Fear and Loathing, a Rat Flu Odyssey

[huckbucket]

I just knew Kayleigh McEnany was gonna be a hot blond before I looked.

[Rideski]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...urce=applenews

Deaths Expose Fears for Strength of U.S. Food-Supply Chain
Isis Almeida
That’s fueling worries about supply disruptions as plants idle

Some of the workers who help produce America’s food are starting to die because of the coronavirus.

At least three people who worked at plants owned by top U.S. meat packer Tyson Foods Inc. and a local unit of Brazil’s JBS SA were reported to have died from the pandemic. Companies including Cargill Inc., Sanderson Farms Inc. and Perdue Farms Inc. have also reported infections. Smithfield Foods Inc. has 80 cases at a facility in South Dakota.

While it’s unclear whether the deaths and other cases had anything to with the workplace, the news exposes the fragility of global supply chains that are needed to keep grocery stores stocked after panic buying left shelves empty. Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday that these workers are “vital,” calling on them to “show up and do your job” to keep the nation fed.

Plants across the U.S. are starting to reduce output or idle as cases spread from the main cities to rural America. Outbreaks have occurred in factories across the country in recent weeks, with hundreds of workers being sent home.

Laborers have, in some cases, staged walk-outs to protest working conditions. In meat plants, stations on processing lines can be close together, creating challenges for social distancing. Workers share break rooms and locker rooms.

“Going to work is putting them at great risk,” said Angela Stuesse, an anthropology professor at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. “Who benefits? All of us who are buying food, and the corporations who are selling it.”

On Tuesday, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union representing thousands of poultry workers said two of its members working at a Tyson plant in Camilla, Georgia, died from the virus. JBS USA confirmed a long-time employee at its Greeley, Colorado, died of Covid-19 complications.

It’s unclear where they were infected. JBS said the employee in question had not been at work since March 20 and that he didn’t present any symptoms while at work. Springdale, Arkansas-based Tyson didn’t comment on the deaths.

Plant disruptions are also hitting American farmers. Fears of closures first sent cattle futures traded in Chicago tumbling, but prices are now rebounding as traders wait to see just how long the problems will last.

“This was a case of buying the rumor and selling the fact,” said Steve Wagner, market analyst at CHS Hedging in Minnesota. “The market went down on the fear that packers were going to close plants and, when they closed, we bounced back.”


Pence Urges U.S. Food Workers to 'Show Up and Do Your Job'
Vice President Mike Pence says U.S. food workers are “vital” amid the coronavirus outbreak and the government will “work tirelessly” to ensure their workplaces are safe.
Meat companies have been upping safety procedures to keep the virus from spreading among its ranks. Tyson said it has been taking employee temperatures before they enter facilities, stepped up deep cleaning at its plants, implemented social distancing measures and given workers access to protective face coverings.

“We continue working diligently to protect our team members at Camilla and elsewhere,” according to a statement Tuesday. “Since the U.S. government considers Tyson Foods a critical infrastructure company, we take our responsibility to continue feeding the nation very seriously.”

Maple Leaf Suspends Poultry Plant Operations Amid Virus Cases

JBS said it has implemented safety measures including increasing sanitation efforts, deep cleaning of facilities, promoting social distancing and checking temperatures before employees enter facilities. It has also implemented a policy removing high-risk populations, including those over 70, from its facilities.

The U.S. Chicken Council added its members are doing everything they can to keep their employees safe and product on the shelves.

The coronavirus, which has claimed more than 81,000 lives globally, is spreading into America’s food-making heartlands. At a press conference Tuesday, Pence said the government will “work tirelessly” to ensure workplaces for food-company employees are safe.

“You are giving a great service to the people of the United States of America and we need you to continue, as a part of what we call critical infrastructure, to show up and do your job,” he said.

Cargill said Tuesday it was idling a beef plant in Pennsylvania after employees tested positive for Covid-19. The announcement came a day after Tyson said it had halted pork processing at a plant in Iowa after more than two dozen workers tested positive. JBS suspended operations until April 16 at a beef plant in Pennsylvania after several managers showed symptoms.

Coronavirus cases aren’t limited to meat plants. Archer-Daniels-Midland Co., one of the world’s largest agricultural commodity traders, said Monday that four employees at its corn processing complex in Clinton, Iowa, tested positive for the virus. The company says it has less than 20 cases globally. Walmart Inc. was also faced with employee deaths.

— With assistance by Michael Hirtzer

[The AD]

Well it's a selected pool, it's not statistical sampling. it's test results largely from those who felt sick enough to seek out testing. So the fact that that number is somewhat constant is unsurprising. That's how I read it at least. Whatever, it doesn't matter. But I'm kind of amazed at the 2 million number, I wouldn't have guessed near that.

It suggests to me that a lot more people have COVID-19 now and that shouldn't be much of a surprise.

[The Reverend Floater]

Our community will be conducting antibody testing in the next few weeks. I guess there's an upside to being a leading hotspot.

https://www.mtexpress.com/news/antib...af954036f.html

[mcski]

TGR...catering to 82 year old men in 2020


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

OG is a bad ass, but i don’t think he stormed Omaha when he was 6

[shroom]

are the crazies coming out or ditching town?

[m2711c]

yes

[Billow]

https://youtu.be/oYmXu5PQzOU

[splat]

They forgot The WHO, Dead Zppelin, and Fleetwood Mask.

[old goat]

Dude he was at Omaha beach.

I was, but the danger has been highly overrated. Verdun was much worse. But Pickett's Charge was by far the scariest.

[old goat]

No need to say anything, just start coughing.

I was wearing a mask. If I learned anything in a 35 year surgical career it's that you don't want to cough, sneeze or vomit inside your mask.

[m2711c]

But Pickett's Charge was by far the scariest.

which side were you on?

[LongShortLong]

staying open but maintaining distance would not be exponential increase in hospitalization and deaths or the rates would be much higher in countries with poor medical care.

Slower exponential growth is still exponential growth, still bad. The only country to have demonstrated 'staying open' is South Korea. Many have tried and failed. The US has yet to demonstrate the competence required to match South Korea. And we're way behind.

Search this thread for the "lily" pad examples. Understand them. The shit hits the fan when then pond has more pads than doctors. Pads > doctors means dying in street. Until then it looks kinds harmless (like really bad flu we should try to stop). After then, it's bad, AND because people have already been getting sick in the 2 weeks up to then, it gets a whole lot worse before any behavior change has an effect.

All exponential growth has doubling. Faster or slower determines a constant - number of days to double. Slowing growth by half just doubles the doubling constant. The number of doubles before the shit hits fan remains the same. Shit hits fan, it still happens, only takes twice as long to get there. We need to stop the exponential growth.

That's why we're on lockdown. That's why pretty much every other region on planet Earth is on lockdown. Simple math.

[SkiBall]

I just knew Kayleigh McEnany was gonna be a hot blond before I looked.

The phony ass bitch look is just not for me. Grudge fuck candidate maybe.

[BGnight]

Can we all agree this pandemic was a bust and get back to normal? I mean, it's over. It turned out to be a nothing burger flu over hyped by the media with cooked numbers. Sweden made the whole world look like asshoe.

[BGnight]

"In 2018 hospitals all across the United States were full to capacity with flu patients. Alabama declared a state of emergency. Elective surgeries were cancelled, patients were turned away.

California hospitals were “war zones” where people were treated in hastily erected tents.

The same year ICUs in Milan were “totally overrun” with flu cases.

In December of 2019 the NHS had to implement “emergency temporary beds” in 52% of its hospitals to account for their regular “winter crisis”. Most of those hospitals still had temporary beds operating from the previous winter.

Last November experts were publishing reports warning that the NHS was under too much pressure to deal with the seasonal flu.

The 2009 Swine Flu pandemic turned out to be no worse than a bad flu season in the end, but nevertheless had a huge impact on hospitals across the United States.

In Spain, flu collapses hospitals almost every year.

In 2017 the Spanish-language Huffington Post site asked “Why does the flu mean collapse in Spanish hospitals?”.

In the 2017/18 flu season, hospitals all over the country were in a state of collapse.

Last March, hospitals were at over 200% patient capacity.

In 2015 patients were sleeping in corridors.

Even in January this year, before the coronavirus had impacted Europe, nurses were complaining that the flu season was stretching healthcare to breaking point.

A paper in the JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) states that Lombardy’s ICUs “typically run at 85-90% capacity in the winter months”.

Going by just the last couple of years, the evidence suggests flu severely impacts health services quite frequently.

Raising the question: How does the current state of ICUs compare with these other recent crises? To which, we must remember, no one ever suggested the solution was destroying the economy and instituting a police state."

https://off-guardian.org/2020/04/02/...D-iFKHtlHImsxA

[rod9301]

Can we all agree this pandemic was a bust and get back to normal? I mean, it's over. It turned out to be a nothing burger flu over hyped by the media with cooked numbers. Sweden made the whole world look like asshoe.

Bg, love your on snow posts, but the pandemic is not over, at least in France, 4,000 new cases yesterday.
That's a5% increase per day.

Sent from my Redmi Note 8 Pro using Tapatalk

[huckbucket]

Bg, love your on snow posts, but the pandemic is not over, at least in France, 4,000 new cases yesterday.
That's a5% increase per day.

Sent from my Redmi Note 8 Pro using Tapatalk

Shhhh. He's onto us.

[schuss]

Can we all agree this pandemic was a bust and get back to normal? I mean, it's over. It turned out to be a nothing burger flu over hyped by the media with cooked numbers. Sweden made the whole world look like asshoe.

Not really at all? Millions are home and thus potential infections. Testing is still terrible, leading our data to be unreliable. We still are in the dark.

[Choss Jonger, Sr.]

BG. dude. John. Prine.

[Benny Profane]

The Irish to the rescue.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/heal...d-19-1.4222110

"More “striking” evidence has emerged that the BCG vaccine given to counter TB may provide protection against Covid-19 and significantly reduce death rates in countries with high levels of vaccination.
A study of 178 countries by an Irish medical consultant working with epidemiologists at the University of Texas in Houston shows countries with vaccination programmes – including Ireland – have far fewer coronavirus cases by a factor 10, compared to where BCG programmes are no longer deployed."


Wash it down with a pint of Guiness.

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

This would be more funny if it weren't true

https://twitter.com/i/status/1248107509510033408

[iceman]

The Irish to the rescue.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/heal...d-19-1.4222110

"More “striking” evidence has emerged that the BCG vaccine given to counter TB may provide protection against Covid-19 and significantly reduce death rates in countries with high levels of vaccination.
A study of 178 countries by an Irish medical consultant working with epidemiologists at the University of Texas in Houston shows countries with vaccination programmes – including Ireland – have far fewer coronavirus cases by a factor 10, compared to where BCG programmes are no longer deployed."

Interesting. I wonder if BCG was given for travel to India/China/Japan etc. in the 2005-2015 window. I got a lot of vaccines for travel back then but don't know if I have a record of what was given. Not that it really matters but I'd be curious to know.

[seano732]

^^^^^^^GOLD.

[MultiVerse]

Interesting. I wonder if BCG was given for travel to India/China/Japan etc. in the 2005-2015 window. I got a lot of vaccines for travel back then but don't know if I have a record of what was given. Not that it really matters but I'd be curious to know.

I posted the original study referenced in Benny's article here a couple of weeks ago and afterwords tried to figure out both where to get the vaccine and the U.S. % population inoculated, without much success. Currently, the BCG vaccine has limited availability in the U.S. but is available for people traveling to countries with high tuberculosis risk so you can probably cross reference those countries with the CDC inoculation recommendations.

There is a correlation between countries with mandatory Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) childhood vaccination and reduced morbidity and mortality for COVID-19. That might explain why countries like Japan are seeing fewer deaths. Although it's not clear if it's the vaccine or whether it's social norms involving following government infectious disease mandates, like social distancing, versus countries with anti-vaxx movements like Italy who flaunted the rules during the epidemics early stages:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...937v1.full.pdf