How is the corona virus affecting you?

I'm not so worried about Christmas being "canceled." Christmas in my family means driving to Houston with my dog, being bored to tears most of the time I am there, with the rest of the time spent eating mediocre food and fixing whatever is wrong with my parent's and/or sister's house.

I love my family, but we were never "close." My dad had his career, my mom had her books, my sister and I had different friends. We basically slept in the same house at night, and had Sunday dinner every week (almost).

This year it is really stressing me out, because I have a surgery sometime before Christmas, and my mom doesn't quite "get it" that there is any possibility I couldn't just jump in the truck (I don't drive the MINI to Houston) a few days after having my belly sliced open. I won't be able to fix anything, as I won't be allowed to bend over or lift anything over ten pounds. Mom will say, "If you don't do this, your dad will try, and he's too old."

Covid-19 adds to the anxiety, because it is rampant in Texas. Houston has roughly 7-million people, and between Dallas and Houston is major Trump Country, so maybe half the people wear masks. I may be wrong, but I'm thinking that catching this virus right after surgery is probably a bad thing.

So, I'm actually fine with staying home with my dog for Christmas this year.

CD
 
SCAM ALERT! As with any good news, like a new vaccine, the scammers are going to take advantage of people. The government and conumer groups are already warning of scams that will inevitably emerge. Be carefull.

Also, this thread would be a good place for people to post up any scams that they hear of.

CD
 
We got a letter about getting the flu inoculation. I rang the number to book up and discovered that we'd need to go to Kirkcaldy, which would involve getting a train or bus. Neither of us want to use public transport, so we had to back out of this one.

However, I popped into the local pharmacy this morning and found that we can get them done there, so we're booked in for next Thursday. The modern way to spend Christmas Eve...

I appreciate that you can't have vaccination centres in every small town and village, but it seems faintly ridiculous that one would need to risk going on a bus or train to get inoculated against flu only to catch something even worse.
 
Duck59 said:
We got a letter about getting the flu inoculation. I rang the number to book up and discovered that we'd need to go to Kirkcaldy, which would involve getting a train or bus. Neither of us want to use public transport, so we had to back out of this one.

However, I popped into the local pharmacy this morning and found that we can get them done there, so we're booked in for next Thursday. The modern way to spend Christmas Eve...

I appreciate that you can't have vaccination centres in every small town and village, but it seems faintly ridiculous that one would need to risk going on a bus or train to get inoculated against flu only to catch something even worse.
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I hope all goes well.
 
caseydog said:
SCAM ALERT! As with any good news, like a new vaccine, the scammers are going to take advantage of people. The government and conumer groups are already warning of scams that will inevitably emerge. Be carefull.

Also, this thread would be a good place for people to post up any scams that they hear of.

CD
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What scam have you heard regarding the vaccine?
 
There have been a few reports in the UK of pensioners being targetted with vaccine scams. I have previously noted a scam - not regarding vaccines - about payments to the self-employed. These things appear to be a mix of attempting to steal personal data as well as money and come in various forms - phone calls, text messages and emails, with the usual bogus links and telephone numbers.
 
Duck59 said:
There have been a few reports in the UK of pensioners being targetted with vaccine scams. I have previously noted a scam - not regarding vaccines - about payments to the self-employed. These things appear to be a mix of attempting to steal personal data as well as money and come in various forms - phone calls, text messages and emails, with the usual bogus links and telephone numbers.
Click to expand...

We've had the "Benefits" scams here, too, and the CNN story I read mentioned that scammers will probably target senior citizens heavily.

It's sad, but it is human nature (for some) to take advantage of things like this to take other people's money.

CD
 
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday ordered the Minister of Education to allow all Grade 12 students to pass their exam automatically without sitting it due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
  • Wow
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Unicef has been around for 74 years and has never felt the need to provide any support to the UK. This is entirely reasonable, as Britain is - in theory, at least - a rich, developed western country. However, today we read that it is giving money to a charity that provides meals for impoverished British children. This is shocking, but not really surprising. Executives get massive pay rises (on top of their already massive pay), government "advisers" trouser hundreds of thousands of pounds, yet we can't feed our children.

Advance Britannia backwards.
 
Duck59 said:
Unicef has been around for 74 years and has never felt the need to provide any support to the UK. This is entirely reasonable, as Britain is - in theory, at least - a rich, developed western country. However, today we read that it is giving money to a charity that provides meals for impoverished British children. This is shocking, but not really surprising. Executives get massive pay rises (on top of their already massive pay), government "advisers" trouser hundreds of thousands of pounds, yet we can't feed our children.

Advance Britannia backwards.
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Same problem here. The powers that be over the last four years love to give tax cuts to the wealthy, expecting it to "trickle down" to the working class. It is called Supply Side Economics. It is nonsense, it has never worked, but it is popular with the wealthy. So, billionaires get tax cuts, and their employees need food stamps to feed their families.

How this relates to the topic, is that poor people have a higher death rate from Covid than people who make enough money to afford decent health care.

The Walton family, owners of Walmart, have a combined worth of $196 billion. Many of their employees receive food stamps and taxpayer funded Medicaid health insurance. Amazon.com runs neck and neck with Walmart, as does McDonalds.

CD
 
caseydog said:
Same problem here. The powers that be over the last four years love to give tax cuts to the wealthy, expecting it to "trickle down" to the working class. It is called Supply Side Economics. It is nonsense, it has never worked, but it is popular with the wealthy. So, billionaires get tax cuts, and their employees need food stamps to feed their families.

How this relates to the topic, is that poor people have a higher death rate from Covid than people who make enough money to afford decent health care.

The Walton family, owners of Walmart, have a combined worth of $196 billion. Many of their employees receive food stamps and taxpayer funded Medicaid health insurance. Amazon.com runs neck and neck with Walmart, as does McDonalds.

CD
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Ex works for a major airline. Everything went haywire after 9/11 and many people lost their jobs. Thankfully, he didn't but everyone lost part of their retirement funds, including pensioners (his dad is retired from the same airline). Things were pretty bad. Two of his co-workers dropped dead from heart attacks, literally. The stress was the massive layoffs and the people left behind were doing the jobs of those laid off people. Way too much stress.

Well, someone in Corporate got the bright idea to write an article in the company newsletter. Guess what? It included tips on how to get through "lean" times and one of the suggestions was to go dumpster diving. No joke. Their CEOs (current and formers) were being paid millions of dollars with additional perks and they were suggesting that non-executive employees should dig through other people's trash.

Edited to add (to make it stay on topic)...The airlines are once again hard hit by COVID as people are traveling less amid the quarantines. So, once again, people are getting laid off and things are on shaky ground. I don't know if they were able to get any of the loans made available to businesses but I worry about my children and ex if he loses his job. Thankfully, he is still employed. I feel so bad for all the others that aren't. This is a mess that will take years to clean up.
 
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