I don't care if Raye likes Walmart or not. I'm pointing out her flawed perception. To judge an entire 11,500 conglomerate of stores by visiting ONE store ONCE, isn't very rational. How can you judge an entire corporation based on visiting one store once? If you think that's logical thinking, wow.

But that's too bad. She's missing out on good sales. I just did my online grocery shopping. Frozen peas are frozen peas no matter what store they're from (generally). I paid $0.78 for a bag. Plus lots of other good prices on numerous things.

nothing to look at out the window but nature. Oh look, a pretty tree. Look, another tree. How about that, a tree! We hear birds, running water and that's it. No snippets of conversation as strangers walk by, no music wafting in through the window; I even miss the car horns.

I love nature. I only have 2 trees but I can see around me the trees others have and put here by nature in the desert (mesquite, saguaro) and I can see mountains. don't like hearing traffic or a lot of planes or music from others. but city folks have moved out here and ruined it with those things. when I first moved here I waited 45 min for someone to come down my road to jump my car battery. I put a sign out at the road at the end of my drive and a pu finally came along, turned in and the guy jumped my battery and went on his way.

there were no stores or gas stations within 6 miles then. now they're everywhere. we've got a W down the road. it isn't well stocked normally but I get what I can there. since I moved out here I mostly go to W and Walgreens and a local grocery about 5 miles away. I'm not that interested anymore in shopping, if I need clothes I'll look at W but mostly my sister sends me clothes she doesn't want anymore (I think that's so she has room to buy new clothes). she sends over more than I'll ever need. I'm bagging some up to take to GW in the future. I don't like going out anymore. if I go to 'town' (6 miles) I'll sometimes stop at that W, it's nicer. I have no desire to shop anymore. I have to force myself to go out when I really do need something. I'll put it off for days or the next week. too much traffic here anyway, it's been nice without so much traffic since the shutdown but it'll ramp up this week I'm sure.

I won't be going out more because stores open up. I do need my hair cut but won't go right away 'cause they'll be too busy. I'm going out tomorrow (to get it over with) hoping a lot of people will be going back to church and won't be at the grocery. I don't need much so it'll be a quick trip, I'll stop by my sister's to pick up what she has for me (usually food, clothes, jugs of water). She has some masks for me too. Then I'll stay home for the next week until I really have to go out again. I do have a compromised immune system and I don't need any help from others out there to do me in.

When I die I want the songs Party Time (by Jeff and Sherry Easter), The Old Rugged Cross and Joe Diffie's John Deer Green played.

Raye, I am so sorry for the way this thread turned ugly. The ability to disagree and remain civil appears is a lost art in some quarters. While I am someone who is keen to keep to myself these days, I have found your arguments thought provoking and worthwhile.

What I'm hearing here from some is Entitlement. It's the same 'me first and to heck with the rest of you' that makes considerate, empathetic people cringe. Reminds me of 'smokers rights' from years back. People who endanger other people's health and lives by refusing to wear masks or 'distance' in public are the same people who ignore No Smoking signs. They are Entitled to drive over the speed limit hile applying makeup and chatting on a cell phone, tailgating, refusing to yield, to pedestrians, parking in loading zones. Ya' can't stop ME!

All of the above is obnoxious. Deliberatley spreading Covid-19 is inhumane. It's especially egregious when it takes so little to help stem the spread: Wear a mask and distance in public. Wash.

I've just read accounts of people trying to recover from Covid-19 in rehabilitation centers and hospitals. They can't *think straight*. They are exhausted trying to fold a shirt. They are spending months in rehab before they can get back to their spouses and children. They will dread catching a cold. They don't know when Covid-19 will reactivate in their bodies. (Doctors are just starting to see the virus erupt in people who were previously symptom-free.) Thousands are dying. More will survive, but with diminished health. The spread continues.

Do you have to *get it* before you 'get it'?

Thanks Zalco! I enjoy thinking about things from a variety of viewpoints and making decisions not based of the latest fad.

Latest fad?? What has been discussed here in this thread that could possibly be construed as a fad?.......unless it is a fad to ignore the best scientific advice we have currently at our disposal.

"I enjoy thinking about things from a variety of viewpoints"

Really? Please demonstrate your having done so sometime. That would be something you haven't shown anything close to doing with your comments here in recent months.

Found out that a dear friend has tested positive for covid. She has isolated herself for well over 2 months, no visitors, no visiting, no in-store grocery shopping even, just no-contact curbside pick up or delivery. Her doc is puzzled and says contact tracers will be in touch. She is a senior and has some underlying health issues and I am scared for her.

We drove to our usual walking area this afternoon, which also takes us by several restaurants and stores. People were out in droves, no masks on anyone we saw, and, from what we could observe while waiting at a stop light, no social distancing. The same in the walking area, people were walking 3, 4 deep on the path and squeezing by each other, no distancing. Apparently opening the economy means "no more precautions necessary and everything back to normal" to many.

Sorry, kadefol.

Can you describe your friend's physical living situation. Detached suburban home, urban apartment or coop/condo building, or something else?

Kadefol, my thoughts and prayers are with your friend.

Lucille, thank you.

Elmer, single family home on 5 acres, in a rural neighborhood with other
similar properties. Closest town is 20 mins drive and she has only
ventured there once every 2 - 3 weeks to do curbside pickup for
groceries while wearing a mask and gloves. She has had some deliveries
and, of course, mail, but she is very careful about sanitizing and
washing her hands and leaving boxes and packaging outside. She has a
grocery sanitizing station in her garage. She is much more careful than
many others, but she still caught it anyway.

Wow, that's eye opening. Again, very sorry. I hope she has a not too serious experience.

kadefol, that is really scary. Could you share her first symptoms?

Very scary indeed. I hope with all her sanitizing whatever amount of the virus she encountered was very small. I read at one time that this makes a difference, but I don't know if the experts have changed their minds on this or not.

All of our Goodwill, second hand stores are closed, nor are they accepting donations.

Our WalMart was one of the first ones to put markers on the floor at the tills for social distancing. The clerk was putting the tape on the floor as I was there. Of course all the other stores are doing it now, as well as one-way aisles. Every other cash register open, etc.

Our hardware stores are opening Tuesday, one in particular I'm looking forward to going into, but not on opening day. It's a mish-mash of everything......seasonal items, cooking items, camping stuff, t-shirts, hats, craft items. it's called a Surplus store. But the aisles are very narrow and crowded and I'm not sure how they'll be able to do it, aside from limiting the amount of people.

This week I wore a mask to the stores I went into. More as a 'practicing' issue in case it becomes more recommended. One of our ethnic grocery stores is requiring masks, kind of the barn door closed after the horse is gone, but we'll see. People are wondering why now, and not in the beginning.

I made a mask out of a t-shirt sleeve, no-sew and it does the trick. More shoppers wore them than not, I noticed.

I think there will be more "why now" as people discover that they have friends and family who have become infected.

Kadefol ask her to look at how and what she does when she picks up her supplies. It could be some small thing that she has not thought about. Helps me if I do not think about it but go through the motions of what I would normally do. I have used this method several times when I have "lost" something.

maifleur, we talked through everything she does and she doesn't seem to be missing anything as far as caution. It is strange.

It will probably dawn on her in the middle of the night. It may be as simple as the way she takes her gloves off.

Lot of stupid, selfish people in this country, they are going to get a lot of us killed. Today my brother sent me a news article that wasn't in our local online news (tv stations) about a woman in Louisville going 3 times to shop at Kroger while positive for the virus! They arrested her. I hope they throw away the key.

Went back to work Saturday and found out that they had a conference call in our office while I was off. Packed in like sardines, no social distancing. I'm seriously thinking of retiring sooner rather than later. I wanted to pay off my mortgage and do some traveling before I got too old to enjoy it but I also don't want to be killed prematurely by someone who doesn't give a crap about my life.

I think our government could have avoided most of the lockdown if they had tested, traced and isolated when it first began. So many fewer deaths, so much less suffering. It was done in other countries but we are too ignorant to listen to anyone. Look at South Korea, they had almost no new cases and started opening things back up. Now they are closing things again. They're going to be okay because at least most of their population understands the government is trying to save lives. Unlike here in the U.S. When our "leaders" and I use that term sarcastically because they ARE NOT, don't even care or are smart enough to social distance and wear masks, then why should they expect the rest of the American population to do it?

Bailing out multi million dollar companies is another brilliant idea the government had, instead of taking care of the American people first. Making sure they have healthcare during a PANDEMIC would have been the decent thing to do! But they don't care about you or me, just about getting the country back to work, sacrifice yourself for the greater good of their bank accounts. Well, I haven't been in the military for many years and I don't think I, or you or a meat packing employee should have to sacrifice their life or their family member's life so that some overfed billionaire can continue to eat meat.

Ranting over, probably doesn't make much sense but I'm a little angry right now and very tired. Just got home from a 12 1/2 hour shift on little sleep.

Kadefol, I just want to say I'm really sorry about your friend especially as she's a senior and has health issues. It sounds like she's done everything possible to avoid covid! Not "fair", is it? I hope the fact that she has the energy to be talking about it with you means that she will have only a mild case.

I don't understand, during this 'opening up' why face masks aren't mandated. This would cut down on the spread and allow everyone to be protected from the virus. Plus the economy would start operating again. Just a face mask. No big deal would let things run smoothly without starting an epidemic up all over again.

Jane

Zalco - here's a very interesting article about herd immunity: https://judithcurry.com/2020/05/10/why-herd-immunity-to-covid-19-is-reached-much-earlier-than-thought/

Kadefol, is your friend heavy? After hypertension, obesity is listed as the second most common pre-existing condition. I've noticed in reading about individuals who have died, nearly all of the pictures show someone who is overweight.

Thank you, Raye. I will read and get back to you later today.

^^^^be sure you research Judith Curry before you trust what she writes.

jupidupi, no, she isn't. I've known her for over 30 years and she has always been very slim.

The only thing that occurs to me about your friend, Kadefol, is something I've been doing wrong from the beginning. When we first started getting advice on hand-washing, etc., one of the things I read was that UV light kills the virus so we could leave shipping boxes and other things out in the sun to sanitize that way. Others mentioned they were doing the same thing. But apparently it's not quite true. UV light does kill the virus, but at concentrations much stronger than sunlight.

I wanted to reuse the plastic grocery bags from my curbside pick-ups since I can no longer recycle them, so I was hanging them in the sun to sanitize. Guess I won't be doing that anymore.

Maddie, Judith Curry isn't a writer, she hosts a site for scientist to post their findings on. That post is heavy on statistical analysis.

Our news station said dont forget to sanitize the car door handles and the steering wheel. Maybe she used her gloves to get in the car and touched it later???

alisande, what I've read has said that the effect of sunlight isn't well proven or understood one way or the other. But the virus particles do degrade over time. I think if you put those bags aside - somewhere outside, an unvisited part of the garage or other outbuilding or a closed cupboard, etc., they should be good in some number of days.

We do that with non-perishable grocery deliveries we don't need right away. Some number of days, maybe 3? That also not that well known.

Thanks, Elmer. I've been doing that to a degree, but now I'll do it more.

Alisande, I will ask about the packaging. I know she wears gloves to remove the contents and leaves the boxes outside.

jkayd, she was feeling under the weather and tired and intermittent chills and feeling feverish and sneezing and a bit of a cough. She was sure it was allergies or, at worst, a cold, but she had a phone consult with her doc and was referred for testing. It does seem mild because she is able to function pretty well. I hope her symptoms will stay mild and she will recover quickly. She must have missed something somewhere and was just unlucky enough to get infected, despite being so careful.

Had to run to the store this afternoon and was stunned, less than half of shoppers were wearing face masks and some seemed to resent having to wait for the employee at the entrance to wipe down the cart handle before handing it over. It's like people believe opening the economy 50% means it's fine to completely disregard safety measures.

From Johns Hopkins:

Early Herd Immunity: A Dangerous Misconception

Alisande, how dare you put up something that disagrees with Rush Limbaugh! He always knows what he's talking about. People like him and the thoughtful patriots on Fox News are protecting our freedom, not the far left phonies putting out Fake News.

The key sentence in that piece is: As infectious disease epidemiologists, we wish to state clearly that herd immunity against COVID-19 will not be achieved at a population level in 2020, barring a public health catastrophe.

With so many who have stopped any preventive measures and are basically acting like we are back in pre-covid days, we are probably well on the way to achieving herd immunity in 2020. I do hope I am wrong though and numbers decrease instead of increasing.

"we are probably well on the way to achieving herd immunity in 2020"

C'mon, be a bit more careful. Read alisande's link, entitled "A Dangerous Misconception". Both words are important, dangerous and misconception, and it concerns the misinformation spread by who knows who that's in tune with your misinformed comment. A well respected epidemiologist at a prominent institution said No, not close. No herd immunity any time soon.

What's your expertise or source that leads you to think otherwise?

My post was in reply to part of the sentence bookwoman posted, quoted from the Johns Hopkins article, "...herd immunity against COVID-19 will not be achieved at a population level in 2020, barring a public health catastrophe."

I will elaborate: states are opening up and many people are disregarding
safety measures such as social distancing, and are acting as though the virus situation is no longer anything to worry about.

Which makes me think it is very possible the infection rate is going to
skyrocket and we are headed toward the health catastrophe mentioned in
the above sentence, but I hope I am wrong about that. I sincerely hope
that clarifies what I meant.

The article says that the threshold infection rate would be around 70% of the population, I think that's most unlikely. Don't you?

If the majority disregard safety measures, the infection rate could get out of hand very quickly.

The way I have seen people in this area ignoring practically all the suggestions to prevent the virus the infection rate in this area will go up. How far it will take time but within the next six weeks. I have only been out a few times but those few times only one person was wearing a mask. People were brushing against each other to enter and exit stores. Groups of walkers with no distance between them on the weekends on the trail across from my house.

Yes, people's determined disregard of distancing and other preventive measures is not very reassuring. There are pics of a TJMaxx opening in Arkansas last Saturday going around today, yikes. Mostly no masks, people shopping elbow to elbow, packed in like sardines. Not conducive to lowering infection rates.

I had an opportunity this weekend to have a long discussion with my son. He's on the mend after being down for almost 3 weeks with Covid-19.

One of the subjects in our conversation was where he might have contracted the virus...and what his medicos input has been. To date there's absolutely no evidence that he contracted it from a living source...ie: mankind. More likely...and all
agree...that he contracted it from a hard surface...as in touching actively contagious droplets somewhere in his daily travels to and from his work site.

He did share it with his household. One grandson had a full blown case whereas my DIL as well as my adult granddaughter appear to have had much milder cases. Currently, they're all recuperating.

Son's Dr has released him...considering him no longer infectious BUT his tests still show the virus is present in his system. The Dr explained that the test does not discriminate between the live virus and the dead virus. IMO...that's pretty scary. If governing powers are basing their release dates on such tests...how will their tests be accurate if the tests don't discriminate between a live or dead virus strain?

I'm with Lucille! I'm staying under my rock until the all clear whistle is blown. I'm not convinced that opening public venues in the next 30 - 90 days is the safest procedure despite a populous champing at their bits. I prefer to err on the side of super caution. There isn't anything "out there" that's worth my life.

That's not to say that I don't have bouts of cabin fever like many of you. I do! But I categorize my itchiness as a "grin and bear it" part of life right now. I order in whatever life supporting items I need...like groceries and household items. Plus...I discovered that my local greenhouse...that I've joyfully supported all my years here...delivers plantings other than floral arrangements. My herb garden is in fine fettle...as well as in ground decorative plantings...and I'm regaling in my favorite Spring pastime of sweat and dirty hands.

Winter, I'm so glad to hear your son and his family are all getting better.

Thank you, Alisande. It was touch and go for a few days. His temp peaked at 103.5° and then dropped back to 101° the next morning. He's always had a "devil may care" attitude towards a lot of life. I don't think he'll go forward with that attitude after this experience. Tough way to learn that one should take some aspects of life seriously. But...it's never too late to learn. I'm just very thankful that he and the rest of the family made it and I pray that he doesn't have a relapse in the months to come. I'm one of the doubting Thomas's. I don't believe this is going to go away as soon as some seem to think it will.

This shows in graphic form which states are beating Covid-19, which states are nearly there, and which states need to take action. Mine (PA) needs to take action, but I heard on the news tonight that several counties have taken it upon themselves to start reopening some facilities against the governor's orders. Not good.

Some are winning, some are not

Too soon

I heard on our news today that the hopeful idea of an AZ summer would diminish the virus isn't true. I guess we can fry an egg on the hood of a car but can't kill the virus in our blazing sun!
I also read an article that the people in Japan all wear masks but they haven't shut down their cities and the % of those infected with the virus is much lower than other countries that have shut down but not all the people out and about wear masks. don't know how true that is.

i think some of those graphs haven't considered the number of testing taking place in some states. We've been testing a huge number of people the last 2 weekends which will raise the numbers - not because it's gotten worse but because we know from the tests that more actually do have it - even if no symptoms of it.

Some areas are absolutely doing better than others, and I would think that will affect how people chose to react when stores reopen, etc. The province I live in is currently considered the safest area in North America - we have had 120 confirmed cases in a population of 775,000, and no deaths (only 2 new cases in the last 20 days). Luckily we have some people in our government who had incredible foresight, and shut everything down hard and fast the middle of March. The government took a lot of abuse and criticism at the time, but I think most people now see how fortunate we have been. Our government has done an extraordinary job, and we have been lucky too. A neighboring province has about 145 cases all linked to one funeral in mid-March. We are so fortunate that something like that didn't happen here with one of our early cases.

I work for our provincial government, and they called us into a staff meeting on March 17 and more or less said to most staff 'go home - don't come back until we tell you to'. A few positions were deemed critical so there have been a few of us working, and obviously essential services like road maintenance, social assistance, etc. have been operating at reduced capacity / as needed.

A State of Emergency was declared and for the most part, everything was been closed early in March - retail stores (some exceptions - grocery, pharmacy, home repair, auto repair), dentists, restaurants (curb side pick-up allowed), hair salons/spas, parks, day-cares, campgrounds, recreational facilities, optometrists, most offices.... all closed. Non-emergency hospital services, elective surgeries, etc. were cancelled. Nursing homes and hospitals were locked down. Non-essential travel between provinces and the US is restricted. Anyone returning from out of province *must* quarantine for 14 days (and is checked on daily).

I, personally, have never stopped going to the grocery store(s) weekly. I've been to Costco and Home Depot. I've eaten take-out fairly often to support my favorite local restaurants.
Under the circumstances, I feel very safe. They limit the amount of shoppers in each store, many people are wearing masks, carts are sanitized after each shopper, physical distancing is encouraged with aisles being designated one-way and lines on the floor at the checkout, lots of hand sanitizer available, etc.

Since the end of April we have started re-opening. On Friday we moved to Phase 2 which allows retail stores and restaurants to re-open provided they have certain guidelines in place. We are now allowed gatherings outdoors of up to 10 people. Day-cares are in the process of reopening, although schools are closed until the fall. Hospital services are resuming this week. Most offices that have been closed are gradually phasing in a return to work starting this week. There are many changes in how things are being done, but it's starting to feel more normal. It will be interesting to see where we are at in 7 - 10 days.

"In New Brunswick — with 120 confirmed COVID-19 cases, 118 recoveries, no deaths and no active cases currently in hospital — it has been a story of what could possibly go right, and Cardy deserves a good deal of credit for it. The province was the first to lockdown, and has been one of the first to open up again. Its nursing homes didn’t become COVID-horror shows. Its government hit it out of the park."

National Post: Heroes of the pandemic