Corona Virus - Bizzare Outcomes

[pmccarthy]

'If the coronavirus has taught us anything, it is the lengths people will go to when desperate.

Next time you want to judge boat people, migrants or refugees fleeing war torn lands.

REMEMBER WE FOUGHT OVER TOILET PAPER

It will be quickly wiped from our memory.

[red750]

[Mike Gearon]

The maddest thing....even crazier than Trump and his crazy shit is Boris. The UK is going for herd immunity.

 

On a personal level I was going to visit Australia next week. Finally decided yesterday to cancel. Australian Government also decided today I should cancel. Pretty much the same reason. Even travelling from the relatively safe island of Taiwan I’d be the overseas traveller to be avoided. Risk of over 60 y.o. is also a concern.

 

Flying looks like tail wheel lessons in USA and I’m becoming interested in a quicksilver with pontoons. That looks like a lot of fun!

 

Corona panic in Taiwan passed a few weeks ago. I think Australia will settle down soon. Well, if numbers don’t ramp it will.

[spacesailor]

My soninlaw and grandson, have lost their oversea,s holiday.

Must be $5,000 a piece.

I think those airlines are getting money for nothing, its not like the hotel,s that can,t let their rooms, the airline is not using fuel or even paying the pilot and crew,

Insurence are crooks, as they always were, NO payout for cancelled flights.

Another grandson and family will be in quarantine, when returning from Fiji, Bulla, how to isolate four people in one house ?.

sould have posted this in the Gripes!.

.LoL

[octave]

My soninlaw and grandson, have lost their oversea,s holiday.

Must be $5,000 a piece.

I think those airlines are getting money for nothing, its not like the hotel,s that can,t let their rooms, the airline is not using fuel or even paying the pilot and crew,

Insurence are crooks, as they always were, NO payout for cancelled flights.

Another grandson and family will be in quarantine, when returning from Fiji, Bulla, how to isolate four people in one house ?.

sould have posted this in the Gripes!.

.LoL

 

 

Not sure if different airlines have different policies but my son who lives in NZ was arriving here next friday, he cancelled his trip (Air New Zealand) and he received a full refund. Bad news for those who lose their money. These are extraordinary times.

[pmccarthy]

Summarised from Wikipedia:

 

The 1889–1890 flu pandemic (October 1889 – December 1890, with recurrences March – June 1891, November 1891 – June 1892, winter 1893–1894 and early 1895) was a deadly influenza pandemic that killed about 1 million people worldwide. The outbreak was dubbed "Asiatic flu" or "Russian flu". The pandemic was first recorded in Saint Petersburg, Russia in December 1889. In four months it had spread throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Deaths peaked in Saint Petersburg on December 1, 1889, and in the United States during the week of January 12, 1890. The median time between the first reported case and peak mortality was five weeks. It caused many deaths in Australia too.

 

The 1918 influenza pandemic (January 1918 – December 1920; colloquially known as the Spanish flu) was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic. The Spanish flu infected 500 million people around the world, or about 27% of the then world population of between 1.8 and 1.9 billion, including people on isolated Pacific islands and in the Arctic. The death toll is estimated to have been anywhere from 17 million to 50 million, and possibly as high as 100 million, making it one of the deadliest epidemics in human history.

[NT5224]

Yesterday I spoke with my sister by phone. She is a school teacher in UK with a chronic heart condition, living in a high density area. She also has a teenage daughter of her own and delivers supplies to my elderly parents both in their nineties... The poor woman was almost on the verge of panic. My wife and I spoke with her for about an hour to try and reassure her.

 

Boris's decision to keep the schools open is clearly motivated to preserve as much of the economy as possible and some would argue favours the interests of big business and finance over the people he was elected to protect.

 

My sister said everybody at the schools was expecting the schools to close, but the UK government has said that if a student falls ill with the virus they have to go home for seven days. There will be no longer be 'cleanup' efforts at schools after infected pupils are removed, as too many cases are now expected. The pandemic is expected to run rife through the schools and teachers are expected to go in to school and teach, with the result that they too will contract the virus, with no option to self isolate. My sister was in tears telling me that that her daughter and our parents depended on her and she couldn't afford to get sick herself, no least because she feared for her own life.

 

While she does have a disposition towards panic, I thought that Boris Johnson's policy made no moral or medical sense even before I spoke with her.

 

Bizarre times folks!

 

Alan

[Mike Gearon]

I have UK friends here in Taiwan who want to go home as they’ve been here 3 months. KLM cancelled their flights and they are having trouble leaving. China airlines the main Taiwan carrier have cut flights in half. Even without government restrictions the economics of empty planes force cancelled flights. Looking forward to normal again... maybe 3 months.

[Marty_d]

Yesterday I spoke with my sister by phone. She is a school teacher in UK with a chronic heart condition, living in a high density area. She also has a teenage daughter of her own and delivers supplies to my elderly parents both in their nineties... The poor woman was almost on the verge of panic. My wife and I spoke with her for about an hour to try and reassure her.

 

Boris's decision to keep the schools open is clearly motivated to preserve as much of the economy as possible and some would argue favours the interests of big business and finance over the people he was elected to protect.

 

My sister said everybody at the schools was expecting the schools to close, but the UK government has said that if a student falls ill with the virus they have to go home for seven days. There will be no longer be 'cleanup' efforts at schools after infected pupils are removed, as too many cases are now expected. The pandemic is expected to run rife through the schools and teachers are expected to go in to school and teach, with the result that they too will contract the virus, with no option to self isolate. My sister was in tears telling me that that her daughter and our parents depended on her and she couldn't afford to get sick herself, no least because she feared for her own life.

 

While she does have a disposition towards panic, I thought that Boris Johnson's policy made no moral or medical sense even before I spoke with her.

 

Bizarre times folks!

 

Alan

There's conflicting medical advice over here. The AMA (Australian Medical Association) has apparently said that keeping schools open is a better option than closing them.

However Dr Norman Swan on ABC, someone whose medical knowledge is pretty amazing, has said that while it may cost more the schools should be closed.

 

The trouble is that most workplaces have a pretty high percentage of people with kids in school, including emergency workers, doctors, nurses etc. If all the schools close, who looks after the kids? Can't send 'em to Granny, she'll die. Can't send 'em to child care, they'll all be shut too. So workers will have to go home to look after them. What do they live on? If the employer is nice they'll let them take sick leave. If they have no sick leave the government will waive the waiting period on Sickness Allowance, but guess what - if half of the claim processing staff are themselves off looking after kids, their claims may take weeks or months to process.

 

It's a sh1tty situation either way. If our government could find its own butt with both hands it would have war-gamed pandemics and have an off-the-shelf plan to put in place, but they don't. Add to which they're led by a dithering ad-man.

[Mike Gearon]

I just checked Taiwan and we have 8 new cases today. All came from overseas including 5 from Turkey. Turkey is admitting to a handful of cases. Clearly not correct.

 

Taiwan seems to be getting on with business as almost normal. Schools operating the same. Business as usual with temp checks for all and plenty of hand sanitiser. Might change if Taiwan keeps importing the virus.

[red750]

Went to Woolies Seniors hour this morning, what a bunfight! Could hardly move in the aisles, queues for the checkouts, and no stock. I asked an attendant I know well if they restocked overnight, she said only with what they received from the warehouse. Had to go to 5 stores, 2 Woolies, Coles, a butcher and an Asian grocer/Green grocer, still only got 80% of what I was looking for. The queue at Aldi's doors (closed) was 50-60 metres long in Forest Hill Chase.

[onetrack]

The truckie who rents the factory unit alongside my workshop, has an Isuzu prime mover that he contracts with, to Toll - and he pulls Coles and Woolies tandem dry freight trailers, mostly around Perth city and suburbs.

We had a discussion when he knocked off the other night, and he was saying they've been told that the contractors with prime movers will be looking at a shortfall in work in coming weeks, as the ships overseas are not being loaded, due to the lockdowns. There are literally hundreds of half-loaded ships idling in overseas ports.

 

Now, the majority of the goods on those ships are Chinese-manufactured whitegoods and general small household items - such as all the stuff you'd find in a Reject shop or $2 store.

As to food supplies (including toilet paper), we still have local meat farmers, chicken and egg producers, bakers, and vegie growers with normal and plentiful supplies, so no reason to get concerned about starving.

 

The problem is going to centre around logistics, as big warehouses are having to operate to different rules now, minimising human contact, and keeping personnel numbers down.

The bigger grocery stores face the problem of managing risk with keeping staff numbers to a minimum and doing extra "deep-cleaning and sanitising", whilst still restocking shelves.

The smaller stores and family-run grocery stores and fruit and vegie retailers shouldn't have too many problems - until an infected customer is identified, and then the ordure will hit the fan, with a shutdown and isolation of that store and family.

[red750]

Had to speak to AGL Energy today. Their Phillipines call centre is in lockdown, and only 3 of the normal 12 operators in their Australian centre are at work. The operator I spoke to said they were looking at working from home.

[kgwilson]

Today we had the largest number of new infections reported (101) and the government is now rethinking the 500 limit on gatherings & may reduce this to 10, Coles is now placing limits on egg purchases & they are perishable. There were no fresh vegies, long life milk, bog rolls paper towels, tissues, rice, pasta, tinned tomatoes & a multitude of other tinned stuff at Woolies yesterday. They'd even run out of cat litter. CAT LITTER , who lives on that? The panic and hysteria is getting worse. I finally connected to the NBN on Friday & have no landline. I told them my mobile didn't work at home but they say it will be 7 days before it is operating. That's if there is anyone still working to do it.

There are now 401 cases out of 25 million people. I didn't think the panic would be so bad but it gets crazier by the hour.

[old man emu]

Just back from COSTCO. Beef mince - one per member. I saw people with a half dozen or so packs of vacuum-sealed fresh dog or cat food, and they were Indians. Didn't think Indians kept dogs and cats as pets. Five or six 20 kg bags of rice was a common buy.

 

I wonder if the panic buyers are recent refugees from the Middle East who have previously experienced food shortages. The more they hoard, the less there is for others, who them go out and start hoarding.

[old man emu]

Mad Frankie will do you right!

 

[willedoo]

I wonder if the panic buyers are recent refugees from the Middle East who have previously experienced food shortages. The more they hoard, the less there is for others, who them go out and start hoarding.

 

Watching the tv footage of the near riots in supermarkets down south, you could think that, as most of the people appeared to be Middle Eastern or African.

But where I live, the population is 95% Anglo Saxon/European Australian descent and our shelves are empty as well.

[Mike Gearon]

Been missing the panic in Australia so I brought all the pink jelly balls and ignored the huge quantities of toilet roll. It’s amazingly normal at the supermarkets if you don’t count the sudden panic buy on jelly balls.

[red750]

Print this off and tape to your door to keep those damned door knockers away.

 

[Marty_d]

Hey now here's a thing - less Mormons knocking!

 

I think we should have a thread about the silver linings of Covid-19.

[old man emu]

It'll result in the Jehovahs putting on weight because the don't do their house-to-house walks. Looks like they'll be confined to the Watchtowwer!

[red750]

I was thinking more about real estate agents wanting to know if you plan to sell.

[Mike Gearon]

Netherlands now looking at herd immunity. It’s nuts.

 

Hope everyone back in Oz is safe. My brother was spotted last week at mums nursing home and they wanted to know if he was the “overseas brother”. Then got a letter by email saying I wasn’t to visit. This week it’s locked down. No visitors. Good outcome and well sorted!

 

I noticed the Age had a picture with temp testing at a restaurant. They really need to test everyone all the time. I must get 5 or 6 temp tests a day here. I joked with the gym staff I was a bit too cold and they became very concerned. Guess it’s like saying bomb at the airport. Don’t mess with the temp.

[Mike Gearon]

And... won’t be flying in the Phillipines anytime soon. They just sent an update and have shut the airport. Feel bad for the staff there. I’m a member, if we all have to chip in for staff that’ll be okay.

[red750]

Water supply companies must be like the rest of us - rubbing their hands together, but for a different reason.