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Love in the Time of Coronavirus (#3)


Mlle. Zabzie

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Just stopped at the grocery store, I have never seen it this crowded or cleaned out of stuff. It wasn't just the stuff you'd expect - all the fresh produce was pretty much gone, baking goods aisle was empty, the only meat available was expensive cuts like short-ribs and full rib roast.  

Pretty much every single cart was overflowing; I heard people being rung up for $400+ constantly.

The staff looked exhausted, and the fact that we eliminated single-use plastic bags in NY seemed to be part of it.  A lot of people were just putting everything loose back into the cart.  

Both the gas stations I passed had lines of vehicles waiting to fill up.  I mean I know it's 430 on a Friday but I've never seen it like this.  I'm wondering if part of it is that there are tons of people from NYC who have second country homes up here and they bailed out of the city for a bit.  

 

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20 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Just stopped at the grocery store, I have never seen it this crowded or cleaned out of stuff. It wasn't just the stuff you'd expect - all the fresh produce was pretty much gone, baking goods aisle was empty, the only meat available was expensive cuts like short-ribs and full rib roast.  

Jesus. We're having a _very_ minor version of that right now, but the only reason shelves are empty is because they're not able to restock fast enough or are getting more deliveries the next day. The main chains out here are telling people that there absolutely is no reason to panic, that there's plenty of food and so on.

I assume it's the same in much of the US, but American individualism for some appears to mean do unto others before they do unto you.

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6 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

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.

 

6 hours ago, Fez said:

That's more because of a lack of interest and resources. Those stopped being an issue quickly and the funding dried up. It wasn't necessarily an issue with the science. There were some early difficulties, by any vaccine research might have that. And, by contrast, the H1N1 vaccine was ready in only around 6 months.

Also, I suspect there will be more resources (both hours and money) poured into finding a vaccine for COVID-19 than possibly any other infectious disease in human history. 


Just to get back to this discussion. There are so many ways to skin this particular cat, for example they could use live attenuated, killed, or subunit (probably via a recombinant protein) and other funky experimental vaccines. Labs will probably be trying to go down all of these pathways. Though I imagine the focus for most will be on some kind of subunit vaccine.

But even then there's a ridiculous number of combinations of viral antigens, if you need to conjugate it to something more immunogenic, adjuvents to try etc etc etc. I guess what I'm saying is on a problem like this having the (wo)manpower, resources and money to throw at the problem really does matter.

Having said that even then you get cases where no amount of money seems to help, like malaria*, which people (briefly including myself at one stage) have worked on for decades with no great success. H1N1 was a new strain to an already prevalent virus so isn't really a great comparison for this one - we've had the flu vaccine for decades, so it was more a matter of using the tried and tested techniques (a whole killed vaccine is particularly quick if you can already mass produce the virus) trialing for safety and efficacy, and then ramping up production in the existing facilities.

*not a virus I know but same concept

 

 

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Our Prime Minister published a video with some announcements. It appears we are closing schools on Monday and getting on a digital education plan. We are supposed to be setting up some sort of mobile hospital unit, not sure what that means for patients. My guess is that it is to relieve hospitals of capacity. There were some numbers about hospital equipment which were concerning, if anything. He did say the government is going to obtain more medical equipment. And he asked that children aren’t left in the care of grandparents. We are also not admitting anybody from Israel, as we have patients who contracted the virus there. (I must say in my amateur opinion it would be better to not admit anybody from anywhere, and not wait for the virus to seep in from a certain country before we impose the ban)

edit: I read into the comment section and it is astonishingly civilized. There are only mildly snarky digs and non-vulgar accusations. I’m almost impressed at the limited amount of nastiness we are portraying. 

I still don’t think we have the resources to tackle this without help from other nations, but it is reassuring that he seems to see the situation in a realistic light. 

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44 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Just stopped at the grocery store, I have never seen it this crowded or cleaned out of stuff. It wasn't just the stuff you'd expect - all the fresh produce was pretty much gone, baking goods aisle was empty, the only meat available was expensive cuts like short-ribs and full rib roast.  

Pretty much every single cart was overflowing; I heard people being rung up for $400+ constantly.

The staff looked exhausted, and the fact that we eliminated single-use plastic bags in NY seemed to be part of it.  A lot of people were just putting everything loose back into the cart.  

Both the gas stations I passed had lines of vehicles waiting to fill up.  I mean I know it's 430 on a Friday but I've never seen it like this.  I'm wondering if part of it is that there are tons of people from NYC who have second country homes up here and they bailed out of the city for a bit.  

 

You up in Dutchess?  Yeah, trust me, we bailed, though we will be going back and forth a tiny bit until we can’t.  I have a couple of things I HAVE to do in the city on Monday.  Otherwise, think I’ll basically be out of the city.

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2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Two days ago we hit the 1,000 verified infected benchmark. CNN says it just jumped to over 2,0000. That’s a pretty steep increase, and again, we’re barely testing anyone.

Growth rate is between 25 and 50% a day, depending on the country, on the region and on the day, so that's not totally a surprise. Heck, you can conservatively make the maths on your own to see how many cases there'll be next Monday.

Death numbers are still low, except Washington state where the first major cluster appeared. Alas, it's going to grow as quickly pretty soon. I mean, Italy just had 250 deaths in one day.

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1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Yeah man, I know it sucks, and it sucks doubly for you because the gym is the first thing I cut out of my daily routine once the situation got real. Do you do monthly fees or is it individual sessions?

Both. Majority of income comes from coaching though. 

Luckily most of our clients compete so are pretty dedicated so fingers crossed.

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10 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

You up in Dutchess?  Yeah, trust me, we bailed, though we will be going back and forth a tiny bit until we can’t.  I have a couple of things I HAVE to do in the city on Monday.  Otherwise, think I’ll basically be out of the city.

I don't blame you - no I'm little further up, just above Hudson, in Columbia County.

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13 minutes ago, Clueless Northman said:

Growth rate is between 25 and 50% a day, depending on the country, on the region and on the day, so that's not totally a surprise. Heck, you can conservatively make the maths on your own to see how many cases there'll be next Monday.

Death numbers are still low, except Washington state where the first major cluster appeared. Alas, it's going to grow as quickly pretty soon. I mean, Italy just had 250 deaths in one day.

The numbers I've found have been all over the place, but if you live in a larger city, you interact with so many people each day, both regularly, newly and incidentally. 10,000 unknowing infected people in city of a million people could spread quick if the transmission rate is relatively high and it's not contained.  

14 minutes ago, lessthanluke said:

Both. Majority of income comes from coaching though. 

Luckily most of our clients compete so are pretty dedicated so fingers crossed.

That's what I figured, and the last part is what matters most. I've got to assume that if you're into strongman training, you're dedicated AF and it's a lifestyle, so a virus outbreak is at most only going to make you take a short break. I don't think you have to worry about losing anyone long term, but the next few months will probably be tough to weather. Hopefully societies will be understanding and extend grace periods on payments. Fingers crossed back at ya'. 

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Pelosi announces she has a deal with the White House. Haven't seen any updated bill text yet, just this summary letter to colleagues.

https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1238587854139338753/photo/1

Hopefully Trump doesn't back out and the Senate passes first thing Monday (still can't believe McConnell went home yesterday).

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1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

‘I didn’t say I wouldn’t get tested’

When you really think about, there are only two scenarios at play here. Either (i) he's telling the truth, which means he and his team are grossly incompetent, or (ii) he's lying and has been tested, which most likely means he's got it. It really doesn't make much sense to get a negative test result and lie about it unless I guess he doesn't want to further validate the crisis. 

Regardless, for a man who has had so many self-owns, I have to think this is the biggest "egg on your face" moment in his presidency. The negative attack ads write themselves.

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2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Trump does strike me as the type of man who would see a rash on his junk and think to himself “if I don’t get it checked, I don’t have it.”  

Please, like that fat fuck could see his own junk. He just remembers it to be beautiful, with or without a rash.

ANYWAY.

It's not all bad with Corona. I mean, less flights, so they produce less emissions. And in Beijing people can see a blue sky, or rather could say, if they were to leave their homes. A few days without cars does wonders to the smog screen.

Somebody tell Greta she got it all wrong. It's not Fridays for futre, it's corona for future. So all it takes is pandemy wrecking havoc for a few months. A few more of those, and we might be able to meet our climate targets afterall.

Not sure whether this belongs here or in the gallows humour thread.

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/uk-to-ban-mass-gatherings-in-coronavirus-u-turn

UK finally acts, after... the UK completely ignores Boris and does the right thing regardless.

Now that's leadership!

 

ETA: helped by an official bolloxking from the director general of the WHO: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/who-urges-countries-to-track-and-trace-every-covid-19-case

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9 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/uk-to-ban-mass-gatherings-in-coronavirus-u-turn

UK finally acts, after... the UK completely ignores Boris and does the right thing regardless.

Now that's leadership!

Lol, if you know you'll eventually have to take a certain action whether or not you want to, you take it immediately. 

Adam Silver's bold action of immediately suspending the NBA likely saved many lives in both of our countries.

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1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

Adam Silver's bold action of immediately suspending the NBA likely saved many lives in both of our countries.

Heh, I'm pretty sure it didn't have anything to do with the NBA. Once some of the Premier League teams had people around the squads testing positive they really couldn't play this weekend. The Premier League dominates the sporting landscape in the UK so much that everything else is going to follow what they do.

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1 minute ago, ljkeane said:

Heh, I'm pretty sure it didn't have anything to do with the NBA. Once some of the Premier League teams had people around the squads testing positive they really couldn't play this weekend. The Premier League dominates the sporting landscape in the UK so much that everything else is going to follow what they do.

Oh sure, I agree that was a huge factor too, but I'm sure seeing everything shutting down in the U.S. really quickly played a sizable role too, and Silver was the spark that lite the fire.

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2 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

Just stopped at the grocery store, I have never seen it this crowded or cleaned out of stuff. It wasn't just the stuff you'd expect - all the fresh produce was pretty much gone, baking goods aisle was empty, the only meat available was expensive cuts like short-ribs and full rib roast.  

Pretty much every single cart was overflowing; I heard people being rung up for $400+ constantly.

The staff looked exhausted, and the fact that we eliminated single-use plastic bags in NY seemed to be part of it.  A lot of people were just putting everything loose back into the cart.  

Both the gas stations I passed had lines of vehicles waiting to fill up.  I mean I know it's 430 on a Friday but I've never seen it like this.  I'm wondering if part of it is that there are tons of people from NYC who have second country homes up here and they bailed out of the city for a bit.  

 

In my area of the Boston burbs, I went against advice and visited my local non-Whole Foods grocery store, and it was very crowded, a little beyond "hoarding before a snowstorm" levels. And stuff like pasta and some cereals were cleared out, but there was plenty of bread, milk, etc on the shelves. The store employees were organizing shopping cart lines and keeping people informed and updated via regular announcements on the PA: "Please line up in the produce area if you have more than 12 items, and as a reminder we will be open at regular hours tomorrow..." I got through the line in ten minutes. The whole thing gave me a little encouragement.

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