[Aptorian]

Hey, you guys can all act all holy about hoarding TP and food stuffs, meanwhile I've been building stockpile of toilet paper, water and non-perishable food over the past couple weeks.

Is everything going to be fine? Probably. But fuck you if you think I'm not going to prepare for the worst. I sleep better knowing I can ride out the worst if necessary.

[Andorion]

Anyone here staying home due to work being closed?

I am off for the next 2 weeks

[Macros]

Apt,

Have you went into a supermarket and cleared shelves and filled trolleys with anything and everything?
If so then fuck you, you're part of the problem.

If you've slowly built up a small sensible stock incrementally that's a wholly different thing.

I mean shops are cleared. Of fucking everything. EVERYTHING.
We have two big supermarkets and one middling small one, they're all totally wiped of edibles. I mean gutted. My lady literally could not find TP anywhere, and the only fruit/veg available was one, ONE battered tomato. I took a load of toilet roll from work and brought it home on the plane with me. This is how ridiculous things are because of people buying up supplies to last them 6 bloody months.
So yes, I'm pissed off with hoarders and panic buyers.

[Aptorian]

 Andorion, on 14 March 2020 - 10:46 AM, said:

Anyone here staying home due to work being closed?

I am off for the next 2 weeks

I am.

I went in with a co-worker Thursday and closed our library before noon. Felt pretty rushed since The Prime Minister said the government was closing on Monday but orders are orders.

So far we're closed until Friday 27th, I suspect it could be prolonged.

This post has been edited by Aptorian: 14 March 2020 - 11:09 AM

[Aptorian]

 Macros, on 14 March 2020 - 11:05 AM, said:

Apt,

Have you went into a supermarket and cleared shelves and filled trolleys with anything and everything?
If so then fuck you, you're part of the problem.

If you've slowly built up a small sensible stock incrementally that's a wholly different thing.

I mean shops are cleared. Of fucking everything. EVERYTHING.
We have two big supermarkets and one middling small one, they're all totally wiped of edibles. I mean gutted. My lady literally could not find TP anywhere, and the only fruit/veg available was one, ONE battered tomato. I took a load of toilet roll from work and brought it home on the plane with me. This is how ridiculous things are because of people buying up supplies to last them 6 bloody months.
So yes, I'm pissed off with hoarders and panic buyers.

I'm surprised if your local supermarket is still cleaned out. Danish supermarkets have been assuring everyone via media that there's no reason to worry about supplies. The only thing I've seen consistently being cleared out is fresh bread. Which is weird. Who hoards white bread in this day of health concious fanatics.

[Macros]

It's got to the stage people are lifting stuff as the shelves are being stacked. It's beyond ridiculous. Bulk buying at a Time of unease makes everyone think there will be a shortage so they bulk buy, it's a self feeding cycle of fuckwittery. It's a self fulfilling prophecy and just highlights humans fucking selfishness and short sightedness. Bring on the alien death rays

[Mezla PigDog]

 Andorion, on 14 March 2020 - 10:46 AM, said:

Anyone here staying home due to work being closed?

I am off for the next 2 weeks

I work at home already so am gutted that I won't get to enjoy this particular perk of the apocalypse. And since my companies job is to keep safe medical products on the market, I suspect my workload might get silly. And probably with the added complexity of figuring out what to do with my kid when his nursery closes. Hope you are still getting paid though! I know Apt will since he's a filthy socialist.

Other perks of the apocalypse that I am hoping to enjoy are:
- The guilty pleasure of some of the dirty tinned food that I usually avoid due to the lack of nutritional value
- When I do get the virus, pretending I have it a bit worse than I really do so I can have a few days off work
- Discovering new and innovative ways to wipe my bum
- Watching Boris Johnson squirm during live press conferences

[Aptorian]

Not only am I being paid, Mezla, but I also stole two litres of milk from the kitchen fridge and made off with a bunch cheese!

[Primateus]

 Aptorian, on 14 March 2020 - 12:28 PM, said:

Not only am I being paid, Mezla, but I also stole two litres of milk from the kitchen fridge and made off with a bunch cheese!

Truly, a criminal mastermind.

[QuickTidal]

Yeah, we did not panic shop, we bought enough stuff to sensibly get us through about 3weeks so we can minimize our need to go out and socially interact, food, diapers, ect. during that time. Nothing more extreme than a big grocery shop really.

Buying anything more than that is both insensible and shitty to do.

Sounds like Trudeau might close our borders...

[Mezla PigDog]

 Aptorian, on 14 March 2020 - 12:28 PM, said:

Not only am I being paid, Mezla, but I also stole two litres of milk from the kitchen fridge and made off with a bunch cheese!

Living the dream.

I can't be sanctimonious about well stocked larders now. I was taking the piss out of Mr PigDog yesterday about him getting twitchy that we didn't have enough stuff. We needed something for dinner so he went to the shop and I thought he realised I was being sarcastic when I told him to get a stockpile in. Now we are both blaming each other for the amount of tinned goods we have in the house. Win win - we've got the stuff and none of the blame. There was no toilet roll and only wholemeal pasta on the shelf - none of the white stuff. I guess in a toilet roll shortage, constipation is desirable? I am embarrassed to look at it. It's not just the stockpile, it's also what you decide to choose when making a stockpile. I fear it says a lot about a person. I'm going to take some to the local food bank to make myself feel a little better.

[Tsundoku]

Apt, if I had keys to a library and knew noone was going to be there during the national emergency, guess where I'd be hanging out?

You could even do a video montage of yourself a la Tom Cruise in Risky Business. Please keep the pants on of course. Pants off is Rodeoranch's thing.
You could be your own Breakfast Club.

[QuickTidal]

 Tsundoku, on 14 March 2020 - 12:47 PM, said:

Apt, if I had keys to a library and knew noone was going to be there during the national emergency, guess where I'd be hanging out?

You could even do a video montage of yourself a la Tom Cruise in Risky Business. Please keep the pants on of course. Pants off is Rodeoranch's thing.
You could be your own Breakfast Club.

Please do this Apt. TikTok the whole thing...you’d go viral hardcore.

[Aptorian]

If that happened it would be more like Christopher Walken in Weapon of Choice:

https://youtu.be/wCDIYvFmgW8

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Trump Seems to Think a Bunch of CEOs Will Save America From the Coronavirus

[...]

But Trump was not alone on that stage. At the press conference, the president was flanked by, and ceded the microphone, to several epidemiologists, doctors, pandemic and epidemic specialists, WHO representatives, career public health professionals, people who have managed the outbreak in other countries private sector CEOs, who have offered to open up their businesses' parking lots for "consumers"—in the language of the press conference—to receive drive-thru coronavirus tests. (The CEO army and Trump were joined by public health officials and political leaders from the president's coronavirus task force.)

[...] the CEO of Walmart, who before rising to the top of the superstore food chain, helped run the company's fishing tackle purchases and led the charge for the store to start selling diamond necklaces.

• Brian Cornell, the CEO of Target, who once made all of the company's new hires watch an anti-union video as part of required training, and is also on the board of directors of Yum! Brands, which owns Pizza Hut, KFC, and Taco Bell.

[...] • Steve Rusckowski, the CEO of Quest Diagnostics, the biggest provider of medical diagnostics tests in the world, which made $7.8 billion in net revenue off of testing in 2019. Think of the possibilities for 2020: Cha-ching!

• Adam H. Schechter, the CEO of LabCorp, a laboratory giant that made more than $11 billion in net revenue in 2018. Take that, Rusckowski!

• Matt Sause, the president and CEO of Roche Diagnostics, which gets its revenue from diagnostics and pharmaceuticals. According to Quartz, Roche's company "marketed [Tamiflu] as a cure for the swine flu. It actually turned out to be 'just as effective as aspirin' against the swine flu, save for 'renal and psychiatric' [side effects]."

[...] The government and nation are relying on the leadership of Trump—a person who reportedly doesn't exercise because he believes that people are like batteries, in that they have finite energy—to stop the global biological plague from killing as many as 1 million Americans[...] but at least these corporations saw their stocks temporarily soar during a press conference in which Trump once again lied about the nation's testing capabilities.'

https://slate.com/bu...oronavirus.html

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 14 March 2020 - 02:42 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'How Britain's Insanely Risky Coronavirus Experiment Will Affect the U.S.

One of the only European countries allowed to send flights to the U.S. has become a petri dish for coronavirus.

[...] The logic goes like this: if a large section of the population is exposed to the coronavirus now, it will likely help people develop a level of immunity, and then Britain will be in the best possible position to defend itself from a much worse outbreak of the virus in the future. The strategy reportedly has been shaped by the history of the deadly Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918, which saw a second, much larger spike in deaths months after the first outbreak.

Sir Patrick Vallance, England's chief scientific adviser, said the government was looking "to build up some kind of herd immunity so more people are immune to this disease and we reduce the transmission." The strategy is based on science—but the entire British population is now effectively taking part in a mass untested experiment, and one which could result in the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

While the strategy has its supporters in the scientific community, many have reacted with sheer horror. Anthony Costello, a pediatrician and former World Health Organization director, wrote that it's not even clear yet that catching the coronavirus will result in immunity. Costello urged the U.K. to change course, asking: "Is it ethical to adopt a policy that threatens immediate casualties on the basis of an uncertain future benefit?"'

https://www.thedaily...avirus?ref=home

'Japan confirms first case of person re-infected with coronavirus

There have been a number of cases of reinfection in China.'

https://thehill.com/...Q3mwlKNDHXuiges

[However, it's not clear whether they were actually infected a second time, or whether the virus was simply dormant inside them.]

'in the case of the new coronavirus, according to Zhan, doctors don't think the antibodies patients develop are strong or long-lasting enough to keep them from contracting the disease again.'

https://www.business...nfection-2020-2

'The emerging consensus among epidemiologists is that the most likely outcome of this outbreak is a new seasonal disease—a fifth "endemic" coronavirus. With the other four, people are not known to develop long-lasting immunity.'

https://www.theatlan...vaccine/607000/

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 14 March 2020 - 03:55 PM

[QuickTidal]

My immunocompromised niece is being tested this weekend for it as is her dad...as both are sick. Hope they test negative as my niece will end up in hospital if she’s got it.

They are sending people out to their house to test them, which is smart.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'He has 17,700 bottles of hand sanitizer and nowhere to sell

On March 1, the day after the death of the first coronavirus in the United States, the brothers Matt and Noah Colvin took a silver S.U.V. to pick up some hand sanitizer. They traveled around Chattanooga, Tennessee, smashed into a dollar tree, and slammed into Wal-Mart, Staples, and Home Depot. At each store, they clean up the shelves.

Over the next three days, Noah Colvin made a 1,300-mile road trip across Tennessee and Kentucky, filling the U-Haul truck with thousands of bottles Hand sanitizer and thousands of packs of antibacterial wipes, most of which came from "Little Hole's brother." "The major metropolitan areas have been cleaned up."

[...] sold them for $ 8 to $ 70 per bottle, many times more expensive than when he bought them. To him, "that's crazy money." For many others, it's a huge profit from a pandemic.

The next day, Amazon withdrew his belongings and thousands of others for disinfectants, wipes and masks. The company has suspended listings for some sellers and warned other sellers that if they continue to drive up prices, they will lose their accounts. eBay soon took stricter measures to ban the sale of any masks or disinfectants in the United States.

[...] "This is a huge whipping." "The situation from where I came in and out could put my family in a very good position financially, to' how am I going to handle all this?'"

[...] Amazon, eBay, Wal-Mart, and other online commerce platforms are trying to prevent its sellers from taking excess profits from the public health crisis. Although these companies are designed to stop people from accumulating such products and driving up prices, many sellers have cleaned up local stores and started selling products online.

Today, physical and digital shelves are almost empty.'

https://www.technolo...u8_X37JZu_O7Idc

One major issue with simply putting temporarily unemployed people to work in domestic factories to help meet demand is concern about densely packed factories spreading the virus. However, as I predicted, China is accelerating its transition to robotics in response (which will hopefully be a major long-term benefit to Chinese economic and social progress):

'The rush to deploy robots in China amid the coronavirus outbreak'

https://www.cnbc.com...s-outbreak.html

Perhaps here's a solution:

Have human workers, in protective gear, help assemble machines which require minimal human supervision.

Sterilize the machines.

Let the machines produce the goods.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 14 March 2020 - 04:14 PM

[Malankazooie]

[Mentalist]

 Andorion, on 14 March 2020 - 10:46 AM, said:

Anyone here staying home due to work being closed?

I am off for the next 2 weeks

I was home this entire week, and I'll be home next week. Getting remote access set up on Monday. If they start shutting down govt institutions, might not even have to do my hearing on Thur.

Basically the same experience, except due to lack of commute I get to get up half an hour before I'm supposed to be at work, instead of 2 and a half hours.