mike carey

Q. What is the difference between COVID-19 and Romeo and Juliet? A. One is a corona virus and the other is a Verona crisis.

I found a few airline amenity kits from long haul flights that I had thrown into the bottom of a cupboard. The eye masks in them aren't ideal but they'll work for the limited times I'll be out and need one.

Consider who you use as a pretext for your exercise. [MEDIA=twitter]1246927052785307650[/MEDIA]

This sorta qualifies as maintaining mental health or at least that of any significant others with whom you might share digs. [MEDIA=twitter]1246934509204824064[/MEDIA] Ok, I intended to post the list, but the dance bit to which it replied fits into the general theme of the thread.

David. Well, actually he was christened Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David but known as David to family and friends. The last four names are those of the patron saints of the four home nations.

All of us tend to adjust our lifestyles to match a reliable income at whatever level that might be, so reinvention after a sudden change of circumstances can be difficult especially with expenses that are fixed like mortgages and fixed expenses on properties. It's never impossible, but it can be difficult.

As @BSR noted, even allowing for generalised issues with counting there is a disparity between countries on what is counted. Some, like France, are playing catchup with some groups that they have recognised they missed. Some countries, like China, appear to be deliberately obscuring the extent of the casualty rate they face. These disparities make comparison between countries problematic and a lot of the time running a league table of infection rates is not all that helpful. Despite this, the figures for individual countries are useful as long as the criteria that are used are consistent over time (or when changes to methodology are noted and trends are adjusted for them). They provide an indication of how the pandemic is progressing in each country individually, and that is important in evaluating the precautions that each is taking. It's all part of a wider understanding of statistics, that you need understand how they are derived and what they are and are not useful for. In the case of COVID-19 their greatest value is to explain trends not to make comparisons between countries.

I think it's possible to have a lot of fun with Mike with his clothes on. Whether the other party has their clothes on or not. I'm sure some bottoms could learn to do other things with appropriate encouragement!

Delighted to see you make a cheeky comment, PK.

You're quite right. Even though there isn't an approved antibody test yet, that may happen and may be a requirement. Back to the days of yellow vaccination books. I'm certainly not confident that travel from Australia will be possible this year, or that other countries or sub-national jurisdictions won't have severe restrictions. I would hope that they end up being more like the current yellow fever rules than complete travel bans, but we will see. Just now, I'm not confident in booking anything in Palm Springs before next April.

Welcome to the forum, [uSER=19448]@Joshua Mann[/uSER], or to be more precise welcome back to posting in this time of corona. As you've no doubt worked out it can be fun, but you don't need to take everything too seriously (although occasionally most of us do). No doubt it's concerning to have to freeze your RM account, but such are the times we are in.

Indeed they are not, and the situation of others is not to be minimised. But this thread is about sex workers. Many of their challenges are shared by others who are marginalised, but many others are not. Their work can't be used in a resume for other jobs, unemployment payments in the US, unlike many other countries, are contingent on having been in recognised work. Even the best prepared workers, and not just sex workers, can easily be knocked over by force majeure like a pandemic, so 'they made their choices', while correct doesn't capture the nature of the difficulty they may be in. When we're talking about one set of people on any subject, the fact that other separate groups may also be affected is a separate issue. The groups are not in competition for sympathy or anything else.

Interesting development in Australia. I rarely spend over $100 so it won't affect me (and I always use tap and go). [MEDIA=twitter]1245949000651608064[/MEDIA]

My local Aldi had plenty of ricotta when I was there two days ago. Big plastic sieve-like containers, about a kilo by the look of them. Not much use to you though.

+1 We've just had a royal commission into financial sector malpractice, and it's resulted in financial institution executives left and right having to fall on their swords. One of the things that came out was the sharp practices of, and high fees that bank and other for profit financial institution operated retirement savings funds charged. This was in stark contrast to 'industry funds' that are run as not-for-profits by various industry sector employers and unions in collaboration. They have lower fees and of the top 10 retirement funds, nine were industry funds. Since the RC, the for-profit funds have been haemorrhaging investment funds to the industry ones.

Sure t-shirts may be breathable, but wearing masks in public is designed to protect the public from any pathogens you may breathe out, not to stop you from breathing them in. They stop you from broadcasting droplets and contaminating surfaces. The risk from inhaling aerosols is less than that from touching contaminated surfaces and subsequently touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Any sort of mask is likely to stop you touching your nose or mouth, even the ones that anti-globalisation protester wore. If you want to have a mask that reduces your chances of inhaling airborne viruses, you need an N95 mask or better. The plain surgical masks that clinicians used routinely in non-pandemic times are not much more effective than a cloth mask would be.

Well, it's now 2.05am in eastern Australia for the second time this morning. For the next 25 minutes, Adelaide and the rest of South Australia will be 30 minutes ahead of us.

I went to the bottle shop this evening. There they have a counter with two registers on it (usually only one in use) not checkout lanes. They had installed a clear perspex screen in front of each register (with a cut-out to one side so you could hand the register person your purchases). They also had a spot marked on the floor with 'please stand here' on it so you were squarely facing the screen.

Well, he cancelled and then the world was cancelled, otherwise we all might have been able to see him in Palm Springs in 10 days, but sadly that was not to be. It's Eric's birthday on 5 April (which is today here). So happy birthday @Eric Hassan, in your lock down in New York, and happy international poppers day too.

An interesting tangent to this discussion, there are hardship provisions in our superannuation system that allow you to withdraw funds if you have to. Leave aside the fact that if you don't absolutely have to, when there is a drop in the value of the funds is not a good time to make a withdrawal, but the government has specifically allowed people to withdraw $10K this financial year (up to 30 June) and 10K next during the crisis. Some real estate agents have written to tenants telling them they will not even consider asking landlords for rent reductions unless the tenant had investigated withdrawing retirement savings to cover costs they couldn't otherwise meet. The corporate regulator almost immediately put out a statement that real estate agents could face a $1m fine for doing that as it constituted illegal financial advice. You have to be a licensed financial advisor to give such advice.

A little older than that, at least the sentiment is. 'No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned... a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.' Samuel Johnson

While the short term loss is alarming, it might add some perspective if you look at what it was worth in April 2019 rather than just at what it was worth two months ago.

Here, the government has authorised a wide range of telemedicine consultations, and as I understand it they apply equally to telephone and video. I don't know if they are the same as an in-person consultation. Since payment is from the public health system, not an insurance company, the approval of the use of technology came with the approval of the payment and the amount paid. For a lot of things, providers can set their own fee and Medicare pays the 'scheduled fee' either to them or as a refund to the patient but these services apparently have to be 'bulk billed', that is the provider receives the scheduled fee direct from Medicare.

There are two factors, one as you suggest is that the number of cases recorded probably understates the actual case load. But the second, that should not be ignored is that the case load is counted two to three weeks ahead of when the resultant number of deaths can be.

There's no hint here of any restriction on bringing your own bags to the shops, and in Canberra single use plastic bags have been banned since 2011. Most people bring their own, buy heavier duty plastic bags (15 cents each) or load their groceries back into the trolley and unpack it into their cars. The most common reusable bags there are woven plastic with a rough finish that's unlikely to have virus persist on it, or cloth which is also lower risk. I generally use the self-checkout so I don't know whether checkout staff pack your own bags for you or make you to it yourself (or shop at Aldi where they don't pack any bags, it's all down to you). [Trolleys in this town require you to put a gold coin ($1 or $2) in a slot to unlock them from the row of trolleys, and once you've taken your groceries to your car you get it back when you return the trolley and secure it in trolley bay in the car park. Oh, and translation, trolley = cart.]