COVID-19 Chat Thread

[PistolPete]

My sweetie and I both got it 2 weeks ago. She had a low fever for an afternoon and 3 days of lethargy. I showed now symptoms outside of what seemed to be normal fall allergies. Staying cooped up is for the birds! We cleared our 14 days yesterday and while I'm still skipping a pick up game tonight just to be safe, I'm looking quite forward into getting out to hunt this weekend.

I wouldn't have even tested if I wasn't sharing fluids with someone who felt sick and got a positive test. She only got tested because she works with the public, if it wasn't 2020 she would have continued life as normal figuring it was the common cold. Overall, I give the experience 5 stars, would totally do again.

[NT2C]

Overall, I give the experience 5 stars, would totally do again.

Consider yourself my designated "COVictim"

[Confucius]

Interesting visualizations here solely on all cause deaths this year:

https://public.tableau.com/shared/73WY8 ... k&:embed=y


Some states (California for instance), are actually reporting fewer deaths total than in the average year, some far, far more.

[tony d tiger]

A second vaccine with 95% efficacy announced today, this one from Moderna.
Big difference between this and the Pfizer vaccine:

"Moderna also announced that its vaccine can remain stable at standard refrigerator temperatures of 2 degrees Celsius to 8 degrees Celsius (36 degrees Fahrenheit to 46 degrees Fahrenheit) for 30 days.

The company added it could be kept in long-term storage at standard freezer temperatures of -20 degrees Celsius (-4 degrees Fahrenheit) for up to six months."

Things are looking up.

[MPMalloy]

The Great Iowa Lockdown part duex, in progress





Just announced 20 min ago.

[MPMalloy]

boskone - Single YouTube video:

[boskone]

boskone - Single YouTube video:

I'd like to say I actually appreciate the notice. Even trimming back my use, I've bumped up against my data cap the last 3 months.

Data caps are bullshit, they're extra stinky gooey bullshit when so much of the country is spending so much time home during a pandemic.

[NT2C]

Wait...whut? People still have data caps in this day and age? I haven't had a data cap in about a decade.

[MPMalloy]

Another video.

Wait...whut? People still have data caps in this day and age? I haven't had a data cap in about a decade.

Welcome to Satellite internet. I had HughesNet once. Once.

In other news....

Senator Charles Graslesy (R-IA), president pro tempore, has been diagnosed w/CoVID.

[boskone]

Wait...whut? People still have data caps in this day and age? I haven't had a data cap in about a decade.

Uh, yea? Most of the major ISPs have one...unless you pay extra. Maybe all, depending how one decides to define "major".

And even most "unlimited" cellular is "Unlimited...slow internet, but only some amount of the stuff we actually advertise". E.g. my coworker's internet is out, so he was working from his phone's hotspot...but he hit some algorithm for data-use-over-time and got rate-limited on his "unlimited" hot spot.

Of course, since bandwidth is cents per gbps, there's no reason to limit the total amount of data a customer can use. Data caps are simply in place to pressure the average user into paying a bit more for a 'feature' that costs the ISP nothing. </rant>

[NT2C]

Wait...whut? People still have data caps in this day and age? I haven't had a data cap in about a decade.

Uh, yea? Most of the major ISPs have one...unless you pay extra. Maybe all, depending how one decides to define "major".

And even most "unlimited" cellular is "Unlimited...slow internet, but only some amount of the stuff we actually advertise". E.g. my coworker's internet is out, so he was working from his phone's hotspot...but he hit some algorithm for data-use-over-time and got rate-limited on his "unlimited" hot spot.

Of course, since bandwidth is cents per gbps, there's no reason to limit the total amount of data a customer can use. Data caps are simply in place to pressure the average user into paying a bit more for a 'feature' that costs the ISP nothing. </rant>

Okay, if you want to consider rate-limiting as a data cap, but traditionally, data caps have been hard limits. Hit one and, "No data for you!"

[Aunt Bea]

We (husband in mid sixties, excellent health, and me early sixties, compromised immune system, sketchy health) both had AN UNKNOWN VIRUS in late March. I can't say Covid because there were no tests here in Kansas yet, but the symptoms match up. Both cases were like a bad flu+. Neither of us were hospitalised. What came after though...nothing short of near comatose tiredness, continuous headaches, digestive issues, brain fog, and measurable increase in my usual health issues of pain and neuropathy. The post viral effects have been much more debilitating than the active virus for us both. Stay home except for fresh air exercise and wear a mask. I'd hate to see anyone else go through this.

[CrossCut]

Mouth wash versus Covid, update #413

Still waiting for the results of more clinical trials, a few more are complete now but no results yet. Wasn't going to post any more in vitro study results or expert opinion/letters to the editor about it (some pro, some con) until more human trial results were complete but found this one interesting, another one showing the effectiveness of Listerine (Cool Mint and Advanced) and it's apparently not due to the alcohol content: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 1.full.pdf

[CG]

Wait...whut? People still have data caps in this day and age? I haven't had a data cap in about a decade.

This is why we’re no longer on satellite. Their cap was 100GB...which we hit in a week, normally (4 adults, 3 of whose are heavy streamers). We’d be getting decent, not always great speeds, up until that point. After that, though...we’d be doing good to get 1 Mbps. Not a good thing with the kids doing school from home, especially when I was also working from home.

[Lambykins]

Mask mandate in New Hampshire started today. Public spaces, stores, etc.
I only had to tell 5 people to go get masks, which the store provides free to all customers.
Why me?
As my shift supervisor said "You have that *mom voice* that people listen to when you get annoyed."

[NT2C]

Mask mandate in New Hampshire started today. Public spaces, stores, etc.
I only had to tell 5 people to go get masks, which the store provides free to all customers.
Why me?
As my shift supervisor said "You have that *mom voice* that people listen to when you get annoyed."

Just consider yourself the adult supervision for the store and roll with it.

[boskone]

Mask mandate in New Hampshire started today. Public spaces, stores, etc.
I only had to tell 5 people to go get masks, which the store provides free to all customers.
Why me?
As my shift supervisor said "You have that *mom voice* that people listen to when you get annoyed."

"Put on a damned mask. If I get COVID, I will find you and tan your hide, y'hear me?"

I don't get the mask objections. They're annoying, but no more so than wearing shoes.

[RoneKiln]

Mask mandate in New Hampshire started today. Public spaces, stores, etc.
I only had to tell 5 people to go get masks, which the store provides free to all customers.
Why me?
As my shift supervisor said "You have that *mom voice* that people listen to when you get annoyed."

"Put on a damned mask. If I get COVID, I will find you and tan your hide, y'hear me?"

I don't get the mask objections. They're annoying, but no more so than wearing shoes.

In my region, early on when the WHO is still claiming masks wouldn't help and only health professionals should have them, there was an extremely vitriolic public lashing of anyone buying or wearing masks in public. It was especially bad on social media. Any experts that presented evidence supprting the value of wearing cloth masks were swamped with death threats and often banned from social media.

A few months later when there was a reversal in public policy on masks and they were encouraged, the exact same people attacking people for wearing masks earlier became equally vitriolic against anyone that didn't wear masks.

The people I personally witnessed this behavior from later were very involved in the Seattle CHOP and supportive of the rioting in Portland.

Add in some highly sensationalized cases of gross overreach by local officials. Like a police officer arresting a paddle boarder for being out alone on the water because they weren't "locked down" at home. Yes, a rare incident, but a highly publicized one.

I am empathetic to people having a knee jerk reaction against a demand they must where masks amidst that vitriol, especially when the WHO was still publicly opposed to wearing masks. It's understandable to feel the whole issue is less about protecting people and more about controlling them.

I tell people I think it's awesome we get to wear ninja masks as adults. Who as a kid wouldn't be excited to dress as a ninja or bandit as an adult at work? WE FINALLY GET TO DRESS FOR THE JOB WE REALLY WANT! It's completely killed every argument someone has been making to me about masks. It opens up space for me to comment how sad it is that so many people behaved so poorly about first trying to force us to not wear masks, and then flip 180 and try to force us to wear masks. Cause little of the conflict is really about masks. And as adults, we need to work on sorting out the underlying knee jerk reactions from the surface issue and address them seperately.

Clearly removing the judgment and expressing empathy for why many people are averse to wearing masks has helped me with a lot of people.

There's also a very real concern about not being able to read people's facial expressions. From an evolutionary viewpoint there is a very real survival skill in reading another persons intent via facial expression. Losing that ability is supposed to be scary, cause it can get us killed. Mocking and deriding people for that vague uneasiness they have trouble defining will make it worse. And I have seen a LOT of mockery and derision towards people. When someone already has survival instincts screaming at them something is wrong, it is natural for them to react strongly against people heaping additional attacks on them.

I've come to really like my masks. I also like strongly mirrored sunglasses. There's good reason both make some people uncomfortable.

[Lambykins]

Mask mandate in New Hampshire started today. Public spaces, stores, etc.
I only had to tell 5 people to go get masks, which the store provides free to all customers.
Why me?
As my shift supervisor said "You have that *mom voice* that people listen to when you get annoyed."

"Put on a damned mask. If I get COVID, I will find you and tan your hide, y'hear me?"

I don't get the mask objections. They're annoying, but no more so than wearing shoes.

There's also a very real concern about not being able to read people's facial expressions. From an evolutionary viewpoint there is a very real survival skill in reading another persons intent via facial expression. Losing that ability is supposed to be scary, cause it can get us killed. Mocking and deriding people for that vague uneasiness they have trouble defining will make it worse. And I have seen a LOT of mockery and derision towards people. When someone already has survival instincts screaming at them something is wrong, it is natural for them to react strongly against people heaping additional attacks on them.

I've come to really like my masks. I also like strongly mirrored sunglasses. There's good reason both make some people uncomfortable.

My announcement to the non-masked starts with "Oh, I'm sorry, did you miss the free masks we provide at the front of the store?" If they don't start heading to our *mask station* within a short time, I follow up with "I guess you are done shopping, nice you came in to browse, but I have to insist you leave since you won't put on a mask, the door is right there."
Not leaving? Okay, *Mom voice* is deployed ; "The governor has instituted a mask mandate. You WILL leave the store NOW. Please follow me to the door immediately!"
I haven't had to escalate beyond that, yet.

As far as not being able to read expressions....I do not wear a mask, I wear a face shield because of the high number elderly-hard of hearing customers we have. Management realized that many of our hard of hearing customers were getting frustrated and angry because they rely on lip reading to get through a transaction. They asked a few of us if we would be willing to wear a face shield instead. I went for it as I couldn't breathe worth a damn in a face mask (asthma and COPD).

[MPMalloy]

[RoneKiln]

Mask mandate in New Hampshire started today. Public spaces, stores, etc.
I only had to tell 5 people to go get masks, which the store provides free to all customers.
Why me?
As my shift supervisor said "You have that *mom voice* that people listen to when you get annoyed."

"Put on a damned mask. If I get COVID, I will find you and tan your hide, y'hear me?"

I don't get the mask objections. They're annoying, but no more so than wearing shoes.

There's also a very real concern about not being able to read people's facial expressions. From an evolutionary viewpoint there is a very real survival skill in reading another persons intent via facial expression. Losing that ability is supposed to be scary, cause it can get us killed. Mocking and deriding people for that vague uneasiness they have trouble defining will make it worse. And I have seen a LOT of mockery and derision towards people. When someone already has survival instincts screaming at them something is wrong, it is natural for them to react strongly against people heaping additional attacks on them.

I've come to really like my masks. I also like strongly mirrored sunglasses. There's good reason both make some people uncomfortable.

My announcement to the non-masked starts with "Oh, I'm sorry, did you miss the free masks we provide at the front of the store?" If they don't start heading to our *mask station* within a short time, I follow up with "I guess you are done shopping, nice you came in to browse, but I have to insist you leave since you won't put on a mask, the door is right there."
Not leaving? Okay, *Mom voice* is deployed ; "The governor has instituted a mask mandate. You WILL leave the store NOW. Please follow me to the door immediately!"
I haven't had to escalate beyond that, yet.

As far as not being able to read expressions....I do not wear a mask, I wear a face shield because of the high number elderly-hard of hearing customers we have. Management realized that many of our hard of hearing customers were getting frustrated and angry because they rely on lip reading to get through a transaction. They asked a few of us if we would be willing to wear a face shield instead. I went for it as I couldn't breathe worth a damn in a face mask (asthma and COPD).

That's awesome they were that considerate of the hard of hearing! It sounds like they made it an option when they asked instead of mandating it as well, which is also awesome if that is the case.

Your general social skills are probably as much or more part of why they send you to talk to people as well. It's disturbing how many people are not as adept at holding people accountable without being confrontational. Or at least not starting out at confrontational while still willing to escalate to confrontation if needed.

[Lambykins]

That's awesome they were that considerate of the hard of hearing! It sounds like they made it an option when they asked instead of mandating it as well, which is also awesome if that is the case.

Your general social skills are probably as much or more part of why they send you to talk to people as well. It's disturbing how many people are not as adept at holding people accountable without being confrontational. Or at least not starting out at confrontational while still willing to escalate to confrontation if needed.

What's funny is that when management is not on shift (other than a shift supervisor), everyone looks to me (my age, maybe) when crap goes down.
Fight in the parking lot?
Get Lamby out there.
Someone trying to buy over limits on toilet paper and being a jerk about it?
Get Lamby over there.
*Karen* making ridiculous complaint and trying to intimidate the cashier?
Call Lamby and get popcorn 'cause this is gonna be good! Seriously, I can't be intimated by *Karens*.

I generally am polite, but I DO NOT put up with bullshit. I am very *no nonsense*.
The store owner has even heard/seen me tell a rude customer "Get the hell out of my store!" He just told me that next time I should say *heck*, not *hell*, lol! Then he found out that the customer (male in his 50s) had offered the cashier (16 yr old female) money for sexual favors.
He then approved of the word *hell* and complimented me for not punching the customer.

[WillyWinchester]

That's awesome they were that considerate of the hard of hearing! It sounds like they made it an option when they asked instead of mandating it as well, which is also awesome if that is the case.

Your general social skills are probably as much or more part of why they send you to talk to people as well. It's disturbing how many people are not as adept at holding people accountable without being confrontational. Or at least not starting out at confrontational while still willing to escalate to confrontation if needed.

What's funny is that when management is not on shift (other than a shift supervisor), everyone looks to me (my age, maybe) when crap goes down.
Fight in the parking lot?
Get Lamby out there.
Someone trying to buy over limits on toilet paper and being a jerk about it?
Get Lamby over there.
*Karen* making ridiculous complaint and trying to intimidate the cashier?
Call Lamby and get popcorn 'cause this is gonna be good! Seriously, I can't be intimated by *Karens*.

I generally am polite, but I DO NOT put up with bullshit. I am very *no nonsense*.
The store owner has even heard/seen me tell a rude customer "Get the hell out of my store!" He just told me that next time I should say *heck*, not *hell*, lol! Then he found out that the customer (male in his 50s) had offered the cashier (16 yr old female) money for sexual favors.
He then approved of the word *hell* and complimented me for not punching the customer.

Sounds like everyone could use a Lamby in their lives. Thanks for your underappreciated service.

[RoneKiln]

I've seen a few articles making fun of CNN for only recently "discovering" China lied about Covid and publishing this as breaking news, but I cannot find a CNN article on this. Even when I google it, I just find articles making fun of CNN. I cannot find anything about it on the CNN site either.

Anyone else seen anything on this? Or did I get suckered with clickbait?

ETA: Found it!
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/30/asia/wuh ... index.html

I'm struggling to understand how this is still current news. I thought it was extremely well established back in February that China was lying and botching this whole thing.