clogs
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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Skyquake87 wrote: Mon Oct 19, 2020 5:12 pmSo 'Hello!', hope you're all doing alright :)
Hello, sweetie :wave:
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Skyquake87
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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Hello Clogs! How's things?
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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Skyquake87 wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 7:00 pm Hello Clogs! How's things?
I’m still here, which is A Good Thing, and the cough is just intermittent and annoying - I’ve been made to sit away from the other members of my team, though... Could get a chance at home working in ‘a bubble’ (makes me laugh every time), which would be nice as it a) saves money and b) means I don’t have to mix with the oiks on the bus.

Saved money to be spent gleefully on one of those Autobot Impactors that are calling my name so sweetly.

Sorry to hear about your breakup. Hope it works out for you and your life blossoms after all this Coronavirus is gone.
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Skyquake87
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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I always imagine a bubble like one of those big things you can climb inside. Or that dreadful Jake Gyllenhaal film - something so awful I'm amazed it wasn't an Adam Sandler vehicle.

Hope the cough goes soon! It tickles me watching everyone recoil when someone coughs or sneezes on a bus. At least when they've got a mask on. Less so if they're one of those strange neck breathers or people who are weirdly exempt, despite being the ones that absolutely should be wearing a mask as they're most at risk...

Ah, the break-up was horrific for about a week and was mostly me going 'Oh dear. I am homeless. Better find somewhere to live sharpish.'
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Tantrum
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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The White House Chief of Staff said that, "We are not going to control the pandemic". That's been obvious for some time now. It's just odd for them to admit it a week before the election. Still, more then 40% of the country will vote for this.

They've been pretending their lack of plan is actually a plan called herd immunity, where enough people are immune that the virus can't spread. This is OK if immunity is acquired through vaccination. It's not OK if immunity is acquired through contracting the disease then recovering, since not everyone who does the former does the latter. Not only do a bunch of people die and suffer, but the hospitals get overwhelmed treating those people.

A while ago, I started wondering how long it would take to achieve herd immunity through virus spread if we can slow the spread of the virus enough to not overwhelm the health care system. Here in RI, we got slammed pretty hard at first, and several states stopped allowing visitors from here. But, I don't think our health care system was hit overly hard to the point where hospitals couldn't function. So, I used RI as am example.

It took 5 months for 2% of the state to test positive. It's unknown how much of the population has to be immune to stop the spread, since it varies by virus, but 70% is a common number. 70% is 35 times 2%, so it'd take 35 times 5 months to achieve herd immunity. That's 175 months, or 14 and a half years. There's a lot of uncertainties in this, but it looks like between 1 and 2 decades to "safely" achieve herd immunity.

What if we don't slow the spread that well? I've been tracking how long it takes for the number of cases in RI and NH to double. As long as that number was rising, we were slowing the spread. It was rising for quite a while, but recently leveled off in both states at 140-something days. I rounded that up to 150 days, or 5 months.

2.8% of RI residents have tested positive. To get to 70%, the number would have to double 4.1 times. 4.1 times 5 months is 20 months, so June 2022. That's a lot faster than not overwhelming our health care system, but probably/hopefully not faster than it'll take to develop and distribute a vaccine.


The number of new cases each day in RI has matched the peak seen in spring. I've stopped checking if MA is allowing travel from RI again. If they are, they're not taking this seriously enough for me to want to go there. Kinda like that Groucho Marx line about not joining any club that'd have someone like him as a member.
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Skyquake87
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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Where I live, we're now going into the Tier 3 of the government's restrictions. Which is a not-lockdown. You can still go to the shops, but any pubs and bars not serving substantial meals must close, no household mixing (expect for support bubbles) and groups of more than 6 aren't allowed. It's all confusing nonsense and I do think the government could have avoided all this by not insisting everyone goes back to work/ school/ university - young people least at risk, but most at risk of spreading the disease, so what did they think was going to happen?
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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Tantrum wrote: Mon Oct 26, 2020 2:09 am2.8% of RI residents have tested positive. To get to 70%, the number would have to double 4.1 times. 4.1 times 5 months is 20 months, so June 2022. That's a lot faster than not overwhelming our health care system, but probably/hopefully not faster than it'll take to develop and distribute a vaccine.
And even that might not do it! If the virus mutates fast enough or people's antibodies deteriorate fast enough (as they do with the cold or flu) then 20 months is probably too long for the people who are infected now to still have effective immunity to new infections.

But who knows how effective any vaccine will actually be? People seem to be placing their hopes in the idea that a vaccine will be able to stamp this thing out entirely, but what are the odds of that? Of course, at this point I'd happily settle for "make things a little better"...
Skyquake87 wrote: Thu Oct 29, 2020 8:24 pmWhere I live, we're now going into the Tier 3 of the government's restrictions. Which is a not-lockdown. You can still go to the shops, but any pubs and bars not serving substantial meals must close, no household mixing (expect for support bubbles) and groups of more than 6 aren't allowed. It's all confusing nonsense and I do think the government could have avoided all this by not insisting everyone goes back to work/ school/ university - young people least at risk, but most at risk of spreading the disease, so what did they think was going to happen?
We're in the same boat here -- went into "code orange" at the start of the month, then into a quasi-lockdown a couple weeks ago once they realized that things were still getting worse. The government did order bars and nightclubs to close...but immediately knuckled under when they got some pushback from the rich party donors who own a bunch of hotel bars, so it's against the law for me to have a few friends over for drinks for it's totally okay for us to meet up at a dingy lounge full of strangers?

Oh, and the provincial health minister is endorsing anti-mask kooks while the provincial education minister posts anti-vax propaganda on social media and the premier holds angry press conferences yelling at people to "Grow up". Oh, and we're currently rocking a 7%+ test positivity rate while setting highs for new case diagnoses three or four times a week. Manitoba, everyone!

(We were pretty much COVID-free all summer until the premier removed the 14-day mandatory quarantine on anyone entering the province to try and help his buddies in the tourism industry...)
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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Here in Murray/Calloway county, they're booting schools back to online instruction for two weeks starting Monday because the positive infection rates for the area are spiking. Of course, parents on social media are cry/whining about it being too soon because there aren't enough people sick *yet*.

I mean, we're +/- six months into this, and people still haven't figured out that the time to do shutdowns is ahead of surges, not after. And we wonder why this keeps going?
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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Warcry wrote: Thu Oct 29, 2020 10:27 pmBut who knows how effective any vaccine will actually be? People seem to be placing their hopes in the idea that a vaccine will be able to stamp this thing out entirely, but what are the odds of that? Of course, at this point I'd happily settle for "make things a little better"...
It's not like scientists'll stop at the first vaccine if it's not good enough. If all they can do at first is make things a little better, then things'll be a little better as they work on making things a lot better.

I think it only took a couple years for Jonas Salk to develop his polio vaccine, and that was with 1950s technology. I should know more about this, as I requested a biography about Jonas Salk for Christmas a few years ago. But, I couldn't finish it, as it was far too dully written. At one point, Salk's lab received far more test monkeys than they'd requested, and that's all the book says about that. If you've got way more monkeys than expected, something interesting must've happened.


My Hallowe'en plan worked out well, except for hardly any kids showing up. I had a sign on my front door telling people to go to my scarecrow, with another sign on the scarecrow telling kids to shriek for candy, which I would then throw from my socially distanced upper story window. I put a mask on before opening any bags so I never breathed on the individually wrapped treats. Before sundown, I had a few little kids, accompanied by their parents. The kids shrieked, and were rewarded by a Reese's peanut butter cup landing at their feet.

I seemed to be the only one on my side of the street handing out candy, as many kids would simply walk down the other side of the street, ignoring my side entirely. After dark, my across the street neighbor told a couple girls out on their own, probably double digit ages, to check out my house. They figured something was up, and I could hear them fretting about what was going to jump out at them.

They made their way to the scarecrow and, as they were reading the shriek sign, I bopped one of them on the head with a peanut butter cup. Success. The other girl started backing away, so her cup landed by her feet.

Unfortunately, these were the last trick or treaters. I opened my downstairs window and put on "Hang 10 with Gein and the Graverobbers". It's spooky 50's style surf music; if Frankie and Anette made zombie movies, this is what they'd sound like. I hoped the music would attract people to my house, but no people had walked by in the 40+ minutes it took the CD to finish. By that point, the people on the other side of the street had called it quits, and I did the same.

According to the number of servings listed on the singe bag I opened, and the 6 pieces from that bad I had left, I had 8 trick or treaters. I guess that's a good sign if it means people are taking covid seriously enough to skip trick or treating. Local highschoolers threw a party that may be a super spreader event, which may have discouraged some people from going out.


The governor is limiting social gatherings to 10 people, and you're supposed to limit your gatherings to the same 10 people. Spectators are banned from youth sports; hopefully the reduced number of people at games allows them to finish their seasons safely. We have a field hospital ready to go, and if we don't make changes, we'll need it in less than a month.
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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The next England lockdown except schools/colleges/universities commences this Thursday and, today, the town was overflowing with people, a high percentage of whom were not wearing a face covering, maintaining 2m distance or bothering to stifle coughs and sneezes. ‘Cos, like, the rules don’t come in until Thursday, yeah?

I get to test my laptop in the morning, with one hour working from home - more of a live set-up session, really - then off to the office on the bus for midday to 5pm. College states they won’t need to close, but two whole curriculum areas are now shut down and emergency plans are being made. It’s been pointed out that the job I do is important (you wouldn’t think so if you saw the wage slip) and, wherever possible, my team must field onsite staff, which might be the case even if the whole campus is closed, just as happened in July. This is a bit of a disappointment, as I was hoping to have a legitimate method of avoiding getting soaked, frozen or both travelling to and from work by bus or on foot during the coming winter. Oh, well.
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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Conan had his first in-studio guest since the pandemic started. They spent most of the first segment talking about how far back the nose swabs for the covid tests needed to do an in-studio interview went. Now I'm wondering about magicians and sideshow acts who do the hammer a nail into your nostril bit. Will that still be considered impressive now that we all know just how far back the nasal cavity actually goes?
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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Tantrum wrote: Thu Nov 12, 2020 3:30 am Will that still be considered impressive now that we all know just how far back the nasal cavity actually goes?
It might end up being more impressive for people that can't stand the sensation.

Here in Murray, the school district I've been substitute teaching for is back to in-person classes today after being online-only for the past two weeks, despite cases rising, not falling.

https://www.murrayledger.com/news/local ... 69571.html

That link contains this doozy of a rationale:
Board Chair Jay Housden said the board believes in-person instruction is what is best for the students’ education, as well as their health.

“At least when we are in-person, in school, kids are temperature checked every morning, and between 7:30 to 3 o’clock, they are in a clean building, being monitored, masked-up – and in our opinion as the board –safer,” Housden said.
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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CNN interviewed a nurse who's had multiple patients denying covid as they die from it.

Last month, I wrote that the amount of time it took to double the number of cases in RI had leveled off at 140-something days. It turns out that was a peak, not a plateau. That number's been decreasing fairly linearly. I extended that line to the current day to predict how long it'll take to double the number of today's cases. Doing that predicts 81,500 cases on Dec 4th. I made a note on my calendar to compare my prediction to the actual data.

Hopefully, the state government cranks up restrictions before then. Still, if it takes days between people getting infected and testing positive, then some of the coming caseload is already determined. A while ago, the state was preparing 3 field hospitals to deal with covid. A few weeks ago, they were planning to reduce that to 1. Now, they're planning on 2.

Clay - Maybe the school official's thinking is that the school can do a better job of making sure kids are following the rules than their parents are. If the school's enforcing masking very strongly, distancing, and has plexiglass divers, kids may be safer there than with covid-denying parents bringing them on maskless play dates all day.
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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Yesterday, Leicester had more cases of C-19 in hospital than at the previous peak in April (264 vs 204) with 19 in intensive care. Story adds: at the end of September, they had just two recovered cases left and about to be discharged... NHS states that they are monitoring an ongoing rise in infection rates that started at the end of September, especially within family groups, all ages affected.

Local Council can’t explain why we’re in this position. Must be due to people not following the guidelines (a possibility, of course, given the amazing amount of bloody stupidity and ignorance here).

Btw, local schools and Colleges started back first week of September, with our two Universities joining them in the last week of the month. It’s not hard to do the math, is it?
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Re: Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

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Rhode Islanders had too many Hallowe'en parties, and now we're grounded. I've said it facetiously, but this is what we need to not break out hospitals. No socializing outside your household, except for minor children of divorced parents, who can visit either parent. Single adult households can socialize with one other household, provided the total number of individuals involved is 5 or fewer.

Restaurants can serve parties from a single household, along with the usual covid restrictions, for a few days to burn through their inventory. This is scheduled through Dec 13 and, if it doesn't work, we may go back into lockdown.

I did (most of) my Christmas shopping last night at CVS. They carry my mom's favorite perfume, and are open 24 hours, so I was able to go around midnight. Apparently, I'm not the only one with that idea, since two other cars pulled in to the parking lot the same time I did. Still, there were very few people inside, and everyone had their masks on and kept distance, taking turns going down aisles.

While there, I also got my dad heated electric throw blanket since he feels cold quite a bit, some playing cards since they go through a lot even in non-covid times, and a greeting card. Their TV's acting up, too, so I may have them buy one they like, tell me what it costs, and I'll put a check in the card.

I'm still not too worried about myself. The island part of Rhode Island is still much safer (1/75 resident having tested positive) than the rest of the state (1/20). So, we'll get the safety boost of the restrictions without being in the danger that triggered them. Our hospital isn't even as crowded as the others, though that may change if we start taking overflow.
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