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Are you worried about the Coronavirus?

I haven't read the comments yet on the article I posted (715 of them and counting as I type this), but I'm sure they'll be "entertaining."

Capitalism at work... That being said, I did see that shipping is so much due to the classification, so maybe he's not making as much as one would think on some of this.

I took special note of this article because TR sells things on ebay. He's got a niche in specialty and industrial tools, but a year ago (or maybe more at this point) he ended up with a "hay rack" of stuff at an auction for a manufacturer that was going out of business. When you buy stuff in bulk like that you're typically going for the one thing (or things) you really want and then rest is just there because no one else would buy it. Well included on the rack were some boxes of tyvek suits. He threw them out there on his ebay account and they've been sitting there ever since. Until January 29 -- this is the text he sent me then:

"Is it a little scary that a hospital in Chins is trying to buy medical grade suits from me on ebay right now?"

He's got four boxes left but they're all XXXL. I guess if the virus ever reaches American Samoa he'll have a market for those, LOL.

(Forgive the macabre humor; I'm of the opinion that if you don't laugh you cry!)
 
lissyflo said:
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.
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I had a splitting headache yesterday while I was stuck at work for 9 hours. I've had a very minor cough for about a week. Fortunately, motrin was able to knock the headache back. Unfortunately, my company is still making employees go in, while most companies around us are now moving from optional wfh to mandatory.
 
@arkieb1 yes, she has a headache and she is no longer texting back so she’s getting worse
 
Dee*Jay said:
17,000 bottles of hand sanitizer and nowhere to sell them

www.nytimes.com

He Has 17,700 Bottles of Hand Sanitizer and Nowhere to Sell Them (Published 2020)

Amazon cracked down on coronavirus price gouging. Now, while the rest of the world searches, some sellers are holding stockpiles of sanitizer and masks.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

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 >>>
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In Florida you cannot price gouge essential supplies when an emergency order is in process. I'm pretty sure most states have this on the books and I'm sure thats why the supply ran out so fast at many stores...people kept thinking they can make money off of an emergency situation. If he's selling then he's price gouging. states can and will sue over that. the fact that his name is now out there, ANY state can find who he is and serve papers. I hope they do. This is really the reason why Ebay and Amazon pulls these freaks, they sure as hell don't do it from the goodness of their hearts.
 
Dee*Jay said:
I haven't read the comments yet on the article I posted (715 of them and counting as I type this), but I'm sure they'll be "entertaining."

Capitalism at work... That being said, I did see that shipping is so much due to the classification, so maybe he's not making as much as one would think on some of this.

I took special note of this article because TR sells things on ebay. He's got a niche in specialty and industrial tools, but a year ago (or maybe more at this point) he ended up with a "hay rack" of stuff at an auction for a manufacturer that was going out of business. When you buy stuff in bulk like that you're typically going for the one thing (or things) you really want and then rest is just there because no one else would buy it. Well included on the rack were some boxes of tyvek suits. He threw them out there on his ebay account and they've been sitting there ever since. Until January 29 -- this is the text he sent me then:

"Is it a little scary that a hospital in Chins is trying to buy medical grade suits from me on ebay right now?"

He's got four boxes left but they're all XXXL. I guess if the virus ever reaches American Samoa he'll have a market for those, LOL.

(Forgive the macabre humor; I'm of the opinion that if you don't laugh you cry!)
Click to expand...

Interesting article! I am definitely of mixed feelings on which of those guys to prosecute. My initial instinct was all of them, but as I read about shipping charges and stuff I am now thinking they need an appeals system of sorts at Amazon. Maybe if you can show what you paid, plus the shipping expense, plus the Amazon cut, and end up with a "reasonable" (however you define that!) profit after, you are allowed to list again? I also wonder if Amazon and eBay might be able to work with the medical industry and the sellers to get the stockpiles to medical locations for a price that doesn't lose money for the seller, but isn't excessively high?

Interesting about the suits!
 
arkieb1 said:
@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.
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Stay with us, arkieb. I really, really empathize about the headache. A headache I cannot get rid of is one of the maladies with which I cope the least well. Let us know how you do.

Hugs,
Deb
 
67 now for Louisiana. Governor said we are near the top of cases per capita
 
arkieb1 said:
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.
Click to expand...

Oh, no...... I hope this turns out to be nothing serious. Sending healing thoughts.....
 
Is anyone else afraid of gaining like a hundred pounds "in quarantine"... ? It's only been two days and all I've done since my office sent everyone home is EAT. :eek-2:
 
I need to rant for a bit.....to spare DH from having to hear it! (He completely agrees with me, but the poor guy has had to listen to the rants too much.)

As a musician, spring is my busiest time of year because that is when all the schools, both high schools and colleges, in the area have their spring musicals, and most hire in at least a few professional musicians to supplement students in the pit orchestras. I played for one school in February, and then was booked for at least one and sometimes two rehearsals and/or performances every single day of March. On Thursday, Gov. DeWine closed all the K-12 schools in the state for a minimum of three weeks, effective next Monday, and instituted a ban on gatherings of 100 or more people, effective immediately (all of which I agree with). The school I was to play for the last week of the month of course postponed their show indefinitely - which is good. The show I was to play for next week, which was for a local community theater company, is still going to have the show! They cut out some cast and trimmed down the orchestra (including cutting my part, thankfully) so that they can still sell 60 or so tickets per show to just skate the rules. How stupid is that!

And then there's the school I'm playing for this week....a local high school. Their decision? "We don't want to disappoint the kids, and besides, it's just a flu. It's nothing; the media is just hyping it up." So, they opened the dress rehearsal Thursday night up to anyone from the public who wanted to come without warning anyone in the orchestra, and then are supposedly restricting ticket sales for the Friday and Saturday night and Sunday matinee performances to just parents, grandparents, and siblings of people involved in the production. So far, then, I played performances Thursday and Friday nights to crowds that were, granted, only about half to two-thirds the normal crowd size there, but still WAY more than 100 people all in the auditorium together when audience, cast, and crew are all counted - and the audiences spent the entire performances coughing and hacking like you wouldn't believe. And I have to do it again tonight and tomorrow afternoon, or else I won't get paid at all, and DH was laid off at the beginning of the year, so......yeah. They are clearly flouting the governor's ban, and don't care. They don't care that some of us in the orchestra are older. I'm 55 with underlying health issues, including lungs (and a spouse who's 59 with issues), and my friend in the orchestra is 67 and the sole caretaker of her parents and an aunt, all well into their 90s and very frail.

I'm just enraged at this.
 
OboeGal said:
I need to rant for a bit.....to spare DH from having to hear it! (He completely agrees with me, but the poor guy has had to listen to the rants too much.)

As a musician, spring is my busiest time of year because that is when all the schools, both high schools and colleges, in the area have their spring musicals, and most hire in at least a few professional musicians to supplement students in the pit orchestras. I played for one school in February, and then was booked for at least one and sometimes two rehearsals and/or performances every single day of March. On Thursday, Gov. DeWine closed all the K-12 schools in the state for a minimum of three weeks, effective next Monday, and instituted a ban on gatherings of 100 or more people, effective immediately (all of which I agree with). The school I was to play for the last week of the month of course postponed their show indefinitely - which is good. The show I was to play for next week, which was for a local community theater company, is still going to have the show! They cut out some cast and trimmed down the orchestra (including cutting my part, thankfully) so that they can still sell 60 or so tickets per show to just skate the rules. How stupid is that!

And then there's the school I'm playing for this week....a local high school. Their decision? "We don't want to disappoint the kids, and besides, it's just a flu. It's nothing; the media is just hyping it up." So, they opened the dress rehearsal Thursday night up to anyone from the public who wanted to come without warning anyone in the orchestra, and then are supposedly restricting ticket sales for the Friday and Saturday night and Sunday matinee performances to just parents, grandparents, and siblings of people involved in the production. So far, then, I played performances Thursday and Friday nights to crowds that were, granted, only about half to two-thirds the normal crowd size there, but still WAY more than 100 people all in the auditorium together when audience, cast, and crew are all counted - and the audiences spent the entire performances coughing and hacking like you wouldn't believe. And I have to do it again tonight and tomorrow afternoon, or else I won't get paid at all, and DH was laid off at the beginning of the year, so......yeah. They are clearly flouting the governor's ban, and don't care. They don't care that some of us in the orchestra are older. I'm 55 with underlying health issues, including lungs (and a spouse who's 59 with issues), and my friend in the orchestra is 67 and the sole caretaker of her parents and an aunt, all well into their 90s and very frail.

I'm just enraged at this.
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I'm so sorry @OboeGal ! And I agree with you completely! I have no advice just sending you good wishes and (((hugs))). Stay well.
 
Florida found 25 new cases today. One person has passed away bringing our total to 3. There now appears to be a state wide ban on visitation to nursing homes, and there's lots of them here. I feel bad for the families, I hope they understand why it has to be done though.

No cases have yet shown up in a nursing home (and lets hope it won't )
 
So sorry for your situation @OboeGal. I certainly empathize with you. This is what is so frustrating and scary, people just don’t grasp the enormity of something like this. It’s like nothing we’ve had to experience before and for so many it just doesn’t compute. Hugs!
 
Louisiana now has 77 cases and 1 death, a 58 year old man with underlying health conditions. (In New Orleans)
 
Slick1 said:
Oh no! Mardi Gras!?
Stay healthy!!
Click to expand...

This was the year I actually went to the Sunday all day long parades for Mardi Gras.

It’s definitely a factor.
 
Dee*Jay said:
Is anyone else afraid of gaining like a hundred pounds "in quarantine"... ? It's only been two days and all I've done since my office sent everyone home is EAT. :eek-2:
Click to expand...

Thankfully NO! If you're self isolating then you have to find time to actually exercise (Yoga or even zumba or whatever floats your boat) I have a gym here thankfully I don't share with with anyone except the husband when he's here...lol

I also won't buy foods that could get us in too much trouble. So snacks are stuff like nuts and dried fruit (cranberries, blueberries). No cookies, no ice cream (he and the dog loves ice cream I don't) no cake either (which is my weakness). I don't really do chocolate except 60% or below, which meant I did not buy any for myself. I did buy it for my husband, but its 72% and bothers my stomach horribly.
 
It would be good to have an oximeter at home if you can. I already had one because I had a blood oxygen blip many months ago. It will tell you if you're having breathing/blood ox problems. I also take my temp everyday and write it down. Right now I have a cold, so we'll see. My commuter daughter was officially asked to work from home on Friday until further notice, so that is GREAT news.
 
The man who died in New Orleans just did a phone interview 3 days ago!

 
I have a random question. I have a humidifier that I haven't really used, because I could never keep up with properly cleaning it etc. If God forbid someone was to get sick at our house, would a humidifier actually help? Just wondering if I should clean it and have it ready to go if it might help making us a little more comfortable.
 
Babyblue033 said:
I have a random question. I have a humidifier that I haven't really used, because I could never keep up with properly cleaning it etc. If God forbid someone was to get sick at our house, would a humidifier actually help? Just wondering if I should clean it and have it ready to go if it might help making us a little more comfortable.
Click to expand...
Yes it can help. Distilled water/Demineralized is usually best, but regular water is also fine if thats all you have. Does the humidifier have a filter? if yes, you might need to get a new one if its been a while. Do you have peppermint or eucalyptus EO's? a few drops in the water usually also helps i as well.
 
Dee*Jay said:
Is anyone else afraid of gaining like a hundred pounds "in quarantine"... ? It's only been two days and all I've done since my office sent everyone home is EAT. :eek-2:
Click to expand...
Yes! It must be the anxiety and all that extra food shopping, I feel like I've gained 5 lbs in the last few days! And I'm still recovering from the car accident which means my mobility is still limited, so with the exception of PT 3 days a week, not much exercise I can do even if I was so inclined. And even that, I'm not sure how much longer I'd feel comfortable going to PT.

Arcadian said:
Yes it can help. Distilled water/Demineralized is usually best, but regular water is also fine if thats all you have. Does the humidifier have a filter? if yes, you might need to get a new one if its been a while. Do you have peppermint or eucalyptus EO's? a few drops in the water usually also helps i as well.
Click to expand...
Tap is pretty good here so hopefully it will still work. I'll check the filter to make sure I have that ready. I'm not very familiar with EOs but maybe I'll try to order some in case I'll need it. Thank you so much!
 
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