Coronavirus

Likewise, best wishes, will be nothing short of a miracle if you avoid catching it.

Any idea of original contamination, supermarket ,etc ?

Dave, best wishes to you both.

Best wishes to you and your daughter Dave, hope for a quick recovery

Best wishes to you both Dave. I hope she feels better soon.

regards

Well I've learnt a new word.

"The members of the forum are pleomorphic."

Neil

Many thanks to pgk and everyone else for the best wishes etc.

Good advice about instant soup etc, because if both of us had the bug at the same time, I wouldn't be keen on cooking! Easy food and drinks would be top priority.

As it is, the two of us are doing fine on ordinary freezer, fridge and larder stocks. Although the diet would get increasingly peculiar over time I don't see any problem for at least two weeks, maybe a month or more if I don't mind eating left-over casserole circa 2007!

Been doing bulk meals - yesterday a large Cottage Pie which will do 2 or 3 days. I'm not using huge quantities of cleaning materials, toilet rolls, or anything else. Obviously more challenging if the house contained a full family, or someone needed nursing, or a dog needed walking. Having a downstairs toilet is handy - if we had to share the main bathroom I'd have to clean it, wear gloves etc. But she stays upstairs, and I'm mostly down.

Biggest supply problem is the cat. The stupid animal has taken against eating anything except Felix, probably because someone else is feeding it or it's stealing posh food. Naturally, I've got plenty of Whiskas and Tesco Own Brand. Apart from the Feline Food-Fad crisis, I've run out of tinned tomatoes and wine and am short of washing powder. Expecting my son to drop a delivery off on Wednesday which will restock all those and the fridge.

The need to avoid all contact has probably made Coronavirus feel more scary than it actually is. It's as unpleasant as flue usually is, perhaps somewhat worse, and I'd be very worried if my mother or nephew with lung problems got it, but most people who catch it will be OK. No doubt visiting a hospital would give entirely the opposite impression, but that's where the worst cases concentrate.

I'd love to go walkies!

Dave

PS Herself has just rung asking for lunch, obviously feeling better!

' a sterile mutant resulting from degenerative changes in culture...' Yup, that's me!

Three Cheers for Mercedes F1 and UCL,

They have developed a breathing aid in 8 days that will help alleviate the demand for ventilators.

Regards

Gray,

Key worker, in a team working face to face with clients, including frequent home visits, plus regular contact with other cross-related professionals. Not as high-risk as some occupations, but a more than average chance of picking it up. A colleague has it too, and two more now have suspicious early symptoms.

Some jobs require people to accept risk day after day after day...

Dave

Listening to the News I notice that the Stock Market is still operating. Surely this cannot be an "essential" business. After all a stock trader/dealer produces nothing, has nothing original to say and panics before the hat has been dropped. I certainly have no use whatsoever for the FTSE 100 or it's like at this time.

John

Traders are working from home via computer aren't they?

I'd agree with Hopper

I can’t really see any reason why the stock market cannot be safely run. The entire operation is computerised and much of it is automated so no need for human contact. You may have no use for the stockmarket but your pension fund does.

With stocks cheap they must be atracting a certain amount of inward investment and like it or not trade and industry needs life support or we are all going to be in the cart.

regards Martin

Dont give a bugger how they do it as long as my pensions continue to arrive every month. The greedy lot have already creamed off their 'share' of my money, so one of my remaining bucket list items is to live long enough to draw out in pension a darn sight more than I actually paid in!

More evidence of the madness caused by this virus.

I had an appointment to attend a neurology clinic at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd , some 30 odd miles from home. This was a first appointment to investigate the tremor I've developed fairly recently. My GP had ordered loads of blood tests and found no markers for Parkinson's or any other condition of that type. As expected, given the current situation, that clinic and my appointment were cancelled.

Today I had a phone call from the Walton Centre (the contractors who were running my cancelled clinic) asking if I could drive to Liverpool tomorrow or Thursday as the consultant can't come to me. What is going on? As I see it at present I am not a priority patient and if it is not safe for them to have their clinic here, how is it safe/legal for me to go to them? Is it just a case of the consultant needing to meet quotas set by UK Gov/ Betsi Cawalladr ( my health board) , or are they just not seeing the big picture?

I declined but asked to be kept on the waiting list until we have some reduced risk within the hospitals and general public.

I'd hate to think what is happening to older patients.

I'm only a youngster, 65 next month, but hope I've got many years left. Keeping going in the garden and coarse work in the shop, the tremor means that close/fine work is problematic.

Nathan.

Hi there DMB. Well said.

Edited By Anthony Knights on 31/03/2020 08:35:03

Fortunately my pension doesn't rely on a fund of any type. I was really just saying that as the whole of the financial sector bears no relationship to reality and produces nothing but worry and therefore at this time could well be shut down.

The markets and traders seem to work on hearsay rather than facts broadly along the lines of:-

1. Company X didn't do well last week - that will be bad for business - we may be doomed.
2. I heard on the grapevine that manufacturing is down - that will be the end of society as we know it - we are probably doomed.
3. Rumour has it that the pound will fall - it's the end of civilisation - we are all doomed!

John

Ana rticle on the BBC re supermarket sales in March. At first glance an overall increase of 20% with 88% of shoppers buying and an average incraese in spend of soem £70 doesnt't seem to explain shortages. Of course the majority of the extra buying happened over a 7-10 day period so during that period sales would have been some 60-80% higher if the rest of the month was 'normal'. Add to that a more selective type of buying and staples probably more than doubled. So a case of failign to cope with distribution more than actual quantity.

What is noticeable (or perhaps my less than partial belief in my observation) is that own brands aren't being restocked. Most of those are just the branded stuff bagged as own brand and effectively a form of price gouging by not carryng on with offering them.

Pleased to report daughter felt better on waking up teatime yesterday and is better again this morning.  Still tired and achy.  Fingers crossed she's over the worst.

Listening to BBC R4 'More or Less' Programme, which is about statistics in the news, they mentioned that a proportion of the population will have Covid-19 in mild form, maybe with no symptoms at all.    Possibly I have caught Coronavirus then, because I have mild hay-fever symptoms, slight dry cough etc. No temperature or anything I'd describe as flu.   However, another good reason for me to obey the lock down.

Another statistic emerging, not yet confirmed, is that men are approx 60:40 more likely to get the bug than women.  One suggestion is this is because men don't wash their hands as often as the ladies.  Tragic because my lifestyle is modelled on my hero, Albert Steptoe; I thoroughly enjoy being a dirty old man!

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 31/03/2020 09:49:12

I think as time passes more people will have family members who are diagnosed, some really poorly and others with only slight symptoms. Our daughter was confirmed as a virus sufferer yesterday, she had been quite unwell for a few days, she had been isolating, her status was confirmed by telephone consultation with our GP and registered with 111. She lives with her family in the village and not far from us; she had been our lifeline for shopping as we are isolating due to age and medical conditions, we have enough provisions to last for a week or so, anyway today she is beginning to feel better so hopefully she is recovering. We think she may have contracted it from her daughter who is airline cabin crew and has been flying recently, bringing passengers home from Spain, Italy and South Africa. We live in a truly global society and living, as we do, in a small rural village is no protection from infections on the other side of the world.
Dave W

You have to think of the NHS as a system managing resources in difficult circumstances. Everything is abnormal at the moment.

Nathan's symptoms are cause for concern, therefore it would be a good idea to have them looked at sooner rather than later. Someone tried to make this happen.

Remember that consultants and their support teams are also catching the bug or are forced into lock-down by household problems. I suspect Nathan was redirected due to staffing difficulties. Another possibility is the clinic has been moved to safer premises, perhaps one with a less crowded waiting room.

Quite a lot of life is made easy by unappreciated back-room organisation. Even simple things like keeping clean water coming out of the tap require planning and coordinated action. When the back-room malfunctions, expect inconvenience or worse...

Dave