COVID-19 - READ THE RULES BEFORE REPLYING

[captain_to_fire]

12 minutes ago, sub68 said:

I unfortunately live in a college town that students party.

I saw a party that was unmasked ugh.

Reminds of stupid spring breakers from Miami, FL last year 

 

 

[sub68]

1 minute ago, captain_to_fire said:

Reminds of stupid spring breakers from Miami, FL last year 

 

 

Funny enough I was on spring break trip when we got the call that school was going to be virtual.

So that was fun.

[Arika]

As someone with a pre-disposition to blood clots (cheers genetics), I think I'm going to wait until there's more information about the AZ vaccine since we don't get to say "I want x vaccine" and AZ is the only one offered in my area. 

[WkdPaul]

10 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

Reminds of stupid spring breakers from Miami, FL last year 

 

 

What I should've posted ;

Spoiler

 

[sub68]

1 minute ago, wkdpaul said:

 

 

[WkdPaul]

4 minutes ago, sub68 said:

 

 

click on it

[captain_to_fire]

6 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

 

Try with a US VPN server

[Commodus]

12 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

Canadian gets double lungs transplant because of COVID related permanent damages to his lungs ;

https://www.cp24.com/news/mississauga-man-with-covid-destroyed-lungs-receives-double-lung-transplant-1.5383613

 

 

People should really think about it twice, just like the gym outbreak (now linked to 440+ infections), you might be fine and COVID might be nothing to you, but the people you infect might not be as lucky.

In many ways, the pandemic is a test of people's abilities to accept shared responsibility and feel empathy. You simply can't be self-centered and heartless, because doing so will endanger you and the people you care about. You have to put your ego aside and accept that many of the things you love to do are on indefinite hold.

 

Of course, as we've seen with these protests and many other incidents, some people are just too egocentric and vicious to accept that. They'd rather ruin their community than be denied the chance to eat in a restuarant or hold a house party. And I don't think they realize that, when this is all over, many of their neighbours will look at them differently — COVID-19 has removed the polite veneer that kept you from seeing some horrible people for who they really are.

[sub68]

51 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

 

click on it

Oh

[Donut417]

Well today I scheduled by Vaccine. First dose is this Saturday and the second is 3 weeks from that Saturday. Funny enough Im getting the shot on my birthday. 

 

 

 

On a second note. One thing Im worried about when things get back up and running is the economy tanking. Why? Well the government keeps extending unemployment. The reason this is bad is that companies are opening up and having a hard time finding help. A work we are 2 people down and the temp agencies we use to hire help haven't been able to find anyone. My boss has pretty much said that if he has two applications in front of him, and one guy worked this whole time and the other was off for a year on unemployment, that the one who worked would be the one hired. Now I dont think he's the only one who's going to be thinking that way. So all of these people who refuse to go out and get a job might find themselves shafted when the unemployment dries up. Michigan just extended it till August. Dont get me wrong I understand that some people are high risk. But not everyone who's drawing unemployment is. Some of these people are out right lazy. All industries are facing hardships because of that. Every restaurant is looking for help. Most retailers are looking for help. HELL we called the contractor because we decided that we were just going to have the garage rebuilt even though prices of lumber are much higher. He frankly said that I dont have the help really to do this in a timely manner. As a result we had to kick the can down the road. At the very least that could mean lumber prices go down, but I think my dad misses his garage. 

[IkeaGnome]

2 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Well today I scheduled by Vaccine. First dose is this Saturday and the second is 3 weeks from that Saturday. Funny enough Im getting the shot on my birthday. 

 

 

 

On a second note. One thing Im worried about when things get back up and running is the economy tanking. Why? Well the government keeps extending unemployment. The reason this is bad is that companies are opening up and having a hard time finding help. A work we are 2 people down and the temp agencies we use to hire help haven't been able to find anyone. My boss has pretty much said that if he has two applications in front of him, and one guy worked this whole time and the other was off for a year on unemployment, that the one who worked would be the one hired. Now I dont think he's the only one who's going to be thinking that way. So all of these people who refuse to go out and get a job might find themselves shafted when the unemployment dries up. Michigan just extended it till August. Dont get me wrong I understand that some people are high risk. But not everyone who's drawing unemployment is. Some of these people are out right lazy. All industries are facing hardships because of that. Every restaurant is looking for help. Most retailers are looking for help. HELL we called the contractor because we decided that we were just going to have the garage rebuilt even though prices of lumber are much higher. He frankly said that I dont have the help really to do this in a timely manner. As a result we had to kick the can down the road. At the very least that could mean lumber prices go down, but I think my dad misses his garage. 

Normal crew of mechanics for us. Lube tech, welder, drift mechanic, PM mechanic, 3 floor mechanics and a drill doctor. Times 4 and we're fully staffed. If you add up all the mechanics we have we are just over a full crew right now. 

[Donut417]

1 minute ago, IkeaGnome said:

Normal crew of mechanics for us. Lube tech, welder, drift mechanic, PM mechanic, 3 floor mechanics and a drill doctor. Times 4 and we're fully staffed. If you add up all the mechanics we have we are just over a full crew right now. 

We haven't had a full crew since last year May I believe. Thats when two of our employees decided to take a voluntary layoff. They both were called back in December, but both declined. We started looking for two more people in January. We had one guy not even a week, he wasn't a good fit for the job. Then we lost another employee a few weeks ago. She got a job at GM, probably making more money. So we are still looking for 2 people. 

 

Part of the problem is they dont do direct hire. They only do temp to hire. I think part of the reason is that our HR department is located in Sioux Falls South Dakota. I think they use a temp agency because the temp agency does all the background checks and drug test and such. You work your 90 days thru the temp agency and our company buys out your contract and hires you in. Pay is so so, but I get Health, Dental, Vision, Short/Long term disability, 401K, Identity Theft protection. I earn 10 hour of time off a month with up to 240 hrs I can bank. Not to mention a free lunch each month our accuracy is at or above 99.5%. With all that is a pretty nice place to work. We even get bonus's at certain times of the year. Dont get me wrong, its work. We pick and pack product. Some product can be up to 70lbs. Due to us entering busy season we are pretty much busy from when start to finish of our day. 

[IkeaGnome]

4 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

We haven't had a full crew since last year May I believe. Thats when two of our employees decided to take a voluntary layoff. They both were called back in December, but both declined. We started looking for two more people in January. We had one guy not even a week, he wasn't a good fit for the job. Then we lost another employee a few weeks ago. She got a job at GM, probably making more money. So we are still looking for 2 people. 

 

Part of the problem is they dont do direct hire. They only do temp to hire. I think part of the reason is that our HR department is located in Sioux Falls South Dakota. I think they use a temp agency because the temp agency does all the background checks and drug test and such. You work your 90 days thru the temp agency and our company buys out your contract and hires you in. Pay is so so, but I get Health, Dental, Vision, Short/Long term disability, 401K, Identity Theft protection. I earn 10 hour of time off a month with up to 240 hrs I can bank. Not to mention a free lunch each month our accuracy is at or above 99.5%. With all that is a pretty nice place to work. We even get bonus's at certain times of the year. Dont get me wrong, its work. We pick and pack product. Some product can be up to 70lbs. Due to us entering busy season we are pretty much busy from when start to finish of our day. 

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for unemployment. It has it's place. Just like our PFD. It has it's place. 

It gets abused though. Our economy is about to get the hard hit from COVID again. Give it until July if numbers aren't at a spot where travel for tourism can start coming back and Alaska is going to be hurting. Oil and mining sustains us. Tourism makes us thrive. I know a bunch of small business owners that are worried about having to shut down after this year if it's another bad year. 

The fall out from this pandemic is going to be long term. I think people are thinking if we can get the vaccine and open stuff up everything goes back to normal. People have to have time to get back into jobs, earn and save to have expendable income to do the fun things or spend locally(which is usually a little bit more expensive). I wouldn't be surprised to see Amazon, Walmart, etc. continue to grow for a few months after reopening while local keeps struggling.

 

Overall that doesn't sound bad!

Grand scheme, we get good pay, same benefits, stupidly good life insurance. It is a remote job, so while we're here rooms are paid for, food is provided. Our time off depends on time here. 1-3 years is 120 hours of PTO(we use it for 12 hours a day), 3-7 is 160 hours, 7-12 is 200 hours(what I get), 12+is 240 hours. We get it at the start of the year and at the end they'll pay out up to 48 hours if we have it left. We get a monthly bonus based on ounces of gold we recovered. On a normal year it's closer to 12%. Since COVID hit we went from 14 days on 14 off. To compensate us for that we have been getting a 24% bonus. It's mining so we're usually busy. I'm a warehouse guy so I get a little extra ass time to be on here or on Discord with the old lady(it's the only reason I haven't been told to get a job in town yet). With that being said though, if we're short miners or mechanics, I'm a miner first, mechanic second(My warehouse doesn't exist in corporate's mind(Chicago). They don't see a point in having millions in parts stashed underground). I've had days where I'm out driving haul truck, running muckers or jacklegging. 

Spoiler

 

 

On COVID note, our cases are going up here in Alaska. On a good COVID note, June 10th I go back to 14 and 14 from the 21 and 21. 

[Donut417]

1 minute ago, IkeaGnome said:

The fall out from this pandemic is going to be long term. I think people are thinking if we can get the vaccine and open stuff up everything goes back to normal. People have to have time to get back into jobs, earn and save to have expendable income to do the fun things or spend locally(which is usually a little bit more expensive). I wouldn't be surprised to see Amazon, Walmart, etc. continue to grow for a few months after reopening while local keeps struggling.

 

My mom read that once Spanish Flu was over, it took the country 3 years to recover. I expect it might not take that long. But like you said, some people are not going to have the expendable income to do things. I know I will, because I was working the whole time. 

 

Local business got the shaft. Personally I dont think they should have forced many of the businesses to shut down, it should have been a choice. Give them the choice as long as they have a plan to keep employees and customers safe. But on the other side of the fence some of these businesses were failing anyway, so all the pandemic did was kill them faster. 

 

Amazon will continue to grow. The Union vote came back as a no in Alabama. So Amazon managed to cross that hurdle. I expect record growth from them to be honest. I pretty much shop at Walmart and shop on Amazon any more. But for the record our grocery store in town closed years ago because the health department discovered they were selling expired meat. Yeah........ So the build stays vacant as it needs lots of work on the inside. I guess whoever owned it left all the food and stuff and just shut the doors. 

[IkeaGnome]

3 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

My mom read that once Spanish Flu was over, it took the country 3 years to recover. I expect it might not take that long. But like you said, some people are not going to have the expendable income to do things. I know I will, because I was working the whole time.

I think in a modern age it shouldn't take that long to recover. I think in a modern age where so few people have gained so much wealth recently it will take a long time for that money to go back in the hands of people that are more likely to spend it. 

4 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Local business got the shaft. Personally I dont think they should have forced many of the businesses to shut down, it should have been a choice. Give them the choice as long as they have a plan to keep employees and customers safe. But on the other side of the fence some of these businesses were failing anyway, so all the pandemic did was kill them faster. 

This is one of those times that I'm happy to live where I do. While we have been under an emergency declaration like practically everyone else our governor has been very open. Travel into the state was tightened to the point of practical nonexistent. However, mask mandates, store closures, allowing travel from other towns etc has all been left up to local mayors. There are villages(off the road system) that haven't had a case of COVID and are above herd immunity on vaccination rates. On the flip side of that, Anchorage shut pretty much everything down for a while so they could cope in a more "city" way of coping. 

 

8 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Amazon will continue to grow. The Union vote came back as a no in Alabama. So Amazon managed to cross that hurdle. I expect record growth from them to be honest. I pretty much shop at Walmart and shop on Amazon any more. But for the record our grocery store in town closed years ago because the health department discovered they were selling expired meat. Yeah........ So the build stays vacant as it needs lots of work on the inside. I guess whoever owned it left all the food and stuff and just shut the doors. 

I know Amazon and the likes will continue to grow. I more or less meant at this increased rate. 

[captain_to_fire]

I might postpone my vaccination because the only ones in stock are China's Coronavac and AstraZena's and wait for the arrival of Russia's Sputnik V or Pfizer/BioNTech. The Sputnik V is the one I find the most interesting as they've used human adenovirus (AD26 and AD5) vectors and inserted the cDNA encoding for the spike protein. Unlike the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine, the Russian one can be stored in household refrigerators (2-8°C).

 

[dalekphalm]

16 hours ago, captain_to_fire said:

I might postpone my vaccination because the only ones in stock are China's Coronavac and AstraZena's and wait for the arrival of Russia's Sputnik V or Pfizer/BioNTech. The Sputnik V is the one I find the most interesting as they've used human adenovirus (AD26 and AD5) vectors and inserted the cDNA encoding for the spike protein. Unlike the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine, the Russian one can be stored in household refrigerators (2-8°C).

 

Personally I would take the AstraZeneca vaccine without hesitation. I wouldn’t touch the Chinese or Russian ones (neither of which are approved for use in Canada). 

[PhantomJaguarr]

Quote

San Diego County announced Tuesday morning that it is pausing use of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine, following guidance from the federal government.

https://timesofsandiego.com/health/2021/04/13/san-diego-county-pauses-use-of-johnson-johnson-vaccine-over-blood-clot-worries/
 

Oof. Right as we hit 26% fully vaccinated. Pfizer is ramping up their vaccine production since J&J is now on pause.

[captain_to_fire]

7 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Personally I would take the AstraZeneca vaccine without hesitation. I wouldn’t touch the Chinese or Russian ones (neither of which are approved for use in Canada). 

We are running out of AZ's vaccine, also the mRNA based vaccines are way too expensive to store that's why I'm looking forward to the Russia-made vaccine with spike protein cDNA inside a human adenovirus. China's vaccine is fine, it's just that it's way too politicized here and not a lot of safety data for people like me with an autoimmune disease.

[captain_to_fire]

3 hours ago, PhantomJaguar77 said:

since J&J is now on pause.

I wonder if they're still gonna continue manufacturing in the US now that the gov't kicked out AstraZeneca

[sub68]

I hate the 5G conspiracy theory linking to covid

your phone does 1 watt

a HAM radio does 5-10 watts

a 5g tower does 10 watt transmit

a HAM repetor has 100-200 watt amplifier

[PhantomJaguarr]

5 hours ago, captain_to_fire said:

I wonder if they're still gonna continue manufacturing in the US now that the gov't kicked out AstraZeneca

Trust in the vaccines is already hanging in the balance in some places with the help of the media and antivaxxers. A coworker claimed I only got 3 years to live from taking Pfizer’s vaccine. Good thing my mask muffled my comment when I responded to that. 

[captain_to_fire]

13 minutes ago, PhantomJaguar77 said:

A coworker claimed I only got 3 years to live from taking Pfizer’s vaccine.

Milkmaids exposed to cowpox which protected them from smallpox would beg to differ lol

 

and now humanity is smallpox free

[PhantomJaguarr]

1 hour ago, captain_to_fire said:

Milkmaids exposed to cowpox which protected them from smallpox would beg to differ lol

 

and now humanity is smallpox free

Besides Pfizer's vaccine benefits outweighing the risks,

 

A 100 USD bonus on my check and a giveaway for a 50USD Starbucks gift card from my university for providing proof of COVID vaccination is more than enough for me. 

[sub68]

Trying to explain COVID to a grandma with dementia is hard.

She doesnt understand why she is with us.

ugh send help.