Covid - 19: How is it affecting you?

[Boac]

Will it not take 5 days or so for any effect on R to be seen? What is the 'Covid Tracker app' you refer to?

[4mastacker]

PN, I risked going to the Sons of Morris last night at about 18.30 (shop shuts at 20.00). No more than 12 cars in the car park, straight in no queue, very few customers, full weekly shop got everything I wanted, no waiting for an empty check-out, paid for stuff and back to the car. 25 minutes tops. Late on seems to be the best time to avoid crowds.

[G-CPTN]

I sneaked out on the Tuesday - the day before the Wednesday relaxation took effect.

Returning to the thread title, I guess I miss just going into town and and wandering from shop to shop and browsing before (or after) dropping into a little cafe for a 'breakfast' or just a hot drink or maybe an ice-cream whilst reading one of their magazines.

[OFSO]

Waitrose and M&S at 10:00. No queues.

[Boac]

[quote+PN]I see from the Covid Tracker app [/quote] What is this app, PN?

[Undried Plum]

No relaxation here in Jockistan, nor should there be one.

Learned by experience today that the way to jump the 300m queue at Morris et Fils is to find a bloke in green and tell 'im that you only want a basket, not a trolley. There's a non-existent queue at the other side of the glazed pergola entrance tower. Just do your shopping and the dump the stuff in your frunk (you do have one of those, don't you?) and then rejoin the non-existent queue and rinse and repeat.

Seemples.

[Rwy in Sight]

I just read ON or ring a friend and the waiting time just flies

[Smeagol]

I visit the local supermarket and rarely have to queue. One advantage of living in the wilds of Norfolk.

[TheGreenGoblin]

Most allaming news...

The solution to the coronavirus may have been staring us in the face this whole time, lazily chewing on a carrot. All we need, it seems, is llamas.

A study published last week in the journal Cell found that antibodies in llamas’ blood could offer a defense against the coronavirus. In addition to larger antibodies like ours, llamas have small ones that can sneak into spaces on viral proteins that are too tiny for human antibodies, helping them to fend off the threat. The hope is that the llama antibodies could help protect humans who have not been infected.

International researchers owe their findings to a llama named Winter, a four-year-old resident of Belgium. Her antibodies had already proven themselves able to fight Sars and Mers, leading researchers to speculate that they could work against the virus behind Covid-19 – and indeed, in cell cultures at least, they were effective against it. Researchers are now working towards clinical trials. “If it works, llama Winter deserves a statue,” Dr Xavier Saelens, a Ghent University virologist and study author, told the New York Times.

To any llama aficionado, this news should come as no surprise. The animals have developed a reputation for healing. Llama antibodies have been a fixture in the fight against disease for years, with researchers investigating their potency against HIV and other viruses.

And their soothing powers go beyond the microscopic. Llamas have become exam-season fixtures at a number of top US colleges. George Caldwell, who raises llamas in Sonora, California, brings his trusted associates to the University of California, Berkeley, UC Davis, Stanford, and other northern California universities and high schools, where their tranquility is contagious, helping students overcome end-of-term anxiety. “When you’re around a llama, you become very calm and at peace,” one Berkeley senior said at a campus event last year.

Llama antibodies...

[G-CPTN]

Are antibodies made from antimatter?

[TheGreenGoblin]

Are antibodies made from antimatter?

Only if you are the Dalai Lama...

[barkingmad]

Jolly good news about Llamas’ potential in the attempt to “control the Covid”, however one might be able to “control” a virus?
However, as one waits in the queue outside the supermarket, it would be wise to keep on good terms with the Llamas queueing up at the same time.
If you manage to pi55 them off by bunking the queue using repeat basket visits, it is possible they will spit at you, from around 15’ range or 4.5 metres and sometimes even further.
So the social distancing measures may have to be significantly revised to accommodate this rather anti-social behaviour. I can’t see the average Llama wearing a face mask, soon to be the latest pointless craze amongst the UK public as it has become in other countries.

https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/anima ... out-llamas

Other difficulties may arise if your pet Llama, accompanying you to the supermarket as a “professional comforter”, decides he/she dislikes the friendly UK Plod and spits at them because I doubt if the unfortunate creature (the Llama) will immediately shell out the on-the-spot fine nor will it willingly accompany Plod to the police station for the subsequent charging action.

Of course I am likely completely wrong in my assessment of the Llama danger and if the right antibodies are found in their spittle, they might be employed to wander up and down social-distancing queues spitting at the public thereby ‘saving the NHS’ the trouble and expense of needle borne vaccination. The future is bright!

[OFSO]

[attachment=0]IMG_20200517_094424.jpg[/attachment]

I wore this for my evening walk last night. For some reason folk gave me a very wide berth.....

(I don't normally wear my cloak but there was a chill wind so I put that on too.)

[Boac]

OFSO - do you need an 'assisting' device for walking? I recommend a long-handled scythe ifso (ofso)

[Woody]

Had to queue for an hour this morning to get into the local civic amenity centre ( Tip ) , as it’s in Maidenhead the locals have had all week to go and everyone else had to go over the weekend, absolute chaos as it’s down a dead end road

[Magnus]

Two queues at Sons of Morris yesterday; one for trolleys and one for "speedy shop"; baskets only, all payments contactless. Seemed to work OK. The only problem I encountered was a tendency for wrinklies wearing masks to push past you to grab what they wanted off the shelf. Stay alert, right?

[Pontius Navigator]

Magnus, what happens if you don't have a contractors card? Do you just leave the 'contaminated' groceries for them to put back on the shelves?

Remember years ago Tesco had a particularly good offer though you did need to have a BIG shop to benefit. We had a large trolley brim full when we were told the offer was off. We just abandoned the trolley, never to return. I wonder if it took them longer to restack than it took us to fill?

[Wodrick]

A drift,
Many years ago, still working, T.E. Sco had an offer on a laptop, it was a good offer for a well specified lappy and I bought one it was in the region of £800 and I paid with a credit card.

I have never been billed for it.

It would happily run FS9 with the sliders high. It failed a wine immersion test ten years ago.

[Pontius Navigator]

Wodders, following your non-sequitur, I bought my first PC, second hand 30 years ago for £800 too. 40 Meg HDD that I doubled to 80 with Spinrite or similar and crunched quite large programmes to 1.44 floppy size using LZEXE.

But it passed the coffee test. I carefully dismantled the keyboard. Separated out several layers of clear plastic sheets that had the keyboard matrix on them. Washed everything carefully in soapy water to remove the milky coffee and reassembled it all.

[Ex-Ascot]

End of lock down 00.01 this morning. Country divided into 9 zones. You can move freely within your zone. Go walking, driving, bonking in the bush, shopping etc. We are free Some bureaucrat has taken a ruler and neatly divided up the country. Maun shops are 40 kms away. The nearest shop in our zone is over 100 kms. Three hours drive each way. A friend who is also about 30 mins from town is off a northern Maun border and has a 600 km drive to the nearest shop in his zone. That is about 8 hrs each way. So we still have to get permits to go into town. President's speech tomorrow about the way forward. Nice if he mentioned booze shops and bars.

Cracking photo in this morning's government newspaper. Caption was something along the lines of 'Woolworths promotes wearing of masks and social distancing'. It has since been removed.