I know we aren’t suppose to talk mask on this thread but I think this one is okay.
We are already beginning to have fires pop up in my county and a surrounding county. Last night on the local news from the other county they discussed masks. The county health director and someone from a hospital group. They were advising that residents should not wear cloth or surgical masks in smoky areas as those masks don’t protest you from the smoke particles. They showed the masks they recommend N95. The same masks they have been telling residents that they shouldn’t own because they should be reserved for health care workers. One of them even showed what you needed to look for when purchasing N95 masks. Several of us just LOL.
I assume they are correct but not very helpful if no one other than HCP even get those masks anymore.
From the Yahoo article BunsenBurner linked:
You could use this fact to conclude that the mean age for Floridians who are infected with covid has been plummeting. Or you could realize that at the beginning of the pandemic, advanced age was a criterion for testing. In March, younger people weren’t testing positive for covid. They weren’t testing negative either; they couldn’t be tested. You’re not going to find young people infected with covid if you don’t test young people.
If it’s true that the age of Floridians infected with covid has been dropping, then we would expect to see the age of people admitted to the hospital with covid also to be dropping. I don’t know whether this has been true. If the age range of hospitalizations has remained more or less stable, then the claim about covid positives being younger now is nonsense.
The positivity rate in Florida has skyrocketed this week, going from an average of around 5% in the previous week to over 12% this week. That’s awful.
https://www.local10.com/news/local/2020/06/19/coronavirus-florida-cases-spike-covid-19-record/
Envious…
Health care workers should not be wearing N95 masks with the valve, so if you can find those, you can wear them guilt-free. Just be aware that in terms of infection control, those masks with the valve don’t protect anyone but the wearer.
Today I went to a different grocery store than my usual one. Lol, they had tons of cream of celery soup. Go figure.
No country is perfect but I think most people would say they are in favour of the country of their residence. I am equally happy that I live in mine (Canada). There are few countries I would consider exchanging it for.
If it weren’t for neverending winter, I’d love to live in Canada. I grew up on the border with Ontario and never really considered it to be a foreign country. From the road in front of my mom’s house one could look across the river and see Canada. When my dad married my step-mom (from NS) we had the option for citizenship. It was rather tempting, but we didn’t pursue it. I believe 2020 is going to be the first year of my life when I haven’t set foot in Canada and that’s totally Covid caused.
I don’t dislike the US, but I do dislike a lot of what is happening in the US. Otherwise I just really love the atmosphere of Canada (and Hawaii and a lot of other more laid back places). We usually get mistaken for Canadians when we travel.
I guess I see myself as a citizen of Planet Earth and not really any particular country. I have a US passport from the birth lottery, not because I’m anyone special.
We found a section of the US we enjoy living in and have raised our lads here. It’s not where either H or I grew up or had any part of as kids. It’s just somewhere we explored and liked in our young parenthood. For retirement we see it being split between here and “somewhere” south for a good part of winter - likely an island in the Caribbean or perhaps HI, both other areas where we feel we fit in. I hope Covid allows us to explore potential options this winter.
Okay did that, and I am so going to get hay mulch on Monday. Thank you so much for that.
I basically kill every plant I go near (by accident!) and used to avoid gardening like the plague (if you’ll excuse the tasteless metaphor), but the controlled environment of raised beds around our new city roofgarden is appealing to me, corona has made self sufficiency more appealing, and oldest sons salad is amazing.
I hope I’m not going to kill anything by getting into the Ruth Stout method. I broke off another sprout of the honeysuckle today in an attempt to help it wind around the trellis as opposed to the gutter. And the flowers, so far, are not smelling of anything much. I just suck so much at gardening.
I hope it works for you. My spring/summer/fall youth was spent tilling, planting, weeding, weeding, weeding, picking, weeding and generally deciding that store bought items were better than gardening. Yet when we moved to this farm we returned to how we were brought up and started a garden with tilling, etc. By then the flavor of home grown and fresh won us over. It was worth the work - or so we told ourselves.
Now my youngest (a nature lover from birth) has taken over with his permaculture ideas. It’s not only far, far easier, he also produces more and it’s likely healthier with nutrients. I’ll admit I was super skeptical at first thinking it was some sort of fad, but when he did plots each way the first year he convinced me. He earns part of his income now setting up small “house” gardens for other people. All they end up having to do is pick. All I do now is pick (and sometimes cook).
It’s a great way to do things in general, but definitely a good option for Covid gardens.
Just a reminder that there is a separate gardening thread. Until we learn that produce can help prevent or cure the virus, this thread is probably not the logical place to discuss zucchini etc. The dedicated garden thread should yield more advice, if not more zucchini.
From Politico PULSE newsletter:
THE ALARMING SURGE IN LATINO CORONAVIRUS CASES — The coronavirus has infected more Latinos over the past two months than any other racial or ethnic minority, setting off alarms among doctors and public health officials, POLITICO’s Laura Barrón-López reports.
Latino hospitalizations are rising in several cities even though the group skews younger — and in nearly every state, Latinos account for a disproportionate share of Covid-19 cases.
— The surge has been an overlooked element of the crisis. While health experts have highlighted the disease’s disproportionate impact on African Americans — who are still dying at the highest rates — new research shows younger Latinos are also dying at far higher rates than white patients in the same age groups.
Latinos are also more likely to live in multi-generational housing and work essential service jobs in places like meat processing plants, which have become major sources of outbreaks.
— Health officials are eyeing one mystifying trend: The lag in state-by-state mortality rates among Latinos, compared to their infection rates. They believe that could be due either to Latino patients’ younger average age, making them more likely to survive — or the simple fact the path from diagnosis to death can take weeks to play out.
— Latinos are also more likely to be uninsured. They rank among the groups most likely to be uninsured, which along with potential fear of deportation and the threat of high medical costs can create a barrier to care.
“There might not be enough testing available in some of these communities to even really capture the full extent of the problem,” Harvard epidemiologist Javis Chen said.
Sorry. For me my new found interest IS actually a Covid thing, or rather a lockdown thing, and I’d never DARE enter a garden thread, I’d feel totally intimidated.
Maybe the topic belongs into the “have you found a new hobby for lockdown” thread.
In more Covid related news, the meat processing plant that is throwing my whole country’s corona balance sheet out of whack has so far returned over a thousand positive tests, with results back for barely half of the workforce of 7000 altogether or so, so with contacts this may run into several thousand positives, all within days. They have brought the army in for contact tracing - not because they fear violence, but they needed the bodies.
At one point the health authorities got so impatient with the plant administration’s slow response to their demands for contact data for workers, they forced their way into the headquarters office at 9 pm and raided the files.
All schools in the area closed, full lockdown being discussed and tensions running high. Animal rights activists are getting into it as well. What a mess.
Oh @Tigerle, please join the gardening thread. There is lots of help and commisseration there!
As of now (the beginning of summer), are you spending more, less, or the same amount of money as you were before the pandemic-related shutdowns began? Whatever your level of spending, has the pattern changed? That is, are you spending more on some things and less on others? I know this topic is discussed periodically, but the pandemic situation changes regularly, so I figured people’s financial responses might be, too. Thanks.
I think I’m spending about the same as I was before. I might be spending a bit more on contributions to nonprofit organizations and people in need, but I’m spending a lot less on transportation (gas), and my spending on groceries has gone down since earlier in the pandemic, when I used delivery services a few times.
Actually since Maryland has been opening many people are out and about. Shopping, eating outside and inside, going to barbers, malls, gyms, etc. It’s been a godsend for the economy.>>>
There are definitely more people out. But I haven’t seen a person yet out and about without a mask on in my MD county, even in parking lots and garden centers.
More on restaurant food, less on groceries. Less on clothes, but I never spent much. More on stuff because of the pandemic - cleaning supplies, art supplies, masks, UV lights, gardening stuff.
We got a hybrid car in January. We’ve driven 500 miles and went to the gas station for the first time last week. My husband was only going to work once a week for the first three months and is going only a few times a week now, so he’s using less gas too.
I don’t know why you’d say that the meat processing plant outbreak is throwing the balance sheet out of whack. The balance sheet is balanced: the meat processing workers live in your county, work in your county, shop in your county and play in your county, don’t they? The ones that are sick will go to your county’s health providers, if your county has enough health providers.
We’re spending less. Less on entertainment, less on travel, less on dining out. More on groceries, a bit, but that’s not a huge expense.
I’m spending less, zero in fact, on hair salons. Every night I look at my hair and try to decide whether to keep the gray or go back to dyeing my hair. I’m thinking maybe when I finally get the desperately needed haircut on my short hair, I’ll just skip the coloring and see how I like it. My normal cut is short enough that most of the colored hair would be chopped off. Probably I’d take one look my gray self and make the appointment to have the coloring done.
Apologies on the gardening on my end as well. My mind seems to just go from topic to topic anymore - at home and on here.
Back to Covid, I wonder with so many athletes coming down with it if we will finally get some stats about long term effects, or if they are too “in shape” to get long term effects (if that matters). It seems for many things once sports (or famous people) are involved people pay more attention than when something just hits the rank and file.