Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

33 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Sol is the beer of choice for me.

The only Mexican beer I will drink is Negro Modelo.  It is a Vienna lager and I really enjoy it.

[Guest]

23 minutes ago, RhaenysBee said:

Is there no chance employers might be bendable in this particular instance? It is after all in their benefit as well that employees don’t spread the virus among one another and the employers isn’t left without staff or quarantined or closed down. 

Exactly the opposite here in the U.S. Even among many employers who do offer short-term disability leave (most do not, iirc), there will be pressure for employees to show up to work, sickness be damned. Some employers will look for excuses to fire employees taking short-term disability. Things like that are an astoundingly common occurrence here.

[Fragile Bird]

If you think that things are tough for Chinese take-out, wait until the outbreak hits. Wait until McDonald’s announces all stores are shut down for two weeks. Lol!

[Mlle. Zabzie]

10 hours ago, Filippa Eilhart said:

yes, but the study was done by UK scientists from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Is that better?

The study is from 2015 but I'm sure there are also older studies or just a common assumption, because I remember learning that it takes around 5 years for the flu virus to mutate enough so your body isn't immune to it.

Also I don't understand why people think that everyone who gets the flu will have terrible symptoms. Flu is no different from other viruses, some people will have milder symptoms and some worse. Of course, in general, it's worse than a common cold, but you can't expect everyone who has the flu to be delirious

" Actually, 20% to 30% of people carrying the influenza virus have no symptoms. "

https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/10-flu-myths

1.  This is true.  I actually had the flu this year (as did my daughter).  Got the test and everything, Flu A.  My symptoms were EXTREMELY mild, as were hers.  We both had our flu shots and started on tamiflu immediately (me before I was symptomatic).  We dutifully stayed home.  It was bad, but I've felt WAY worse with some colds (and that time I got hand/foot/mouth as an adult - DO NOT RECOMMEND).

3 hours ago, sologdin said:

it's almost a standard trump perfect storm: numbnuts doesn't listen to expert advice and consequently violates the applicable regulations, which blunder creates a serious problem, the existence of which problem he first denies and thereafter alleges to be a media hoax while retaliating against a whistleblower, and then eventually appoints someone completely unqualified to whitewash the problem away, while taking credit for solving it.  the only missing part is how he personally profits from the mess.

2.  I got you on this one.  Someone owns a lot of real estate that could be profitably used for triage....

[IheartIheartTesla]

Petition to rename this thread COVID-19 or 'novel coronavirus', I think the suggestion is to stay away from using geographic descriptors because of the negative stereotypes they reinforce (I always wondered about the so-called 'Ebola' virus, which I believe comes from a river close but not quite where the virus first supposedly originated)

[A True Kaniggit]

2 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Petition to rename this thread COVID-19 or 'novel coronavirus', I think the suggestion is to stay away from using geographic descriptors because of the negative stereotypes they reinforce (I always wondered about the so-called 'Ebola' virus, which I believe comes from a river close but not quite where the virus first supposedly originated)

I sparkle this statement.

 

Edit: @Ser Scot A Ellison

 

[sologdin]

or rename as rush limbaugh's common cold.

[A True Kaniggit]

Thank you. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

8 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

I sparkle this statement.

 

Edit: @Ser Scot A Ellison

 

Done.

[williamjm]

9 hours ago, Which Tyler said:

Mind you, it also suggests that UK's only individual is in Northern Ireland (announced today, at the same time as Wales' first case) I wonder how England's 17 feel about that?
I'll stick to this one for now (love a good data map): https://infographics.channelnewsasia.com/covid-19/map.html

Maybe they've updated it but it now has a dot for 19 in the UK, although they've put the dot in Scotland which I think doesn't have any cases yet.

[Zorral]

52 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Petition to rename this thread COVID-19 or 'novel coronavirus', I think the suggestion is to stay away from using geographic descriptors because of the negative stereotypes they reinforce (I always wondered about the so-called 'Ebola' virus, which I believe comes from a river close but not quite where the virus first supposedly originated)

I vote Yea.

Ooops, I entirely missed that this had already happened because, of course, covid-19 is the right subject.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Clarification from earlier. There are 59 cases in the U.S., but 58 of the patients contracted the virus overseas.

[Prince of the North]

3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/corona-beer-sales-taking-hit-because-coronavirus-outbreak/ORXV24ZXMZAZDJCBIM7K55MRUE/

As a Modelo man I approve of this coronaphobia .

 

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The only Mexican beer I will drink is Negro Modelo.  It is a Vienna lager and I really enjoy it.

Yep.  Was gonna say this, Scot - Modelo Negra for me.  There are some pretty good German-style brews by way of Mexico.  I don't mind Dos Equis Amber either but I prefer Modelo Negra to it.

    

[Argonath Diver]

3 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

So your system does not recognize any form of prolonged sick-leave benefit? That sounds terribly harsh. Is there no chance employers might be bendable in this particular instance? It is after all in their benefit as well that employees don’t spread the virus among one another and the employers isn’t left without staff or quarantined or closed down. 

I hope this won’t affect too many people. It is an awful choice to make as an individual. 

I am a career bartender. It's a really big deal at my work, as with most small places, to even miss one day. For instance, tonight will be very busy. If I call off, there is no one to replace me. We'd have a waiter move from his shift to behind the bar, and since he's far slower than I am, and we'd be a man down on the floor, the whole place would be chaos. So, we suck it up and go to work, sick or not. We wash our hands every couple minutes, try not to cough in front of customers (nearly impossible), and generally stick through it. If someone said "I am sick, I need the weekend off", the owner would be forced to look for inferior replacement, simply to find someone who would never ask off. 

This new major health scare is especially scary to people like me. I do not have health insurance - even Obamacare demanded far more per month than I can afford, and I have to pay our government several hundred dollars as punishment for that decision. If I lose this job, I can survive about two rent payments and living like an absolute pauper, and hope to find new work, start at the bottom of the totem pole, and continue the cycle of living month-to-month.

So, yes, the American systems of health care and paid leave are atrocious and draconian to those of limited financial means. If COVID-19 becomes a true health scare, and one of us comes down with it, causing more of us to avoid working for awhile, our restaurant might have to shut its doors forever. I am a relatively hale and hearty person, and thus the virus scare is far scarier for my career than my own health, though I do fear that many of my truly poor coworkers (the kitchen guys with three kids and a grandma in their house, living off 25 grand a year) would suffer even worse if this becomes a true crisis.

So, yeah, I'm pretty upset when my facebook feed has lots of my friends with a corporate job and fancy insurance making jokes about beer and Trump and generally mocking the situation.

[The Anti-Targ]

South Korea has instituted drive through testing so that people who think they might have the infection don't crowd into medical centres and potentially expose others. I wonder how many other countries would be equipped to do something like that?

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Prince of the North said:

 

Yep.  Was gonna say this, Scot - Modelo Negra for me.  There are some pretty good German-style brews by way of Mexico.  I don't mind Dos Equis Amber either but I prefer Modelo Negra to it.

    

Can't say I've ever tried that one. I just keep some of the regular ones and some Stellas in the fridge for guests, though I encourage them to try the leftovers of Sours and IPAs that I didn't like just to make space. 

[Spockydog]

11 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

Meanwhile, in a so far coronavirusless country,  grocery stores are empty of stock, it’s still impossible to buy sanitizing soap of any kind and people are prepared to lock themselves up for months and live on canned goods. 

Fucking A. I've already got my three-months-worth of baked beans, ditto weed, charas, and chocolate. And with Call of Duty Warzone just about to drop, imma spend the next couple of months in my pants, training for the forthcoming apocalopse.

[karaddin]

The thing about the lack of paid sick leave for American workers is that it's going to amplify the spread of any epidemic/pandemic. Yet another case of short term thinking that feels as much about denying workers the entitlements as it is about the money - I'm not talking about individual business owners, but the meta logic behind it as a society. It needs to be viewed as a safeguard for the employer as much an employee entitlement, avoiding disease spread is good for everyone.

[Jeor]

19 minutes ago, karaddin said:

The thing about the lack of paid sick leave for American workers is that it's going to amplify the spread of any epidemic/pandemic.

There are more than a few things in the American system (lack of paid sick leave, lack of universal healthcare coverage, high socioeconomic inequality, high distrust of organised government) that make a pandemic a particularly frightening prospect for them compared to other Western countries. I'm still waiting for a shoe to drop somewhere in California etc. I see Trump is doing his usual "fake news" and "hoax" sort of stuff but if it really hits, he's not going to be able to explain this one away - the federal government ought to be really quite worried.

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Jeor said:

he's not going to be able to explain this one away - the federal government ought to be really quite worried.

It's called national emergency and thus can declare federal martial law.  Works out well, ney (as Atian -- HBO Rome / Polly Walker would say) ?