Coronavirus Diaries

Doesn't seem random to me

JR Gaillot
@jrgaillot
Former Democratic Congressional nominee Fl 3. Fighting for a better Florida, United States, & Haiti.
Haitian American Politician 🇭🇹🇺🇸#TeamPelosi #Yankees
Haiti/Florida, USA/PhilippinesJoined January 2012

Geez! I stopped at Smith's (Kroger) for some cat food. CAT FOOD! I use Meow Mix and they were out. Out of anything selling for less than $3.50/lb. Fortunately, I was able to shop around and found it at Family Dollar. To be on the safe side, I got two bags. I guess that makes me a hoarder.

I'm having trouble what is prompting all these empty shelves. Is Covid specific for over the road trucking.

Stores in our neighborhood are accessible and generally well stocked, though things like Lysol Spray and hand sanitizers are hard to find.

We're in a period of rapid increases in the number of reported cases (reported total infections in the country have doubled in the last two days). This is accompanied by equivalent changes in social behaviors around and by us all. Schools are closing; meetings, sports & entertainment events cancelled; work -at-home programs announced by many companies; and increasing action by State governments to limit all large assemblies of people. I believe the reality of this epidemic has really hit home over the past five days.

"Social distance" is increasing fast, and , with a reported 5-6 day incubation period, I suspect we may begin to see signs of a slow-down in the still-increasing rate of increase of new cases, starting late next week.

Overall the published mortality data. for folks older than 60 yrs. of the current epidemic looks a lot like that of the 1917 "Spanish" flu. The big difference appears to be the reduced susceptibility of the very young in the current case. Hospitals here are cancelling scheduled elective surgeries and procedures in anticipation of a surge in critical patient admissions.

This is a world-wide epidemic, and if it continues it could cause ~ 40 million deaths (assuming 1/2 of 7 Billion people become infected and 1.5% of them die. This is comparable to the deaths attributed to the 1917 Spanish flu. The big differences are (1) the population of the earth has quadrupled since then, and (2) life expectancy has increased from ~54 to ~ 72, leaving a much higher fraction of the total population subject to the highest mortality risk.

A woman tweeted she spent $80 more than normal grocery shopping today. As she went down the aisle, employees were working there raising prices.

#4
We haven't gotten out today. My youngest daughter works at a big store. She messaged that she is bringing us toilet paper, paper towels and hand sanitizer tomorrow. She's a good kid. She said that she tries to keep at least six feet between herself and everybody in the store.

The Girl just came back from the store. It was horrible . . . they only had unsalted butter. What am I going to do?

(By the way, Toronto is being called the "epicenter of Covid19" in Canada. The mayor, John Tory, has shut down the pools, the schools, the libraries and all other public gathering sites. It seems those diagnosed with the virus contracted it before measures were put in place, and the "growth rate" of infections here is not growing as it has elsewhere. Unlike some countries I could name, Canada has no shortage of testing kits.)

A friend of ours is a cashier at one of the supermarkets in this end of town. She normally works until 11 p.m.--last night, though, she didn't get off until midnight. She said there were more than 20 people in each check-out line. So maybe the stupidity is starting here.

Contagious.

we found bread and frozen vegetables in the local grocery yesterday afternoon.

it was almost as if people assumed they would be out of everything, didn't bother, and instead headed straight to the supermarkets...

Do you think it's too early for me to rummage around for my fave tuna bake recipe.

I keep hoping the panic buyers will finally get enough and leave something for the rest of us.

Me too - we have 4 rolls of TP left in the house - I looked on line to try to do the "pick up at the store" - it said Target had some rolls but they would not do "pick up at the store" I wasn't about to go to find that the few rolls left were gone.
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My kids and I (as my daughter's college closed so she has an extended spring break) went to the movies yesterday - there was only one other person in the theatre. We brought wipes with us and just wiped down the seats before sitting.

We went to church this morning - yes they held a service - it was a quarter of who normally shows up - so we all spread out. What surprised me was that there were many elderly there.

As of now there are no cases of this virus in our county but we are still taking normal precautions.

And yeah the odd thing I found when I went to the grocery - all the fresh produce was gone! I am thinking what the heck? This is something you cannot hoard as it will go bad. We bought some almonds and mixed nuts and a couple of other items -- it is just odd the things that are empty. Still lots of canned products and dry products.

Oh I also read this article of this guy from Tennessee that went out and traveled around and bought all the hand sanitizer and face masks and was selling them on amazon with huge mark ups. Amazon has since not allowed him to sell his products so he has a garage full.

After the article went out I can only imagine hoards of people ransacking his garage - do him well for taking supplies that may be necessary for the health of others.

That makes him less credible. He is a Haitian-American politician with a clear political interest in hyping up Haiti's disease prevention efforts.

I don't know why we are having this stupid argument. I looked through the news sources, and posted a link. I don't see any evidence that you are right.

If you can post a single credible news source that says people are getting CDC tests at Haitian airports, I will gladly admit that I am wrong.

Popular restaurant no longer has salt, pepper, Tabasco, or other regular condiments on the table. They are brought by request in plastic cups and single serve packages.

Hand washing is olympic event.

People are hoarding food, water, toilet paper and tightening spending.
My clothing store has been closed for a week and there are not many orders online.
This year is a dark year

Here's a cheery report for a sunny Sunday morning (and a cold one here):

Asia's garment industry sees lay-offs, factories closing due to COVID-19.



That means much fewer cheap garments, even at places like Walmart. More importantly, it means financial disaster for men and women all across south Asia and southeast Asia. This will be bad for folks in India, Malaysia, Myanmar, Indonesia and Thailand. It will be catastrophic in Bangladesh for the garment industry, where the Bengali labor force--about 90% of them women--produces ready-to-wear garments in volume second only to China. Ready-to-wear garments from Bangladesh provide 80% of the country's foreign exchange, and is by far the repository of most of Bangladesh's domestic investment capital. Garment exports account for almost one eighth of Bangladesh's gross domestic product. (Sea level rise further threatens Bengalis' future. With a mere 10 inches of sea level rise, more than 10% of the country's land mass will be inundated, and almost 10% of its population displaced.



The CIA Factbook reports a Bengali population of more than 162.5 million people. Where will they go? Personally, I think the recent pace of global warming is such that ten inches of sea level rise in the next 30 years is a foolishly optimist projection.)

Bangladesh's tragedy is, in my opinion, despite its genuinely tragic nature, also symptomatic of how this pandemic is going to affect the entire world and its economic sector. The social impact of that pandemic will very likely cause profound social disasters, engendering a harsh response from authoritarian regimes, and creating more refugees fleeing oppression and economic disaster. As I said, a cheery good Sunday morning to you all.

[Sources at CIA Factbook, Wikipedia and various news agencies. The quoted material above is from CNA (Channel New Asia), a Singapore-based corporate subsidiary. Their English is excellent (which should be no surprise coming from Singapore) and in my experience, their news reporting is well balanced.]

I don't give a **** if you agree with me or not. A credible person experienced and reported it and that's the end for me. I hope you aren't selfish enough to hijack the thread out of petulance.

I meant to post that in Engineer's thread--Oh well, I'll just copy it over there.

Who is hijacking the thread Edgar? It is funny how often get into silly arguments and then blame the other person for them. I am just disagreeing with you, there is no need for you to get bent out of shape. If you don't want to be in an a tangent that is "hijacking" the thread, you should simply stop responding. If you participate, then you are equally responsible. Let's try again... (hint: you don't need to respond if you don't think this is a worthwhile post).

I am curious about what makes a random person on twitter "credible"?
Was it the "former legislator" that did it?

I do think misinformation about the coronavirus makes the crisis worse.