Category: WuFlu

Warm and wet.

Light rain started last night, after a damp and overcast day. Some moments of clear sky and nice breeze, but generally threatening all day.

My AC is working again. It took several pounds of R22 to bring the system pressure back up. I’m hoping it holds for the season.

If you haven’t been reading comments, I encourage you to do so as that’s where the good stuff is. I think of the day’s post as a topic sentence for the day, but it often ends up something completely different. It’s always interesting and civil.

Also, please check out Aesop at https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/ He’s on the front line of this in CA. I’m active in the comments over there too (if you’re interested).

After consideration, and some thought, PLEASE STOP GOING TO STORES. The curiosity factor will get you killed or sickened. All over the web I’m seeing people check in and admit they didn’t really need anything but were just curious. I admit I did it too, last week. But now, the freaking stores are full of people from the community. That’s where “community transmission” comes from! Read the Italian ICU report I linked late last night. The ONLY thing that will help when the ICU inundation starts is slowing the rate of contagion. The only thing that slows the spread is isolation.

Don’t even think about ‘get it now, while there are still beds’. Between the time to show symptoms and the normal time until it gets bad, you won’t beat the rush. Everyone with it NOW will beat you there.

I commented last night why you need at least 3 months of supplies, please take a moment and consider my timeline. If it doesn’t make sense, let me know. No need to tell me it’s overreaction, but do please keep sharing your honest thoughts. We all need to avoid any mania (beyond what some of you already believe we’re infected with, and if we are, we need to slow the spiral. If you change your mind, I’m not going to judge, I’m going to celebrate.) Getting your stock up to the three month level is about the only reason I can think of to risk going into a store at this point.

I’m also sure we are about to get some internal domestic travel restrictions. It’s already been mentioned in at least two official places. The Governor of Florida is calling for it. They will ground most of the planes at some point, the math insists on it. I expect one or both of my siblings to be stuck in FL but at least my mom will have company. No resources, but company. I don’t want to consider what that means for my family long term. No matter what YOUR belief about the validity and necessity of the measures is, this now has a life of its own, and shutting down air travel is the next step. They will likely wait until they have something they can point to for such a drastic seeming decision, so watch for that. It may be a ‘magic number’ of infected, dead, or occupied ICU beds, or it might be something external to the USA. There won’t be much if any warning, we’ve already BEEN warned. One, maybe two weeks minimum would be my guess, but it’s coming.

This sort of disaster is about the worst kind. It’s everywhere. There won’t be help coming in from outside the region, like most natural disasters. What help might be available because it won’t happen everywhere at the same time, will be held in reserve for what the outsiders know is coming to them. You are on your own. No one is coming to save you. The ONLY thing that will help is if you get immunity after having the virus. If that happens, the people with mild cases will be able to keep everything going and we’ll only lose those with acute symptoms. If you don’t get lasting immunity, or worse, get it bad the second time, better start praying for effective drugs. And soon.

With that in mind, start praying for an antibody blood test, so we can confirm who’s had it and is possibly immune. There are an increasing number of people sharing stories of having been sick in the last month, but not having the flu. Heck, I have been coughing for the last month. I don’t think I got the flu, as I never had any real fever, but I felt pretty bad for a while. It’s important to remember that there might already be, and certainly will be, a large pool of people recovered from the mild symptoms. As long as they have immunity we’ll get through this. Until we can identify them though, we need to keep everyone isolated. (and there was an article about the virus being present in lungs for 30 something days after recovery, that would be bad news if true.)

So, if you aren’t stocked up, get there. Stop going out. Time to pull it all in and hope for the best.

nick

Warm and damp.

Yesterday stayed overcast most of the day but then did have a bit of sunshine later.

I spent the am getting blood drawn and ‘wasting time on the internet with my friends’ and the pm running errands. I dropped off some respirators for an auction, went by my rent house and blocked up some holes where the possum was getting in, and went by my secondary location and brought some TP home. Also hid the paper products still there, and covered up some of the food and materiel as well. I don’t want it all here right now. It’s far enough away that if there were severe travel restrictions locally, I might be blocked from getting to it. That’s balanced by its purpose as a backup and offsite storage. Always tradeoffs.

Between the Houston Rodeo cancellation, Trump’s travel restrictions, and the WHO finally declaring the pandemic, some people got a very rude shock today. Add in the later celebrity and sports stars that declared they have WuFlu, and you’ve got a very upset and angry populace.

I’m thinking 5 stages of Grief for some of them.

Some of us think it’s too little too late.

Today I’m taking the kids to get swabbed for ordinary flu, just in case. I don’t usually take them to the Dr, but it’s early enough that the Tamiflu might work. School sent the oldest home with a fever, the youngest came home too. The fever is worrying. Without it, no wuflu. With it, and the cough, and the other symptoms, there’s a possibility. Neither had fever when I sent them yesterday morning. So I’ve got them at home today. I’ve got lots of groceries to put away and stuff to do. I’m going to hunker down if I can. With the kids still in school, there wasn’t a benefit to me isolating, now there is. I’ll try to keep them home Friday too, and then for Spring Break. I just hope I didn’t pick it up somewhere.

Keep stacking. Start your isolation if you think it’s time. I think it’s past time, but we finally hit my trigger- confirmed person to person in town.

nick

(oh and for anyone crying about the Rodeo, the stupid F’ers were using VINEGAR to disinfect because they were told it does a better job on BACTERIA than bleach. I almost don’t believe it, but then the whole place is staffed with third worlders with no germ theory experience. So much fail in one place.)