mike carey

It's certainly a fixation here, it was the first thing to disappear off shelves and when it was gone people panic bought other things. Not cottage cheese, ffs! I've seen posts on the socials about toilet paper in Canada and the UK to start with.

I totally screwed up my attempt at humour with this post. Edited to say what I meant to say.

I was simply referring to the supermarket shelf stripping in the TP aisle.

My view, and it is likely to be seen as a left wing perspective is that if corporations of 'national significance' want to receive government assistance in times like this, it should be on the condition that the money is invested as equity funding and for it to use the leverage it has to reduce or even eliminate obscene levels of executive salaries and bonuses (even claw back those paid recently when the corporation failed to prepare for what caused it to need a bail-out), or even to use it to further government employment objectives.

As we descend towards ever tighter restrictions, and greater uncertainty, one small 'light at the end of the tunnel' has emerged. Qantas has reduced its international capacity by 90% and domestic by 60%, but haven't said yet what would be left. However, I just received an e-mail from them to say that elite status will be extended by 12 months, a welcome gesture as I thought mine was about to drop regardless of this crisis. I realise, of course, that his is small beer compared to the bigger issues that COVID-19 presents to us.

I just saw that on TV here. Great look.

In the first couple of days of Australia's Great Toilet Paper Crisis I heard a psychologist explain that in a crisis, people want to feel in control and they latch onto anything where they can be 'in control'. What that 'thing' is can be completely random, and in this case, was it ever!

Wut? Hoarding toilet paper? That's a new one. Ed: Fuck, I blew that, I meant to say 'hoarding toilets'.

Yesterday one, and today all the grocery chains here have implemented the same policy, albeit with slightly different definitions of who it included (and different levels of checking those arriving). The first morning was mayhem in some shops. One guest on a nightly panel show, who is wheel-chair bound and needed a support worker with her said she was pushed and jostled my able-bodied seniors. Effing boomers!

That's brilliant, but with some sharp edges about the US. I'm deeply disappointed that the temperatures used are not the same (38C isn't the same as 101.5F), but what do I know, they might have really done their research and those are the respective national definitions of a fever. I'm not about to research that point!

An annual policy is a good idea, although some credit cards have included insurance if you use them to pay for your trip. In this case they might all be of no use because they generally exclude pandemics and terrorism among other things. If you have insurance of any sort it's worth asking the question of your provider, of course. I agree that it's a bad business look for a hotel to decline to refund deposits in this sort of situation but an independent operator may be simply unable to afford to do so (unlike a corporate chain). In any case I'm waiting a bit to see if travel and other restrictions in CA become so draconian that operators are forced to offer refunds, or at least to transfer deposits to another stay.

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Well, I've seen those people signing so hearing impaired people can follow what's being announced (well, except when 45 is speaking, but I digress), and I'm here to tell you that you can't do that while you're washing your hands.

Yep, and we can do that now. Cheap (or old) washcloths and that bleach bucket instead of toilet paper.

Le Canada a fermé ses frontières, sauf pour les citoyens canadiens et certains autres, dont les Américains. Canada has closed its frontiers except for Canadian citizens, and some others including Americans. [MEDIA=twitter]1239610526486970368[/MEDIA]

I'd started a thread on an Australian TV documentary show in the TV thread, but rather than revive it this seems like a better place to post about it. Courtney Act is an Australian drag queen who I'd never heard of, but she featured in the local TV coverage of Mardi Gras earlier this month. I was surprised that tonight's episode of Australian Story was about her, well her and Shane Jenek, the man behind the mask. His parents are in the show and are enthusiastic fans of his work. Well worth a watch.

The federal governments in both our countries appear to be reluctant to act, despite the warning of the path of disease progression that happened in other countries after they hit 100 cases. (Apparently that is a statistically relevant point, and the size of the overall population is not relevant.) Messages here have been mixed for no apparent reason, but the so-called National Cabinet and the committee of chief health officers seem to erring on the side of waiting rather than be seen to have acted precipitately. At the moment the states and the federal government are acting on consensus and not taking different approaches. There are prominent voices in the media that are urging faster action. Two that come to mind are an expert who was instrumental in the response to HIV/AIDS in the 1980s, and a physician who is an ABC medical presenter, Norman Swan. He's the guy in the four minute video I posted earlier. The government seems to have only one eye on the developing health crisis while the other one is on the economy. In the US there seems to be much more action by state and local governments that are going ahead of the otherwise prevailing wisdom of what to do. I don't know whether this will result in a complete shut-down, but it looks to me as if the apparent ad hoc-ery of this differing approaches in different jurisdictions may obviate the need for nation-wide restrictions in the US. Here, I suspect there will be a more unified, but by definition less agile response.

After I posted an ABC video on COVID-19 earlier, in which Dr Norman Swan clarified the difference between quarantine and isolation (or self-isolation) I looked it up. Fun fact: The word quarantine derives from the original period of restraint that was applied to ships and people, which was 40 days. Quarante is 40.

That's pretty much a prediction of a flu epidemic interesting that it's specific about the year. I'd say she was predicting something that epidemiologists have been saying was certain, eventually and got lucky with the prediction of the year.

Interesting panel discussion about the pandemic and what to do, all the usual issues of which medical advice to take, move quickly or be slower and more methodical. One panelist, a medical professor, although not an infectious disease specialist, made an interesting point on social distancing. He said that those that can isolate themselves to some extent, be that because they have the resources to do so, or their job can be done at home should do so, not for their personal health but because reducing the number of people out in the community makes it more unlikely that those who have to be there will contract the virus. I think he makes a good point. He was practising what he was preaching, he had returned from the US last week, before the cutoff for mandatory isolation, but had nevertheless isolated himself and was appearing on the program by Skype. While I'm here, today's Coronacast https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/coronacast/think-coronavirus-only-kills-the-old-think-again/12058160 And, edited to add the short info video from the ABC's 7.30 program. [MEDIA=twitter]1239487451166461952[/MEDIA]

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From this administration? I'm shocked. (The crowding was a result of the task of processing incoming passengers overwhelming the available federal customs and immigration staff, not state authorities.)

All clearly more than 1.5m!