This feeds right into a theory I have: people are blaming wet markets in China for the spread. Now all the processing plants are being shut down in the USA. Could raw meat be a contributor? My brother in Iowa said nursing homes and processing plants make up most cases in Iowa.

At first blush, I would say no. The packing plants are good areas for the virus to spread whether they are processing meat or something entirely different because the workers are all in close proximity.

On the other hand, I don't know much about this strain of the virus and its zoonotic transmission capabilities. Years back, I dealt with a corona virus (different strain) outbreak in my calves. The virus wiped out a good chunk of my calves one winter but there was never any concern for myself.

Although not Iowa, this article, if true, is an interesting insight into why some meat processing plants might be hotspots

Coronavirus at Smithfield pork plant: The untold story of America's biggest outbreak - BBC News

This is a little weird if accurate about very high % of asymptomatic in prisons. And if someone is asymptomatic, do they eventually "recover" in 2-3-4 weeks and no longer becomes asymptomatic?

Least surprising news of my week, part one: the camp for which we'd paid full price in mid June has been cancelled.

Least surprising news of my week, part two: that this particular camp is issuing 100% refunds, including the non-refundable deposit.

The camp in question is WinShape, run by the foundation heavily funded from the Cathy family and CFA. They announced that they've cancelled all their day and overnight camps for the entire summer. It's a fairly big operation: overnight camps at seven locations, many of the locations having different experiences for kids ranging from completion of 1st-11th grades, all summer long, and day camps in dozens (hundreds?) of locations. The refunds they're doing will set an extremely high bar for other camps to meet.

My daughter usually does the Athens Y camp for a week, they still think they are moving forward and it's the first week in June (like June 7). Meanwhile, Camp Sunshine and Camp Braveheart (two big volunteer camps) are cancelled in mid-late June. I have not spent a summer in Atlanta in 5 years (I teach in Ireland over the summer usually) and am not looking forward to being home with no camps and potentially no pool.

I finally found some toilet paper in the wild at my grocery store!

My Kroger was 100% fully stocked on paper products Saturday morning. First time I've seen that in 6 weeks. Luckily we don't need any, but it was good to see. First time I had gone shopping and didn't have to either visit a 2nd store for something, or just scratch something altogether.

Also, there were not people hustling in there and just grabbing paper stuff and checking out. That was a standard scene when we would go on our Sat. morning trips.

Civilization is saved! :)

No problem getting TP with our Wal-Mart pick-up order today.

Pork, though, was impossible.

New number I saw from an e-mail some pork organization sent out was that at least 3 million hogs ready for market will be euthanized and not processed. 6 million is the higher estimate.

The USDA is completely failing to support both the farmers and the people who need food. It's a big problem with a lot of challenges, but the federal government doesn't seem to be doing much of anything.

On the other hand, my daughters play spring soccer. No teams had played more than ONE game when COVID-19 closings hit. They haven't refunded a dime, and they are still saying "we're going to try to play the games." Really???

If you know a local farmer and have a local butcher, there's deals to be had. I was offered a whole hog last week at an absolute steal of a price. Between, that and the beef bundle I got a few weeks ago, I'm stocked on meat for the foreseeable future.

We were able to get toilet paper delivered from Walmart, but cannot find Clorox wipes, rubbing alcohol, or liquid soap.

Is it possible for the various makers of the products we're having shortages of to ramp up production? Or have they and they're still unable to meet demand? I'm surprised we're still in the position of having to hunt for some goods at this point. It's not like the inventory won't be sold.

One thing that I found interesting that was hard to find? Hair clippers. I decided a couple of weeks ago to cut the boys' hair until we can get in to a barber and couldn't find anyplace with clippers. I was finally able to get on a waitlist for an order that's supposed to arrive in 1 -2 weeks. Guess everyone had the same idea a week or two before I did....

It took me a few weeks to get chippers shipped a few weeks ago.

Also. I look awful.

I somehow got a same day delivery from Costco through Instacart yesterday. Put the order through and selected fast and flexible which gives a 2 day window and you can't change your order. It was shopped and delivered in 3 hours. I was amazed. Even got TP. Was able to order paper towels today from Costco.

What do the clippers have to do with that? :D

And yea I'm a mess too; close to a homeless look, but hopefully not the smell.

I'm like a week overdue on laundry. There's nobody else here to kick me in the ass for being a hobo.

The explanation I saw for toilet paper is that the overall use of it throughout the country is very predictable and factories run nearly 24/7 producing just enough for use with no stockpiles sitting in warehouses. This means any spike in demand is going to be felt immediately and take some time to calm down since we really don't have the means to just amp up production (already running 24/7). I'm assuming this applies to most of the cleaning products and other items that have experienced shortages.

One interesting thing I saw was the PX at Fort Lewis was selling Charmin in 2 roll packs that I've honestly never seen. The PX had the same 2 package limit on them as other TP, cleaning products, and medicines. It seemed to be Charmin's way of helping with hoarding.

This honestly would seem to be apropos, given what I know about you.

My best guess is it isn't so much a supply issue for most things, but rather a throughput issue. I don't know how much impact this is having, but there was a bad nationwide shortage of truckers for years before this. Wages were going through the roof and people still couldn't find enough qualified applicants no matter how high they raised them (I've heard numbers like double-triple what the pay was less than 10 years ago).

Then there's the sheer physical space at the stores. Whether you're talking the bulk storage/warehouse side or out on the shelves for customers, all of these buildings are designed for a certain amount of volume. You can't just buy an infinite amount of the high-demand stuff - every thing you store means not storing something else. And of course the demand levels are constantly fluctuating.

What they're trying to do now is cram far more in than they were designed for, but there's only so much you can do with that. I've seen tactics like just throwing out pallets of potatoes instead of putting them on shelves for a while at the start of this, but for many things they have to go on a shelf and there's only so much of them. Some items have been minimized, at least in some places, so there's more space for toilet paper, flour, etc. But to have enough room to make up for the demand, you'd need to do a lot more of that and/or flat-out get rid of some other items entirely that currently use that space. That doesn't solve a shortage, it simply changes what you're short of. I really think a big part of it, though the situation has improved from what I've seen, is that there simply isn't enough space for all the products people are buying.

In the long run, by which I mean several years or more, the economy would adjust. Stores would remodel/expand, new locations would go up, new factories built in the supply chain, etc. Doesn't surprise me though that we can't quite get there in the short term.

Bravo.

It's funny you mention that as I was reading a well-written answer on Quora (which obviously isn't the be-all and end-all of knowledge, but the better answers usually rise to the top) which was addressing this exact topic, even though the wages look good for truckers on paper, margins have been shrunk, small owner operators have been replaced with large corporations who only care about the cents on bottom line and the job has got shittier and shittier year on year to the point where they haven't been able to replace all the experienced truckers who have left with enough competent new candidates. Plus I guess if the job has a bad enough reputation it doesn't matter how much you really are paying (unless it's genuinely life changing money).

Way off topic, and I wonder if we have any folks on the board who are or have been in that line of work, but it was interesting reading that and then seeing your response.

We had one several years ago. Name began with a C i believe but don't recall it

Heh. Clippers. I first shaved my head in June 1994 and have done it myself since. As a result, I've always owned at least one set. Check pharmacies. CVS and Walgreens typically carry them in-store. No idea if they're sold out now, though.

Saw a really interesting story on a study from Italy that suggests high particulate pollution levels helps the virus stay in the air longer.

And I read a super cool story about using sewage to determine the percentage of people with antibodies within a given area.

Science is cool.

Cringer.

Any chance you have a link to the second? That sounds interesting.

https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/07/...read-covid-19/

Here's one version. A number of cities around the globe have done this, apparently.

I think the animals are being euthanized because there's no buyer processor. As far as the outbreaks at processing plants, I would guess more due to the fact workers are usually absolutely cramped on the line. Look at pictures of meat processing lines and you'll see what I mean. Being that they're essential I figured they would be a hot point for outbreaks.

https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-...68?pfmredir=sm

Technology like this is going to be the only way to get people back out quicker with the ability to possibly contain a small breakout from spreading like wildfire.

Of course, we can’t even convince people to take vaccines seriously without a conspiracy theory so this will never get off the ground in the US.

Saw Campbell’s soup today in non condensed form. Can’t recall ever seeing that before. Was a smaller can and honestly a rip-off. Might have been something intended for a facility of some sort. Like a mini bar/vending machine type size.

Worldometers reported 1,157 new US deaths. Going in the right direction from the recent 2,500's.

That's good news if it sustains - I'm waiting to draw any conclusions until the usual post-weekend reporting increase. A one-day drop is quite possibly just a blip.

Numbers in Austria still looking good 2 weeks after reopening retails stores and some other stuff (public parks for example). Getting cautiously (!) optimistic about summer doing us all a solid and 'drip-drip-drip' infections from short contacts not being a major driver compared to clusters in closed settings (which happen terrifyingly fast)

ENOUGH! This was TODAY on a four hour flight. This is not okay. Masks must be mandated by DOT/HHS in airports and on airplanes. Essential travel only, with proper PPE. #COVID19 #StopTheSpread pic.twitter.com/TzwJyVRBoD

— Sara Nelson (@FlyingWithSara) April 27, 2020

Kids are losing out on socialization and education because most of us are trying to do the right thing and socially distance.

Small businesses are closing because most of us are trying to do the right thing and socially distance.

Billions of dollars in productivity are being lost because most of us are trying to do the right thing and socially distance.

We are making enormous sacrifices trying to do the right thing.

And it's probably all for naught because you know that Addison just has to fly to Miami for the weekend for Juniper's 25th birthday party.

(But don't worry, she'll try to remember to wash her hands).

That's a terrifying picture, tbh. I wouldn't even think of flying right now - being in an enclosed space with circulating air... and that full to boot, yikes!

The whole 'recirculating air' bit is one of the biggest misconceptions about flying there is.

How much are masks going to help when you're on a packed plane for 4 hours?


Btw, the prison numbers are shocking if true. 90% spread & 95% of people are asymptomatic? If both those numbers are true, it's not tests producing false positives, and there aren't a lot of hospitalizations/deaths then maybe the super high estimates of % who have already had it are closer to being right than I thought they could be. Saw Boston is doing a random 1000 person test for antibodies in 3 (lower income, harder hit) neighborhoods and should have results within a week, I'll be interested to see what those numbers say.

What makes you an expert?

Masks will shorten the distance that your bodily fluids are traveling (esp if you cough), reducing the possible area of transmission from 6ft to like 1ft or so. So it may have some impact.

I will say the ReOpen people are doing a bang up job discrediting that point of view. https://www.charlotteobserver.com/ne...242317346.html

I think prison cases should be monitored closely to give us a good idea on the length of immunity. They'll inevitably be reexposed .

As a rule Sunday and weekend numbers have been a little unreliable throughout this thing. Let's see what tomorrow's say.

There's some controversy regarding false positives in the serology tests, but Cuomo said based on 7500 statewide tests roughly 25% of the population of NYC shows antibodies for Covid-19.

Some of you guys were awesome when news hit of my grandmother. Thought I would share an update.

She is COVID free at this point. She had a rough 3-4 days in the middle were her symptoms were the worst, but she never got to the point where she had trouble breathing. She never had to be admitted into the hospital.

I am shocked. As soon as I heard she had it I thought it was going to kill her. She's 83 and battled the flu for about 2 months in December & January. She was just getting back to normal when this hit.

Thanks for all of the well wishes guys.

Great news!!

That is super indeed.

Wow! That's great!