State your opinion on COVID-19

On Saturday, March 28, 2020 at 9:01:47 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
As usual, discussions here have devolved into childish name calling by
some, demeaning published facts and data, quick political jabs,
defensive changes of subjet, and "I know better than anyone" allusions.
Things get obscured.

So I'd like to get a direct answer, especially from Tom and from Andrew.

Tom: Do you really think COVID-19 is no worse than an ordinary seasonal flu?

Andrew: Do you really think COVID-19 is no worse than an ordinary
seasonal flu?

Of course, this is a discussion group. Others are very welcome to give
their opinion too.

BTW, our bike club now has its first member in intensive care on a
ventilator. I consider him a really good friend, one of the guys who
(almost) always came on my night rides. He's much younger than me and
has been a hell of a rider, a daily commuter, fast and high mileage.

I think that the seasonal flu is so much worse that Covid-19 that it is incomparable.

Seasonal flu as a rule kills people in the prime of their lives. Especially dangerous to children 5 years and under. The overwhelming majority of cases are to people under 65 years of age. Like the Covid-19 it spreads from a single point of mutation, the population has a long term immunity to the disease and 80% of the population is inoculated against it. Yet through all of these stop signs this disease still manages a yearly death rate of 38,000+.

Covid-17 apparently scares you to the point of wetting yourself because why exactly? Because you're part of the target audience for this illness? Those over 60 years old with pulmonary or cardio illnesses? As of this hour, the death toll to Covid-19 is 2,112. And this tiny number despite every third man tested is testing positive.

There is no immunity in the general population and plainly 60% of the population have immune systems that react so fast to this virus that they don't even catch it in the first place. And 80% of those that do have it do not have any or very minor symptoms. Only 20% have fairly heavy symptoms and only 3% of those are dying. For every 4.8 men that catch it only 2.8 women catch it.

In my case I had a tightness in my lungs for a couple of days and it is getting better very slowly. But I am improving and each day I can tell the difference.

The media has decided to never let a good crisis go without taking political advantage of it. You are of the same mind. If that is what you call your twisted and biased ideas.

It is mentally ill for people like you to believe that communism could do better and yet that is exactly what you are advocating. Hand a government full and complete power lorded over by Nancy Pelosi and the world would be a better place in your mind. Putting yourself into chains is a great idea and you are willing to jump at the idea.

Tell us Frank - where do you think your teachers retirement is going to come from after the Lame Stream Media and Chucky Schummer spend all of the money and don't have any to give to your state to pay your retirement with?

On Saturday, March 28, 2020 at 10:09:19 AM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 3/28/2020 11:01 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

As usual, discussions here have devolved into childish name
calling by some, demeaning published facts and data, quick
political jabs, defensive changes of subjet, and "I know
better than anyone" allusions. Things get obscured.

So I'd like to get a direct answer, especially from Tom and
from Andrew.

Tom: Do you really think COVID-19 is no worse than an
ordinary seasonal flu?

Andrew: Do you really think COVID-19 is no worse than an
ordinary seasonal flu?

Of course, this is a discussion group. Others are very
welcome to give their opinion too.

BTW, our bike club now has its first member in intensive
care on a ventilator. I consider him a really good friend,
one of the guys who (almost) always came on my night rides.
He's much younger than me and has been a hell of a rider, a
daily commuter, fast and high mileage.


Up to here, yes. Death is not trivial to the fatality
himself, but the numbers haven't supported panic so far.

I will change my opinion when/if the numbers change but
having known people who died of pneumonia from influenza, my
point was merely that it's the same death (and an unpleasant
one at that) to fewer people.

see also:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/images/about...za-burden..png

If influenza were unknown until this year, people would
freak out at forty million infected and 50,000 Americans dead.

If you want to do something useful and patriotic, do
something about the even larger number of Americans who die
annually by _hospital acquired infection_. That number is
not getting smaller year over year- it's growing.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

This is actually not from pneumonia, it appears to be a viral pneumonia but it is caused by a violent over-reaction of the immune system that didn't react early enough and then vastly over-reacted and caused violent inflammation of the lungs and respiratory track.

This is why it occurs to mainly older people. The older you get the slower the immune system is to react and can cause this over-reaction once it fires up.

This is very difficult to control but using plasma from people who have recovered from the illness early enough stops it right in its tracks.

On Saturday, March 28, 2020 at 12:18:08 PM UTC-7, Mark J. wrote:
On 3/28/2020 10:09 AM, AMuzi wrote:
On 3/28/2020 11:01 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

As usual, discussions here have devolved into childish name
calling by some, demeaning published facts and data, quick
political jabs, defensive changes of subjet, and "I know
better than anyone" allusions. Things get obscured.

So I'd like to get a direct answer, especially from Tom and
from Andrew.

Tom: Do you really think COVID-19 is no worse than an
ordinary seasonal flu?

Andrew: Do you really think COVID-19 is no worse than an
ordinary seasonal flu?

Of course, this is a discussion group. Others are very
welcome to give their opinion too.

BTW, our bike club now has its first member in intensive
care on a ventilator. I consider him a really good friend,
one of the guys who (almost) always came on my night rides.
He's much younger than me and has been a hell of a rider, a
daily commuter, fast and high mileage.


Up to here, yes. Death is not trivial to the fatality himself, but the
numbers haven't supported panic so far.

I will change my opinion when/if the numbers change [...]

Sadly, give it a week or two. Cases are roughly quadrupling each week
in the US [based on CDC reports]. Exponential growth doesn't catch the
public eye when the absolute numbers are low, but those low numbers
don't last long.

We are solidly on track to eclipse the "regular-flu" numbers.

Mark J.


but having known
people who died of pneumonia from influenza, my point was merely that
it's the same death (and an unpleasant one at that) to fewer people.

see also:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/images/about...nza-burden.png


If influenza were unknown until this year, people would freak out at
forty million infected and 50,000 Americans dead.

If you want to do something useful and patriotic, do something about the
even larger number of Americans who die annually by _hospital acquired
infection_.Â* That number is not getting smaller year over year- it's
growing.


Mark, most of this "growth" is nothing of the kind. It is simply improved testing procedures that are allowing them to "confirm" more cases that are not new infections.

These tests have yet to be automated and I cannot understand why because I designed the machines to do just that. But that may just be what the media chooses to record. The actual testing supplies are being used up so rapidly that they are running out of the little test brush that they wipe the inside of your nose with. Several companies around here are starting to make them via 3D printing processes.

It is my position that this illness has already passed through the entire population and the most vulnerable have already been hospitalized or shortly will be. Hospitals have been overwhelmed but I see a rather sudden flattening of the sick rate like occurred in China.

It sure as hell doesn't help for New York's DeBlasio to be claiming he needs another 13,000 ventilators when he has 4,000 of them sitting in a warehouse to be sent where they are needed, IF they are needed. Governor Cuomo could have rebuilt the state's emergency medical supplies kept for just these sorts of emergencies if he wasn't busy building a solar cell plant that never opened, a integrated circuit factory that wasn't ever opened or a high speed rail (shades of Jerry Brown) that no one wants.

It is unlikely to have any ill effects on the sort of people that should be frequenting a bicycle group.

John B. writes:

On Sat, 28 Mar 2020 21:09:46 -0400, Radey Shouman
wrote:

Ralph Barone writes:

AMuzi wrote:
On 3/28/2020 2:18 PM, Mark J. wrote:
On 3/28/2020 10:09 AM, AMuzi wrote:
On 3/28/2020 11:01 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

As usual, discussions here have devolved into childish name
calling by some, demeaning published facts and data, quick
political jabs, defensive changes of subjet, and "I know
better than anyone" allusions. Things get obscured.

So I'd like to get a direct answer, especially from Tom and
from Andrew.

Tom: Do you really think COVID-19 is no worse than an
ordinary seasonal flu?

Andrew: Do you really think COVID-19 is no worse than an
ordinary seasonal flu?

Of course, this is a discussion group. Others are very
welcome to give their opinion too.

BTW, our bike club now has its first member in intensive
care on a ventilator. I consider him a really good friend,
one of the guys who (almost) always came on my night rides.
He's much younger than me and has been a hell of a rider, a
daily commuter, fast and high mileage.


Up to here, yes. Death is not trivial to the fatality
himself, but the numbers haven't supported panic so far.

I will change my opinion when/if the numbers change [...]

Sadly, give it a week or two. Cases are roughly quadrupling
each week in the US [based on CDC reports]. Exponential
growth doesn't catch the public eye when the absolute
numbers are low, but those low numbers don't last long.

We are solidly on track to eclipse the "regular-flu" numbers.

Mark J.


but having known
people who died of pneumonia from influenza, my point was
merely that it's the same death (and an unpleasant one at
that) to fewer people.

see also:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/images/about...nza-burden.png


If influenza were unknown until this year, people would
freak out at forty million infected and 50,000 Americans
dead.

If you want to do something useful and patriotic, do
something about the even larger number of Americans who
die annually by _hospital acquired infection_. That
number is not getting smaller year over year- it's growing.



Another danger is a mental incapacity caused by a political
correctness infestation. From WMAL today:

https://www.wmal.com/news/yes-we-lon...uldnt-anymore/

Headline:
"Yes, we long have referred to disease outbreaks by
geographic places. Here’s why we shouldn’t anymore"

Main argument worthy of a failing grade in a high school
logic class:
"During the 2003 SARS outbreak, media coverage of the
disease led to the stigmatization of Asian communities in
countries such as Canada. It devastated Chinese-owned
businesses, especially those located in Chinatowns."

I looked for SARS on a map. Couldn't find it.

Perhaps in time all this will pass, just as we no longer use
"the French disease".

Or “the Spanish Flu�, named after the one country that had the balls to
admit it existed.

You oversimplify -- Spain was neutral during the Great War, so their
press remained freer than that of combatant nations. "In war, the first
casualty is the truth".

I think that is an over simplification. In war, or perhaps at any
time, there are at least two truths, our's and their's. "Our" news is,
of course, true and honest while "Their" news is, of course, nothing
but lies :-)

During the Great War combatant nations censored news of the spread of
the flu, do you disagree? Maybe it was a conscious decision to boost
public morale, maybe it was just a reflex to quash bad news, I'm not
historian enough to say.

(Then there is "that other news" that both Us and Them label as pure
fabrication :-)

--

On Saturday, March 28, 2020 at 1:32:15 PM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, March 28, 2020 at 12:18:08 PM UTC-7, Mark J. wrote:
On 3/28/2020 10:09 AM, AMuzi wrote:
On 3/28/2020 11:01 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

As usual, discussions here have devolved into childish name
calling by some, demeaning published facts and data, quick
political jabs, defensive changes of subjet, and "I know
better than anyone" allusions. Things get obscured.

So I'd like to get a direct answer, especially from Tom and
from Andrew.

Tom: Do you really think COVID-19 is no worse than an
ordinary seasonal flu?

Andrew: Do you really think COVID-19 is no worse than an
ordinary seasonal flu?

Of course, this is a discussion group. Others are very
welcome to give their opinion too.

BTW, our bike club now has its first member in intensive
care on a ventilator. I consider him a really good friend,
one of the guys who (almost) always came on my night rides.
He's much younger than me and has been a hell of a rider, a
daily commuter, fast and high mileage.


Up to here, yes. Death is not trivial to the fatality himself, but the
numbers haven't supported panic so far.

I will change my opinion when/if the numbers change [...]

Sadly, give it a week or two. Cases are roughly quadrupling each week
in the US [based on CDC reports]. Exponential growth doesn't catch the
public eye when the absolute numbers are low, but those low numbers
don't last long.

We are solidly on track to eclipse the "regular-flu" numbers.

Mark J.

Plus, the whole idea with these Draconian measures is to limit the damage.. If we don't have the damage, that means the measures were successful and not that the measures were unnecessary -- unless there is data indicating that the whole thing is a hoax or that the expected infection/mortality rates without treatment were miscalculated. What we need is a clinical trial. No masks, social distancing, closed business, extra ventilators, etc.,for some big city. Party on! Then lock-down another big city and fill it with medical equipment and hand sanitizer and then check the mortality rates in six months. Control for temperature and region. Obvious choice would be Huston and Dallas or maybe Minneapolis and St. Paul. Nobody could switch cities.

I'm very pleased to have bought a bag of rice today at the local Safeway. It was the last one on the shelf -- a lone bag of Thai jasmine rice. No plain old rice. Lots of produce and other good stuff. The horders are really into rice, beans and toilet paper -- which makes a great high-fiber casserole. Tons of people were out walking around. We had this little pedestrian traffic jam on one of our neighborhood walks with everyone trying to sort-out how to maintain social distancing.

-- Jay Beattie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rInTBhGq10

Frank Krygowski writes:

On 3/28/2020 7:15 PM, Radey Shouman wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:


We have one friend with whom we shared a six-foot-separated
picnic. She has no symptoms, but she had to take off her mask to
eat. Other friends (we've seen a dozen, max) have been almost as
careful, but no masks.

A dozen since the Ohio "shelter in place" order? Honestly that seems
like a large number to me. Our social life is pretty much all remote
now, aside from two or three chance meetings.

About half of those were on March 17, before the official order, but
even then we were being very careful. At that time, they had said "6
feet minimum" and (I think) "no more than 10 in a group."

I interpreted the figure of ten people as an upper limit for gatherings
not exempted, not carte blanche to get together with nine of your
friends. But until the tear gas drones are deployed each of us must use
his own best judgement.

Since then, the friends we've seen have all been outdoors, on
well-separated hikes, walks or bike rides. And since then, we've been
to only one grocery, one deli for takeout, and one pharmacy.

BTW, the pharmacy (a block from our house) was closed for several days
for "deep cleaning." Apparently one or two employees tested
positive. I was in there today to get a prescription, and all the old
staff had been temporarily replaced. They're all in self quarantine.

--

Tom Kunich wrote:
On Saturday, March 28, 2020 at 10:09:19 AM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 3/28/2020 11:01 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

As usual, discussions here have devolved into childish name
calling by some, demeaning published facts and data, quick
political jabs, defensive changes of subjet, and "I know
better than anyone" allusions. Things get obscured.

So I'd like to get a direct answer, especially from Tom and
from Andrew.

Tom: Do you really think COVID-19 is no worse than an
ordinary seasonal flu?

Andrew: Do you really think COVID-19 is no worse than an
ordinary seasonal flu?

Of course, this is a discussion group. Others are very
welcome to give their opinion too.

BTW, our bike club now has its first member in intensive
care on a ventilator. I consider him a really good friend,
one of the guys who (almost) always came on my night rides.
He's much younger than me and has been a hell of a rider, a
daily commuter, fast and high mileage.


Up to here, yes. Death is not trivial to the fatality
himself, but the numbers haven't supported panic so far.

I will change my opinion when/if the numbers change but
having known people who died of pneumonia from influenza, my
point was merely that it's the same death (and an unpleasant
one at that) to fewer people.

see also:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/images/about...nza-burden.png

If influenza were unknown until this year, people would
freak out at forty million infected and 50,000 Americans dead.

If you want to do something useful and patriotic, do
something about the even larger number of Americans who die
annually by _hospital acquired infection_. That number is
not getting smaller year over year- it's growing.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

This is actually not from pneumonia, it appears to be a viral pneumonia
but it is caused by a violent over-reaction of the immune system that
didn't react early enough and then vastly over-reacted and caused violent
inflammation of the lungs and respiratory track.

This is why it occurs to mainly older people. The older you get the
slower the immune system is to react and can cause this over-reaction once it fires up.

This is very difficult to control but using plasma from people who have
recovered from the illness early enough stops it right in its tracks.


Great idea. Where are you going to get this plasma from when the number of
infected exceeds the number that have provably recovered from it? There’s
not enough testing being done now to figure out who actually has it, never
mind who has actually had it and recovered.

On Saturday, March 28, 2020 at 4:56:32 PM UTC-7, Ralph Barone wrote:
Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 3/28/2020 5:20 PM, AMuzi wrote:
On 3/28/2020 3:32 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, March 28, 2020 at 12:18:08 PM UTC-7, Mark J. wrote:
On 3/28/2020 10:09 AM, AMuzi wrote:
On 3/28/2020 11:01 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

As usual, discussions here have devolved into childish name
calling by some, demeaning published facts and data, quick
political jabs, defensive changes of subjet, and "I know
better than anyone" allusions. Things get obscured.

So I'd like to get a direct answer, especially from Tom and
from Andrew.

Tom: Do you really think COVID-19 is no worse than an
ordinary seasonal flu?

Andrew: Do you really think COVID-19 is no worse than an
ordinary seasonal flu?

Of course, this is a discussion group. Others are very
welcome to give their opinion too.

BTW, our bike club now has its first member in intensive
care on a ventilator. I consider him a really good friend,
one of the guys who (almost) always came on my night rides.
He's much younger than me and has been a hell of a rider, a
daily commuter, fast and high mileage.


Up to here, yes. Death is not trivial to the fatality himself, but the
numbers haven't supported panic so far.

I will change my opinion when/if the numbers change [...]

Sadly, give it a week or two.Â* Cases are roughly quadrupling each week
in the US [based on CDC reports].Â* Exponential growth doesn't catch the
public eye when the absolute numbers are low, but those low numbers
don't last long.

We are solidly on track to eclipse the "regular-flu" numbers.

Mark J.

Plus, the whole idea with these Draconian measures is to limit the
damage.Â* If we don't have the damage, that means the measures were
successful and not that the measures were unnecessary -- unless there
is data indicating that the whole thing is a hoax or that the expected
infection/mortality rates without treatment were miscalculated.Â* What
we need is a clinical trial. No masks, social distancing, closed
business, extra ventilators, etc.,for some big city. Party on! Then
lock-down another big city and fill it with medical equipment and hand
sanitizer and then check the mortality rates in six months. Control
for temperature and region.Â* Obvious choice would be Huston and Dallas
or maybe Minneapolis and St. Paul. Nobody could switch cities.

I'm very pleased to have bought a bag of rice today at the local
Safeway.Â* It was the last one on the shelf -- a lone bag of Thai
jasmine rice.Â* No plain old rice. Lots of produce and other good
stuff.Â* The horders are really into rice, beans and toilet paper --
which makes a great high-fiber casserole.Â* Tons of people were out
walking around. We had this little pedestrian traffic jam on one of
our neighborhood walks with everyone trying to sort-out how to
maintain social distancing.

-- Jay Beattie.



I don't know but I suppose some of you survivors will think of us when
it's over.

Does the "us" in that sentence refer to people who are refusing
recommended health strategies?

It might be good to know who here is still engaging in close contact
with lots of the general public, attending parties, dating lots of new
partners, visiting sick relatives, never washing hands, licking
doorknobs, whatever.

You know, vs. who is doing what most medical experts say we should.
Maybe we can do our own mini-study. Check back six months from now and
see how everyone's doing.

We have one friend with whom we shared a six-foot-separated picnic. She
has no symptoms, but she had to take off her mask to eat. Other friends
(we've seen a dozen, max) have been almost as careful, but no masks.


My wife and I have been in self-imposed lockdown for around two weeks now..
We only go out for groceries. It wasn’t too much of a leap, since I’m
retired and doing a minimal amount of contract work from home (although I
did lose an interesting contract which might have required travel to
Kentucky). Our only real source of exposure is our daughter, who lives
with us and works in a grocery store.

You can find the map on the John Hopkins site. If you look at the places effected it is everywhere. What I said before is that this stuff had to be around since August. Students in Wuhan for research, foreign exchange or simply visiting families brought it back to their colleges. This illness simply didn't effect the sorts of people that are college students. Then around the holidays they brought it home to their parents and grandparents. So it took a bit of time to reach the sorts of people that could be seriously effect by it.

NO disease can move as fast as Fauci is claiming. Neither can it be that dangerous to a population when the results we are seeing are of such low mortality rates. Remember that originally they claimed that it had a transmission rate of approximate the same as the cold and then when so many cases turned up so rapidly, they changed their opinions to a transmission rate some three times that of he common cold. How often do you get the cold? Believe me, that is the transmission rate of all corona viruses.

I would think that you have no fear of it. I'm sure that you have been exposed to it and either your immune system killed it off before it infected you or you got infected and just didn't notice it. My symptoms are so light as to not be a problem other than the minor issue of a cough. On bike rides I sure hack up a lot of goo from my lungs.

Remember, every single item that is brought home from the supermarket has been handled by 20 people. So "social separation" can't be very effective.

I did love the various symphonies getting together via Skype to play symphonies from home. The same as choirs are doing as well.

On Saturday, March 28, 2020 at 6:04:16 PM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, March 28, 2020 at 4:56:32 PM UTC-7, Ralph Barone wrote:
Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 3/28/2020 5:20 PM, AMuzi wrote:
On 3/28/2020 3:32 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Saturday, March 28, 2020 at 12:18:08 PM UTC-7, Mark J. wrote:
On 3/28/2020 10:09 AM, AMuzi wrote:
On 3/28/2020 11:01 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

As usual, discussions here have devolved into childish name
calling by some, demeaning published facts and data, quick
political jabs, defensive changes of subjet, and "I know
better than anyone" allusions. Things get obscured.

So I'd like to get a direct answer, especially from Tom and
from Andrew.

Tom: Do you really think COVID-19 is no worse than an
ordinary seasonal flu?

Andrew: Do you really think COVID-19 is no worse than an
ordinary seasonal flu?

Of course, this is a discussion group. Others are very
welcome to give their opinion too.

BTW, our bike club now has its first member in intensive
care on a ventilator. I consider him a really good friend,
one of the guys who (almost) always came on my night rides.
He's much younger than me and has been a hell of a rider, a
daily commuter, fast and high mileage.


Up to here, yes. Death is not trivial to the fatality himself, but the
numbers haven't supported panic so far.

I will change my opinion when/if the numbers change [...]

Sadly, give it a week or two.Â* Cases are roughly quadrupling each week
in the US [based on CDC reports].Â* Exponential growth doesn't catch the
public eye when the absolute numbers are low, but those low numbers
don't last long.

We are solidly on track to eclipse the "regular-flu" numbers.

Mark J.

Plus, the whole idea with these Draconian measures is to limit the
damage.Â* If we don't have the damage, that means the measures were
successful and not that the measures were unnecessary -- unless there
is data indicating that the whole thing is a hoax or that the expected
infection/mortality rates without treatment were miscalculated.Â* What
we need is a clinical trial. No masks, social distancing, closed
business, extra ventilators, etc.,for some big city. Party on! Then
lock-down another big city and fill it with medical equipment and hand
sanitizer and then check the mortality rates in six months. Control
for temperature and region.Â* Obvious choice would be Huston and Dallas
or maybe Minneapolis and St. Paul. Nobody could switch cities.

I'm very pleased to have bought a bag of rice today at the local
Safeway.Â* It was the last one on the shelf -- a lone bag of Thai
jasmine rice.Â* No plain old rice. Lots of produce and other good
stuff.Â* The horders are really into rice, beans and toilet paper --
which makes a great high-fiber casserole.Â* Tons of people were out
walking around. We had this little pedestrian traffic jam on one of
our neighborhood walks with everyone trying to sort-out how to
maintain social distancing.

-- Jay Beattie.



I don't know but I suppose some of you survivors will think of us when
it's over.

Does the "us" in that sentence refer to people who are refusing
recommended health strategies?

It might be good to know who here is still engaging in close contact
with lots of the general public, attending parties, dating lots of new
partners, visiting sick relatives, never washing hands, licking
doorknobs, whatever.

You know, vs. who is doing what most medical experts say we should.
Maybe we can do our own mini-study. Check back six months from now and
see how everyone's doing.

We have one friend with whom we shared a six-foot-separated picnic. She
has no symptoms, but she had to take off her mask to eat. Other friends
(we've seen a dozen, max) have been almost as careful, but no masks.


My wife and I have been in self-imposed lockdown for around two weeks now.
We only go out for groceries. It wasn’t too much of a leap, since I’m
retired and doing a minimal amount of contract work from home (although I
did lose an interesting contract which might have required travel to
Kentucky). Our only real source of exposure is our daughter, who lives
with us and works in a grocery store.

I blew off a ride today to go on a walk with my wife. We saw lots of people and passed some within feet. We stopped at the Safeway and even stopped at a coffee shop in Multnomah Village, although you can't go inside. They were set up at the door -- bought some beans for home espresso. https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1901/...4b285de2_b.jpg There's a second coffee shop in town that was open as well -- but not the Blue Star Donuts (mega-expensive curated donuts) or the collection of other eateries. The weed shop was open, of course.

When I say "Multnomah Village," I feel like I'm with Frank, back in Ohi-oh. It even has a visitor's guide, which is impressive for a wide spot in the road. https://tinyurl.com/vmoofse We usually walk the urban trails rather than the neighborhoods, but the 'hoods are fun now and then.

We did a Costco run and bought some lawn fertilizer, so I spread that -- but its too wet for weeding. They have a plexi-glass sneeze screen at the check-out stand at Costco -- and weird new rituals for handing your membership card and purchases. I did some law work. Put a different saddle on my Synapse. I thought about doing my taxes. Still thinking.

The only thing that differentiated today from any other under-productive Saturday was the pervasive sense of dread and the obviously changed behavior of others. I feel like I'm jet-lagged after coming home from a funeral. I totally understand wanting this to be over. I've got a ride scheduled tomorrow with my nextdoor neighbor and best riding buddy, which will be fun -- unless he hits the gas. I'm still SOB, but probably from allergies. Who knows, though, I COULD BE NEXT! [insert "The Scream" emoji].

-- Jay Beattie.

Jay, if you were commuting in the rain I wouldn't worry.

Tom Kunich wrote:
On Saturday, March 28, 2020 at 4:56:32 PM UTC-7, Ralph Barone wrote:

On 3/28/2020 11:01 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

BTW, our bike club now has its first member in intensive
care on a ventilator. I consider him a really good friend,
one of the guys who (almost) always came on my night
rides. He's much younger than me and has been a hell of a
rider, a daily commuter, fast and high mileage.

Sorry to hear that. I hope he'll get well again, preferably well enough to
enjoy riding a bike with your club again.

Fast does not equal healthy. I guess you cannot or don't wish to provide
more details on previous health, workplace environment, recent training
intensity, travels, means of transport used?

My wife and I have been in self-imposed lockdown for around two weeks
now.. We only go out for groceries. It wasn’t too much of a leap, since
I’m retired and doing a minimal amount of contract work from home
(although I did lose an interesting contract which might have required
travel to Kentucky). Our only real source of exposure is our daughter,
who lives with us and works in a grocery store.

She has such a low opinion of their groceries that she won't even bring them
to you?

You can find the map on the John Hopkins site. If you look at the places
effected it is everywhere. What I said before is that this stuff had to
be around since August. Students in Wuhan for research, foreign exchange
or simply visiting families brought it back to their colleges. This
illness simply didn't effect the sorts of people that are college
students. Then around the holidays they brought it home to their parents
and grandparents. So it took a bit of time to reach the sorts of people
that could be seriously effect by it.

(dry cough) As you already use the Newsanchorese "John" -- may I suggest
you also use their "impact"?

--
From our mini-series, More Family Fun Things to Do During Lockdown:
https://www.nhpco.org/wp-content/uploads/California.pdf