Pandemic preparation? ?

[MrMattBig]

https://time.com/5805953/home-covid-19-test-everlywell/?amp=true

[+ bashful]

my sister is having a nervous breakdown having to home school the kids.

 

Hopefully, your sister and kids will learn more about themselves and each other than just school lessons. As most often happens in times of adversity, you never know how you will get through it, but I bet they will come through better than they thought. One day at a time.

Edited March 19, 2020 by bashful

[Spursy]

The biggest question I'm facing - Should I buy a Peloton? I just got into a semi-good groove with diet and starting to workout again and now literally no options.

 

Yes, you should! Got mine in January and I love it.

[+ stevenkesslar]

https://time.com/5805953/home-covid-19-test-everlywell/?amp=true

 

Thanks for posting that.

 

It says in the fine print that it needs to be doctor prescribed. The doctor will first try to rule out if you have the flu. And if you have been in contact with someone known to be infected. That's all consistent with what I'm hearing from Kaiser, my health care provider.

 

At least for now, it makes sense that we just need millions of test kits. And the priority should be people who are symptomatic, or who know they have been exposed, or perhaps are in a high risk population. There are now headlines about outbreaks at nursing homes all over Florida. They may have to reconfigure nursing homes like hospitals, and keep the at risk people who are infected away from the at risk people who are not infected.

 

I hope they figure out some kind of "public/private partnership" model on this. It is a no brainer to let several private corporations that are great at pumping out tests make these things and get them to anyone who wants them, including perhaps at the government's expense even once the crisis passes. There will be some false positives, like with any tests. But it presumably would catch 90 to 95 % of all true positives.

 

Ideally something like this will also be tied into public health departments, which any major city that is likely to be a hot spot will have. In China they have an almost Orwellian sounding system in place to be able to track down anyone infected and anyone that they may have exposed. Americans may not like that. But it did get the job of eradicating the virus done - if we assume what China is saying about current infection rates is mostly true.

 

If we start with the assumption that we don't want to start a whole new TSA - in this case the Thermometer Security Administration - we will still need a way to get on top of new local outbreaks at warp speed. State and local health departments are one obvious way to do that. In theory, Seattle's health department may have been able to nip this in the bud, had they been prepared and equipped. Theory will never match reality. But once we get the genie back in the bottle we ought to be able to keep it mostly in until there is a vaccine.

Edited March 20, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[handiacefailure]

We had our first death in Ohio today and I dealt with the person years ago at my prior job a couple times. Ironic thing is his son is a huge trump supporter and head of the local republican party headquarters. Not a big fan of our governor but am impressed at how well he is handling this.

 

Our hamburger Mary is staying open for dinner and providing car hop service to your car by two drag queens. Ordered from them tonight and they were a lot of fun and were very appreciative of the support of the local community. Was nice not having to get out of my car in the rain (they have a canopy you drive under so no one got wet). It's nice being able to help out one gay establishment.

[+ stevenkesslar]

Isn’t that what the Chinese used along with Kaletra or something in experimental treatment?

 

I posted this in the other forum. The Chinese doctors just published an article this week stating that Kaletra does not help with recovery. They are still looking at the malaria drugs.

 

I'm posting the link to what I posted in the Politics Forum. It's about FDA approval and political stuff, but it does have information on the latest thinking about the efficacy of some of these potential drugs - like the partly political process to determine efficacy.

 

Kudos to the scientists and doctors all over the globe who are both putting their own health at risk, and figuring this out at warp speed.

 

I'm just posting the link. No politics here.

 

https://www.companyofmen.org/threads/is-president-toxic-just-incompetent-or-is-he-a-sociopathic-liar.156619/#post-1878668

Edited March 20, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[+ tassojunior]

1 to-do next week:

 

[MEDIA=twitter]1240559018084630529[/MEDIA]

[+ stevenkesslar]

Any gamers out there? I wouldn't mind a gaming buddy or buddies.

 

Well, you just ruined my day.

 

I thought this was a game.

 

Are you telling me this is actually real?

 

[+ stevenkesslar]

I decided to fly back home to NY today. I was supposed to go back in February but had to stay for a few more weeks. I’m at greater risk there, but I’d rather put myself at risk than my parents. Plus, we keep different hours, which gets hard when we’re all locked down. Wish me luck.

 

[+ sync]

My 76yo mother is fine; my sister is having a nervous breakdown having to home school the kids.

 

I have got to stop watching the news. I'm depressed that I am single and alone.

It is almost a certainty that your sister's devotion to the welfare of her children will dilute her anxieties, and the experience of having to confront circumstances beyond their control and overcoming them is a valuable life lesson and achievement she and her children will have in their tool boxes for the rest of their lives.

I hope you reconsider your thoughts about not watching the news. For sure, the coronavirus news is depressing and alarming, but it may help if you regard it as need-to-know information. All over the world brilliant, dedicated medical researchers and medical practitioners are focused on the suppression and eradication of the coronavirus. You wouldn't want to miss the news that they are succeeding.

[Walker1]

There may be a drug:

https://nypost.com/2020/03/19/old-malaria-drug-hydroxychloroquine-may-help-cure-coronavirus-study/

 

If expanded tests work.....

Since it is a malaria drug and been there a long time, perhaps it won't need much extensive trials for safety, side effects-as plenty of people take malaria drugs. Hopefully they try out more expansively and this becomes a memory.

[+ stevenkesslar]

https://www.instagram.com/tv/B95SeYdAlRg/?igshid=1sm35ov0ffqhf

 

Nobody has posted on this so I should probably leave it alone. But of course I can't do that. These numbers in that video are goofy. I think the argument it makes - that COVID-19 = the common flu - has been officially put to bed. Good night, and good riddance.

 

Part of the argument in this video is that if you go by "confirmed" flu rates - whatever that means - the death rate for common flu is 10 %. That of course makes no sense. Were that true, we'd all be terrified constantly. I think I'd rather do this once in a lifetime, thank you. The death rate being thrown around in Italy for confirmed COVID-19 cases is often in the ballpark of 10 %. That's created mass terror. Were the rate accurate - meaning if everyone in Italy got tested - one projection in an article I'll post below estimates a true rate of 2 %. In fact, no one knows.

 

I'm with Dr. Fauci on this. He's saying 1 % death rate is an informed guess, meaning it is 10 times more deadly than the common flu. That's lower than most of the numbers being thrown around based on limited populations of fairly to very sick people. He factors in that most people who just experience this as "the flu" haven't been tested, and they are fine. The scientists like him saved us from AIDS. I'm happy to trust them to save us from COVID-19.

 

The swine flu data from 2009 have been thrown around a lot. On the face of it they suggest COVID-19 is 50 times worse than the 2009 flu pandemic. The figures for that are estimated to be 61 million cases in the US, with 274,000 hospitalizations and 12,400 deaths. In that video above, I think what the guy did is substituted "confirmed cases" for a typical seasonal flu with "hospitalizations" to get a 10 % death rate. That's nonsense, since we all know that few people who get the regular flu end up in a hospital. It may well be true that if you get the regular flu and end up in the hospital, you have a 10 % chance of dying. In the case of swine flu, as you can see from those numbers, if you got it and ended up in the hospital, it was more like a 4 % chance of dying.

 

The overall death rate from swine flu in 2019 was 0.02 %. I think Fauci's numbers are 0.1 % death rate for the annual flu, and 1 % death rate for COVID-19. As he keeps saying, 10 times as deadly is his guess.

 

The other reality check on this for me: go walk through a hospital in Italy. That should resolve any lingering question about whether this is "normal". Meanwhile, the thing I'm curious about is this: if you pick any province in China other than Hubei, it may have had 50 or 500 or tops maybe 2000 cases. But almost nobody died.

 

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

 

You can zoom in on China and look at it province by province. These provinces mostly have populations like California or New York or larger. In some cases there are zero deaths, but in I think every case other than Hubei the deaths are a single digit number. It could be China is just lying. But there is research coming out on characteristics of who died and why, and it seems to be running through WHO. So I'm not sure they'd just make it up.

 

Add then there is this, which is probably one of the most significant pieces of learning to date - if this holds up:

 

99% of Those Who Died From Virus Had Other Illness, Italy Says

 

 

The Rome-based institute has examined medical records of about 18% of the country’s coronavirus fatalities, finding that just three victims, or 0.8% of the total, had no previous pathology. Almost half of the victims suffered from at least three prior illnesses and about a fourth had either one or two previous conditions. More than 75% had high blood pressure, about 35% had diabetes and a third suffered from heart disease.

 

The average age of those who’ve died from the virus in Italy is 79.5. As of March 17, 17 people under 50 had died from the disease. All of Italy’s victims under 40 have been males with serious existing medical conditions.

 

This directly contradicts some of the messages coming out of Italy about "the young". To some degree this is stuff off YouTube videos or Twitter. But I also have read stuff quoting actual Italian doctors. Meaning the messages have been that 30 year old men and 35 year old young Moms are on respirators, for no apparent reason. That may be true. But what this suggests, if true, is that it was a 30 year old man with diabetes and a heart condition, perhaps.

 

One article I read said that up to 70 % of the US population has some "pre-existing condition". But the medical professionals and science seem to be quickly figuring out who is most at risk, and why.

 

This would also be a logical explanation for China's numbers. There was a mass exodus from Wuhan's New Years festivities right around the Jan. 23 lock down. So assuming many or most of those cases in other provinces were directly tied to travel to Wuhan, they caught it early. They may also have been relatively younger and healthier people that would likely travel, as opposed to an 80 year old at home in a wheelchair.

 

If the question is: "How the fuck do we get out of this mess, Sherlock?" this may be relatively good news. It suggests that the way to think of this may be less as a pandemic, and more as a hospi-demic. Meaning not enough hospitals. The biggest problem this poses, which Italy is facing, is that you just can't let this roll through a population without putting tremendous stress on the entire health system of a country, and freaking everybody healthy out. Partly because a death rate of 8 % sound horrific, even if you factor in an older and sicker population. And partly because everybody healthy is also a potential emergency room intake due to car crashes, or drug overdoses, or gunshot wounds. Elective surgery? Forget it.

 

Coronavirus death rate drops: Better math, better treatment or more testing?

The death rate in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began, is now estimated at 1.4 percent after initial reports of 4 percent.

 

That's a new and improved take on the WHO's initial number. It's based on a sample of about 1100 patients across China. From other reports I think we know the death rate in the first week in Wuhan was something like 17 %, and the death rate in the last week in Wuhan was under 1 %. I think the picture this all adds up to is that Dr. Fauci gets paid the big bucks for a reason. Under "normal" circumstances, maybe about 1 % of the population that gets infected and symptomatic is likely to die. It still doesn't seem at all clear how many people and what age of people may be infected but completely asymptomatic.

 

Another key piece of data from that NOJM report on China is that of those 1100 patients, 5 % ended up in the ICU. In other words, with a death rate of 1.4 %, your chances of going into an ICU and coming out of it alive were slightly less than 3 in 4. That's not awful odds for the worst cases of the worst cases of the worst case scenario. Again, this suggests that we will perhaps move to a clearer understanding of this as "hospi-demic". That's already of course what's at the bottom of the "flatten the curve" concept.

 

The US worst case scenario is 2 million dead. I think the way they got to that is took 330 million people, assumed 60 % were infected (200 million), and of those 1 % died (2 million). If you take those Wuhan numbers, that implies 10 million people (5 % of those infected) may need ICU care. This USA Today article says 3 million ICU beds needed if we redo the 1918 pandemic. Either way, we're fucked. USA Today says of the 1 million hospital beds about 100,000 of them are the most intensive care.

 

I can't imagine we can have 100 % normal business in a world where every nation harbors the potential for infection or new outbreaks. My guess is we're going to have to make a choice at some point. Do we live in a world that is relatively safe for most people, but we have to treat COVID-19 like it is the new ISIS, and always be on guard for it? Or do we stay at home for a year perhaps until there is a vaccine? That is probably a no-brainer.

 

There are tremendous practical implications. My Mom and Dad were both in their 90's at a nursing home where most of the entry level staff was in their 20's. In their 80s I'd take them to Applebees, where the wait staff was college students. So can you have 20 year olds who are healthy but infected feeding 80 or 90 year olds who they could infect? Can the grandkids visit? What are the new rules? How do we make sure we jump on any new outbreak immediately? Those are among the questions that will need to be debated before we can get back to work.

 

Given that we are not China, I don't see how we get to 100 % eradication. And it's not clear China is there, or can stay there. Is eradication the goal, or containment and control like the way we view terrorism?

Edited March 20, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[+ stevenkesslar]

 

This relates to the post above, but I'm pulling it out separately.

 

We can all breathe a huge sigh or relief that we don't get to relive this terror.

 

That's the "Spanish" flu epidemic-related death rate of 1918. For whatever reason, it preyed on the young and the healthy. This was partly what sounded so scary about the anecdotal stories coming out of Italy. And now US officials are pushing this message, in part I think to get Millennials to give up bars and beaches for a few weeks and just stay home.

 

Here are some not so fun facts.

 

In 1917 the life expectancy of the average American was 48.4 years for men and 54.0 years for women

 

In 1918 the life expectancy of the average American was 36.6 years for men and 42.2 years for women

 

In 1919 the life expectancy of the average American was 53.5 years for men and 56.0 years from women

 

Obviously the rates are computed based on the number of deaths that year.

 

So my emotional take on this is that if we were facing a pandemic like 1918, we'd be deeply fucked. It would be like 9/11 every day. And the youngest and healthiest people that carry a lot of the weight of a lot of entry-level jobs at Starbucks or Apple stores are the ones the planes are headed directly towards.

 

It will be a very good thing if we don't have that problem. The problem we will have if this virus is not contained is how do the 15 -20 % of people who are 65 +, or younger people with serious conditions, walk into a Starbucks or cinema and order popcorn without feeling they are putting their life at risk? Assuming this virus is still maybe hidden in the nooks and crannies. Which it likely will be.

Edited March 20, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[mike carey]

This is about one thing our government is changing, but it's a mechanics of government in the time of pestilence issue not a political one. The federal and all the state and territory governments have deferred this year's budgets from next month to October. Here the budget is both the government's plan for the next year and also a big formal announcement of the program in Parliament. Unlike the US, it's not a wish list the way the president's budget is, but a plan that it is pretty much sure to be able to implement because it has a majority in the House. There are two reasons for its deferral, it removes the need for a lot of planning across government departments and the personal contact that involves, but critically, at this stage it's impossible to make realistic plans about what will happen in the next three months much less for a year.

[MrMattBig]

Nobody has posted on this so I should probably leave it alone. But of course I can't do that. These numbers in that video are goofy. I think the argument it makes - that COVID-19 = the common flu - has been officially put to bed. Good night, and good riddance.

 

Part of the argument in this video is that if you go by "confirmed" flu rates - whatever that means - the death rate for common flu is 10 %. That of course makes no sense. Were that true, we'd all be terrified constantly. I think I'd rather do this once in a lifetime, thank you. The death rate being thrown around for in Italy for confirmed COVID-19 cases is often in the ballpark of 10 %. That's created mass terror. Were the rate accurate - meaning if everyone in Italy got tested - one projection in an article I'll post below estimates a true rate of 2 %. In fact, no one knows.

 

I'm with Dr. Fauci on this. He's saying 1 % death rate is an informed guess, meaning it is 10 times more deadly than the common flu. That's lower than most of the numbers being thrown around based on limited populations of fairly to very sick people. He factors in that most people who just experience this as "the flu" haven't been tested, and they are fine. The scientists like him saved us from AIDS. I'm happy to trust them to save us from COVID-19.

 

The swine flu data from 2009 have been thrown around a lot. On the face of it they suggest COVID-19 is 50 times worse than the 2009 flu pandemic. The figures for that are estimated to be 61 million cases in the US, with 274,000 hospitalizations and 12,400 deaths. In that video above, I think what the guy did is substituted "confirmed cases" for a typical seasonal flu with "hospitalizations" to get a 10 % death rate. That's nonsense, since we all know that few people who get the regular flu end up in a hospital. It may well be true that if you get the regular flu and end up in the hospital, you have a 10 % chance of dying. In the case of swine flu, as you can see from those numbers, if you got it and ended up in the hospital, it was more like a 4 % chance of dying.

 

The overall death rate from swine flu in 2019 was 0.02 %. I think Fauci's numbers are 0.1 % death rate for the annual flu, and 1 % death rate for COVID-19. As he keeps saying, 10 times as deadly is his guess.

 

The other reality check on this for me: go walk through a hospital in Italy. That should resolve any lingering question about whether this is "normal". Meanwhile, the thing I'm curious about is this: if you pick any province in China other than Hubei, it may have had 50 or 500 or tops maybe 2000 cases. But almost nobody died.

 

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

 

You can zoom in on China and look at it province by province. These provinces mostly have populations like California or New York or larger. In some cases there are zero deaths, but in I think every case other than Hubei the deaths are a single digit number. It could be China is just lying. But there is research coming out on characteristics of who died and why, and it seems to be running through WHO. So I'm not sure they'd just make it up.

 

Add then there is this, which is probably one of the most significant pieces of learning to date - if this holds up:

 

99% of Those Who Died From Virus Had Other Illness, Italy Says

 

 

The Rome-based institute has examined medical records of about 18% of the country’s coronavirus fatalities, finding that just three victims, or 0.8% of the total, had no previous pathology. Almost half of the victims suffered from at least three prior illnesses and about a fourth had either one or two previous conditions. More than 75% had high blood pressure, about 35% had diabetes and a third suffered from heart disease.

 

The average age of those who’ve died from the virus in Italy is 79.5. As of March 17, 17 people under 50 had died from the disease. All of Italy’s victims under 40 have been males with serious existing medical conditions.

 

This directly contradicts some of the messages coming out of Italy about "the young". To some degree this is stuff off YouTube videos or Twitter. But I also have read stuff quoting actual Italian doctors. Meaning the messages have been that 30 year old men and 35 year old young Moms are on respirators, for no apparent reason. That may be true. But what this suggests, if true, is that it was a 30 year old man with diabetes and a heart condition, perhaps.

 

One article I read said that up to 70 % of the US population has some "pre-existing condition". But the medical professionals and science seem to be quickly figuring out who is most at risk, and why.

 

This would also be a logical explanation for China's numbers. There was a mass exodus from Wuhan's New Years festivities right around the Jan. 23 lock down. So assuming many or most of those cases in other provinces were directly tied to travel to Wuhan, they caught it early. They may also have been relatively younger and healthier people that would likely travel, as opposed to an 80 year old at home in a wheelchair.

 

If the question is: "How the fuck do we get out of this mess, Sherlock?" this may be relatively good news. It suggests that the way to think of this may be less as a pandemic, and more as a hospi-demic. Meaning the biggest problem this poses, which Italy is facing, is that you just can't let this roll through a population without putting tremendous stress on the entire health system of a country, and freaking everybody healthy out. Partly because a death rate of 8 % sound horrific, even if you factor in an older and sicker population. And partly because everybody healthy is also a potential emergency room intake due to car crashes, or drug overdoses, or gunshot wounds. Elective surgery? Forget it.

 

Coronavirus death rate drops: Better math, better treatment or more testing?

The death rate in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began, is now estimated at 1.4 percent after initial reports of 4 percent.

 

That's a new and improved take on the WHO's initial number. It's based on a sample of about 1100 patients across China. From other reports I think we know the death rate in the first week in Wuhan was something like 17 %, and the death rate in the last week in Wuhan was under 1 %. I think the picture this all adds up to is that Dr. Fauci gets paid the big bucks for a reason. Under "normal" circumstances, maybe about 1 % of the population that gets infected and symptomatic is likely to die. It still doesn't seem at all clear how many people and what age of people may be infected but completely asymptomatic.

 

Another key piece of data from that NOJM report on China is that of those 1100 patients, 5 % ended up in the ICU. In other words, with a death rate of 1.4 %, your chances of going into an ICU and coming out of it alive were slightly less than 3 in 4. That's not awful odds for the worst cases of the worst cases of the worst case scenario. Again, this suggests that we will perhaps move to a clearer understanding of this as "hospi-demic". That's already of course what's at the bottom of the "flatten the curve" concept.

 

The US worst case scenario is 2 million dead. I think the way they got to that is took 330 million people, assumed 60 % were infected (200 million), and of those 1 % died (2 million). If you take those Wuhan numbers, that implies 10 million people (5 % of those infected) may need ICU care. This USA Today article says 3 million ICU beds needed if we redo the 1918 pandemic. Either way, we're fucked. USA Today says of the 1 million hospital beds about 100,000 of them are the most intensive care.

 

I can't imagine we can have 100 % normal business in a world where every nation harbors the potential for infection or new outbreaks. My guess is we're going to have to make a choice at some point. Do we live in a world that is relatively safe for most people, but we have to treat COVID-19 like it is the new ISIS, and always be on guard for it? Or do we stay at home for a year perhaps until there is a vaccine? That is probably a no-brainer.

 

There are tremendous practical implications. My Mom and Dad were both in their 90's at a nursing home where most of the entry level staff was in their 20's. In their 80s I'd take them to Applebees, where the wait staff was college students. So can you have 20 year olds who are healthy and safe feeding 80 or 90 year olds who they could infect? Can the grandkids visit? What are the new rules? How do we make sure we jump on any new outbreak immediately? Those are among the questions that will need to be debated before we can get back to work.

 

?

Super long post to say the obvious, on a medical issue, why would we seek to get information from the opinion of a journalist on Instagram? Who uses his site to double as a store to profit off of merchandise??‍♂️ Whose SEO description for his website on Google is "Truth In Media is an internationally recognized source of real news that cuts through the false left-right paradigm." So not unbiased but potentially political leaning...

Edited March 20, 2020 by MrMattBig

[+ stevenkesslar]

Super long post to say the obvious

 

Those of us with short penises have to compensate somehow.

 

So I guess what I'm saying is count your blessings. To say the obvious, @MrMattBig.

Edited March 20, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[mike carey]

A pandemic effect I hadn't seen coming, an acceleration of movement to a cashless economy. Cafés and hospitality venues (yes they are still open here, although social distancing rules apply) are increasingly insisting on electronic payment, to the extent that it was a topic of conversation on the ABC's morning program in Canberra. Owners don't want either the hand contact between staff and customers required for cash transactions, or staff handling potentially contaminated currency.

 

The inevitable question that was raised was that currency is 'legal tender for all debts' so businesses can't refuse cash payment. Well, yes and no. If you have a contract, then you can insist on cash if the contract didn't specify otherwise. So if you order a coffee and nothing is said, they have to take your money (in theory), but if there's a sign 'electronic payment only' that's the contract you've accepted.

[+ Just Sayin]

A pandemic effect I hadn't seen coming, an acceleration of movement to a cashless economy. Cafés and hospitality venues (yes they are still open here, although social distancing rules apply) are increasingly insisting on electronic payment, to the extent that it was a topic of conversation on the ABC's morning program in Canberra. Owners don't want either the hand contact between staff and customers required for cash transactions, or staff handling potentially contaminated currency.

 

The inevitable question that was raised was that currency is 'legal tender for all debts' so businesses can't refuse cash payment. Well, yes and no. If you have a contract, then you can insist on cash if the contract didn't specify otherwise. So if you order a coffee and nothing is said, they have to take your money (in theory), but if there's a sign 'electronic payment only' that's the contract you've accepted.

 

I went to the drug store today, and used cash for a small purchase; I should have taken out my debit card; now I've got it!

[MrMattBig]

Anyone else live in an apartment complex where amenities have been shuttered till further notice?

And is there ground to stand on to petition to pay less rent? (Las Vegas)

[MscleLovr]

Yes @MrMattBig, I do.

 

Some amenities have been closed in my building. It’s largely been done so that we can divert staff to extra cleaning duties. For instance, the elevators are being cleaned every morning, lunchtime and early evening (whereas before they were cleaned once a day). Even the handrails on the main staircase are being cleaned daily as we assume that residents may use the stairs more often (to get some exercise).

 

There’s no impact on rent levels as my building is strictly owner-occupied. The only rentals permitted are longterm for 1-3 years and only once the tenants themselves have been approved.

[Chad Constantine]

 

Unfortunately it is wagging the wrong paw for good luck. The left paw means to bring more customers the right paw is for good fortune and money. Hopefully, the sentiment will remain the same by safely bringing customers, @FreshFluff being one of them, back to NY

[MrMattBig]

Just got back from the grocery store, small victories in what I was able to get, other compromises.

I never seen bare shelves like that since I was part of a grand opening team of a few jobs... EMPTY

[+ WilliamM]

The symbol of St. Louis Gateway National Park is closing.

[+ Charlie]

Anyone else live in an apartment complex where amenities have been shuttered till further notice?

And is there ground to stand on to petition to pay less rent? (Las Vegas)

The 55+ community in which I live has all of the indoor amenities--tv lounge, meeting rooms, game room, library, gym, etc-- quartered in the common building, which is now closed to anyone but staff. However, the outdoor amenities--pools, tennis courts, etc.--are still open to residents. My brother-in-law, however, lives in a huge Del Webb Sun City community, where everything is off limits, even the golf course.

[+ FrankR]

I never did understand these - i thought that the rooster symbolized good luck and prosperity in the Zodiac. Or am I mixing up cultures??