Personally I'm not worried. It seems every other year or so we have some pandemic that's going to kill us all. I don't get the freak out as 80,000 people have died from the flu and nothing's getting shutdown for that. It all feels made up, like it's being hyped for some reason. My guess it's just another Rules for Radicals never let a crisis go to waste scenario.

If you look at the cdc's actual numbers, this is no big deal. As of 2230 last night, only "156,800 people, according to official counts. As of Sunday morning, at least 5,762 people have died, including 2,563 outside of mainland China." When measured up to the 7.5-8 billion people on the planet, this is a nothing burger. https://www.nytimes.com/intera...oronavirus-maps.html

Looking at our numbers, we have "2,815 cases of coronavirus confirmed by lab tests and 59 deaths". That's only 0.0008% of the population is confirmed to have it with only 2.09% of all the confirmed cases sitting from it. In that number 26, just under half, were from a single nursing home. Now, granted, I'll give you that because most people don't know they even have it, this might get worse, though I doubt it given most people don't know they have it.

Look, I don't like Trump either, nor any political party really, but I've watched the media consistently try to lie about him over and over again. Obama let a thousand people die from the swine flu before he even did anything and the freak out was no where near this bad. There's no need to shut anything down except limiting access to nursing homes.

I've always tried to have extra at the house when nothing's going on. I have half a club pack from Sam's of TP, 3/4 of a pack of paper towels, two large bottle of bleach, a huge case of babies wipes, and enough canned goods for two weeks. I wish everyone would just calm down, turn off the media, and breathe. All one has to do is prepare when there's no crisis and there will be no need to panic. Unfortunately, the majority is full of sheeple. Good and bad times always end. This to shall pass.

G, I think that you're somewhat comparing apple and oranges.


I agree the global action and news has been much higher than normal, and certainly a stronger response than SARS or MERS.  The "flu" is here every year, and somewhat nonplus now.


But let's look at the why of the action.

You mention corono19 numbers are much lower than the flu (after a year).  Yup.  Part of that is because of effort to social distance, to limit large gatherings (except, apparently, on Florida beaches?), to reduce international travel spread, quarantines, etc. all those actions combining to slow the spread.  I keep thinking of playing Pandemic board game, but that's the geek in me.

The second numbers issue is off-count because of the lack of testing.  When I was doing court in northern Saskatchewan, one of the judges commented that he had thought that staffing shortages would have increased crime, but look at how reduced was the docket!  At which point the police agency looked at him like he had two heads, because the police simply hadn't been investigating anything non-violent, because they didn't have the bodies.  The hall in which court was being held had been vandalized three times that month -none investigated- for instance.  Similarly, when there is a big hiring of law enforcement, there are more eyes and responses in the street, so more crime detected.

When tests are not being done, or being limited, it throttles the known numbers, artificially deflating the true count.  If we're not testing all the bodies (no one is) even in Canada, the true death number is deflated as well.  If we're not presenting accurate degree and range of spread of the virus, whether argued for preventing social panic or incompetence, we're not gathering a true image of how prevalent is the virus.


I admit that I struggled a bit with the response to this v. others. The simple maths answer finally cracked it into my thick skull.
SARS and MERS high mortality rate = scary.
Flu kills, spreads quickly, but is low rate.
Rifle v. buckshot.  The new unknown is always scary, and this one is being treated more cautiously because of SARS/MERS (the virus is a SARS variant, IIRC).  In theory, updating responses to prevent or reduce fatalities is a good idea?  Complacency factor on the known flu deaths?

The rough numbers are something like this:
C19 is a tenth the lethality of SARS.  Good.  But it's 10x the lethality rate of the flus.  Bad.
Flu is around .1% mortality, C19 1.4% (though varies depending on testing/response!), and SARS around 10%.
Worse, C19 spreads MUCH more easily (like 10x) than SARS, and it doesn't present strong signs in all the carriers, and doesn't immediately present symptoms unlike SARS.  So you have a hard to detect disease, not being properly tested for, that spreads much more easily than SARS, can't simply isolate the sick folk because you cannot ID them accurately without testing, and you don't know enough of the disease to confirm its characteristics or rates or vulnerable groups or mutability.  Then factor in how long it can remain a threat outside the body... If you don't stomp on the spread, you have a disease that spreads like the flu but has a much higher danger/death rate.  Learn from the previous epidemics/pandemics, strike strongly quickly to clip the expansion =  reducing deaths in one's populace.

The next problem with the numbers/rate.. is that they are already outdated, and arguably misleadingly low.  The virus has already mutated at least once, and the majority of deaths are from the new strain, so numbers/rates are artificially deflated again by mixing the lower version1 C19 with new-and-improved version2 (the L-strain).

The graphic in this one is handy:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne...hs-compare-covid-19/


~
One theory expectation is that eventually everyone will contract it, and the countries are trying to slow the rate so their very limited ventilators can keep up, to reduce the mortality.

---

I'm not a big US politics guy, so I take my own words w/ a grain of salt.

That "Obama let 1000 ppl die before acting" is spun reporting , to my understanding.
"the PJ Media article claimed that Obama “waited” until millions of people were infected with H1N1 before he declared an “emergency.” But that isn’t the case. The Obama administration started to address H1N1 just as the disease emerged in April 2009. A public health emergency was declared on April 26, 2009, when there were about 20 confirmed cases in the United States. The Obama administration renewed this declaration twice in the ensuing months before declaring a national emergency in October 2009. "

This is more detailed:
"On April 15, 2009, the first infection was identified in California, according to the CDC, and less than two weeks later, on April 26, 2009, the Obama administration declared a public health emergency. The day before, on April 25, the World Health Organization had declared a public health emergency.

Dr. Richard Besser, then-acting director of the CDC, confirmed to the press on the day of the U.S. declaration that there were 20 cases of H1N1 in the U.S., and that “all of the individuals in this country who have been identified as cases have recovered.”

The same day — April 26 — the CDC began releasing antiviral drugs to treat the H1N1 flu, and two days later, the FDA approved a new CDC test for the disease, according to a CDC timeline on the pandemic.

On April 30, 2009, two days after the public health emergency declaration, Obama formally asked Congress for $1.5 billion to fight the outbreak, and later asked for nearly $9 billion, according a September 2009 Congressional Research Service report. On June 26, 2009, Obama signed Congress’ supplemental appropriation bill that included $7.7 billion for the outbreak."

Obama did wait (until Oct, I believe) on declaring it a national emergency though.  I took a walk through the news articles for memory lane, and you could sure see the people griefing for the delay in responding, and the people griefing for "why is this emergency?"

Bad news media reporting sadly is a characteristic of humanity.  We sure remember the people that cut us off, but rarely those that let us in.


~
Trump is certainly being lambasted for shutting down Obama's pandemic-response team and trying to throttle numbers, changing his story, etc.  The lack of honesty and accuracy from Trump doesn't help his position, and he has lied consistently enough that nothing he says is accepted anymore barring on Fox.

I admit that I don't like his approach to matters.  I really don't understand how a grade3-name-calling person with an aversion or inability re truth becomes the leader of a strong country like the USA, but that's why I don't follow enough politics, I guess :)

How? Disease response to disease response. How are they different?

We just started this so called social distancing. Covid19 has been a thing for almost 2 months now.

Sorry, but that's widely inaccurate. Our first confirmed case wasn't until April 14th. There's no way anyone would call for a state of emergency in one day from one case. This is according to the CDC itself. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5815a5.htm

The media is parsing words. Yes, he called for a medical public emergency, but this is far different from declaring an actual state of emergency. All the first does is cause the CDC to be more aware and to test for it specifically.

It wasn't until October that he called for a state of emergency and released $1.8 billion and there was only 8 school districts that closed for the entire pandemic. This was after a thousand had died.

So, in actually he had done nothing, other than telling the CDC to watch for cases. That's like me standing on the side of the highway and yelling there's a boulder in the road 5 miles down. You think anyone's going to listen? Nothing will change until I get the police out to stop traffic.

This is all just a ploy to make orange man bad when the majority of us aren't even going to know we have it nor are going to die from it. Shutting down the country will only force people to ask for more government handouts which leads to control.

No thank you.

We're all going to die and freaking out about it isn't going to change anything. At least we agreed on that. If covid19 doesn't get you it'll be something else. When a person freaks out all they do is entangle another person that could be helping someone in real distress. This panic is taking beds away from people who really need them.

When it comes to testing that's inaccurate as well. I've taken by kids to the doctor many times with "flu like symptoms" and the doctor never runs a test, just prescribes tamaflu and tells us to have a nice day. I have a feeling this is what's going on as well because it's funny that allergy season has started. How many of those cases have been rubber stamped as covid19 when they're not? We'll never know.

Then look at Hanks. Look at what he's said after being diagnosed.

I'm telling you, this is being hyped for a reason and my suspicion is the election just 7 months away. I ain't voting for Trump because of his buddying up with that dictator in China and his inflation of the national debt not once, but twice. I'm defiantly not voting for the socialists either, but then I haven't voted for anyone on the ticket for president for 3 rotations now.

Now in closing, please read this with a kind tone. I'm not upset or angry, I am frustrated, but it's not directed at you or anyone other than the government as a whole. I'd love if this game picked back up and would play with any of y'all. Let's at least keep this in mind.

Here's an interesting website that's getting it's info from the CDC directly and shows that China's cases are already falling.

https://www.nytimes.com/intera...oronavirus-maps.html

I'd pass out popcorn, but I'll just AOL! Hamble's post.

I don't give one flying fuck for "well, what about the other guy?"  Whether a reaction 12 years ago to H1N1 was less than satisfactory is not a basis for evaluating what is the appropriate reaction to _this_ pandemic. Was the administration right a few weeks ago when it insisted it was all a big nothingburger, not worthy of any concern?  Or is it right now in declaring it a national emergency and advising folks to avoid gatherings of more than 10 people?

Me, I'll take my guidance from the virologists and infectious disease specialists I know (including the head of the CDC flu team, who frankly thinks people/governmental agencies don't take the flu seriously enough on a year-to-year basis).  Setting aside the mortality rate from COVID-19 itself -- which the specialists of my acquaintance find to be a real SOMETHINGburger -- as shown in Italy, the strain it puts on the health care system seriously imperils the immediacy and quality of medical care given to people who are suffering from run of the mill heart attacks and strokes and the like.

Pennsylvania's first death just happened yesterday.  But that fellow in Northampton County is the third member of the same family to die from COVID-19 -- his sister and mother were one of the 5 deaths in New Jersey.

Reduction of numbers in China is good news.  Think about what the Chinese government did in order to reach that result -- by taking it seriously, imposing and enforcing strict quarantines and conducting wide-scale testing.

________________

So anyway, to report on the special election:

Turnout overall was more than expected given the social distancing policies announced for our county, but lower than the special election would have otherwise brought out.  Far more voters in the older demographics than younger (not really atypical).  Oldest voter of the day for Lower East 1 -- a 95yo gentleman who comes to every election.

Both voting precincts located at our nearby elementary school were fully staffed.  Other locations had lots of people call out, so either our two teams are optimists or fatalists.

Our oldest worker at our station -- Mae, 89, who has been working that location for 50 years -- came over the strong urging of her children.  We've been planning how to handle her involvement for the 4/28 primary and then the general election in November -- she's very hard of hearing and very forgetful, but insists on being involved in finding voters in the ledgers, checking IDs, etc.  It makes long lines even longer.  So or the special, our judge of elections, Kevin, gave her the task of simply handing out the paper ballots.  Pennsylvania is moving to a paper ballot system going forward -- fill in the circles next to the name you want to vote for, then take it to a scanner to be counted and deposited into a locked container.  Giving out the ballots and directing voters to the private voting booths was something that would let Mae be involved, but not require her to handle anything that voters had handled.

Eleven hours into the voting day, something happened with Mae -- she suddenly become completely nonresponsive, and when she snapped out of it a couple of minutes later, she was very, very confused.  The EMTs who came and evaluated her and took her to the hospital thought she had a mini-stroke.   So I'm thinking good thoughts for Mae.

In other news, I'm getting very little actual work done from home, but I did finish a scarf yesterday for a friend and have started another for his wife.  The dog is enjoying extra walkies, the teen-aged son is annoyed with the "now's the time to catch up on your schoolwork!" nagging, the cat regularly insists that he isn't fed enough, the spouse is playing a lot of Destiny 2, and the teen-aged daughter is catching up on her sleep.

Tonight's dinner will be soup, made with roasted vegetables and chicken left over from a dinner a few nights ago.  I'd invite y'all over, but I know you can't come.  And the house is a mess anyway.

Did I read that the DM is restarting this game!! LOL

I sit outside now while working from home (IT assistance)

It's lovely.

I don't know.
She certainly is wounding a humble and hungry dwarf, one deliciously-described sourdough pumpkin spice loaf at a time.

And don't even start me on the fiendishness of the foccaccia.

*chomps fiercely on his salad, only slightly appeased by an errant berry*

In reply to Hamble Setzhammer (msg # 381):

I would happily send you some foccaccia (or even a sourdough sample), but for the pain in the tuchis it is to complete a customs declaration.

So, a few more months on ... how's everyone doing?

Hello there,

Doing good here.  How is the family and if your sending don't leave me out.  LOL

Work has decided a hiring frenzy so it's every other week crunching in 20ish new hires and having to ship out all their equipment because we're still working remotely.

Still lovely to sit outside though.

Do I need to fill out any customs declarations?

We're still all remote, too.  Our Houston office was supposed to have a partial reopening (no more than 25% of personnel on site at any given time) this past week, but that got delayed.  No firm date for our other offices.  So I'm still camped out at one end of our dining table, though with the courts closed my hours are ... low.



It is lovely to sit outside, isn't it?  At least until it starts getting stickily humid every day, all day.

When would customs ever be a problem?

~
We were working in office, but remote appointments.  Court has been non-existent except placeholder dockets and bail hearings, except family matters, which have been shockingly ramped up in number with confinement of people together.

Our region is clear of COVID, so matters are sliding very quickly back towards normal - at least until the peace is disrupted again.

---

Happy Fathers' Day, and honourary ones too! :)

Mommy hates the mosquito bites on this picture, but Daddy loves the happiness.
She now advises people that she is "2 and a half, like the bison" near our house.

https://s1076.photobucket.com/....html?sort=3&o=0

She also said the bison were "big and strong, like my daddy", so we'll likely keep her around for another year.

HELLO FROM PANDEMIC-LAND!

Hello from Pandemic DC ....

In reply to Iminye Shal Tamasi (msg # 389):

Say hello to the Washington Monument for me!

I can do a drive by. Don't think any of them are opened to the public yet.

How are things going down south?  News here doesn't look so good, so hoping all of you are surviving.

Covid is still busy up here, but the swimming pool being open helps avoid her needing to try to swim at the bottom of the tub.  Social/businesses are perhaps opening up too quickly in some regards, as number are climbing again, relative for our region.

---

Our very precious and precocious 2yo is working on age 3 soon.  Part fish, terribly strong-willed, and trying to out-talk and out-argue children several years older *okay, let's be honest, she does it consistently, but I'm trying to be good.  And she's so darned cute.  *be good, Daddy*

London is still kicking, back to Working From Home — though I never quite stopped!
I’m actually used to it now, can’t say I really fancy going back to the commute and office every day...
Hope you guys are all healthy and happy (and registered to vote)

I continue to work from home at one end of my dining room table.  In a bit of coincidental timing, my firm had just started looking at options for office space in Philadelphia when our 20-year lease at our current location expires at the end of 2021.  In the past six months, the decision has been made to stay where we are, but radically rethink our space -- surrendering floors, reducing office size and surveying people for their preferences about working from home vs. coming into the office and/or using the "hotel space" model for offices.

My teenagers are full remote for school.  Son (the younger) will be remaining that way through a virtual program offered by our school district year round.  Daughter is still hoping to return to in-person class at some point before she graduates from high school in the spring; in the interim, she is resolutely ignoring the college application process.

Dog is pleased with all the company, and more frequent dog-walks.

I seem to be past my sourdough obsession, just periodically pulling the starter from the refrigerator for waffles.  I continue to crochet all the crocheted things you can crochet and then give away to people.

Our voter registration is up to date.  Spouse and I are signed up for mail-in ballots (which we will drop off in person at the county Board of Elections).  Still need to get my daughter (who will be 18 by the time of the general election) to sign up for the mail-in ballot (which we will also drop off in person).  But I will be working the polls on election day, signing in my neighbors.  Not really looking forward to being yelled at by folks who don't want to wear masks, but <shrug>, whatevs.  Pennsylvania, we're a battleground state and we're expecting the already heavy litigation over mail-in voting to ramp up in the weeks leading up to the election.

I used to say that if I were to win the lottery, I would immediately give notice at my job.  Nowadays, I would immediately purchase citizenship in New Zealand.

Work was a constant strain from about Late June until just last week. I was overworked, but was able to get a friend of mine hired to help and got him a full time instead of temporary job because of how well we worked together.

October is going to be the quietest month I have had in a long while and I am almost unsure what to do with myself.


Well, almost. Gearing up for Baldur's Gate III to release and have a few days off for that at least~

Well well well, whoever said 2021 couldn’t top 2020 is probably eating their hat now.
Anyway... Happy New Year everybody! Hope you had a good Christmas break!

And boss, if you wanted to rekindle our adventures here, I’d be in.
 4 years have passed, time for new beginnings!

Agreed.  I'd like to say I didn't see this coming, but oi.  Certainly a headshaking moment from up north.

Hopefully all of ye are doing well into this new year.

And doubly so about Donnie's comment! :)

Yes yes yes.

It is a great start for 2021

Happy New Year to all and I’m also up for a start up.