The groceries will be stocked, won’t they? If you can’t go out to shop, they will deliver. So…?
Speaking of delivery - perfect timing. But not every area offers delivery.
Online grocer FreshDirect sees surge in orders, experiences delays
“FreshDirect is seeing an increase in orders that the company thinks could be driven by coronavirus. The New York-based online grocer said on its website that it is experiencing delays with deliveries because of the high volume. “We have experienced growth across the board, particularly in high-trust categories including fresh seafood, fresh chicken, baby food, baby and family health products as well as household cleaning and disinfectant items,” Scott Crawford, chief merchant officer, said in a statement to CNBC. “Anecdotally, we believe the increase in demand may be related to COVID-19 (coronavirus) media reports and preparedness and as a result, customers are opting for online grocery shopping.”” (CNBC)
@doschicos mentioned Dr Celine Gounder, infectious disease NYU professor. She’s created a podcast, Epidemic, on the coronavirus with Ronald Klain, Obama’s Ebola response coordinator. It’s pretty interesting so far, and I like hearing directly from the experts.
First of all, why isn’t there a system for naming these things in order to avoid the virus and the disease being called two different things?
The virus is SARS-CoV-2.
The illness it causes is COVID-19.
I would like a one disease, one name policy.
Secondly, I thought this article in Vox about how to prepare rather than panic was helpful: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/2/28/21156128/coronavirus-prepare-outbreak-covid19-health
It includes the following about psychological preparation:
From CNN. It looks like CC isn’t alone paying attention to the virus.
@3SailAway Thank you for this. There will be adjustments - and I’m just trying to prepare, no panic - so stocking up on some items (without going overboard) is a good thing. I know travel will be the big issue, for those planning a trip to Europe in the next few weeks, there will be disruption. Possibly closures. That could also happen here, in certain locations, when there is a breakout. We need to be prepared for that disruption.
The California woman was able to talk when she entered the first hospital. They questioned her and wrongly determined she didn’t fit the CDC guidelines. Also they could question family members about her movements
This secrecy infuriates me.
Also she caught this from someone who had been in a hot zone. So either someone evaded screening on entering the US or the screening doesn’t catch cases. Again, no information from CDC
The hard thing will be for those among us already living on the margin.
Why would you need to know??? I am glad the health authorities in WA kept the identity of the first patient secret. No one needs to be turned into a leper over this infection.
Not wrongly. She didn’t fit the CDC guideline at that time for testing. She was not in China. They changed the guidelines since. I don’t think it was hard to avoid screening on entering the US if they didn’t fly directly from China. From the beginning, it puzzled me why they allow indirect travel from China. Anyone of them could be carrying the virus.
Or to potentially hurt businesses that are supporting families.
A WA update:
Here is a tidbit that heds some light on why manual running of the tests is slow. A technician will not run an individual sample. It is not time efficient to run one sample then another… the samples are usually batched and run all at once. It does not take 10 times more time to run 10 samples as the time needed to run one.
The new, automated, cartridge-based tests can solve this. Those samples/tests can be run on demand.
I’m glad that the health authorities in California are keeping the identity of patients secret. There is good reason that the contact tracing protocols are the way they are: to avoid panic and shunning. This is not the first rodeo for people in the public health field.
Patient records are private for a reason. Not even a pandemic is worth compromising patient confidentiality imo. (Yes, I have an issue with HIV and other similar public health strategies too that essentially out patients.)
When there was a Hepatitis outbreak recently in Long Beach the steakhouse with the outbreak was named so people who had been there could be warned.
It would be a violation of federal law to disclose her identity. It is legal to trace her contacts and monitor them. And identifying a steakhouse is both different from identifying a person and necessary to alert customers to be vaccinated.
@TatinG hepatitis comes from food. That’s a different story.
Of course it’s reasonable, but first ya gotta have a test that works. (And if I was at CDC, I’d be more concerned about false negatives than false positives.)
And I disagree with having politicians at the point-persons. In some respects, I’d rather have them making the talk show circuits than the true stars in the Public Health Service. If you put those folks out in front they aren’t doing their day job, which right now is to get the test kits out as fast as they can.
might want to blame the feds for that, too. 
But seriously, though, the health departments are clamping down on such info for reasons I can only guess. When The OC (pop of 2.5 mill) had its first and only case, the County health dept never reported what city or what hospital. However, word did leak out on those community/neighborhood blogs. Within a day, the locals that knew him/her had narrowed the patient down to age, sex, town street, residency, and hospital. But still even after discharge, the Health Dept released no info.
Yeah, that’s just what we need. Hundreds of thousands of lay people self prescribing (and prescribing to friends and relatives) antibiotics whenever they, with zero real knowledge/training/credentials to make the proper call, feel like it. That will end well.
Sorry, that’s one of the worst ideas I’ve heard since this whole thing began.