Yes; wonder when such "To whom it may concern" letters will start having "babies"? Reminds me of a visit to the PHilly Suburban/now SEPTA yard in September 1981 taking a picture through the chain link fence. Man came out from the building and "invited" me in; a few minutes later I came out with a letter authorizing me to go all over the entire property for an entire year! Very useful. He had asked "You know about third rails?" I said "Yep". "OK, Be careful--and stay out of the Elevated Yard!". I went all over the P&W and Red Arrow yards at 69th Street for the next hour and a half.
My son has a letter of this type. He works for PTI, transporting crews on the KCS Heavener Sub. Oklahoma has a curfew, necessitating the letter. So far, Arkansas and Missouri do not have any official restriction.
Facilities and Maintenance where i worked went on a savings kick and bought 2 inch wide toilet paper. People found how to crisscross it to make it wider and it took so much more paper that it was cheaper to buy the 4 inch stuff so they didn't have to buy so much of it.
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
Definitely narrower on the holder. I thought I was the only one who had noticed.
Paul of Covington Electroliner 1935 Speaking of TP, has anyone noticed how the makers have nattowed the rolls. When my home was built 22 years ago, the bathroom TP holder was designed for rolls being 4.5 inches wide. Then I was seeing 4.25 in. Now most are 3.9 or 4.0 in wide. And the toilet paper in the big roll in the restroom at Wal-Mart is 3 inches wide. Enough. Seems like they are soon going to string. Yeah, I thought so. I've never measured them, but they do look narrower on the holder.
Electroliner 1935 Speaking of TP, has anyone noticed how the makers have nattowed the rolls. When my home was built 22 years ago, the bathroom TP holder was designed for rolls being 4.5 inches wide. Then I was seeing 4.25 in. Now most are 3.9 or 4.0 in wide. And the toilet paper in the big roll in the restroom at Wal-Mart is 3 inches wide. Enough. Seems like they are soon going to string.
Speaking of TP, has anyone noticed how the makers have nattowed the rolls. When my home was built 22 years ago, the bathroom TP holder was designed for rolls being 4.5 inches wide. Then I was seeing 4.25 in. Now most are 3.9 or 4.0 in wide. And the toilet paper in the big roll in the restroom at Wal-Mart is 3 inches wide. Enough. Seems like they are soon going to string.
Yeah, I thought so. I've never measured them, but they do look narrower on the holder.
CN is now requiring employees in parts of eastern Canada to carry a letter similar to the one Jeff mentioned. We haven't gotten them out west, at least not yet.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Apparently the malaria med is showing promise and the FDA has let it out for that purpose.
The recovery rate is ~98%, maybe better. Kind of similar to that of the seasonal flu, in fact.
I suspect that if we could do 100% testing, we would be aghast at the results. Four young men at an area college were tested as the result of a visit to a high risk area. Despite being asymptomatic, they tested positive. How many more are there like that?
I also think that some sort of antibody test would be great to have. We have no idea how many people have actually already had SARS-CoV-2 without realizing it.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
China has been censoring news, so I wouldn't believe any "official" Chinese reports or numbers.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/china-has-been-censoring-coronavirus-information-for-months?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=whatsnewnow&utm_medium=image
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51732042
https://www.pcmag.com/news/apple-pulls-keyboard-app-used-to-bypass-coronavirus-censorship-in-china?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=whatsnewnow&utm_medium=image
These addresses should work. I copied them and tried them in a new tab before posting this.
blue streak 1We are of the opinion that it is not a question of if but when we will catch the virus.
At this point that is a truism, as any other way of inducing 'humoral immunity' is months and months off, unless you can get into a critical trial (or pretend you have a sick cat and contact Mutian in China). The principal question is avoiding the 'complications' such as ARDS if you can. One thing to keep in mind, which I think you already know, is don't treat this like the flu! And do not let any 'health professionals' buffalo you into things like Tamiflu or prednisone before you have a confirmed diagnosis of a specific influenza and a confirmed negative diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2.
Wife uses a CPAP which puts her in a high mortality position.
Probably not if she uses it for sleep apnea. Arrange NOW to get a high-volume-capable oxygen concentrator, or suppplemental-oxygen setup with extra tanks, while you can. MIT is conducting a project to coordinate construction of large numbers of additional ventilators, and a part of this is to make the equipment and develop the procedures to convert CPAP machines into low-pressure ventilators. I'd recommend getting the appropriate support electronics etc. as soon as you can, and then follow carefully for functional software updates.
The longer we can go without infection the better our chances that there will be some way to mitigate our illness ?
Half the confirmed cases in Georgia are in just 4 counties. They are Atlanta's and three north of Atlanta. I cannot say for sure but it appears that there is not enough testing going on to really know what the real number is. Suspect that my county just does not have enough test kits ?
We are of the opinion that it is not a question of if but when we will catch the virus. Wife uses a CPAP which puts her in a high mortality position. The longer we can go without infection the better our chances that there will be some way to mitigate our illness ?
BaltACD Use to get similar letters from CSX during Hurricane Season. The worst thing is that when the wind gets above 40 MPH they close the main bridges around Jacksonville - and there a lot of high bridges over navigable waters that get closed.
Use to get similar letters from CSX during Hurricane Season.
The worst thing is that when the wind gets above 40 MPH they close the main bridges around Jacksonville - and there a lot of high bridges over navigable waters that get closed.
Got my letter and I don't even work for a railroad. However all those ventilators will be electric so I got to get this baby going. But enough of that. I want to hear more about "high" railroad bridges in the Jacksonville area, or for that matter, anywhere in Florida. How high is "high"? 2 Feet? 10 feet?
BaltACDand there aren't sufficient tests available or processing power available to do all the testing necessary to have a real handle on what is actually happening.
I thought the effective problem of 'enough tests', and the logistic problem associated with getting the testing equipment and supplies to affected areas, had been solved by the beginning of last week. (It would be very fast once the tests got into rapid production, and the various delays that had people from the CDC and NIH falling on swords a few days ago got resolved.)
Much of the problem with current testing appears to be that it involves invasive and said-to-be-painful use of nasal swabbing up into the sinuses to get a proper sample. My guess (so far uninformed) is that practical antibody testing that will work with a variety of 'precious bodily fluids', and perhaps contact tests analogous to those that work with potentially-infected surfaces, will be similarly rolled into volume production reasonably soon.
The data infrastructure involved in coordinating, cleaning up, data-warehousing and subsequently analyzing results of even large numbers of tests is almost trivial in modern terms. The great complicating factor is probably HIPAA. As with a great many other things of this nature, multiple dereferencing of the data make much of the actual 'privacy' concern unimportant ... providing the data have been structured in a way that precludes secondary-factor cross-analysis, which is something that has been brought to a fine and somewhat paranoia-inducing degree by some companies such as insurers.
I thought it was a very bad sign when CDC stopped tracking 'global' statistics for the United States about March 9th. Their 'excuse' appeared to be a point related to this: that local agencies were taking over the testing, and "they" would be the logical points of contact for statistics going forward. I do not recall hearing that any other national agency was taking up the task of 'keeping the American people informed of the progress of the pandemic'. It would be unfortunate if only amateur private organizations or 'the media' take over the job by default...
tree68 Overmod If the statistics are tracking correctly, yesterday we had an increase in diagnosed cases of something over 100,000, but the corresponding death rate (from all causes) is 'only' about 140; today the new incidence is over 5000, but only 35 deaths. Someone mentioned on our morning radio net that the death rate may be dropping below that of the seasonal flu. If that's the case, maybe we can return to the social isolation levels of the flu outbreak, which is to say - none. This is dangerous information for the public to have, if you're trying to continue to encourage the "quarantine." Couple that with the fact that in NYS (and likely other similar environments) there were 11,000 confirmed cases as of yesterday, yet less than 400 of that number were in the area outside NYC, LI, and the lower Hudson valley. As of right now, the county I live in, and the three adjoining counties, have a total of five confirmed cases. This number has not risen exponentially. It's one here, another there. POTUS has suggested lifting certain restrictions, which some in the health care industry regard as heresy. I would opine that if some restrictions aren't lifted, they're going to be ignored anyhow - particularly in areas with few or no infections.
Overmod If the statistics are tracking correctly, yesterday we had an increase in diagnosed cases of something over 100,000, but the corresponding death rate (from all causes) is 'only' about 140; today the new incidence is over 5000, but only 35 deaths.
Someone mentioned on our morning radio net that the death rate may be dropping below that of the seasonal flu. If that's the case, maybe we can return to the social isolation levels of the flu outbreak, which is to say - none.
This is dangerous information for the public to have, if you're trying to continue to encourage the "quarantine." Couple that with the fact that in NYS (and likely other similar environments) there were 11,000 confirmed cases as of yesterday, yet less than 400 of that number were in the area outside NYC, LI, and the lower Hudson valley.
As of right now, the county I live in, and the three adjoining counties, have a total of five confirmed cases. This number has not risen exponentially. It's one here, another there.
POTUS has suggested lifting certain restrictions, which some in the health care industry regard as heresy. I would opine that if some restrictions aren't lifted, they're going to be ignored anyhow - particularly in areas with few or no infections.
The biggest fallacy to all these reportings in the US - you can't report confirmed cases unless they have been tested and there aren't sufficient tests available or processing power available to do all the testing necessary to have a real handle on what is actually happening.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
OvermodIf the statistics are tracking correctly, yesterday we had an increase in diagnosed cases of something over 100,000, but the corresponding death rate (from all causes) is 'only' about 140; today the new incidence is over 5000, but only 35 deaths.
I copy the link for reference:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
Something missing from the metadata is what they mean by 'recovered'. It is somewhat important, going forward, to discriminate between 'negative for any symptoms' and 'negative for virus presence' -- something I'm still waiting for Cuomo et al. to explain more specifically. I would be very, very glad to find that I'm wrong in thinking that many asymptomatic 'victims' will continue to be infectious...
If the statistics are tracking correctly, yesterday we had an increase in diagnosed cases of something over 100,000, but the corresponding death rate (from all causes) is 'only' about 140; today the new incidence is over 5000, but only 35 deaths. This certainly doesn't appear to show that the death rate mirrors the rate of increase in infection, although this may be an artifact of 'increased testing rate' finding many more "infected" people, or a lag in induction of ARDS or other lethality until days or weeks post-diagnosed virus presence.
What is causing the spikes of lethality in places like Italy and Spain is of considerably more concern. This may be little more than the phenomenon of early spike we saw in other reports on 'pandemic' spread of SARS-CoV-2 clones. But there's certainly no guarantee that in any particular outbreak the numbers might still involve a substantial population of those susceptible to early or prompt death.
I continue to see necessity for an ongoing 'social separation' of many who have been infected from the 'population cohorts at risk' -- not all of whom of course are elderly or immunocompromised, particularly if this ARDS turns out to be even peripherally related to that induced in the deadlier clones of the 1918 H1N1 influenza.
(And one way is to use two seashells on any dingleberries, and the third one as a scraper; I can't provide the accompanying diagrams here. You don't flush them, you recycle them for cleaning and sterilization...)
We got letters too from the shortline association. At least my managers are not "working from home"
If someone could tell me how the three seashells work, my toilet paper issues would end...
SFbrkmn BNSF notices were not mailed, but through the portal or ipad. Took 22 yrs to become an "essential" employee. Wow
BNSF notices were not mailed, but through the portal or ipad. Took 22 yrs to become an "essential" employee. Wow
Don't worry, this too shall pass. After all, it's contract negotiating time again.
Jeff
PS. Ours were also through our employee's site.
Appreciate your reply. Thanks!
daveklepperJones, do you really trust the Chinese and Iranian statistics?
Dave, I never believe any figures provided by the CCP and other regimes, including Iran and North Korea. Whistleblowers said that they have been burning "corpses" (not all of them were pronounced dead) 7/24 in the Wuhan city since the end of January. I am not sure about other provinces in Mainland China, but I do believe that the situation is getting a little bit better since the first week of March... just a little bit, I guess because even Chairman Xi doesn't know the actual figure. Not too late for President Trump to feel "very disappointed." One thing that I am sure of is that the phone call between President Trump and Chairman Xi is pointless in this situation, the commie lies about everything, and they are very good at it. From their educational backgrounds to age, from GDP to the population of their own country, only the liar is real in China under CCP ruling.
As you know, the CCP is desperate for work resumption at this very moment, testing for coronavirus is unofficially suspended in Mainland China, and many patients were rejected by the hospital and left for dead in their home with their family for the sake of resumption of work. The mortality rate of Covid-19 in China is probably still not high enough to stop the CCP from taking even more foolish and selfish actions, like trying to cover the mess up *again in the next round, like what they did in Dec 2019.
If you want to catch a glimpse of how many Chinese victims were dead, this news might give you some idea:
China’s Mobile Carriers Lose 21 Million Users as Virus Bites
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-23/china-s-mobile-carriers-lose-15-million-users-as-virus-bites
"China Mobile subscriptions fell by more than 8 million over January and February, data on the company’s website show"
In Mainland China, a subscriber needs to provide their name and ID for a subscription due to their mass surveillance system. Many did move their subscription to other companies, but a sudden drop of 21 million users is very uncommon, even in Mainland China's standard. Note that this is the first net decline of China's Mobile since starting to report monthly data in 2000.
Jones 3D Modeling Club https://www.youtube.com/Jones3DModelingClub
Jones, do you really trust the Chinese and Iranian statistics?
Steve Stattler wrote me:
Dear all,
All Iran experts and Iran -watchers know how hard it is to get reliable data on that country. The regime obscures everything from basic macroeconomic figures to government expenditures and allocations of how much oil and gas Iran sells.
Figuring out the full extent of this viral epidemic in Iran is as difficult as determining accurate figures on anything else there. Iran is still a 'black-hole.
Some figures cannot be doctored, however. These include the lists of flight arrivals into the two main Iranian airports: Khomeini International, {IKA} which is the major Iranian access point to the outside world, and the older Mehrabad Airport, {THR} which is Iran’s busiest domestic hub.
Flight activity at both airports shows clearly the extent of economic meltdown in Iran caused by the virus and economic sanctions. This new medical crisis comes in the wake of punishing sanctions imposed by the Trump administration in 2018.
Before the sanctions were imposed, a daily average of 100 flights, mostly from abroad, landed at Khomeini Airport and 130 flights at Mehrabad, the nexus for domestic flights from Iran’s far-flung cities.
After the second round of sanctions was imposed in the fall of 2018, flight activity fell to approximately 60 flights to Khomeini and 100 to Mehrabad, - a steep cline.
That decline became a plunging crash as news of Iran’s epidemic unfolded, especially in international flights. A look at arrivals into Khomeini Airport on March 3, 2020 shows 32 flights with 11 cancellations, with just a net 21 landings.
A day later, out of 22 flights scheduled to land, only five actually did so. Ten of the flights were listed as “unknown” - that the Mossad has informed the EU, the USA & the UK are illegal flights dealing with arms transport. Six were listed as “scheduled” but never arrived.
Significantly, the five planes that landed were all Iranian carriers.
This re-newed plunge into international isolation can be attributed to the decision of EU and some Asian & Gulf governments that 'informed' their air carriers to cease flights to Iran out of the sense that the Iranians had lost control over the epidemic The devastating economic effects -from 2018, and the uncontrolled viral epidemic have stopped any Iranians from flying out for business or even vacations. Of the eight scheduled flights to Istanbul, Iran’s major gateway to the outside world, none landed. There is little demand. Iranians stay home whether they like it or not. The same was true of the Iranian carriers to Doha and Dubai, two major international connections for Iran. While economics and the epidemic explain why many of these planes did not land, politics in fact explains - the five landings that did occur. Two were from Chinese destinations (Shanghai and Shenzhen) and one was from Beirut, where Hezbollah, Iran’s major proxy, is based. Iranians have accused their government of continuing flights unabated with China for political and economic reasons despite the linkage between the Chinese source of the coronavirus and its spread to Iran. China is Iran’s only major friendly power, as its relationships with Turkey and Russia are problematic. Beijing is heavily invested in Iranian energy production. Iranian domestic travel has also come to an almost halt. Of the 89 flight landings at Mehrabad from domestic destinations scheduled for March 3, 2020, only 27 landed. We recall that in better days, 130 landings took place daily. All told, there were 32 landings at both airports combined, which together service three provinces with a total population of at least 17 million. At Egypt's Cairo Airport, in a country with half the standard of living of Iranians, there were 211 flights to their airport on the same day, even in the face of the [spreading] coronavirus crisis. (Egyptian hospitals are full!).
Jones,. do you believe the charts or do you think Steve has a point?
Dave Klepper
PS: My doubts apply only to China and Iran.
Use this chart instead:
Confirmed Cases and Deaths by Country, Territory, or Conveyance
I agree in that cases per capita makes more sense that raw numbers.
Interesting that tests are readibly available on NYS, where they are discouraged for people in California unless they are showing symptoms, suspect that accounts for a fair part of the >10:1 ratio in confirmed cases where the number of deaths suggest a 6:1 ratio. OTOH, one problem with indiscriminate testing is false positives as a testing of the general population as of March 22, 2020 would likely show a lot more false positives than real cases.
As of late yesterday afternoon, San Diego County was up to 150 cases out of a population of > 3 million. Worrisome statistic is that 25 are hospitalized, though that may be an artifact of the confirmed cases being substantially smalled than actual cases - with perhpas 50% not showing symptoms to make thm eligible for testing.
As was pointed out before, such a graph based on raw numbers is deceiving. When comparing the US situation with other nations, it would be far more accurate to either use the number per some population slice, or to break up the US into comparatively sized regions.
My county, f'rinstance, currently has logged exactly one confirmed case for the 60,000 people. One other case involved a visitor who works part time in this area but is from elsewhere.
Testing is available for those who meet the possible exposure profile.
Simply removing NYC from the rest of the state drops NY greatly in the number of confirmed cases.
It is important to remember that the folks who are symptomatic now were likely exposed before all the hoopla began.
There is also a thought out there that the cold/flu-like symptoms may have been preceeded by gastro-intestinal symptoms in some folks, which would move the symptomatic phase back several days from that first cough.
Jones1945
But you see these are the wrong statistics, presented in a wrong way.
What you want are the critical-case instances (plotted from just the same 100-overall-case incidence used here), rather than just the overall diagnosed-case rate. In all the previous outbreaks there was an observed decrease in the number of deaths relative to the infection rate, which is not reflected here; that scary yellow extrapolation line (helpfully paired with one for Italy) is only peripherally related to the real major health-related issues for COVID-19.
There is also no correction for something hidden in the methodology: the vast increase in the number of 'diagnosed cases' since the USA got the lead out and actually made conclusive testing available on a widespread and presumably 'cost-effective-enough' basis. Until this effect can be statistically compensated, it produces much the same potential for confusion as in the early days of the 'autism epidemic' where many attributed the rise in incidence to little more than an artifact of better 'syndrome' recognition or different CPT coding.
It may be that, as in Italy, there is an ominous increase in actual ARDS or ;boomer remover'-style morbidity. But you won't see that in the graphic, and there's little way to extract the actually essential information from it.
FYI:
Flintlock76 I've had the regular flu a number of times in my 66 years, so there's no immunity for that one.
The regular seasonal flu morphs from year to year, which is why you keep getting it. This past season there were actually two strains making the rounds. That's also why there's a new flu shot every year, although they don't always hit the nail on the head when they come up with the vaccination each year.
The first SARS (2003) literally disappeared by a year after it made itself known. It was regarded as just as dangerous as the current version (SARS-CoV-2), although we didn't over-react then.
mvlandsw Has it been determined that having the virus confers immunity? I haven't seen anything stated one way or the other.
Has it been determined that having the virus confers immunity? I haven't seen anything stated one way or the other.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/20/819038431/do-you-get-immunity-after-recovering-from-a-case-of-coronavirus
"We don't know very much," says Matt Frieman, a coronavirus researcher at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. "I think there's a very likely scenario where the virus comes through this year, and everyone gets some level of immunity to it, and if it comes back again, we will be protected from it — either completely or if you do get reinfected later, a year from now, then you have much less disease."
"That is the hope," he adds. "But there is no way to know that."
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
I wouldn't count on it. I've had the regular flu a number of times in my 66 years, so there's no immunity for that one. I'm not a scientist or doctor by any means but I wouldn't assume COVID-19's any different.
Measles, German measles, mumps, chicken pox, I had them all as a kid, but never had them again.
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