Lord Liaden Posted November 18, 2020 Report Share Posted November 18, 2020 4 hours ago, pinecone said: But, I enjoy all of those, With taste intact...? Did you watch how he actually ate them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted November 18, 2020 Report Share Posted November 18, 2020 4 hours ago, Matt the Bruins said: Some good news for a change: Moderna is reporting interim results of their Covid-19 vaccine trial considerably more effective than those of the Pfizer vaccine that recently made headlines. The icing on the cake is that Dolly Parton helped fund the research. Also, immunity after recovering from Covid-19 may be much longer-lasting than researchers had previously feared. Well, maybe not considerably more effective. Pfizer's vaccine is still subject to further trials, and their announcement was preliminary, which they made because it was so encouraging. But both results are about as good as we could have hoped for. I hope every country approves every coronavirus vaccine under development. We need as much as they all can produce, as soon as they have them ready. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted November 18, 2020 Report Share Posted November 18, 2020 The big difference with the Moderna vaccine is that it apparently requires only standard refrigeration, not dry ice. Unfortunately neither vaccine will arrive in time given for the 40% of Americans surveyed by the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center who intend to participate in family gatherings of greater than 10 people for Thanksgiving. 33% do not intend to wear masks. It's Christmas at Ground Zero... pinecone 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinecone Posted November 18, 2020 Report Share Posted November 18, 2020 1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said: Did you watch how he actually ate them? No, but I eat cloves of garlic, and I like slices of onion with slices of cheese as a snack. I also like eating wedges of lemon, though some are too bitter for my taste. When I was a lad, I often would eat an onion like an apple. I also like spicy food though...so it may be a "thing"... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted November 18, 2020 Report Share Posted November 18, 2020 What's interesting is that when he ate those things, he said he didn't taste anything. Not a matter of like or hate, just nothing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starlord Posted November 18, 2020 Report Share Posted November 18, 2020 11 hours ago, Lord Liaden said: On the practical level, I'm amazed that lizard actually put up with that mask. I would have expected a restrictive face covering to be something most animals would resist. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starlord Posted November 18, 2020 Report Share Posted November 18, 2020 I've had a couple sinus infections before and both times I completely lost taste and smell for a couple days. It was weird. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cygnia Posted November 18, 2020 Report Share Posted November 18, 2020 Yeah, as I may have mentioned earlier, when hubby lost his smell, he could still be affected by onions when he was cutting them eventhough he couldn't smell them -- he still teared up. Probably could still be affected by the burn of a chile pepper then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unclevlad Posted November 18, 2020 Report Share Posted November 18, 2020 13 hours ago, pinecone said: But, I enjoy all of those, With taste intact...? Or it just shows you never had any taste..... <badumDUM> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unclevlad Posted November 18, 2020 Report Share Posted November 18, 2020 3 hours ago, Cygnia said: Probably could still be affected by the burn of a chile pepper then. Oh yes. That's not smell alone. That's capsaicin, which is potent stuff. When working with the hotter peppers, common advice is to wear gloves. When I make chili, I'm not using anything that'd rate even medium; generally long green New Mexico chiles, and dark green poblanos. Great flavor. But even with these, because I'm seeding them, I prefer to get the chili going before I grab a shower. (It takes hours to cook the beans anyway so it has to be started early.) And after finishing the chiles, I'll still wash my hands. Accidentally rubbing your eyes while even a trace remains is exceedingly unpleasant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrickstaPriest Posted November 18, 2020 Report Share Posted November 18, 2020 17 minutes ago, unclevlad said: Accidentally rubbing your eyes while even a trace remains is exceedingly unpleasant. Just did that last night Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cygnia Posted November 18, 2020 Report Share Posted November 18, 2020 Can attest. Nicked my finger when cutting up Thai bird's eye chiles and got a seed in the cut...that hurt more than the cut! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted November 18, 2020 Report Share Posted November 18, 2020 CDC Guidance for Vaccine Distribution Quote populations of focus for initial COVID-19 vaccination may include: (see Section 4: Critical Populations) •Healthcare personnel (paid and unpaid persons serving in healthcare settings who have the potential for direct or indirect exposure to patients or infectious materials) •Non-healthcare essential workers •Adults with high-risk medical conditions who possess risk factors for severe COVID-19 illness •People 65 years of age and older (including those living in LTCFs) There's a lot of wiggle room for "Non healthcare essential workers", evidently that is to be decided at the state level, e.g. dockworkers or factory employees. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unclevlad Posted November 18, 2020 Report Share Posted November 18, 2020 40 minutes ago, Cygnia said: Can attest. Nicked my finger when cutting up Thai bird's eye chiles and got a seed in the cut...that hurt more than the cut! Even cutting up citrus after a minor cut is a serious tactical error. For me, what hurts the most is..."HOW THE *@#$&(#@$ CAN YOU BE SO (*&!#@$@#$ STUPID AS TO CUT YOURSELF ON THESE!!!! YOU KNOW BETTER!!!!!" I mean, peeling a mango, or potentially working on a storage onion, with the thick paper outer layers...those are actually tricky. But anything long and flat, and not even particularly hard...that's just careless and thoughtless. And I've done it way too many times. A couple times, with VERY nice ceramic knives...can we say *sharp*? Yeah, they give the kind of cut you don't feel for about 5 seconds...then you scream softly as you run to the sink and grab a couple paper towels....... Cygnia 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unclevlad Posted November 18, 2020 Report Share Posted November 18, 2020 50 minutes ago, Old Man said: CDC Guidance for Vaccine Distribution There's a lot of wiggle room for "Non healthcare essential workers", evidently that is to be decided at the state level, e.g. dockworkers or factory employees. Or political staffers and registered lobbyists. Got to have the minions, and politicians have to eat.... But trying to create a comprehensive list at the federal level is no better. New Mexico currently has a broad lockdown in place, where any non-essential businesses are closed. There's a list of business types deemed essential, too. So it's not an issue. But our list of "essential businesses" may not match another locale's list. If one considers a meat packing plant as a form of factory...then yes, the employees could well be considered essential. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted November 18, 2020 Report Share Posted November 18, 2020 Meat packing directly contributes to most of us being able to eat, so yeah. It's probably a vain hope that the highlighting of what types of work are essential to keep our society functioning, will translate to better compensation and legal protections for those workers. I'm afraid most people will think holding up signs saying how grateful we are is enough, and they'll be out of mind again once the pandemic's over. TrickstaPriest 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unclevlad Posted November 18, 2020 Report Share Posted November 18, 2020 The Iowa governor was forced to reverse her stance and issue mask orders. How bad is it there? WorldOMeters has state-by-state new case numbers and populations, so it was trivial to get per capita rates. These are just for yesterday, so they're a lot more noisy than I'd like but they're still useful. So the numbers below show 1 case per N people, ergo lower is bad. Wyoming: 460 North Dakota, Montana: in the 700s Wisconsin, South Dakota: in the 800s Minnesota, New Mexico: in the 900s Idaho, Illinois, Utah, Iowa: between 1000 and 1050 So....yeah, it's really, really bad. I used to think a case per 3000 was bad... NYT quoted a figure that there about 76,000 people hospitalized from this. WorldOMeters says there are about 4.4 million active cases, so as a simple approximation, we can say that about 2% of cases lead to hospitalization. So every day, we're looking at something like 3000 more hospital beds that are gonna get occupied.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted November 18, 2020 Report Share Posted November 18, 2020 1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said: It's probably a vain hope that the highlighting of what types of work are essential to keep our society functioning, will translate to better compensation and legal protections for those workers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt the Bruins Posted November 18, 2020 Report Share Posted November 18, 2020 I don't have a link, but Pfizer just released a statement that their vaccine is 95% effective, about the same as the Moderna one's preliminary results. Both are looking to be far, FAR more effective than I'd hoped any new vaccines would be. Isn't the flu shot doing well to hit 50% most years? TrickstaPriest 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted November 19, 2020 Report Share Posted November 19, 2020 Flu mutates a lot and you can't get all the variants with one vaccine. Covid, so far, mutates less. It's possible that both vaccine programs are missing asymptomatic carriers, because they're not hauling all the test subjects in for regular testing. Still, this is unlikely to make a huge difference in the effectiveness percentage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unclevlad Posted November 19, 2020 Report Share Posted November 19, 2020 I figure most countries will approve as many vaccines as they can, but it'd be nice to have one that doesn't need dry ice. A vaccine needing to be kept that cold will probably be best delivered from a few central locations such as hospitals, so it probably works better for cities. Which can be fine, so long as there's the refrigerated option. But the supply side is still a big problem. IIRC, in a story right when Pfizer announced, the number I saw for next year was about 1.3 billion doses. Remember that this vaccine takes 2 applications, so that's about 650 million people. World wide. For the year. And yes, one of the nasty aspects of the flu virus is it's very mutable; that's pretty rare, tho at least to the degree the flu virus is. The NBA can't be overly happy. The draft is tonight, which is a HUGE deal...the players going at the top of the first round are getting life-changing money. But....I saw a couple of the celebrations that were, let us say, Not Properly Distancing (or masking, somewhat). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unclevlad Posted November 19, 2020 Report Share Posted November 19, 2020 Ugh. Approached 2000 deaths today, unfortunately. Highest number since early May. 200,000 new cases looks to be inevitable tomorrow or Friday. Week over week (last Wednesday to today, for example) on WorldOMeters has commonly been 20% or more. It was today; 145K on the 11th; 180K today. Well, last Thursday was 162K...so we might skate just under. But last Friday was 187K...so if the trend doesn't suddenly reverse, we'll *blow* through 200K cases. Depressing...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hopcroft Posted November 19, 2020 Report Share Posted November 19, 2020 I heard a report today that staff brought Covid to a psychiatric unit at an Oregon hospital, forcing a lockdown and making it difficult to resolve holds. (A hold is when a person is placed in a ward involuntarily for a period of 3-5 days, usually be police or doctors, to prevent them from harming themselves or others and evaluate whether they need longer-term inpatient care.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unclevlad Posted November 19, 2020 Report Share Posted November 19, 2020 The state is requiring businesses with 4 or more rapid response positive tests in a 2 week period, to close for 2 weeks. One such was a Wal-Mart where I'd seen outright flouting of the store's posted requirement to wear masks...and they'd been ordered to close (and took their sweet time to do so) before. They didn't have 4...they had 8. I haven't gone to that store since the first time it was closed, and this just reinforces that choice. Unfortunately...the Albertson's I use MUCH of the time...is also on that list. So they're closed for 2 weeks. Almost 3000 cases in New Mexico today. Which means 1 case per 700 residents...which is probably in the top 5 highest rates in the country. Ugh. Considering getting tested...no appointments available at the 2 CVS testing sites. Checking the state DOH; their system is down for maintenance at the moment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted November 19, 2020 Report Share Posted November 19, 2020 States with over 90 new cases per 100K, as of noon Wednesday: State/Territory Cases in Last 7 Days per 100K North Dakota 198.9 South Dakota 161.6 Iowa 146.4 Wyoming 128.2 Wisconsin 118 Minnesota 108.8 Nebraska 105.1 Montana 100.6 Illinois 96 Utah New Mexico is another eleven spots down at 63.5 95.8 (source) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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