While the animation is nice, the title (Watch How the Coronavirus Spread Across the United States) is misleading. What is depicted is the number of confirmed cases, not the spread of coronavirus. The article even mentions this, but I think it’s not emphasized clearly enough: “The climb in the number of cases has been rapid, in part because of more testing.” The article I previously posted goes into more detail about this issue.
We can’t conclude the actual rate of spread from the information presented, but we can conclude that the situation is (much) worse than previously known.
Since deaths lag infection by few weeks, it will be 1-2 months before it is understood what today’s situation is really like.
So neutral topic idea, what have each of you stocked up on? The shelves are clearing here locally, so we felt it prudent to buy food we would buy eventually as long as it had a long shelf life. So for us that is
Breakfast Cereal
Mac&Cheese
Various pastas we like
Nuts
Fresca, Sprite, Mello Yello, Gatorade
And our need for drinking water is covered by our pool if needed.
I stacked up maybe about “a week worth” of mixed dry/frozen foods. This was about 5 weeks ago I think. I did it well earlier than the rest (I hate being in full shops. Not nice. Wife laughed at me but I said just wait and see - they will go crazy soon…)
Grain, rice, noodles, chocolate, coffee, tea, some fish, some meat, PEASOUP!!, popcorn, cookies, couple frozen pizzas, medication, vitamins, a lot of bread, butter.
On a normal day, we have quite a lot of meat, bread, berries etc etc in fridge anyway. Over 3 weeks ago I did a NORMAL purchase of toilet paper for 24 rolls, I never buy less at one time.
…so luckily I skipped the whole TP mess and I still have plenty to go. Needless to say that ATM the shops are again so full of TP that no-one has the money to buy it all away again
I use that example for drug-tests (cheap/fast piss-tests vs pricey/tedious hair-tests). When what you’re looking for has the same likelihood as a false reading, accuracy is a coin-toss. Split outcomes to false positives, false negatives, true positives, and true negatives. If the test is 95% accurate and 5% of the testees(!) would/should test positive, a positive reading would be a coin-toss as to whether/not it’s true.
Point being, never ever release anyone from liability, whether the company wanting to test you, or the testing facility. Make them spend for the pricey test in case of a positive result, and not automatically deny you whatever (job, clearance, etc.), or else suuuuuuuue! :laughing:
But an added complication is that this assumes testing a random person. That’s rarely the case, and specific situations will have a different prevalence.
In any case, the way to get that confidence up is to do multiple tests.
Well actually you said the “joke” & then About 10 hours later you came back & said something like “ the joke must have gone over everyone’s head because I thought it was hilarious “
You then posted later to try & explain the joke , lol.
Great list too CheapThrills, me and others are taking notes
That reminds me, I haven’t started my camping generator in like 4 or 5 years. I should do that so it’s prepared to keep my fridge and freezer food from spoiling. We don’t have higher than normal levels of perishables, but man, eating normal food in a power outage really keeps your morals up. I have experience from 1997. Dare I say it was even fun to have no power for 2 weeks. We did have a generator though.
I haven’t done any shopping for the virus situation but because of the way that I shop I didn’t need to. I could easily not shop for the next 6 months and still have plenty left of both food and toilet paper.
I have already put out the word to a few of my neighbors and my tiny church that I can help them out if they are in a jam for food, I didn’t mention or offer the TP but I know that I can inquire about that need in person if someone approaches me for food.
I’m under the impression that these shortages are starting to be dealt with and that the hoarding impulse will settle down in time, plus the shippers and stores are coming up with solutions to getting product into everyone’s hands, the main thing is that no American is going to starve, just be annoyed and inconvenienced with the hassles involved with getting what they want and need.
Question for our members in Spain, maybe local to Barcelona:
I saw a photo of what appear to be a blue & yellow poster describing, in Spanish, a protocol of actions to be carried out when returning home from being out & about, walking a dog, etc. I haven't been able to find it again. The protocol included such things as:
Remove shoes upon entering,
Don't touch anything once inside,
Wash the dog's paws,
Sanitize any items purchased,
Remove clothing & place in plastic bag for laundering.
Shower or bathe.
There were more actions, but I can't remember what they are.
Can anyone respond please, with a pic, copy or file of this poster?
What’s ironic is that under my old boss, I was able to work from home on Fridays, but new boss doesn’t like nor lets people do that much if at all, so I was “grandfathered in”.
Now with the kung flu, there’s a companywide push to keep almost everyone at home, so I’m doing that pretty much every weekday now.
Sadly ironically, too, what was a major pain in the ass, ie, traffic, is so much lighter now, that I didn’t mind driving in. (I could also go by bus, but the ’58 goes through Corona… and along Corona Av! Eep! )
(cherry-coke addict here)
For me, stevia is the worst tasting sweetener, closely followed by aspartam. Luckily over here everywhere we still have the option for only sugar. I’m not overweight and after 53 years still have all my teeth, so I indulge myself in the original thing.
)