Covid 19 - Updates from your zones

[Mariiii]

According to my own fact-checking, while it's true they reduced stocks to save money and they didn't manage the end result of that lack of stock in the best way possible, the claim about ffp2 masks was actually that they weren't useful to the general public. I didn't see anything about them saying they weren't useful to medical staff. Now, it my have been an omission on your part and/or my fact-checking may have lacked depth, but the statement as you had written it was kind of misleading and we're trying to keep misinformation out of the Covid-19 threads.

I checked again, and you're right, the declaration about the masks being unuseful was for the public (the fact that it was an official declaration by the government spokeperson misled me). I am really sorry about this !

[Purple Wyrm]

Staring tomorrow public transport in Perth is switching to a permanent weekend schedule. This is actually a good sign in a way - patronage has dropped to 15% of normal, which means 85% of public transport users are staying home.

On the downside, despite all the supermarkets crowing about how well they're managing the crisis, I still cannot find any toilet paper anywhere. I am down to a mere three rolls.

[Vulpes]

I checked again, and you're right, the declaration about the masks being unuseful was for the public (the fact that it was an official declaration by the government spokeperson misled me). I am really sorry about this !

It's easy to get misled. I spent part of one evening digging through https://www.snopes.com to see how much of the stuff I see (and try to ignore) on social media is wrong, it was an illuminating and entertaining read.

Fun coincidence - when I went to confirm the Snopes url just now, the featured story was about how cats can't get covid-19! 

[Róisín]

Now that would be blackly funny. We are being advised, if infected, to avoid our pets if we can. Just in case. We don’t want to add anthroponosis to zoonosis.

[thorny]

From this site:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/animals.html

At this time, there is no evidence that companion animals, including pets, can spread COVID-19 to people [ . . . ]

CDC has not received any reports of pets or other animals becoming sick with COVID-19 in the United States.

CDC is aware of a very small number of pets outside the United States reported to be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 after close contact with people with COVID-19. To date, there is no evidence that pets can spread the virus to other animals or people.

I don't think any of the non-human animals reported as being infected are significantly ill.

And I also don't see how I could, in practice, avoid contact with the cats. They're pretty insistent on it. And there's nobody here but me to provide it; or cat food; or medications.

[midwestmutt]

The Brookfield zoo in Chicago announced they have a tiger that tested positive and some lions showing symptoms after their handler came down with the virus.

[Róisín]

Oh very dear! That’s awful.

[midwestmutt]

My error, it was the Bronx zoo. I read about it in the Chicago Sun Times.

[thorny]

I think all those reports are the same case. And from what I've read, the tigers are expected to recover.

Hope the handler recovers also.

[Vulpes]

Yeah, I posted too hastily - the Snopes piece was actually about a case in Europe someplace (Berlin?) where a covid patient's cat got sick, and was diagnosed with coronavirus, although it wasn't clear if it was the coronavirus, and if it was, how much there was, i.e. was the cat actually sick because of it, or had it just picked it up in its environment and was sick with something else?

Several big cats at the Bronx Zoo were sick, they and their keeper are recovering fine! There's a paper on bioArXiv that supposedly documents infection in domestic cats; I haven't read it properly but I think it involved three cats and they were exposed to very high viral loads. It's not gone through peer review so I wouldn't put a lot of faith in its results yet. I have yet to find any reliable reports of household pets being infected by ill owners, so if it does happen it must be vanishingly rare. But don't rely on your cat to keep you safe from covid-19! 

[Yastreb]

On the downside, despite all the supermarkets crowing about how well they're managing the crisis, I still cannot find any toilet paper anywhere. I am down to a mere three rolls.

Weird - just a few days back, in Melbourne, there was toilet paper in one IGA, but the smallest package was a twelve-pack.

[Unseelie]

Active cases have been going down over the last few days in Austria, so that's nice.

Masks became mandatory in supermarkets and public transport, making shopping a somewhat creepy experience. At least we never ran out of toilet paper.

[Vulpes]

[...]
On the downside, despite all the supermarkets crowing about how well they're managing the crisis, I still cannot find any toilet paper anywhere. I am down to a mere three rolls.

My theory is that despite the mockery, and the assurances that there's plenty, people are continuing to hoard it. To my delight, I found septic safe TP on my last shopping trip - and a big sign on the shelf limiting it to two packs per customer. By contrast, the local dairy farmers are asking the stores to not limit purchases, and telling people to just buy milk as normal, because (a) the cows do not stop producing in a pandemic and (b) they've lost their usual market for excess milk in the next province.

During "Snowmageddon" in St John's (other side of Newfoundland from me, 700 km away) they were under a state of emergency for over a week; a friend's son posted a picture of his liquor cabinet on social media and offered to trade booze for toilet paper! So I guess Newfoundlanders were primed to worry about TP shortages.

[Grade E cat]

We've just been officially told that we're hunkering down for another four weeks over here.

[Mélusine]

We've just been officially told that we're hunkering down for another four weeks over here.

And that after they want to re-open daycares and schools, but not test everybody because hahaha, why to care about that, workers ?
They will have to explain to me how to work in a daycare with masks (Spoilers : it's not possible, either we scare the babies, either the olders will try to take them off) and how we can respect the strong hygienic rules : do we forbid the parents to come inside and take/give them kids as packages at the post office ? (I'm pretty angry. My headmistress suspects me to have had it, the covid, and if it's true, it happened at work - Work at which I spend my time washing my hands, coughing in my elbow and all of that just because it's the bases for us in our job.)