ErinInTheSky

I don't drink but honestly that looks freaking wonderful right about now.

I got roped in to being the lay reader at my Good Friday service, haha. I can't really refuse, because I'm a deacon and the elder who was going to do it had a sudden emergency. So.... my church will get to see my pretty face and... a couch. Lol. I have no photogenic spaces in my home.

That being said nothing other than HBP. I just refuse to catch this damn virus.

High blood pressure seems to be a risk factor.

This is actually the guideline I've been using to determine how to handle items given to me in the pandemic. - Mail goes into a quarantine container for 2 days (24 hours should be safe but I just make sure) - Plastic, if nothing is perishible inside, it gets quarantined for 3 days and washed. - If it's perishible like groceries, that's when I have my military operation, walk it to the kitchen, and do my washing, bleaching of surfaces I walked over and where the groceries sat, heck even putting the used grocery bags in the trash can, I spray bleach into the trash can that way when I grab the bag, the smell that you usually smell that has trash in it could have virus particles. I have my strategy for grocery deliveries down. - Clothing, cloth, etc gets quarantined for like 3 days and then washed on high temp. Make sure to spray down your dirty laundry basket in between.

I laughed pretty hard at that last point haha. I mean it's understandable, we're all nervous as hell over this damn bug. I want it to just go away.

In case people need sources for surface transmission (all academic): https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/modes-of-transmission-of-virus-causing-covid-19-implications-for-ipc-precaution-recommendations https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMc2004973 https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6914e1.htm (has the Singapore church case) https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6912e3.htm?s_cid=mm6912e3_w (princess cruise) (there are dozens at this point)

For a second I thought those were the cooks LOL. But surface transmission risk is not extremely low. In fact if anything I think there's good evidence that it's extremely high with how the countries that have gotten it under control have utilized extensive surface decontamination, with surface transmission being confirmed as a major risk of transmission (Debra Berks mentioned recently how they have been surprised at some of the surface transmissibility of the virus and how long it lives on surfaces), and with how easy it is for a surface transmissible agent to get through. Like they give you the plastic bag with the takeout. Even if you have sanitizer in the car, you just placed it on your lap, or on the seat next to you. You sanitize, but then pick it up to bring it into your house and touch the doorknob. You go place it on the kitchen counter. Imagine the virus is like glitter lol. Eventually you have it everywhere. Hence why my practice has been: Get groceries delivered, wash them thoroughly, sanitize path from door to kitchen, bleach surfaces they sat on, washing hands multiple times through the process. What really hit home for me in needing to do all of this was reading the reports of the Heathrow baggage handlers, the cook on the Princess cruise line, and the Singapore church case where multiple people who sat in the same seat in the church at different times got sick.

Singapore was freaking INCREDIBLE. Mass deployed tests and started testing like 3rd level contacts, traced everybody, published all locations contacts visited online, etc.

That's awesome, super happy they got a contract with FEMA! Yeah, I can imagine dine in services are going to suffer the most, even after we start returning to "normal"

Yeah I imagine I'll feel comfortable at the tail end of the decline when the chances are extremely low. Otherwise, I have no need to risk it.

It almost certainly isn't transmissible by food itseslf. It's the surface transmission that will get you, and surface transmission has been confirmed with this bug.

It's not the food, it's all the steps in getting the food from them to you and out of the container into your mouth. See the above re: Heathrow baggage handlers, Princess cruise lines. R0 is 5-6 and it's pretty transmissible with respiratory droplets. Scenario: Cook is asymptomatic, breathes onto plastic bag, hands it off to you, you grab the food, put your hands on the steering wheel, drive home, rub your face, bam.

People are still getting it some sort of way :shrug: Sounds like it's one possible way to get it. Curbside is probably safer, I wonder how many people/places are still doing in-store takeout. That seems like it would be a bit of a bigger risk. Wouldn't surprise me too much though. Common handling of something that is passed from one person to another is a major vector. It's how the baggage handlers at Heathrow got infected and subsequently infected a large number of other people.

Kind of blows my mind. One of the main ways people got sick on the princess cruise was because there was a sick cook. Guess that's how we are still getting new cases even while locked down.

I'm basically taking every step I can to not introduce the virus into my household, so that's limiting deliveries and face to face contact, mail quarantine for a few days, washing/disinfecting deliveries, cleaning groceries, etc. FWIW I do see a world where restaurants using takeout/delivery become mainstream even during a lockdown. This would be way different from "opening up for business" though. Sounds like that's what they're already doing though. So circling back around to @SnowGolfBro - is your friend doing takeout/delivery? Sounds like that's what he needs to do.

I don't doubt that some restaurants could survive with a takeout model in a pandemic, but I think that's a supply/demand problem, and I think overall demand would probably be a fraction of what it once was.

God I'm too nervous to even get groceries delivered and I wash them profusely. I can't even imagine ordering takeout right now. I don't imagine that some will order takeout. But enough to keep it economically viable? Enough to sustain all, or even most restaurants?

If someone said "we're open" do you think your brother's situation would improve much at all? Restaurant visits were already plummeting and that was before things went truly crazy with the pandemic. I hate to say it but like... I don't think restaurants will be economically sustainable, even with the economy open, for a long time :-/ Regardless of what we do.

God wait until we get the new health insurance premiums :-/

The crappy thing is, it isn't just risking themselves, it's risking all of us. Not just with the virus, but by removing the ability to seek medical care. Again... I have a surgery I really need done. It's postponed until further notice... :-/ What about when my dad needs a stent again in his heart? What about my diabetic friends? what about the grandma that has a fall?

That's not how COVID works. It's not going to be stable/predictive while opened up. The only thing stable will be the exponential increase.

I've gamed this out often. - Immunity tests will maybe result in 3% of the US having been infected, so "immunity test -> go to work" is honestly not as useful as some like to claim it will be. that's still 97% of the country susceptible. So... honestly, no, don't open. - If you try to open, you have to make sure you have 3 things: Ability to test, widespread, often, to identify new cases. Ability to cluster-trace, probably with privacy rights being curtailed in the process. Ability to mitigate spread, widespread use of facemasks, and disinfecting of streets like they have done in all of the countries where they have gotten it under control. See the following videos... this is the only way that this virus has come under control anywhere - bring cases down to a few handfuls, and massive disinfecting + testing. With the above measures (Masks, sentinel testing, contact tracing, and disinfecting), you can reopen up once you get case counts low. So where are the problems? - We don't have production capacity for masks and the president has been unwilling to use the defense production act to ensure mass production occurs. - We don't have production capacity for tests, reagents, and have not stockpiled supplies to make them happen. It may take months to get these supplies. - We don't have production capacity for chemical disinfectants. They're in global shortage. It may take months to get these supplies too. - We don't have enough government employees to contact trace. So if you open up anyway? Cases go right back to where we currently are, and we're back in the same pot, where we either shut down again for a month and a half, or where we lose our entire medical system as they are only dealing with COVID patients and all other causes of death begin to rise, threatening to tear our country apart and we live in a 3rd world country.

South Korea, Japan, Singapore, China. They all had it down. Germany has been pretty good too with sentinel-level testing.

Quarantine is getting to us all lol.