Jackstraw

I've forgotten what day it was twice this week lol

Whether or not this has any thing to do with anything I found this about obesity estimates worldwide. I was surprised to see how many countries were running a 20% or higher obesity rate. 3/4ths of the landmass people occupy are running an obesity rate at 20% or higher. South Korea jumped out with an obesity rate of 4.3%. No science just a reference. https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/obesity-rates-by-country/

Oh great, either side of Yellowstone. It's gonna come in 3's!!!

A few little things we've started doing lately since it's looking like at least another month if not 2... When we need to go to the grocery or somewhere I try and go within the first 30 min they're open or the last 30 min before they close. I've found that there are very few people in the stores during those times. Also starting this week, us and a few friends of ours are going to start taking turns going for all of us limiting the amount of time each person needs to spend in stores and also sharing freezer space. Also got maters, cukes, peppers etc. started a couple weeks early indoors. Tripled the amount of herbs started. You'd be amazed what you can do even with Ramen noodles, with a bunch of fresh herbs. I like to bake my own bread occasionally but have been doing a lot more of that also. A full crusted loaf (not in a pan) can keep for a couple months on the shelf. I've been cooking A LOT lately and also dropping meals at friends doors and vise versa. The bigger the meal the more economical it is. Last work contract ran out end of Feb. and won't be renewed for the foreseeable future so tightening the purse straps now.

Don't know if anyone posted this already but thought this was interesting...

Started day 1 with clear skies, gorgeous sunrise and a crispy 32 degrees. Been a bone chilling 40, overcast and drizzle since. Helluva April Fools joke Mama Nature

I've seen some models as low as 20k total and some as high as 500k total with current restrictions in place. While I agree that modeling this pandemic is a great tool, the accuracy of this modeled data has yet to be seen. More important than forecasting when this thing will peak is modeling the data of critical care needs to available resources in specific areas as we move forward. That's the serious data in the short term that these models can provide to help get emergency supplies, personnel and equipment where it's needed before those areas get overwhelmed. Kinda surreal 30 days ago we were throwing around weather model projections for snow and now were moving into Covid19 model projections. If anybody knows how to nit pick computer modeling it's weather nerds lol.

As of right now taking a quick rough average of a few of the supposed better model forecasts, they are putting the peak of daily death rates in the US is on or around 4/15 + or - a day. Guess the old saying was right, there's only 2 things certain, death and taxes.

Got a call a "wellness" check call from my physician today. Guess they have been pulling records of patients that can be high risk if infected and calling/checking for symptoms over the phone. I was surprised by two things. The first is that I was considered high risk. I am 57 with mild hypertension but I also have Lymes disease. Don't believe what some in the medical circles say that Lymes disease can always be cured. After a 6 week intensive antibiotic treatment I finally tested negative (I kept the tick and it tested positive). I've had 3 outbreaks of the disease since then, test positive, then antibiotics till I test negative. So it can lay dormant in your system. So I guess due to my age and the Lymes disease I'm considered as a high risk as I have an immunosuppressive disease. (Even though it's only immunosuppressive during an outbreak) The second was the fact my physician's office was being proactive doing this instead of waiting for patients to call in with symptoms. My Dr. stated since it's going to be awhile for widespread testing his medical group decided it would be prudent to at least check in on their patients that would be considered high risk. They have set up a page in their online portal and registered their high risk patients their so if you begin to feel ill you just go onto the portal, answer the questionnaire and the office will do a follow up call within 24 hours to do a remote assessment to see if you need to come to the office for further evaluation, treatment, and testing if available. He said the wellness check calls will continue for high risk patients monthly until testing is available for everyone. They are doing this on their own not from any official guidance. I was very surprised by this. Don't think it would be a bad idea if this was implemented at an official level. And to be honest it does relieve a little underlying stress during this besides just kind of making you feel a little better that someone is looking out for you.

Forgot to mention yesterday, I have 4 really sick dogs. Took them to the vet friday and I guess there's a really nasty flu like dog virus going around. The irony. But if you have a dog not feeling well it's not Covid19. But it is pretty nasty. Don't think I've seen dogs this sick before. Speaking of dogs you MN folks or anyone else here's a treat for the pandemic..... https://www.busch.com/foster-a-dog-now.html

Great night for stargazing and satellite spotting tonight at least around here. Almost like a freezing cold late Jan early Feb night. I think I remember those anyway lol. Just things to do while we all stew https://www.heavens-above.com/

Yes the ACE2 receptor in which this virus basically uses to initially invade the human body knows no race, every human being has it. The only thing genetically that could be involved is very subtle genetic differences in a persons immune response. Those differences would be so subtle that they wouldn't be passed down through a specific inherited lineage. More often than not environmental factors would play the biggest role in such a very subtle difference from person to person. Something as subtle (yeah using that word a lot) as years of high stress can cause it, exposure to whatever, the things you eat, etc. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/367/6485/1444

Spring planting just commenced. I completely forgot about IL lol. But Alek Scarface just said the pipelines dry

Can you get me a Canadian ID?

A friend in Charleston told me at some stores they have tape spaced 6 feet apart at the checkouts and plexiglass "sneeze" guards between the cashier and the customer. Maybe Nwohweather can confirm since he deserted us

I get what you're saying but I think your logic is skewed. Larger metro's are going to have higher infection rates simply due to the fact people are in closer proximity to each other, that's all it is. I live just outside of a town of 7-8k people and 90 % of them live in houses, rented or owned which puts them a good distance from their neighbors. The next closest towns are 10 miles away roughly the same size and the same type of neighborhoods. Have to drive 25 miles to get to a decent sized city of 25k or more. The bigger the city you tend to have more people living in say apartment complexes with people living right next each other, more people needing to use laundromats, cars parked right next to each other, hotels for travellers, companies that do business locally, nationally and globally amongst a myriad of other things.. Exponentially more chances of close contact because of the shear numbers of people puts everyone at a greater risk of infection. A little town of about 1k 8 miles away from me had my counties second death last week. The other one was in Anderson 25 miles away a city of 55k, but it also has 90 % of the infection rate of this county. Anderson has a fairly large oriental community by Indiana standards. Why is Anderson the hardest hit city in my county? Because they went to visit relatives over seas or vise versa? It's easy to get side tracked looking for answers during this time but it's important now more than ever that people be careful about how their comments would be perceived especially relating to divisive subjects. I'm sure you weren't trying to sound racist and were just trying to figure out a logical answer to your question. But you instantly saw how your logic was perceived as something else. We're all a bit on edge right now and it's going to get edgier. We all just need to give a little extra thought to how our comments and actions will be perceived by others. Not lecturing but you asked. Everyone just needs to slow down a tick, not just on social boards like this but in general, and think a little longer before speaking. Except for Alek, we all know he's an a... well lol

Like you posted about Iceland. If we don't have enough kits to test everyone the next best thing is random sampling. Doesn't take a lot to get a grip on an overall average. It's math, statistics, it works. When you posted that I was like geez, simple genius lol.

Should be a million infected "officially" worldwide by Tuesday or Wednesday. Will probably see a 1 day of 1k deaths in the US by next week, far from over. CDC reports 23k deaths from flu this flu season which runs from October to May the peak being February then dropping off drastically moving into March. Confirmed Covid19 infection rates will climb as testing gets better so not a good analogue. Deaths confirmed from the Covid19 infection are a better analogue sadly. With roughly 2200 deaths from this virus so far we've hit 10% of the flu deaths over this 8 month flu season in roughly 3 weeks with the curve continuing to rise. Even comparing to the 2017-2018 analogous flu season where death rates were 2- 3 times the average, this virus is winning at the moment.

The biggest silver lining in that article is thank your choice/no choice of deity that none of those had the asymptomatic characteristics of this one. That is what really differentiates this one from the others. Neither SARS nor MERS had substantial asymptomatic characteristics. That is people were sick before they could pass along the virus (That's why the majority of initial SARS cases were in clinical settings like hospitals etc.) therefore once identified a containment strategy could be implemented, ending with only about 8000 cases and about 800 deaths in SARS case, less with MERS. Ebola is a different kind of virus spread by direct exchange of bodily fluids, has very short incubation time and quite obvious symptoms so it is much harder to spread and "easier" to contain when an outbreak occurs. But it is also 1000% more deadly and scary. That's why it gets the widespread attention when an outbreak occurs. What we are slowly discovering is that this virus has much higher asymptomatic characteristics than SARS or MERS. It's starting to look like a person can show no symptoms and spread the virus and/or very mild cold like symptoms and spread the virus. I really think this is the case and this is the MAIN reason this sneaky little booger got on the fast train to where it's at. Viruses by their very nature exploit weaknesses in their hosts in order to replicate (technically they're not living things like we think of, they're copy machines in a sense). This one "found" a weakness not just in our bodies but in our overlying social structure. Double whammy. Force Concentration if you want to think of it as warfare lol. I think in the coming months and years we may discover that this virus possibly originated in extreme rural China months or even years earlier where populations are much more sparse, medical care much more inadequate or non existent, hiding itself as a cold or the flu or pneumonia, originating from mutated bat virus, infecting an intermediate host that has close contact with humans like chickens or pigs for example. (i.e. SARS host was the Masked Palm Civet which is wild caught and served in restaurants in China). That intermediate host is key to interspecies transmission of viruses. A virus just doesn't "appear" out of nowhere at a seafood market in a city of 11 million, it hitched a ride. Wuhan is the major trade and transportation point for central China, makes sense it would end up there, and by so, be discovered there because it wasn't knocking off a couple old farmers a couple times a month, it became focused and noticed when it started knocking off a bunch of old citizens all at once. I've always been fascinated by viruses. For something so simple in structure they are so difficult to predict, and for that matter, prevent. They are probably the oldest most important genetic material on the planet and also the most deadly. Fascinating that single nanoscopic strings of RNA/DNA that aren't really "alive" yet can evolve/replicate on their own and affect, shape and impact all of the complex living biology on this planet. Truly the missing link between rock and life. The TRUE silver lining will be that we get rid of our arrogance that we have teched ourselves into some insane darwinian future, that we be humbled by this little string of RNA, and properly educate and prepare because this viruses really nasty uncle is lurking somewhere. Mother Nature has warned us. Yeah I'm bored lol.

Random sampling always a good thing.

Hate to admit a poor choice from my youth, a weekend in the county jail back in the early 80's , but that's how you kept a cigarette lit back when you could smoke but they wouldn't let you have a source of ignition, toss it from cell block to cell block to cell block 24/7. Newbies pulled the longest shifts. God forbid if it went out on your watch lol.

US hit 100 deaths in 24 hours for the first time.

Buckle up folks. I think the next 7-10 days are going to be the true test of peoples nerves. I hope people will keep their heads but from my experience in hurricane disasters its the period between 2 and 3 weeks where people start getting edgy. I honestly don't know how sustainable our current actions are either economically or socially.

I lived in California then, duck and cover lol.

Also, I'm not gonna go into the reaction here in Mayberry but it's ridiculous. Focus has been on the big metro centers but there are a gazzilion Mayberry's across this country. Nothing is more corrupt than Mayberry politics and this thing is just now starting to hit the Mayberry's of this country. 7-14 days shits gonna start hitting the proverbial fan, especially in the Mayberry's. The current reaction is just not sustainable, especially in Mayberry.