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Post by Mini Mia on Aug 1, 2020 1:24:10 GMT -6
I live in a very small county, with less than 8,000 people. We were having one or two cases here and there, and then a few weeks ago we had seven cases in one day ... then over the next few days the count jumped up even more. It seems to be up and down right now. --- I go out as little as possible, and will need to get out soon, as I'm out of a lot of stuff, and running out of even more. I probably shouldn't wait so long, but I just prefer to stay away from people for as long as I can.
The way they talk about this virus, it doesn't sound like it is something that will go away on its own. If immunity to it is short lived, then people will keep getting it over and over until they finally die of it. I'm starting to wonder how a vaccine can help. Can a vaccine be made that won't lose its immunity? And if only a handful of people take the vaccine, we're stuck in the same cycle. (I don't get flu/pneumonia shots, but that's only because I can go all Winter without getting a cold, so I don't want to take a shot from someone who needs it, when I haven't needed it so far. --- I catch a cold through my feet. If I step barefooted on something icy cold, I can feel a cold coming on just a few hours later, and by morning I am miserable with a cold. I've learned to start cold medicines right away after the bottoms of my feet get icy cold. I know someone who catches colds from going to bed with a wet head. I've never had a problem with catching a cold from going to bed with a wet head. Weird how that works.)
As far as the other craziness going on is concerned ... I live in a small county, and my 'neck of the woods' is quiet and peaceful. I don't watch the news at all anymore, so I haven't been bogged down with depression too much so far ... but Autumn is coming, so gotta stay on top of it.
Stay safe y'all.
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Post by Phalon on Aug 3, 2020 6:42:56 GMT -6
It's shot through the roof here too in the U.S.; I read a staggering statistic last week - I think it was Wednesday that there was a Covid death every minute in this country. (This was a day after our illustrious non-mask-wearing virus downplaying leader complained at a press conference that "nobody likes me"; I wonder why.)
Locally, cases are going up much faster than they were also; last I checked, which was about a week ago, our county was at 350 cases with 10 deaths. Surrounding counties are still much higher - in a town close to where I work, three restaurants had to close due employees testing positive. There is no way I'd eat in a restaurant or go to a bar any time soon.
We're in a tourist area; small towns like ours along Lake Michigan's shoreline rely on tourist business during the summer, and from what I've seen and heard, pandemic or not, the tourists keep coming. Had a customer last week who complained how busy - and scary - it was to be in town with so many people out and about with a virus rampaging out of control. I so very wanted to point out the irony of her complaint; she's a Chicago resident who owns a vacation home here that she visits every weekend. Like WTF, Lady?
Conspiracy theories - I'm tired as hell of them. In addition to people yelling at us about our 'no mask, no service' policy (though I only encountered one of them last week), I had to point out to a woman who was "very worried about how these masks were affecting our health by poisoning us with carbon dioxide" that medical professionals have worn masks for hours at a time long before the pandemic, and even endurance athletes such as runners have been using altitude masks to train for years - and a cloth mask is much less restrictive than either of these; she said "I never thought of that". Oh, and then there was the husband and wife customers who, (though they were very nice and had no problem with wearing masks while I waited on them), explained to me at great length why they knew the whole thing was just a giant hoax.
Sigh.
Stay safe; stay well.
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Post by Mini Mia on Aug 4, 2020 0:31:49 GMT -6
Total Cases 38 Recovered: 27 Active: 11
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Post by katina2nd on Aug 7, 2020 19:46:52 GMT -6
Quick trip to the shops yesterday and every single person was wearing a mask, made me wonder why it had to become mandatory before they did though. (This was a day after our illustrious non-mask-wearing virus downplaying leader complained at a press conference that "nobody likes me"; I wonder why.) Speaking of tour "illustrious leader" did you happen to catch the interview he did for Axios?
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Post by Phalon on Aug 11, 2020 5:06:49 GMT -6
We had a screaming mask incident at work the other day. This time though, it was the mask-wearer screaming "GET IT OFF!!!"
Oh, wait...the screamer was me. I was waiting on a customer at the counter, and I see this thing - blurry because I'm looking at it downward - inching its way on the top of my mask across my nose. I yell at my co-worker to get it off, and he pucks a big-@ss hairy ugly caterpillar off my mask. Bluck!!! I say to the customer I was helping, who said nothing of the ugly thing on my face before I started screaming, "Did you not see that?!" She did - she thought it was cute, like it was some kind of pet or something I carried around with me, like a parrot on my shoulder.
Oh, you mean the interview in which he said of corona virus in the country, "They are dying. That’s true. And it is what it is", and when asked how civil rights leader John Lewis will be remembered, answered "He chose not to come to my inauguration. He didn’t come to my State of the Union speech", among many other interview "highlights".
No, I didn't - I find him very hard to watch, even before he became president. Of course, reading transcripts is sometimes just as hard, because you're like, "WTF is he even attempting to say?"
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Post by Mini Mia on Aug 14, 2020 22:04:04 GMT -6
We've had a few more cases. I live in such a small county, I do wonder how many of us will make it without contracting the virus. Although, as spread out as we are, maybe some of us can get through this virus-free.
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Post by Phalon on Aug 16, 2020 6:48:31 GMT -6
Being spread out could most definitely be to your advantage!
Weird. I last went grocery shopping Tuesday night - walking down one aisle in particular, you would have thought we'd gone back in time to months ago when people first started hoarding stuff. No paper napkins, no paper towels...the shelves the entire length of the aisle were completely bare except for maybe just 10 4-packs of toilet paper. WTF?
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Post by Mini Mia on Aug 16, 2020 11:58:57 GMT -6
Great. I’m almost out of paper towels. I haven’t been to the store since June 4th. I’ve been out with my sister a couple of times doing taxes, was over at her house for July 4th, and again for a family baby shower, but that’s it. And yesterday I went over to my sister’s to hold my new Great Niece.
Oh, and I went over the other day to check on one of her Yorkies, recovering from being in the jaws of a coyote. Sadly, her brother didn’t get dropped when she did. It happened Friday before last. Mom’s dog had been acting strangely over the weekend. She wouldn’t run off into the dark like she used to. She wouldn’t get off the porch unless I went outside with her. My sister said she was on my front porch when she rushed her dog to the vet, so she must have heard it happen, and understood what it meant. Now I take a baseball bat with me when i go outside with her. I’m not gonna go running off into the dark after her, but if the coyote get brave enough to run up to us in the light, I’m gonna start swinging. If we don’t have time to get in the house.
Mom’s dog used to be an outside dog, so she never learned to use a pee pad, and I can’t make her wait from dusk to dawn to go out. Especially in Autumn and Winter. She hasn’t raced off into the dark all week, although there were a few times she got to the edge of the porch light and barked and acted like she was going to take off. I’d scold her and tell her not to do it. She’s around 40 pounds, so I don’t think the coyote can carry her off, but an internet search claims they do kill big dogs within the territories they claim, mostly in Spring and Fall during mating season.
And we haven’t seen my Niece’s big dog since the beginning of this week. He has heartworms, so we don’t know if he went off to die, or if the coyote lured him off and killed him. He is a stray that showed up years ago and got attached to my niece. He was skittish of everyone else at first, but finally realized he was safe with us. The one time my niece took him to the vet, she had a hard time getting him into the car, and the vet had to give him something to calm him down. He didn’t bite my brother-in-law, but he did clamp down on his arm to warn him not to mess with him, so we believe he was abused. And the first time my niece started a campfire for the kids to roast hot dogs and marshmallows, he went berserk. So, she has to have him follow her to my sister’s house to stay here whenever she sets up a campfire.
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Post by Phalon on Aug 19, 2020 5:11:11 GMT -6
That's what I need too. I don't know what the hell is going on around here; other than there are a ton of tourists in town, I can't figure out why the shelves were empty last week of toilet paper and paper towels. I went to the store again Monday for a few items and the shelves were fully stocked....with toilet paper only. The entire aisle was toilet paper, but not a single roll of paper towels.
Dang!!! Sorry to hear you're having such a coyote problem. Oddly, I never think of them being predators, instead viewing them as scavengers, probably because any coyote I've seen has always been solitary, and quite small - almost as small as a red fox, and aside from the coloring and tail, it's been hard to tell the difference.
And congratulations on the new addition to the family, Great Aunt!
BP's college campus opened this weekend; classes started Monday. I'm so glad she decided after spring semester to switch to being a completely on-line student, and won't be returning to campus. After assessing what is happening with the reopening of schools and colleges, one of the other big state colleges, Michigan State, announced yesterday, fall semester will be on-line only, and urged students not to return to campus.
Schools in town here are on-line only at least until October 1st; they'll reassess the situation sometime near the end of September. The schools around the town I work in though, are opening for in-person classes in a week with the option for the parents to decide if their kids will go back, or attend classes on-line. The high school girl who's been working at the nursery this season is going back full-time in-person - her father is insisting on it, and she's not looking forward to it. I'm glad our girls are older; I'd hate to be a parent that has to make that decision.
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Post by Mini Mia on Aug 19, 2020 23:54:14 GMT -6
I went to the Dollar Store after going to the Courthouse on the 18th. They had more toilet paper than paper towels, each had one name brand, and mostly off brands. I still need to go to a grocery store, so I'll probably get more TP & PT then as well, just in case. I probably should go more often than every 2 to 3 months.
My brother-in-law let them out while getting ready for work. They were barking and wanted to go out. My sister says the neighbor dog they play with has similar coloring as the coyotes, so they may have thought he came over to play. They ran at the coyote, who were in the tall grass, and the coyote took advantage of their good fortune. There is a corn field behind my sister's house, and the ground not fit for crops was covered in tall grass. My brother-in-law used to bush hog it, but it got to be too much for his allergies. He's been looking for a used tractor with a cab, but hasn't gotten one yet. He was out bush hogging it recently, wearing a mask. There have been gunshots coming from all around my house, so I'm guessing all of the neighbors are aware of what has happened and are making sure it doesn't happen to them as well.
The last few nights when I take Mom's dog out at night, I'll put her harness on her and put her on a leash. She's like the Yorkies, and thinks she's a bad@$$, so she'd probably chase after them too. She's been staying in the porch light, but I know she'll eventually go off into the darkness again. She'll tinkle while on the leash, but she's not too interested in me strolling with her to do more than that ... she'd rather go off and do it on her own. The coyote come around my house a lot to get them some cats. I'm down to five now; two adults and three kittens. I haven't had the 50/60 on my back porch in about five years or more. I'm surprised these five haven't disappeared yet.
The coyote moved in when I was in my late teens/early twenties. Before that, the worst animal we had to worry about was bobcats. And we never had any real fear of them. My sister and I would spend all day out in the woods on the property, coming home when the car horn was blown. People took over the coyote's territories, and so they moved into ours. Our road goes into the bottoms, so I'm sure that's why they're more of a problem with us. Deer also like to hide in the trees and crops around my house, which draws the coyote here as well. I wish they had never swam across the river. Makes me wonder what other dangerous critters might move into the bottoms because they need new territory to claim for a home. There has been mention of mountain lions. I'm so used to just walking out the door without checking ... not fearing walking to and from my sister's house in the dark ... I'm so gonna hate losing that ability one day.
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Post by Mini Mia on Aug 19, 2020 23:55:24 GMT -6
Total Cases: 48 Recovered: 35 Active: 13
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Post by Mini Mia on Aug 20, 2020 11:27:09 GMT -6
Just got a text image from my niece. It was of her missing dog. Animal control had picked him up on an adjacent road and dropped him off at the local vet. They try to find the owners or a new home. They found him last weekend. Not sure why he was that far from home. I’m wondering if he followed someone, or if someone tried taking him and dropped him off when he was too much trouble. My niece has to keep him locked up for ten days, as he bit the animal control guy. So, it’ll be ten days before he can come to my house for treats. He’s deaf, so that probably makes him more prone to protect himself, plus being abused before he showed up at my niece’s house one day.
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Post by Phalon on Aug 23, 2020 7:17:44 GMT -6
I'm glad your niece found her dog, and sorry he has to be kept in for 10 days - nobody can blame a scared deaf dog, probably confused at what was happening, for biting; it's the only way he could protect himself.
Cases here in the county are at just over 470 with 12 deaths; surrounding counties are still higher, and cases increasing. School starts next week for some of them - hoping, probably in vain, it doesn't cause a huge spike.
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Post by Mini Mia on Aug 23, 2020 18:51:58 GMT -6
I can't wait until he visits. He's a sweet dog, as long as he feels safe, and knows he can trust the person he's with.
Thankfully, Kentucky won't have in-school classes for the moment. Hopefully, they will realize that's the best choice. I met a woman at the Dollar Store, not wearing a mask, who thinks the virus will disappear after the elections. I had mentioned I would be glad when this was all over. I told her that I hoped so. I would love nothing more than for this to be about the election. I really doubt the whole wide world would take part in US politics though. We'll find out in just a couple of months.
As of a few days ago:
Total Cases: 50 Recovered: 38 Active: 12
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Post by Mini Mia on Aug 25, 2020 2:33:15 GMT -6
Total Cases: 52 Recovered: 39 Active: 13
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Post by Mini Mia on Aug 26, 2020 15:19:16 GMT -6
I learned that the dog isn’t neutered, so guessing he sniffed out a potential bootie call. Dog owner probably got tired of him hanging around, and called the dog catcher instead of seeing if he was a neighborhood pet.
Total Cases: 53 Recovered: 39 Active: 14 Hospitalized: 1
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Post by Phalon on Aug 30, 2020 8:54:06 GMT -6
When the girls were little, and brought home whatever the latest illness was that was rampaging through school, it was almost like you'd hope to hear from the doctor that it was a bacterial infection; bacterial infections can be treated with antibiotics, and were generally over quite quickly. The dreaded "it's a virus; it'll have to run its course" meant there was basically nothing to do but wait it out, while the chances of it spreading to the rest of the household were pretty danged inevitable. If I had a nickel back then from every time I heard the doctor say "it's a virus; it'll have to run its course", I'd have enough saved up to buy a big-@ss pack of name-brand paper towels.....if I could find them anywhere.
The woman and those like her who think that this is all some conspiratorial political ploy revolving around the election must have such a narrow scope of the world that they can only see things as far as how it affects them - which is perhaps not hard to do if they are in a sort of self-contained small community. They might seek to place blame - saying it's a "Plandemic", a hoax, or an orchestrated plot to affect the election is an easy answer to something that's out anyone's immediate control. "It'll disappear after the election" provides an solution - an end date after which all is back to normal and safe again. She is maybe lacking or not using critical thinking skills. Maybe it's all of that or something entirely different that's led these people to believe the corona virus is some kind of sinister plot, but the idea just doesn't hold up.
If the virus was an election ploy, all the world's countries' governments would have to agree to bring their economies to the brink of crashing, lock down their citizens, many under much more stringent conditions than our own patchwork state-by-state mandates, and spend what amounts to trillions and trillions of dollars in citizenry, unemployment, business, and medical aid. Trillions more spent by different countries racing to develop a vaccine (that none of these conspiracy believers will ever take because of course it's a plot by Bill Gates to microchip every person on the face of the globe). Businesses, large and small, public and private, folding. News organizations worldwide would have to not only report on the virus, but not a single one would do any investigative reporting that would break the story that it all revolved around the U.S. election, and there wouldn't be a single leak to any of these news organizations of the plot (tabloids that peddle in conspiracies and social media posts need not apply). The World Health Organization and every country's own health organizations would have to be in on the "plan". The front-line doctors, nurses, and medical personal in every hospital treating patients, the patients - the dead and those that recovered but continue to suffer effects from having COVID-19 - and their mourning families - all "paid crisis actors" like the ones that conspiracy theorists claim the victims are every time there's a mass shooting in this country? Since the first virus epicenters occurred outside the U.S., did China, Italy, South Korea, and Thailand volunteer to go first, or did they draw the shortest straws? Or did all the world leaders sit around a table like siblings in a Life Cereal commercial, and go "You try it", "No, I'm not gonna try it. You try it", "Hey, let's get China to do it!" Oh, and let's tell everyone to wear a mask, just to p!ss them off.
If all of this is a plot to affect the election, who is footing the bill?
The whole idea that any of it is to affect the U.S. election is not only ridiculous, it's entirely unfeasible. Sh!t, whether it's politics, science, or religion, the entire world has never agreed on anything, and now it has supposedly planned, collaborated, funded, and adhered to all of the above, and probably hundreds of other details I haven't thought of or can't even fathom.
The U.S. is a global leader, yes, but we aren't that important that governments around the world would implement any of this just to affect our presidential election. There are much, much less costly ways of doing that; and if it was just to keep one person from getting reelected, well, there are easier ways of doing that too.
Everyone hopes the virus will end soon, but if it does happen to "run its course" in early November, it'll have nothing to do with the election being over.
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Post by Mini Mia on Aug 30, 2020 11:53:06 GMT -6
I wonder what the theories will be when the election is over, and the virus is still here? And the odds of all the governments working together should be its own conspiracy theory. What is next year going to bring? It will be here very soon.
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Post by Mini Mia on Aug 31, 2020 13:13:31 GMT -6
Thankfully, Kentucky won't have in-school classes for the moment. Hopefully, they will realize that's the best choice.
Seems they changed their minds. Kids are going to school, instead of being home schooled. I’m very worried about my great niece and nephew. After being virus free all these months, will this bring the virus into the family?
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Post by Mini Mia on Sept 1, 2020 12:15:05 GMT -6
I wonder what our numbers would have been if everyone wore their masks?
Total Cases: 55 Recovered: 42 Active: 12 Deaths: 1
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Post by Mini Mia on Sept 4, 2020 20:57:34 GMT -6
Total Cases 58 Recovered: 54 Active: 3 Hospitalized: 0 Deaths: 1
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Post by moonglum on Sept 10, 2020 1:05:13 GMT -6
Well, we are still alive and kicking. Vox and I had our yearly flu jabs on saturday, that was weird. Doctors are still not doing face to face visits so it was a drive-thru jab. We had to drive in one end of the car park wearing our masks, stop at a check-in desk, then drive on to the next station, roll down the window and get stuck in the arm. We also were scheduled for a pneumonia shot. I've not had one before and the next few days I felt like cr*p and the ache in my arm is only just subsiding. The situation over here, as regards covid, is becoming farcical. You've got England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland all implementing different restrictions in different places at different times. And since there are no internal borders, people are just moving from one area to another to 'have a good time'. Testing has become a joke, people are phoning to book tests and being told they have to drive 200-300 hundred miles to get tested. Most are not bothering.
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Post by Mini Mia on Sept 10, 2020 1:29:32 GMT -6
Oh to go back to 2019. I'm just glad I live on a small farm out in the country. I rarely go anywhere, and I wait until I have very little before going to the store. I hope we make it through this soon. Although, the way they're talking about the virus, this is our new normal. Oh joy.
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Post by Mini Mia on Sept 13, 2020 21:51:03 GMT -6
The numbers spiked the last few months, but the number seems to be dropping. Of course, that doesn't mean there won't be another spike at some point.
Total Cases 60 Recovered: 58 Active: 1 Hospitalized: 0 Deaths: 1
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Post by Phalon on Sept 14, 2020 6:46:50 GMT -6
It's pretty dismal-sounding in Michigan - last I checked, cases were averaging 700+ with around half a dozen deaths a day; Friday and Saturday each had over a 1000 new cases. The upward tick could be linked to colleges and universities; the college towns seem to be hot-spots across the state, with many of the colleges that reopened for in-person classes in August/early September now reporting outbreaks of more than 350 students testing positive.
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Post by Mini Mia on Sept 15, 2020 2:01:28 GMT -6
I've no idea what the state stats are. I've only been focusing on my county. This year, more than ever, I'm happy/grateful that I live in such a small county, with a small population.
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Post by Phalon on Oct 16, 2020 5:10:30 GMT -6
Dodged another bullet at work - two bullets, actually. One of my co-workers fell ill last Thursday with a fever that kept creeping higher, nausea, headache, body-aches, and fatigue. His doctor wanted him to wait three days to get tested for Covid; getting tested too early in the course of the illness, the doctor said, sometimes leads to a false negative. He and his wife, who wasn't showing symptoms, both got tested Sunday evening.
Meanwhile, another co-worker (one of the teenagers who worked for us this summer, though she only works weekends now because she attends classes at the community college) called Saturday morning to say her sister tested positive on Friday. Her sister is the other teenager who worked with us this summer - the younger one, who is still in high-school. She stopped working when school started in late August/early September - at there's been an outbreak at the high school The two sisters don't live in the same household, but they do have frequent contact with one another.
So with two employees possibly exposed, we were anxiously awaiting test results. It was nerve-racking. We got the news on Tuesday - both co-workers as well the wife of the one who's sick tested negative. The co-worker who was sick has the flu; ironically he started feeling sick the day he got a flu shot - a day late and a dollar short, as the saying goes.
The sister who tested positive had mild symptoms, is still recovering, but says she is feeling much better.
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Post by Mini Mia on Oct 17, 2020 23:57:18 GMT -6
Glad to hear. The numbers here are rising again. I'm wondering how many will make it through the cold months without catching it. (I would say that the warm days won't be back for a long while, but it's supposed to get up into the 80s for a couple of days this week.)
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Post by Phalon on Oct 19, 2020 6:28:31 GMT -6
Yeah, the case numbers are rising here too; the state recorded 2,000 new cases both last Thursday and Friday. I am so disgusted at how it's been politicized - there should not be a partisan dividing line when the health of a country's citizens are concerned. It's like we're dealing with two pandemics - the virus pandemic, and a pandemic of irresponsibility. Urgh.
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Post by Mini Mia on Oct 20, 2020 0:02:28 GMT -6
Yeah. I was out and about today, and I saw several people still not wearing masks. I don't understand how being courteous is infringing on their freedom. It's only until something can be done to contain/weaken the spread of the virus.
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