When speaking with the elders in my family about why 1950’s Communist China was so bad that they had to take the risk of separating the family across the Pacific Ocean to create a new life; there was an important insight.
They said that it wasn’t the government you had to worry about. It was your jealous neighbors.
If you tried to employ a person, tried to start a business or even just own a goat your neighbors would rat you out to the government and cast you as a villain for trying to be unequal to others.
I just got off the phone with a trusted friend. Police detachments are now fielding disproportionate numbers of calls from people in their communities ratting on their neighbors for leaving the house or ratting out businesses for being open. ‘shut them down’ the callers say. Fine them $1,000 for being out of the house. 45 calls every hour like this in a quiet rural detachment.
The virus is meaningless compared to the division that is being created in our communities.
Otherwise reasonable people have been reduced to rats. What a shame.
Just got extended another week off from work, but instead of working from home, they’re starting to use our vacation time. So i’ll have two weeks of “working from home” and then so far one week of vacay used up.
It is what it is. Better than making $300 a week after taxes on unemployment.
I’m big into apocalyptic novels and this is the main theme of every one, basically society crumbles within hours of shit hitting the fan. I’m glad I don’t live near anyone anymore.
The Spanish government purchased 340,000 tests from the Chinese company, a similar quantity to the tests ordered by the Czech Republic, where medical personnel also report an 80% failure rate.
The Chinese embassy in Spain said on its Twitter account that the Bioeasy test kits Spanish hospitals were using had not been approved by China’s National Medical Products Administration
Been a big fan of game The Division and my buddy sent me the original game trailer yesterday saying, “damn… it’s crazy how much this looks like what’s happening now.
Found out today that a Canadian friend of ours has it. She waited 10 days for the results of the test. The only reason she was given the test is because she has a condition that could make things worse. Her spouse was not allowed to take the test, even though they live in the same house and just came back from the same cruise… they’re currently self isolating at home.
My brother and his fiance are self isolating in Brooklyn, about a week ago they came down with all the tell-tale flu like symptoms and despite recovering VERY quickly as young healthy people, both of them still have no sense of smell. Also, they have been unable to get tested in NYC… just doing the right thing and staying home for now.
I feel bad for them though, upcoming wedding, a layoff from his job… going to get worse for a lot of Americans before it gets better.
In the meantime I work for AMD on the commercial side of their business, and despite supply chain issues that are resolving slowly, people NEED LAPTOPS more than ever. I am seeing a huge spike in demand. My wife on the other hand just had a pretty brutal team call this morning. They are looking to reduce essentials salaries (X% they don’t know yet) and non essential people will be furloughed soon. It’s scary times for all.
Found out one of my wife’s suitemates from college tested positive for covid and is in the hospital with pneumonia. Low blood oxygen and her heart rate and BP spike when when ever she gets up to go to the bathroom. On IV antibiotics and slowly getting better, hoping to get out of the hospital this week. In her early 40’s, perfect health, not overweight at all… none of the standard pre-existing conditions that make Covid worse. In fact in her post she said she’s the one in the family that never gets sick. She and her husband are both teachers and have been following all the stay at home guidelines from the start. Not sure where she got it but guessing it had to be one of the 2 trips she took grocery shopping. They live in OH, in a suburb about 30 mins from Cleveland.
Yeah. This weekend I was tempted to go to Lowes and pick up some interior doors so I had some projects to keep going on. Decided against it because it’s not “essential”. After seeing her story I’m glad I did.
My company is furloughing an undisclosed number of employees next Monday and effective the same date I’m put on a 25% reduced salary. We have a bit over 2K employees across the country and we’re in the medical industry.
