Wednesday, March 04, 2020

Perils of the human condition.

"People Have Just Gone Nuts": Wealthy NY Suburb Gripped By Hysteria After Local Family Diagnosed With Covid-19.

I wasn't sure if this would play out the same way as it did in China. But since a few cases have starting popping up I should say that one of the things that stood out to me was the neighbor on neighbor fighting.

For weeks and weeks until they shut down the internet - paranoia was deep. Some neighbors actually killed each other. People became very irrational. I don't know any of the causes. I only know that it was very rampant. I tried to translate as much as I could, but cultural differences make it challenging.

10 comments:

  1. I picked up my usual spring/late winter sinus infection last week. Go into the doctor, and not only are they asking if you've been out of the country recently, they're now also asking if you've been in contact with someone who's been out of the country recently.

    My response: not that I know of, but I work retail, so your guess is as good as mine

    the look on the receptionists face was priceless.

    Meanwhile, at my work, sales of bleach, disinfectant sprays and wipes, hand sanitizers, and the like have more than doubled and we literally can't keep it on the shelf. Plus now I get regular lectures from random people about how we're all going to need hazmat suits in the near future just to survive. Usually while they're rubbing their face/nose/mouth.

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  2. Wooooow. I was in HD yesterday buying tons of strawberries. I was pretty surprised they hadn't started stripping the garden plants yet. I had already started prepping my garden a couple of weeks ago because it hasn't rained since the middle of Jan. I feel like I got a head start. My peppers are already two weeks old. Because priorities.

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  3. Capital of Texas RefugeeThursday, March 05, 2020 6:09:00 PM

    King County, Washington: you're doing great.

    Can't stand Kent, I only went down there to the IKEA and the 99 Ranch Market.

    But if you fine people of King County Public Health are going to infect the asshole population of Kent with your new Mary Mallon Memorial Motel, could you spare a little change and take care of the Mercer Island scumbag problem as well with yet another new open-air homeless camp?

    Much obliged. :-)

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  4. Texas Refugee - I was born in that county. Fun fact.

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  5. Capital of Texas RefugeeFriday, March 06, 2020 6:53:00 PM

    Wait ... I thought you were born in Sparkly Vampire County, Washington!

    This obviously explains why you do not have those strong sparkly vampire powers, they're given to you at birth, but only if you're born in Sparkly Vampire County. :-)

    Have you looked at MarineTraffic lately?

    I saw a recent video of one of the container loading/unloading areas at the Port of Los Angeles where there would normally be building-sized towers of containers ... and there's nearly nothing, with very few trucks going in and out.

    Apparently as bad as that was, it's even worse over at Yang Ming at the Port of Los Angeles, and aside from some European-labeled containers (mostly Hapag Lloyd, Maersk, and CMA-CGM), the stacks weren't even stacks, but just one or two containers sitting here and there.

    Usually stacks like that are as tall as small skyscrapers -- there are some videos of the Port of Dubai that show how crazy that can get.

    When I looked earlier today (around 8 AM Pacific time), there were six cargo vessels at dock across the entire US West Coast from Asian ports -- there's more going on in Vancouver than there is at all of these ports combined, but a lot of that is South Korean and Japanese vessels.

    Normally 8 AM Pacific time on a Friday would be super-busy at any of those ports.

    One of those vessels that was docked looked like it was undergoing a US Coast Guard inspection while another one was getting ready to sail out of a repair facility.

    Normally the Port of Singapore is like a parking lot outside the port, but this morning, not so much -- it's clear sailing in and out of port.

    MarineTraffic has a way to search the arrivals/departures for a port of call, so try it on Seattle with filters set for cargo vessels only and you can see what I'm talking about.

    Cargo vessel traffic into Montreal, Boston, New York, Charleston, and Miami looked like it was 100% non-Asian trade. There were a few vessels up from South America, but most of them were from Europe and other US/Canadian ports.

    So for a while, everything the US is going to get from China is sitting in US warehouses or on the docks, and there isn't much on the docks ...

    The Jones Act of 1920 keeps non-US vessels from carrying goods between US ports, so that's all international traffic in those US ports.

    Unless all of a sudden there's going to be wave after wave of UPS and FedEx plans coming in with urgent deliveries from China, which isn't happening now because they've both cut their flight traffic down, you can expect to see some stuff noticeably disappearing from the shelves in the next week or so.

    This will get even more interesting for the Caribbean -- I think the Cayman Islands closed their port entirely, and they told at least one cruise ship to go away before that.

    Oh, yeah, how 'bout some fun facts ...

    I was born in a hurricane.

    Fun fact. :-)

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  6. Capital of Texas RefugeeSaturday, March 07, 2020 1:20:00 AM

    Cell: "SARS-CoV-2 cell entry depends on ACE2 and TMPRSS2 and is blocked by a clinically proven protease inhibitor".

    Highlights:
    • SARS-CoV-2 uses the SARS-CoV receptor ACE2 for host cell entry
    • The spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 is primed by TMPRSS2
    • Antibodies against SARS-CoV spike may offer some protection against SARS-CoV-2

    So instead of anti-RV protease inhibitors (a.k.a., AIDS/HIV drugs), this involves serine protease inhibitors.

    This is a good development because this particular serpin would be less likely to cause pancreatic damage.

    In fact, it's brilliant: it's a treatment for pancreatitis.

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  7. "Wait ... I thought you were born in Sparkly Vampire County, Washington!"

    Apparently I made a fun fact that was not even a fact. I thought King county went all the way to Forks. I think I believed that because I had to get a copy of my birth certificate once and had to get it from King county. I guess I'm that tard. I don't know why you guys even listen to me.

    I did see the port stuff gong around. When everyone was out panic buying food last weekend I was panic buying moldings.

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  8. To be fair, this is upstate NY. Average last frost isn't till the middle/end of May. Our garden soils are still giant frozen blocks on pallets, even with the fairly mild late winter we're having! I have started my garden seedlings though.

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  9. We are even too early here. I just have starts too. But at least when the frost danger has passed I can get them right in. I even have soybeans in right now which are a hassle because we have a plague of pill bugs who LOVE edamame. I don't know how to get rid of those effers. But who knows how long this goes on? And probably people are going to be broke for quite a while.

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  10. Capital of Texas RefugeeSunday, March 08, 2020 10:18:00 PM

    "I don't know how to get rid of those effers ..."

    Try borax ... a product mined in California. :-)

    A very light dusting may be all you need.

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