Staying the Course -- April 21, 2020

[Superbob]

Hey Coursers, how are you all doing?

The core fitness club to which I belong has started posting exercise videos by my great teacher, Sarah, along with the club's many other instructors. That is a real morale booster because the guidelines for "reopening" the country and economy still provide that "vulnerable" people (all those over 65 plus others with specified conditions including of the heart) should stay in lockdown through the first two phases of reopening. So even if the fitness clubs reopen (which is beginning to happen in some states) I don't know if we so-called vulnerable folks will be allowed to resume exercising there yet. A club owner might get in trouble if they allow us to be in a class or on a workout apparatus. So having these videos for home workouts is very helpful right now -- good for morale, and I hope physical condition as well.

Still watching the cardinal family right outside my window. Quite a saga. Watched the female build the nest twig by twig for a week. Now she's incubating eggs while the male brings her food -- quite a sight to see a juicy grub being transferred from one beak to the other. The nest has survived two major windstorms within the past week. Isn't it amazing how Mother Nature's creatures can adapt and survive? Maybe some lessons for we humans there too, as we hopefully are on a down curve from the peak of the covid crisis.

Take care all, be smart, be safe.

Cheers,
Superbob

 

[Superman]

Good to see you’re finding ways to keep up fitness habits. My core strength is bad, and it’s one of those areas that only gets better with work. But it’s hard work early on when it’s bad. Once a week or so isn’t going to do it.

We suspended our gym membership and purchased a Peloton bike. It’s been great so far. The kids, who were reluctant to go to the gym, are enjoying it. In addition to classes (live and replay), they have scenic rides all over the world on a fairly large monitor. They also have a whole bunch of HIIT workouts, stretching, yoga, meditation, boot camp, outdoor rum programs, etc that you can run through the app or your tv. Best part is, it shares data with my works wellness program, which means points for benefit dollars and a little fun money!

My wife really likes Les Mills programs, so we subscribed to a year of that for like $10 a month. Combat, Pump, Bodyflow, lots of classes. We also ordered an Amazon Firestick to play that stuff through the TV. And Disney Plus for the kids. Shelter in place. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Doing our part to keep the economy afloat I guess.

BTW, it looks like a lot, but it’s all pretty much what we paid for our family gym membership.

Our latest indoor project is organizing 15 years worth of digital photos and videos on a home network system. Not a web-based cloud. A true home network that will let us stream our old Christmas movies through any device connected to our router including our TV. Dual hard drives that mirror and back each other up and can back up to off site storage if we so choose (for a monthly fee- debating that one.

In short, trying to stay healthy and make our house at least somewhat enjoyable to shelter in place.

Aside from all that, weather has been giving us a couple days here and there, but mostly not great yet. Still waiting to turn that corner to Spring. Daffodils have bloomed, so there is that. But they were covered in a couple inches of snow a couple days ago.

 

[Protimenow]

Some of those home network storage systems could cause a problem if one of the drives dies. I suggest that you copy those photos and films onto a flash drive, just in case something on the drives fails.

 

[Superman]

The drives mirror each other. If one fails, we replace it and the other mirrors everything back. Looking at a couple cloud based archive options for data recovery if the house burns down. One is a service of the system we purchased.

 

[MartinF]

Interesting topic on managing photos etc. I'm working on scanning in work and hobby related papers. They're going onto memory sticks. At some point I want to get a back up system with a pair of hard drives. A friend does that, hard drive swapped once a month after all the files are transferred. The unused one goes into a fireproof safe. I have too much hobby stuff that I need to protect.
Nothing to report on the STC front. I'm still walking or running 5-6 days a week. Lost another pound and BP is lower. I guess I wasn't made to go into work. We've noticed our dog is eating more due to increased exercise! Stay healthy.

 

[Superbob]

FYI, for Coursers and other heart buddies. I found a pulse oximeter today at CVS for $49.95, but I had a 40%-off coupon plus two $5 extra rewards, so it was about half price. (Prices seem to vary considerably.) This one works easily and well. My oxygen readings have been 95 to 97% -- so good. But if they drop markedly (like below 90%), good idea to contact your doc; could be early sign of covid with chance to head it off with oxygen therapy and avoid a ventilator. A recent New York Times article by an emergency room physician explains well the reasoning behind this. I'll try to link it.

Here it is -- an important article, I believe.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/...zI1B_2Whxhc_bUE3iqaz9UefxvxbUKVyWA0jU80mttKhM

 

[Paleowoman]

Thanks for the link to the New York Times article SB. I haven't got round to ordering an oximeter yet.....

Continuing my exercises, walking about four miles a day, sometimes a bit more, in my living room and upstairs, and weight lifting using my weights and weight lifting bench. And getting extra vitamin D outside in the garden on top of the supplemental D I get on prescription. I'm doing fine here, managing to get shopping delivered, no guarantees about it but so far so good

 

[Protimenow]

Some semi-random thoughts:

I've been using hard drives since the first full height 20 megabyte models became available (around 1986 or so). Over time, I had what may have been dozens of hard drives that failed on me. Although they seem to have become more reliable through the years, they still probably can't be counted on for safe, secure storage.

I have a friend whose external drive failed - all of his active files (mostly audiobookd - 3 TB of audiobooks - were lost and, unfortunately, unrecoverable. I've thought of swapping out a failed drive with one harvested from another similar external drive, but the drive and interface seem to be somehow paired together. Although the manufacturers talk about security, prevention of data loss, etc., these, too, can't be counted on.

If it was me - and it's not - I'd trust my data to memory sticks/flashdrives - and keep those safely stored, if you don't need to use them right away. I would probably get an account with one of the data services - google drive, Dropbox, or something else that stores your data (which you can password encrypt) completely away from your computer. You can then access it from the Internet wherever you are.

---

After I was discharged from the hospital the second time, I called a nurse line that the hospital gave me. They gave me good advice, and I returned to the hospital the next ay. I was also told that there were pulse oximeters, and that they would give me one. I was told to let them know when I was in the area.

When I was admitted, I called from my room - they had some on order.

I called yesterday -- the pulse oximeters were back in stock, but they only give them to people 'who are on oxygen.' I'll be getting a holter monitor on Monday, and she suggested that I give her a call and see what she can do.

I can't afford a reliable pulse oximeter, but I hope to be able to convince her that I probably have a need for one because of my funky heart rhythm.

 

[epstns]

Hi, everyone! I'm still here, but a bit less often,

@Paleowoman, your plight hits home here, too. All of our fitness centers (I have memberships at two of them) are closed. My only even remotely cardio-supportive exercise outlet is walking. When the weather is decent (about half the time) I can walk outdoors. I have several routes, ranging from less than a mile up to 3 or 4 miles. I can combine them if I have the time and inclination. Some days, like yesterday, I can manage 4 miles or so, just not at the same intensity as my former time on the ARC or elliptical trainers. Not much I can do about it - I can't run any more (knees too painful, beta blocker keeps max HR too low). I am holding out hope that once the weather really becomes spring (probably around 3rd week of May), I can at least ride my bike - at a higher intensity than walking. I hope so, because our ever-cautious governor has chosen to keep the state "shelter-in-place" order in effect until May 30.

I have really mixed emotions about the shelter-in-place order. IF they rescind it at the end of May, that will mean that they have basically closed the state economy for about 10-11 weeks. A sickening number of the small businesses will just not re-open. Of course, the alternative is not very good, either.

Maybe somebody can help me with understanding how staying at home actually "saves" lives. To me, it seems that all it will do is to delay the spread of infection so as to not overwhelm the healthcare systems. I understand that if a patient enters an overwhelmed hospital, that patient's chances of survival decrease. But. . . if the hospital and healthcare system are not overwhelmed, where is the benefit? It is not that there will be any new cure or even treatment approved during the lockdown period. There is nothing on the horizon for months, maybe years. So, as the old hamburger chain commercial asked. . . "Where's the beef?" Our city has built a 3,000-bed hospital in a convention center. It has 12 patients. Only one hospital in a metro area of over 5-million people has been shown to be overwhelmed. We have apparently slowed the growth of this virus so well that it will take us an extra month or two to reach the peak -- and we won't release the lock-down until we are two weeks past the peak. I don't think any of these politicians or super-doctors ever figured out that this could happen. They were so focused on "flattening the curve" that they didn't think of what could happen if they flatten it too much.

I am getting completely sick of the state's daily news conferences, which I have sub-titled "The daily counting of the dead and listing of the failures." All they do is, in most somber tones, state how many more have died the previous day and that there are still all these many things we need to accomplish before we can do anything about it. The list never seems to change, nothing is ever publicized as being accomplished. We need everything before we can re-open. We have none of the things we need, and we are making little to no progress toward getting the things we need, because we do not seem to know how to do it.

Everyone, please forgive my rant! I am really just venting. I have actually been in "shelter-in-place" mode since about mid-December of last year, what with the wife's health issues, surgery, then Covid.

One interesting thing (for me) that results from all this time at home is that I have more time for my Ham Radio hobby. I dusted off all the equipment and put it back on the air. I've been happily chatting with folks out in many other parts of our country and the world. Most of us are in the same boat -- nothing else to do, so why not see who is on the air?

Hang in there, everyone. My heart goes out to all who have been negatively impacted by the pandemic, be it a medical issue, family issue or business/economic issue.

 

[Superbob]

Steve,

Sorry, but your post doesn't qualify as a rant. It is too thoughtful and well-reasoned. You express the frustrations of many folks living under the pandemic lockdown.

One little footnote to the lighter-than-expected impacts on some hospitals: Our local ER put out an ad this week basically saying hey guys, our doors are open to you if you have symptoms (such as chest pains) unrelated to covid; don't be deterred from coming in. We are not swamped. We have plenty of capacity to serve all safely.

I gather some areas finally are beginning to lift bans on "elective surgery," which I've always found to be a rather puzzling phrase. With regard to my aortic aneurysm surgery last fall, I could have "elected" to put it off and accepted an ever-expanding risk of a catastrophic rupture. I wonder how many people had a delay forced on them unnecessarily by miscalculations that covid treatment would overrun hospital capacity and consequently lost out on their lifesaving surgeries.

I am hopeful fitness clubs will reopen soon, with appropriate safety measures in place; however, I wonder if people of my advanced age with multiple surgeries will be allowed to come back when the doors open. Club owners may well be held accountable if they fail to exclude those identified members of the "vulnerable" populations. However, shouldn't we be free to make a risk-vs-reward calculation and make that decision ourselves?

Uncertainties on top of uncertainties. I'm glad you have Ham Radio to help you get through the social lockdown, Steve. I still have dogwalking. Here, at least, our Governor said it is good for people to get out and exercise (though he did close the beaches and the parks for a while).

Hang in there, Coursers. Let us know how you are doing.

 

[user 16827]

@Superbob

Thanks for the article link SB, a very interesting read

 

[Protimenow]

When I went to the ER three times last month - one by ambulance, two by car, the hospital was screening people for COVID-19 - scanning their temperatures, and doing a rapid triage of the patients 'what brings you here"' Presumably, they separated possible COVID-19 patients from the rest of the people coming there. They probably turned away many others - the population that previously used the E.R. as primary care.

When in my room(s), I learned that it was pretty quiet on the non-COVID floors -- unless people had serious problems, they probably didn't come through the E.R. This hospital seemed to be open to elective procedures. I'm not sure how this afffects hospitals around the country, but I suspect that there may be quite a few hurting from the lack of elective and other kinds of non-COVID-19 issues.

 

[lilyofthewest]

An easy way to see how flattening the curve not only keeps hospitals from being overwhelmed, but also saves lives, is to compare the infection and death rates between California ( the most populous state) and New York. I've been "stuck" here in Ca. for the duration and am so very glad. The gov. here shut down early and local officials at least on the central coast are enforcing it. Despite having the earliest community spread cases in the country, large communities of homeless and many immigrant worker communities with very crowded living conditions, deaths have been kept way down comparatively due to proactive government actions, based on science. Check out tonight's report on 60 minutes.
I am hoping to get home to Wi sometime next month.
Stay well all.

 

[MartinF]

Steve, glad to hear you're back at ham radio. I've been turning on my radios more lately. My main radio is a classic 1960's Hammarlund with lots of tubes.
I've been watching how California is doing during this pandemic. Orange County is around 17 days to double the positive tests. But it's partially due to limited testing. Following the hospitalizations, they're not increasing but staying steady. The numbers are not large and I think it will start to go down soon. Deaths are low compared to other counties. The weather has turned from cold/rain to warm/hot. I see more people outside than normal. I'm concerned that the Gov. is not going to give us freedom. There are a lot of rural counties in California, it's not all Los Angeles.
Comparing California to NYC, the density of the population is not the same and that helps us here. Not as much dependence on public transportation and everyone drives to work. No overcrowded sidewalks or subways or high rise apartments.
My BP is lower and I'm going to try to reduce my meds. Still working from home but much less stress and lighter workload. I've lost about 8 lbs.

 

[tom in MO]

Hi, everyone! I'm still here, but a bit less often,

@Paleowoman, your plight hits home here, too. All of our fitness centers (I have memberships at two of them) are closed. My only even remotely cardio-supportive exercise outlet is walking. When the weather is decent (about half the time) I can walk outdoors. I have several routes, ranging from less than a mile up to 3 or 4 miles. I can combine them if I have the time and inclination. Some days, like yesterday, I can manage 4 miles or so, just not at the same intensity as my former time on the ARC or elliptical trainers. Not much I can do about it - I can't run any more (knees too painful, beta blocker keeps max HR too low). I am holding out hope that once the weather really becomes spring (probably around 3rd week of May), I can at least ride my bike - at a higher intensity than walking. I hope so, because our ever-cautious governor has chosen to keep the state "shelter-in-place" order in effect until May 30.

I have really mixed emotions about the shelter-in-place order. IF they rescind it at the end of May, that will mean that they have basically closed the state economy for about 10-11 weeks. A sickening number of the small businesses will just not re-open. Of course, the alternative is not very good, either.

Maybe somebody can help me with understanding how staying at home actually "saves" lives. To me, it seems that all it will do is to delay the spread of infection so as to not overwhelm the healthcare systems. I understand that if a patient enters an overwhelmed hospital, that patient's chances of survival decrease. But. . . if the hospital and healthcare system are not overwhelmed, where is the benefit? It is not that there will be any new cure or even treatment approved during the lockdown period. There is nothing on the horizon for months, maybe years. So, as the old hamburger chain commercial asked. . . "Where's the beef?" Our city has built a 3,000-bed hospital in a convention center. It has 12 patients. Only one hospital in a metro area of over 5-million people has been shown to be overwhelmed. We have apparently slowed the growth of this virus so well that it will take us an extra month or two to reach the peak -- and we won't release the lock-down until we are two weeks past the peak. I don't think any of these politicians or super-doctors ever figured out that this could happen. They were so focused on "flattening the curve" that they didn't think of what could happen if they flatten it too much.

I am getting completely sick of the state's daily news conferences, which I have sub-titled "The daily counting of the dead and listing of the failures." All they do is, in most somber tones, state how many more have died the previous day and that there are still all these many things we need to accomplish before we can do anything about it. The list never seems to change, nothing is ever publicized as being accomplished. We need everything before we can re-open. We have none of the things we need, and we are making little to no progress toward getting the things we need, because we do not seem to know how to do it.

Everyone, please forgive my rant! I am really just venting. I have actually been in "shelter-in-place" mode since about mid-December of last year, what with the wife's health issues, surgery, then Covid.

One interesting thing (for me) that results from all this time at home is that I have more time for my Ham Radio hobby. I dusted off all the equipment and put it back on the air. I've been happily chatting with folks out in many other parts of our country and the world. Most of us are in the same boat -- nothing else to do, so why not see who is on the air?

Hang in there, everyone. My heart goes out to all who have been negatively impacted by the pandemic, be it a medical issue, family issue or business/economic issue.

You need to do what I do. First control your source of news. I stopped listening to NPR and national network news years ago, too negative and single point of view. Too much political coverage. There's more to the world than Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump.

Every M-F, I watch no more than 30min of local news in the morning, 30 min of BBC World News in the evening and 15min of France 24 Update in the morning. Occasionally I skip the BBC or France24 and watch NHK (Japanese) update. I read the paper too but not every story like I used to. I then make the weekend totally news-free. I'm happier

 

[tom in MO]

An easy way to see how flattening the curve not only keeps hospitals from being overwhelmed, but also saves lives, is to compare the infection and death rates between California ( the most populous state) and New York. I've been "stuck" here in Ca. for the duration and am so very glad. The gov. here shut down early and local officials at least on the central coast are enforcing it. Despite having the earliest community spread cases in the country, large communities of homeless and many immigrant worker communities with very crowded living conditions, deaths have been kept way down comparatively due to proactive government actions, based on science. Check out tonight's report on 60 minutes.
I am hoping to get home to Wi sometime next month.
Stay well all.

I always thought the difference in Covid between CA and NY was due to CA lower population density and less people on mass transit.

In my area, the county with the most wealthy, well traveled and oldest population (Johnson County KS) has a higher death and infection rate than the more populous and poorer county (Jackson County MO). It's counter-intuitive, since more people use shop at home services in Johnson County too. Since I live in Jackson County, I do all my shopping on this side of the county line

 

[epstns]

Tom - I have already cut way back on my exposure to any news, in the belief that if anything really important becomes public, my wife will be sure to let me know. Just hearing the TV commentators, government officials and talking heads prattling on and on sets my nerves on edge. I do a lot of statistical, numerical and financial analysis in my work, and the way these people butcher the implications of data is appalling.

The other element that is kept out of seemingly all reporting is definitions of the "key measures" to be used to indicate when "milestones" are reached. For example, Dr. Fauci continues to stress that no portion of the country should be allowed to "open up" until it demonstrates 14 days of declining new case statistics. This is patently impossible to show, for example, in Illinois, where we continue to add additional testing sites almost daily. If we continue testing more and more previously untested people, we are bound to see increasing case counts. That is why I believe they should rely more on the count of hospitalized patients. If they are sick enough, they will be hospitalized whether they are previously tested or not. Now, I don't know if the state is actually using the hospitalization statistic, as they just prattle on about "The Curve" which is never defined. I find that unbelievably frustrating. It implies that the government will do whatever they feel is warranted, then pick a statistic to support it.

This week isn't so bad. I am actually at work in my office, as this is my "one week of the month" to prepare financial statements, etc. I am not feeling concerned about virus here, as there is typically only one other person in this entire area of the building, and we are in separate offices. I get in, do my work, bring in a carry-out lunch, finish work, and go home. Yesterday at lunch time, I went to take a walk in my favorite local park. For the past 6 or 7 years, it has been nearly empty during the day. Yesterday I had to alter my route to avoid the clusters of local residents out for a walk on the path. So much for my daily meditation.

Meanwhile, my hair is getting to the point where I need to stay away from open flames. Since my hair turned all grey, it isn't as curly as it once was, but it is still approaching a modest-sized "Afro" style, as I wore it in the 1970's. My wife laughs about it, but I find it annoying. It just feels funny, after wearing shorter styles for so long. It also causes scraping and clicking noises when it brushes against the microphones of my hearing aids. Aahhhh, the "new normal."

 

[Protimenow]

Orange County California HAS had a lower rate of infections They've just opened the beaches, and many of the people there have ignored the 'social distancing' rule. Some businesses have also opened.

I would not be surprised to see the rates of infection and hospitalization rise, now that protections have been weakened/removed.

Time will tell....

 

[MartinF]

The hospitalizations have gone up since the middle of the month. Continuing to increase. I wonder how much is related to Easter family gatherings. The number of days for the positive tests to double is 19. Deaths are low compared to Riverside County with a similar population.
The beaches that were opened had higher rates of infection already and those will probably climb.
Our running and walking group still meets 3x a week and do a tailgate after with social distancing. We see more people out and have to find ways to keep our distance.

 

[tom in MO]

Tom - I have already cut way back on my exposure to any news, in the belief that if anything really important becomes public, my wife will be sure to let me know. Just hearing the TV commentators, government officials and talking heads prattling on and on sets my nerves on edge. I do a lot of statistical, numerical and financial analysis in my work, and the way these people butcher the implications of data is appalling.

The other element that is kept out of seemingly all reporting is definitions of the "key measures" to be used to indicate when "milestones" are reached. For example, Dr. Fauci continues to stress that no portion of the country should be allowed to "open up" until it demonstrates 14 days of declining new case statistics. This is patently impossible to show, for example, in Illinois, where we continue to add additional testing sites almost daily. If we continue testing more and more previously untested people, we are bound to see increasing case counts. That is why I believe they should rely more on the count of hospitalized patients. If they are sick enough, they will be hospitalized whether they are previously tested or not. Now, I don't know if the state is actually using the hospitalization statistic, as they just prattle on about "The Curve" which is never defined. I find that unbelievably frustrating. It implies that the government will do whatever they feel is warranted, then pick a statistic to support it.

This week isn't so bad. I am actually at work in my office, as this is my "one week of the month" to prepare financial statements, etc. I am not feeling concerned about virus here, as there is typically only one other person in this entire area of the building, and we are in separate offices. I get in, do my work, bring in a carry-out lunch, finish work, and go home. Yesterday at lunch time, I went to take a walk in my favorite local park. For the past 6 or 7 years, it has been nearly empty during the day. Yesterday I had to alter my route to avoid the clusters of local residents out for a walk on the path. So much for my daily meditation.

Meanwhile, my hair is getting to the point where I need to stay away from open flames. Since my hair turned all grey, it isn't as curly as it once was, but it is still approaching a modest-sized "Afro" style, as I wore it in the 1970's. My wife laughs about it, but I find it annoying. It just feels funny, after wearing shorter styles for so long. It also causes scraping and clicking noises when it brushes against the microphones of my hearing aids. Aahhhh, the "new normal."

My hair is grey too, almost bald on the top but going longer down my neck. Looks like I'm the mean old professor who drives a beat Volvo station wagon

I work with numbers, but I only understand simple statistics. I was trained a long time ago to let the professionals handle the stats. Just ask them what test was used, what's the assumptions and what's the confidence level...Oh and make sure another statistician reviews their work