Love in the Time of COVID-19

A space for all news and health advice regarding the Coronavirus

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An interesting read.

You might be surprised there’s a difference between men and women’s death rates from coronavirus, but scientists aren’t.

Part of the answer is men are generally in worse health than women due to lifestyle choices like smoking.

“Smoking damages your lungs, that’s not going to be a winner,” says Dr MacDermott.

This may be a particular problem in the China where estimates suggest 52% of men smoke compared with just 3% of women.

But there are also differences in the way the immune systems of men and women respond to infection.

“Women have intrinsically different immune responses to men, women are more likely to suffer from auto-immune diseases and there is good evidence that women produce better antibodies to vaccines against flu,” says Prof Paul Hunter, from the University of East Anglia.

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That might explain why the experience with the flu vaccine seems so negative in society. A menz experience with a vaccine not working will overpower the numbers in the media.

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The bubble of private influence in governance is bursting. It’s something like a worldwide Katrina, exposing the glee with which these gangsters do their work.

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My company is encouraging everyone to work from home and has instituted a “no handshakes allowed” policy. So it’s not all bad news.

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A blogger I’ve followed for years whose also a mental health pro has been putting together a series on preparing for the coronavirus. It’s quite a bit more bleak than most of the news available, but I feel that she’s primed to see a lot of parallels to the Spanish Flu of 1918. Back on the centennial of that outbreak she did a project where she posted local Boston coverage of the pandemic at the same pace as the newspapers of the day.

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Every single store in Canada is sold out of toilet paper now. Oh what fun!

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Fortunately, I grabbed some before the rush. Thus I am not at the point of needing to bribe someone at the Kruger plant, yet.

It’s a bit mad, though.

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This is a pretty good overview, and as stated above it will be updated daily.

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I’ve read that it’s already plateauing in China. But I’m not sure what this means:



from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/china/

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I heard a rumor today that they will announce a case here in Chattanooga tomorrow but it also seems likely that there will be a lot of rumors.

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My home is small enough that a thirty day supply of food is unfeasible. It would compete with my 3500 day supply of books.

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I had my pantry so low that there’d be no way to scrape through a quarantine, so I did stock myself up to more normal levels of food stores. It’s just me so if I had to stay in I’d be fine just with beans and such.

There are two unconfirmed cases here in Chattanooga on self quarantine.

I am completely head spun around with this virus, the stock market. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. The grocery store was jam packed. I’m trying to plan offerings for yoga events right now and it’s scary because no one wants to travel or plan to be in a gathering.

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Speaking to the bagger at the grocery store, she was saying that it was all so stupid and the fatality rate in the elderly was less than 1%. I didn’t really know what to say. I’d just read a pretty solid source saying it’s around 15% in the elderly. Then I realized, oh, she’s watching Fox News. So now in this bizarro bizarro world all the Trumpers have become anti the sky is falling theory peddlers and the rest of us are trying to figure out how bad this is and how bad it will get.

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Caring about this is a partisan issue:

https://civiqs.com/results/coronavirus_concern?annotations=true&uncertainty=true&zoomIn=true

Which means they aren’t taking appropriate precautions. We can’t flatten the curve without everyone on board. We are very, very fucked.

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Journal of the Corona Year

New York feels deserted. You know people must be around, but you don’t see them.

Commute to work this morning was a breeze. Subway was half empty. But perhaps this was because of Purim. No one on the subway dares even clear their throat for fear of starting a panic.

Café Grumpy has stopped handling customers’ reusable coffee vessels. They will only fill their own paper cups. So I had to take the paper cup of coffee then pour it into my Klean Kanteen myself. As I was handing the cashier my money I inadvertently touched his hand. That seems to have defeated all their precautions.

Where I work, management wants everyone to be prepared to work from home. For most people in the company this is easy — all they need is Excel, Outlook and a phone to shout into. There is no plan what the design staff is supposed to do. IT has no way for us to remotely access the secure servers.

There is a notable case in the area of a lawyer in New Rochelle.

The New York TimesFor 4 Days, the Hospital Thought He Had Just Pneumonia. It Was Coronavirus.

Last Friday we learned that one of our brokers and his associate were quarantining themselves. The broker is acquainted with the lawyer from New Rochelle and they had met just earlier in the week. The broker had tested positive.

This afternoon there were rumors that the entire office would closed Wednesday and disinfected. By the time we left this evening there was no official word if this was true or not. The office could have been disinfected over the weekend.

IT still has no idea how we can remotely excess the servers.

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Read this as “Trump sent to containment zone” and I was like “Balls out, Tiny Microbe 2020”.

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It’s weird how the talk about coronavirus again throws the political divide at work into relief. Or 3d model. I really hope we get a tech-friendly update to our increasingly out-of-date metaphors.

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