Dealing with COVID-19

[Thinx]

While many people in this country accepts and indeed favours the government's approach to tackling coronavirus through a lockdown, Peter Hitchens is a lonely dissenting voice, arguing that the UK approach is disproportionate to the threat it presents.

While the state's advice is to stay at home and socially distance from others, Hitchens says he's concerned about the economic consequence of this will be worse than the damage caused by the virus itself.

(Peter Hitchens is a columnist for The Daily Mail)

I don't see how the lockdown is disproportionate to the problem?

We've lost 20,000 lives in four weeks - what might the toll have been without lockdown?

On the other hand, after 4 weeks of lockdown the UK had another 800 deaths and it seems to be an average daily rate.

More and more people are beginning to ignore the advice to stay at home now and perhaps the warm weather and the ensuing summer will be a game-changer: people just aren't going to stay indoors.

I do think that we should gradually ease people back into work where social distancing is possible and maybe the first thing for Boris to do at his desk tomorrow morning is to ditch HS2.

What is the point of continuing with it - surely saving lives and protecting front line health workers is more important than making a journey from London to Nottingham twelve minutes faster.


Bo-Jo is raring to go apparently and will have some decision making to do in the face of opposition to the lockdown continuing. He has been very Conservative in not giving the police absolute power of enforcement and in my opinion there are just too many caveats and grey areas.

No wonder then as people can see they have a choice, many choose to go about their daily lives, some wearing PPE and some not.

I'm in UK and not really seeing what you are, it's very quiet and the vast majority are observing the lock down. Really it does only need to be most it would never be all, some people can't or won't I guess.

It does feel strange, actually the shops are very empty once you get in them. I prefer it in that sense, plus orderly queuing. They do say we British enjoy an orderly queue... I don't expect things will resume as they were for a year or so at least. There will be rules and guidelines about social distancing. We will have to get used to it, and I don't find it worse or better really. Just different.

Worst for me is being so lucky with my health, I am scared to think of going to hospital. I hope I won't, I have been lucky so far. People are being very brave all round, I think.

 

[Aspychata]

Maybe it's the first time we had to put our health right next to our economic needs and it's a confusing choice for us to be faced with. We need dinero and healthcare if hit with virus yet if we isolate then we skip infection. It's a catch 22. I have never struggled with this choice before, yet millions of people are facing this reality. And the credit bureaus are completely mum right now. How is years of establishing your credit history down the tubes because of several months when your job was gone?

 

[Judge]

Maybe it's the first time we had to put our health right next to our economic needs and it's a confusing choice for us to be faced with. We need dinero and health care if hit with virus yet if we isolate then we skip infection. It's a catch 22. I have never struggled with this choice before, yet millions of people are facing this reality. And the credit bureaus are completely mum right now. How is years of establishing your credit history down the tubes because of several months when your job was gone?

Precisely.

We're a society that on general principle is supposed to value each and every life. Which in this situation is tragically opposed to another general principle we value. "The greatest good for the greatest number".

With attempting to prevent the deaths of roughly six percent of the population coming at a terrible cost to the other ninety-four percent of the living.

Yet if we pursue prematurely lifting "stay-at-home" protocols in an attempt to recover incomes to save an economy that impacts most everyone, experts tend to believe we will continue to incur continual waves of virus attacks well into next winter, rather than seeing the curve flatten, with incidents of infection diminishing.

Where both perspectives have merit. Quite a profound example of "Catch-22".

 

[Aspergers_Aspie]

Im against running now due to this link:-

https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/heal...dangerous-your-outdoor-run-could-be--c-969064

 

[Hollow Horse]

I have masks and the surgical gloves which I use for public transport and for the supermarkets which I feel are high risk establishments.

People queue two metres apart outside but once in the store that all goes out of the window as people forget about it, engrossed in the hunt for those rare commodities, milk and eggs.

 

[Aspychata]

Im against running now due to this link:-

https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/heal...dangerous-your-outdoor-run-could-be--c-969064

Truthfully- nobody runs directly in back of somebody because it's dangerous. But any cardio helps us stay healthly and does help with immunity. So exercise somewhere even at home if you can despite cats, dogs, babies, spouse.

 

[Aspychata]

Precisely.

We're a society that on general principle is supposed to value each and every life. Which in this situation is tragically opposed to another general principle we value. "The greatest good for the greatest number".

With attempting to prevent the deaths of roughly six percent of the population coming at a terrible cost to the other ninety-four percent of the living.

Yet if we pursue prematurely lifting "stay-at-home" protocols in an attempt to recover incomes to save an economy that impacts most everyone, experts tend to believe we will continue to incur continual waves of virus attacks well into next winter, rather than seeing the curve flatten, with incidents of infection diminishing.

Where both perspectives have merit. Quite a profound example of "Catch-22".

Plus throw in the unknown of the stats of reinfection, timeline of just how long is this a panademic for, and of course throw in the government and the states trying to oneup each other on this social economic experiment called welcome to our panademic showing 24/7 with reruns expected, and tailgating the entire mess is the conspiracy theorists assigning blame. Epic universe soap opera.......

 

[tree]

 

[Yunxi Sighs]

I have lived for years with a portable spray bottle of rubbing alcohol. I'm a dedicated "germ-phobe" I guess, but it is what it is. ;-)

 

[Hollow Horse]

Toilet rolls are SO eighties. Flushlets all the way.

 

[Aspychata]

Finding l have to talk more about feelings of fear of getting sick with friends. We are both talking about being frightened to go to stores. She is afraid about work. I am afraid about never going back to work. We both are afraid of normal never coming back. Definite fears of where is my crystal ball? And why was the federal gov and university think tanks not prepared for this? All this money to study the most ridiculous things imagined and nobody had a contingency plan for something that wasn't that hard to predict. Really? Nobody? Seriously? We are suppose to have some brilliant minds at these ivy league places studying possible emergency scenarios.

 

[Thinx]

Finding l have to talk more about feelings of fear of getting sick with friends. We are both talking about being frightened to go to stores. She is afraid about work. I am afraid about never going back to work. We both are afraid of normal never coming back. Definite fears of where is my crystal ball? And why was the federal gov and university think tanks not prepared for this? All this money to study the most ridiculous things imagined and nobody had a contingency plan for something that wasn't that hard to predict. Really? Nobody? Seriously? We are suppose to have some brilliant minds at these ivy league places studying possible emergency scenarios.

Yes or better still, take effective steps to prevent it. And take steps to prevent a further such incident, now. Because if it happens again in my lifetime I m gonna call that carelessness. Especially because I lived through the 1957/8 flu incident, as an infant.

 

[Suzanne]

Whereas most people are broadcasting the lockdown, with videos etc, for me, well, it is always a lockdown, because of anxiety and social phobia.

My faith, one of Jehovah's Witnesses, has been amazing. Because my husband is a low earner, our congregation has been doing an equalising, so the "poor" are not left poor. We have had 3 big shops done and we did not have to pay!

I will be sad when the lockdown is lifted, but ah well, there are a few benefits, I guess for it to be lifted.

 

[Mary Terry]

I think the USA is heading toward reopening everything, a staggering infection and death rate as a result, and for vulnerable people, like me due to my age, spending the rest of our lives being extremely cautious about our social contacts, shopping, and life in general. Things are never going back to 2019. We have a new and evolving "normal". Life progresses whether we like it or not, and people who cannot adapt to changes are going to suffer more than those who are able to pivot and figure out a better way to take care of themselves.

Everyone please stay safe out there.

 

[Hollow Horse]

JOHNSON: "Broadly speaking, we made the right decisions at the right times".

So typical of a government to check its own homework and give itself house points.

Broadly speaking, how was Cheltenham races allowed to go ahead.?

Why on the 12th March when Harries was advising that actually mass gatherings would have little effect on the pandemic did you ignore the scientific advice?

Look at other countries and compare us to them.

Taiwan. New Zealand. South Korea - 250 deaths in a population of 41 million.

Testing works. Contact tracing works.

Don't do this and you end up with 30k deaths on your hands.

 

[tree]

REMINDER

This is a thread for comments about how you are personally
dealing with the pandemic. For POLITICAL commentary please
use Politics Discussion

 

[Aspychata]

On the east coast, our beaches will be opening soon. Still like the Russian vodka sauna treatment plan. Bring vodka in sauna, sweat out virus while drinking vodka. Do this 3 times a week. Lol

 

[Hollow Horse]

They are now saying that there will be a 'road map' issued next week on how we are going to ease out of this lockdown.

That could mean our beaches being ready for the summer.

 

[Hollow Horse]

315 UK deaths reported. This now includes hospitals, care homes and the comminity. I believe this is the lowest count since the first week of the spread.

Government to lay out plans of reducing lockdown measures next Sunday.

How has it affected me?

Staying indoors is all I do in winter. I kind of hibernated, so, it has been a great time for hobbies.

I am confident we will get to enjoy summer, the only few months every year I can be happy.

 

[Nitro]

View attachment 61232
I'm treating this very similar to a new startup, but I'm working with about 30% of the original water.
I'll be cycling it for a few weeks and left the culture that exists in the canister filter in place to help it along.
I still have to tweak the chemistry levels a little due to my hard water, and the nitrate & nitrite levels are borderline, but the rest of the readings on the test strips are looking favorable.
The next step will be to add some change water from an existing rig that will likely occur next week.

Well it was finally moving day for the school of goldfish:

Everybody seems happy after their first full day in their new ocean. Now all that is left is to top off the water.
The new reverse osmosis filtering rig is making textbook perfect water now too, so in all, everything is set in place for a long haul

A new to me piranha will be arriving here soon, and it's new pond is looking pretty good I might add.
It's a 55 gallon reef on a dedicated cabinet stand running a 60 gallon filtering setup. I went ahead and used the pool filter sand as the substrate after an extremely thorough rinsing process. I added a nice wrap of filter media to the intake to both prefilter the water and gain an additional bio culture.

I used some of the plants and furniture out of the old goldie pond to begin cycling it, so it should be good to go in a couple more weeks.

Next up is a 29 gallon rig for the school of glowfish I was gifted.
The stand it will be placed on is a bit too small, but with a little magic in my woodshop, it will all work out fine.
I retired the 25 gallon bowfront in favor of the slightly bigger long style tank that will be more suitable for the black lighting setup I want to use on it.

Stay tuned for further updates