Coronavirus, Covid 19 Discussion and How It Has Affected Your Daily Life Chat Thread

[Pasha838]

Ever since we had frozen broccoli once yrs ago tasted like dirt and I checked the package and saw imported from China we have been checking labels. Pretty shocking how much frozen and canned fruits and vegetables come from China.
Doesn't seem like shipping them here would be profitable unless they really cut corners.

This winter, I delved into my freezers and found frozen either sorrel or spinach, frozen in 2016. Now, during quarantine, so many interesting and strange things can be found in my refrigerators.

 

[Kabootar]

Today I heard that many of the elderly who are hit hardest by Covid are folks who grew up in the Depression and fought WWII and the Korean War. Don't know if those references apply there in India, Kabootar, but some of those folks have already lead traumatic lives and now some of them are dying alone.

If the Depression and WWII had lesser effects in the subcontinent, then I would imagine your elderly are the ones who experienced the trauma of ousting the British and then separating from Pakistan. Have I got that more or less right?

My great-grandmother have vivid memories of the Bihar earthquake of 1934. It was a magnitude 8 earthquake. She tells how people lost their homes in the middle of winter. The British records don't give any real number of deaths. It just estimates 10-12 thousand people lost their lives. Now we live near Himalayas it is an earthquake prone region, but my great-grandmother says that "many people died" because of cold. She doesn't recall about the Great Depression.

Now she also remembers the second world war which she calls "German war" because my great-grandfather fought in that war.

She remembers the Great Famine of Bengal, 1943. India faced many famines during the British rule, so the major ones were called "Great". According to the British "estimates" 2.1 – 3 million people died in the province of Bengal alone. My great-grandmother however only remember that "many people" died.

Bihar was not partitioned during the partition of India, it was awarded to India, but Punjab and Bengal were partitioned between the two countries and there were rumours that Hindus are being killed in those provinces, so anti Muslim riots broke out in Bihar in retaliation. She remembers that "many people" died and "many people fled".

My grandfather fought in Indo-China war 1962, Indo-Pak wars of 1965 and 1971, so my great-grandmother and my grandmother were naturally very troubled because "many people" died.

My great grandmother and both my grandmothers lived through the famine of Bihar (1966) in which food for people and fodder for animals all became scarce, but this time "many people" did not die.

Not to mention the emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi in 1975 and her forced sterilization program, anti Sikh pogroms of 1984 and left wing insurgencies 1967- present in which "many people" have died.

All my family has lived through many floods that sweep North Bihar periodically during monsoons caused by flooding of many Himalayan rivers. In most years the flood is not terribly destructive, but sometimes they are extremely destructive. I am sure we all remember the Nepal earthquake of 2015. Neighbouring Nepal was particularly hard hit.


So yeah they have seen some troubled waters in their lives.

 

[IamRainey]

Holy Moley, Kabootar! I guess that adds a whole different perspective to Covid!

I can understand that it would be hard to have a sense of actual numbers beyond "many people" without the record keeping and technology we're all so familiar with.

So are your elderly relatives more philosophical about this?

PS: It's so wonderful to get perspectives from the Netherlands and Britain and India and Russia and Spain to temper our own US-centric views.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

yeppers you win

Dude. My late husband was at Woodstock. But I hadn't met him then. ‍♀

 

[Pasha838]

Two weeks ago.. When the government told us at 5.30 pm that all the bars and restaurants and such had to close at 6 pm , a journalist in Amsterdam was interviewing owners about this new situation. But then the journalist saw a ‘coffee’ shop (where you can smoke a joint and buy marijuana and ‘weed’ ) where people where queuing up before the entrance. A lot of people wanted to buy a good stack to overcome this quarantine days to come. At 6 pm the que got longer and longer,
Next day the government gave permission for all restaurants, take aways and ‘coffee’ shops to sell over the counter if people keep a distance. They where afraid for more illegal trading.
This was the funniest Corona news item I've seen so far.

This evening the government extended the period of staying and working at home as much as is healthy (we still can take a walk and do shoppings if we hold on to a distance) till at least the 28thof april. Schools are all closed till after spring hollidays wich is the 6th of may,

In Moscow, those who came from abroad were quarantined in a hospital, but they said that there was not delicious food and ordered pizza and some products from the supermarket through couriers. Now, as I understand it, couriers are also will be quarantined?? I have an interest, will this couriers order the pizza too or not.
Now couriers walk like a ninja - in masks and costumes with hoods. There were jokes on the Internet that they needed to give out suits of radiation-chemical protection and analogies with all kinds of computer games with a post-apocalyptic nuclear plot.

 

[ShrekDawg]

Okay thank you for that explanation. As I said before I am no expert in reading their wording so I am not quick to believe everything any ol’ doctor says on tv. But that doesn’t mean I believe this virus is fake or whatever by any means.

No problem! And yeah, I totally get it!! I don’t believe everything I read either but asymptomatic just means they don’t show symptoms so he was basically saying that if there’s all these people walking around that have it that we don’t know about and they recover just fine, it’s likely not as deadly as they were thinking. But that doesn’t mean it’s not still serious or that he’s dismissing it or whatever. Just that it might not be as serious as they were originally thinking. Or it still might be. They still don’t know. But it does make sense to me that a lot more people have it than the numbers represent especially since they’re not testing every single person. Not even close.

 

[ShrekDawg]

Dude. My late husband was at Woodstock. But I hadn't met him then.

My dad and I think his brother went to that!

 

[casportpony]

Dude. My late husband was at Woodstock. But I hadn't met him then.

Woodstock would have been fun.

 

[SnapdragonQ]

What type of business?

I'm a Longarm Quilter and I make Tshirt quilts.
I've been quilting for a while, mainly for myself, but recently started advertising and picking up new clients. A lot of face to face interaction needed for that plus with all the quilt shows cancelled for... who knows how long...no show work now.
(For those who don't know, Longarmers use a gigantic specialized sewing machine to put all the fancy stitching you see on quilts.)

With money being tight now for everyone I doubt much will come in for a long time to come.
Due to my kiddo's health issues, that I haven't discussed here yet, I need to work from home.
Were I still on my old farm I could probably ride things out and fare better because of on the farm sales and the Farmer's Markets, but it also took a toll on me after 10 years.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

No problem! And yeah, I totally get it!! I don’t believe everything I read either but asymptomatic just means they don’t show symptoms so he was basically saying that if there’s all these people walking around that have it that we don’t know about and they recover just fine, it’s likely not as deadly as they were thinking. But that doesn’t mean it’s not still serious or that he’s dismissing it or whatever. Just that it might not be as serious as they were originally thinking. Or it still might be. They still don’t know. But it does make sense to me that a lot more people have it than the numbers represent especially since they’re not testing every single person. Not even close.

What I got out of it is that those asymptomatic carriers would skew the numbers. Not that it's not still deadly (because it is) but that we can't possibly get an accurate count because it is so insidious and so highly and invisibly contagious. Which is why everybody should pretty much stay away from everyone else until the numbers of new cases consistently goes down everywhere. We should greet one another lke the Japanese do, with polite bows and friendly nods.