Coronavirus

[bykfixer]

In my area folks who were forced out of a job are taking pictures of people on construction sites not 6 feet apart and reporting it to the government.

We inspectors have been advised to ensure they are following the policy so that there is no ammo that may get our projects shut down by the police.

 

[idleprocess]

Finally, people are starting to be sent to work from home next week. 50% is the goal. I offered to stay here...and they took me up on it. Dammit! No I'm kidding. I know for a fact, me "working from home" would involve drinking coffee, messing around on the computer, eating pizza and watching Prime for 5 hours straight, then maybe tinkering outside and in the garage. Then when I go hiking or kayaking, I'd get a call...busted!

It takes some self-discipline to work from home, as well as management that knows how to manage by means other than walking around and doesn't compensate for the lack of in-person availability with control freakery. I certainly struggled with it at first, getting a lot of laundry and dishes done and maybe missing a phone call, IM, email or two before I got the hang of it.

 

[bykfixer]

Total known corona virus cases just passed 1 million people.

Only 699 million to go before it catches up the that swine thing. And only 100k deaths, but we're trying real hard.

(Those are the low estimates btw, high numbers were 1.4 billion with 575 thousand dead). (source: wiki)

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

Swine flu was no laughing matter either. The 104 degree body temperature and the alternating chills and burning up made that probably the worst virus I ever had. Plus it killed the pastor of my church. It is too early to say how bad this virus will get, but too many people have been underestimating how infectious and deadly it is, making things worse. In just over two months, from February 1 until April 2, we went from 304 deaths and 14,553 confirmed cases to 52,855 dead and 1,009,727 confirmed cases at this moment. That means deaths have gone up about 173.865 times and total known cases have gone up 69.38 times the number just over 60 days ago. Notice that during that time, the ratio of deaths to total cases has gone up from 1 death:47.87 total cases to 1 death:19.1 total cases. Maybe February 1 was too early to come to this conclusion and maybe China's numbers screwed up the math, but based on those numbers alone, it looks like the virus got over 2.5 times more lethal in two months. Who knows, we may have ten times as many who are positive and not reported and all the deaths reported which could throw off the math, but that may have been the case in February 1 as well which would even things out a bit. Swine flu had an incubation period of 1-4 days and as long as 7. Symptoms come on fairly quickly so you don't get too far before you realize you're sick and self-isolate (which nobody bothered to do back then). Corona virus has an incubation period of 2-14 days and as high as 24 days plus it stays on surfaces and in the air longer. It will take that much longer to find out how many casualties there are because this virus spreads easier and doesn't burn out as quickly as swine flu.

 

[bigburly912]

H1N1 almost took me out. 2 weeks of work missed. 1 whole week of lying on the floor sweating through my clothes. Awful

 

[bykfixer]

The sickest I ever was in my adult life was around 1995. Good gosh, that one had folks sick that I worked with who said they hadn't been sick in 30+ years. I was out for 3 weeks and it was months before I felt good again. Thing is on that one was neither of my kids or (at that time) wife got it.
So I did some research and it seems between 95 and 97 there were 3 flu bugs. In 95 it was an influenza A(H1N1) and A(H3N2) and an influenza B. It seems for 5 straight weeks Americans died at a 7.6% death rate. Now I surmize that I might have had that H1N1 because in 2009/10 I never even got the sniffles. And the swine flu was wiping people out for over a year. Hell, it still did all the way to 2015 when they stopped counting.

In 2003 we all had what we called "the south hill 101.2 flu" because in a town of 45,000 nearly everybody had it. That one wiped out children and largely left older folks alone. The fellow who gave it to those around me was out of work the next day and did not return until after all of us were sick then recovered. Was that one SARS? Probably not but we will never know unless ever checked for the antibodies.

Now in 2008 a head cold nearly wiped me out. I had a sneeze fit one Friday and stayed in bed all weekend. I missed a day of work since my fever had not broken. A week later I was ill again and spent the weekend under the covers with another fever. That repeated 3 more weeks so I finally went to my doctor. He did the routine and says "you need to take at least two weeks off to heal". I replied "can't doc, got too much to do". He replied "I'll have them put that on your tombstone"
Nuff said. That was about two weeks before thanksgiving when my project shut down for the winter. I staggered to work until then because I was the only guy left on the project. At thanksgiving I left the project and it was January before I returned. And then I did an inhaler until that fall. A freaking head cold.

Stress played a role in those cases. Right now many are on pins and needles about the rent, the boredom, the constant barage of more bad news. And I will say from experience that some who get this new virus may have stress induced immune deficiecies that if it doesn't take em to the big pond in the sky, they may be permanently injured by it. So please try to relax at this time. Spray lavender on your pillow at night. Work out with ordinary household items like chairs, gallon jugs, etc. Meditate, swing on a porch swing or something. Just please relax. We will get through this. Each day ends at midnight. Each sunrise is a brand new day. And despite all the doom and gloom the world has seen some pretty rough times, heck even in my 50 some years here.

Fear can't stop death. Fear can stop life

 

[StarHalo]

74% of those hospitalized for Coronavirus have other medical complications - you prepare for this event by being healthy.

 

[RedLED]

Star,

Do you work at the Amazon facility in San Bernardino? They had a confirmed case there today.

 

[StarHalo]

Star,

Do you work at the Amazon facility in San Bernardino? They had a confirmed case there today.

I'm in Eastvale, we've had two test positive. Today was the first day they did temperature checks at the door, if you're over 99.4 then you're out for 72 hours: no healthy = no worky. Everything in the warehouse where people might gather has been rearranged, all the time clocks are spaced way apart, there's ropes in front of all the various assistance desks so you can't stand too close to the workers, we no longer do group meetings, etc.

Should also mention, if anyone here is worried about income and could give working in a warehouse a try, our starting rate is now $17/hr nationally; it's assumed you're not going to stay long, so if don't do well in your role or just aren't into it, you can essentially bail at any time. Don't care about education or past experience, most everyone who shows up gets in. [And if a mod interprets this as a shill, please just delete this paragraph..]

 

[nbp]

I was talking with a friend; shes a nurse in the ER at a local hospital. I was curious on her take from her experiences and what the doctors in her ER are saying. Something she said, I found interesting. She said that right at first they were trying to test everyone with symptoms but very quickly started running out of supplies for it (a familiar refrain across the nation). For the past two weeks or so they have basically only been testing the very sickest individuals, the ones hospitalized. Those with milder symptoms are simply sent home and told to quarantine while they recover. She says this current testing attack significantly skews the data, making it look like a much higher percentage of positive cases are requiring hospitalization or leading to death than is accurate, since loads of people are likely positive but never tested. Once fast and accurate tests are widely available in quantity the models have a chance at being accurate. This isn’t what is reported though because it is advantageous to the healthcare system for people to believe the worst as it keeps them home and not interacting with others, which eases the burden on healthcare resources. So her take is: Yes, it is serious and it is good to stay home and stay healthy, but this thing is definitely not as brutal as the current models would portray.

 

[RedLED]

StarHalo, please stay safe at work.

 

[turbodog]

I was talking with a friend; shes a nurse in the ER at a local hospital. I was curious on her take from her experiences and what the doctors in her ER are saying. Something she said, I found interesting. She said that right at first they were trying to test everyone with symptoms but very quickly started running out of supplies for it (a familiar refrain across the nation). For the past two weeks or so they have basically only been testing the very sickest individuals, the ones hospitalized. Those with milder symptoms are simply sent home and told to quarantine while they recover. She says this current testing attack significantly skews the data, making it look like a much higher percentage of positive cases are requiring hospitalization or leading to death than is accurate, since loads of people are likely positive but never tested. Once fast and accurate tests are widely available in quantity the models have a chance at being accurate. This isn’t what is reported though because it is advantageous to the healthcare system for people to believe the worst as it keeps them home and not interacting with others, which eases the burden on healthcare resources. So her take is: Yes, it is serious and it is good to stay home and stay healthy, but this thing is definitely not as brutal as the current models would portray.

Maybe, maybe not. But it continues to grow in the USA. Most every state will run out of hospital beds... everyone forgets that is THE problem we are dealing with, not really the stuff right now.

And at some time, likely soon, new cases will overwhelm the testing system... we won't know WHO has WHAT.

 

[bigburly912]

In 2003 we all had what we called "the south hill 101.2 flu"

South hill makes me happy. I need a Buggs Island trip this year.

 

[Chauncey Gardener]

.Travel data of passengers arriving in the United States from China during the critical period in December, January and February, when the disease took hold in that country, shows a stunning 759,493 people entered the U.S.
"This is an astonishing number in a short period of time, illustrating how globalized our world has become. Just as people can hop continents with amazing ease, the infections they carry can too," said Dr. Vinayak Kumar, an internal medicine resident at the Mayo Clinic and a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/dis...elers-poured-us-coronavirus/story?id=69933625

China's officials lied. People traveled. People died.

Imagine the uproar if we had know earlier and had tried to close our borders to people traveling from China.

 

[StarHalo]

Brownish-orange is US:

 

[bykfixer]

South hill makes me happy. I need a Buggs Island trip this year.

In lived in a converted 2 car garage at a spot called owl cove in Buffalo Junction. When I wasn't sleeping I spent my sick time those two days I was out with the 101.2 flu looking out my kitchen door at the point where the Dan, the Roanoke rivers and Buffalo creek merged. The brightest sky at night I've ever seen. I mean genuine darkness on a moonless night with more stars showing in the sky than you could ever count.

I found a dinosaur by the lake shore one weekend but nobody believed me so I grabbed a few back bone segments and took some photos. As you may know bb, the lake level rises and falls often on Buggs so that Gaston levels can remain relatively the same. One Saturday the skeletal remains of a gigantic reptile was exposed on the edge of the shore when they lowered the lake. My son and I saw what looked like an oval shaped rock cut into 1000 slices in nearly uniform segments. I say a thousand but it may have been 200. So we marveled at how nature had deposited that rock structure and set about skipping stones on the lake. Well from a few hundred feet away we looked back and noticed what looked like the shape of Godzilla along the edge of the shore. Well portions of Godzilla. It was as if Godzilla had died and fell over on the edge of the shore line with his back facing the shore. Time had seemingly washed many bones into the stream.

My son and I told everybody who we saw there for the next week about it. Everybody said "it's just rocks". In a couple of weeks the bones were all in Buffalo creek as the lake levels raised and lowered nearly everyday. I ran across a Jamestown archeologist one day later who said "those people in places like that don't want to be disturbed by us hippies with our seives and paint brushes". Made sense to me after that.

So back to covid-19. I told Mrs Fixer during the daily press conference today "I like Mike Pence, he makes me sleepy when he speaks about the corona virus". It's not an orange man saying "this is the biggest, most beautiful stimulous package you ever saw. Tremendous. Yuge" followed by a chorus of Mr President Mr President why are you allowing millions to die" cackle from the press corp bombarding the man with gotcha questions.
It's just a mild mannered gentleman speaking in plain words explaining what the government of America is doing right now to help the states hardest hit. I get a sense of optimism from Mike Pence as he ducks in and out between those two doctors who also speak in plain words explaining their latest models and methods. It's one of the reasons Bill Clinton was so popular with Americans. When he said "my fellow Americans" his tone and demeaner was soothing. Even his arch rival Newt Gingrich said "you hate the man until you meet him, and you still hate him after that yet you end up liking the guy even though your gut says to hate him". Clinton was prossibly the best politician to ever live in the white house. But right now I'm glad that Mike Pence character talks to me every afternoon after a day of more rules and regulations to follow at work as my company tries to legislate its way out of this crisis.

The company I work for is an "inclusive" group of engineers and goody two shoes. They have tens of thousands of mindless robots with 2 year degrees entering data all day for crappy wages. Back in 2009 the CEO decided he wanted to buy up engineering firms while they were cheap during that recession. He had the goal of making the company top ten in the world. They were #12 at that time. So he set about buying up failing engineering firms and the outfit I worked for was one of them. My company at the time was profitable but the founders grand kids wanted out so they sold us to the mega firm for ten cents on the dollar.

Time has shown why many of the firms bought by that CEO were failing. Lazy, spoiled and just plain dumb people have caused the mega firm with very relaxed policies to suddenly realize there is a whole bunch of free loaders working there. It's the story of the cricket and the ant. I work for the ant in this case. Now with this covid thing the crickets are all working from their sofa so us ants have to fill out all this paperwork every day to prove we set at our desk with company approved posture, 3 page form there. That we took our temperature at 8am, noon and 5pm and write down what it was. 7 page form there. And all kinds of crap like that. This week they laid of nearly every cricket. Entire divisions, gone. Top to bottom, they purged the roster of thousands. Never let a good crisis go to waste, right?

 

[StarHalo]

Getting into specifics of symptoms now that more data is in:

 

[bykfixer]

I must have covid. I've been mentally drained and had a headache ever since the gubment hit the economic off switch.
Covid syndrome that is……not covid virus. My coworkers all say they feel bewildered as well. What rule did I not follow today? What new policy will they force on us tomorrow? And the gubment just said "comply or die"....

 

[RedLED]

My God fixer, is that what the real Corporate life is really like? It is hard to imagine, for me, as I have in all the years I have worked to never have had to answer to anyone. That sounds like a nightmare on a daily basis.

RL

 

[bykfixer]

Red, I work for a pyramid scheme where the base area has been crumbling for some time. So they have chosen the crisis to make a bunch of changes. Myself and those around me are safe but we just have to hang on during the shake up. Mid level managers are making up rules trying to save their jobs.