Well hello Mr Seeking, it's been a while. Doing OK here. Thankful to live in a sleepy little small town where I can go for a long walk and not come within 15 feet of anyone. Not walking in the woods at the moment, I figure if anything were to go badly wrong the resources I'd need are already stretched. I really want to get into the woods but I've found some nice routes on quiet roads around town that give me the distance I want even if not the hard climbing. How are you holding up further south?
I also live in a small town so not really having to change how I live my life. Some things are canceled. My gym is closed and my choir has canceled rehersals for now. But since I don't work I don't have that complication
Hey y'all. Packing up the camper to head into the mountains for a week or so. Will still have WiFi access...
For us it's the cancellations that have the biggest impact. We'd planned a couple of things with friends that involved going out to eat but we can't do that any more, so postponed until we can. Anywhere that serves food isn't allowed to do dine-in and honestly we don't really want to pay full-service restaurant prices for something that will most likely be cold by the time we get it home, so we're just riding out the storm staying mostly at home. It's curious that we spend a lot of our time at home anyway but now it's expected it feels more troublesome. It's not even as if it makes sense to press on hard with the house project because just lately the state governor seems to order first and think second, so I never know if I'll get part way through a job and find the hardware stores are closed and I can't get the parts I need. The last thing I want is to have done something like disconnect a power circuit only to find I don't have and can't buy what I need to reconnect it - that would leave me with little option other than a temporary botch and I'd really rather not go there. Maybe I'll spend some time planning the next big push.
We're heading home tomorrow. Just running a few errands for things to pick up while we're in town. Costco has a 25 minute line-up to get in.
With a rural population of 2,000 we are by nature already secluded. And now with schools, restaraunts, churches and bars closed, things are very quiet. When I work I am the only person around much of the time in a 1sq mile radius - trucks come and go. Grocery store and gas station are the only hot spots. Not very. Experience covid-19 symptons only when watching the news.
I dont doubt it yeddy. Here though, when I went to Harbor Freight for some camper parts, it was near like a ghost town in Athens. Except for Lowes which was packed.
Watching the news = heart palpitations, cold sweats, increased pulse rate, nausea. Of course, after those three 9mm rounds went through the talking pundit's head, the screen went blank and I ain't had no more symptoms...
Sometimes it's interesting to try and find reports from Fox and CNN on the same event, to see if the two descriptions are even identifiable as being of the same event. And then every once in a while it's interesting to read comments on Faceache from the army of experts out there. I never knew a country could produce so many accomplished epidemiologists in such short order. It's truly remarkable, in a slow-motion-train-wreck sort of way. Maybe I can use the time to break some more of my house. Rebuilding is tricky if I need things delivered
Yep, played leapfrog several times on that leaderboard I'm still wondering how long it will be before my old faithful finally packs up and dies. Sometimes it takes several attempts to get it to sync at all.
To be relatively isolated is, no doubt, a huge blessing as, by most reasonable accounts, 2,500,000 deaths can be expected as this thing drags on into June and later. It will require some sort of miracle to bring current hospital capacity and functionality up to what is needed in population centers, including the building of emergency hospitals, if I am reading the stats soberly. While not only seniors are vulnerable, they will take the brunt of the assault. It's especially disquieting to see the squabbling between states and feds over a dismally short supply of basic medical supplies and essential respirators.
I can't help wondering to what extent this sort of thing is down to a lack of basic forward planning and to what extent it's about maintaining a capacity that makes sense for normal situations. It loosely reminds me of the way a dusting of snow brings much of the southern UK to a grinding halt, but we get snow sufficiently infrequently that, even though being grounded by half an inch of snow is a national embarrassment, it doesn't happen often enough to make it worthwhile to buy and maintain snow plows. From what I recall one council decided they wanted to be prepared so bought plows but by the time they were needed they had fallen into disrepair; another council got ahead of the curve with plows only to find that it snowed and the people supposed to drive the plows couldn't get to them because of.... the snow. The bit I'm trying to figure out is just what to make of the numbers reported by various outlets. It seems Italy reported the highest mortality rate but I read that not only do they have the oldest population in Europe but also they counted anyone who died with the virus as being a death caused by the virus, so a 93-year-old with a dodgy heart who contracted the virus and subsequently died of a heart attack was considered to have died because of the virus. That sort of thing obviously pushes their reported mortality rate up. Then elsewhere I read estimates that for every known case there are probably 50-100 unknown cases and that potentially 80% of people who contract the virus will have either no symptoms or minor symptoms. Unless I'm missing something that means the denominator in the mortality calculations should potentially be vastly higher than it is, bringing the mortality rate way down. Of course in turn it could mean that the R0 estimates are way under as well. For some reason I feel disinclined to discuss with the numerous people of undoubted expertise who haunt social media....
Just to add to the cheerfulness I was reading an article where a social worker commented on dangers that are nothing to do with the virus, looking specifically at adults confined with an abusive spouse, children no longer regularly seeing mandated reporters, parents potentially leaving their children with unvetted childminders because of a lack of other options, and the potential for a quarantine period to be long enough for children to be groomed for being sexually abused. That's on top of the potential for a mental health crisis that extended social isolation could create. It seems that the options are either to risk a physical health disaster or a combined economic/mental health disaster. Even though the latter notionally saves lives one has to wonder how many lives would subsequently be lost due to a surge in suicides or a huge increase in cold-related deaths due to a vastly larger homeless population come the winter.
I am not, nor would I ever claim to be an expert on such an issue. I do, however, appreciate being in this isolated circumstance and expect things to take an accelerated turn, based upon what has happened since the onset, which is an uncontrolled pandemic, so far.
There was some guy on twitter collecting rants by a series of Italian mayors being completely exasperated with their citizens for continuing to defy the stay home orders. Anyway, I think there has been one confirmed case in our town of about 5500, and we are pretty remote as well.
Bank employees mother tests positive. Niece gets layed off, bank closed. Bank employee's husband works at lime plant. He is tested and sent home - results pending. Brother in law works at lime plant, facing possible quarantine. I live in lower level of brother in law's house, facing possible quarantine....