tdhoosier

For sure. If I were to guess, I’d think they take vitamin D to supplement for the lack of sunlight. I there’s a lot of talk about the virus getting weaker in the summer, which I’m not sure is the correct way to put it. Because of the sunlight and Vitamin D, I think that our immune systems get stronger in the summer. Which is why I’m hoping that we’ll see a lull in R (reproductive rate) these next couple of months. It is funny that you mention Vitamin D though considering how tied it is to a healthy immune system. But there are other things that we can easily do and will help strengthen our immune system. I don’t understand why there isn’t a greater call to get healthy, especially in this moment. Things like sleep well, try to keep your stress level down, eat healthy, lessen your sugar intake, etc. All of these are proven to help people ward off viruses or lessen their severity. I know everybody is waiting for a vaccine or magical cure, but there are things that we can do to help ourselves and decrease our risk for an ICU visit while we have all this extra time on our hands.

Every time Stone comes out with their Enjoy By beers, I need to get them. Great Brewery. My ‘go to’ IPA though is Two Hearted.

I’ve heard of Other Half. Jealous you’re so close.

Interesting article: Sweden’s outbreak has been far deadlier than those of its neighbors, but it’s still better off than many countries that enforced strict lockdowns. I had a conversation yesterday and we’re talking about how so much is still unknown about this virus. Like how UK and Sweden decided to forego lock downs, yet, UK got slammed and Sweden didn’t? In Sweden, almost 30 percent more people died during the epidemic than is normal during this time of year, an increase similar to that of the United States. But as we all know, they did this without a lock down. Anyway, this article dives into a few comparisons/differences with Sweden and other countries. There’s definitely still a lot more that needs to be studied. I did find it interesting that 56% of their households are single person households. And obviously, the fewer percentage of obese people are helping their numbers, but you’d think an older population would work against them. This whole thing is puzzling.

I'm not sure how things are now, but when this started my Mother in Law is the nursing manager at a nursing home and she said that patients were carelessly being transferred between homes. She was very frustrated because there were very few protocols set-up. Considering how many deaths take place in nursing homes, you'd think there should be a quarantining period before anybody is admitted into a nursing home.

Wanted to share this. Maybe the best information I have come across. A lot of people are trashing models lately, but I think it's important to remember that models are not meant to predict the future. It's a snap shot of a hypothetical. Models can only be accurate if the factors stay constant and that simply can not happen. All that said, the article linked below has simulations for many hypotheticals that gave me a better idea of the bigger picture. For example, they go through a ton of info: vaccine/no vaccine, wearing/not wearing a mask, they take you through the various length of possible immunity time (does it last for 1 month, 2 years, indefinitely, not at all, etc.), rolling shutdowns, no shutdowns, contact tracing, etc., etc. The article is long but goes by quick because you get to play with the simulations. Their best case scenario is an open society with contact tracing, but I recommend going through the simulations from the beginning to see how they arrive at that conclusion (if you have the time). And before we get into 'Orwellian comments' they say there's technology to do this while keeping your privacy in tact...which they also explain. Overall, this kinda made me feel better because it gave me a glimmer of hope for a plan. https://ncase.me/covid-19/?fbclid=IwAR2t5JFTwvawBliKOVQ4V8cOxiw3FiD9CayyiIM_RY2ozZZaMROiBSHZEPg

Unfortunately not this recession. My wife is a DPT and works for a big company; they are currently seeing 30% of their normal patient load. Many other out-patient PTs (friends) who work for other companies are in the same position and many have been furloughed. The in-patient PTs who work for hospital systems are being reassigned random positions in the hospital to work. I do think that they are in one of those U shaped curves though. Once elective surgery’s begin to start back up business should come back quickly. Fingers crossed. i wish they could name their price. Haha. But I know your point. In most areas they are in high demand.

Fixed, but estimated.

I eyeball everything: browned spicy turkey sausage 2 cans diced tomatoes w/ green chilis 2 cans mild chili beans onion garlic green pepper diced jalapeños cilantro cumin chili powder brown sugar serve w/ sour cream and I like to crunch up tortilla ships to throw in there.

Hang in there bro. Just think of how valuable your ‘antibodied self’ will be when you come out of this thing. You can do whatever you want! Haha.

There he is. How are you doing Scott?

Totally forgot about Friday Night Lights. Great show to watch with your wife. Didn’t think I’d like it, but it really was a great show.

Funny story. I'm admittedly a baby and spent the last 24 hours freaked out. I have afib and my ablation was scheduled for April 1. Good news is that it finally got rescheduled for Monday, but on the phone they told me I had to get a COVID test 3 days prior, which is today. I thought it was strange because the test are so in-demand and I don't even have symptoms. My cynical side, chalked it up to the hospital setting some aside for procedures they can make a lot of money off of. But further more, I've heard those nasal swabs are absolutely horrible; it feels like they're poking your brain. My wife was making fun of me because I was more worried about the nasal swab than the actual procedure - and I was like HELL YEAH I AM. Anyway, I walk into the lab and ask the nurse how bad it's going to be and she gave me a funny look. She told me she was just going to swab the back of my throat. And I said "Through the nose?!" I must've looked terrified because she laughed and said "no, not that test. That's for if you actually have COVID symptoms.....this is just like a strep test." I was so relieved! haha. But damn that scheduler for freaking me out! She told me it was going to be a nasal swab. Happy hour is starting early tonight.

Yes. Yes. And I really hope so.

Interesting, I’ll have to read up about the masks, as I haven’t thought about it from that angle. More tests or not. If hospitalizations go up that threaten their capacity, I think we’ll see restrictions tighten up in those specific areas.

I'm honestly so torn on everything. I think we botched home isolation horribly. Political bias and finger pointing truly aside; we botched it as a society. Or you could argue our society was never set-up to adhere to the type of regulations needed to effectively suppress this virus. If we effectively home quarantined, the new cases per day would be in the hundreds. If the cases were that low you can do contact tracing, but the restrictions to reach that goal would've been far reaching and would've required federal enforcement. Hypothetically, we could have ripped that band-aid off already and as a result we would have far more options to re-open society, which would've given us many more options economically. It didn't happen. We still have 2k active new cases per day, which is way too many for contact tracing. Our current reality is our reality though. The big thing that scares me now is because there are still so many active cases still, re-opening everything with the numbers this high can cause another spike. If that happens and we need to go back into home quarantine it will hurt the economy even more. Because we can't get on the same page as a country, I fear a long slinky-like effect (a cycle of tightening and loosing restrictions) which will make it extremely hard for our economy to get any type of solid footing, any time soon. Of course, this is my opinion and you may disagree with it. And that's fine. I don't have any good answers other than we need to get on the same page as a country....somehow. The messaging (from everybody) is far too mixed right now. Sometimes I wish we could just call a timeout, put the petty shit aside, and do our part as citizens because everybody ultimately wants the same thing: to get back to normalcy. Social responsibility right now is the truest form of patriotism.

Anybody watching Upload on Prime? We are about half way in and really like it...it’s easy to watch and has a unique storyline. Also just got through Dave on Hulu, which was hilarious and raunchy. .....And Dead to Me season 2 came out today. I better pace myself.

My friend just sent this to me and I thought it was pretty cool. The Hood Internet is mashing 50 songs/videos into 3 minutes by year they came out. He started with 1979 and has made it up to 1985.

Anybody have any good tips to get the voles/moles tunneling through my flower bed? Also, what's the difference between these a-holes? Do you get rid on them the same way?

Pretty much every single article regarding COVID19 is unsubstantiated because we are learning about it. They are just reporting on information a new study found. This was reported in multiple new sources yesterday. I just shared because I personally have wondered why the East Coast and Europe are getting hammered harder than the West Coast and Asia. This may explain why...it may not explain why, just something to consider as scientists continue to learn more about this thing.

The reporter actually did talk about differing views about halfway in and why they need to be considered, but also why more studies need to be done. He actually went into this with quite a bit of depth by interviewing other doctors. Nothing in the content indicates that any of this is conclusive.

Just an interesting article if you didn't see it yesterday: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-05/mutant-coronavirus-has-emerged-more-contagious-than-original A study is finding that the Coronavirus developed a new strain that has mutated and is more contagious (not necessarily more deadly) than the original. The new strain is traced back to Europe, and it's the strain that hit the East Coast. This may also explain why the West Coast and other Asian countries have a better handle on it....they are dealing with a less contagious strain.

Just had some home made carnitas tacos with pineapple. Finishing it off with the peppered Paloma I wrote about in the Cocktails thread.

I also think it's a matter of diversifying as well because realistically, with out cost of labor, certain things just won't be able to be manufactured here. Move production from China to other countries. What if we went to war with China? Are we going to call a timeout while we wait for them to produce certain electronics we need for our fighter jets? haha.

I'm a distributor and have the option to source products domestically and overseas. A myth that doesn't hold true anymore is that American made products are better quality. In certain cases they are, but in other cases it's simply not true. It all depends on the product. A quick example is hats. Sometimes my clients request American made hats, and very rarely they follow through because they are double the price for a crappy hat that looks like only your grandpa would wear: it's single stitched, snap back enclosure, 5 panels, etc. If you're only getting one hat for $12 instead of $24 then, yes, you could afford that and your purchasing decision would not be questioned (other than by you wife). But when a wholesaler is ordering 100,000 hats for $3 instead of $6, you're looking at an $300,000 price difference, that is significant decision when you're answering to a boss, who's answering to a boss, who's answering to a board of shareholders. AND this is not even getting into a secondary issue....with so few American hat manufacturers these days, can an order of 100k hats even get fulfilled? There's a reason those MAGA hats are ironically ugly. If I were to guess, Trump had intentions of putting his money where his mouth was, and sourced USA made merch. Knowing availability, I'm almost positive those crappy trucker hats were chosen because they are the only type of hat that could be produced in the USA on a large scale. But eventually, the domestic manufacturers couldn't keep up with demand and that's why you'll see that a majority of the MAGA hats were made in Asia. I tried sourcing USA Made trucker caps 3 years ago...you couldn't find them. Every single red hat was sold out. I guess my point is, price is only the half of it. Our infrastructure is not set-up to produce certain products. And to come full circle, we are getting a cold hard slap in the face as we are now depending on China to produce our PPE in a time of emergency because our infrastructure is not set up to handle this.