COVID-19 | Effects on Skoolies - No Politics please.

[gs1949]

I think I may have found a mercury thermometer. The seller says it is in the answer to a question, and the one in photo sure looks like it, plus it's not that expensive.

It is in Celsius, but I can handle that if I have to in order to get a non-digital thermometer. The biggest negative is that it ships from China. I intend to order one on my next Amazon order.

I have been reading reviews of digital thermometers off and on all afternoon, and now I want one of those stupid things even less than I did before I started.


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B086SCK3HZ

 

[Danjo-SKO]

I think I may have found a mercury thermometer. The seller says it is in the answer to a question, and the one in photo sure looks like it, plus it's not that expensive.

The negative is that it ships from China. I intend to order one on my next Amazon order.

I have been reading reviews of digital thermometers off and on all afternoon, and now I want one of those stupid things even less than I did before I started.


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B086SCK3HZ

I have gotten mercury dairy thermometers in the past that we’re not accurate. I used a number of instant read thermometers from the drugstore that were junk. Then I got an Exergen temporal scanner from Costco after seeing that the home health staff from the local hospital uses them. It seems like it’s pretty accurate as long as proper reading technique is used and the lens is kept clean.

 

[gs1949]

Thanks for the suggestion. I have not been looking at anything like that because they're fairly expensive. But they are certainly fast, and if they are accurate I might consider that.

But a mercury thermometer will be very consistent with itself, even if it is not perfectly accurate. That means that if one takes their temperature several times a day for a while when they are sure they are not sick, they will be able to tell if and when their temperature becomes elevated even if their thermometer is off by a couple of degrees.

The problem with the regular digital thermometers is that they are not usually consistent, even the more expensive ones, so they are basically useless.

 

[Native-SKO]

I wonder how many people on this thread have burned the underside of their tongue using a mercury thermometer?

 

[gs1949]

Burned the underside of their tongue? How would they manage that?

 

[Danjo-SKO]

Thanks for the suggestion. I have not been looking at anything like that because they're fairly expensive. But they are certainly fast, and if they are accurate I might consider that.

But a mercury thermometer will be very consistent with itself, even if it is not perfectly accurate. That means that if one takes their temperature several times a day for a while when they are sure they are not sick, they will be able to tell if and when their temperature becomes elevated even if their thermometer is off by a couple of degrees.

The problem with the regular digital thermometers is that they are not usually consistent, even the more expensive ones, so they are basically useless.

Exergen was $20

 

[gs1949]

Exergen was $20

Not on Amazon, not now, although I will look through the rest of the search results. Maybe I missed one for less, but the ones I looked at were $60 to $125.


EDIT: I didn't miss any. Further down the search results page the search results were all other, similar brands, not Exergen.
I guess revenues of $10,000 per second is not enough for Jeff Bezos, and he wants more.

 

[Native-SKO]

Burned the underside of their tongue? How would they manage that?

Uh, can you say "Ferris Beuller's Day Off"?

 

[matthews2001]

Summer Plans

After my bucket list trip to Alaska last year, where we left our bus, we are getting ready to plan our summer trip back. Were planning on another full summer there, and leave the bus again to get back for school (19 yr old in college, 7 and 11yr old). Gonna have to just do an unplanned trip whenever we open up the US again.

Unfortunately in a way my 19yr old starts full time Monday as an EMT (got his EMT license during HS) in western mass since college sent him home. He wont be coming with us. I dread getting sick with just the little ones in the bus up in Alaska, almost wanna get it before I go.

Anyone else trying to "plan" summer trips in this environment?

 

[Biscuitsjam]

Here's an interesting read:

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/04/16/tracking-covid-19-excess-deaths-across-countries

Basically, different places have different standards for what they report as a "coronavirus death." The Economist magazine did a study on published death statistics and compared the normal weekly deaths in each place to the number of deaths this year.

Paris, for instance, normally has about 1436 deaths in the second week of April. This year, they had 4408 deaths. However, only 1401 of the 2972 "excess deaths" were reported as being due to coronavirus. The other 1571 deaths are likely to be either unreported coronavirus deaths or else deaths caused by other illnesses that people did not receive treatment for.

A few places, such as New York City, are including suspected coronavirus deaths, and capture about the right number of coronavirus deaths. However, this isn't the case in most of the U.S. although very few places have published recent statistics to compare.

 

[2kool4skool]

hard to keep track when the bodies pile up. They're using reefer trailers as makeshift morgues in many places. In a death spike such as shown on the graph its standard to have such a disclaimer. That graph is four days ago. They're at 1500+ now. Thus the asterisk.
Glad its so easy for folks to laugh at this stuff, though. Laughter is good medicine and a good coping mechanism for a lot of folks.

NOT LAUGHING AT THE DEATHS CB!

Laughing at the phrasing.

 

[EastCoastCB]

NOT LAUGHING AT THE DEATHS CB!

Laughing at the phrasing.

I know Don.

Glad you and Mary (and spooky) are safe and healthy, sir.

 

[EastCoastCB]

I checked on the #'s in Sweden and its getting worse. Nearly 2000 dead as of this morning.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1105753/cumulative-coronavirus-deaths-in-sweden/

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-sweden-and-norway-handled-coronavirus-differently-2020-4

I wonder if FL and GA are going to be the "sweden" of the US.

 

[JackE]

Anyone else trying to "plan" summer trips in this environment?

Last week was suppose to be spring break for my wife and son. We had a back country camping trip planned through Southern Utah using our pop-up camper that wasn't able to happen. Instead, we stayed closer to home and camped in the back country of Nevada. It was a nice trip. Saw a few hundred wild horses, camped at an old mining camp next to a large reservoir. It turned out pretty good considering it wasn't the destination we had been planning for almost a year.

We also have a 2 week road trip planned for August before school starts again. After our little excursion out in the desert last week. We decided the two week trip won't be as nice in the pop-up camper as it will be in the bus. That gave me the green light to get the bus ready enough to road trip by August. Huge task to undertake in less than 4 months! We decided to just plan for the trip. Do everything we need to do to enjoy 2 weeks on the road. Who knows what the state of the country will be by then. I firmly believe that failing to plan is just planning to fail. If there are still travel restrictions in place and leaving the state isn't a great option, then we will just travel the roads of Nevada for a week or so. There are plenty of things to see here that we haven't seen yet. I think every state has some pretty cool stuff to see that you can take time to see even if what you planned to do isn't possible. Hopefully fuel prices keep dropping and by August diesel will be down to $1.50/gal nationwide, that will make the 3000 mile trip even more enjoyable!

 

[gs1949]

Uh, can you say "Ferris Beuller's Day Off"?

Sure, but why would I want to talk about a movie that I have never seen and know absolutely nothing about? I remember hearing the title of the movie, but I must have had no interest in seeing it, otherwise I would have seen it.

Can't remember why, but most likely it was because I wrote it off as a juvenile comedy. I never watch movies which I assign to that category. I don't usually watch comedies anyway. The last comedy I remember seeing was Animal House, which I found close to juvenile, but still very funny.


EDIT I just checked to see what year Ferris Beuller's Day Off came out. In 1986 I was 37, and this was during my married with children phase. Our oldest was less than 3, and the youngest was a baby. We rented movies almost every weekend, but there is no way a "teen comedy film" would have been on the list of movies we wanted to rent.

 

[2kool4skool]

Our county, pop 230,000, tested 1875, neg 1804, 1 death. About 5 hosp. .0005% death rate?

A/o today: 3 hospitalized 1 death

 

[gs1949]

There were 3 more deaths in Oregon yesterday, which brought us to 78. In our county we had our second confirmed case yesterday, still no deaths. I expect that to change because almost nobody is wearing masks.


EDIT I have been using the Johns Hopkins Cases by County web page to check out the counties where my brothers live, which are right next to each other, but on opposite sides of the Columbia River. It's interesting the difference a river makes.

Columbia County OR has 14 confirmed cases and 0 deaths. Clark County WA has 300 confirmed cases and 15 deaths. Columbia County is the more rural of the two, but it's right next to Portland.

 

[EastCoastCB]

sure wish i lived somewhere like oregon. we're 10x higher in deaths already and more or less going with business as usual. I don't see much social distancing anywhere. Masks went out when they opened the beaches.

 

[gs1949]

sure wish i lived somewhere like oregon. we're 10x higher in deaths already and more or less going with business as usual. I don't see much social distancing anywhere. Masks went out when they opened the beaches.

People are pretty good about social distancing in stores, etc, around here, but that's all they do. But all state parks are closed, including a small day-use only beach where I often take my large, aggressively friendly Staffie X Pit so he can run loose and get some exercise. I like to go there because it's always deserted during the week, especially when it's raining. And it's usually deserted even during the week when it's not raining.

Now we have to go to another nearby beach, where there is no park, just a county road that dead ends in a bit of a turn-around area near the beach. The beaches in Oregon have been legally classed as highways since the late 1920s or early 30s, so this area is still open, and much more popular because the beach is wide enough to be able to walk there safely when the tide is in. The beach I like to take him to is steeper and narrower to walk on so it can be quite dangerous to walk there when the tide is in, which means many more people go to the place where there is no park.

So by closing that little park the State of Oregon is preventing me from practicing my usual level of social distancing that I like to maintain when I go to the beach with my dog, but I don't think our governor cares much about little details like that.

And it's not quite business as usual here. I just checked yesterday, and my favorite hydroponic store is still open, but I am going to have to phone in my order and pick it up on the curb.

 

[EastCoastCB]

The dog we used to take dixie to play with got hit by a truck and put down. So she's itching for some doggie play time. Its kinda sad. But we're keeping our distance and she still gets a couple hours of running in per day. She loves to run.

I keep thinking back to the two weeks before skoolie swarm. I was sick as a dog. Coughing. hacking horribly. At one point I was wearing my jacket under a blanket with the space heater kicking and the central heat blasting. I'm sure that I had a fever but I never did try to check it back then. I even lost my sense of taste for a bit.
We're supposedly getting antibody testing here in my town next week so I'll not have to drive to Stuart or Melbourne.