Stuck in Neutral ...

[mr_lincoln]

Our county has over 1/2 million people in it ... thus far there are 10 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and no deaths.

Our State has 67 counties and 27 have no reported cases.  2 Weeks of limited contact seems to be helping but my feeling is that rural areas that are seeing few confirmed cases may feel like they are stuck in neutral ... I know I do.

Many sources for inventory have closed ... online estate and auction houses are still holding auctions but stating they will retain everybody's items until the restrictions are lifted and their regular offices resume again.   That's not really a solution, putting out $$ for inventory but having no clue when you might get it?

Non-Life Sustaining businesses have to be closed but pot shops and liquor stores remain open ... what is up with that?   

I am anticipating that we will be put under these constraints again for another 2 weeks ... to sometime in early April.

[mansons2005]

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@mansons2005 wrote:

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@soh.maryl wrote:

If you don't mind my asking, what state are you in?

We here in Ohio have been issued a "shelter in place" order by the governor.  But we have been assured that law enforcement won't be checking cars on the street to make sure their destination is one of those that are allowed. 

And if, for instance, I am stopped and tell the officer I am driving to my pharmacy to pick up my meds, is he going to follow me there to make sure I am not lying?

And, as for walkers, stopping them is absurd.  We are encouraged to get exercise and we have to walk our dogs.

Shouldn't law enforcement have more important duties? 

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I'm in Chicago, near the notorious West Side. As I mentioned, the police seem to be stopping only people walking together without an obvious reason, not the ones with kids or dogs. Most of the populace is following the shelter in place - but the criminals seem to think that makes it open season for street crime. I doubt that anyone is being "followed" by the police. But apparently the criminals are following potential victims. We are not under the "written and approved pass" system that Paris and Spain are, nor are we getting immediate L30 fines such as the London police are levying. We are being protected by our (predominately) outstanding and dedicated police force.

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Just as an update to this particular conversation, the Mayor of Chicago has had to close the lake front, the river walk, all parks, playgrounds and trails. The television news last evening showed thousands (yes, the estimate was 2,500 to 3,000) of people (of all ages) congregating in those spaces - obviously ignoring the Stay Home and 10 person limits on gatherings orders. As of 1 pm today if you violate the order (yes, it is a legal order under the state of emergency) on the 1st offense you will be ID'd and given a warning, 2nd offense is a $500 citation/fine. Third offense is arrested and jailed as a danger to the greater society. This only affects those who continually congregate, not dog walkers or couples with children out practicing solitary exercising, etc.

I understand the weather is finally getting nice, but I do NOT understand the need to run out and play volley ball or basketball, or to gather 25 of my closest friends on a pile of sand and swig down Arizona Iced Tea, while the city is expanding the number of hospital beds and renting refrigerator trucks to expand the morgue capacity......................

[chapeau-noir]

They haven't closed trails here yet (Washington State) but people are being mostly really good about not congregating. Also, a number of the multi-use trails in the three affected counties carry commuting traffic, and enough people are still working out of the home that they're still carrying traffic as well as recreation.  I use these trails, too, and notice that people walking are mostly families or people in ones and twos, the runners are just running in ones or twos, same with the cyclists - you used to see larger groups of runners and big packs of cyclists on training rides or in pacelines commuting to and from work at the tech centers - it still carries heavy traffic but all strung out in ones and twos.

I'm pretty proud of us here - we've managed to start making some headway in at least our three heavily affected counties by just staying the course, helping each other and being creative.

[equid0x]

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

Definitely people travel is the big vector for this, though it really first cropped up here in a nursing home in a rather ritzy town in the area - family members bringing it in. I'm surprised it hasn't been a lot worse here with our very busy ports and all the coming and going - it's bad enough, that's for certain.  NYC - oh, man.

I can see it now, though - we all, in a united effort, clamp down on this, virologists finally are able to develop a vaccine, medication is deployed through an immense effort, we get through this.  Then we get to hear "See, it was all just a hoax, just like Y2K - NOTHING HAPPENED" - disregarding completely the voluntary sacrifices people made down through the weeks and months to clamp down on the spread, the scientists working 12, 13 hours a day, day after day, the front-line medical personnel scrambling to diagnose and triage,  hospital personnel working overtime...all quietly in the background, all of us to overcome it.

Pardon me, I'm in a cynical mood (cooped up too much).

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Y2K wasn't a hoax. The problems were real. Despite the preparations of the county I used to live in, at midnight 1/1/00 the traffic computer that ran all the lights in the county crashed and some of the SCADA systems running some of the older water pumps crashed. Apparently, they just had to restart the pumps, but the traffic system was down for days which caused all of the lights countywide to run a default program or just go to blinking red. 

[equid0x]

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@mr_lincoln wrote:

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@earlyant-77 wrote:

I've never had a flu shot either, and I haven't had the flu in over 20 years. No sense in ruining a good record.

But it kinda makes sense that if you get the flu shot, you MAY be more at risk because you do already have some of a related virus running around inside you, dead or alive.

But then again -I live in an old house(1875). So I have fresh air throughout, which I love. New houses are so closed, you can't even light a fire in your fireplace without opening a window. Imagine what you are breathing all day long if you don't open some windows for fresh air ........

Plus, you cover yourself up at night with heavy quilts and haps, and you sleep so much better because of the weight.

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Our home was built in 1986 and we live on a ridge that get lots of wind ... when its real windy it literally sucks the heat out of the house and you can feel cold air coming in through the electrical outlets on the windward side.  We burn a wood stove off and on 5 months a year and days without wind, even if its frigid outside, we don't have to burn it as hot but on windy days I crank the stove!!!  The only time we open windows is to let excessive heat OUT LOL! 

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I've had good success with those outlet sealer kits. In my home, I found the source of the air movement in the wall was actually a pipe stuck through the stucco that has the doorbell clipped into it. I filled it with caulk and problem solved. 

In older rentals that I didn't want to do any upgrades to, even those little outlet protectors they sell to keep kids' fingers out of the outlet make a difference. 

[pvcliff]

General reply regarding folks who think they and their families were infected back in early Feb. I spend quite a bit of time on a timeshare/travel board. Two different people report having been on small - medium cruise ships in December. One was a Middle East cruise, one was a Christmas market River cruise. Both cruises had passengers from China. Each poster got home a week or so before Christmas and about a week later were sick with severe illness that had all the hallmarks of corona virus and lasted several weeks. They each are 90% sure they had covid-19. Sure would be interesting if after the dust settles there was a way to check for markers in blood samples after the fact to see if indeed there were very early instances of the disease.

[sin-n-dex]

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@earlyant-77 wrote:

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@sin-n-dex wrote:

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@earlyant-77 wrote:

I've never had a flu shot either, and I haven't had the flu in over 20 years. No sense in ruining a good record.

But it kinda makes sense that if you get the flu shot, you MAY be more at risk because you do already have some of a related virus running around inside you, dead or alive.

But then again -I live in an old house(1875). So I have fresh air throughout, which I love. New houses are so closed, you can't even light a fire in your fireplace without opening a window. Imagine what you are breathing all day long if you don't open some windows for fresh air ........

Plus, you cover yourself up at night with heavy quilts and haps, and you sleep so much better because of the weight.

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I used to live in a drafty old house built in 1885 and there was asbestos...

I much prefer my up to code new property (new as in 1972) where I live now.

C.

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No asbestos here. Shouldn't be any asbestos anyway - other than old wrapping on heat ducts. If you are thinking of the plaster and lathe on the walls, that's animal hair mixed in.

And I wouldn't give up my old house for 20 new houses. Ever.

In 1972, you still have some outside air flow unlike houses built from about the late 1990's on. Fresh air is a necessity in houses.

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I forget what the building inspector said about the asbestos. We paid for a report to be done to go with the house when we were selling it so people wouldn't put offers contingent on a home inspection and back out. I had purchased a new house and had a narrow window to close the deal, so I wasn't going to mess around with details.

I probably could have gotten more for this house than I did, it was kind of at the low end of the market and there's a fair bit of demand for low properties around here being there are so few... but the house I bought was conditionally sold on if I sold my property, and in Canada someone can come and make a clean offer and force me out even though I've paid for a home inspection and gotten financing (which you only have 7 days to do when you put in the offer).

I did look at some houses built in the 90's and later, but new houses don't have basements, they are stacked townhouses, sell for 400K, and many are just two bedrooms. Since I couldn't get financing for something new for 400K, I looked at older properties and bought a three bedroom (bottom part of a duplex) with a basement.

C.

[sin-n-dex]

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@the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth wrote:

The fever shows a week before the breathing problems. I don’t think Florida has hit the bad part yet. Spring Breakers are just starting to test positive for the virus.

i was concerned with the infected spring breakers leaving Florida and distributing it nationwide, not necessarily the other way around

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Unless the whole world co-operates, this is going to be spread around for a long time. My partner figures that eventually most people will end up getting it.

We have a lockdown in Ontario (with a list of 50 exceptions that are still open as necessary business), and when I'm going to and from work I'm seeing a whole lot of people around doing stuff. To be perfectly honest, if I didn't have work to go to three times a week I'd get pretty cagey in my house all the time, so I understand the need to go out. When not at work, I'm at home except if I need food or my meds. All my work meetings are being done on Google Hangouts and Skype now.

C.

[chapeau-noir]

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@equid0x wrote:

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

Definitely people travel is the big vector for this, though it really first cropped up here in a nursing home in a rather ritzy town in the area - family members bringing it in. I'm surprised it hasn't been a lot worse here with our very busy ports and all the coming and going - it's bad enough, that's for certain.  NYC - oh, man.

I can see it now, though - we all, in a united effort, clamp down on this, virologists finally are able to develop a vaccine, medication is deployed through an immense effort, we get through this.  Then we get to hear "See, it was all just a hoax, just like Y2K - NOTHING HAPPENED" - disregarding completely the voluntary sacrifices people made down through the weeks and months to clamp down on the spread, the scientists working 12, 13 hours a day, day after day, the front-line medical personnel scrambling to diagnose and triage,  hospital personnel working overtime...all quietly in the background, all of us to overcome it.

Pardon me, I'm in a cynical mood (cooped up too much).

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Y2K wasn't a hoax. The problems were real. Despite the preparations of the county I used to live in, at midnight 1/1/00 the traffic computer that ran all the lights in the county crashed and some of the SCADA systems running some of the older water pumps crashed. Apparently, they just had to restart the pumps, but the traffic system was down for days which caused all of the lights countywide to run a default program or just go to blinking red. 

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Yes - that's what I said.  I remember it well - the preparation that went into preventing problems, updating code, babysitting systems - no one seems to remember all of that.  Just as far as they were concerned nothing happened (though obviously there were problems - it would be impossible for there not to be).  In our case (clinical systems) nothing happened because we worked many long hours to PREVENT it from happening.  I can just see it happening with this. 

[cynthealee2]

To be honest though... My sister still had food she's bought for "the world is ending" y2k era 5 years later.

I think there will be some that still have stacks of TP, and the rest in 2025 going "why on EARTH did I think I'd need that much... Since all the stores have flat out stated they will NOT be doing returns on this stuff even after this is over... those that 'hoarded' are going to be stuck with it for YEARS.

[equid0x]

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@cynthealee2 wrote:

To be honest though... My sister still had food she's bought for "the world is ending" y2k era 5 years later.

I think there will be some that still have stacks of TP, and the rest in 2025 going "why on EARTH did I think I'd need that much... Since all the stores have flat out stated they will NOT be doing returns on this stuff even after this is over... those that 'hoarded' are going to be stuck with it for YEARS.

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Eek, I wouldn't want to be one of the sellers that sold $79 bottles of hand sanitizer, though. I think everyone can take an educated guess as to what is going to happen in a couple of weeks when local stores are restocked at normal prices. SNAD's galore. 

[cynthealee2]

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@equid0x wrote:

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@cynthealee2 wrote:

To be honest though... My sister still had food she's bought for "the world is ending" y2k era 5 years later.

I think there will be some that still have stacks of TP, and the rest in 2025 going "why on EARTH did I think I'd need that much... Since all the stores have flat out stated they will NOT be doing returns on this stuff even after this is over... those that 'hoarded' are going to be stuck with it for YEARS.

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Eek, I wouldn't want to be one of the sellers that sold $79 bottles of hand sanitizer, though. I think everyone can take an educated guess as to what is going to happen in a couple of weeks when local stores are restocked at normal prices. SNAD's galore. 

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Honestly I think SNADS are going to be the least of their problems... if the states go after eBay I have no doubts that eBay will just turn over the sellers saying something along the lines of "we tried to get them to stop, pulled every listing we could, banned the accounts, but they just kept going here's a list of the ones that live in your state"... Cause we all know eBay isn't going to go down for this, or at least not alone.

Even if nothing happens in the end (no jail time, small or no fines)... they'll have to come up with lawyer fees, court costs, time off work for court, ect ect...  Hope that $79 bottle of sanitizer was worth it...

[lindyslucky]

I heard a theory about TP yesterday.

Everyone is home.

No one knew how much we really used, as everyone goes places(work!) 

So we are using a different amount, more!

And freaking out about it. 

Eggs are next, people are home with their kids. 

Dyeing eggs for Easter is an activity. 

I have enough coffee to last until August.

Cant hurt.

[mansons2005]

"I have enough coffee to last until August."

I'm sorry, but there is NO SUCH thing as "enough coffee".

[nuclearomen]

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@mansons2005 wrote:
"I have enough coffee to last until August."

I'm sorry, but there is NO SUCH thing as "enough coffee".

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quite true, it's a necessity at my home, and we currently have enough for a few months...but that is normal and not virus related stock piling... my wife buys all different kinds so idk, but i drink it lol 

[chapeau-noir]

Are we talking about coffee now?  😃  My favourite thing!