[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Mezla PigDog, on 18 August 2020 - 10:56 AM, said:

We have eaten out once a week or so. Always outdoors or with a table by an open window and it has always felt ok but the places we go seem to be sensible and we are always there early to eat at small child meal times so it is quiet. We have a cottage booked by the seaside in North Wales in a couple of weeks - on Saturday we bagged the only appropriately sized booking available on Airbnb! And my son and I have been to my friends and had them to ours where we haven't really socially distanced because we kind of forget and the boys are climbing all over each other anyway. I check this update a couple of times a week:

Weekly covid cases in UK - The Guardian

Click on your county on the coloured map, pink means numbers are rising in your area and green means they are going down. I have been tracking it since the end of lockdown so kind of started at a "safe" base level in my head. If our county starts spiking then I will change my behaviour. I'm trying to do a little bit of living now before autumn kicks in because it's going to be a tough old winter.

Thanks Mez, that's really handy (especially given I live just outside the current West Yorkshire local lockdown zone).

Fingers crossed for your Wales trip - we've got a week booked in the Lakes in October to do some walking (all being well),

This post has been edited by TheRetiredBridgeburner: 18 August 2020 - 12:25 PM

[glasseye]

Mezla PigDog, on 18 August 2020 - 04:08 AM, said:

Cause, on 17 August 2020 - 10:15 PM, said:

Mezla PigDog, on 17 August 2020 - 08:17 PM, said:

I was chatting with a friend today and we both realised we had no firm idea what the social distancing rules in the UK are. It's partly because neither of us is doing much so we don't think we have broken them anyway but we also don't really know what we are allowed to do. I looked the rules up on the government website this evening for the first time and I still don't think I could correctly regurgitate them. We also realised that between us we barely know anyone who is sticking to the rules we do understand and they are not even shy about it as evidenced by the many non-socially distanced selfies on FB. We are all screwed people.

My friend went to a pub and played darts yesterday. The rules seem pretty lax?

I think we can do more or less everything we used to do but there are rules for how many people you can do it with and it's different for different scenarios or if you live alone. I have a feeling the country is split into people who are doing a lot less than they are allowed to and people who are living like it is 2019.

I live in the local lockdown area. It doesn't seem to be any different for most people as before. We feel like we're in a minority following the actual rules.

[Macros]

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[Malankazooie]

[Primateus]

Got tested Friday, got answer today. I have so far managed to avoid catching the virus.

[Cause]

So big announcement tonight by trump about a covid therapeutic. Anyone want to take bets?

[Aptorian]

Covid Therapeutic?

[Lady Bliss]

Cause, on 23 August 2020 - 05:32 PM, said:

So big announcement tonight by trump about a covid therapeutic. Anyone want to take bets?

I’ve been wondering about it myself since it isn’t coming from the medical community. I’ve been wondering if this is about that oleander drug that is actually poisonous

[Aptorian]

Maybe Trump will do a live demonstration.

[Malankazooie]

Missed the complete details from the nightly news, but something about blood/plasma and antibodies from recovered patients. And Trump saying something about "deep state" insiders at the FDA withholding the benefits of this therapy until after the election to hurt him. So he took control and got it done. Oh and this just conveniently, and coincidentally, is announced the Sunday evening before the kick off of the RNC week on Monday.

[Aptorian]

Where are they getting blood enough to treat every Corona patient.

Are there unmarked vans picking up homeless people off the street?

[Cause]

They have been testing and using this for ages. Most obvious treatment. Literally just hooking up covid survivors to machines that extract antibodies and otherwise out the rest of the blood back. It sometimes works, it sometimes doesn’t. It’s the treatment for rabies if they can catch it early enough. Trump hasn’t announced anything important here except that he is willing to pressure the fda.

When the vaccine is announced many people will be wary.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Aptorian, on 24 August 2020 - 03:48 AM, said:

Where are they getting blood enough to treat every Corona patient.

Are there unmarked vans picking up homeless people off the street?

As I mentioned in the political comedy thread, Trump has referred to it as 'a beautiful ingredient'....

'What Is the Blood of a Poor Person Worth?

Desperate people can make $30 donating plasma, up to 104 times a year, in this $20 billion industry.

[...] The plasma business is booming in the United States, with the number of collection centers like this one more than doubling since 2005, and global sales roughly quadrupling since 2000 to be more than $21 billion in 2017. Many developed countries have banned paying people for their blood, but not the United States. Blood products made up 1.9 percent of all American exports in 2016, more than soybeans, more than computers.

[...] plasma companies locate their collection centers disproportionately in destitute neighborhoods[...]

"They're surgically placing these," she said.

Healthy people can donate plasma twice a week, up to 104 times a year. The plasma industry says that most people do not donate so frequently and that there are minimal health risks involved, but other researchers disagree. One 2010 study found that paid donors who sell their plasma frequently have fewer proteins in their blood, which some experts say could put them at risk for infections and liver and kidney disorders. In the short term, plassers have reported fatigue, tingling sensations, anemia and blacking out.

Nonetheless, many are grateful for the opportunity. The money that comes from it can be the only form of cash income for families living in extreme poverty'

https://www.nytimes....a-industry.html

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 24 August 2020 - 03:58 AM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Can the Government Force Poor People to Give Blood to Stay Out of Jail?

In the wake of a report that an Alabama judge gave offenders the chance to donate blood in lieu of fines or jail time, experts say that the batshit-sounding practice might actually be legal.

[...] One Alabama judge has essentially been compelling indigent offenders to give blood or else go behind bars:

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen," began Judge Wiggins, a circuit judge here in rural Alabama since 1999. "For your consideration, there's a blood drive outside," he continued, according to a recording of the hearing. "If you don't have any money, go out there and give blood and bring in a receipt indicating you gave blood."

For those who had no money or did not want to give blood, the judge concluded: "The sheriff has enough handcuffs."'

https://www.vice.com...ut-of-jail-1020

I imagine quite a few of the judges Trump has been appointing would agree with this... or (much, much) worse.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 24 August 2020 - 04:03 AM

[Tsundoku]

Only a year late ... they've been doing it figuratively for years.

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[Aptorian]

Are you saying the government has been grooming people?

[Macros]

The US is basically already there regarding the dystopian hyper capitalist futures we see in gritty noir sci fi

[Maark Abbott]

Macros, on 24 August 2020 - 09:02 AM, said:

The US is basically already there regarding the dystopian hyper capitalist futures we see in gritty noir sci fi

So... Covid is Gray Death? Hot diggity damn.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

I'm still trying to convince myself this is a joke...

It sounds like something David Brent would say (and I hate The Office so that's not a compliment)

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Do Not Be the Coronavirus for Halloween

I'm asking nicely.

[...] it is a moral imperative to speak up against these masks.

[...] I've been trying to imagine a scenario in which someone could dress up as the coronavirus for Halloween without being a total monster. There's not one, right? I can certainly picture less viscerally unpleasant executions of a coronavirus costume—the Anne Geddes baby version, for instance, would be less of an affront. But it would still be like dressing up as an atomic bomb for Halloween '45 (or ever), or like a terrorist for Halloween '01 (or ever), or cancer, or the Holocaust. I guess there's an argument to be made that Halloween is supposed to be scary—if people dress as the literal Grim Reaper, why not the coronavirus? Or you could say there's gallows humor in the act of dressing up as this germ that's ravaging the world and killing people? Call me old-fashioned, I just don't think forcing every stranger who sees you to have this tense internal dialogue with themselves is an act of anything but hostility.

[...] to say nothing of what they'll do to people with trypophobia. Their spikes remind me of the mutant spider baby from Toy Story, and also sort of Rick from Rick and Morty. But so much worse, obviously. If you want to get really disturbed, there are even Trump versions of the coronavirus mask. They're just really, really terrible to look at. And seeing as how Americans can't trust their neighbors to wear the other kind of coronavirus masks to make it safer for everyone, I'm already a little afraid that we also can't trust our neighbors not to wear these.'

https://archive.is/5nOgJ

Would it be illegal to mail the author a coronavirus mask?... oh well. Perhaps they have stock in the companies....

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 04 September 2020 - 08:03 PM