Let me say this to start. Everyone will die. You'd think that folks might try to move that day later but many life styles and bad habits cause that day to get sooner. About 56 million die each year. https://ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death.

I recently changed my sig line to pose some small bit of information that may be of some importance or not.
Sources for that opinion are places like this. https://www.thedailybeast.com/let-it...n-their-course. So, you may wish to consider raising or letting your temperature go up naturally should you be in a position of limited choices.

Austin has 7 cases I think and they are starting to lock down the place. Stores are being stocked but idiots are trying to clear the shelves.

Is it wise? Guess so.

Almost every recorded cold virus has so far be thwarted by summer.

Even if you get covid-19 80% or greater you won't notice to mild/medium symptoms.

Even in a pandemic, not everyone gets exposed.

The search terms you want to try are "family cloth" and "bidet" and the only problem with either of them is that once you switch, you NEVER want to go back to our new holy lord, saviour, and form of currency ever again.

My understanding is that, although tp is generally considered as American as Apple Pie, this particular perversion of a common paper product actually originated in Australia and after all the bush fires and everything that Aussies had already had to deal with right before 3/13, Australia certainly should have gotten a free pass from being mocked and having pictures of their big box stores wrongly labelled as pictures of USAmerican big box stores in memes.

Not that I'm dissing memes. We've got to have memes. We don't really have to have toilet paper, though, although if we don't, something else (like housing before we even had Holy Sacred Toilet Paper religion and new form of currency)(please, please, please don't let it be beans and flour next time, I'll be your best friend, Cthulu....) will just become The next Toilet Paper because that's just how these things work.

Looks like the current count for Covid19 is 93 dead in the USA right now. Suppose things go really well and after all this is done, Covid-19 kills around 1000 Americans (i.e., much much less than most flu strains). Honest question: Should we, looking back, count the current response as an over-reaction, or conclude that it saved many lives?

I think walking outside is perfectly safe as long as you don't get too close to other people. You're more likely to catch it on public transport, so jazzy had better leave the buses alone!

I went shopping today. Tesco is a wasteland. I got most of what I wanted (a garlic bulb, a pack of apples, a large carrot and a tin of fish). But I couldn't get barley or frozen stir-fry veg. Now that there's no more pasta, the looters are clearing the frozen food section!

Fortunately I found that the Lebanese market shop nearby is still well-stocked, and I was able to buy a pack of barley there. It cost a lot more than it would have in Tesco, but I suppose I was lucky to get any at all.

As Jefro said, we're all going to die. Most of us won't die of covid but we will eventually die anyway, quite possibly of something much slower and nastier. Or we may live just that little bit too long and get dementia, which I think is much worse than just dying. So what is all the panic about?

I think so too, but the police here are getting very strict with the measures taken to contain the virus. I'm seriously thinking about walking my shopping trolley for about 15 minutes a day to exercise a bit and get some fresh air .

The panic is about a fate far worse than death: running out of toilet paper, obviously


More seriously, I'm not sure why you think just knowing that death is inevitable would stop people from being afraid to die?

Or how about this: you could be afraid of being, in part, responsible for other people dying. It's one thing to blase about yourself dying, but it seems a bit harder to make the "everybody will die eventually" argument when you are putting other people's lives on the line.

It seems the UK is undergoing paroxysms of regret at underestimating the seriousness of Covid-19. Panic is not only non-productive but counter-productive but blase isn't good either. It's hard to evaluate the right balance but "Better safe than sorry" isn't bad advice.

Personally, I am very high risk other than my rural location since I am 73, diabetic, with a moderately compromised immunity system and a smoker. I intend to be quite careful. I'm not really worried about toilet paper but I always have plenty of disinfectants on hand (which I now spray on any newly arrived packages), keep an airflow for fresh air even in winter, keep my weight down, eat fresh and exercise, and will wear a protective filter mask the rare times I'm out in public and will ignore any snide looks and sideways glances. I plan to look back on Covid-19 however it turns out.

Some people seem to be really freaking out. Some personal experiences just from today.

I went out today to get a few items at the drug store, including some alcohol swabs for my girlfriend, who needs them for when she changes her glucose monitor. The drug store manager told me they were sold out. I asked, "Because of the panic?" He said, "Yes." (I forgot to check the TP aisle.)

As I went to pay, I got into a chat with the clerk (there was no one behind me). She told me of a customer who loaded up with 21 packages of Zicam nasal swabs who was so freaked about COVID-19 that she refused to place the packages on the counter for checkout or even come up to the counter. (I think that the customer must be getting her "news" from "social" media.)

The clerk told me that, while at the doctor's this week, the staff told her that one of the problems with persons randomly wearing masks and gloves is that, without training, they don't know how to put them on or, more importantly, remove them properly in such a way as not to spread contaminants, rather than contain them.

Second Son called to touch base and in the course of the conversation told me that he was bummed because the city where he lives has ordered all the bars closed, and he's a bartender (he loves it and he's good at it). He said he's not worried about the rent (many of his friends are, though), but about the boredom.

Maybe I've watched too many TV shows (where dying person takes med. hostage), but
...
WHEN (in a week or 2) medical resources run out (like TP but infinitely worse),
*I* think 'zombie apocalypse' could be an understatement (especially with all the guns being bought)!!!

I'll be careful, not catch it, and stay out of the mess. (And maybe go back to playing with Linux.) New_Thought (Wikipedia)

^ yeah, I think you did watch too many TV shows!

@ntubski. I don't think I am blase. I'm simply old. I was brought up on the saying "The days of man are threescore years and ten" and I'm well past that now, so I feel that my time is very much on loan and I won't be particularly surprised if the loan is called in. Also I have a strong religious faith (which I won't go into in this thread), and no immediate relatives whose grief I need to worry about. We are all afraid of dying because we know it might involve pain and distress, but I'm not afraid of death as such.

Obviously if I start showing symptoms, I shall self-isolate completely out of consideration for other people. I have a kind neighbour who has offered to shop for me if that happens. Until then, I will do my own shopping but avoid all social contacts.

@enorbet. Most of what you are proposing to do, you should have done years ago. This scare will end up doing you a lot of good if it makes you take your health more seriously.

@frankbell. I'm very angry that shops are letting people walk out with so much. They should ration them so that other people can get what they need. But of course they are only interested in the profits they can make.

Finland just went to state of "emergency law", first time since ww-2.
crowds of over 10 ppl are banned.

Or are too frightened to stop people, some of whom can get very angry over these things. I'm not sure I would speak to anyone who had a trolley full of toilet rolls; they might pull a knife on me.

I might have the courage to have words with a little old lady but you never can tell these days.

No worries, Hazel. With the exception of the mask I've been doing this most of my life. The only recent change is a drastic reduction in sugars and carbohydrates. Well, in all honesty I should probably add that I've not been one to spray disinfectants everywhere and certainly not letters and packages as it is my understanding that overuse of disinfectants is something like ceasing antibiotics too early... it develops stronger strains. So I've always been clean but never a germaphobe. Living in a bubble is a sure way to ruin one's immune system.

Since diabetes seems to have a fairly strong genetic component I'm assuming you are referring mostly to my being a smoker. My doctor is upset with me that I don't quit, too, but it may also be that he is perplexed by my lung capacity. If you've ever seen those devices upon which one sucks as hard as one can to pull a piston in a calibrated container to test lungs, even at 73 I can still pull it to the very top. He never looks pleased. He always looks a bit miffed.

That may partly be genetics and the fact that I've never smoked more than half a pack per day, nevertheless that may change soon as I am not the hyperactive man I was when younger so for the first time in my life beginning a few years ago, I began to exhibit smoker's cough just after a mild stroke. Prior to that I've never felt any ill effects and nicotine has some very positive cognitive effects. I've tried vaping to try to get the positive effects of small doses of nicotine but I don't like it, so I am contemplating quitting but that has little to do with Covid-19. It just feels like time.

In the news today.
https://www.fox5ny.com/news/californ...-a-possibility
https://www.fox29.com/news/philadelp...violent-crimes
https://www.fox5ny.com/news/floating...ew-york-harbor
https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE...navirus-621408
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/18/cuom...york-city.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ccines-testing
https://www.greenwichtime.com/opinio...u-15138082.php
https://news.yahoo.com/uk-begins-tou...145723246.html
https://apnews.com/31eb77772a9904e6c141dac15c5696ae
https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-c...020723509.html
https://dnyuz.com/2020/03/18/im-a-do...nto-the-abyss/
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/wor...owers-21706982