I hope your business will survive and go on to thrive. I’m very sorry you are having this type of stress.
No, I’m not shopping there at all. I said they are taking online orders and shipping to customers. Just used it as an example that many businesses are not and we’re not completely closed.
The women who owns the store and the other store I mentioned are doing all the work. They aren’t asking their employees to come in.
Also, it’s far safer for everyone if places of business are not open to the public, but it’s especially true for the people who have no choice but to go to work.
I laid out my idea for grocery stores, if I was Queen, on this very thread. It would be better for everyone if all orders were done curbside or by delivery and not open to the public.
Food is essential, shopping in Macy’s, Kolhs or any other store, besides pharmacies, is not.
Which actually keeps her and other employees safer and less stressed as it minimizes contact.
Had a tele appointment and the doctor said he thinks if I want to get blood tests, that doing so now is probably the best time for the coming months because things are opening up here and cases are going to go up. He thinks things will likely get so bad in the fall that we will have to shelter in place again. I had thought projected case graphs were showing cases would trend down through the summer. We are in New England. Does anyone have up to date info on protected cases?
Also, the doctor thinks getting a blood test is fairly low risk right now as there are great procedures in place here. I might go soon and do testing which would include the antibody test. It would be the Quest test if I did it. I asked about accuracy and he said that he thinks the Quest test’s accuracy is good but didn’t give any stats. Does anyone know if that brand of test is accurate? I have heard such confusing things about antibody testing.
Thanks for any info.
News from the alcohol front lines: I own a small craft brand, and a store called me today. They said they tried to do online or phone ordering and curbside pickup but couldn’t stop people from coming in. There are so many people wanting to shop in person that they have to lock the door sometimes to keep them out. (This is in the hudson valley of NY).
Meanwhile the boom is benefiting the large brands – people are stocking up on jugs of vodka, or boxes of wine, not the small craft spirit, or the fine wine to be savored. There really seems to be a shaking out where the “big boys” are benefitting tremendously, but the small brands are suffering. Kind of like Walmart/Target compared to a local shop. I must say I understand – when I’ve shopped (for food!) I’m in the “stock up” mode, not buying rare gourmet products.
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Thank you, that’s very kind.
It’s not “our” business, but he is a manager there and that job pays the bulk of our bills and in this economy? & at his age? it would be very difficult to replace.
Work & the ability to provide for us is very important to him. It’s scary.
I did read your idea for grocery stores and while I didn’t feel it was worth arguing about at the time, think it’s based on your knowledge of how grocery stores may have operated decades ago but doesn’t take into account how grocery stores operate now. Paying people to pull orders for curbside pickup and delivery wouldn’t result in many fewer people in the store because there would need to be many, many more employees in there doing the shopping. And those employees would all be in there for longer time periods, unlike shoppers who are in and out, so if you have one asymptomatic employee breathing in the store for 8 hours, it’s more likely to be filling the interior with infectuous particles than even a sick customer who is there for only a few minutes.
Just like the Amazon fulfillment warehouses have experienced some spreading events (and they’re a lot more efficient and automated than hiring dozens more Instacart or grocery store employees to shop in the grocery stores), a proposal to pay people to shop for others is only shifting the risk from one person who stays home to the person who is now shopping for them.
the quest test is 99 to 100% accurate for negative results but only 90% accurate for positive results. for me that's a deal-breaker I don't want to be told that I'm positive when I'm actually negative because my behavior will probably change if I think I'm positive for antibodies. I would much rather have a false negative than a false positive but that's not the case with Quest. Unless I'm reading it backwards. I'd rather wait to get a test that's 98 or 99% on both sides.
Quest also notes that the test “can sometimes detect antibodies from other coronaviruses, which can cause a false positive result if you have been previously diagnosed with or exposed to other types of coronaviruses.” How often does that happen? Although Quest’s test was not included in the Evaluate Vantage survey, the company reports a specificity of “approximately 99% to 100%.”
Quest likewise warns that “negative results do not rule out SARS-CoV-2 infection.” It reports a sensitivity of “approximately 90% to 100%.”
Those numbers indicate that Quest’s specificity is very high—comparable to the figures reported by Abbott, CTK Biotech, Nirmidas Biotech, Premier Biotech, and SD Biosensor, although perhaps not quite as good as the rates reported by Creative Diagnostics, Epitope, and Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics. Quest’s reported sensitivity covers a pretty wide range but still makes its test look better by that measure than Epitope’s IgM test and the products offered by BioMedomics, Ortho-Clinical, and SD Biosensor.
Selfishly happy that the holiday weekend started off cool and rainy here. D20 was due to start working at the boardwalk today, but her shift got canceled. ??
Interesting as the small craft brewery in my town (outside of Albany) from what I hear has been very busy. They have a fairly large dedicated following in town. I have never been because I’m not a beer lover.
Also, since only beer can be sold in grocery stores in NY, I assume the liquor stores (small businesses mostly) are doing just fine.
You’re right that it doesn’t have to be either/or.
Dr Amesh Adalja from JHU Center for Health Security is more articulate than I am, and his assessment is sobering & realistic IMO.
Clothing becomes essential over the longer term, if your clothes wear out or if you have a growing child who can no longer use the old clothes that are too small (adults can also change size…). House maintenance and repair becomes more essential as people stay at home more and need stuff in their houses to function properly. A properly functioning computer or mobile phone and network service is necessary if you want to find out what the latest update to government health orders or other relevant information actually is.
In theory, we could open everything, but with social distancing requirements and density limitations based on risk level of the activity (e.g. outside with transient proximity versus inside with longer proximity). However, it seems that getting people to understand and follow such more complex rules is considered unrealistic compared to the simpler “stay at home” message (that may be seen as more restrictive generally, but many of those “stay at home” orders have exceptions that are of significant risk). So the simpler (often politicized) messaging emphasizes the binary choice of “stay shut down” versus “open everything up fully”.
This pandemic is exacerbating many problems with American-style capitalism. And until this system becomes more protective of its workforce – IF it ever does – we will always have an underclass that cannot withstand major economic upheavals, natural or manmade disasters, or pandemics.
Your niece is part of that underclass.
Here’s another take on what I just wrote: McDonald’s Workers in Denmark Pity Us
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/08/opinion/sunday/us-denmark-economy.html
You can shop for clothes online. They usually give details on size measurements. It’s not difficult.
You can order computers, phones, practically everything imaginable online.
Do you not understand that even for things you order online, there are humans involved in picking, packing, shipping and delivering that stuff? Even in warehouses as automated as Amazon, there are humans involved in all this. Ordering online is again just transferring risk from the people staying home onto the people being paid to pick, pack, ship and deliver the goods.
If only the listed sizes and measurements were accurate… (even for men’s clothing; it is reportedly much worse for women’s clothing)
Should grocery stores and pharmacies close their retail locations and go to online ordering only?
So let’s have everyone go out shopping? How is that better? More people being exposed is not better. More shops open more workers exposed.
We could have and should have done what New Zealand did and close everything but grocery stores and pharmacies. They did this for 49 days. But we didn’t because we are a stupid and selfish nation.
True, though she does have responsibilities on the floor as well.
One issue is her Kohl’s only has one set of its registers open. I guess there is a “set” by each set of doors. Anyway, they have 6 foot marks on the floor near-ish to the registers, but not nearly as far back as the lines of people go. The further away from the registers one gets, the less social distancing that is occurring because there are no marks on the floor. The lines are looooong. Niece has been amazed (appalled) at the amount of recreational shopping that is going on. Idk if they have put in plexiglass at registers. She does not work one. She says staying spaced out in the store while shopping is easy but not so much when folks are lined up to check out.
I have noticed that some grocery stores have the problem of too few registers open, so that people waiting to check out and pay line up in very long lines (obviously increasing the risk of shopping there, since if a person near you in line is contagious, you are being exposed to him/her for longer).
Just received an email from my gym, here in a nursing home hotspot of PA. They won’t be able to open for at least several weeks, but said they are keeping a close eye on gyms in Georgia and other states where they are open to determine how to move forward.
It sounds like they expect us elderly to not come back immediately, so they plan to continue offering Silver Sneakers classes via streaming services.
I like the way it is now, because they offer classes 7 days a week, and since I’m not going anywhere, I can take a class everyday. I’m in the best shape I’ve been in in years.
It will be interesting to see how they proceed.