Covid 19

I was talking about the Dutch Prime Minister, but (having googled the name) I see where you're coming from

I'm not making a big deal out of it. I am pointing out how easy it is to claim something on the internet where people have no viable way of validating another person's claim. I am pointing out that you're better off using arguments based on sources that you can easily provide for people to verify. I understand that it might be tempting to speak out of personal experience in a discussion, but in some cases it can come across as fake or disingenuous. It can come across as "I can't provide proof for my claims so I will rely on a figure of authority that either is fake or not".

Where I live (Alberta, Canada), we largely have settled down to a new normal. It has become pretty clear that the provincial government(1) was actually quite well prepared for the pandemic, with significant surpluses of PPE(2) and we recently passed Australia for highest tests per capita in the world. As a result of this, while people are still taking it seriously, the panic/hysteria that we saw initially (and still see in many jurisdictions around the world) has largely faded. Our health care system is nowhere near capacity, hospitalization and mortality rates remain low and testing is expected to increase five-fold to 20k per day in the coming weeks (in a population of 4 million). I am very grateful for this, as it has allowed a certain level of openness to continue, and inspires confidence that the situation is under control.

Some interesting (and even funny) side effects I've noticed though as a result of the virus:
* Our newest celebrity is our chief medical officer, complete with people selling shirts with her face on it (proceeds going to local food banks and other charities). Normally she's a soft spoken, behind the scenes kind of person so this must be a rather strange for her. The general public would have no idea who she was before this, now she's a household name (which I daresay, is a vast improvement over the usual pea-brained drug-addled celebrities)
* A local milk carton manufacturing plant is struggling to keep up with a massive spike in demand. At a guess, the increase is a result of so many more people staying home to eat, rather than going out, as well as all the people currently out of work having nothing better to do than do some proper cooking. Honestly I hope this is a trend that continues after the virus is done. Home cooked food is typically better for you, and better for the pocket book too.
* Breweries (which we have a lot of here) have found a use for their normally wasted by-products in the form of super-cheap hand sanitizer. This is another thing I hope keeps going after it is all over, as it is just poured down the drain normally.
* Now that the weather has started warming up (finally, been a late spring even by Alberta standards), there have been a massive number of people out walking/jogging (sticking to 2 meter separation as much as possible), which is excellent to see. Again lots of bored and often unemployed people doing at least something healthy with their time. Also restaurants with out-door patios have been able to open those for business (along with the usual pickup services). It has been deemed safe enough so long as all people at a table are from the same household, and all tables are at least 2 meters apart. I for one am hoping the weather stays nice until next weekend, I've been missing my weekly wings and beer night


How about other folks? Any fun stories or interesting things going on?
(sounds like a much better use of this thread than a discussion about the relative quality of Chinese and American media)


(1) healthcare is in provincial jurisdiction in Canada, and as such, responses have varied quite a bit across the country depending on population and outbreak severity
(2) much of this has been donated to other provinces who are running low

I think many people have noticed the side effects. As you could see the sky was clear do to factories shutting down, people stopped drinking excesivelly due to pubs being closed. When we go out into nature we meet like 400% more people as everyone started going into nature since thats the best place atm where you can keep the distancing with ease. The weather has also been playing along as soon as the "stay at home" stuff started the planet has been providing us with beautiful weather.

Like you mentione people at least realized how good it is to cook at home, mainly in countries like US where people eat just too much junk food and this "astronaut food" which you just heat up in the microwave. The fact that many people had issues with staying at home is that they have not been living that way before. For us there was almost no change of life, we didnt even notice that we have been at home for 5+ weeks, we really enjoyed it, I had trouble going back to work now

Yes, I do understand your viewpoint that this is the internet. What I didnt understand was the need for all those sources. Like if someone where to open up on the topic of that this virus was made by China in the Wuhan Institute of Virology and it was either set loose or escaped by accident, I wouldnt require any sources from that person. I would just take it as his opinion and view of the event. Then someone would come claiming it came from a guy eating a bat from some cave which was not accessed by man for a 10k years. That his opinion, its something he heard, discussed before and it became his opinion. I do not need to see sources for this. Both are possible causes and today, no sources in the world can tell you the truth, you can doubt everything.

We have something similar in our country. We have a issue with the Roma (or gypsy population). They mostly live in villages that are made of really badly looking huts. They barely have toilets or drinking water, yet somehow they are surviving. They mostly have like a zilliion children and live mainly off the support from government.

These people also use the possibility to work abroad, mainly in england and now the villages started being tested with (as expected) catastrophic results. All the villages so far have infected in them and they didnt bother with any meassures so the state practically has to seal off whole villages. They have very bad behavior so its gonna be a great time now

Oops, I dont know why, but I always assumed you were from Australia

An interesting story with a slightly amusing outcome in my local area (NSW South Coast Australia).

I started walking today to help with my lung recovery and general fitness (after having covid). We are just going into autumn (fall) in Australia and it’s very mild weather at the moment, it’s still 19-25’c.
Our drought on the east coast seems have finally abated enough that there is green grass and new foliage and growth everywhere. The ground has moisture
While walking today I came across another person walking around, who was looking at the new growth under trees in the parks and nature strips. We kept our social distance and we able to communicate enough for me to find out he was looking for mushrooms. (Apparently it’s that time of the year for those “special” mushrooms)
He explained which ones to look for and how to tell which were the “right” ones and which were the dangerous ones. I ended up walking around after that and found so many (I didn’t pick any).
Anyway. I just thought it was amusing to see someone picking mushrooms just down the street from my house

That's interesting. I wonder if it's just a matter of communication failure, or blatant disregard for the instructions? Why don't the community leaders take control of that issue, and enlighten these people if it's a matter of ignorance?

Lock down only works if everyone does it, according to the experts. Hard to imagine that factions of society and different racial groups are abiding by different rules, but I can see it and believe it.

I am guessing, until these people are directly related, they will live haphazardly unless they are cited by police for not following the lock down.

Like I posted a bit ago, about some of our less empathetic forum posters these people seem to not care or worry about it unless it directly affects them. I assume once family members get sick and even possibly die they will change their behavior. Sadly it seems people are oblivious to learning anything unless it directly benefits them and they know it.

Meanwhile some malls in my town are opening up, with restrictive measures but I don't think it'll be enough. We've had only a few weeks of quarantine measures and the moment the mayor let a few things open the city center had already been nearly full, we still haven't reached the peak of the infection yet and it worries me. The Brazilian healthcare system will not be able to handle all COVID-19 patients, people should stay at their homes unless they absolutely need to go out but unfortunately that isn't happening. On a country level there are a few anti-quarantine protests happening as well as asking for military intervention with a return to the military dictatorship but with Bolsonaro as the president, unfortunately they're bolstered by our idiotic "president" instead of being shunned. If these people want to infect themselves that's their issue but what they don't realize is that the more they go out and the more this kind of thing happens the worse they'll make this situation, because more people will get infected, if the health system collapses we won't have the structure to deal with it, and to make matters worse the longer this whole thing will last.

Addendum: Bolsonaro also fired his Minister of Health last week due to disagreements on how to handle the current pandemic, much like Trump he values the economy more than the lives of his own citizens. Its also highly hypocritical of his supporters to use the argument that "poor people will not have money and will have nothing to eat because they can't work" while at the same time having spent years ignoring those people's plight, but now they suddenly care. And of course our congress also made stupid decisions regarding this pandemic, like giving billions to the banks (who will also be getting some money in case they make bad investments during this pandemic) instead of the people who desperately need it. Either because they got fired, are a small-business owner or because they're autonomous and can't work during this crisis.

I don't know about that, people can be quite stupid, just look at the protests in america at the moment, people claiming that the virus is fake, etc, demanding barber shops need to be opened, etc. Yet some of them are wearing masks. In some of the interviews, they even admitted that they believe the virius is real, but they've put their faith in a higher power, etc. So because they are religious, the virius, will nod at them, and go attack someone else
There was also a protest in my country against a fishing boat landing , supposedly the prostester wanted to stop the fishermen from bringing in the virius, even though, they were at sea for a month, and no one on board had symptons. Yet these idiots, had no social distance, no PPE's, nothing, risking their own health, and that of the police that had to manage the situation.