Coronavirus Concern Up

[Daisy]

@mischief nice to meet a kiwi neighbour I was surprised you guys locked down so hard too - it was on the news here "where you stay tonight is where you stay". The death toll in New York is higher than the confirmed cases in my entire state.

More restrictions every day in oz. State boarders are shut. They are talking about shutting down the regions (and shires within), some towns are sealed to keep aboriginal populations safe. I hope people are still feeding these towns though as that is iffy in the best of times.

I dont remember if I posted this here but I went to get hay yesterday in case I am locked out of the city. It was a nightmare. The stockfeed was fine, fully stocked, but I went in to Woolworths after and that was chaos. No one practising physical distancing, pushing in the lines, people trying to buy more than their allocated limit, children everywhere. Schools are still open here, so I assumed if children were out of school they were to stay home. Not so. They were crawling all over the shops. Grotty little germ gremlins.

There was enough stock on the shelves. Some things sold out, but certainly enough. They still have toilet paper, but without a marked price, so I skipped over it. I am not gona pay stupid amount for loo roll while I still have enough at home. I even got milk powder. I LOVE the stuff but it gives me migraines so I gotta go easy on it. Got some meat and greens. The total was about $40 more than it would be usually for what I purchased. After that experience, I hope I don't have to go back there for a while. But if that is the worst public panic I see through this, I am lucky and thankful.

 

[Chic Rustler]

wow this is so surreal

 

[Lazy Gardener]

I've been expecting just such as this for years.

 

[baymule]

This folks, is just why we strive to be the title of this forum, Self Sufficient. This is precisely why we garden raise animals (if we have space for it) and do what we can to try to be prepared for emergencies. Here we are.

For @Daisy and others that are new members, you have time on your hands now, read the back posts. Pick a topic and start reading. There has been much discussion in the past about being prepared for emergencies and keeping a stocked up supply of essentials.

There are 21 cases in my county as of this morning. One 91 year old man has died. My daughter's private subdivision (guard at the gate) goes on lockdown at midnight tonight.

 

[Daisy]

Oh, and restrictions on alcohol sales have been brought in, just in this state. I had a giggle, couldn't see that going down well in the US. I rarely drink, so no skin off my nose.

I am defo glad I found this forum! There is a lot to learn. The panic on the net has driven me to spend less time on it. I've started crochet again. None of my seeds have sprouted yet, but the thunderstorm has some rain in it so that might change over the coming days.

 

[tortoise]

I'm in USA, in an area notorious for alcohol production and consumption. Liquor stores are considered "essential" and are staying open. They don't want all the functional alcoholics going into withdrawal and taking up hospital beds. Only in Wisconsin....

 

[hqueen13]

Not only are our liquor stores essential, but they've actually made it legal to deliver alcohol! Crazy times!! (They do realize that if you were to cut off an alcoholic then they can go into all sorts of medical issues and need medical are - which is in short supply right now, hence them remaining open and expanding to delivery. That and the 9% sales tax is mighty nice to the state right now).

I still argue that early testing is very important - not waiting until symptoms appear is putting everyone behind the 8 ball. There is a town in Italy that had one death - and tested the ENTIRE town. It was 3000 people, but they found a LOT of people who were showing NO signs but tested positive. All of those people were put into immediate quarantine. The doctors came to THEM to monitor their health. After 14 days they tested them again, and found that most were negative, but a few were STILL positive, so they had them stay in quarantine again. They have pretty much beat the entire thing and stopped it in it's tracks with adequate testing. That's something every other location has failed to do. It's water under the bridge, now, of course, but hopefully for future planning things like that can be put in place quickly (it's gonna happen again... don't fool yourself).

I have also seen reports that losing sense of taste and smell is an early symptom, so pay attention to your body. If you are concerned, or at high risk, then checking your temperature daily will help give you a baseline. "98.6" is an average - and many people run outside of that number as their normal. So knowing where you are starting from is important so that you know when there is a shift.

Things with my job are still unstable, he keeps talking about cutting back, but then doesn't give a clear idea of what that will look like. For all his talk of "leadership" he's doing a crap job of it now. Depending on how long it takes for this to run it's course, I'm just hoping there is still a company to come back to. Of course, depending on the day, I sometimes just want to say F it all and not worry about the job and focus only on my business, which at least I can control.

We'll see how things roll. It's not going to get any better for a while, sadly. I'm waiting for our Gov to decide to move to shelter in place. We're down to essential businesses already, but parks are still open, and there are still lots of people out and about. Thankfully all my work is essential, so I'm alright. The BF is essential, too, but he's been cut down to no over time, which SUCKS. So we're squeezing whatever we can out of the budget at the moment. Hopefully things stay level and we're able to manage, it's not pretty that's for sure.

 

[FarmerJamie]

@hqueen13 you make a great point. Its difficult to just pretend to accept the status quo while there is so much uncertainty. I understand the urge to just "do something". Its hard for me to remember "the bosses " are struggling with a situation completely foreign to them too.

 

[BarredBuff]

At this point, nothing would surprise me with this situation.

 

[Daisy]

Testing in the home is a different kettle of fish than being tested at fever clinics. Testing at home would work much better and wouldn't expose infected to the cautious, but non infected. They haven't developed a suitable test where I am yet. It still takes hours for a result at this stage. They have not approved the do it yourself kits here. Those doing the testing have to be suitably trained. There just isn't enough supplies to cover that, and Oz is testing at a higher rate per capita than Hong Kong is. Remember, some countries are far more sparsely populated than Italy and Spain. I imagine we'd have to break out the farm boom sprayers to attempt spray the streets like Spain is doing. What works for one place, wont work for all places. The government here is doing an awesome job, not all agree.

They haven't outright banned alcohol, just restricted it. Bottle-o's are still open. So are hairdressers. My rabbits are booked into the vet for vaccination next week. There is more than enough room for the entire town to be out all at once and still be obeying the social distancing laws. Joys of living in such a tiny, remote town.