Happy Flu Year!!!

[Plumcrazy72]

March break plus 2 weeks for our schools, anyone want to babysit 2 boys, a 4 y/o and 2 y/o for a couple weeks. They never fight, always share, clean up and don't have attitudes..... only kidding   about the babysitting part.

The rest of my 4 y.o's hockey season got cancelled, hockey Canada shut everything down. Poor lil guy isn't going to be happy when i tell him tonight, he couldn't wait for Saturday mornings

Be safe everyone, for anyone stocking up on toilet paper, if you need that much you should have been seeing a doctor a long long time ago

[torredcuda]

Hasn`t really hit NH yet, only a few cases but a couple schools shut down for a few weeks and most activities cancelled. Our kids school is off Monday so teachers, staff etc. can make a plan, won`t be surprised if they go to online classes for a few weeks also. We just booked a trip to VA for April vacation, planned Carlilse and have a trip to Disney in August but I guess we`ll see if we can go anywhere. So far no talk of shutting down work but my job is in Massachusetts so we`ll see how that goes also. 

[bentpshrods]

     We have been pretty lucky here in Idaho. It was only yesterday that the governor announced the first confirmed case of the virus here. And with it comes all the other crap that is going along with it. TP shortages, public events being shut down ect. The annual Boise roadster show which to me is always the official start for my spring car show season was cancelled 1 day before it was to start. In fact I should be there right now.                   

[Topcat]

A Lady today at Safeway hoarding: $500 dollar grocery bill. 
Rubber gloves and mask on. 

Mask won't help anyone.
Damn virus are so small it goes right through them.

The roads out near me are like a ghost town.

[Brads70]

A Lady today at Safeway hoarding: $500 dollar grocery bill. 

  That's a normal grocery bill for us.....

[torredcuda]

     We have been pretty lucky here in Idaho. It was only yesterday that the governor announced the first confirmed case of the virus here. And with it comes all the other crap that is going along with it. TP shortages, public events being shut down ect. The annual Boise roadster show which to me is always the official start for my spring car show season was cancelled 1 day before it was to start. In fact I should be there right now.                 

I saw a map a couple days ago and Idaho was the only state with no cases.

[HP2]

Idaho has them now. Only place not reporting is West Virginia. Remember, this only for reported cases, it doesn't mean they are clear.

[Topcat]

So get this! The Chinese gov't is trying to blame the U.S. for the virus.  

BEIJING — China is pushing a new theory about the origins of the coronavirus: It is an American disease that might have been introduced by members of the United States Army who visited Wuhan in October.

While the real origin was most likely from eating critters not normally found on the menu. 

BEIJING — China is pushing a new theory about the origins of the coronavirus: It is an American disease that might have been introduced by members of the United States Army who visited Wuhan in October.

Read it all here...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/world/asia/coronavirus-china-conspiracy-theory.html

[JS29]

The best defense is a good offense!!!! 

[DAYLEY/CHALLENGER]

The only positive thing about this thing is that the gas prices are now below $2.00.  But I guess that hurts our oil workers so catch 22.

[jimynick]

Well, they're entering full panic mode these days and as of tomorrow, the US/Canada border will be closed! My God, what next? We've had 12 deaths now nationwide and they're closing bars, restaurants, nursing homes and preparing to spend $85,000,000,000 that we don't have on a compensation program that they wouldn't need in the first place if they weren't fear-mongering as much as they have been. In 2018, there were 8511 deaths due to influenza and you didn't hear a peep! My wife's BFF who used to rag me over the food/booze and ammo that I keep, CALLED me- you know she wasn't coming to the house- to inform me that her son said that if it got much worse, he was going to go to my house for the duration. LOL "Come forth and be identified!" Keep your stick on the ice, lads, especially if it goes to the next stage. 

[anlauto]

Keep your stick on the ice, lads,

Can't...ALL hockey from house league right up to the NHL has been canceled 

[Topcat]

AN EXPLANATION from a microbiologist at the CDC:

Feeling confused as to why Coronavirus is a bigger deal than seasonsl flu? Here it is in a nutshell. I hope this helps. Feel free to share this to others who don't understand...

It has to do with RNA sequencing.... i.e. genetics.

Seasonal flu is an "all human virus". The DNA/RNA chains that make up the virus are recognized by the human immune system. This means that your body has some immunity to it before it comes around each year... you get immunity two ways...through exposure to a virus, or by getting a flu shot.

Novel viruses, come from animals.... the WHO tracks novel viruses in animals, (sometimes for years watching for mutations). Usually these viruses only transfer from animal to animal (pigs in the case of H1N1) (birds in the case of the Spanish flu). But once, one of these animal viruses mutates, and starts to transfer from animals to humans... then it's a problem, Why? Because we have no natural or acquired immunity.. the RNA sequencing of the genes inside the virus isn't human, and the human immune system doesn't recognize it so, we can't fight it off.

Now.... sometimes, the mutation only allows transfer from animal to human, for years it's only transmission is from an infected animal to a human before it finally mutates so that it can now transfer human to human... once that happens..we have a new contagion phase. And depending on the fashion of this new mutation, thats what decides how contagious, or how deadly it's gonna be..

H1N1 was deadly....but it did not mutate in a way that was as deadly as the Spanish flu. It's RNA was slower to mutate and it attacked its host differently, too.

Fast forward.

Now, here comes this Coronavirus... it existed in animals only, for nobody knows how long...but one day, at an animal market, in Wuhan China, in December 2019, it mutated and made the jump from animal to people. At first, only animals could give it to a person... But here is the scary part.... in just TWO WEEKS it mutated again and gained the ability to jump from human to human. Scientists call this quick ability, "slippery"

This Coronavirus, not being in any form a "human" virus (whereas we would all have some natural or acquired immunity). Took off like a rocket. And this was because, humans have no known immunity...doctors have no known medicines for it.

And it just so happens that this particular mutated animal virus, changed itself in such a way the way that it causes great damage to human lungs..

That's why Coronavirus is different from seasonal flu, or H1N1 or any other type of influenza.... this one is slippery AF. And it's a lung eater...And, it's already mutated AGAIN, so that we now have two strains to deal with, strain s, and strain L....which makes it twice as hard to develop a vaccine.

We really have no tools in our shed, with this. History has shown that fast and immediate closings of public places has helped in the past pandemics. Philadelphia and Baltimore were reluctant to close events in 1918 and they were the hardest hit in the US during the Spanish Flu.

Factoid: Henry VIII stayed in his room and allowed no one near him, till the Black Plague passed...(honestly...I understand him so much better now). Just like us, he had no tools in his shed, except social isolation...

And let me end by saying....right now it's hitting older folks harder... but this genome is so slippery...if it mutates again (and it will). Who is to say, what it will do next?

Stay home folks or simply away from others who may be carrying it if you can be outdoors somewhere... and share this to those that just are not catching on.

[Brads70]

Just got word via facebook that my niece and her 5 year old daughter in Little River SC have fevers and a dry cough.... not good. Hospitals locally are all now reporting  multiple patients with it. The next 2-3 weeks I don't expect to be much "fun" as it ramps up. It's not a surprise though...

Stay inside and away from people folks .....   

[Topcat]

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