Coronavirus prep

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  • moonangel12
    moonangel12 Posts: 971 Member
    Bojangles was putting all the salt and pepper shakers from the tables in boxes while we were there today... along with the advertising signs and things. he was writing something on the lids, I assume just labeling contents but not sure.
  • Psychgrrl
    Psychgrrl Posts: 3,177 Member
    MikePfirrman wrote: »
    On the bright side, Kroger just announced it's restricting number of things that people can buy to stop the hoarding and reselling of items like sanitizer and toilet paper.

    My local Wal Mart did this as well. Thankful for that. However, our supply distributors are running out of stuff. They told us people who normally order 10 cases of soap are ordering 100. Well, almost every other college campus in the area is closed--what are they using the soap for? We're going to have to call other campuses and try and buy supplies before they close and everyone goes home. We still have people.
  • Theoldguy1
    Theoldguy1 Posts: 2,454 Member
    whoami67 wrote: »
    I was at Trader Joe's this morning in LA (south bay) area. It was weird. People were shopping quickly instead of the usual meandering they do. Pretty much all meat and frozen veg/meals and canned goods were gone. There was plenty of milk and yogurt, but no soy milk. There were still eggs and bread, but I think they'll be sold out soon. The produce section looked like a normal day so apparently people aren't stocking up on fresh fruit and veg.

    I think in a quarantine or zombie apocalypse junk food is critical, but the chips were as well stocked as a normal day, and there was plenty of ice cream available. The woman in line ahead of me seemed to be having some sort of minor panic attack over the lack of bottled water.

    For Catholics, the Archbishop of Los Angeles has dispensed with the obligation to go to mass the next 3 Sundays. I don't see anything about that on the archdiocese website, but my parish put out a notice. I'm still trying to decide if I will go. I've had what I am about 99% certain is the flu and I'm almost recovered, but I'm not sure I can make it through mass without coughing at least once and I don't want to cause a panic.

    Central IL the Bishops have called off all masses including weddings and funerals
  • Nony_Mouse
    Nony_Mouse Posts: 5,646 Member
    kimny72 wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    MikePfirrman wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    mph323 wrote: »
    Chinese billionaire Jack Ma is donating a million face masks and 500,000 coronavirus test kits to the US. I'm grateful for the support and hope that our government can work with people like him to tap into international sources for desperately needed medical supplies.

    https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/14/tech/jack-ma-face-masks-us-donation/index.html

    This is really out there and sounds like a bonkers conspiracy theory, but can anyone shoot down my thought that testing is being throttled not just for lack of resources but because the fewer people who get tested, the lower the number of confirmed cases and the better the numbers look politically?

    It's dark and rainy here, and I've been sitting by myself all day recovering from trying to find tomato sauce for dinner and finding the apocalypse playing out at Safeway. My thoughts are dark.

    I guess it's just me, but I think that would require a pretty large-scale, multi-participant conspiracy, a thing that humans are historically pretty bad at sustaining for very long.

    And it would have to happen, now, in a leak-ridden political environment where plenty of journalists (and journalistic bottom-feeders besides) would be all too happy to find an break a well-documented version of that story . . . maybe even a poorly-documented one.

    If that political conspiracy is happening, it can't hold, IMO.

    There's already been reporting on it. And yes, it was reported that they decided not to test as a political hunch that warmer weather would kill it.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-reportedly-rejected-aggressive-coronavirus-121835790.html

    Anonymous sources, but I for one, wouldn't doubt this one bit.

    I never said certain people in the administration - maybe quite a few - wouldn't manipulate or lie. I said I thought a conspiracy to throttle testing would not hold, i.e., could not be sustained for long.

    And it didn't hold.

    Various entities started developing their own tests. Parts of the central bureaucracy, and bureaucrats/politicians in the states, pushed back. People leaked stuff. Etc.

    Large-scale conspiracies tend to fall apart, especially in relatively non-authoritarian, relatively open societies. When there are too many people involved, they have competing interests, opposing political views, motivations like jealousy/old grudges/revenge/financial benefit, and sometimes a few intended conspirators even turn out to have ethics. It's not that I think no one tries to conspire in nefarious ways; of course they do. Arrogance and hubris mean some startling things are attempted. Big conspiracies are just really hard to sustain.

    ETA: Not trying to pick on you here, Mike, even though I'm replying to your post. There have been a few posts replying to mine that seemed to me to be disagreeing with something I didn't think I said (didn't intend to say, anyway), or something tangent to my PP. I'm sure that's because I was unclear, so trying to clarify . . . which will probably make it worse. :lol::drinker:

    It sounded to me like you were saying that there was no way that testing was limited in the US on purpose for political gain, because it would require a wide ranging conspiracy that wouldn't be possible. I do disagree with that, because I don't think it would require much of a conspiracy.

    I totally agree that wide ranging conspiracies are damn near impossible to carry out and even more impossible to sustain for long even if you can get them started, because humans gonna human.

    This little version of the telephone game brought to you by the coronavirus :lol:


    I have been watching a few episodes of the Leftovers every time there is a free HBO preview weekend and I should be able to finish it this weekend. Not quite post apocalyptic but kinda sorta. Not sure I could watch Contagion or Pandemic right now, this is as close as I get :cold_sweat:

    I'm kind of disappointed that Netflix hasn't added a bunch of pandemic-related films for us all to watch. Watched Contagion not that long ago, so it doesn't really need another viewing at this stage. Maybe I'll watch Zombieland. Close enough, right?
  • mph323
    mph323 Posts: 3,565 Member
    You can add Andromeda Strain to that list 😄
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,023 Member
    kimny72 wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    MikePfirrman wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    mph323 wrote: »
    Chinese billionaire Jack Ma is donating a million face masks and 500,000 coronavirus test kits to the US. I'm grateful for the support and hope that our government can work with people like him to tap into international sources for desperately needed medical supplies.

    https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/14/tech/jack-ma-face-masks-us-donation/index.html

    This is really out there and sounds like a bonkers conspiracy theory, but can anyone shoot down my thought that testing is being throttled not just for lack of resources but because the fewer people who get tested, the lower the number of confirmed cases and the better the numbers look politically?

    It's dark and rainy here, and I've been sitting by myself all day recovering from trying to find tomato sauce for dinner and finding the apocalypse playing out at Safeway. My thoughts are dark.

    I guess it's just me, but I think that would require a pretty large-scale, multi-participant conspiracy, a thing that humans are historically pretty bad at sustaining for very long.

    And it would have to happen, now, in a leak-ridden political environment where plenty of journalists (and journalistic bottom-feeders besides) would be all too happy to find an break a well-documented version of that story . . . maybe even a poorly-documented one.

    If that political conspiracy is happening, it can't hold, IMO.

    There's already been reporting on it. And yes, it was reported that they decided not to test as a political hunch that warmer weather would kill it.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-reportedly-rejected-aggressive-coronavirus-121835790.html

    Anonymous sources, but I for one, wouldn't doubt this one bit.

    I never said certain people in the administration - maybe quite a few - wouldn't manipulate or lie. I said I thought a conspiracy to throttle testing would not hold, i.e., could not be sustained for long.

    And it didn't hold.

    Various entities started developing their own tests. Parts of the central bureaucracy, and bureaucrats/politicians in the states, pushed back. People leaked stuff. Etc.

    Large-scale conspiracies tend to fall apart, especially in relatively non-authoritarian, relatively open societies. When there are too many people involved, they have competing interests, opposing political views, motivations like jealousy/old grudges/revenge/financial benefit, and sometimes a few intended conspirators even turn out to have ethics. It's not that I think no one tries to conspire in nefarious ways; of course they do. Arrogance and hubris mean some startling things are attempted. Big conspiracies are just really hard to sustain.

    ETA: Not trying to pick on you here, Mike, even though I'm replying to your post. There have been a few posts replying to mine that seemed to me to be disagreeing with something I didn't think I said (didn't intend to say, anyway), or something tangent to my PP. I'm sure that's because I was unclear, so trying to clarify . . . which will probably make it worse. :lol::drinker:

    It sounded to me like you were saying that there was no way that testing was limited in the US on purpose for political gain, because it would require a wide ranging conspiracy that wouldn't be possible. I do disagree with that, because I don't think it would require much of a conspiracy.

    I totally agree that wide ranging conspiracies are damn near impossible to carry out and even more impossible to sustain for long even if you can get them started, because humans gonna human.

    This little version of the telephone game brought to you by the coronavirus :lol:


    I have been watching a few episodes of the Leftovers every time there is a free HBO preview weekend and I should be able to finish it this weekend. Not quite post apocalyptic but kinda sorta. Not sure I could watch Contagion or Pandemic right now, this is as close as I get :cold_sweat:

    To the bolded: Maybe the difference here is between attempting a conspiracy, and succeeding at one. (One can think of a conspiracy more as an event, or more as a process in a context. I'm talking process.)

    Would a limited number of people in the administration be able to make such a plan, attempt such a conspiracy? Sure.

    But in order for it to ultimately succeed, thousands of people would have to, at minimum, ignore events in the rest of the world and STFU, which isn't likely at all. Which thousands? Civil service types at CDC, opposing politicians, state/local government health officials, epidemiologists and infectious disease experts employed outside the government, researchers in related fields, health informatics people with access to world health data and news . . . and generally anyone with intelligence, knowledge of what's happened/happening in the rest of the world, access to information about the 1918 pandemic or even to information about smaller-scale more recent epidemics, etc. Plus, then, the journalists (or social media influencers, or whomever) that those people will start talking to.

    Under current circumstances, such a conspiracy is highly, highly unlikely to succeed for very long at all. Too many people have reasons not to STFU.
  • veganbaum
    veganbaum Posts: 1,865 Member
    edited March 2020
    MikePfirrman wrote: »
    On the bright side, Kroger just announced it's restricting number of things that people can buy to stop the hoarding and reselling of items like sanitizer and toilet paper.

    I don't know how effectively they are, or can, monitor that. I live in a town that is not that large. We have one "super" Smith's (Krogers). I saw those signs up about limiting, but the shelves are still wiped out to an alarming level. I would be surprised if the shelves could be like that given the population if the limiting was being enforced.

    Last night canned goods, other shelf-stable items, frozen vegetables - completely gone (even though select groceries are also supposed to be limited). I went around midday today and was able to purchase some things, so I'm hoping that, given our population, it will level out the next couple of weeks. But given that every time I've gone the shelves have been empty of hand sanitizer for several weeks, and toilet paper, bleach, and most paper towels for a week or so, I don't know who the heck is buying everything. I'm wondering if those who commute in are shopping there, because the stores in the city they're commuting from are so much worse. I commute in the other direction and usually shop at Trader Joe's. On Thursday, Trader Joe's was out of nearly every shelf stable item and frozen vegetables. I was only able to find some things at a small neighborhood store. I heard the larger chains were insane.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,023 Member
    rheddmobile wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    kimny72 wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    MikePfirrman wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    mph323 wrote: »
    Chinese billionaire Jack Ma is donating a million face masks and 500,000 coronavirus test kits to the US. I'm grateful for the support and hope that our government can work with people like him to tap into international sources for desperately needed medical supplies.

    https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/14/tech/jack-ma-face-masks-us-donation/index.html

    This is really out there and sounds like a bonkers conspiracy theory, but can anyone shoot down my thought that testing is being throttled not just for lack of resources but because the fewer people who get tested, the lower the number of confirmed cases and the better the numbers look politically?

    It's dark and rainy here, and I've been sitting by myself all day recovering from trying to find tomato sauce for dinner and finding the apocalypse playing out at Safeway. My thoughts are dark.

    I guess it's just me, but I think that would require a pretty large-scale, multi-participant conspiracy, a thing that humans are historically pretty bad at sustaining for very long.

    And it would have to happen, now, in a leak-ridden political environment where plenty of journalists (and journalistic bottom-feeders besides) would be all too happy to find an break a well-documented version of that story . . . maybe even a poorly-documented one.

    If that political conspiracy is happening, it can't hold, IMO.

    There's already been reporting on it. And yes, it was reported that they decided not to test as a political hunch that warmer weather would kill it.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-reportedly-rejected-aggressive-coronavirus-121835790.html

    Anonymous sources, but I for one, wouldn't doubt this one bit.

    I never said certain people in the administration - maybe quite a few - wouldn't manipulate or lie. I said I thought a conspiracy to throttle testing would not hold, i.e., could not be sustained for long.

    And it didn't hold.

    Various entities started developing their own tests. Parts of the central bureaucracy, and bureaucrats/politicians in the states, pushed back. People leaked stuff. Etc.

    Large-scale conspiracies tend to fall apart, especially in relatively non-authoritarian, relatively open societies. When there are too many people involved, they have competing interests, opposing political views, motivations like jealousy/old grudges/revenge/financial benefit, and sometimes a few intended conspirators even turn out to have ethics. It's not that I think no one tries to conspire in nefarious ways; of course they do. Arrogance and hubris mean some startling things are attempted. Big conspiracies are just really hard to sustain.

    ETA: Not trying to pick on you here, Mike, even though I'm replying to your post. There have been a few posts replying to mine that seemed to me to be disagreeing with something I didn't think I said (didn't intend to say, anyway), or something tangent to my PP. I'm sure that's because I was unclear, so trying to clarify . . . which will probably make it worse. :lol::drinker:

    It sounded to me like you were saying that there was no way that testing was limited in the US on purpose for political gain, because it would require a wide ranging conspiracy that wouldn't be possible. I do disagree with that, because I don't think it would require much of a conspiracy.

    I totally agree that wide ranging conspiracies are damn near impossible to carry out and even more impossible to sustain for long even if you can get them started, because humans gonna human.

    This little version of the telephone game brought to you by the coronavirus :lol:


    I have been watching a few episodes of the Leftovers every time there is a free HBO preview weekend and I should be able to finish it this weekend. Not quite post apocalyptic but kinda sorta. Not sure I could watch Contagion or Pandemic right now, this is as close as I get :cold_sweat:

    To the bolded: Maybe the difference here is between attempting a conspiracy, and succeeding at one. (One can think of a conspiracy more as an event, or more as a process in a context. I'm talking process.)

    Would a limited number of people in the administration be able to make such a plan, attempt such a conspiracy? Sure.

    But in order for it to ultimately succeed, thousands of people would have to, at minimum, ignore events in the rest of the world and STFU, which isn't likely at all. Which thousands? Civil service types at CDC, opposing politicians, state/local government health officials, epidemiologists and infectious disease experts employed outside the government, researchers in related fields, health informatics people with access to world health data and news . . . and generally anyone with intelligence, knowledge of what's happened/happening in the rest of the world, access to information about the 1918 pandemic or even to information about smaller-scale more recent epidemics, etc. Plus, then, the journalists (or social media influencers, or whomever) that those people will start talking to.

    Under current circumstances, such a conspiracy is highly, highly unlikely to succeed for very long at all. Too many people have reasons not to STFU.

    Yeah but, we’ve sort of already caught them. Congressmen are writing to demand to know why the WHO tests were turned down, and no answers are forthcoming. The decision was made by a single person with only a handful of peers and superiors. The only thing that isn’t known at this point is what the motivation was for not accepting the same tests other nations accepted and then conducting testing they could perfectly well have done. We know they blew off testing, we just don’t know why. Was it stupidity or malice? Those are pretty much the only two possibilities.

    Which is exactly where we started out in this sub-thread, I think: Someone asked:
    can anyone shoot down my thought that testing is being throttled not just for lack of resources but because the fewer people who get tested, the lower the number of confirmed cases and the better the numbers look politically

    To which I replied
    If that political conspiracy is happening, it can't hold, IMO.
    Meaning that it would break down.

    So, yes, in this specific case, if there was a conspiracy, it has broken down, and pretty quickly. Testing is happening, and accelerating, in this case.

    Will we learn the whys and wherefors? Will anyone come to account? I have no idea.

    There seemed to be structural reasons in the situation that would cause such a conspiracy to fail. I don't really see any similar structural reasons why investigation or consequences would or wouldn't be likely to follow, so who the heck knows.

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