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Are you worried about the Coronavirus?

12 now in CT, including a “community physician” and first case in Hartford county reported.

https://www.wtnh.com/news/health/co...tamford-citys-public-schools-to-close-friday/.

People who are presumed to have but who are not being tested are not being reported in media so really hard to know extent of the outbreak here. I suppose that is The main reason for wanting testing - to require isolation and also so that other people in the area are aware of the extent of the spread.

We did self isolate today, except we went for a trail walk. The weather was so beautiful here this afternoon, after a very rainy early morning.

Being outside in the fresh air should be fine...I have to walk my dog so that’s what I’m telling myself.
 
I’m severely limiting being around people after today. I have all my supplies. I just have my husband and son going to work..which are the wild cards. My husband said he is pretty much isolated in his office. He is doing teleconference calls now instead of meeting face to face. My son’s sheltered workshop has banned visitors. If I need to pick him up I go
ask for him through the outside intercom..and he will come out. We usually eat out every weekend. We’re not doing that anymore. At some point I will head to my other house in Maryland...but have to wait until it gets worse so his job will be more understanding....I would have to contact so many people to take my own kid (adult) out of his Sheltered
Workshop. He could lose benefits so I won’t do that lightly.

Joanne, I hope you can work something out with David's doctor and also with the workshop. It's prudent to keep David at home right now and I hope it is possible without any consequences to his benefits. (((Hugs))).
 
Being outside in the fresh air should be fine...I have to walk my dog so that’s what I’m telling myself.

Yes I think walking outside (away from other people) is fine. We do not have to hole up for months and months if we remain well that is...once we get ill then yes we have to stay inside but as long as we are OK I see no reason not to walk your dog and take walks if you want to. Good mental health is important for good physical health too. IMO.

Remember, this is going to be at least a few months duration (at least) so we have to carry on carefully and prudently but also be realistic about it and do what we can but also live our lives.
 
I have been in the clinic several times over the past two weeks and I believe I have heard two people with Covid-19. One man was in a back exam room. He was coughing so terribly that you could hear him throughout the clinic. It was a cough I had only heard once before and it was in a child a week before. This was a small child who was about 4 years old who was coughing so hard that he was given a cup to cough and vomit in. There wasn’t one second between coughs. He should have been taken to the ER with a cough like that. He could barely breathe.

I don’t think Covid-19 will be like a cold or a flu. I believe this is going to be much worse. I keep watching the numbers on the Johns Hopkins map and there are very few recovered people. It is taking a very long time for people to get over this.
 
@Slick1 Is your husband self isolating too? My husband is not in the least worried which to me is dangerous. I think it will be two weeks or less before I go to Maryland..We’re going next weekend. We’re going to load up my husbands car..I’m going to pack clothes for a week and possibly stay two weeks and reevaluate when I’m there...

@Mamabean My husband is not self isolating. He is still working at the hospital where there’s at least two cases... Scary for sure. And of course I’m psychosomatic. I have a sore throat this am and don’t forget feel too well. Hubby was very sick for three weeks and is only just now feeling better. Sending you good health as you navigate through this with a traveling DH and your mom and son. ((Hugs))

@Slick1 I am so glad that the school is closed and that now you can stay home and away from the madness. You have been through too much these past 2 years. Stay well and sending you continued healing dust and good thoughts and big (((hugs))).

@missy Thank you, and yes, I don’t need need anything else. I am happy to be out of the school now but we were there everyday this week and I sent a few kids home sick. Ugh...and not feeling well this am. I’m sure it’s nothing...
@Tekate my DD is self isolating, due to colleague presumptively positive, but did go out for supplies and was shocked at the number of people on the streets of Brooklyn acting like nothing is amiss. She thought, “Maybe I’m doing this pandemic thing all wrong...” :lol: a little humor is necessary.

ETA @missy I agree with you that Deblasio should reconsider.
 
My internist just sent out an email and I thought I would share the relevant info here fyi.

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I made a decision to call my son’s workshop next Thursday to tell them that he will be out for two weeks but will evaluate at the end of the two weeks. I’m taking my son, my mom, and Bailey to Maryland to isolate there. My husband will help me get enough supplies to last for at least then..but can stay up to a month if I rotate fresh meats with canned tuna and chicken...with lots of frozen veggies..The kitchen there has a little freezer in the main fridge..and a little freezer in my drink fridge..There’s not a lot of room in the fridges and freezers In Maryland..I’ll use this house in Pa as a store. When I need refills I’ll head back to Pa...I’ll drive through the pharmacy window instead of going inside....I can also stop at my Pa house to fill up on supplies and use the one bathroom after Lysol wiping everything in there...I can also get David’s paperwork for Social Security filled out and mailed...Then I’ll load everyone up again and head back to Maryland. I’ll just re-evaluate every two weeks until David‘s job either closes or fires him...I’m going to miss my husband terribly though..
I just remembered my ring is coming from David at some point..I’ll have to have him ship it to the house I’ll be hiding out in..It’s taking so long.I’m starting to get nervous! haha
 
I made a decision to call my son’s workshop next Thursday to tell them that he will be out for two weeks but will evaluate at the end of the two weeks. I’m taking my son, my mom, and Bailey to Maryland to isolate there. My husband will help me get enough supplies to last for at least then..but can stay up to a month if I rotate fresh meats with canned tuna and chicken...with lots of frozen veggies..The kitchen there has a little freezer in the main fridge..and a little freezer in my drink fridge..There’s not a lot of room in the fridges and freezers In Maryland..I’ll use this house in Pa as a store. When I need refills I’ll head back to Pa...I’ll drive through the pharmacy window instead of going inside....I can also stop at my Pa house to fill up on supplies and use the one bathroom after Lysol wiping everything in there...I can also get David’s paperwork for Social Security filled out and mailed...Then I’ll load everyone up again and head back to Maryland. I’ll just re-evaluate every two weeks until David‘s job either closes or fires him...I’m going to miss my husband terribly though..
I just remembered my ring is coming from David at some point..I’ll have to have him ship it to the house I’ll be hiding out in..It’s taking so long.I’m starting to get nervous! haha

Joanne you are doing everything right and remaining proactive. Try not to stress or worry too much. We are all concerned and all we can do is the best we can do and then hope for the best. Greg and I were just discussing heading to the beach house but I do not want to be too far from my parents so we are staying put. Despite it being sort of like a cruise ship living in an apartment building with so many other people. But we are here for the older shareholders and for my parents who live only about 40 minutes away by car if we stay here. So here we are staying for now.

Safe trip and be well.
And Ashlee will find you! :love:
 
So if my reading of the UK government’s latest policy is correct, they have brought in powers to force schools to stay open until such time as we hit the peak and only then will force them to shut. The power to force opening wouldn’t apply where schools had to shut for example because too many teachers are ill and staffing ratios can’t be maintained.

Their logic (apparently backed up scientifically) is that closing schools now would only flatten the peak slightly (I think I read 3-5%), but would mean that lots of workers have to take time off, further increasing stress on core services like healthcare where staff would be absent. Also, grandparents would be likely to be drafted in for childcare by working parents, thus increasing exposure in the most vulnerable age group.

I originally agreed with the UK’s response being different to lots of other countries & not locking things down early - in a likely seasonal illness that may well return, community immunity is vitally important unless scientists find a vaccine incredibly soon. But I have to say that I’m starting to get very nervous about how bad things could get under this policy. My children’s schools have notified parents that they will authorise absence if parents choose to keep children home, so maybe the government are leaving the choice open to families - who knows. Very worrying times...
 
My sister’s RN friend and her firefighter husband have been diagnosed with it. They were tested because they have symptoms and his coworker was diagnosed with it. She is super irritable and is complaining most of feeling hit by a truck and bodyaches. Her husband is sicker than she is and the coworker has been in the hospital for 2 weeks.

This is Bay Area California and they are both in their 40s.
 
My sister’s RN friend and her firefighter husband have been diagnosed with it. They were tested because they have symptoms and his coworker was diagnosed with it. She is super irritable and is complaining most of feeling hit by a truck and bodyaches. Her husband is sicker than she is and the coworker has been in the hospital for 2 weeks.

This is Bay Area California and they are both in their 40s.

I hope they will be okay @whitewave...No one is exempt from getting it...Everyone should be vigilant...I was in the store yesterday when I overheard a young man..probably in his thirties... complaining about not being able to find the butter he likes to another customer because everyone was freaking out buying everything...
 
I hope they will be okay @whitewave...No one is exempt from getting it...Everyone should be vigilant...I was in the store yesterday when I overheard a young man..probably in his thirties... complaining about not being able to find the butter he likes to another customer because everyone was freaking out buying everything...

Butter?? Oh man. I have a sams business membership, so I guess when my modest amount of home TP gets low probably next week I’ll have to line up at 7:30 to make sure I get some.

My daughter is coming home since they moved classes online, so I told her to leave 4 rolls at her dorm and bring the rest home.
 
We are tracking closer to Italy and Iran, which is bad. This is why La governor shut everything down.

78CA0B7C-761A-4F7D-897C-6D5FD9949171.jpeg

Today’s stats. So in 24 hours, Louisiana went from like 21 to 51
95005DFA-4429-415E-8812-FC6617C49153.jpeg
 

Supposedly the link is updated as of today but NY has more cases than listed here. Though in any case it seems NY has the second worst outbreak so far of all the USA. Only behind Washington state for now. And that’s with insufficient testing still here.
 
My sister’s RN friend and her firefighter husband have been diagnosed with it. They were tested because they have symptoms and his coworker was diagnosed with it. She is super irritable and is complaining most of feeling hit by a truck and bodyaches. Her husband is sicker than she is and the coworker has been in the hospital for 2 weeks.

This is Bay Area California and they are both in their 40s.

Could you ask your sister if her friend has had a splitting headache as well as aches and pains? Last week I went out shopping and was served by a really irritable shop assistant, who had a very notable short dry cough, she coughed all over me.

Yesterday I started to feel off colour everything ached like the flu, today everything aches including my teeth, mild fever so far, and the headache from hell. I've had 6 headache tablets and nothing is easing it..... I don't want waste resources getting tested unless it could be what I have. There seems to be mixed reports of what the symptoms actually are, they seem to vary from person to person and the severity is varying as well.
 
Could you ask your sister if her friend has had a splitting headache as well as aches and pains? Last week I went out shopping and was served by a really irritable shop assistant, who had a very notable short dry cough, she coughed all over me.

Yesterday I started to feel off colour everything ached like the flu, today everything aches including my teeth, mild fever and the headache from hell. I've had 6 headache tablets and nothing is easing it..... I don't want waste resources getting tested unless it could be what I have.

Oh no. I’m sorry @arkieb1. Hope you get well soon. Keeping you in my thoughts and sending virtual hugs your way.
 
@missy - thanks, it's probably a badly timed cold or flu picked up from the shop assistant but I want to make sure I'm not missing something and would like to know if I need to get tested.
 
Could you ask your sister if her friend has had a splitting headache as well as aches and pains? Last week I went out shopping and was served by a really irritable shop assistant, who had a very notable short dry cough, she coughed all over me.

Yesterday I started to feel off colour everything ached like the flu, today everything aches including my teeth, mild fever and the headache from hell. I've had 6 headache tablets and nothing is easing it..... I don't want waste resources getting tested unless it could be what I have. There seems to be mixed reports of what the symptoms actually are, they seem to vary from person to person and the severity is varying as well.

Oh no - I'm sorry to hear this arkieb1!
 
Could you ask your sister if her friend has had a splitting headache as well as aches and pains? Last week I went out shopping and was served by a really irritable shop assistant, who had a very notable short dry cough, she coughed all over me.

Yesterday I started to feel off colour everything ached like the flu, today everything aches including my teeth, mild fever so far, and the headache from hell. I've had 6 headache tablets and nothing is easing it..... I don't want waste resources getting tested unless it could be what I have. There seems to be mixed reports of what the symptoms actually are, they seem to vary from person to person and the severity is varying as well.

A particularly bad headache is one of the corona symptoms press have been publishing here. Hope you feel better soon regardless of the cause.

Re testing, unless your area is still tracing and isolating contacts of confirmed cases then I’m not sure there’s much point at this stage of spread. I’d isolate as if it’s corona as a precaution regardless. But everyone needs to do what they personally think is best where health is concerned - if you’d feel better being tested, then I’d definitely ask for one.
 
@arkieb1 I hope you are better soon. Sending prayers your way!
 
DeBlasio is intent on keeping NYC schools open. I get the reason why (hot meals might be their only hot meal of the day) but I question the wisdom...at times like these we have to choose the lesser of the evils and if the outbreak is not contained as much as possible that could be worse.



We have over 421 confirmed cases of Covid-19 which means of course many many many more than that.

WA schools are still providing hot meals for the kids. Plus a bunch of businesses have stepped up and are offering additional help. On top of many posts from individuals offering snacks/meals for any kind who needs. PM them to coordinate.

Inslee also ordered arrangements for low income families and healthcare workers who need childcare due to school closures.
 
WA schools are still providing hot meals for the kids. Plus a bunch of businesses have stepped up and are offering additional help. On top of many posts from individuals offering snacks/meals for any kind who needs. PM them to coordinate.

Inslee also ordered arrangements for low income families and healthcare workers who need childcare due to school closures.

Awesome ❤️
 
@missy - thanks, it's probably a badly timed cold or flu picked up from the shop assistant but I want to make sure I'm not missing something and would like to know if I need to get tested.

@arkieb1 I never thought I would say I hope you have a cold or the flu..but I’m wishing that’s all it is...Get well soon!
 
@missy - thanks, it's probably a badly timed cold or flu picked up from the shop assistant but I want to make sure I'm not missing something and would like to know if I need to get tested.

I hope you are well soon!
 
Joanne, I hope you can work something out with David's doctor and also with the workshop. It's prudent to keep David at home right now and I hope it is possible without any consequences to his benefits. (((Hugs))).

@Mamabean where in Maryland is your home? I'm at the beach in DE. We could be near to one and other, and share toilet paper if you need it :lol-2:
 
@Mamabean where in Maryland is your home? I'm at the beach in DE. We could be near to one and other, and share toilet paper if you need it :lol-2:

Haha @violet3! I’m on the eastern shore! My two good friends live in Rehoboth Beach!
 
17,000 bottles of hand sanitizer and nowhere to sell them


Here's the text for people who can't access the NYT:

On March 1, the day after the first coronavirus death in the United States was announced, brothers Matt and Noah Colvin set out in a silver S.U.V. to pick up some hand sanitizer. Driving around Chattanooga, Tenn., they hit a Dollar Tree, then a Walmart, a Staples and a Home Depot. At each store, they cleaned out the shelves.

Over the next three days, Noah Colvin took a 1,300-mile road trip across Tennessee and into Kentucky, filling a U-Haul truck with thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer and thousands of packs of antibacterial wipes, mostly from “little hole-in-the-wall dollar stores in the backwoods,” his brother said. “The major metro areas were cleaned out.”

Matt Colvin stayed home near Chattanooga, preparing for pallets of even more wipes and sanitizer he had ordered, and starting to list them on Amazon. Mr. Colvin said he had posted 300 bottles of hand sanitizer and immediately sold them all for between $8 and $70 each, multiples higher than what he had bought them for. To him, “it was crazy money.” To many others, it was profiteering from a pandemic.

The next day, Amazon pulled his items and thousands of other listings for sanitizer, wipes and face masks. The company suspended some of the sellers behind the listings and warned many others that if they kept running up prices, they’d lose their accounts. EBay soon followed with even stricter measures, prohibiting any U.S. sales of masks or sanitizer.

Now, while millions of people across the country search in vain for hand sanitizer to protect themselves from the spread of the coronavirus, Mr. Colvin is sitting on 17,700 bottles of the stuff with little idea where to sell them.

“It’s been a huge amount of whiplash,” he said. “From being in a situation where what I’ve got coming and going could potentially put my family in a really good place financially to ‘What the heck am I going to do with all of this?’”

Mr. Colvin is one of probably thousands of sellers who have amassed stockpiles of hand sanitizer and crucial respirator masks that many hospitals are now rationing, according to interviews with eight Amazon sellers and posts in private Facebook and Telegram groups from dozens more.

Amazon said it had recently removed hundreds of thousands of listings and suspended thousands of sellers’ accounts for price gouging related to the coronavirus.

Amazon, eBay, Walmart and other online-commerce platforms are trying to stop their sellers from making excessive profits from a public health crisis. While the companies aimed to discourage people from hoarding such products and jacking up their prices, many sellers had already cleared out their local stores and started selling the goods online.

Now both the physical and digital shelves are nearly empty.

Mikeala Kozlowski, a nurse in Dudley, Mass., has been searching for hand sanitizer since before she gave birth to her first child, Nora, on March 5. When she searched stores, which were sold out, she skipped getting gas to avoid handling the pump. And when she checked Amazon, she couldn’t find it for less than $50.

“You’re being selfish, hoarding resources for your own personal gain,” she said of the sellers.
Sites like Amazon and eBay have given rise to a growing industry of independent sellers who snatch up discounted or hard-to-find items in stores to post online and sell around the world.
These sellers call it retail arbitrage, a 21st-century career that has adults buying up everything from limited-run cereals to Fingerling Monkeys, a once hot toy. The bargain hunters look for anything they can sell at a sharp markup. In recent weeks, they found perhaps their biggest opportunity: a pandemic.

As they watched the list of Amazon’s most popular searches crowd with terms like “Purell,” “N95 mask” and “Clorox wipes,” sellers said, they did what they had learned to do: Suck up supply and sell it for what the market would bear.

Initially, the strategy worked. For several weeks, prices soared for some of the top results to searches for sanitizer, masks and wipes on Amazon, according to a New York Times analysis of historical prices from Jungle Scout, which tracks data for Amazon sellers. The data shows that both Amazon and third-party sellers like Mr. Colvin increased their prices, which then mostly dropped when Amazon took action against price gouging this month.

At the high prices, people still bought the products en masse, and Amazon took a cut of roughly 15 percent and eBay roughly 10 percent, depending on the price and the seller.

Then the companies, pressured by growing criticism from regulators and customers, cracked down. After the measures last week, Amazon went further on Wednesday, restricting sales of any coronavirus-related products from certain sellers.

“Price gouging is a clear violation of our policies, unethical, and in some areas, illegal,” Amazon said in a statement. “In addition to terminating these third party accounts, we welcome the opportunity to work directly with states attorneys general to prosecute bad actors.”

Mr. Colvin, 36, a former Air Force technical sergeant, said he started selling on Amazon in 2015, developing it into a six-figure career by selling Nike shoes and pet toys, and by following trends.
In early February, as headlines announced the coronavirus’s spread in China, Mr. Colvin spotted a chance to capitalize. A nearby liquidation firm was selling 2,000 “pandemic packs,” leftovers from a defunct company. Each came with 50 face masks, four small bottles of hand sanitizer and a thermometer. The price was $5 a pack. Mr. Colvin haggled it to $3.50 and bought them all.
He quickly sold all 2,000 of the 50-packs of masks on eBay, pricing them from $40 to $50 each, and sometimes higher. He declined to disclose his profit on the record but said it was substantial.
The success stoked his appetite. When he saw the panicked public starting to pounce on sanitizer and wipes, he and his brother set out to stock up.

Elsewhere in the country, other Amazon sellers were doing the same.

Chris Anderson, an Amazon seller in central Pennsylvania, said he and a friend had driven around Ohio, buying about 10,000 masks from stores. He used coupons to buy packs of 10 for around $15 each and resold them for $40 to $50. After Amazon’s cut and other costs, he estimates, he made a $25,000 profit.

Mr. Anderson is now holding 500 packs of antibacterial wipes after Amazon blocked him from selling them for $19 each, up from $16 weeks earlier. He bought the packs for $3 each.
Eric, a truck driver from Ohio who spoke on the condition that his surname not be published because he feared Amazon would retaliate, said he had also collected about 10,000 masks at stores. He bought each 10-pack for about $20 and sold most for roughly $80 each, though some he priced at $125.

“Even at $125 a box, they were selling almost instantly,” he said. “It was mind-blowing as far as what you could charge.” He estimates he made $35,000 to $40,000 in profit.

Now he has 1,000 more masks on order, but he’s not sure what to do with them. He said Amazon had been vague about what constituted price gouging, scaring away sellers who don’t want to risk losing their ability to sell on its site.

To regulators and many others, the sellers are sitting on a stockpile of medical supplies during a pandemic. The attorney general’s offices in California, Washington and New York are all investigating price gouging related to the coronavirus. California’s price-gouging law bars sellers from increasing prices by more than 10 percent after officials declare an emergency. New York’s law prohibits sellers from charging an “unconscionably excessive price” during emergencies.
An official at the Washington attorney general’s office said the agency believed it could apply the state’s consumer-protection law to sue platforms or sellers, even if they aren’t in Washington, as long as they were trying to sell to Washington residents.

Mr. Colvin does not believe he was price gouging. While he charged $20 on Amazon for two bottles of Purell that retail for $1 each, he said people forget that his price includes his labor, Amazon’s fees and about $10 in shipping. (Alcohol-based sanitizer is pricey to ship because officials consider it a hazardous material.)

Current price-gouging laws “are not built for today’s day and age,” Mr. Colvin said. “They’re built for Billy Bob’s gas station doubling the amount he charges for gas during a hurricane.”

He added, “Just because it cost me $2 in the store doesn’t mean it’s not going to cost me $16 to get it to your door.”

But what about the morality of hoarding products that can prevent the spread of the virus, just to turn a profit?

Mr. Colvin said he was simply fixing “inefficiencies in the marketplace.” Some areas of the country need these products more than others, and he’s helping send the supply toward the demand.
“There’s a crushing overwhelming demand in certain cities right now,” he said. “The Dollar General in the middle of nowhere outside of Lexington, Ky., doesn’t have that.”

He thought about it more. “I honestly feel like it’s a public service,” he added. “I’m being paid for my public service.”

As for his stockpile, Mr. Colvin said he would now probably try to sell it locally. “If I can make a slight profit, that’s fine,” he said. “But I’m not looking to be in a situation where I make the front page of the news for being that guy who hoarded 20,000 bottles of sanitizer that I’m selling for 20 times what they cost me.”

<<< There's a graphic in the article with charts that I can't get to copy into my post >>>
 
Could you ask your sister if her friend has had a splitting headache as well as aches and pains? Last week I went out shopping and was served by a really irritable shop assistant, who had a very notable short dry cough, she coughed all over me.

Yesterday I started to feel off colour everything ached like the flu, today everything aches including my teeth, mild fever so far, and the headache from hell. I've had 6 headache tablets and nothing is easing it..... I don't want waste resources getting tested unless it could be what I have. There seems to be mixed reports of what the symptoms actually are, they seem to vary from person to person and the severity is varying as well.

She definitely is complains about body aches and pains and yes, I’m nearly certain headache, but I’ll ask my sister. She works nights and is on Pacific standard time, so it might be several hours before I head back.

Oh, @arkieb1 I sure hope you don’t have it and that you feel better soon!
 
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