Random covid-19 observations

[dbcooper]

[dbcooper]

Saw this comment on an NZ website today:

>my daughter flats in hamilton. a friends flat which they socialize with each day have a flatmate which had direct contact with one of the covid cases in south auckland. (this flat is getting tested)they rang the covid help line and were put on hold for two hours, to see what they should do. after a 2 minute phone call they were told there is no community transfer in hamilton and to just carry on as you were.

[dead_elvis]

Well thank god finally a year in which Michigan won't lose to Ohio State.

[Warren]

Well thank god finally a year in which Michigan won't lose to Ohio State.

[Jennifer]

I haven't heard anything about Louis Gohmert since he came down with covid. Wonder how he's doing?

[lunchstealer]

Quick Google Newsening suggests that he's released a statement suggesting that he has fully recovered and that he plans to donate plasma for serum therapy. God I hope his stupid isn't contagious. I mean what if it were undiagnosed mad cow or some shit? Is there a prion for some sort of belligerently ignorant cow disease?

[Jennifer]

A couple days ago I went to a hospital to get some X-rays done. This is the same hospital where I've gone for any such things since I moved here -- if my doctor or Jeff's wants anything fancier than a blood test, that's where we go -- but this was the first time either of us went to that hospital since covid. They now have security guards taking temperatures before anyone is allowed in, I wasn't allowed in the door until I showed the doctor's form with the X-ray order on it, and Jeff was not allowed in with me unless I specifically needed his assistance. (Given my condition, I likely could've made a fuss and had him come in with me if I really anted to, but of course I did not because I do understand the need for such measures.) Inside, they hadn't really rearrranged anything, but there were those six-foot-distance stickers all over the floors, and more than half the chairs in the waiting room were made off-limits with tape.

[Hugh Akston]

[Jennifer]

Big whoop. If Cain's recent twitter activity is any indication, even "dying a month ago" isn't as deadly as the mainstream media first made it out to be.

In other covid-related stuff: I went to a suburban Atlanta Walmart today; not only is the hand sanitizer shortage thoroughly over in my neck of the woods, but it appears the rubbing-alcohol shortage is coming to an end too. They had scads of rubbing alcohol, but only a relatively expensive "Swan" brand (two-something for a none-too-big bottle); none of the cheap "Equate" store brand or any other varieties, nor even shelf space where those brands might go. (You could still see , on the shelves, the price stickers for other brands they'd normally carry; it's just that the space above said stickers was all filled by the Swan stuff.)

[Eric the .5b]

Hope that gets here soon. I had to get some bottles of ethanol-based hand cleaner last delivery, because that's all they had at the local HEB. (Some regional distillery's product, with the notice that its improved formula "doesn't smell like tequila". Which meant it just smelled like vodka.)

[Jennifer]

Is there an "Ollie's Bargain Outlet" near you? (Link goes to store locator.) I know they have many Texas locations, but I don't know if any are convenient for your town. I mentioned a few months ago, when the sanitizer shortage was still a local-to-me issue, that I was happy to have found a one-liter bottle of 80% alcohol liquid hand sanitizer for $8 at Ollie's. Jeff and I went back there about a week ago, and they still sold the same sanitizer (from Faber Distilling Co.; looks like a regular brown-label clear-booze bottle, except that label says HAND SANITIZER and DO NOT DRINK! in huge letters), only now that bottle's price had dropped to $6, and it was merely one of several brands and types of sanitizer available: gels and liquids, ranging in size from little portable pocket-bottles or sprays, to big keep-at-home refill-size bottles. And big pump bottles of gel, too.

[Eric the .5b]

Is there an "Ollie's Bargain Outlet" near you? (Link goes to store locator.) I know they have many Texas locations, but I don't know if any are convenient for your town.

Not within 50 miles, and my car needs work. Appreciate the tip, though.

[Jennifer]

Thought: I knew about the 1918 Spanish flu and how deadly it was well before covid struck, and I'm sure most if not all the people here did too. But until covid struck and all the news websites started doing related articles about the 1918 flu, I did not know things like, during the flu time there were mask/no mask debates, and anti-maskers as nutty as today;s making pretty much the same arguments. But after the flu burned out, things pretty much went back to normal and the flu had no obvious, lasting effects on everyday life or culture (although in retrospect, I wonder if at least some of the hedonism of the Roaring 20s had to do with people's being survivors of a deadly pandemic which mostly struck young, healthy people). Certainly, at least in America and Europe/"the West", there were no segments or subcultures of the population who kept wearing masks as a precautionary measure, let alone for style, and there weren't even mentions of or references to it in the literature, popular writing or movies of the 1920s -- at least, none I'm aware of. The masks vanished completely from popular memory and culture -- even someone like me, who likes reading about history in general and "daily life" history in particular, never heard of the masks, and even knowing about the 1918 flu and its effect on the war at all likely made me a minority, before covid.

I wonder: will the same thing happen with the Great Covid-19 Pandemic after it goes away (assuming it does), or will it be remembered and known in the future? Might there even be some permanent changes to society/social practices as a result of it?

[lunchstealer]

Thought: I knew about the 1918 Spanish flu and how deadly it was well before covid struck, and I'm sure most if not all the people here did too. But until covid struck and all the news websites started doing related articles about the 1918 flu, I did not know things like, during the flu time there were mask/no mask debates, and anti-maskers as nutty as today;s making pretty much the same arguments. But after the flu burned out, things pretty much went back to normal and the flu had no obvious, lasting effects on everyday life or culture (although in retrospect, I wonder if at least some of the hedonism of the Roaring 20s had to do with people's being survivors of a deadly pandemic which mostly struck young, healthy people). Certainly, at least in America and Europe/"the West", there were no segments or subcultures of the population who kept wearing masks as a precautionary measure, let alone for style, and there weren't even mentions of or references to it in the literature, popular writing or movies of the 1920s -- at least, none I'm aware of. The masks vanished completely from popular memory and culture -- even someone like me, who likes reading about history in general and "daily life" history in particular, never heard of the masks, and even knowing about the 1918 flu and its effect on the war at all likely made me a minority, before covid.

I wonder: will the same thing happen with the Great Covid-19 Pandemic after it goes away (assuming it does), or will it be remembered and known in the future? Might there even be some permanent changes to society/social practices as a result of it?

Some of that is that with WWI still raging, the flu pandemic was always second-fiddle, news-wise, and in many cases news and official reporting on it were actively suppressed as hurting the war effort, at a time when SCOTUS was upholding suppression of speech deemed un-war-friendly in Schenck v US. If it had happened two years later, not overshadowed by the war and news and discussion not suppressed for the sake of the war effort, I suspect that it would've been a huge cultural deal. It has been suggested that even the name 'Spanish Flu' stemmed from the fact that as a relatively major European nation not directly involved in the war, Spain was one of the few places openly writing about it, so people thought it was from there, when it may very well have originated in the US.

[Jennifer]

I got an MRI today, at one of the many many buildings comprising the Emory hospital system in Atlanta, and of course the entire building (that I saw) had been re-organized on account of the pandemic. Despite the hot sunny day, there were some people sitting in their parked cars in the parking lot, all with engines and AC running; that's because of signs requiring "visitors" (as opposed to patients) wait in their cars.

I actually arrived 45 minutes early (I left extra time in case of traffic, which turned out not to be an issue), and feared that meant I would have to wait in my car, but it did not. Of course the floor was littered with those footprint stickers showing people where to wait in line so as to maintain social distancing. Masks were naturally required for entry, and the security guard at the front desk used a forehead device to take my temperature before giving me a sticker allowing entry. The elevators had signs saying no more than two people were allowed in at a time, and in the fairly large MRI waiting room the majority of seats were moved to one side of the room and stacked on their sides; only eight chairs remained, all located in squares taped on the floor to mark six-foot distances.

[Pham Nuwen]

You got to wear the ultimate uniform: scrubs. So comfy, right? Now you know how to live correctly.

[Jennifer]

Ha! Yes, I wore scrubs. which I found kind of ironic because I no-joke made an actual effort to find clothing that was 100% metal-free -- lots of "Oh, these elastic-waistband linen pants will work ... no, shit, there's these bullshit metal fake rivets in a couple places, what is the POINT of that" and of course it turns out I could've worn chainmail and it wouldn't have made any difference, since everyone has to remove their street clothes and put on scrubs before entering the MRI room anyway. Properly fitting scrubs might be comfortable, but I got a super-giganto set and the first time I tried walking out of the dressing room the pants dropped almost to my knees (luckily no-one was there to see), so I had to double-tie the drawstring, which made it a PITA to untie afterwards.

I took a dressing-room selfie since I was so amused by how disheveled I looked, between my oversized clothes and my frizzy Atlanta hair (plus I'd just removed all hairclip/barrette-type things without brushing my hair out afterward, because I'm about to be stuffed into a tube so why bother). But when I took the picture I did NOT notice the end of the drawstring poking out from under the shirt like a scrawny gray off-center flaccid dick.

ETA: Huh, my attempt to make a hyperlink out of that Facebook post did not work; the post embedded itself instead. So, here:



Wow. I really do have extremely pointy elbows. Looks like I could fuckin' CUT you with those things.

[Eric the .5b]

Ha! Yes, I wore scrubs. which I found kind of ironic because I no-joke made an actual effort to find clothing that was 100% metal-free

They really should have told you that they'd give you scrubs. When I've had scans, they told me ahead of time that they'd give me scrubs...

(I wish I'd caught that before, or I would have mentioned it. Sorry, my sleep patterns have been weirder than normal, recently.)

[Jennifer]

Yeah, I know I had an MRI for something as a kid, but the only bit I remember about it is going into a science-fictiony room and being slid into a tube. Didn't even remember being given earplugs to offset the loudness, or them putting that hockey-mask thing over my face.

I forgot to ask: just out of curiosity, what would've happened if I HAD worn, say, a metal hair-barrette into the machine? Or those pants with the pointless metal rivets?

[thoreau]

Depends on the metal. If it's ferrous metal it would have been ripped out by the magnetic field. If non-ferrous, it might still contaminate the signal in some way (less because of the magnet than the radio-frequency radiation). And, most importantly, the technician doesn't want to find anything out the hard way, so they just keep all metal out on general principles rather than taking someone's word that the rivets in their pants have no iron.

[Pham Nuwen]

Projectile weapons or just fuck up a half million dollar machine.

[lunchstealer]

Ha! Yes, I wore scrubs. which I found kind of ironic because I no-joke made an actual effort to find clothing that was 100% metal-free -- lots of "Oh, these elastic-waistband linen pants will work ... no, shit, there's these bullshit metal fake rivets in a couple places, what is the POINT of that" and of course it turns out I could've worn chainmail and it wouldn't have made any difference, since everyone has to remove their street clothes and put on scrubs before entering the MRI room anyway. Properly fitting scrubs might be comfortable, but I got a super-giganto set and the first time I tried walking out of the dressing room the pants dropped almost to my knees (luckily no-one was there to see), so I had to double-tie the drawstring, which made it a PITA to untie afterwards.

I took a dressing-room selfie since I was so amused by how disheveled I looked, between my oversized clothes and my frizzy Atlanta hair (plus I'd just removed all hairclip/barrette-type things without brushing my hair out afterward, because I'm about to be stuffed into a tube so why bother). But when I took the picture I did NOT notice the end of the drawstring poking out from under the shirt like a scrawny gray off-center flaccid dick.

ETA: Huh, my attempt to make a hyperlink out of that Facebook post did not work; the post embedded itself instead. So, here:



Wow. I really do have extremely pointy elbows. Looks like I could fuckin' CUT you with those things.

test of [ url ] tags for facebook links:

https://www.facebook.com/jennifer.abel. ... 0772301406

[dbcooper]

[nicole]

The lady in this video actually made me feel slightly less bad that the Christkindlmarket is going to be online-only this year

https://www.christkindlmarket.com/shop/

I'm going to order so much junk food guys

[Pham Nuwen]

Redacted because my temper tantrum is done now.