Jump to content

Love in the Time of Coronavirus (#3)


Mlle. Zabzie

Recommended Posts

10 minutes ago, Castellan said:

what country?

I wondered if it was Australia although where I live it is not too bad. I think some people have been stocking up on food for a while and now many more have caught on. I have myself although not to prepping level. I would buy what you can. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well this is the outskirts of london, my local large supermarket. The panic buying is real and is happening. God knows why it’s toilet paper in such large scale, but we couldn’t get any. I’ve been around dozens of shops asking for hand sanitizer but that is all gone. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My school is closing on Monday and the class I should have been teaching right now has been sent to self-quarantine after it turned out one of them had contact with an infected person and is still testing.

That... came sooner than expected, I must admit. Now I am waiting both for the last lesson of today and the announcement of the principal how we proceed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Well this is the outskirts of london, my local large supermarket. The panic buying is real and is happening. God knows why it’s toilet paper in such large scale, but we couldn’t get any. I’ve been around dozens of shops asking for hand sanitizer but that is all gone. 

People fear finding themselves attached to the toilet without toilet paper. A nightmarish scenario for many.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I’ve been substitute teaching in Pennsylvania, and I wouldn’t be surprised if today happens to be my last day teaching. Ohio and Michigan have closed all schools, won’t be shocked to see PA be next. We have Monday off already as it is so that gives authorities some more time to make a decision. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I heard a thing, I have no evidence to back it up, that people tend to panic buy toilet paper, because it's large and makes you feel like you've bought a lot.

But also I imagine it's a snowball effect, once you hear there's a shortage you're more likely to stock up yourself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

35 minutes ago, Leap said:

 

Where abouts? I haven't noticed any shops having any empty shelves or shortages of anything. It has been very quiet at the office this last week though.

 

Also, it bothers me quite a lot usually but with all emphasis on good hygiene and behaviour, I am almost incandescent with rage on a daily basis when someone sneezes or coughs and makes no attempt to cover it. 

My local Morrisons (Outskirts of Glasgow) has pretty much sold out of toilet paper and pasta. Soap and rice are low. As I think I said earlier in the thread, the supermarket has encouraged this by putting these items on special offier!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, The BlackBear said:

I heard a thing, I have no evidence to back it up, that people tend to panic buy toilet paper, because it's large and makes you feel like you've bought a lot.

But also I imagine it's a snowball effect, once you hear there's a shortage you're more likely to stock up yourself.

I think what happened was that Australia started doing it as most of theirs is made in China, so there’s a legitimate supply-line issue with it. Then everyone else thought it was what you were supposed to be doing, and it only takes a little panic buying to induce more and more as people worry about having stock. I still don’t get the water, I’ve seen multiple trolleys loaded up with bottled water.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I’ll go on one last shopping trip now and get a couple things from the corner shop. Soap and toilet paper and a couple frozen goods.

I will also clean the flat and do a bit of laundry, but then I have no continuity plan because decisions get too complex. 

Go to the country, visit the vet and stay? 
Go to the country, visit the vet, come back and see how long I can stay here? 
Stay and hope my sister and mother will do the vet run and go when the situation gets critical? 

I still have face to face jobs booked for the last week of March that hasn’t been cancelled yet (one involves traveling to another city, approximately 6-7 hours on public transport). 

And then I haven’t factored in the psychological aspect. Sister and I fail at even our general level of cooperation and communication already, so I have no idea how in the world we could last even a week under lockdown together. 

Added to that, my permanent place of residence is in the city so should I contract the virus, I would be quarantined here anyway. 

I just feel overwhelmed with indecision and uncertainty, while I am still vaguely aware that I am overreacting. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

With regard to China’s numbers; 80,796 total cases. All the talk is that they’ve passed the peak and are over the worse. But surely there’s (China population minus 80K) people still to be potentially get the virus, so doesn’t that mean the plateau of cases only lasts as long as the distancing measures? How long do they plan on keeping them in place?

Just to guess at my own question, is it possible the U.K. is aiming to intentionally absorb a large portion of infections in this first wave? To avoid a second wave, and to try and keep this as a one off event that doesn’t come back to haunt us next winter? Maybe they can’t put too fine a point on it, they can’t just say “yep, hopefully bloody loads of you will get infected”. Whether it’s possible to do this and keep the peak within the capability of the NHS is ... hard to say.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My brother owns a cleaning supplies company and is part of a national buyers group, demand for hand sanitiser from clients and walk-ins is massive. They will be receiving a resupply of hand sanitiser in 2 weeks. Phone enquiries have been off the hook, they sold though an entire year's worth of stock in a week. And we only have 5 confirmed cases and no evidence of significant amounts of undiagnosed illness.

If you can't find hand sanitiser buy methylated spirits, it'll do the job, albeit be rougher on the skin, so buy moisturiser too. My brother still has stocks of meths and may offer that to desperate clients. Though he can't officially endorse it as a hand sanitiser product because it's not supplied for that purpose.

His TP situation is fine though, so I don't think we're going to have a run on TP. Potential bad news for Aussies though, New Zealand actually supplies quite a lot of TP to Aussie. If our production drops because of factory closures (or reduced production) we'll probably keep the stocks for us and reduce or stop exporting to Aus. I don't think that's on the horizon right now, but it could be that stockpiling TP in Aus is not the craziest idea. If a country is somewhat dependent on imports for certain essential consumables then those are the products likely to come under significant supply constraints.

I don't entirely disagree with the people who are saying there's too much catastrophising going on. If this isn't approached rationally the cure might be worse than the disease. But I also disagree with the UK position that large crowds aren't really a risk. We have the example of one person spreading the virus to something like 2/3 of the people who attended church in Italy, and that was a gathering of about 100 people. Albeit a crowd of 10,000 is probably not much greater risk to any given individual than a crowd of 100.  You can talk about the benefit of people isolating themselves and then say big crowds are a non-issue. If you are going to assume that only healthy people are going to go to events with large crowds you're deluded. And if you are going to say that cancelling large events won't have any effect on the rate of spread, then that's more likely to make people feeling slightly off colour think it's OK to go to events.

Cancelling entertainment events is not that big of an economic deal, it's the preemptive disruption of everyday economic activity that could cause economic harm a lot worse than the disease. Govts need to spend their way through this, and there needs to be debt relief for people so that mortgages and business loan debt can still be paid, at the same time making sure banks have liquidity during the period that loan repayments are reduced.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Just to guess at my own question, is it possible the U.K. is aiming to intentionally absorb a large portion of infections in this first wave? To avoid a second wave, and to try and keep this as a one off event that doesn’t come back to haunt us next winter? Maybe they can’t put too fine a point on it, they can’t just say “yep, hopefully bloody loads of you will get infected”. Whether it’s possible to do this and keep the peak within the capability of the NHS is ... hard to say.

From what I’ve heard I don’t think there’s any foundation for this belief in waves of the virus. By all measures the virus is surviving just fine in warmer climes so there’s no real reason to expect it to die down once summer comes and create a pause between waves. Especially in places like Australia where it already is summer. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, RhaenysBee said:

I’ll go on one last shopping trip now and get a couple things from the corner shop. Soap and toilet paper and a couple frozen goods.

I will also clean the flat and do a bit of laundry, but then I have no continuity plan because decisions get too complex. 

Go to the country, visit the vet and stay? 
Go to the country, visit the vet, come back and see how long I can stay here? 
Stay and hope my sister and mother will do the vet run and go when the situation gets critical? 

I still have face to face jobs booked for the last week of March that hasn’t been cancelled yet (one involves traveling to another city, approximately 6-7 hours on public transport). 

And then I haven’t factored in the psychological aspect. Sister and I fail at even our general level of cooperation and communication already, so I have no idea how in the world we could last even a week under lockdown together. 

Added to that, my permanent place of residence is in the city so should I contract the virus, I would be quarantined here anyway. 

I just feel overwhelmed with indecision and uncertainty, while I am still vaguely aware that I am overreacting. 

Let me know how the vet visit goes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

I think what happened was that Australia started doing it as most of theirs is made in China, 

That isn't true as far as everything I've read. The vast majority of Australia's toilet paper is manufactured in South Australia. It's completely irrational buying.

Source

Quote

Industry expert Tim Woods, managing director of Industry Edge, which has been analysing the pulp and tissue industry for 25 years, last week said Australia was about 80 per cent self-sufficient in toilet paper manufacturing.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Just to guess at my own question, is it possible the U.K. is aiming to intentionally absorb a large portion of infections in this first wave? To avoid a second wave, and to try and keep this as a one off event that doesn’t come back to haunt us next winter? Maybe they can’t put too fine a point on it, they can’t just say “yep, hopefully bloody loads of you will get infected”. Whether it’s possible to do this and keep the peak within the capability of the NHS is ... hard to say.

It wouldn't be. Even though 80% of cases are mild and likely to not need any kind of medical treatment, 12% are serious and 5% are critical. 12% and 5% of a large wave of infections over a short span of time will overwhelm the health service and cause a lot more deaths than would happen if delay tactics are used. If this was a disease that had a 1-2 week incubation period and severe illness only lasted a couple of days then you might be able to cope. But since it takes about as long (possibly longer) to recover from severe illness as it does to incubate it then a backlog of hospital admissions is likely.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

With regard to China’s numbers; 80,796 total cases. All the talk is that they’ve passed the peak and are over the worse. But surely there’s (China population minus 80K) people still to be potentially get the virus, so doesn’t that mean the plateau of cases only lasts as long as the distancing measures? How long do they plan on keeping them in place?

So far the rumor is schools will open again in April but who knows if that's true. In the city I live in we had these ration coupons and could go out every other day and the only thing open was the supermarket and essential services. Now shopping malls are starting to open but you need to get your temperature checked before you enter. Also if you enter my city from any other city in China you need to do two seeks self quarantine. My guess is when the city truly opens up the quarantine for intercity travel will remain.

 

Oddly in China throughout all this there didn't seem to be a rush on the supermarkets for anything except masks and sanitizer. I guess buying toilet paper in times of crisis is cultural. But also stuff like dried and canned goods had no shortages.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Impmk2 said:

That isn't true as far as everything I've read. The vast majority of Australia's toilet paper is manufactured in South Australia. It's completely irrational buying.

As I mentioned a few posts back. NZ exports quite a lot of toilet paper to Aus. If that supply gets disrupted (it isn't at the moment) then it will put a squeeze on supply.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, The Anti-Targ said:

As I mentioned a few posts back. NZ exports quite a lot of toilet paper to Aus. If that supply gets disrupted (it isn't at the moment) then it will put a squeeze on supply.

Could do. But see my edit. It's 80% locally produced. It's not about to run dry overnight. And you'd imagine in a crisis there's capacity to scale up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Impmk2 said:

Could do. But see my edit. It's 80% locally produced. It's not about to run dry overnight. And you'd imagine in a crisis there's capacity to scale up.

I wouldn't be sure about scaling up production. You need the staff to be available just to maintain production, so if the staff numbers are down because of the illness production is likely to decrease. In times of strictly overseas crisis there's the ability to scale up production, but when the crisis is domestic it might be harder to do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...