792 replies to this topic

[Kitkat16]

So on wednesday New Zealand will go into "essential services only" lockdown... and my work is trying to scrape in as essential services...... as a union delegate i have had to try to calm all my members about what is happening

 

You're a union delegate living in Auckland? Ha. I wonder if I might know you. If you don't mind, what's your first name irl? (Not your surname, I wouldn't ask you for that.)

[joe44]

Spoiler

https://www.liveleak.com/view?t=aRrlP_1584902110

Edited by joe44, 24 March 2020 - 09:04 PM.

[Lambaso]

Not sure if I mentioned before that I work at Whole Foods (assistant seafood manager) past two weeks has been fucking insane. Yesterday and today has been a lot slower but good god, stop freaking the fuck out. And those that do grocery shopping, know what the fuck to order and if there’s one or two people behind the counter, don’t be fucking picky or be extra. There’s 4 other people waiting be considerate. And those that are like I don’t know what are the sales, look online.

[Blade 619]

 

I am also well aware my own personal risk is likely higher due to working in a high risk area

Please do not let this get into you Sir.

I admire your work, and those that need your help... but I like you more, and I would miss you greatly. 

 

 

Likewise!

 

 

 

A little perspective. As I said, I'm not terribly worried about the virus itself, but rather the devastating effects all the safety have on the economy

 

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/history-of-pandemics-deadliest/

 

I've seen people younger and fitter than me experiencing significant pulmonary haemorrhage and myocarditis from this. There's a good chance neither will come of the ventilator. They are both young than you are too. This virus is going to give them a miserable death.

 

I am also well aware my own personal risk is likely higher due to working in a high risk area and disease severity correlating with initial viral load.

 

Well, I am not trying to trivialize the disease, and yes, it CAN be dangerous. But then you have to wonder whether sending the world economy into lockdown, with potentially hundreds of millions of people losing their jobs worldwide and a tsunami of bankruptcy of entire economic sectors is worth it. The problem with flattening the curve is that you have to enforce the emergency measures for a long, long, LONG time, and once you uplift them, the disease might just return like you hadn't even done anything. If we're just delaying the inevitable, then why do it?

 

 

The global economic meltdown is unfortunate. Though if the whole world followed the part of Italy we'd be looking at around 219 million dead, which would potentially cause significant economic impact by itself. It's all about where you are right? If you're unwell with it and struggling to breath you're gonna say fuck the money keep me alive... if you're asymptomatic you'll be more concerned about the money. 

[HackSlash]

Time for another update from the Great White North.

 

@Lambaso, I feel your pain.  I'm on the other end.  I laugh my guts out when I have to go to the store to pick up a few odds and ends.  Nothing left on the shelves.  Jesus, I went to Wal-Mart yesterday to pick up a few things.  There was nothing on the shelves.  Stupid panic buyers.

 

Yesterday, we had an interesting turn of events.  The House was set to vote on a $82 billion stimulus package.  Unanimous consent was expected, until the Opposition saw the clause that was added.

The clause would have given the Trudeau government the ability to "tax and spend, without Parliamentary oversight until December 2021"

Seriously, what kind of low down POS do you have to be to try and subvert the will of Parliament and take advantage of a public health emergency to further your own agenda? I mean, that dolt managed to unite two diametrically opposed parties against him.

That clause was finally removed, and the House passed the bill.  It received Royal Assent earlier today.

[ccabal86]

 

 

 

Seriously, what kind of low down POS do you have to be to try and subvert the will of Parliament and take advantage of a public health emergency to further your own agenda?

This kind of low down POS:

https://index.hu/english/2020/03/24/hungary_coronavirus_bill_viktor_orban_fidesz_sweeping_powers_indefinite_term/

[HackSlash]

@ccabal:  Thanks for sharing.  Given the current state of affairs, my primary source of information (CBC), has been focused on what is going on here. 

It's unfortunate, but not unexpected.   That national leaders with despotic tendencies will attempt to take advantage of this emergency to solidify their rule.  Let's be honest, fear is a great motivator.

 

On a side note, I've had to go into work a for a few days over this week.  End of year purchasing, lots of things to update.   I was supposed to go back to work on 6 April.  That might not be the case.  On 23 Mar, the CDS activated Stage 3 of Op Laser, we are standing by to lend assist to civil authorities.  Needless to say I have my kit packed and am ready to go.  

If I'm not called out, it's looking like May before I'll go back to the CQ.

[ccabal86]

Not much is happening here. We’ve transitioned to online operations, which are going OK. It’s a good thing that I was pushing HARD for the modernization of our IT infrastructure, in the previous years, otherwise we’d be royally screwed now.

We’re playing the waiting game. I go to the store every Monday to buy a reasonable amount of groceries, and otherwise we’re staying home.

[onbekende]

I am on the side of "screw the economy" on this one. Probably helps that our government has used their $$-bazooka primarly for extending or temporarly suspending various common household or commercial expenditures. Namely alot of taxes will be due several months later, people with mortgage can suspend payments for several months. Lots of "technical jobless" statues being granted, alot of direct money to business owners. Those "socialist" things you know

 

You know, not just dumbing all their $$ into the banking world and be done with it (sure they did that aswell, just not with the bulk of the cash). Know whats even better? Banks will need to shoulder roughly 3x the losses incurred due to these shut-down guidelines, they can do this cause they had to buffer large amounts of money after the 2008 debacle and are now told to dip into that. Cause you know, thats kinda why it was established in the first place...

[joe44]

any positive cases in IRON?

[ccabal86]

any positive cases in IRON?

I have a sneaking suspicion my wife any I MAY have gone through it an one point sometime between December and today with fairly mild symptoms. We can't be sure, I guess we'll never know.

[Lysistrata]

They created a machine that can verify if you have the virus in 5 minutes. These all start on Monday, so I would expect a drastic increase with those infected, and a drastic decline in death rate. I know no one that has had this. All my people in Las Vegas, California, and Washington, are in the clear so far. I would not be surprised to find out that many have already had it, or that many are already immune. There is no turning back on the course we are on, but I firmly believe that most of this is complete over-reaction, and scare tactics, from those best positioned to profit by money, politics, or both.

 

The US Government is now obligated to pay our citizens for not working... which is complete bizarro-world. So this is where actually being an American Citizen will pay off for you. If you're one of our 20+ million wall hoppers, I guess you'll be hopping back over soon, because no one can pay you for anything right now. We're actually going to make more money with my wife not working than we did before. Strange. The problem is... we can't do anything except work on my daughters new house and watch Netflix. This will get real boring, real quick.

 

I don't believe this will be over by Easter, or in 20 more days, or even 3 more months. I don't believe anything can really be done about it short of a vaccine, and they say we're a year away from that. The most effective drugs against Corona are actually being banned by some Democrat Governors "because we can't use it all on Corona and leave all these people that have Malaria with nothing"... well I'll leave that up to all of you to figure that one out.

[DeathMerchant]

I'd like to give a little update as to my situation. New York state has around 53K cases, although the majority of those are confined to the New York City area. I'm in Upstate New York and my County is under 100 cases, but its been creeping up about 5-8 a day. New York State shut down most jobs and sent everyone home from work. Only Essential jobs (grocery stores, gas stations, pharmacies, and some other random businesses) are allowed to stay open. Because my job is in Food Distribution Warehousing I am still allowed to go to work every day, so I am very fortunate about that. My state has implemented an unofficial curfew at 8PM and my job gave me a signed letter stating I am an Essential Employee. Not that traffic enforcement really exists anymore (I'll get to that in a moment), but its proof in the event I am pulled over by police. Some of my friends and family are able to work from home but the majority of NY Residents are on unpaid leave or were terminated therefore allowing them to qualify for Unemployment benefits.

We had a Confirmed Case at my job. Someone who is relatively new to our Company, called out for 3 days straight, and then showed up to work on their 4th scheduled day. He was there for about 15 minutes and the Supervisors quickly realized something was clearly wrong with the him. So he got sent to the Hospital and the CDC(or whatever agency was responsible for the notification process) called up my job stating its confirmed your employee has COVID-19. My job retraced his steps through our Cameras, scrubbed everything down and quarantined 3 other employees he was in contact with during his 15 minutes at work. Thankfully this wasn't the department I work in, but I do walk though that department everyday to get to my work area. So its people being careless/selfish that endanger everyone else.

The only good thing to come from all of this is that my Company's business has doubled and on some days has tripled. They gave everyone a temporary raise along with a small care package as a way of saying thank you. We've had people working 14 hour days and opportunities for lots of overtime, but its finally starting to normalize. The main reason is that our stores are placing item limits (no more than 2 of the same item) on customers. Which has allowed the distribution center to finally catch up with the insane demand that has gone on for 2 and a half weeks. I tell people, its like preparing for a holiday that never comes.

I've stopped going to stores as I was partially stockpiled prior to all this happening. And I do all my banking online. I've been a couple times but that was mostly to top off or get certain items I was unable to purchase before. Lot of stores shelves are bare and it reminds me of pictures of Venezuela. I got plenty of masks/respirators and am prepared to ride it out for however long it takes. There is talk this will all be over when the warmer weather hits in a month or two but even if that does happen, this Virus will likely come back in October or November. I told my wife 2 weeks ago that this will likely become the 'new normal'. Life has been drastically changed and we are in full agreement it is necessary to take full precautions. I'm personally not so concerned with the getting sick part, but what frightens me is the possible long term respiratory damage. I am in good physical health and would very much like to stay that way.

One thing that is interesting is our Local Police have largely stopped enforcing traffic laws. I frequently listen to our local police radio and its to the point where they rarely pull cars over. No sense in writing a ticket if it means risking unnecessary contact and the Courts are shutdown with some minor exceptions. Theft is also rising at local stores as Store Security is avoiding getting close to people. Walmart stopped checking people's Receipts at the door and they rarely call the Police to prosecute theft.

Little worried about what is going to happen on April 1st, when Food Stamps reset for low income residents. 10 years ago I was a Cashier at Walmart and it was eye opening the clientele behavior I had the opportunity to observe. EBT users typically do their shopping only once a month, usually on the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd. And from my experience over the years they aren't the nicest of people when everything in society is going good. Let alone when they will have very little food choices to pick from and stores have implemented Item limits. The sense of entitlement I've witnessed before is shocking and they can become quite rude when their is a problem with their order or their EBT Card doesn't work. I've seen it before where someone's Credit Card or Debit Card doesn't work for whatever reason and they tend to remain calm. Occasionally you get an irate customer when an item rings up higher than the sticker price but most just get annoyed and it once its fixed they get over it. EBT users, whole nother world. Must be a class mentality thing and lack of their parents teaching proper social etiquette. Society is already being strained and the Police's lack of enforcing Traffic and Theft laws will breed more criminal behavior once the rest of society catches on the Police aren't doing much.

 

Stay safe out there folks. Its not so much the Virus that worries me, its all the nutjobs and sheeple who woke up and came to the realization its too late to adequately prepare.

[Lysistrata]

Thanks for the update from Upstate New York DM. If there is one person around here that is prepared for something like this, I knew it would be you. Your Conflicted Card Game has become a little too real for my liking. Stay healthy my friend.

[DeathMerchant]

Your Conflicted Card Game has become a little too real for my liking. Stay healthy my friend.

I've come to realize how eerily accurate some of the cards are. Even if the Scenario/Event is different then what we are experiencing today, the process you would go though to achieve the desired outcome still applies.

 

I hope you stay healthy as well. Its good that Nevada is under 1K cases with only a handful of deaths. I pray it stays that way!

[iSocialism]

 

Stay safe out there folks. Its not so much the Virus that worries me, its all the nutjobs and sheeple who woke up and came to the realization its too late to adequately prepare.

or don't understand how to prepare, does someone really need two years worth of TP for a respiratory illness or 60 pounds of potatoes? As for the EBT thing, its not really that they only shop once a month, but that they spend all of their EBT credits at once, and don't have left for the rest of the month

[ccabal86]

Thanks for that info DM, stay safe and healthy out there!

This is a well observed phenomenon with people livng in poverty, they don’t usually spend, because they have no money, and when they get their social benefits they immediately overspend. It’s a lack fof basic financial understanding, that is widespread.

[onbekende]

They created a machine that can verify if you have the virus in 5 minutes.

Sounds like an antibody test, thou I think thats still a tad to soon to be properly organized and tested.

 

But it will be key to "releasing" the population from quaranteen, as current indications show that a person becomes immune (unsure how long, which offcourse is hard to test now ) to the virus and luckely it isn't like HIV that you are a persistant carrier.

 

 

anyway, it seems that Belgium is at roughly 50% of IC beds occupied by corona victims, hope the peak is soon.

[Lysistrata]

Sounds like an antibody test, thou I think thats still a tad to soon to be properly organized and tested.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/03/28/coronavirus-fda-authorizes-abbott-labs-fast-portable-covid-test/2932766001/

FDA approved and premiers at a theatre near you on Monday.

[DeathMerchant]

or don't understand how to prepare, does someone really need two years worth of TP for a respiratory illness or 60 pounds of potatoes? As for the EBT thing, its not really that they only shop once a month, but that they spend all of their EBT credits at once, and don't have left for the rest of the month

Tons of bottled water is another one. Utilities like Electricity and Water will still remain on.

My wife told me about a YouTube video she watched where someone ran a prank in a grocery store. This guy and his friends run into an aisle packed with panicked shoppers. The guy yells to his friends "grab all the Canola Oil!" And they start filling the cart with massive amounts of Canola. The other shoppers see what he is doing and some of them started grabbing Canola Oil too! Even thought they have no idea how it will help them survive, the herd mentality kicked in and created the drive to not miss out. Because if other people are buying tons of it, somehow it must be a valuable commodity so I need it too! I'll have to see if I can find that video.