On Corona

[Admin]

Please read our Guidelines. Included in the posts/threads we do not allow on our forums are "• Religious, political, and other “prone to huge arguments” threads". Suggesting that potentially millions of people should die and directly quoting from political sources falls within that.

This is a forum focused on discussing a video game and while we want people to feel comfortable talking about other aspects of their lives here, and the COVID-19 virus is a major part of most of our lives right now, we don't want to open that up to divisive discussions that go well beyond the suitability and scope of this forum. There are forums dedicated to politics where this can be discussed with more nuance, depth and information.

[Guest kristaok]

On 3/20/2020 at 10:30 AM, micah6vs8 said:

 

I thought this sounded so beautiful, but sad... very poetic.

Edited March 25, 2020 by kristaok

[Guest jeffpeng]

@JimmyHang in there buddy. And yeah, I hope they will be okay, too.

I must admit since my last post things don't look up. We in Europe caught this earlier than you folks over the pond, but at least Germany seems to ease into a "controlled disaster" rather than uncontrollable chaos. Other countries fared even better, but with Spain and especially Italy we've got neighbors that took a devastating blow, and the damage is something nobody dares to even estimate right now, both to the people and the economy. We're not the United States of Europe, but I hope we Europeans will help each other pick up the pieces, eventually. We just have to. But things in North America seem dire as well, maybe even more so, and I can't help but catch myself uttering a silent prayer every once in a while when I bring myself to read the international news. I really do hope each and every one of you, and your families, too, will get through this unscaved. 

And there really isn't much more anyone can say right now other than wishing everyone the best. I'm still confident we as a people will get through this, and I stand by my statement that "we" in our collective histories have faced far worse, but I guess I can say with the same confidence that most of us here on the forums haven't seen anything this severe in their lifetime. And you don't get to say such things very often.

So, yeah, hang in there, everyone. Take care, of yourself, your significant others and your neighbors. May whatever spiritual entity you believe or don't believe in keep you sheltered.

 

[Jimmy]

2 hours ago, jeffpeng said:

So, yeah, hang in there, everyone. Take care, of yourself, your significant others and your neighbors. May whatever spiritual entity you believe or don't believe in keep you sheltered.

Thank you. As a devout skeptic in the non-existence of the flying spaghetti monster, I praise my Schrödinger's deity's social distancing technique. R'amen.

Here's a good layman's explanation of the reason COVID-19 is so dangerous.

Still pretty slow over here in kangaroo land. It's a bad time to be asthmatic, since most relievers are gone. Forget about finding face masks, hand sanitizer or gloves too. I'm not holding out too much hope for the salbutamol to return to supply. Last time I toured the facility that manufactures the local brand, their machines broke down three times in the five hours I was there, and that was just a normal workload.

Since then, I know they've actually had several batches of medications from that place recalled because they found 'contaminants' in their product. It was parts of their aging machines that had snapped off and been ground into their drug products. Their equipment is old, worn out and only just able to meet normal demand. Forget about trying to ramp up supply. When you have a government that's been aggressively seeking lower drug costs by cutting supplier margins for decades, you get what you pay for.

[Guest jeffpeng]

9 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Thank you. As a devout skeptic in the non-existence of the flying spaghetti monster, I praise my Schrödinger's deity's social distancing technique. R'amen.

I'm with you there. 😉 Although my cat is getting constantly more annoyed since I started checking if he's alive in his box more often than usual. Also: I confess I stockpiled even more R'amen than usual.  (It's kinda my personal religion, I guess). 

9 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Still pretty slow over here in kangaroo land. It's a bad time to be asthmatic, since most relievers are gone. Forget about finding face masks, hand sanitizer or gloves too. I'm not holding out too much hope for the salbutamol to return to supply. Last time I toured the facility that manufactures the local brand, their machines broke down three times in the five hours I was there, and that was just a normal workload.

Since then, I know they've actually had several batches of medications from that place recalled because they found 'contaminants' in their product. It was parts of their aging machines that had snapped off and been ground into their drug products. Their equipment is old, worn out and only just able to meet normal demand. Forget about trying to ramp up supply. When you have a government that's been aggressively seeking lower drug costs by cutting supplier margins for decades, you get what you pay for.

As far as I understand it's that what's costing Italy hard these days. Since Leeman, which hit them pretty hard already roughly 10 years ago, they scaled back their medical facilities and supply capacities to somewhat 40% of what they had before as part of the national effort to stay within European financial guidelines. And that's a rather dangerous game. I recently had a conversation where I compared it to a cruise ship that is cutting costs by reducing the life boats and stops maintaining life vests. You don't actually notice it that much until you start sinking, but then it becomes dire real quick.

I sincerely hope that we will come out of this wiser than we went into it, but hope goes only so far, and I'm rather certain that once the worst is behind us, the people from accounting will start taking the reigns again, and with the economic damage already done possibly even start making the same mistakes again, but in overdrive.

And yeah, that "Kurzgesagt" Video really pinpoints it very well. Those people make great videos in general.

[exeexe]

There is no shortage here. Everything is as in the old days except empty streets and all events are cancelled. The only thing to worry about is if you get fired. Personally im good i can work from home so all is fine for me

Last Tuesday i was working on work laptop while watching Afreeca Starleague Season 9 from my PC, had an awesome time here in my sweet home

https://liquipedia.net/starcraft/2020_Afreeca_Starleague_Season_9

I even got the corona for 2 hours i suspect. I had the burning feeling in my lungs but no fever and then it disappeared again. Its funny to think they would shut the whole society down because of that, but what do i know. Like for most people just get the virus deal with it and get over with it.

I wonder what they would have done if the virus was more deadly, say 20% of infected people died

Edited March 27, 2020 by exeexe

[Ice Hole]

Currently in my area there is a shortage of flour and yeast.  Guess everyone else is also making bread.

Yesterday I tried to make a loaf of bread.

What turned out was cheeky buns.

[Guest kristaok]

We're still in isolation here, no sickness yet. 

[Hilayla]

53 minutes ago, Ice Hole said:

Currently in my area there is a shortage of flour and yeast.  Guess everyone else is also making bread.

Yesterday I tried to make a loaf of bread.

What turned out was cheeky buns.

It is possible to catch wild yeast by mixing a little flour and water/milk with something sweet (fruit or sugar, even a grape stem) and leaving it outdoors. I'm guessing this might vary by area but it works where I live. I use it as a science experiment sometimes when I babysit my friends kids.

Edited March 27, 2020 by Hilayla

[Guest jeffpeng]

4 hours ago, Ice Hole said:

Currently in my area there is a shortage of flour and yeast.  Guess everyone else is also making bread.

I tried to get hold of a pack of flour for pancakes. I was promised one for tomorrow morning, under the counter. It's not like there is a general food shortage, at least here, just a stupidly excessive demand in things people think they will excessively need. If you can work around a few things (like sunflower oil, which is also basically out of stock permanently) you're fine. You just don't get to buy everything you want every day. But usually the day after. Btw I'm predicting toilet paper to be the no. 1 shelf warmer whenever this is over.

For anyone interested: I'm living in a small rural town near Hannover (Lower Saxony), hardly ten thousand souls. We've had our first three confirmed cases this week, a dozen or so in actual isolation. The people living here are in good spirits up front, but you can see it seep into them with every day passing, as everyone is more and more realising that this really is happening, even those that called hoax on this, even those that were adamant that this is just like the flu. The most worrying part, in my opinion, is that you just don't get to see a doctor here anymore, even if you actually need one.

Edited March 27, 2020 by jeffpeng

[Guest kristaok]

@jeffpeng With all the food in the world I don't see how it's just all gone... shelves are bare, yet again this world is full of food.  It makes me think about all the food that was wasted, and now at a time like this it's needed.

[Guest jeffpeng]

@kristaokWhat makes me shiver is the amount of food that will go to waste. People are buying flour by the dozen, but have no idea how to store it long term. I've seen a dude packing 120 liters, that's like 30 gallons, of milk. Unless he's like a serious milk addict half of that will turn sour before he gets to it, even if it's that milk that keeps for like 4 months. Bread, there is literally no bread on the shelves. Not a big deal for me, I've been baking bred every other day for years back in uni (yeast for some reason is no problem here). But I can just imagine how much of that will turn green and blue before they eat it. Meat, people buy tons of meat, and I can only expect people putting it into cold storage, and we all know how that turns out eventually. Again, not a big deal for me being a vegetarian, but man.

There are things you can just buy and forget about, and they are still good when you find them a year later. Lentils, rice, noddles, jelly, peanut butter, canned stuff in general ... keeps forever. Nuts will keep as well, if they are sealed and dry. I don't feel bad for "oversupplying" with that for now, because, except maybe noodles .... those things really aren't in great demand, so I'm not depriving anyone of stuff they need. If anything The Long Dark has told me to keep track of what I have and when it goes bad so I can eat it before that happens.  But I'm not sure my neighbors are as adept with that. 

Another subsequently emerging crisis this brought along here: There are welfare organisiations giving out food here. They usually give out what surplus the supermarkets have. I'm sure there are similar things at your places, too. Well .... right now there isn't much if any surplus. So those organisations have closed shop not just because of curfews, but because they don't get anything they could give away. So a lot of people that live on welfare here, many of which to some degree are dependent on those food giveaways ..... are quite screwed, if you excuse my French, and there is no plan to compensate for that. Although it has to be stated that German welfare is very generous compared to what, for example, most states in the US offer, so I can only assume that what's a problem here is much exaggerated elsewhere.

[Guest kristaok]

@jeffpeng Yea we been definitely mostly storing canned goods here and mre's, stuff that will actually last a good while. We did buy some milk, but we froze it - which should help it live a tad longer. But you're right there's sadly going to be lots more food wasted.  

[Guest jeffpeng]

@Dum_GenIt takes a bit to get a hang of it, but that's actually very good advice. Thinking of it .... I should get my own jar going again. Every bit of selfsustainablity might turn out valuable. Plus "Sourdough" bread is actually pretty tasty.

Throw in some seeds, almost whatever you've got on hand will work: rye, spelt, sunflower, especially pumpkin .... and you've got a healthy, whole bread that has a taste of it's own. I've even used stuff like raw carrot slices, walnuts, macadamias and almonds, and if you've got a sweet tooth even raisins will work. The good thing about whole bread .... it's like a whole meal. By throwing in seeds or nuts you get a good amount of fibers, protein and fats, opposed to basically just carbohydrates as in white bread. So it's actually not just tasty, it also has much better nutritional value.

Damn, I could go on about that stuff forever. Sorry. ^^ 

Also, if you feel the need to MacGyver together a cold, very mildy (<2%) alcoholic beverage to refresh yourself in isolation, I recommend to give this a watch: 

And yeah, it works like that  It's actually surprsingly platable and lifts the spirit. Not sure if it's legal in the US or Canada, but since it isn't distilled .... I guess it should be fine. But don't take my word for it and look up your local regulations concerning homebrewing alcoholic beverages.

[manolitode]

Hey folks, hope you're holding up well. I haven't had much time for TLD lately as life is TLDish enough. Everything is on pause or distance mode here in my part of central Europe so I decided to take my family to the countryside. I've located lots of firewood so I make fires, it saves a little on the electricity bill and it feels good to provide my loved ones warmth. We have what we need and every activity that's been paused we tried to replace with something similar. Rice, pasta and toilet paper is still out most of the time, not to mention everything flour related. Some folks talk about people acting crazy but I ain't seen any such thing. I try to be friendly to the unknowns I come across and so do they. Very few glare at the bewitched sneezers and plaguesome coughers that roam the streets. The night is quiet, I can see the stars, and I enjoy reading your stories above about your day-to-day quarantine life and thoughts on how to make best out of the situation we are in.

Stay safe, stay smart.

 

[Guest jeffpeng]

Honestly ... I can drink a cold refreshing beverage at any time of the year. I know my 25% of slavic ancestory might scoff at this, but I'm German after all.  But, syke, today it even snowed. Literally out of the blue, since we were enjoying very sunny days until now. And yes, Kimchi is something everyone should at least try.

As an update to how we're (my extended family as I'm sharing a freakishly big house with my brother and his kids, and we also got my mom and dad here) holding up: It's fine, it really is. My brother is the only one having to head out for work as my parents are retired, my wife is a student - and her University has closed shop like any other - and I'm working from home most of the time anyways. It's actually funny how for me not a whole lot has changed. I still got my everydays routine - get up at 4, breakfast (which I am eating as I write this), workout, take a walk, shower at 6, get the kid up at 7, make him some breakfast, have a good morning call with my boss, getting on the same page about today's goals. The first difference is that my boy ain't going to Kindergarten at 8, and I have to entertain him a bit. Work starts at 9, and somewhere around that time my wife gets up (students ....  ) and cares for the kid while doing some research, and I plot away my 6 to 9 hours, depending on how much there is to do and how urgent it is (I don't have actual working hours as in 9 to 5, I just... well... work), and that's kinda it. After work I take a bit of time for my son to give my wife an hour or two to take a breather, and around 9pm I bring the little one to bed and usually hit the pillows as well - as I normally would.

I understand a lot of people are going mad, and I can undestand how breaking your own routine can do that to you. Being used to go to work, get your coffee at the bakery and head into office, talking to colleagues and meeting up with friends afterwards is something deeply embedded in a lot of people, especially "younger" folks like me. Having all of that break away from one day to the other I can only imagine can be quite hard.

My wife is holding up fine, as she is used to doing a lot of work at home between semesters (she's a history graduate student, so most of what her work implies is reading and writing a lot), and my son is sorta fine as well. He's 6 and due to go to school this summer, so all of this only adds to him already being a bit tense about that. Worst part for him is not being able to see his friends (and his girlfriend...), and despite all the toys he's got it gets boring eventually. My brother got it worst since he actually has to head out to work and leave the kids with my mom during the day, which is actually quite the strain on my mother who's 25 years out of practice when it comes to dealing with small children (they are 1 and 3).

Supply wise we're exceptionally well prepared as you can imagine it's rather unlikely that something runs out in the storages of three combined households, and we've got so much space to store things we probably could start our own store if we wanted to. We're limiting shopping tours to once a week, simply going by the rule of thumb to pack twice of what we think we need, without depleting anything of the things that are scarce so that other people can get theirs as well. And that works out surprisingly well, and I actually intend to keep this kind of planning, even after the crisis.

But there are also not-so-great news as my wife has the first cases in her family with her aunt and her husband falling ill to this disease. They are fine so far and able to stay at home, but they are in their late 50's, so some concern is implied. Also we've got new cases around town, one I pretty much know since I'm a kid, a former work colleage of my father's who's in his early 70s by now, but he seems fine, and I'd be surprised if after all he's been through in his life he's going to let a petty virus take him down. That guy would outrun me every day of the week. But it makes all of this all the more real if you can put faces and names to this.

What's really worrysome for me is how many people just don't get it, still go out, still meet in parks, still have parties at home, and with no sign of seeing the end of this parts of the public are already calling to end the curfews. You see .... everyone is shocked and full of sympathy when a plane crashes or a train derails and there are hundreds of lives lost, and rightfully so. But if we here in Germany would just let that run wild, even just implying a mortality rate of 2% and the infection basically dying out at 70% saturation .... we're still talking roughly 120 thousand dead people, and a lot of people don't seem to care. It is already staggering to imagine a room full of people that died. It is impossible to imagine a football stadium packed under the roof with people that died, let alone 2 or 3 of those. But that's the magnitude we're talking about just in Germany. There's something in the heads of people that just choses to ignore things this preposterous. As in if they cannot imagine it, it doesn't make it to become a real thing for them.

Anyways, stay safe. 🙂

[Guest Jeffery Simpson]

It's good to see that everyone is doing okay. Hopefully we all can make it through this together, in our small way that we are together here on the forums and in our community, and by practicing social distancing and taking care and precautions.

I'm in BC which is the western province in Canada, and live in a small city called White Rock about an hour south of Vancouver. It's right on the US/CAN border I can literally see America from my home. Typically I commute into the studio via transit, it takes about an hour and a half each way on a bus and then our Skytrain. However I was ill for most of last year with an auto-immune disease and have been working from home since January because of my immune system. Hinterland has been really supportive of this, and I appreciate it.

About three weeks ago now they closed schools, it was Spring Break anyway and so my kids have been home since then. The closure is extended, which is good because with a lowered immune system I was worried about their exposure to other kids bringing COVID-19 home to me.

Now apart from working in my basement / video game room (it's where my consoles are) we try to take walks in parks where we can stay away from people. We order our food ahead of time and pick it up in the grocery store parking lot. We've cut down a lot (to not at all) on eating out and visiting people. It's hard on my wife whose father is in a care home so she can't visit him and on my kids who love seeing their grandmother but since she's not social distancing that well we're staying away.

I, being the one most at risk, tend only to leave my house in the morning to walk my dog and sometimes I go for a walk with my family in the late afternoon if I'm able to make time during the work day. As I say we're in a small city and live in a fairly quiet neighbourhood so most days we don't have any issues keeping 6 feet away from other people while walking.

I imagine this is tougher in larger cities. I know where I used to walk in Vancouver (off of Main Street) it was always busy even later at night. 

I hope everyone is doing well, or as well as can be expected. Please be sure to talk with your friends (via phone or video calls) and do some self-care as well as handle whatever else you need to be doing. 

 

[Guest kristaok]

@Jeffery Simpson I'm sry it's been hard on you health wise. It's definitely scary around this time if you have health issues. The constant fear of getting ill or passing it sucks. 

Im glad Hinterland has been so good to their employees. I appreciate that because nows the time to make sure we care for each other while doing the right thing by being apart / in isolation. 

Stay strong everyone. This will hopefully pass soon. And let's keep everyone in our thoughts right now.  Many have lost their lives already and sadly many more will. 

[Hotzn]

So, following up on my brief report a couple of days ago from the South of Cologne in central Germany:

We are experiencing the first Covid-19 cases nearby, the virus got into at least one retirement home here (we have 3 close by). Also I am hearing about people in my personal sphere getting the virus here and there (like the son of the sister of a friend of mine, not in the direct social vicinity, but still people I know and get to see every couple of months), though all who reportedly got it who I personally know did not have a problem and are OK again. Healed, in other words.

Most of what was off the shelves lately is available again, not at all times, but it's not difficult to get anymore. I have seen toilet paper, noodles, liquid soap, flour etc. in various supermarkets during the past 2 days. Haven't checked disinfectant. What seems to still be in short supply are protective masks (not a usual supermarket commodity).

People are still able to move about freely, but most keep their distance, and some are wearing protective gloves and face masks (few though, also due to the aforementioned shortage). Some supermarkets, drugstores and pharmacies are limiting the number of customers who may enter their premises at the same time, so there are queues in front of the stores here and there. From what I saw, people are showing discipline, and the queueing works nicely.

For those of you outside of Germany: You may know or not know that Germany has so far not ordered people to stay at home. Instead, people are basically forbidden to make "contact" with others, with a number of exceptions (shopping essential items, living under the same roof as usual etc.). Further, non-essential shops and services are closed down temporarily.

[Guest jeffpeng]

@HotznOh, garnicht gewusst, dass du auch von hier bist ^^

I guess it would be hard to "enforce" a real curfew here. As it is enough people are calling to lift what "little" limitations we've got, and I would reckon we have nowhere the law enforment capacity to actually make that work without public support. And my brother has been reporting of packs of people walking through the city, passing cops, and nobody said anything. I just hope this doesn't come back to bite us. But I guess panic would be a heartbeat away if cops would start arresting people for being.

Although, if numbers are to be believed, things are looking a bit up here with new confirmed infections taking a serious downturn over the past 3 days. Then again .... I'm far from a sigh of relief since usually numbers don't particularly lie, but it's hard to get any truth out of them, either, especially since I personally know people that show symptoms that smell a lot like Covid-19, but there simply aren't enough tests in the wild to get everyone tested. So it might as well be exhausted test capacities that cause this downturn. We'll see. So, yeah. None the wiser.

Although I'm amazed you saw some of the mythical and elusive toilet paper in the wild. Here (small town in the middle of Hannover and Hildesheim) people start actually helping out each other since whatever get's into store is gone 5 minutes later. The Rewe (big grocery chain here in Germany) here is actually selling toilet paper under the counter to people they know. Which sounds wise. I've literally seen people with number plates definitely not local stuff 5 packs into their cars, when there already were 10 packs in there when this whole toilet paper crisis took off.

@Jeffery Simpson To keep in contact with friends is good advice. We're social animals, some more some less, but (almost) nobody is an island, and it actually helps to comminicate and reflect your worries with and to somebody else. Much more than we are aware when social interaction is something not as short in supply as it is these days.

I've actually got quite an interesting story about that. A former friend and later girlfriend of mine (a much younger self at some point fully expected to merry one day) and I didn't part on the best of terms for various reasons. Since the whole crisis started we've been back in contact again, after half decade of not exchanging a word, and over a decade after "breaking up", and I guess it's been good for us both. Not just to clean up the mess we left with each other, but also to have someone familiar to talk to that knows and understands you, and while I'm very happy with my family today, I was fondly remembered why we had been actually very good friends once - and maybe could be again. Without this whole mess, who knows if we actually would have every talked to each other again.

[Jimmy]

God I'm tired...

It just doesn't end. Here in Queensland, Australia, the local community has now woken up to the fact that the virus is a real threat since the news was released that one of the locals is known to have died from COVID-19. Prior to this, most folks were happy believing it was a 'not us' problem.

No days off for yours truly for the last eight days, but hopefully I can get time off during the Easter holidays. Working in healthcare right now is scary, heartbreaking and honestly a little bit surreal. Went for 36 hours yesterday without a chance to eat. Too busy, too risky, too tired. Traded calories for rest instead.

It seems to be working. New cases are falling. Please let it be working.

[Guest Jeffery Simpson]

Be safe @Jimmy and thank you for everything you're doing for your community. I can't imagine how hard it is both putting yourself in danger, and also having to deal with what's happening to others. 

 

 

[Guest jeffpeng]

9 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Prior to this, most folks were happy believing it was a 'not us' problem.

I think all around the globe people were thinking like this at some point - until it became their problem. Maybe the one good thing this will serve as is as a reminder that there are no more "not us" problems in a world as small and connected as ours, and it would serve us well to heed the warnings given by people who know their craft, and listen less to the ones whose only craft is talking.

In any case .... the biggest of respects @Jimmy. Not sure I could do what you do. I know people from healthcare, but none of them is reporting things anywhere as worrysome as you do, and I hope that you get through these days safe and sound.

[Ice Hole]

An interesting  co-relation to the 1918 pandemic and to the current modern day incantation is an increase in electro-magnetic output.  All be it a fraction of what we have today it is still significant.  The increase electro-magnetic output was due to radio stations being activated everywhere.  Electricity was common but wireless radio transmission was not. Today I found out Italy had loads of 5G equipment installed recently.  Does anyone have a shiny hat?

Another odd thing is all the early tests for this illness were giving false results.  How then can the number of deaths that are attributed to this illness be accurate?  It seems that the numbers are being "fudged".  Arrive to the hospital DOA from a car accident well that's the illness to blame.

[Jimmy]

3 hours ago, Ice Hole said:

Another odd thing is all the early tests for this illness were giving false results.  How then can the number of deaths that are attributed to this illness be accurate?  It seems that the numbers are being "fudged".  Arrive to the hospital DOA from a car accident well that's the illness to blame.

False negatives are common, especially in a novel outbreak or with less than perfect equipment. Technique is just as important as the equipment quality when taking a sample, so variation in results is bound to occur.

Yes, I agree with you that the results from certain countries are likely unreliable. I would take reports of any country having no new cases to be deceptive. In order to conform with forum guidelines, I won't name any particular nation or state involved, but I would suggest that there is likely a surge in "unknown pneumonia" cause of deaths involved to shift official figures away from a politically sensitive issue.

But please, don't try to cast doubt on the accepted data. We have good statistics from Italy, Spain, Iceland and New Zealand that give us some reliable, robust and rigorous evidence on how dangerous this virus can be, and how we can blunt its impact.