Shadow Dancer wrote:
Not surprising at all. One of the many good reasons to stay clear of other people when in public.
I'm going to change my schedule a bit and try shopping near closing time, the nearby grocery store closes at 11pm.
I've been going mid-day and it's busy.

I go first thing in the am when necessary, opening time. - My theory being that overnight the Store has been decontaminated, somewhat, maybe.

PA is opening County by County at several levels.  Red, Yellow, Green.  My County in the far SW corner has logged very few cases and will be entering the Yellow phase this week. To the East are the harder hit areas such as Philly which remain Red, no safeguards are in place which would prevent citizens of Philadelphia, or from any area for that matter, traveling into the local area (Pitt) bringing the Virus along.

The powers that be can open whatever they want,  I'll watch,  at a safe distance.

nwprophoto wrote:
Out of curiosity why are the current policies [in Los Angeles] not working?
Makes me wonder if extending them will make any difference.

Because stay-at-home is a fiction here in L.A. and much of SoCal. Here's an Orange County beach a couple weeks ago:



The city opened up the Flower Market (a small district in downtown L.A.) for Mother's Day and it was overwhelmed with shoppers:



After stopping by my favorite pot shop (they're all open thank god), I drove by a Home Depot and the parking lot was packed. All big box stores-Wallmart, Target, Wallgreens, etc. are open and busy. I needed car repairs two weeks ago-my car repair shop was open. I had our house seismically retrofitted in April (I had scheduled the work back in February and a work crew of 5 spent 8 hours under our house-we had no contact with them.) All gardeners are working. All construction crews are working-big or small projects. The freeways are getting crowded again. Shut down? What shut down???

And now for Thailand...(We were scheduled to return in April but all trans-pacific flights were cancelled and Thailand issued strong restraints on foreigners entering the country.) Yesterday, Thailand had its first day since the pandemic began of no new CV19 cases. They take their shut down far more serious than we do. They've had a total of about 3,000 cases. They also had direct flights from Wuhan and 40 million Chinese visit Thailand annually. Thailand jumped all over CV19 early. Here's a photo from Patong Beach, Phuket-one of the busiest beaches in the country:



Compare this photo to Orange Co. I rest my case.

FIFTYONE PHOTOGRAPHY wrote:

I go first thing in the am when necessary, opening time. - My theory being that overnight the Store has been decontaminated, somewhat, maybe.

PA is opening County by County at several levels.  Red, Yellow, Green.  My County in the far SW corner has logged very few cases and will be entering the Yellow phase this week. To the East are the harder hit areas such as Philly which remain Red, no safeguards are in place which would prevent citizens of Philadelphia, or from any area for that matter, traveling into the local area (Pitt) bringing the Virus along.

The powers that be can open whatever they want,  I'll watch,  at a safe distance.

Going early is great advice, thanks!

Baanthai wrote:
Because stay-at-home is a fiction here in L.A. and much of SoCal. Here's an Orange County beach a couple weeks ago:



The city opened up the Flower Market (a small district in downtown L.A.) for Mother's Day and it was overwhelmed with shoppers:



After stopping by my favorite pot shop (they're all open thank god), I drove by a Home Depot and the parking lot was packed. All big box stores-Wallmart, Target, Wallgreens, etc. are open and busy. I needed car repairs two weeks ago-my car repair shop was open. I had our house seismically retrofitted in April (I had scheduled the work back in February and a work crew of 5 spent 8 hours under our house-we had no contact with them.) All gardeners are working. All construction crews are working-big or small projects. The freeways are getting crowded again. Shut down? What shut down???

And now for Thailand...(We were scheduled to return in April but all trans-pacific flights were cancelled and Thailand issued strong restraints on foreigners entering the country.) Yesterday, Thailand had its first day since the pandemic began of no new CV19 cases. They take their shut down far more serious than we do. They've had a total of about 3,000 cases. They also had direct flights from Wuhan and 40 million Chinese visit Thailand annually. Thailand jumped all over CV19 early. Here's a photo from Patong Beach, Phuket-one of the busiest beaches in the country:



Compare this photo to Orange Co. I rest my case.

The flower mart photo is particularly interesting. Except for possibly one person, everyone in the picture is wearing a mask. They are not all observing the 6 foot rule. That tells me that people WILL follow rules if they are consistent, understandable, and regularly explained by leadership. If the flower mart had placed marks 6 feet apart, I believe people would have observed that. Opening the flower mart is another story - probably a mistake.

The problem, of course, being the lack of a national policy explained in a straightforward, honest way. Instead of a daily tantrum, staggering ignorance and the government's own guidelines undermined by infantile tweets and calls for "Liberation," try to imagine a President daily leveling with the American people and rallying them to follow guidelines devised by the best experts in the country. I know, hard to imagine, and that's one reason we have such erratic performance by citizens. Left to the states, competing and contradictory rules from one jurisdiction to the next results in mass confusion and the rising cases we are now seeing, which bodes ill for the future.

Shadow Dancer wrote:
LAX has 85 million passengers per year. No airport nearby even comes close to that level of traffic.

So, high population density plus very high visitor rate plus a feeble entry policy that allowed uncounted and untested people from all over the world to enter the US at that location.

Shadow Dancer wrote:
LAX has 85 million passengers per year. No airport nearby even comes close to that level of traffic.

So, high population density plus very high visitor rate plus a feeble entry policy that allowed uncounted and untested people from all over the world to enter the US at that location.

Other reasons to consider:

LA has several large capacity detention facilities, otherwise known as hot spots.

Larger than average number of essential workers manning supermarkets, meat processing plants,  and nursing homes.

LA has major distribution centers for many industries with employees required to work in unsafe conditions

Pockets of poverty in LA County with significantly higher cases than state average.

Shadow Dancer wrote:
That does not mean that going back to the old way of life is a solution to the pandemic, not by any means.
I am going to continue to isolate, many will do the same. Business as usual will not exist, not just for myself.

Even if people wanted to go out and eat Governor Inslee's requirement
to log all restaurant customers should make it even more interesting.

Shadow Dancer wrote:

Going early is great advice, thanks!

Grocery shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic - Australia
Major supermarkets such as Coles and Woolworths have acted to address access and inclusion issues surrounding people with disability and older Australians getting what they need at this crucial time.
https://www.ideas.org.au/blog/exclusive … lders.html

Shadow Dancer wrote:
And now we have more political pressure on an entity that should be responsible for facts and facts only in this matter.
Of course, instead of working on getting more testing done (vital), fake the number of deaths because many have not been tested even though they perished due to the obvious effects of Covid_19.

It's a "twofer", another pathetic attempt to backpedal and coverup that which cannot be covered up. Sad.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-pressu … 26983.html

Currently we have 82,806 deaths in the US from Covid_19.

12 hours later. 84,133.

nwprophoto wrote:

Even if people wanted to go out and eat Governor Inslee's requirement
to log all restaurant customers should make it even more interesting.

Gosh, eating at a restaurant.

It's bottom line thing for me. If I am infected and die, I am dead.
At 65 I am in a vulnerable category. The US death rate has held steady at 6% of those infected. We've got 1,390,734 known cases so far and while it is leveling off in some areas, it hasn't really gotten started in others.

Those odds are not something I can place a monetary or sensory value on. Dead is dead.

Eating at a restaurant seems trivial to me by comparison.

nwprophoto wrote:

Even if people wanted to go out and eat Governor Inslee's requirement
to log all restaurant customers should make it even more interesting.

Is Tonasket fully autonomous? Do you grow all your own food, make all your own clothes and provide for yourselves 100% or do you need items from the outside world? I'm guessing the latter, in fact I am positive of it.

Are the people of Tonasket practicing social distancing, wearing masks and gloves, dis-infecting - all of them all the time?
There are many here in Bellingham who do not do those things.

Are all visitors including those who are delivering needed items tested for Covid_19? They are not tested here, they bring stuff from other places and go to other places.

Do you feel safe? I don't feel safe. I know that somebody could be infected, not know it and infect others. Some of those others may also be infected, not know it and infect others.

I'm sure it is safer where you are living but is it completely safe from any possibility of infection? I would not bet on it.

It comes down to a decision, cut and dried. Is it better to be alive or dead? Is it worth risking death to have a financially well-off society? Those are yes or no questions, no gray areas.

I want to live. That is my answer.

rxz wrote:
I saw a news report where the governor of Nebraska does not what to report virus deaths.  What about the bodies, will they end up in unmarked graves?  Will surviving family members be told?  Will family members be given Gag Orders?  Inquiring minds want to know.   (Lots of meat processing facilities in Nebraska.)

BBBBBBBBBut China! China’s hiding info from us. BBBBBBBBBBBut China.

rxz wrote:
I saw a news report where the governor of Nebraska does not what to report virus deaths.  What about the bodies, will they end up in unmarked graves?  Will surviving family members be told?  Will family members be given Gag Orders?  Inquiring minds want to know.   (Lots of meat processing facilities in Nebraska.)

Baanthai wrote:
BBBBBBBBBut China! China’s hiding info from us. BBBBBBBBBBBut China.

Now Trump (as predicted) is officially questioning the accuracy of the U.S. COVID-19 death toll numbers, as being "too high".

The CDC has been requested by the White House to change what "qualifies" as a COVID-19 death.  They'd like the CDC and all of the states to not count those who are "presumed" to have died from the virus, nor those who were tested as having the virus but who died from other (related or unrelated) issues, nor those who weren't formally tested and confirmed as having died from the virus.

I.E. Greatly reduce the "official" U.S. death count from COVID-19. 

What was that about "China's hiding info from us..."?


[EDIT]  The CDC is "pushing back" against that White House request [/EDIT]

rxz wrote:
I saw a news report where the governor of Nebraska does not what to report virus deaths.  What about the bodies, will they end up in unmarked graves?  Will surviving family members be told?  Will family members be given Gag Orders?  Inquiring minds want to know.   (Lots of meat processing facilities in Nebraska.)

yup --  if you dont like the numbers- stop reporting them, hide them, or if all else fails, lie about them.

Trump and his minions have been floating the lie that the numbers are being "exaggerated" to hurt his re-election. Meanwhile, funeral homes are renting refrigerated trucks to store the bodies..., there is a backlog at the crematoriums, and cemeteries are digging mass graves...

but Rush still maintains its all a hoax.... and Trump's approval rating is still the same as it has been for a couple years.

rfordphotos wrote:
one way to quell concerns about returning to work.

Infection rates were climbing at Nebraska meatpacking plants. Then health officials stopped reporting the numbers.

More than a thousand have been infected at meatpacking plants, but state officials won’t say which ones. Workers and families say they have a right to know.

By Peter Whoriskey
May 12, 2020
5:27 p.m. PDT
------  https://www.washingtonpost.com/business … atpacking/

For weeks, people in rural communities in Nebraska charted the rise of coronavirus cases at the state’s several meatpacking plants. First, there were handfuls, and then, many more.

As of the first week of May, public health officials reported 96 at the Tyson plant in Madison; 237 at the JBS plant in Grand Island; and 123 arising from the Smithfield plant in Crete.

There were other cases around the state, too, and the counts were climbing. At least three were reportedly dead.

Then the numbers stopped.

In a change initiated last week, Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) announced at a news conference that state health officials would no longer share figures about how many workers have been infected at each plant. The big companies weren’t sharing numbers either, creating a silence that leaves workers, their families and the rest of the public blind to the severity of the crisis at each plant.

------

LightDreams wrote:
Now Trump (as predicted) is officially questioning the accuracy of the U.S. COVID-19 death toll numbers, as being "too high".

The CDC has been requested by the White House to change what "qualifies" as a COVID-19 death.  They'd like the CDC and all of the states to not count those who are "presumed" to have died from the virus, nor those who were tested as having the virus but who died from other (related or unrelated) issues, nor those who weren't formally tested and confirmed as having died from the virus.

I.E. Greatly reduce the "official" U.S. death count from COVID-19.

What was that about "China's hiding info from us..."?

One has to wonder how many folks who frequent the White House are actually testing and/or testing negative?
Edited to add, I read an article this morning regarding the lack of accuracy of the specific test procedure that is used at the White House, it seems to have a high failure rate regarding missed positives. I'll see if I can find the link.

And, here we go...
https://news.yahoo.com/white-house-test … 21285.html

Shadow Dancer wrote:
Is Tonasket fully autonomous? Do you grow all your own food, make all your own clothes and provide for yourselves 100% or do you need items from the outside world? I'm guessing the latter, in fact I am positive of it.

Are the people of Tonasket practicing social distancing, wearing masks and gloves, dis-infecting - all of them all the time?
There are many here in Bellingham who do not do those things.


Do you feel safe? I don't feel safe. I know that somebody could be infected, not know it and infect others. Some of those others may also be infected, not know it and infect others.

I'm sure it is safer where you are living but is it completely safe from any possibility of infection? I would not bet on it.

It comes down to a decision, cut and dried. Is it better to be alive or dead? Is it worth risking death to have a financially well-off society? Those are yes or no questions, no gray areas.

I want to live. That is my answer.

I am certainly not self sufficient. Grow a few veggies but that's it.
Pretty much assume everyone and everything here is infected here.
I actually live a long ways out of town. No idea what people are doing there.
About 3 times a month I go in and do parking lot pick up on groceries early in the morning.
Do not see much of the world.

nwprophoto wrote:

I am certainly not self sufficient. Grow a few veggies but that's it.
Pretty much assume everyone and everything here is infected here.
I actually live a long ways out of town. No idea what people are doing there.
About 3 times a month I go in and do parking lot pick up on groceries early in the morning.
Do not see much of the world.

That does sound really nice about now!!!! Thanks for sharing, it's a bit scary out here in the "real world."
I can't imagine living in a big city like some of our fellow MM'ers do. Still I value their perspective of the world. Boots on the ground are usually very different than the corporate financed "news" we are spoonfed. Cheers, SD

LightDreams wrote:
Well that's one way of distracting you from the pandemic...

Another way? OBAMAGATE. Watch this space.

Jerry Nemeth wrote:
Japan is paying companies to leave China and come back to Japan.

Many other countries are also mad at China.

From what you've said, it sounds like Japan has an actual strategy.  If successful, they would transition over time, as Japanese replacements become available.

I'd suggest that completely cutting all imports from China "cold turkey", because of the pandemic (ties that you are completely reliant on), isn't a strategy.  It sounds more like what someone comes up with as Gov't policy in a middle of the night Twitter tantrum.  I.E.  Not exactly a well thought-out and planned policy...

LightDreams wrote:

From what you've said, it sounds like Japan has an actual strategy.  If successful, they would transition over time, as Japanese replacements become available.

I'd suggest that completely cutting all imports from China "cold turkey", because of the pandemic (ties that you are completely reliant on), isn't a strategy.  It sounds more like what someone comes up with as Gov't policy in a middle of the night Twitter tantrum.  I.E.  Not exactly a well thought-out and planned policy...

Strategies require careful and thoughtful analysis. If one is smart enough to surround one's self with independent and outstanding intelligence, then a strategy can be derived by weighing the pros and cons of potential situations from multiple informed viewpoints. This requires teamwork and acceptance of the higher level of expertise that team members were engaged to express.

In the intentional absence of such potential due to an excessive ego-driven overestimation of personal effectiveness, one may allow one's ailimentary canal to take charge, since it has shown itself time and again to function at a higher level than one's own intellect.

Shadow Dancer wrote:
...one may allow one's ailimentary canal to take charge, since it has shown itself time and again to function at a higher level than one's own intellect.

Shadow Dancer, you truly have a wondrous way with words... 

LightDreams wrote:

Shadow Dancer, you truly have a wondrous way with words... 

Thank you, I've honed it writing songs. In the end, it's all about telling a story.

rxz wrote:
I'm not sure what closing boarders to trade would accomplish other than affect the global market.  From what my Japanese born sushi chef is telling me, the Chinese are buying up Japanese real estate (btw, and US real estate and companies).  The Chinese could move manufacturing to their property in Japan. Japan still loses.   

Closing boarders to trade for all durable goods and produce are one thing.  Closing boarders to bacteria and viruses is totally different.  To have kept COVID-19 out of the US, all people movement across US boarders would have had to cease. Returning Americans would have been in isolation until they could be tested with a confirmed valid test to show they were free of the virus. Unless the isolation started in Nov, 2019, it would not have been effective. And you can't isolate people unless you are aware of a known pathogen and until a test is developed to identify infected people.  By then it's too late.  And boarders would remain closed for everyone from all countries until the pathogen in the rest of the world was 100% contained. That will probably take X number of months or years for COVID-19.  .   

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/coronav … 47639.html

A new consideration.  What if COVID-19 ends up being like the common cold, flu, TB, Ebola, HIV, Malaria, etc. without a working vaccine.    More potential scary stuff.

That would be an "endemic" as opposed to an epidemic or pandemic. The odds are good that it will become an endemic. If warm weather is a factor, unless world travel is ended it will simply relocate in the cooler of the hemispheres, like the flu or a cold. FWIW, we do have a working vaccine for at least the flu in the above list. Tuberculosis is not gone from the earth but seems to be contained.

Malaria is transmitted by mosquitos, mosquito abatement programs have proven to be effective in quelling the disease but they are an endless requirement.

Baanthai wrote:
[...]
“And don’t forget, we have more cases [Covid19] than anybody in the world. But why? Because we do more testing.”
[...]

Yep, the U.S. has more COVID-19 deaths than anybody in the world because of all of those damn tests.

Hmmm, now if there was only a simple solution for that, the problem would be solved...

rxz wrote:
I'm not sure what closing boarders to trade would accomplish other than affect the global market.  Closing boarders to bacteria and viruses is totally different.  And boarders would remain closed for everyone from all countries until the pathogen in the rest of the world was 100% contained. .

When I was a student, I lived in a boarding house to save money . . . the other boarders mostly came from other countries to get an education in the US.

I don't see how closing the borders into the US would help boarding houses in any way.

Baanthai wrote:
The President of the United States, The Leader of the Free World, The Commander & Chief of the most powerful military in the history of the world, The Man with his finger on the button announced yesterday:

“And don’t forget, we have more cases [Covid19] than anybody in the world. But why? Because we do more testing.” Next, he clarified, “When you test, you have a case. When you test, you find something is wrong with people. If we didn’t do any testing, we would have very few cases.”

I’ll let you guys take it from here. We’re fucked.

You've been kind and left out much of the story. It is frightening, it is blatant, it is offensive to any human who has 2 brain cells to rub together. George Orwell, roll over in your grave!!!!

https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.c … ia-speech/

LightDreams wrote:

Yep, the U.S. has more COVID-19 deaths than anybody in the world because of all of those damn tests.

Hmmm, now if there was only a simple solution for that, the problem would be solved...

We had the solution in play and blew it. How many Americans will die BECAUSE we decided to leave the tumor in the body politic?

nwprophoto wrote:
"From March 1 to May 1, about 420,000 residents of the Big Apple left, particularly from the wealthiest neighborhoodsl

Of course they did, because except for the rich, we are all in this together. Guess who isn't thrilled? The destinations the rich are fleeing to.