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Daily coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - April 16
This thread is posted daily, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!
Today's news features these charming people, who gridlocked the streets of my home state's capital yesterday to protest increasingly restrictive business closures and stay-at-home orders. The usual contingents of semi-automatic weapon-toting, Confederate-flag and swastika wavers were present. As were the small business owners desperately clinging to their livelihoods. I did have a minor head-scratch walking the trail past a closed small boat launch yesterday, but then realized it's really not a great time to be risking emergency water rescues.
In a video chat with friends (who live in an apartment 10 meters away!), they seemed shocked and appalled when I mentioned that some restrictions are going to have to remain for months, if not until a vaccine is distributed. Two of them are culinary workers, one with students who can't graduate without practical classes. People are trying for patience, but the hard reality of the situation is that a single infected person could start this mess all over again if we return to business as usual.
There where apparently protests is several states, but there's a plethora of articles talking about Michigan in particular, probably because we've been one of the harder hit states so far.
And this picture is particular has been circulating around my friend groups this morning(though it's actually from Ohio) : https://www.dispatch.com/storyimage/OH/20200413/NEWS/200419557/AR/0/AR-200419557.jpg?MaxW=600
Not to be confused with this. It's kind of unsurprising that there are zombies of contagion.
My understanding is that zombies are progressives’ fear (single minded, conformist consumers of brains) while vampires are conservatives’ fear (individualistic, homoerotic, consumers of blood).
Not to wander too far off topic, but both vampires and zombies are now all-purpose monster archetypes, whatever their origin stories. Historically, there've been bloodsucking capitalist exploiters, and brainwashed zombie communist hordes.
It's stories like this that really drive home just how different America really is from everywhere else. :(
We're not that different. I've seen stories of open protests in Germany, Italy, Ukraine just this morning, though the causes have generally been a little more noble. And I'd assume India, African nations, and other less-reported areas have their own challenges.
That being said, the U.S. has some serious dark-money problems with paid agitators stirring up conspiracy-theory based trouble, in addition to a broad spectrum of violent racist groups spoiling for fights. As /u/Flashynuff mentioned elsewhere, Michigan has a long history at the forefront of violent extremism originating in class/race tensions.
Okay. Maybe I was trying not to mention Australia yet again. We all got locked down, just like Americans. We've had businesses being shut down, just like America. We've had a massive surge in unemployment, just like America. But we're not seeing protests like this here. Not even close. There are no protesters talking about governments plotting to take our rights, or corporates creating the disease. There are no people walking around covered in an arsenal or wearing shirts that say "Tyranny Response Team". Noone is turning out en masse to gridlock a city. That is crazy shit. The most we have is some right-wing commentators expressing concern on radio & TV. The vast majority of Australians are complying with the lockdown orders. Many of them might not be happy, but they mostly accept the need for a lockdown. According to a survey I read this week, 76% of Australians support the government's actions at this time, and 89% of Australians are staying home.
We just don't have anti-government protests in the same way that America does. In general, democracies don't have armed protests threatening to overthrow the government by force. That's the sort of thing we see on the news in countries with dictatorships.
Oh, I know the dis-United States are exceptional in this respect - we're anus-deep in guns, idiots who want Civil War 2.0, and Russian/fascist propagandists tossing lit matches.
It's weird to be a patriot for a set of national principles that a significant fraction of the populace no longer espouses.
My barber did a decent job of the front, but absolutely butchered the back.
My barber is me.
The back of the head is super-hard! I always have to use a two-mirror situation.
Oh, man... I usually resort to pulling out my phone, setting it to selfie-mode, then placing it behind my head so I can see the reflection in the mirror.
Modern problems require modern solutions :)
(I still end up yelling to my wife to come check - and ultimately fix - what I missed)
Hope you tipped well!
We need a new hair aesthetic: 'rona-cuts or something.
(As my hair is like a mix of a troll doll and brillo pad, steel wool - haircuts have always been a waste so I feel like I have a one-up on the world)
Bonus points if you drink a quarantini before the rona-cut?
clinking glasses with your beautiful quarantine?
My husband and I got our stimulus checks from the US government, direct deposited into our accounts. I know there's a lot of discourse out there about this, but I'll just say for the moment that I appreciate support, even if it's imperfect. I don't want to go all dentist on a gift horse. Both my husband and I are very lucky to have kept our jobs and be in positions to work from home, so I realize we are far better off than many out there. Nevertheless, my husband's salary got cut, and the career landscape for both of us is still rocky and uncertain right now. This money helped yield just a little bit more safety, and that's something I greatly appreciate at the moment.
I also ordered masks for us. We haven't been going anywhere, but I figured they would be good to have in case we need to, and because I think that public mask-wearing is going to be the norm for some time. I'd previously tried making masks from t-shirts according the CDC's guide here but hated the results. Instead I found a local clothing shop through Etsy that has pivoted to making high-quality masks and ordered from them. There's a huge difference between a loose piece of fabric you throw on your face, and something that's specifically designed and seamed to fit your face.
That said, I do have a couple of questions: the ones I ordered have a "filter pocket". What's the recommended best practice with that? Are the multiple layers of cloth in the mask enough on their own? Should I pop in a coffee filter like the CDC guide shows? Something else entirely? Also, what's the verdict on beards? I haven't shaved since this whole thing started (and am secretly digging my currently wild-mountain-man appearance), but it also feels like a beard is antithetical to mask-wearing (so many gaps for air to flow through, so much surface area for things to cling to). Should I need to start going out, is a clean face in my cards, or is that an overreaction?
Back when I was studying PPE, the idea was that beards should be strictly forbidden for chemical workers who needed masks because they'd never seal well enough to stop toxic molecules from seeping around mask edge gaskets.
That being said, for the general public, the principle behind fabric masks for COVID-19 is that they're stopping ballistic transfer of virus-carrying droplets. You're trying to prevent particles from reaching your nose and mouth (or blowing them out at someone else). If a COVID-19-carrying droplet strikes at the beard-edge of your mask, that's not an immediate infective event. None of this is 100% effective, or useful in a setting like a hospital, where there's so much active virus that even eye exposure is a serious hazard.
Social distancing + masks + hand washing + surface sanitation represents a defense-in-depth strategy where no individual step reduces risk to zero, but combining all of them should lead to relative safety.
Yup. The goal is not to stop every possible infection. The goal should be to reduce the total risk for yourself by about 60% to push R below 1. The more the better. Similarly, a mask you wear helps your peers reduce their risk. Their defense starts at your face mask.
Generally: Face masks aren't supposed to protect you, you'd need a medical grade face mask for that (N95 by american standards apparently, FFP3 in germany(EU?)). Only those are considered effective. Even surgical masks only protect the person with an open chest cavity from getting a flu cough into their bloodstream. Your homemade mask consequently doesn't really need to prevent the sucking in of droplets around the seam. It has to prevent the escape of droplets - which is generally more focused towards the front.
So you get to keep that beard, @kfwyre
Very insightful. Thank you @vektor and @patience_limited. Looks like I get to continue my extended indoor lumberjack cosplay!
I assumed you were a woman because you talked about your husband so much in these threads. The confusing picture this post conjured up probably serves me right :D
Lol, nope! I'm a guy. That misunderstanding isn't uncommon though, as both talking about having a husband and talking about being a teacher code me as female to a lot of readers online.
I was basing mask material off of this article from the NYT.
It's snowing in April. Mom says it's probably Grandma, it could have been anyone who died recently though, more data is required.
In other news, Grandma's remains are being treated like a biohazard, no funeral or nothing, and since we were with her on her last day on Earth, we all probably got it, are not leaving the house and Mom has symptoms already, but between church, family and community connections, we don't really have to worry about food and that's nice.
Sorry as hell you're having to go through this and grieve a lost grandparent. I've also heard the legend about snow being Nature's own grief for the friend who passed away from COVID-19 last week.
He was a very tall, sturdy man in life, which led his friends to refer to him as a Frost Giant. The claim was that every time he moved, it snowed or sleeted. Easy to mistake correlation for causation of icy weather in Michigan, but the latest fall of graupel came during his burial.
I never knew graupel made it into the english language. It's vaguely obscure-ish in its language of origin (german) as it is.
A partner I really liked broke up with me via text last week on account of COVID and not being able to spend time with each other. I suspect there's more going on because she is not the kind of person to break up via text and some of the things she said just don't track with the person I've known for a few months now.
I think I'm more upset on behalf of her (that is to say, her behavior) than I am that she broke up with me.
Also, I think this is the first time I've been completely blindsided by a breakup. We were a great match for each other, clearly enjoyed each others company, got quite intimate very quickly, etc. Everything went right, except the world got in the way. This is also the first time I've felt so many emotions about a single event in my life and I don't know how much is this being just such a unique and hurtful situation and how much is the fact that my entire hormone profile is so different from what it was 6+ months ago.
Your thought about reducing burden on delivery services is interesting. I think it was on last week tonight, the guy ranting about dildo deliveries? Maybe I'm a perpetual contrarian, but my thought was "what if a sex worker is working from home now and really needs a dildo to do her job?".
Anyway, there should really be a way to mark deliveries as "not urgent". So they'll order the item and get everything ready, let the cash flow. Delivery workers aren't out of a job anytime soon anyway, so that's no problem. But once they have PPE or the situation has calmed down, they'll get you your goods.
That way, the money gets to stimulate the economy and you get something for it without causing harm.
E: Since I mentioned having done my partner's US tax recently, I'm not even sure the stimulus check will find her. She has no direct deposit info with the IRS (IRS doesn't like foreign banks), so they'll have to mail the check. And when entering her address and SSN into a website that checks whether you will receive your check or whether you need to file stuff or whatever, it returned "we don't know anyone with those details". But that might be an issue with the website not liking foreign addresses.
My hours have been reduced, but I technically have enough to live off of right now. One good thing is that my insurance company is taking advantage of nobody driving - and therefore having less accidents - by rolling those extra profits back to their customers in the form of a credit.
I was about to buy an Occulus Rift S, but I realized that it was probably wiser to wait for my next paycheck to see how much money I was actually going to be making. And in that exact moment, they apparently just sold out at every retailer.
So for the moment I'm holding on to it. At least until I figure out what 3D printer I want. 😺
I've enjoyed my Ender 3 quite a bit. I got it on sale for $150 but even full price they're not that expensive. For filament I recommend Matterhackers. For upgrades I recommend an aluminum feed arm ($10) and a pack of replacement extruder nozzles (also about $10).
I'm lucky enough to be a minor journey's away from a Microcenter, where they typically have a big selection of them both on display and running. So if I do end up buying one, I figured I would be able to go and check out the build quality personally. It'll just take a while....
See if there are any local restaurants you can buy giftcards from.
The plan for us is to buy a few fun items for ourselves to help cope with being stuck in the house all the time and then put the rest into savings, just in case. The company I work for is in the e-learning industry and we're all working remote right now (I mean I always am...have been a remote employee for 2 years now). So I'm not too concerned about job stability. Mostly just saving it in case my in-laws run into financial trouble. My MIL was a cook and my FIL works for a company that produces concrete fixtures. Somehow he's still considered essential, but if something happens we'd like to be able to help them out financially.
fucking morons in my state. seriously that is going to create even more infections.
https://www.facebook.com/events/s/operation-gridlock-denver/1322029761315034/
I had a coronavirus test today.
I developed a dry cough yesterday. It persisted today. In fact, it got worse as the morning wore on. So, to be on the safe side (and because today is Friday and I don't wait to wait until Monday), I called my local GP clinic.
I had a phone appointment with a GP less than 60 minutes later. I described my symptoms, and he told me to come in for a coronavirus test. As he said, anyone who presents with any COVID-19 symptoms (such as my dry cough and raspy throat) must get a test. When I asked him his personal opinion about whether my cough was more likely or less likely to be the coronavirus, he replied emphatically, "Less likely! LESS likely!" It was an instant and very forceful reply - no hesitation, no doubt. That put my mind at rest.
But I still had to go have the test.
It was scheduled for the end of the day. He was getting everyone who needed a test to come at about the same time, so he could do them all at once.
I had to drive into the car park at the back of the clinic, and phone the receptionist to let them know I was there. There was another car with a couple of people in it. The doctor came out, checked who was who, then went away. He came back dressed from head to toe in a hazmat suit, plus a face mask. He swabbed the other person first. That person shouted a bit. I hoped he was putting it on for the sake of an audience.
Then the doctor came to me. He had a long cotton swab. First he swabbed my throat, then he stuck it up my nostril. The nose swab was uncomfortable, but not painful; I had braced myself for something much worse, and was surprised. After a brief conversation, he literally ran back to the clinic door (I assume to put my sample into a protective container before it denatured in the atmosphere).
Now I wait 2-3 days.
But his emphatic reply that I was very unlikely to have the coronavirus has put my mind at rest. Also, the statistics here show that the rate of infection is so low that it's extremely improbable I've been exposed. And my throat got a bit better as the day went on. So, in my mind, this test is just a formality. I've overreacted, and I was tested because of government guidelines rather than because of any actual risk.
I am an Aussie.
I don't know if it's a general or local rule. (It doesn't make any difference to me: either way, I get tested.)
Regarding his exclamation: About 100 Strayans are diagnosed daily. About one in ten people develops a some form of respiratory infection (cold, flu) in april. (probably more) Or one in 300 every given day. There's 26 million of you guys, so any given day about 100000 people develop a infection, of which 100 are actual covid19. 1 in 1000 odds right there, worse if your symptoms match more closely, better if they don't.
All the numbers here are either easily sourced or straight out of my ass. Just gives you an idea.
Trump told governors on a conference call today that he wants to start "reopening" on May 1. Their "Guidelines for Reopening America" document is embedded in that article.
Saw this linked from a coworker and thought it was interesting, might be better as it's own post but I'll start here for now [PDF WARNING] (is that still a thing?):
Morgan Stanley Research: A Prescription to get the US back to work
sadly it is.
Monterey Peninsula Unified School District to provide Wi-Fi access with school bus - apparently the idea is that students can park around the bus.
I live in Sweden so it all depends here. Vast majority is careful with quarantine and keeping some distance from others. Some, not so much (humans be humans :) ). Its all up to the individual as there is no enforcement, only recommendations but so far things are puttering along ok.
I already worked from home before this so for me its pretty much same, but husband-dude is a librarian and libraries are mostly opened but with some key restrictions. There are programs to assist others who can't go outside at all or have issues that they can't get fixed during 'Rona times. So I've helped two people now getting their wifi-printers working (seriously who the hell sell a wifi printer to people over 70? Wifi printers are evil and finnicky for all, but when you're not very technically adept they are impossible) and done some shopping for others.
It SEEMS that the number of cases are flattening out here, knock-on-wood, but the issue is homes for the elderly (Sweden count the deaths of Covid-19 in homes for the elderly, instead of just hospitals and there is some future research that can be done there - as is the case in all the statistics and how they are handled in different countries) and of course ensuring people heed the recommendations going forward too. So its all a bit "errr no one knows".
Unemployment is up of course so they recently reported that all universities and higher education institutions are being swamped for next semester (as unemployed people figure its a good time to get some further education in)
I know I'm finally going crazy from the coronavirus. I flossed today.
I got serious about it after a dentist appointment in early March, when I realized I might end up not going back for a while.
Yea I'm going to make a habit out of it. Thankfully had a dental appointment like the week before this all started though.
Monterey Bay Aquarium looks to layoffs in the face of massive economic loss.
Cases in germany seem to peak every week at or around thursday. Infections on weekend + incubation period?
The Brazilian president has fired our leading health minister because he didn't agree with him.
#FascistState
City of Monterey axes 108 positions at facilities like the sports center and conference center, which are closed. Normally, over half of city revenue comes from non-residents via hotel taxes, parking fees, and sales taxes.