And hows the self quarantine treating you?

@themutilator Aside from meat and bread, I just bought groceries and managed to get everything I needed (including… corn oil? One of two remaining bottles of vegetable oil of any kind. You might be on to something).

Things’re ok. People will figure out it’s not a TP-stealing hurricane soon enough.

@InnocuousFarmer @themutilator Well, I did a grocery run this morning. This is a local member-owned store in a tiny town far, far away from any known covid-19; and there have been tests in the area and all were negative. It was mostly normal except for slightly reduced hours for restocking and cleaning, and announcements to the staff to pause ops for a couple of minutes to sanitizes work areas.

Fresh fruits and veggies were well stocked as were most of the shelves of canned and frozen foods. There was a wide assortment of bottled waters - not that I buy them. I picked up a couple of extra boxes of facial tissue as my allergies are in full bloom. There was tissue, but no TP. None. Bare shelves. What the hell?

I think the TP shortages will last for a while because we are now in the mindset that TP on shelves = grab as much as you can before it is gone. People are just weird.

@themutilator Not just feeding themselves; if they have kids who usually eat school provided meals, they’re going to need food to feed the bratlets lunch (and possibly breakfast in some places, weird that that would be a new thing, parents are supposed to feed their kids breakfast before school…) at home for the duration.

@duodec “bratlets”…snort laugh

@duodec @lisaviolet i prefer “snot monsters”

@InnocuousFarmer @rockblossom @themutilator Life without toilet paper can be nasty and brutish.

The small chain grocery store near our house stocked toilet paper while I was there last night. It was about 90% gone again when I left (I bought one pack to use as courtesy gives to neighbors/coworkers if needed).

We are not quarantined yet. My wife was sent home from work today for 2 weeks but that’s because they’re going to shut down the office building, not due to symptoms or tests. Our office still wants us to come in but grudgingly allows work from home. Unfortunately we keep having customers with problems requiring dispatch, which sucks for those technicians. If only they used reliable systems instead of microsoft…

@duodec @rockblossom @themutilator Gotta use Microsoft. It’s the only way to show how serious business your business is. Professionalism is reassuring signals of officiousness. Better put some screenshots in some Word documents embedded in some PowerPoints in a random unfindable Teams channel or you’ll be at risk of accidentally being productive – very unprofessional.

I shouldn’t complain too much. I’m working from home, and at least I’m not forced to use Google products, I guess…

@duodec

@amehzinggrace @duodec @lisaviolet I like tricycle motors and curtain-climbers.

@elmari welcome to meh. Keep keeping safe!

@elmari You’re not really “elderly or old”, unless you choose to be.

From my [admittedly sometimes unique] point of view, you are just almost old enough to be my older sibling… as I have an older 1/2 brother [from my mom’s previous marriage], who is 16 years older than my [mostly very young] 60 y/o self.

@InnocuousFarmer The problem with that is I get on my nerves - I can be really annoying sometimes.

@lisaviolet “low on bacon”

That, in and of itself, is cause for panic.

@lisaviolet

I’m one of those people (unlike my husband) who likes to re-supply before we run out.

We’re the opposite; my wife likes half empty fridge, freezer, cupboards, etc and I like to know we have enough to survive with style for 3 months at least if our house gets domed. I drive her crazy on that topic…

@lisaviolet @zinimusprime we’re down to our LAST POUND of prime rib bacon from Costanza’s. They’re talking about possibly not opening as scheduled on the 25th!!! Forget hand sanitizer and TP…I need bacon!

@ybmuG @zinimusprime I’ve never cared for regular link sausage, I don’t like the way it squishes when I bite down on it, but I don’t mind the Jimmy Dean Precooked turkey sausages they carry at CostCo. And when they have a sale on them, we get a couple of boxes (since we freeze them).

So, we’ve got sausages!

@lisaviolet @zinimusprime we still also have one package of blueberry maple breakfast sausage left as well…mmmmmm

@widijaz Yeah, it’s kind of been a running joke around here that he has to physically push me to get me out of the house and off of the property.

We usually go walking in the morning, but we’ve had miserable weather here (drizzle/rain) for weeks now and the time change didn’t help. I even pulled some weeds when it wasn’t raining! Unheard of.

(Still too early to be this late.)

@widijaz Outside is a great place without people in it.

@InnocuousFarmer : I know! I want to go out and see how empty everything is.

@DennisG2014

It’s not the same when it’s not by choice.

So true

@DennisG2014 I know. I’m a homebody but I’m already bored.

Excuse the misplaced comma, which I only just noticed.
I’m not always even. Especially when I’m not.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@DennisG2014 That’s okay because a lot of us around here are mostly odd.

@DennisG2014 I live on acreage in a rural area. In normal circumstances, I often go whole weekends without leaving my property. So two days into self-quarantine, I’m settling in to working from home and skipping the (just under an hour each way) commute. Yesterday I took my dog for a walk during lunch break, enjoyed the quiet, spoke to a neighbor (from 50 foot distance) and only saw 4 vehicles in 45 minutes of ambling along the road (waved to all of them). Plus got a surprising amount of work done.

@macromeh Yeah, weather was nice here yesterday so I took a walk around my neighborhood.
Lots of people out, all maintaining a respectful distance, but most being friendly.
Made a point to say, “hi” to everyone I saw. A couple of people looked at me sideways but most people seemed to understand that now is a good time to actually acknowledge the existence of other people, instead of avoiding eye contact like usual.
(I live in MA, where it seems like it’s part of our culture to pretend strangers don’t exist.)

@DennisG2014 Hi, if we’re going to get that picky, then the “it’s”, should have been “its”…
Just sayin’

@DennisG2014 @macromeh Same.

If only I could telecommute…

The downside is that when I got home on 3 afternoons this week, I had to scoop a dead koi out of the pond.

One was about 10", the others were each about 18" to 24".

We always lose a few who either don’t have enough fat storage, or for some other reason don’t survive until the water warms up enough to let us feed them safely, but we always mourn them, because if all goes well, they can live for 25-35 years.

OTOH, it’s always a bright spot, and life-affirming moment the first time we see them swimming around after the ice all melts…

@PhysAssist That is sad. They must be smart for a fish since they live that long.

@PhysAssist Which “it’s”? I’m not seeing it.

@DennisG2014 @PhysAssist I think they meant the one with the apostrophe.

I looked back and didn’t find it either.

@DennisG2014

I’ll be fine. I always am, even when I’m not.

Same. And FTFY

@llangley Thank you. That is what I intended to write.

Take good care of yourself and hang in there!

@Kidsandliz That doesn’t work for cats.

@cranky1950 Wouldn’t work with my cats either. Wait! I have a solution!! Put out boxes (/snicker).

@Cerridwyn

Solidarity- I started at my new job yesterday in an alternative primary care setting, [with some hospital/infirmary rounding, and ER/Urgent care coverage].

Today they sent dental, PT, and OT home as non-essential personnel, but then they were going to transfer in some new people from all over the state, in trade for some existing patients, until we intervened trying to be the voices of reason and using a modicum of applied epidemiology.

We APPs [advanced practice practitioners] work M-F days, which was what in previous incidents distinguished select job categories to be designated as “non-essential” personnel, so we’re waiting with bated breath to see if we are going to be the next to go home…

@PhysAssist
Yeah we actually have physicians themselves who have no work schedule, Especially general surgery and Anesthesia

@Cerridwyn @PhysAssist That would be nuts sending home primary care personnel like PA’a and NP’s, etc… But then again your corporate doesn’t seem to be utilizing medical input when making decisions. Sheesh in what universe would it make sense to mix people from all over the state together in a medical setting? I hope someone in corporate has some common sense knocked into their head.

@Cerridwyn @Kidsandliz Of course it’s nuts, but also consider what happens when one of us gets exposed- we’d all end up being in quarantine because we work together so closely, and with the influx from downstate NY, it’s kind of a when, not if, situation.
As to “corporate”, I’ve been reticent to mention that the clinical environment is in a very famous state penitentiary in rural upstate New York- so “corporate” is the NY state prison administration.

@Kidsandliz @PhysAssist
Also some, more physicians I think, than NPP’s (who are mostly generalists), are seriously specialists. While some newish ones could function in a basic care clinic, an older surgeon or anesthesiologist, might not have a real clue how to handle a patient with a mild exacerbation of heart failure.
My colleagues husband is an anesthesiologist specialized in pain management. So if you have pain, he’s got you covered, if you have swollen feet, maybe not so much.

And ugh PhysAssist.
my heart goes out to you

@Cerridwyn @Kidsandliz

But our docs can pretty much handle the load by telemedicine [given the nurses are able to continue to physically come in], while [at least as the clinic policies are currently written], while the NPPs or APPs have to be in the building to do anything.

What was most agonizing to me was trying to decide whether to take the 3/16/20 start date, or request more time to see how things settled out, while remaining safe at home. I knew I had to return to work eventually, because I don’t have enough in my 401K’s/403B’s to survive retirement yet, but the when could have been postponed to somewhat later in the year. I guess it came down to taking the start date while they still wanted me there to work.

…and by all accounts it is [or will eventually return to being] a pretty decent place to provide patient care while putting money away for your eventual retirement date.

Thanks! Stay safe and well!
PA

@PhysAssist Ahhh… now it is all beginning to make sense. Well let’s hope the jail fills up thus your captive audience is only exposed to staff. And that the staff practice safe practices outside of the jail setting. Work might even then become close to safe.

A nurse at the hospital literally across the street from me (the teaching one) is pos for it. Who knows how many people were exposed at the hospital (or outside of it) because of that. They are sending home the 5 staff who worked with her. Being contagious before you have symptoms or if you never have them certainly is going to slow down the containment. EDIT: Oops just announced on the news that a dental student tested positive too.

@Cerridwyn @PhysAssist Riding bow in the same boat here. I had mentioned today at work that it’s not a matter of ‘if’ but a matter of ‘when.’ I have no doubt those of us in healthcare will be exposed to it at some point. Though I can hope that our strengthened immune systems due to our environments are enough to ward off any major symptoms. Good luck and stay healthy friends.

@PhysAssist Well there is now a case in one of our jails as of today. Hope yours remains clear.

@cinoclav @PhysAssist
Personally
I would really from a had-a-degree-in-biology-before-I-became-a-nurse point of view like to know the volume of asymptomatic infections in the community. My feeling is that it is huge.

But exposed, sure most of us have been. I work in home health and the staff goes all sorts of places.

And I worry for those who need care but are afraid to get it.

@Cerridwyn I’d guess there is a lot. My mom’s assisted living apparently doesn’t believe that. One of the people dealing with her multiple times a day just came back from Mexico (vacation) 2 days ago and because she has no temperature they are letting her work. They aren’t testing her, nothing. Sigh.

@Kidsandliz Right to all of what you said…

They finally decided to keep everyone in place, shut off all non-urgent trips anywhere, visitations have been cancelled since 3/14/20.

Oh, and BTW- Happy Spring everyone!!

/giphy spring has sprung

@Cerridwyn @cinoclav The best information I could find was that there’s about an 80% rate of mild to asymptomatic infection.
I worry that with the numbers of people involved, the chance for mutation might become elevated, so what if it evolves either to a more virulent or a more contagious form.

@Cerridwyn @Kidsandliz I just watched another infogram on Corona-virus, and the infectious dz MD re-emphasized that you don’t have to have a fever to have Covid-19, and just because you have a fever, doesn’t mean you have it either…

@Kidsandliz Thanks, so far so good- as we haven’t even had a confirmed case of influenza in our “joint” yet.

It’s got [in round #'s] approximately 2200 inmates at present.

…and you’re right, if we [the staff] can only stay safely unexposed/uninfected, they will remain protected and isolated…

One of our [part-time] MD’s is out on quarantine, because his daughter visited him over the w/e and then tested +.

@Cerridwyn @cinoclav @PhysAssist It wouldn’t just be mutation around how lethal or contagious, it would also likely include how long you are contagious before you show symptoms (so that, I guess is one version, but not the only version, of more contagious). If it mutated to more lethal likely it would die out sooner unless there was a mutation for longer pre-illness contagious period (and then there’d also be fewer folks with the virus but no or very mild symptoms I’d guess). That they think there are already 2 strains that is a pretty quick mutation period. From what I read (which may be outdated or outright wrong at this point) they were thinking that the second strain, thus the mutation, is the one responsible for being sick with few or no symptoms. Of course if the tests (outside of a research lab) don’t check for that we’d not know for sure.

@Cerridwyn @cinoclav @Kidsandliz You’re of course correct, but if it kept a long latency, and also developed increased infectiousness and/or lethality, say on the scale of bubonic plague or the most recent ebola [but airborne or droplet spread], it would be legitimately be more scary and dangerous.
As you mentioned with the possible drift to 2 strains already occurring by some reports, I don’t really like to think about it too much…

@Kidsandliz
well… no matter what el presidente says
there are more kits than there were but
you still have a limit on how many you can run a day, and that is often much less than available kits. this is people and reagents.
when kits were in short supply we got results in less than 24 hours, it’s taking in some cases 3-5 days now

@Kidsandliz @PhysAssist
Number who are asymptomatic is gonna be huge along with those who had an immune response but never really got infected.
read a fascinating article about the influenza pandemic in 1918 about communities that never had a single case (some people were tested for antigens 50+ years later and were definitely negative as in never developed an immune response and were not sick) while the town next door was devastated. in some cases when the towns even had a lot of interaction.
this is likely to be similar in some respects - there will be those who are exposed frequently but never get it and even 21st century medicine really does not know why.

one estimate is that 50% of the people on Earth will ‘get it’ either symptomatic or asymptomatic. my bet is much more of the latter and i hope i am right. either way, the economic devastation will linger much longer than the disease.

Update: Basically everything has to be individually wrapped including loose fruit, employees have to get food out of the warmers for customers (the fronts of the warmers are taped shut), and soft-serve ice cream is no longer available for the duration.

@msklzannie Aaaaaack! NO SOFT SERVE ICE CREAM!

@luvche21 What industry? Do you care to share?

@therealjrn I’m a librarian, but I’m not public facing. Maybe it’s just my library and its politics. I went in at 6 tonight to get some more work to do and all these people were still there and stopped by wanting to talk. This defeats the purpose of staying away…

@luvche21

"Oh hi, I guess you’ve been working from home. How is that? Are you enjoying that? Did you see the have salted caramel cuppa in the break room?

They may not know how to do it. A little late in the curve for an in-service.

@therealjrn many of them are set up to do it, but maybe are still deny how serious this is.

@luvche21 I have a still-working 78 year old friend who is much the same way. If they didn’t close down his office he would still be there, giving out nice big bear hugs.

@luvche21 Does your library have robots that you can operate remotely to push the book cart around and put the books back on the shelves?

That would be dope.

@medz That would be dope, but no luck. We’re not hip enough I guess. Also my coworkers would probably still come in to work even if that was the case.

@luvche21
/youtube robot shawn mediocre

@duodec
San Fran did it.

@Cerridwyn News is just now saying the kali governor just made it statewide. Just a newsblip so I don’t know what ‘essential’ businesses can stay open and who has to close or if its going to be XX% of employees need to stay home or what.

I expect illannoy to do the same before next Monday, but I’m set to start working from home then. Would have been tomorrow but two people had emergencies today (not corona related) and will be out tomorrow so there’s only going to be two of us in the office.

Question will be if enough of our customers will be able to be open and working that we would have anything to do once such an order comes down; only a few of the customer businesses are obviously critical.

@duodec
yeah, my phone is blowing up with staff.
patients don’t go away just cause the gov wants them too.

@Cerridwyn I don’t know about that… You must live in the wrong city. We are being turned away here. And we only have 6 cases in this county, 3 in this city (probably more now), about 35 (again likely more now) in the state where the first one died today or yesterday but not here. None in the hospital. The local university hospital is cancelling all apts (did that yesterday) and told us we can’t have any unless we might have the flu or it is an emergency (I presume they are allowing folks to continue dialysis, chemo, etc. - at least I hope so). Yesterday they cancelled all of mine, including one I have waited 6.5 months for, including one for a biopsy.

@Kidsandliz
Offices are cancelling yes. or moving to video/online appts whenever possible
We do home health and take care of patients on intravenous fluids, who have wounds, who can’t take their meds without someone filling a med box (veterans in that case mostly, lots of PTSD)
we have even gone into the home after a video apt to remove surgical sutures/staples - they can’t just stay there.

@stolicat
ours too
the locals did it first which got them lots of plus marks. many of the regional/nationals followed

fresh foods too - potatoes, eggs, bread, onions. places are limiting people to 1 onion

oh, expect produce shortages related to this but not because of panic because there will be no one to pick the crops. the legal migrant labor is being kept out and too many people no matter how hungry they are or without employment won’t pick crops

@Cerridwyn @stolicat seriously? no matter how hungry or without employment? wtf is wrong with people? I don’t want to direct bad karma onto myself but quite frankly with that mindset…the world doesn’t need you…god forbid you do a little work…on the other hand if the people are trying to pay you practically nothing…then yeah…no one should be taken advantage of…which is worse…paying a fair wage to get crops harvested that would otherwise rot or losing the crops because your used to paying pennies on the dollar…this could be a whole separate rant…we’re past normal…and we may never go back to the old normal…adjust to the new normal people…and try to be better individuals overall…

@amehzinggrace @Cerridwyn California Farm Bureaus are all over the Trump admin about closing the Mexican border as the early harvests are starting up and they need their workers.

@llangley
welcome to my world

only grace i have is i can go to work
as long as i am sure i have my work id on me