Coronavirus

[Arneb]

Intersting vignettes on what people are horarding ahead of the upcoming Total Coronavirus Breakdown (T.M.):

Germans: Pasta and toilet paper
Frenchmen: Wine and condoms
Americans: Guns

[Мастер]

Americans: Guns

Shoot the damn virus.

[Heid the Ba]

Germans: Pasta and toilet paper

I thought you lot were stocking up on sausage and cheese? You know, a wurst käse scenario . . .

[Arneb]

Germans: Pasta and toilet paper

I thought you lot were stocking up on sausage and cheese? You know, a wurst käse scenario . . .

I do seem to remember the Missus telling me that most packaged meat products were out, too when she raided our local supermarket on Monday.

[MM_Dandy]

Americans are hoarding toilet paper as well.

As an aside, did renaming the thread reset the read/unread status for anybody else?

[Мастер]

Germans: Pasta and toilet paper

I thought you lot were stocking up on sausage and cheese? You know, a wurst käse scenario . . .

[Lianachan]

Only way you can get anything in a supermarket here now is to go in the morning. Wife’s been doing that. Benefits of being an idle layabout I suppose. Wee shops still mostly ok. I managed to get paracetamol today in the wee coop next to my office, even.

[Lianachan]

Germans: Pasta and toilet paper

I thought you lot were stocking up on sausage and cheese? You know, a wurst käse scenario . . .

I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or rub the bridge of my nose wearily.

[Arneb]

Funny how our chief doctors differ in their bedside manner:
Docteur Macron, with a stern look: You are in a deadly struggle. This is life or death, and you have to take you medicine right now or I'll shove it down your throat. These two gentleman nurses will hold you down, if you don't follow Doctor's orders.
Doctor Johnson, known as the Hospital Clown to his friends: Oh come on, old chap, it's nothing, nothing! Just a spot of fever, nothing 350 million quid a week won't cure. Be a sport now, stop complaining, will you? Oh btw. you can't leave or have visitors. Let me just lock that door for you, right? Naah, just to make sure, don't worry, it'll be over in a week or so.
Frau Doktor Merkel, aka as Dok Mutti: I am so sorry this is hurting, but, you know, for all of us to survive this, we will all have to work together. I suggest you take that medicene - oh I know, it tastes horrid, doens't it? I hate it myself - but you see, as I've said many times, no pill no cure. Here, I'll take one too, and we'll get better together.
Doc Donald: Yeah, watch me do this, I found the cure myself. This was the ab-so-lute-ly greatest cure IÄve ever found, and believe me, I've found many, they are legend, and genius. Yeah, I will lead you through this, this, err, ou know that viras thingy, that. Ah, just look at me, Mr., err, what's your name?

[g-one]

A different take on the various approaches Arneb mentioned.

Watch on youtube.com

[Arneb]

Great stuff

[Enzo]

a wurst käse scenario . . .

(I still have much to learn from this Heid fellow...)

[Мастер]

I am being isolated.

[Arneb]

Oh dear. Gute Besserung!

[Мастер]

Routine ophthalmological appointment, scheduled months ago. Had I known what it would be like, I would have rescheduled.

Temperature 36.8. However, I had the wrong answer to the question about overseas travel, having been to Malaysia just six days ago. The border is now closed, but it was still open then. Malaysia now has perhaps the strongest restrictions in the world. Malaysian commuters to Singapore (of whom there are many) had to decide which side of the border they would be on Tuesday.

So, going through virus screening in the lobby, they put me in this holding area for a long time. They gave me a red sticker, instead of the blue, which is what you want, and also gave me a mask.

Eventually, someone came to get me, although he seemed somewhat confused about who I was and why I was there. But, he escorted me and another patient to the registration desks in our respective clinics. (Why? To keep us from touching the lift buttons? I touched them when I left.) They kept me mostly isolated from everyone else throughout the process, making me wait in the corridor shown in the photo.

Several times, people with rank other than “doctor” would come and talk to me, asking various questions, oftentimes questions that had been answered previously. Eventually, the doctor, whom I did not see at all, instructed them to get this Ang Mo* with his Malaysian viruses out of here, and reschedule him three months later.

So I went out for lunch.

*Ang Mo means red-haired. Refers to any white person, regardless of hair colour.

[Heid the Ba]

Eventually, someone came to get me, although he seemed somewhat confused about who I was and why I was there.

That is never reassuring. "Apendectomy?" "No eye test" "Colonoscopy?" "No, eye test" and so on . . .

So I went out for lunch.
*Ang Mo means red-haired. Refers to any white person, regardless of hair colour.

As is only right and proper.
I suppose Ang Mo could be a rank here, but I think we all qualify.

[Мастер]

That is never reassuring. "Apendectomy?" "No eye test" "Colonoscopy?" "No, eye test" and so on . . .

It was in the lobby for the whole building, so I think that was OK.

It was more a matter of “why are you here?” “Because your people told me to wait here. So if you don’t know, why are you asking me?”

But, on the lift, the directory for which clinics are located on which floors is printed, in very large letters, on the inside of the lift doors. So you can tell what everyone’s problem is, based on where they get off the lift.

[Blue Monster 65]

Glad you’re OK! Well ... relatively speaking ...

[Мастер]

The one that jumps out at me is that the Black Death was two centuries before Henry VIII.

Looks like there were recurrences of the plague in England in 1471 and 1479-1480.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_plague_pandemic

These were before Henry VIII was born, but were during the life of Henry VII, although he was not yet king - as we know, he only took the throne in 1498, after the thirteen year glorious reign of Richard IV.

[Lianachan]

Eventually, someone came to get me, although he seemed somewhat confused about who I was and why I was there.

That is never reassuring. "Apendectomy?" "No eye test" "Colonoscopy?" "No, eye test" and so on . . .

Also “now are you quite sure you had two legs when you came in?” after any mundane procedure.

[Arneb]

BTW, Google is carrying a Doodle in honour of Ignaz Semmelweis today. He invented hand washing as a medical procedure in 1847. The short video gives an absolutely spot-on demonstration of what a good, i.e., effective, hand-washing is. If you ever asked yourself if you did it properly, watch the video and do the same. Done with hand disinfectant instead of water and soap, the same procedure is also a perfect hygienic hand disinfection.

Watch on youtube.com

[Heid the Ba]

I must have learned that somewhere, because that is what I do, he typed smugly.

[Enzo]

Oh crap, I just usually wipe things off on my shirt tail.

[Arneb]

Learn something new every pandemia.

[Richard A]

Not just the footballers that are holding out. The government closure of pubs and restaurants from last night was met with crowds making a last-chance rush to the pub. I guess they took the blase view of one man I overheard during the time when we were merely encouraged not to go out unnecessarily: "I'm going to the pub. When your time's up, your time's up - nothing you can do." Sometimes people really do need to be ordered what to do. At least we can still get booze in the shops - albeit in slightly reduced quantities.