That is not at all idiotic: it is a concrete step you CAN take that provides both important diagnostic feedback and also a small sense that you have some degree of control. It is akin to shuttering the windows and laying in supplies when a hurricane is coming. Both a practical precaution and an action that provides a psychological sense of agency. #HealthyHabit

(( oh honey )) You do not need this, even if -- as I dearly hope, and also, given how locked down you've been, I expect -- it's a false alarm. Staying as separate from your husband as possible is wise. If you don't have an oximeter... I would task your son with getting one for you ASAP. In my town, CVS will do same-day delivery for a $10 fee. At worst, Amazon or Walmart will ship within 2 days. This is precisely the time when you want one. In the meantime, ask your son to set up a "smell test" for you -- several quite-different-smelling spices in identical unmarked containers. Make sure you can differentiate and identify them -- not *all* COVID-positive people lose their sense of smell, but if you *have* lost yours, that is a strong indication that IMO would warrant immediate testing. Figure out now where your best testing option is later, and what you'd need to utilize it. In many states there are drive-through or pop-up public health centers where you can self-refer; in others a doctor's order is required. Have a plan lined up. (I think if I were in your shoes, my plan would be something like: If I'm not feeling better by ___ (a point in time, maybe Sunday at 1p)____ OR if my temp spikes above ____ (a number, maybe 101.5) OR if I experience any respiratory issues, I will get tested immediately. The other thing, in your case, would be to figure out a way to get yourself separated from your husband if you have, somehow, contracted it. Unless you have a set-up at home where you'll really be able to stay out of contamination range, I'd be trying to work that out now. Holding you in the light.

Having spent my entire life never more than a a couple of hours from the ocean... I am also sent into a total and totally delightful state of cognitive dissonance by the Great Lakes. It's just just a vast expanse of water extending all the way to the horizon. THEY HAVE TIDES, PEOPLE! And seagulls! And waves (OK, little waves, but real ones nonetheless, lapping and crashing onto the shoreline). And, in some parts, sandy beaches! It *looks* exactly like the ocean. If you could constrain your own bodily experience just to sight and sound, you are at The Beach. But there's no salt in the air. The *smell* is entirely different. So whenever I've walked along a Great Lake shoreline I'm jolted into this startled consciousness of my sense of smell that I've never had anywhere else. I visiting different parts of America. Loving this thread.

Agreed, but, those of us on wells need power to flush the @!%@!! toilets or clean the dishes or water the Victory Garden (we recently endured 8 days of no power and are now awaiting our new generator, LOL). So while we don't need every outlet (or the AC) hooked up, I expect we'll need to unit continuously just for the water. Pam in CT with Newfound Appreciation for How Fundamental Water Really Is to Life

Dear me. If you don't mind sharing, what state are you in? Back in March-April, testing here was quite constrained. They simply did not have enough tests or lab capacity. But six months later that is unconscionable. At this point, to constrain testing is to facilitate spread.

What kinds of shrubs / perennials? And what kind of light are they getting? Some flowering shrubs get leggy (some types of hydrangea, upright deutzia, large-leaf rhododendron) and do well with pruning. Deutzia is wholly forgiving about when you hack it back, and hydrangea fairly so (I do it late fall); but it's crucial with rhododendron to do it at *exactly* the right moment or you cut off the following year's buds and stress the shrub. Some large perennials *need* to be dug up and divided to flourish (Siberian iris, astilbe). The roots start competing with one another and they start drying out and toppling over, especially in the center. If your neighbors have the same plant and theirs does fine, I'd ask the neighbor what they do with it.

re fertility of the ground into which these particular conspiracy seeds are being sown: Agreed. Concern about children's welfare is much more universal than, say, concern about chemicals being injected into the water table that's making the frogs gay. Turns out, there are segments of the population who are not that animated by the threat of gay frogs. But OTOH there seems to be a significant overlap between the segments first targeted into heightened states of alarm about the near-ubiquitous perils of child trafficking, and the segments clamoring about the needs for all children to be in face-to-face schooling five days a week without being frightened by masks... the risks of COVID notwithstanding. Or even a clamor for more money for more classrooms, teachers, plexiglass, HVAC systems to make school environments more COVID-safe. So there is *something* of a disconnect there around the need to protect children generally. The concern for their wellbeing is narrowed and refracted into this one single (statistically unlikely) issue.

I love this thread because I'm sooooo into armchair COVID traveling and it's so nice to see what cities others have loved. But. You must trust me on this: urban centers are NO PLACE to drive an RV. I know NYC best, but, we've taken our itty-bitty camper into Pittsburgh and Portland ME and Boston and: do not do this. There is nowhere to park on the street even during the day; there is ABSOLUTELY no way anywhere you could ever open up all the slide outs to sleep over. Even if you miraculously found a spot the police would chase you off. And even if you planned on staying in a hotel: the garages don't have either head room, or length room, and the ramps in are very often too steep even for big SUVs, fuggedabout RVs. The heights are not marked on the overpasses: large high-clearance trucks are simply restricted to the perimeter roads. You will be miserable, do not try this thing. OK now that we've cleared that up... On the East Coast, the cities with loads of great stuff are (N to S): Portland ME, Portsmouth NH, Boston, Providence, NYC, Philadelphia, Baltimore, WDC. Then you choose, coastal or inland. I choose inland, so you can do a non-urban but not-to-be-missed Appalachian ridge route: Shenandoah, Blue Ridge Mountains, Smokies, ahhh. This route brings you out in Asheville NC, a great city. Spend a day winding over to the other side to see Dollyland, because, Dolly, even though it's not really a city. Other than Asheville, I've only been in Greensboro NC, which is definitely worth a stop as you cross back over to the coast. Every major city on the coast from that point downward has loads to do and see: Charleston, Savannah. Fort Lauderdale. But take time also for the barrier islands and beaches which are glorious. Miami is a GREAT and CRAZILY UNDERRATED city. Yes, if you herald from almost anywhere in the US except perhaps Kansas, Florida is mind-numbingly flat, and you have to plan the season you go or it can be insufferably hot. But Miami itself is vibrant and lively and has all kinds of awesome food and music and architecture and arts scene. And if you like birding, the Everglades, *chef's kiss.* That is the route I know *in sequence.* Other cities I've loved, in no particular order: Louisville. Nashville. Memphis. New Orleans. Santa Fe / Taos. San Diego. San Francisco. Seattle. Pittsburgh. Major cities I've loved bits of, or particular sites in, but not the overall vibe: Los Angeles. Las Vegas. Salt Lake City. Portland OR. Chicago. Cincinnati. (Sometimes you just choose your hotel location poorly and that really affects the experience.) roadtrips...... #PrayForVaccine

Yes, I should have included that in the above. In no way do I mean to undermine the legitimate longstanding good work by Save the Children, the organization. At THIS POINT, it is a QAnon meme, well and good co-opted.

I would pick him up myself... but also concur that weekend visits are probably not advisable, as a general matter, in a context where universities are trying to manage through a pandemic. Unless it's a truly important life cycle event, I'd encourage kids who've GONE to college to plan to STAY at college right through Thanksgiving. To the antibody question - I don't think nearly enough is known about either the reliability of the antibody tests, or the meaning of the presence of antibodies and what protection they might afford, to make decisions based on the tested presence or absence of antibodies. I know several people who live in NYC who've tested positive without ever having been sick... and several others who were definitely sick and definitely tested positive back in April - March who've subsequently tested negative for antibodies. Just yesterday I spoke with one of my town's earliest cases (my age, extremely fit, got quite ill) who said her recent antibody test came back negative, and her doctor told her, in essence, what difference does the test result make? It's not like there's any reason to be confident that having antibodies protects you either from getting sick again, or transmitting to others. It's not like you will -- or should -- live your life any differently based on antibodies. We just don't know that yet. Coming from a person who was pretty sick for a pretty long time, that was sobering to me.

As multiple pp have noted and documented above, #savethechildren is QAnon. My girl Molly McKew has a new piece up on how conspiracy theory disseminates, focusing first on the Jade Helm incident in 2015 (in which a plot seeded by the then-marginal QAnon was amplified by the then-not-well-understood Infowars... and went quickly on to build an IRL following of believers who actually showed up at IRL town halls throughout Texas and got the governor to call out the National Guard, in response to a conspiracy theory that the then-POTUS was imminently about to declare martial law.) The fertile Texan ground on which *those particular* QAnon seeds germinated so fast was, of course, deep distrust of/ hatred toward the then-sitting POTUS. The recurrent message of McKew's work, however, is: don't focus on the specific seeds, focus on the tools and techniques. The HOW rather than the what. Conspiracy Theory 2016 played on ONE set of divisions, fears, anxieties. Conspiracy Theory 2020 will look somewhat different in the specifics; everyone's horrified about little kids being trafficked! But it's the HOW that matters. Why are *these particular* social media users being targeted for the #savethechildren message? In what geographic, religious, socioeconomic segments did it flare first and most virulently? Why are those segments perceived to be fertile ground for these specific seeds? What interest groups / Pinterest pins / fun survey questionnaires / "likes" and shares have driven which algorithms to push QAnon in their direction? When #savethechildren memes and stories are "shared," who's datamining that behavior and how is that data being used? How many weeks between its initial emergence and the inevitable Comet Pizza (to which this is clearly related in subject matter as well as neural distribution network on SM) response?

I'll ask - I thought she said it was the PCR (she did it before visiting a pretty immunocompromised friend, and knowing her I think she'd be too concerned about the false negative rate to trust the antigens.) I'll ask.

re outdoor heaters: We have had two of that Costco-type model on our patio for years. They throw off a LOT of heat -- you're actually hot if you're next to it even in the dead of CT winter -- but they don't throw the heat very FAR (that's why we have two -- even pre-COVID we set one up on each end of our long & wide cast-aluminum patio table, and then arranged those of us, like me & eldest, who like to be toasty near them, and those of us, like husband and youngest, who are part polar bear to sit in the middle of the table far from the heat). I think they must really be designed to aim into a space that is at least partially protected by tent flaps. Because we anticipate more outdoor meals later into the season, I'm going to experiment with the idea of putting smaller heaters *underneat* fireproof tables, following the yurt / radiant heat principle that so long as your feet are warm you'll be OK. So we got one of these: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Mr-Heater-18-000-BTU-Portable-Radiant-Propane-Big-Buddy-Heater-MH18B/309243646 which we hope we'll be able to put beneath the (metal) table and keep more of us warm at once. If it works, we'll get more of them so we can do several tables each with a toasty family-group. We also have one of those terra-cotta wood-burning chiminea things. They're good for toasting marshmallows and making it smell like a campfire and generally creating an intimate visual focal point, but they're useless for actual heat. We have friends who spent the summer building an enormous bonfire pit with a surrounding patio-like space for 12 spaced out Adirondack chairs, which they plan to use all winter. That's more a hangout space than a way to do a sit-down dinner though.

That's what my SIL and BIL had. They had results within a few hours. My nearly adult kids (one at university, one at boarding school) are getting one of the saliva tests (which I believe are all still in large-sample research/clinical trial usage, not available to the public).

re when quarantining is *possible* but immensely difficult/disruptive this kind of disruption to work & organizations, and this kind of disruption to medical care to my mind definitely warrants the use of testing. *If available*, testing enables such families to lock down for just 3-4 days (sufficient time for exposure to manifest on the test), test, get results quickly...and get back to work or normal. It's not just the FAMILY who benefits, it's the fire department and the employer and the health care providers who are able to maintain schedules smoothly and etc. It's less disruptive to everyone. We're into our seventh month trying to contain this thing, and we still don't have many tools in the toolkit. Hard quarantine is absolutely an essential tool, but it's a HARD tool -- hard on the individuals, hard on families, hard on employers. Folks are understandably reluctant to do it, particularly if we believe it's unlikely that we've been exposed or if possible exposure was extremely brief or whatever. Self-referred prophylactic testing is another tool in the toolkit. It enables people to avoid or shorten quarantine intervals, it enables people to consider contact with vulnerable loved ones they might not otherwise see IRL, it enables people to do things they might otherwise decline doing (like having multiple, tested, families convene for Thanksgiving). It's another tool in the slow crawl toward a state that approximates New Normal. At this point in COVID, there is no longer an absolute nationwide shortage of tests (as there was back in March and April). Something like 15 suppliers are making the tests, and manufacturing is at scale. The reason that tests are widely available in some pockets and in shortage in other pockets is (given the federal government decision not to get into testing distribution) a matter of which states have chosen to invest money into testing. Some states have invested in purchasing tests and scaling up clinics and making it cost-accessible because those states recognize the value of testing in that crawl back to Nearly Normal. Where the tool is available, there's no guilt in using the tool. (Any more than there should be any guilt in availing of PA's most-excellent state park system, just because CT has fewer and lesser state parks.) It's not like the resource can be picked up and deposited elsewhere. New York has invested in testing to further public health. The reason it's there is for people to use it.

re testing to "stop the spread" MA (where my mother lives) actually calls it "stop the spread" testing. Test before you visit that grandmother or newborn baby so that you're sure you aren't asymptomatic but shedding. I think the reason it seems strange is that we're not really accustomed to think of healthcare in public health terms. Like so many other domain, we tend to think of healthcare in terms of *individuals.* In NYC there is no cost to individuals. They WANT people who may not have healthcare insurance -- even people who may be uninsured undocumented immigrants -- to not-spread the virus. The idea is that there's a benefit to the society as a whole in the virus not-being-spread. It *is* a different way of thinking, than we usually think. I believe in both CT and MA the cost is something like $60, which is covered by Medicare and ACA-compliant insurance, or payable by employers if they're requiring it, or by individuals if they're uninsured.

My BIL and SIL got tested last week at one of the UWS sites- I think 98th & Columbus. They reported they got appointments 10 minutes apart, only 1 person at a time in the waiting room (they waited outside for a text telling them to come in), only contact with just 1 clinician in full PPE, got results within 2 hours. And free. My SIL had been very nervous about the nasal test but reported it was "weird" but not painful. And I agree with Farrar about the possibility of false negative -- it's an issue if you're regularly in high exposure situations and only get tested once. But if you're generally pretty buttoned down (my BIL and SIL are) it's an added piece of mind; OR if you're being tested regularly and repeatedly (as my university student is) the repeated testing reduces the likelihood of repeated false negatives. We've been quite buttoned as well (I'm not even going into grocery stores) -- I wouldn't call it full quarantine, but pretty limited contact -- but I do plan to lean more on testing particularly before seeing my mother, FIL or other elderly relatives. It's a tool. We don't have many; may as well avail of the ones we have.

All the *essential* work or study in our lives is virtual these days, so we *could* quarantine- in various clusters, or we have an in-law apartment that one or two of us could do it separate from the rest. But at this point, if the idea is to prepare to visit with someone without risking exposure, we'll get tested instead. Results here are taking <2 days; in NYC to which my eldest has returned it's same-day. 14 days is a long time; I'd rather just do the test.

Reuters also did a good dive a few days ago into the financial complexities the university is looking to untangle, including some of the ties with his kids: How Jerry Falwell Jr Mixed His Personal Finances with His University's

We'll all (husband, me, 3 nearly-adult kids, 1 serious bf) get tested in time for results to be back in time for my out-of-state mother to come stay with us for a week. If a reliable quick-result saliva test is available by then (and I believe it may be), my brother & family (who live within an hour from us) will test and join us for the day (indoors). If not, I'll rig up something with our new canopy and external heaters so we can eat a traditional feast out on the patio during the afternoon. Suboptimal, but they have a little one and my SIL has had all sorts of nasal issues and they're not up to doing the nasal test. No such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing. It'll be fine. I'm less worried about the special holidays -- we'll figure out ways to make them work. I'm more worried about the daily slog once we can't do as much outdoors.

If you feed them, they will come. They're definitely in Maine. My parents-in-law had an ancestral home in Old Orchard that was ringed with different species of hydrangea, in bloom from July-October; and the hummingbirds circled about constantly.

? Sounds to me like the church doesn't want to lose congregants who take COVID seriously, so they're doing one service aimed at meeting the exposure concerns of those congregants. And they also don't want to lose congregants who chafe at the mandates, so they've doing another service aimed at meeting the signaling of those congregants. I don't know that there has to be much more going on than that.

re hummingbirds That's so weird. I think you've said before you're sort of north-ish Scotland, but even so I'd expect winters to be milder (if darker) there than here. Are there hummingbirds elsewhere, just not in your new yard? Are there flowering plants in the yard that otherwise attract them? Before I put the feeder out, I'd only see them vanishingly rarely, usually around buddleia or petunias. And I tried once years ago to put a feeder out in a sort of woodland shaded sitting area, and that didn't attract many and was a pain to refill. But this time I put it right in the sun adjacent to my patio, and within a day of putting it out I had one curious scout investigating, and within a week I had a whole flock. So they obviously were OUT there, I just wasn't seeing them. Now that they have a central focal spot, we're able to see them better from their perches in the surrounding trees and bushes. They are AWESOME. We have several different colors and personalities, including one who is under the VERY WRONG impression that the feeder is his own personal property, who tries (by perching atop the shepherd's hood from which the feeder suspends) to guard it and dive-bomb anyone else who tries to come use it. I sit here every morning with my coffee and gratitude journal and enjoy the drama. (I've named both the individual who believes he's Above The Law, and the shepherd's hook itself, but sadly that will have to remain over on the Politics board, LOL).

LOVE this thread. Best new purchase is this hummingbird feeder. Put it out and they will come. Best $33 I've ever spent on the Entertainment budget line item. Hours and hours of unbound delight. Best re-discovered old purchase is an old Soda Stream, that my then 10-year-old begged for before he went off to summer camp. It's sat unused in the basement ever since. COVID precipitated its rescue. SO GREAT. We just use it to make seltzer, into which I put slices of lemon or lime or cucumber. SO GREAT and no plastic to the landfills.

Thanks for this. I just listened through and found it quite interesting (it includes the perspective of people in 6 different countries working for NGOs in what I would call, loosely, "recognizing-and-responding-to-being-played" in a collaborative project called "Mind Over Media." I was intrigued that the first thing the groups were asked to consider and decide on was whether they wanted to keep, or revise for the purposes of their own in-country work, the initial project label, which was "countering propaganda." Some groups decided to keep the term "propaganda"; others chose differently (i.e. "media literacy", "critical analysis","manipulative marketing" based on what they saw as the associations (positive/negative, limited to state sponsorship or not) of the word "propaganda." The dynamic of polarization came up repeatedly - participants who described their societies as polarized, and participants who described their societies as not particularly so, concurred that polarization serves as both an entry for, and a dissemination engine amplifying, being-played. I found the participant from Belgium as *particularly* insightful on issues that exist in the US as well.