Can we make it a thing that links are included? Not that I'm going to buy any of this.... or anything ... just for research purposes of course.... eta: or brand names if you can recommend a certain one!

I finally got called up last year!! I was so excited! I finally get to do my civic duty! I have an excuse to see inside a courthouse! I sat in a waiting room for 4 hours before they dismissed my group of people. Never saw anything more interesting than the metal detector. So, yeah, bit of a letdown, lol, but worked out for the best because I spent the rest of the day throwing up from the lunch I bought while out. Yay, memories!

That's what they *want* you to think. It's the perfect cover!

I think that's great and a smart way to look at it. As I was reading the Arizona-based article, one of the things they were talking about was what a task fore should be doing, and she basically boiled it down to an emergency/crisis response and management. Not just about public health, but dealing with the economic impacts, housing, health and social services, etc. I think there were 6 factors they look at? Because at this point, the long-term plan isn't about Covid, it's managing the crisis it's created. eta: ideally not just the long term plans should be covering this, but also the short term plans, just to be clear that I don't think the other areas can really wait til we get to "long term", whenever that may be.

I'd be interested to see how different states are composing their task forces, the restrictions/allowances they are taking, and their outcomes so far. For Arizona, I saw this in the news earlier: "Long-term planning group for COVID-19 no longer in place in Arizona." Seeing as the ASU-made Arizona-specific models were deemed unnecessary early in the pandemic and the governor disregarded their now-proven-true projections, I would not say I am surprised with our state government's approach on the long term side. As in, they keep saying their current plan "keep doing what we're doing", and there is a long term plan .... they just don't know who's in charge of it or what it is, but it definitely exists. (Obviously, much more nicely put.)

I've heard the assumption of herd immunity as being a basis for opening up businesses and going on with life and it's the only way to this herd immunity "the faster the better." This is going out of the scope of what you were asking, HappySmileyLady, I'm just quoting you since I started to do a Google search triggered by curiosity because of your post. 1. We don't know how long immunity lasts. 2. We don't know how quickly the virus is going to mutate and how much of the immunity gained is rendered moot. (We do know that other viruses similar to CV-19 mutate at rapid rates, however.) 3. We don't know if the mutations are going to be less or more lethal than the current strains we are dealing with. 4. We don't know if the immunity gained will help mitigate future cases within one person. (I did see this article comparing a reinfection in HongKong to a Nevada case.) 5. We don't know if secondary infections are less likely to be able to spread the virus again. However, I found this quote from an article about Sweden: "Experience suggests that severely infected COVID-19 patients acquire antibodies immediately and during early recovery, but antibodies are much less common in only mildly ill or asymptomatic patients. This means they are likely not immune, and can't prevent the spread of the virus, the study noted. This is central to the concept of herd immunity." Here's the full article. 6. The likeliness of herd immunity in a time frame to make the deaths acceptable for the economy, the time frame is probably too long. I haven't really kept up with the Sweden experiment of herd immunity. I just did a Google search to see how it's going and it seems that the optimistic number of 30% immunity of their population is being touted by the ones in charge of the plan and is being refuted as being not-there-yet by critics. Regardless of it's even true, that is far away from the 70% they need. And they are only a country of 10 million. So expanding that to the US, it would take a long time for us to achieve herd immunity. Meanwhile, Sweden's death toll is 9th in the world per capita, 57.09 per 100,000 people. Here's the article I was reading. And also, I know that this should increase exponentially, but Sweden has had about 8 months to reach that 30%, so even with the exponential growth, reaching herd immunity for a population of 330 million will take a while. And again, please reference points 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. 7. And even vaccine may not be the silver bullet we are looking for. Also in this article, I was a bit startled to see poll results stating "A recent survey by Yahoo News and YouGov found that the public embrace of a potential vaccine has hit a new low. Only 42% of Americans said they planned to get vaccinated if and when a vaccine becomes available, which is down from 55% in late May, and 46% in early July." I am really shocked at this and I'm hoping that it is a flawed poll or not a true segment of the population and rather a reflection on the people who use those sources (I don't know the slanting landscape of news, other than a few cable channels.) Basically there is a lot of "we don't know." You can use the fact that we don't know for certain, I suppose, as an argument to re-open and hope for the best. I'm of the mind that the cold hard data both from our own experience and Sweden and UK and other areas from the beginning of the pandemic would dissuade me from wanting to try this approach. However, I would be interested in seeing numbers for Sweden's economy, which is why I originally clicked on a MarketWatch article on Sweden because I hoped it would include something on that, but I didn't find it (and need to make dinner now).

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-education/2020/08/27/university-arizona-covid-19-outbreak-prevented-dorm-wastewater-testing/5649579002/ Excerpt for those that can't click: "The University of Arizona found early signs of COVID-19 in a student dorm this week by testing wastewater and were able to head off an outbreak there, school leaders announced Thursday. Researchers at the school have looked for traces of the virus in wastewater samples taken from the greater Tucson area since March and have gathered samples from 20 buildings on the UA campus since school started. Earlier this week, data collected from the dorms found higher viral loads in wastewater samples taken from Likins Hall. A team led by Dr. Ian Pepper, director of the UA's Water and Energy Sustainable Technology Center, tested the samples five more times to confirm the findings, said UA President Dr. Robert Robbins. The university on Wednesday tested the entire dorm, about 311 people, and found two positive cases, Robbins said. The two individuals, who were asymptomatic, are now in isolation, preventing further spread in Likins Hall. " end quote To me this is exciting news. I know I can come off as over-cautious killjoy, but this type of news and knowing we are making progress on different fronts to help contain and prevent unnecessary spread is very encouraging. To me it makes allowing for larger gatherings and long-term contact situations much more safe since we can diagnose earlier, and stop asymptomatic carriers from unknowingly going about their business and unwittingly spreading C-19. Now we just need to transform these into pee sticks and require daily photo proof for entry into sports stadiums and bars! (I kid, I kid...or do I?...lol)

Well, I certainly don't think you're an asshole. Though I can't get used to your name change and the disconnect between name and pic gets me every time. But that's really the biggest problem I've got with you right now, which is another way of saying I have no problem with you at all. 🙂 I think that sometimes it's perceived that advocating for "we should be doing less" or perhaps "we should mandate less" can come across as saying we are doing too much (and I do think there are people here who think that. I have no idea what your personal view is, I can't keep people+opinion straight between threads). When there has been so much needless death already, and we are finding out more and more about possible long term effects from having C-19, it seems foolhardy to me to be advocating for less action and less concern. Even if you can't get behind *more* action, I have been troubled by people saying we are doing *too much* already. The idea of "we are already suffering so much anyway, and that won't change, so let's open up so at least businesses stay open" completely skips over the facts it will change in that the suffering (ie sickness and death) will get worse, and the business positive will be short lived, followed by and even longer downturn (at least, it is a strong hypothesis that seems to be ignored at times in favor for what I consider a greener grass view of "returning to normal"). I'm leaving out the sentimental parts about the whole human life thing. To the argument about mandates in particular and government overreach, I can see where the argument lies even if I disagree with it. I no longer trust my fellow citizens to act with regard to their fellow man. I no longer trust my fellow citizens to act with anything other than selfish motives. In the case of public health, the number of people who will act selfishly is too high. Now, if the argument is that our numbers aren't actually that high and that the number of deaths was unavoidable or that it is an unfortunate but acceptable reality, then I would say we don't have enough common ground to have a reasonable/interesting discussion, that's true. I still wouldn't call a person holding this view an asshole. I just wouldn't understand how we could be looking at the same data (the storied "numbers, infection rates, etc.") and coming to such different conclusions other than our starting values must be so disparate as to be irreconcilable.

So, every loss of life is sad. We can't literally learn every name, date and cause as a society. It's unfortunate, but most of us understand that just because we do not know those details that the passing of a person leaves a hole in the lives of many. But when one in particular is brought up, yes, I do actually care about it. I don't just say the words, "sorry for your loss" or put a sad emoji response, I actually feel that and think about it. (Happysmileylady, I really did care, and I'm still so sorry for your loss {{{{}}}} ) There are currently 182K deaths this year so far that would not have happened if Covid hadn't hit us. Or, if you want to split hairs and say not all of them were going to live anyway, we can say ~150k people who wouldn't have died without Covid being added as a complication to their conditions. (Conversely, you can say that we have 200k+ excess deaths so far this year, so the 182k seems fair.) Many of these deaths would normally be considered preventable. The reason we show care more about these deaths is that they were preventable by society at least to a degree. I cannot help the people in my area who have liver disease, heart disease, and cancer in a real way, and my actions will not contribute to their disease's progress (unless maybe I blow smoke at a person with lung cancer, I don't know). But I can help prevent the deaths of more people from C19 by just doing simple things like masks and staying farther away from them. Now, am I *literally* saving their life? Not unless I'm infected, no, and not everyone who gets it will die, that's true. But by doing what I can and participating in our society in a way that promotes responsibility for ensuring there is no *needless* spread, I am helping ensure there are no *needless* deaths. Similar to how no one soldier wins a war, but each is needed. I would say that we have had many, many *needless* deaths. I say this based on our death rate (USA) compared to other areas and populations. We can argue how many people "would have died anyway", even if we did every precaution, but that doesn't change the fact that so many have died than needed to. Some estimates say that 60% of our deaths could have been avoided. I would say 1 needless death is too much, but I think everyone can agree that 1,000 needless deaths seems a bit much, yes? 10,000? 100,000? Needlessly. This is what many of us see and actively want to prevent more of. It isn't enough to say "Every death is sad but we can't do anything about every death." It misses the point that, ye, we COULD HAVE done something to prevent many of these deaths. And there are still potential deaths that we can actively prevent. -- Re: Sturgis and protests and colleges, again my concern is about *needless* spread (this actually feels like an afterthought now but I'm trying to stay on-topic): We do not know the full impact of Sturgis because it is not localized and easily traced, and many cases will probably be missed. We will see the effects of colleges much more easily because they are localize and much more easily traced, and are actively promoting testing. I think earlier information dissuaded any large gatherings because we did not have any clue on what's going on; now our clues are somewhat better and we know that outdoors seems to be much better option. So, hopefully large gatherings, if they happen, stay outside. Protests (to my mind) "lucked out" that they were outside, I was definitely uneasy about them at the time before the outdoor understanding was known; it was also beneficial that many protestors have been masking and socially distanced. I sympathized with the motives but was concerned about the later fallout, I am glad that I I was incorrect, and I think we have learned a lot about how we can have more social gatherings based off these trial runs. Colleges are actively promoting different steps to try and contain the spread while still functioning on some level (some colleges better than others, unfortunately). I don't know how I feel about colleges, actually, but at least there is some mitigation efforts from the admin point of view. I don't think we can expect the actual students to be the best civil stewards of our collective health. I mean, we could, but we'd probably be disappointed by a big portion of them, so I think the efforts of the colleges are really necessary. Sturgis did not promote an atmosphere of containing or avoiding needless spread, and had higher-risk events/behaviors (bars, etc) that did not try to mitigate spread either to other attendees or communities. So, that is unfortunate. I'm not going to pretend that Sturgis will single-handedly kill thousands, but the behavioral affects will also ripple out from this and more people will be more bold about not following the guidelines and use Sturgis as an example of why it is okay (even though incomplete data). So, that is the most concerning part of the Sturgis situation to me. Plus, yes, 1 person infected is not only one person infected; just looking at the recent outbreak in New Zealand I think has given us a much clearer view of how easily this can spread with only 1 person. To think that Sturgis did not have any real impact on the C-19 numbers does seem a bit far-fetched, but will be debated for years due to, again, incomplete data. (so sorry for the length. I've actually cut out like half of the original. So, I'm sorry and you're welcome, lol)

I believe you, but here's my now-funny story about eating fertilized eggs. One time I accidentally bought fertilized eggs. Didn't notice it on the box, just bought a dozen of what was there. A couple days later I was eating breakfast and was surprised at how good they tasted! I remarked on it to DH that they were some of the best eggs I ever had. He said he was surprised I had bought fertilized eggs, but was glad that I was enjoying them so much. I said, "...What?" And he showed me the box. I was pregnant, and spent the rest of the morning crying, lol. I now always check the box to make sure it doesn't say fertilized (though I haven't seen it again? I coincidentally changed where I shop, too) and double check the box in the fridge whenever I taste especially good eggs. lol eta: oh, and DH's favorite way to compliment my breakfast eggs is now "these are good enough to be fertilized!" 😕 lol

Yes, happened to me, a long time ago. 0/10 do not recommend. It really does happen, it really stinks, and it's really abusive.

I am canning peaches right now as I type! I do a water bath. It's going to take me a while because my stove can't heat well, but I think it's fun and everyone is happy afterwards Edit: water bath you don't need special stuff exactly, a large pot (large enough to submerge your jars with an inch or two of rolling boil on top), water, and then the mason jars/lids. I highly highly suggest the thing that grips the jars and puts them in/out of the water. I did a couple canning sessions last year without it and it was much more stressful. I think it costs 5-9$ depending on brand/store. Other than that I can't think of special stuff you need to can it.

Covid-19 and Homeschooling crossover meme! 🙂

He's been Sabatoski'd!

new movie to look forward to next summer. hope the theaters are open in time!

Yeah, recently I was on a random internet binge late at night, totally random link clicking. Someone in a comment thread (that was about parks or something totally not health related) mentioned a health problem that they finally got diagnosed because of a totally weird rare symptom that doctors don't usually check or ask about. I have that totally weird rare symptom. I'm avoiding the doctor like the plague (ha?) right now. For various reasons. But this is definitely high on the list. Normally I'm a problem solver. But I know that this diagnosis has no solution, just mitigation. So I've integrated some of the mitigations I read about online (continued that internet binge) in case it's actually true for me. But I don't want to have the paper in my hand, kwim? Anyway, DH unrelatedly has been on my case about getting a wellness check for months (years..) and he finally just scheduled my appt for me. It's later this month.

Alternate way to read this is First Box is May and June, Second box is July, 3rd box is August. At least, that's my reality, lol

So the smiling thing for me has turned into nodding (still smiling, but making sure that I have movement showing acknowledgement of whatever they said.). Then this slowly transferred to me nodding with whatever I was saying, just to add movement I guess as the replacement for mouth movements, "yes, I am speaking and there is action from me." And not just at the beginning of my speech, but the entire time. I always seem to get the chatty cashiers so there is a lot of talking and nodding away. Also, because lines seem longer (they aren't really, but the line stretches out due to the 6ft distances) I've found a lot of other shoppers are eager to chat since you get the feeling of "look how far away we are, let's pass the time." So more talking and nodding. Basically, now whenever I go shopping I look like this (just add a mask, lol). Great for the neck muscles though!

I had much the same conversation with my mom. I asked her if I showed her 5 sources saying the opposite of her preferred source, and could demonstrate it (like with a video or something), would it change her mind? "No, I wouldn't trust those others ones not to lie to me. I know [preferred source] isn't lying. ... I'd rather be wrong." Literally, she would rather be wrong. It boggles the mind. May God forgive us our hubris.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0307355/ here's at least one of the shows that I'm referencing. For some reason my brain is telling me there were 3 shows that were aired around the same time with similar content, and one of them spoke about the Anti-Christ being a future president of the United States and the Mark of the Devil was the implant in your hand. But this was apparently 26 years ago so I could be wrong on the 3-shows part. Also, this should be a lesson on how impressionable young minds are. I was a young 8 when I saw this and I still remember it.

That part I'm not sure of. For some reason in this tv special the idea that the implant would be put in your hand, so that it was easy to scan, was why it was part of the mark of the beast, and since it would leave a scar that was part of the mark. This was back in the 90's that I saw this but it stuck with me, along with the whole show, because it included parts (or it was part of a series) of prophecies from Edgar Casey and Nostradamus and how we were entering the end times. edit: also, my dad taped these shows and I re-watched them at times, another reason they stuck... It's only been the past 5 years or so I've realized how conspiracy-minded my household was growing up.

I think I know this one. It's because as you step away from cash and onto credit only, the credit is stored on a chip. Then, once everything is stored on a chip, what better way to store the chip than as an implant? After all, the wallet was made for carrying cash, and now you are only carrying around a flimsy piece of plastic that is so easily lost, "it just makes sense" to implant it in your body. And these types of implants are tied to the mark of the beast, right? I remember seeing this as a kid on a conspiracy show. Of course I didn't realize it was a conspiracy show, the presenters were very concerned about this.