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Love in the Time of Coronavirus (#3)


Mlle. Zabzie

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I've just learned Poland is the world third biggest exporter of toilet paper, we produce several times more of it than we use domestically, and it doesn't in the slightest change the fact, that most big supermarkets are out of it for days now.

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2 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

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.

I guess my point is this isn't rational buying - toilet paper would be pretty far down the list of things to panic buy in Australia. In case of serious trade disruptions we've probably got bigger problems than an 80% household toilet paper ration.

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1 minute ago, 3CityApache said:

I've just learned Poland is the world third biggest exporter of toilet paper, we produce several times more of it than we use domestically, and it doesn't in the slightest change the fact, that most big supermarkets are out of it for days now.

Well, of course you are. Because other countries pays more, you know. So for the good of Poland, let them export their toilet paper, get rich, and it will all trickle down like at golden show...

I'll see myself out.

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21 minutes ago, Ghjhero said:

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. 

I think it's just clinging to hope. The idea that this is simply the new normal until there's a vaccine, which could be well over a year from now, is too depressing to acknowledge. And the economic repercussions from so many people being out of work for that long are unlike anything we've seen before; even the great recession doesnt compare.

The other hope is that we get lucky, and faster than we did with Spanish Flu, and it mutates into something harmless. I've no idea what the odds there are, but I dont think it's good thing to be planning around.

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I’m back, both stores I visited are perfectly fine, the only thing they are out of stock of is sanitizing soap or hand sanitizer. I also can’t say the streets are visibly emptier, our street is but that’s because we are right next to a university campus which has been closed. So no students to sight. The buses and trams I have seen from the outside (I visited walking distance stores) seemed rather empty but that is generally the case on fridays in the middle of the day anyway, so I’m not sure how much it correlates to virus worry. 

There is however a rumor floating around that the plan to lock down the capital at midnight. Yesterday the mayor (newly elected, poor soul had no idea what he was getting himself into) said such action would have vast consequences and should be preceded with a number of other restriction. I seriously doubt this is going to happen, but there’s a rumor anyway. 

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7 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

I plan on seeing out the apocalypse with Easter eggs, there are fucking rows and rows and rows of them in my local supermarket.  

Same here, seems we could survive several years on Easter eggs. 

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2 hours 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. 

It's similar in rural Gloucestershire. No toilet paper or sanitiser since Saturday, no soap, disinfectant, pasta or rice since Tuesday.

Tinned food was thin on the shelves yesterday.

 

As for work, I'm down around 1/5 to 1/6 of my usual workload

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1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

 

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

 

Meths is a bit strong, at least dilute it down with something - target about 75% alcohol content, whether that's meths or rubbing alcohol (please, use the latter).

WHO have released a couple of recipes here: https://www.who.int/gpsc/5may/Guide_to_Local_Production.pdf

Basically, rubbing alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, glycerol and water. We've adapted it to add more handmade type stuff (Shea butter, vitamin E etc) but sticking with the WHO targets.

 

Of course, soap is still the best thing out there for killing viruses on surfaces, whether skin or metal

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Well, my brother called me at 8:00 am to suggest we go to Costco (I’m the one with th Card) after he had seen the grocery stores last night and the news reports of panic buying sweeping across the city. They don’t open until 10:00 am so we headed to Walmart instead, for cat food. And a few other things. Soup was on sale and he also picked up crackers, eggs and hand soap. I decided to pick up a couple of more bottles of olives. Hell, if we go to apocalypse I will float away on martinis.

There were no cough drops, something I wanted, except in larger bags, which I didn’t want.

All around me, though, people are talking in their cell phones saying things like, ‘there’s nothing left, the shelves are empty!’ I guess maybe water and toilet paper? But there are a lot of empty shelves. 
 

eta: found cough drops right by the cashier!

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1 hour ago, Fez said:

I think it's just clinging to hope. The idea that this is simply the new normal until there's a vaccine, which could be well over a year from now, is too depressing to acknowledge. And the economic repercussions from so many people being out of work for that long are unlike anything we've seen before; even the great recession doesnt compare.

The other hope is that we get lucky, and faster than we did with Spanish Flu, and it mutates into something harmless. I've no idea what the odds there are, but I dont think it's good thing to be planning around.

Well, I don’t think quarantines etc are the new normal until there is a vaccine.  The more depressing thought is that in fact it will run through the population over the next several months and we have to hope that it doesn’t mutate the other direction so that we have a second wave reinfecting people who have recovered.  Right now we are, I think, in a position where we just want to blunt the impact on hospitals as best as possible.  But there will inevitably come a time when we all know someone who was definitively diagnosed and/or have had it.......  Think that happens before a vaccine, and schools etc will not remained closed fro 18 mo- 2 years.

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My town and all towns around me have cancelled school for minimum 2 weeks. Luckily I am off till April 1st so I can stay with my kids but what do people do who can’t take the time off? It feels like an apocalypse, the shop rite in my town had lines all the way to the meat dept. 

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5 minutes ago, Chad Vader said:

My town and all towns around me have cancelled school for minimum 2 weeks. Luckily I am off till April 1st so I can stay with my kids but what do people do who can’t take the time off? It feels like an apocalypse, the shop rite in my town had lines all the way to the meat dept. 

You get your grandparents to look after them... oh! 

(maybe closing schools isn't such a good idea)

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I went to Kroger yesterday on my lunch break, fully expecting the store to be ransacked. In fact it wasn't that bad at all. There were more people shopping than usual, but not that many more. The shelves were a bit picked over but otherwise stocked decently enough. Bottom line was I found everything I needed, including toilet paper (I was down to two rolls at home). I must confess that I've never bought hand sanitizer in my life and didn't think to look yesterday, so I have no idea if they were out of that or not. 

What I focused on buying was non-perishable foodstuffs. I normally keep about a week's worth of canned goods in my pantry for emergencies. Now I've got 2-3 weeks' worth. I figure if the shit really hits the fan for longer than that, we'll all have bigger problems to deal with. 

I'm frankly a bit surprised that there hasn't been more panic-buying here, considering that any time there's a quarter inch of snow in the weather forecast the stores here run out of everything.  :lol: 

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1 hour ago, sologdin said:

doesn't in the slightest change the fact, that most big supermarkets are out of it for days now.

standard capitalist practice is export for profit that causes internal famine.

What does that say for Marx’s ideas about global economics.  If localities hoard how does that work?

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10 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Well, I don’t think quarantines etc are the new normal until there is a vaccine.  The more depressing thought is that in fact it will run through the population over the next several months and we have to hope that it doesn’t mutate the other direction so that we have a second wave reinfecting people who have recovered.  Right now we are, I think, in a position where we just want to blunt the impact on hospitals as best as possible.  But there will inevitably come a time when we all know someone who was definitively diagnosed and/or have had it.......  Think that happens before a vaccine, and schools etc will not remained closed fro 18 mo- 2 years.

The problem is, if we're actually effective at social distancing; then whenever we stop is the time when the hospitals will get overrun. Unless we really spread this all out over a long enough period. 

On top of that, there's really far too many unknowns still to assess the risks remaining. We don't know what longterm health problems may stem from the virus, or how common those problems will be (There's been early suggestions that some people may have permanently reduced lung capacity; but will that be 0.05% of people; 2%; 10%?) We also don't know much of anything about the risk of reinfection yet. There's been more than 100 cases of reinfection in China so far, but its unknown if they are actually reinfected or if they were declared free of the virus earlier than they should've been.

Maybe at a certain point we decide the cure is worse than the disease and just starting living with the virus. But that's a death sentence for an awful lot of people over age 70.

 

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Look, guys, I don’t mean to be depressing (*warning sirens go off*) but it’s been 17 years since the start of SARs and there still is no vaccine. Not for MERs either.

I have great doubts about a Covid-19 vaccine coming along any time soon.

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