Erik Rutins
Posts: 37503
Joined: 3/28/2000 From: Vermont, USA Status: offline
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ORIGINAL: RFalvo69 I'll share a bit more about what is happening here in Lombardy (and in the rest of Italy), on the ground. Thank you for your excellent updates from Italy. I look forward to reading these and I hope you are your family are able to stay safe and healthy. We are being as careful as we can be here and hoping the younger people follow suit. We have health aides that come every day to help care for my father. They come from the town near us that has the main regional hospital and confirmed cases. Unfortunately his care is beyond what I can do on my own at this point, so we rely on their help to be able to keep him at home. This arrangement has worked well for the past couple of years, but now it is also a source of concern, given that we cannot fully isolate ourselves and the increasing news about pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic spread means that despite everyone being careful, it may still find it's way to our house. My son's school is closed, my wife and I are working remotely, so there is definitely an aspect of this where it is nice to have everyone at home too. I think amid the terrible toll this virus is taking, there is also some hope that it may lead to more unity and perhaps some innovations that may save many more lives in the years to come after we get through this. We are also planning out our garden (here we start planting in May) so that if this goes on for many months we will at least have some easily available fresh produce here at home, though we won't be fully self-sufficient. Both my son and my father love ham and baked beans, so before this week I stocked up on some and we've been eating ham and baked beans for dinner for about week now. No sign they are tired of it yet, but I expect that will happen eventually, though I think the rest of us may get there first. We're trying out a grocery delivery service called Instacart - supposed to deliver our weekly groceries this Saturday. We'll see if that works, otherwise I'll be making another trip down to the store next week to replenish our stocks. So far testing here is still limited to those with likely symptoms or health care workers, so they are saying assume that for every confirmed case there are at least 16 out there we don't know about. Comforting. Hopefully the massive increase in testing that is being touted at the federal level, including readily available tests in Walmart and Walgreen's parking lots, will show up here soon and allow us to get much better recon on where the virus is or isn't. For the US, the next two weeks seem critical in determining how tough the next couple of months will be, but I don't see everyone fully united or awake yet, despite recent events. Good luck to you all and stay well. Best Regards, - Erik
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