Covid 19 / everybody PANDEMIC

[Skyquake87]

Picked up some bits from Sainsbury's yesterday and noticed some of the newspaper headlines just made me..guhhh. Particularly The Sun's 'Let's Open All The Beer Gardens!' effort. Whilst the usual trolling of their readership, it did whiff of a wider childish winge our various media outlets are having at the moment. That of looking at other countries who got on top of things a bit sooner cautiously letting people out and about and going 'It's not fair! They're playing out, why can't we?'.

I dunno, where this coming from? We're still not testing enough, and now the government is going to be including figures from care homes and the wider community in the daily death briefings, we're going to get a better idea of just how bad things are. Not enough to put people off pining for Big Macs, I guess.

Maybe now we've built all these makeshift hospitals in arenas, the government could just let us all out and see how many die - sorry, encourage herd immunity. I'm sure the Prime Minister's brain Dominic Cummings is probably thinking this anyway and whispering it in all the right ears. And left ones too.

[Tantrum]

Today, Rhode Island passed 10,000 residents who've tested positive for coronavirus. In another couple days, we'll reach 10,600, meaning over 1% of the state will have tested positive. Coincidentally, this'll be the same day our stay-at-home order expires.

The order expiring won't affect me, much. I've been going to work throughout. Most of the places I want to go are out of state. Even if Mass or New Hampshire also opens, returning to RI means a 2-week self quarantine, which isn't worth it. I might check the local TJ Maxx or Marshall's, but not the first day.

We have been pretty successful at slowing the spread. At the beginning of April, we were doubling our number of cases every 5 or 6 days. Now, it takes 16 days. We had multiple days in a row of > 400 new cases. It's been < 300 the past week, with some days < 200.

[Denyer]

Westminster's preparing to dial back "stay at home" as a message in favour of the advisory "stay alert" which is only understood in playground throwbacks to "your country needs lerts" -- unsurprisingly Scotland and Wales aren't following England on this bit of moronic flip-flopping. Which apparently is also a pre-recorded statement, Boris can't even be arsed to address the nation or take questions.

Media behaving as responsibly as ever --

[Skyquake87]

Yes, I was deeply unimpressed by the government's statement last night. I don't know which parts were more idiotic - encouraging people to go back to work if they can't work from home, but not to use public transport (which, er, is how most people get to work). Other winning ideas were to quarantine holiday makers returning on airlines for 2 weeks when they get back to the UK (assuming you won't be refused entry to the place you're going to in the first place), but not applying the same measure to people travelling on land or by sea abroad...

This sort bombshell dropping and watching the various machines of industry and society scrabble about trying to make sense of it is deeply unhelpful, and I wish Dominic Cummings would knock it off! It's bad enough at the best of times, which we are definitely not in at the moment.

Still, at least we've one of the highest death tolls in the world from this, so that's something we can be proud of. "In that case I say it is survival of the fittest". Quite.

[Denyer]

Yeah, basically the working class should run along back to work but without competing with key workers for public transport, with schools shut to most students, without even having the broken and doomed* contact-tracing app available, and with Wales, Scotland and NI saying something completely different. And that's a planned statement on a Sunday evening.

Even the 60 pages of crud** they've published today to replace what was simple clear guidance doesn't actually include the workplace safety guidelines referred to in it. Putting the boot into rural communities that don't have NHS infrastructure by giving a go-ahead for anyone elsewhere to drive over. Contemptible and reckless.

*From a professional point of view, this has been fascinating to follow and the news that the Android version only functions on 8+ is enough to write off it getting sufficient coverage of the population, setting aside the limitations of not using the Apple/Google code.

**The only "good" bits are references to other countries currently in better situations, either further along the curve or that acted swiftly initially.

[Denyer]

No reason this couldn't have been published ahead of Sunday's and this evening's shambles;

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new- ... ck-to-work
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/working-saf ... s-covid-19

[Tantrum]

Perhaps the most annoying thing about these restrictions is going to the supermarket, finding the aisle I want to go down is one-way the wrong way, going through the next aisle over so I can get to the right end of my desired aisle, and running into someone going the wrong way down that aisle.

Saturday was the nicest weather so far this year, so I went for a bike ride. I went to a shopping plaza to see what was open. Gamestop was, but I'd read that they weren't being very conscientious about cleaning/distancing before the shutdown, so I didn't go in. Marshall's was still closed. Ocean State Job Lot's been open throughout, since they sell packaged food, but had nothing I wanted. Everyone was being careful with masks and distancing, which was nice.

I didn't think to wear my face cover while riding my bike, since I never wear it while driving. I had it with me to wear inside. I only passed a couple pedestrians on the way, and only got within 10 feet of one. Still, I'll have to remember to wear it next time.

I'm taking next week off from work since I haven't had any non-sick, non-watching-workers-replace-my-sewer-line time off since New Year's. My parents were wondering if I'd visit them in NH if the out of state travel restrictions are lifted by then. I was considering it, but when I said that, my mom immediately suggested inviting my uncle and cousin over the same time to light the fire pit in their backyard. Now I'm less sure. Not only would that be extra people, but my uncle is annoying.

I don't know how seriously they're taking this. My mom mentioned going to a store where only half the people (not including her) were wearing masks and starting a conversation with some other lady in line, also not wearing a mask. They were 6 feet away at least. On the other hand, they did make an appointment to get tested tomorrow (Tues).

[Denyer]

One way supermarket aisles haven't really worked in the stores I've been to, but at the times I've gone and with the number of people they've let in it hasn't felt particularly unsafe. Very few masks in evidence, so I haven't bothered with the one I was carrying -- now that some better handmade ones have been delivered I'll try those, but the stretchy foam-like material ones are singularly shit for wearing with glasses.

Focusing more on distance and limiting exposure time plus keeping track of things touched between sanitising -- which to be honest people I've watched haven't been great at; eg our postman's wearing gloves but it's a bit pointless and possibly counter-productive with how much he was touching his face.

Indoors is something to particularly avoid --
https://www.erinbromage.com/post/the-ri ... avoid-them
https://www.erinbromage.com/post/i-m-an ... -my-family
https://www.erinbromage.com/post/how-do ... n-surfaces

Work's gradually trying to sidle towards shift people back onto normal (though still remote) duties, which could get a bit messy for whoever's taking over from me as I know the systems/software, already have access to everything, etc.

[Unicron]

Perhaps the most annoying thing about these restrictions is going to the supermarket, finding the aisle I want to go down is one-way the wrong way, going through the next aisle over so I can get to the right end of my desired aisle, and running into someone going the wrong way down that aisle.

Exact same crap I've been dealing with in stores. Though around here most places seem to have removed the one-way signage and markings. Guess they realized the majority of people were ignoring it and they have no way of enforcing it.

[Skyquake87]

It was fun in my local supermarket. They put arrows down telling to folk to go one way up and down the aisles one week, but then changed them the week after... but didn't remove the first set of arrows they'd put down (!).

It was better this week, but the older and toothless residents of my local town just could not give two fucks about social distancing, trying to follow the arrows or anything else. But then what can you expect from a government whose really clear advice boils down to 'take your chances, you're on your own now the PM's over it. And don't come crying to us when you're ill or out of a job' (not really surprising. One of the things that's amused me is seeing a right wing government having to play at social care. You can see the a lot of the cabinet at the daily briefings thinking 'This isn't what I signed up for. I thought it'd all be cutting benefits for the poor and tax breaks for the rich and least deserving.' ).

Workwise, we're still limiting what we're doing (which is really starting to try customers' patience nw) and doing remote working, offering a limited service - just the essentials. Complaints have been through the roof, which keeps me in a job, but could do without the industry's consumer body deciding that decades of established legal framework now need to be overturned for every customer that complains to them. It's a quiet, but exhausting time.

[Tantrum]

So, Trump said he's taking an anti-malaria drug as a preventative measure against coronavirus. Then, Speaker Pelosi said that's a bad idea, because Trump's morbidly obese, which increases risks of that drug. Then, cnn ran the numbers on Trump's weight and height to determine if his BMI actually indicates morbid obesity. As someone 1 inch taller, and 20 pounds lighter than the numbers cnn used, and much thinner than the president, I doubt the veracity of these numbers. The question remains: how fat a f*ck is this fat f*ck?

There've been several stories of store employees being insulted, assaulted, or killed by customers for refusing to wear a mask. On the other hand, there's this Costco employee who took a maskless customer's cart full of stuff away.

I've tried wearing my mask while biking. It's OK as long as I'm not going uphill, which causes me to breathe hard enough to fog my glasses, and it's not cold enough to make my nose run. My mask is actually a bandanna that I tie around my head. It only fogs my glasses if I'm exerting myself, so if you're having trouble with your glasses fogging, try a bandanna. Also, the cleaner my glasses are, the less they fog.

[Warcry]

Thankfully, my fears that we were heading for a blowup and that we'd soon have numbers like Rhode Island have proven false. Actually, and quite surprisingly, we seem to have the coronavirus licked. Case numbers in the province crawled their way into the 200s and then basically stopped...we're at 290 now (out of a population around a million) and have seen one or two new cases in the last week. I can't fathom what we did differently that smothered things before the virus became widespread in the community, but I suppose sometimes it pays to live in a place that no one wants to visit!

Right now my main worry is that we'll get hit hard with a second wave in the fall, if the US border (or even the Ontario border) get opened up. But for now at least, the nightmare scenario I was imagining (the virus getting into remote northern communities with no medical care to speak of and decimating them) seems to have been avoided.

One way supermarket aisles haven't really worked in the stores I've been to, but at the times I've gone and with the number of people they've let in it hasn't felt particularly unsafe. Very few masks in evidence, so I haven't bothered with the one I was carrying

The one-way aisles have been a disaster here. The main thing they serve to accomplish is to make people spend twice as much time in the store, because it's a nightmare to loop back to grab something when you realize you missed it. Most people here seem to be respecting them, but I think that's also because the local grocery stores in my neighbourhood seem to be relatively low-traffic to begin with. When I ducked into a nearby big-box hardware store recently (I needed to make emergency repairs on my air conditioning after we realized it wasn't working when the temps jumped from around 15°C to around 30°C in four days...), though, it was another story. First of all everyone seems to have brought their kids and spouses for some reason. No one was following the arrows and no one could be bothered to observe social distancing. I had thought that was a function of the disease being in remission here, but it sounds like you folks are seeing it in harder-hit places too?

Honestly, and sadly, it actually seems like the biggest jerks of the bunch are folks who are masked up. You'd THINK that anyone worried enough to wear a mask would be extra careful about keeping their distance, but what actually seems to happen is that it makes a lot of people feel invincible so they'll happily shove past you while going the wrong way down the one-way aisle.

Also, if you're worried enough about getting sick that you're wearing a mask, maybe you shouldn't be leaving home to stand in line for half an hour to get into a garden centre to buy flowers? I mean, really, I like to pretty up my yard in the summer too but I wouldn't risk my life for it...

Work's gradually trying to sidle towards shift people back onto normal (though still remote) duties, which could get a bit messy for whoever's taking over from me as I know the systems/software, already have access to everything, etc.

The company I work for is apparently opening most of their offices on June 8th, but it really doesn't feel like they'll have many people taking them up on it and heading back into work. I'm probably going to use the "I have a kid at home and no child care" card myself, not so much because I don't want to be in the office, but because I don't want to GO to the office. Don't really think public transit is a place I'd like to be right now, even with the case numbers seemingly under control.

So, Trump said he's taking an anti-malaria drug as a preventative measure against coronavirus.

But...why? It only actually helps if you're infected and seriously ill (and maybe not even then?) It doesn't prevent anything. What quack prescribed it?

Then, Speaker Pelosi said that's a bad idea, because Trump's morbidly obese, which increases risks of that drug.

...good?

She probably shouldn't have warned him, though.

[Unicron]

Then, Speaker Pelosi said that's a bad idea, because Trump's morbidly obese, which increases risks of that drug.

...good?

She probably shouldn't have warned him, though.

I think Pelosi is being a bit brilliant here. Given Trump's nature and the way he tends to react to things, he'll probably A) Insist he's not fat and thus not at risk from taking the drug and 2) keep taking the bloody drug just because a someone smarter than him or a Democrat (or in this case both) told him to stop.

If he stops taking it (assuming he ever actually was), Pelosi can claim he listened to her for once. If he keeps taking it, there's a chance he'll keel over.

[inflatable dalek]

Well, I've been wearing a face mask at work this week and boy are my ears never going to forgive me. I'm just glad I only have them on for 3 hours at a time before I can take it off for 15 minutes...

[Denyer]

Need to hook it behind your head with something rather than on your ears.

[Skyquake87]

We bought some masks and they've got hooks four your ears, but also a piece of fabric to allow you to tie it tight behind your head. Got to be honest, I haven't bothered much with mine. I wore one to get to work the first day after our government's brilliant 'go to work, but don't go to work' announcement, but there hasn't been a significant increase in numbers on public transport for me to feel bothered (at least not during the hours I travel).

Even with social distancing, there's a strong likelihood of catching the disease anyway (coughs and sneezes can travel up to 8m, after all) so the best I can do is keep exercising, eating healthy (something the government could have done more to encourage, instead of leaving people to knock up their own take on KFC) and keeping in touch with people, so I'm in the best position to recover should the worst happen. Social distancing is hugely impractical in on our tiny island, with the numbers living here (I do seriously wonder when we'll start looking at population control - although maybe the way the government approached this crisis was to do just this...). On the plus side, it's brought home to the workplace how technology can save people from having to travel long distances for meetings that only last an hour. Work is starting to get plans together on how we're going to get on top of the backlog of work we've now got. Amusingly, a lot of these plans are going to depend on the guys in the field as they've found even under lockdown conditions the public keep coming up to them without distancing when they're fixing mains bursts or working on the sewers. People seem to think that because we've kept on working throughout, we're somehow immune to coronavirus. We're not.

In the news, the Prime Ministers shade Dominic Cummings is in bother for traveling 250 miles with coronoavirus symptoms to visit his parents. Professor Neil Fuerguson had to resign when he got caught carrying on with his affair with a married woman under lockdown, despite being responsible for the scientific modelling used to instigate the lockdown policy over here (Can't say I'm that bothered. He was at the helm for our last serious disease outbreak in the UK - Foot and Mouth in 2001, which culminated in huge pyres of cattle being lit across the country). I bet Cummings will stay, as like the Prime Minister, he's better now, so it's all okay somehow.

[Denyer]

Genuinely curious what dirt the bastard's got on party members, and about his decision to brazen it out whilst looking as unsympathetic as possible -- even the Beeb's take on it makes him look like a dick, without referencing dancing to Abba in the garden, etc -- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52782913

It seems to be becoming clearer that infection is most likely from being in an environment in which people are talking/active and aerosol droplets getting into the air, air conditioning is moving air around, etc. Like transmission of other predominantly respiratory diseases, basically. Distance is just one factor.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... de/611953/

As before, I'm looking forward to antibody tests becoming more available, regardless of what that means for immunity -- just to test a hypothesis.

[Clay]

Meanwhile, in Kentucky, a gun-toting, right wing mob protested stay-at-home orders issued by the governor by burning him in effigy, right outside his house, because you can do that kind of thing without any consequences if you're white.

[Tantrum]

Clay, I didn't see anything in your link about the effigy being burned. Plus, it said the effigy was hung outside the Capitol after protesters walked there from the governor's mansion. So, it's not as bad as you thought. It's just really, really bad. This quote from one of the protesters who said she opposed the effigy may be the worst:

“However,” Bush said, “we’re at the point where rallies and shouting and hollering is just not working anymore.”

Yeah, the effigy crosses a line. But, throwing a hissy fit hasn't worked, so what else are we supposed to do? Accept that we won't get our way sometimes?

Then there's this pastor: “This has been one of the biggest shams in world history,” Christman said. “Grown men have been hiding in (their) homes nearly wetting their pants over this invisible enemy that nobody sees. Where is it at?" That doesn't just show disbelief in coronavirus. It shows disbelief in viruses in general.

In other news, here's a video of masked Staten Islanders cussing out a maskless woman in a grocery store, successfully driving her away.

The only time I've entered a building without a mask was this past Thursday. I cut my finger changing the air filter in my furnace and had to go to the hospital for stitches. I put on a Band-Aid and wrapped a paper towel around my finger to stem the bleeding, but that also prevented me from tying my usual face covering behind my head. My backup face covering is a cloth napkin held to my ears by elastics. One of the elastics slipped off, and I lacked the dexterity and patience to fix it.

Anyway, the hospital gave me a mask that slips over me ears. It was much more comfortable than the napkin/elastic rig ever was. I should probably look into getting some proper cloth masks.

My finger'll be fine. I got 5 stitches, and I only needed those because the cut made a flap. If it'd been a straight line, they would've just used adhesive. I'm not supposed to get it wet for 4 or 5 days, which has put the kibosh on regular 20 second hand washing, though.

[Warcry]

Meanwhile, in Kentucky, a gun-toting, right wing mob protested stay-at-home orders issued by the governor by burning him in effigy, right outside his house, because you can do that kind of thing without any consequences if you're white.

Issue the cops really dark sunglasses, tell them it's a BLM march and hope for the best!

But seriously though, protesting outside someone's home is a red line for me, no matter whether I agree with them or not. The fact that they were armed...way over the line. You might as well just put on white robes and light up a cross at that point.

Then there's this pastor: “This has been one of the biggest shams in world history,” Christman said. “Grown men have been hiding in (their) homes nearly wetting their pants over this invisible enemy that nobody sees. Where is it at?" That doesn't just show disbelief in coronavirus. It shows disbelief in viruses in general.

I just had to stop for a minute and really emphasize this.

This man is a pastor. A leader in the church. The Christian church. You know, the one that's supposed to be all about emulating Jesus Christ? And he's talking, on the record, like a 14 year old internet tough guy on Reddit. I'm not a fan of the church by any means, but the state of it in America never ceases to blow my mind.

Also, and more to the point...haven't nearly 100,000 people died in the US? Do nutjobs really think that their government is faking it? And more to the point, wouldn't the nutbars who'd be inclined to think that love the current government in spite of Trump being the literal embodiment of everything they hate and fear?