Corona Virus Now Spreading

[Willowy]

"Because when you're talking about positive people, you know, it depends on who you test. Because some countries test asymptomatic contacts, while here in Italy, we test only symptomatic people."

I think this is the biggest factor. Some estimates say as many as half of people who are infected show no symptoms at all, and another 20%-30% have very mild symptoms, so they wouldn't be tested in Italy.

 

[KittyFriday]

Yeah, IMO we'd be better off if we had readily available tests (like with the flu) and if anyone who wanted to be tested, or who had traveled, or who was in any way feeling poorly was tested. So basically if nearly everyone was tested, I think people would feel a lot safer - they'd know if they had it or not, and those who test positive could quarantine so the rest of the population isn't worried about sick people just wandering around and infecting everyone else.

But from what I understand the US doesn't seem to have tests available to even test people presenting with symptoms unless they are seriously suspected of having the virus. Not sure why we are so poorly prepared in that department.

 

[Texaskitty]

I'm sorry I can't help myself

 

[margecat]

We have another confirmed case in the next county. It is a doctor, and now, our local high school has been closed for cleaning, as one of the students was his patient and saw him last week, no word on if he's tested positive. This school is my former high school, and less than 10 miles from where I now live.

I've decided to lessen my trips out of the house, apart from going to work, so tonight, I made one last grocery store run. It seems like most of the people I saw were prepping. No disinfectant, no paper towels, no toilet paper. Very low on the store brand pasta sauce, and low on oatmeal, pasta, and Kraft Ready-Mac, among other things. I've shopped at this store for many, many years, and have never seen it like this. I'm glad I did my prepping the past couple of weeks.

 

[artiemom]

Massachusetts has just declared a State of Emergency. We have evidence of community based spread of CV-19 in Berkshire country— near New York border.

The governor has asked for some hazmat gear from the federal stockpile. He is also waiting for he FDA to give approval for out Boston hospitals to start the CVtesting !! He is frustrated, and he is a republican. I do like him. Charlie Baker. Common sense. He also admitted , after the lar presidential election, that he did not vote for Trump.

 

[doomsdave]

Massachusetts has just declared a State of Emergency. We have evidence of community based spread of CV-19 in Berkshire country— near New York border.

The governor has asked for some hazmat gear from the federal stockpile. He is also waiting for he FDA to give approval for out Boston hospitals to start the CVtesting !! He is frustrated, and he is a republican. I do like him. Charlie Baker. Common sense. He also admitted , after the lar presidential election, that he did not vote for Trump.

I’m sorry to hear on the one hand
but glad to know it’s being taken seriously

 

[Tik cat's mum]

Well the UK'S under secretary for health and social care has this. You couldn't make it up. She's been ill since last Friday in contact with boris and hundreds of people in parliament. Now she's self isolating she had no idea she had it.

 

[Margret]

Well, I'm just now catching up on this thread; I've just read through page 15.

I'll be honest, I don't want to walk in there and sit with a bunch of sick people. I just don't. They can always call down new prescriptions to get me through to an appt in the spring.

This particular Coronavirus is not airborne. You can't get it just by being in the same room with someone who has it. You can get it from touching something that's been coughed or sneezed on and then touching your face.

Besides, washing for 20 seconds with soap and water does a better job.

Although, lately I've been hearing that 30 seconds is better.

Everybody knows how to count seconds, right? For 20 seconds, the easiest way is to sing the alphabet song (or Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star - same tune, same length, just different words). I've timed it and it takes just over 20 seconds. But for 30 seconds you're actually better off just counting the seconds. When I was in school they taught us to say "One-a-thous-and, Two-a-thous-and," etc., but when watching The A-Team many years ago I adopted Murdoch's technique: "One-chimp-an-zee, Two-chimp-an-zees," etc.. Basically, any three syllables added on to the number.

it's like people just aren't getting soap and water does the trick.

You're absolutely right. They aren't getting it. Worse, soap and water will do the job better than hand sanitizer, and they aren't getting that, either.

And now WHO and Amazon and our local burger restaurant are doing a bit of social engineering into wanting to make this a cashless society. "Don't use cash! It has cooties! Use your credit or debit card!"

I don't give a rat's ass (Jasmine says, "Wait, we have a rat's ass?! Mine!") that WHO and Amazon want us to go to a cashless society. I do care that credit card companies want to charge me interest and it costs me $3 every time I reload my debit card.

Again, I'm not panicking about this but I do have "issues" (for lack of better word) to comments that "the flu has killed more people, so this is no big deal"...(or similar statements)
I get it, the flu HAS killed more people, but more people have also been infect with it. The mortality rate for the flu is something like 0.1%, where as the latest ESTIMATE for covid-19 is 3.4%. It may seem insignificant but it is quite a bit, especially if you consider that the spanish flu is estimated to have been between 2-3%. I get that health care is much better now than it was back then but, if you consider that our health care is better but we STILL have a mortality rate that is potentially higher than the spanish flu, this IS something we need to be careful of. Also considering that our society travels much more as well, the spread can be very significant...as we are already seeing.
Once this gets around and the final numbers are in, is going to be the only way we will know for sure how bad this is. But this IS a new virus with a lot of unknowns so although I don't think we should panic, I still don't like the comparisons to the flu - to justify that this is not potentially serious.....just my opinion.
How does the new coronavirus compare with the flu?

Yes, if you're young and healthy and you get this virus you'll probably be okay. But what about the people you expose to it? Are all of them young and healthy?

Hand sanitizer should only be a back up when washing isn’t possible.

Don't worry, the virus has now been declared "illegal". Seriously.

Christian Prophet Cindy Jacobs Declares Coronavirus ‘Illegal’ Because Jesus

'Christian Prophet Cindy Jacobs reports that the coronavirus “will cease worldwide” because the virus is now “illegal” in the name of Jesus.'

The scary thing about this is all the people who will believe her and decide to "prove" their faith by failing to take precautions.

There's no way I can not touch my face. If I do my whole head will turn into a cat's head! Fur gets all over my face anyway and one of my cats has very fine fur that is always getting into my eyes. Drives me nuts until I can take it out, with my finger.

You can touch your face at home, after you've washed your hands. Just don't touch it when you're in the grocery store and have been touching things there.

Not touching your face is SO hard! Yes! It's near impossible, isn't it?

I know it's hard - we do it automatically. So do something to remind yourself. Either were a scarf over the lower part of your face (since masks are in short supply) or wear gloves in the store. I don't know about you, but I don't feel like touching my face when wearing gloves.

I hate hand sanitizer. I never use it if I can help it, only if I'm in a place that absolutely does not have any water available. So I don't have any around at home. They made us stock some at the office during the last big scare (bird flu? I don't even remember!) though, and I have 3 1/2 bottles left so that should be enough for customers.

I have always felt like my hands were dirtier after using sanitizer, the film it leaves on my skin feels gross. I know it kills bacteria and viruses but it does not clean the hands. I don't get how some people can use it regularly.

There's another solution to keeping your hands germ-free: wear gloves. Women used to wear gloves all the time to keep their hands clean. Surgical gloves would be very obvious, but tight cloth gloves would do the job and could be washed.

Advising people to avoid touching their faces is kind of like telling them to stop blinking their eyes; it’s pretty much involuntary. But we are washing our hands more often and more thoroughly. We’re being careful, but we’re not going to freak out!

When I was at the store today I spent $3.50 on a pack of two pairs of dishwashing gloves. Latex gloves with a cotton lining. (Naturally they wouldn't work for anyone who's allergic to latex; fortunately, I'm not.) Much more comfortable than the disposable gloves, and I can wash them simply by washing my hands while wearing them. And because they aren't the disposable gloves that are being recommended there hasn't been a run on them. These are reasonably comfortable for me to wear in the store; the touch screen at the self-checkout area works just fine with them; and, most importantly, I'm not tempted to touch my face when wearing them.

Margret

 

[Mia6]

I live in Ohio and our first cases, 3, were announced yesterday. Our Governor is not fooling around. Ohio State University,
Kent State and more are all closed but some classes can be online. Spectator sporting events will be played w/o spectators

The article below I received about 11:00pm. There are maps and other interesting data. No need to panic but be smart.
I wonder why Italy has so many cases?





U.S. Coronavirus Cases Surpass 1,000: Full Map

 

[denice]

DeWine certainly does not want to be accused of not taking this seriously. He is also having 75 polling places in nursing homes moved for next week's primary as well as having hand sanitizer and disinfectant at the polling places.

 

[doomsdave]

DeWine certainly does not want to be accused of not taking this seriously. He is also having 75 polling places in nursing homes moved for next week's primary as well as having hand sanitizer and disinfectant at the polling places.

Mr. DeWine is a good governor, or he at least tries. GOP or no.

 

[PushPurrCatPaws]

I don't give a rat's ass (Jasmine says, "Wait, we have a rat's ass?! Mine!") that WHO and Amazon want us to go to a cashless society.

lol, lol! Love your rat's ass!

 

[Willowy]

WHO and Amazon want us to go to a cashless society. I do care that credit card companies want to charge me interest and it costs me $3 every time I reload my debit card.

Credit cards don't charge interest if you pay them off every month . (And free debit accounts aren't hard to find but I don't trust debit cards attached to a checking account.) I'm just about completely cashless now. I carry a $20 just in case but I've had that same $20 in there for months. I do handle cash at work though. Eww germy.

They diagnosed 5 cases in South Dakota. All of them very far from each other. So I'm guessing it's already going around and is pretty well established.

We were talking about it at work because a local woman is "self-quarantining" because she drove a school bus to a school that recently had a case diagnosed. What are postal workers going to do? Sure, it would be great to stay home for 2 weeks, but they can't just shut down the Post Office and just leave the mail to pile up for that long. Can you even imagine?! I really don't know how they plan to handle this.

 

[KittyFriday]

They diagnosed 5 cases in South Dakota. All of them very far from each other. So I'm guessing it's already going around and is pretty well established.

I have a friend who lives in Mitchell, she's saying the person who died lived there? She also says she has a friend who works at the hospital and they had another person die who they suspected had it but I guess never got tested. Who knows, the news is crazy.

My university here in Kansas is currently preparing to have people telework. Many people in my office regularly telework anyway and all have laptops and setups for that. I do not - I can telework with my position but don't do it frequently enough to warrant a special work laptop. So I'm really hoping that if they do shut down the campus they'll either let me use my own computer or give me one to use - or hey, even let me just take home my desktop computer and use it there. I'm an hourly employee and quite frankly can't afford to just not work and I'd use up my paid leave in like a week. Not to mention my job is very busy and I don't think anyone else would appreciate if I just stopped doing it for weeks on end.

I also do part time evening EatStreet delivery, which I use mainly to pay off my student loans. As far as I know, EatStreet hasn't addressed the issue in any way. I'm wondering if they'll even shut down at all, or if they'll stay up and running because there will be a lot of people stuck at home ordering food.

 

[muffy]

Credit cards don't charge interest if you pay them off every month . (And free debit accounts aren't hard to find but I don't trust debit cards attached to a checking account.) I'm just about completely cashless now. I carry a $20 just in case but I've had that same $20 in there for months. I do handle cash at work though. Eww germy.

They diagnosed 5 cases in South Dakota. All of them very far from each other. So I'm guessing it's already going around and is pretty well established.

We were talking about it at work because a local woman is "self-quarantining" because she drove a school bus to a school that recently had a case diagnosed. What are postal workers going to do? Sure, it would be great to stay home for 2 weeks, but they can't just shut down the Post Office and just leave the mail to pile up for that long. Can you even imagine?! I really don't know how they plan to handle this.

I also rarely use cash. I use my Discover card to buy everything and pay it off at the end of every month. I carry some cash but I can't remember the last time I use any. The more I charge the more Discover points I get every month.

 

[Koveshnikov]

we do not use any means of payment that do not have biometric identification

 

[Willowy]

I have a friend who lives in Mitchell, she's saying the person who died lived there?

I don't think so. It says Pennington County, which is the Rapid City area. Mitchell is in Davison County so that would be the "female 30-39", not hospitalized at this time.
5 Coronavirus cases, one death in South Dakota

 

[kittyluv387]

Well I had a frank talk with my dad last night. He didn't want to admit it at first but he is afraid of my bringing the virus from the airplane and airport since he is over 60. That was it for me! I'm trying to cancel and / or reschedule my visit for later this year. Really unfortunate since I only saw them once a year to begin with. In addition to that who knows about our yearly vacation plans. I am stuck in Texas, gross.

 

[KittyFriday]

I don't think so. It says Pennington County, which is the Rapid City area. Mitchell is in Davison County so that would be the "female 30-39", not hospitalized at this time.
5 Coronavirus cases, one death in South Dakota

That's good news! I think there is just a lot of misinformation going around on Facebook in her area which is where she got some of that info.

 

[DreamerRose]

My town just canceled the St. Patrick's Day parade and the 5k run.