Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[fred lever]

RE #223, Jeff that is a great bit of gear! My wife reckons she used one of those as a exchange chick! Thats a bit of a stretch shes not THAT old.
Actually the box may be a mobile unit, is that carry handles i can see on the side and the front looks like it could fold up and latch onto the lid?
Would love to have that on the shelf with the rest of my old time radio/phone gear.
My wife could then play PMG operator again, "putting your call through now Sir"
Fred.

[JeffH]

Fred,
I think it is a field exchange as used by the military.
When we first moved up country years ago we lived in a hamlet with only a few houses. Our phone was a wooden wall phone with a crank handle for the magneto to ring the exchange to get a call out. Exchange was the front room of the next door house and only open restricted hours. After hours calls incurred a fee.
I was rostered 24/7, every third week as duty officer for the County Council and had to take incoming calls for outages and organise the line crews. Could get quite busy if a big blackout in a storm. The lady next door didn't like being woken in the middle of the night (me either) but she did like the accumulation of after hours call fees!

Interesting to know that any old phone will still work on the current network. The ring tone and voice signals are still the same right back to Edison's day.
I once restored a wooden wall phone and put a dialer inside the battery compartment -to call you open the hinged front, dialed and closed the front. Had to replace the old carbon microphone and did the ear unit as well while I was at it.
Similar to the ones pictured. I still have a few of those old cells -use them as paperweights.

[JeffH]

You have no doubt heard the theory that 5G phone signals aid the spread of Covid-19, or even are the cause of the pandemic.
That is, of course, nonsense. Most such theories arise because the promulgators cannot put the correlation between cause and effect in the correct order. Probably with this theory they have confused cause and \eaffect.
Well I say they have it wrong and, for the first time, advance a just as (in)credible alternate theory...............

There has been a spate of 5G mobile phone towers catching fire all over the world and this started just after the CV19 pandemic gained hold. Many towers have also self destructed. Very strong correlation there. Any idiot can see that it must be the Covid-19 virus causing all those towers to destroy themselves. [Stands to reason* doesn't it?]
Here is the latest example, Three cell tower fires in south Auckland overnight
This outbreak is now spreading to 3G and 4g towers too.
A word of warning; if you show any symptoms of Covid-19 do not go anywhere near a phone tower -you could be putting yourself at risk of serious injury. In fact if you have one of the newest mobile phones best to take no chances; destroy it now or, at the very least, remove the COVIDSafe app. Towers now, phones next -sounds logical does it not?

Praise not necessary, I am happy to be of service in these troubled times.
In the words of that eminent publication, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, "DON"T PANIC".

*Don't bother answering the question. I know the answer already.

[fred lever]

As a full stop to the great dunny roll saga I checked my ebay search for resellers and by the same criteria.
Found about 150 and average price is around 80c a roll.
Back to normal, sellers have stock and the dodgy bros traders have gone back to where they came from.
There will be students doing a thesis on this thing in years to come.
Took 3 months for sanity to be restored and the traders to be shipped out of the country off their temporary visas.
Note to Dutton: do not let the mongrels back in!
Fred.

[JeffH]

From today's newspaper;
"Trump told supporters that the US had tested 25 million people, far more than other countries.
'When you do testing to that extent, you're gonna find more people, you're gonna find more cases. So I said to my people, slow the testing down, please,' he said.
A White House official said Trump was joking about his call for a slowdown in testing.
'He was obviously kidding. We are leading the world in testing and have conducted 25 million plus in testing,' the official said."
Trump obviously didn't waste time thinking that one through. Maybe he doesn't know what the point of testing is!
And the spin doctor has to come up with a better story than that.

Criticise our PM and state Premiers all you like (you can do that here) but be glad we don't have that idiot.

[autocoupler]

Poor old Donny does cop his fair share of flack, sure, he does appear to venture on the side of loopy at times, particularly when he's baiting the fake news media. 

He's certainly no politically correct hand clasping snow flake but, for any American in a job, or looking for one at the moment, he's the man they need to keep them employed.

No doubt, those criminals at the recent US BLM rallies who burned, looted and assaulted members of the public, rely heavily on taxes paid by the hundreds of thousands of ordinary law abiding people who Trump has put into work.

Just to keep the thread on topic, it's interesting to note that all the way through 2019 the Chinese were at loggerheads with Trump as they attempted to maintain a trade advantage. From my standpoint, Trump was having none of it and not only called their bluff on tariffs etc, he threatened some of his own. By the end the year China was on the back foot on the trade war front, then something called CORVID-19 raised it's ugly head

Just my two bobs worth

[JeffH]

He certainly has the strength of his convictions.
I think the forthcoming US presidential election might be rather interesting and the pandemic could be a factor too.

[JeffH]

Fred,
Looks like you might have to revive your eBay toilet paper survey.
Reports that supermarkets are running out and buying restrictions reintroduced.
The lemmings aren't following the leader over a cliff; instead following to the toilet paper aisle. Surely they would still have plentiful stock from their last binge?

[JeffH]

Interesting animation. Someone did poit out it does not include cardio vascular disease, a major cause of deaths.
Global Deaths Due to Various Causes and COVID-19

[fred lever]

Jeff, I was stunned. Wednesday at Toongabbie supermarket, Asian woman barges into the dunny roll aisle, grabs armfuls of 4 roll single ply and rushes off to the auto check out. that is a lightning raid!
What is wrong with these people?
Must have brains like peas, come to think of it all you have to do is look at the glorious leader!
Said to check out chick today, better get the Boss to slap limit on sales or the ebay mob will be back in business.
Fred.

[JeffH]

I think as soon as the papers and TV news mention it people think "Oh, there won't be any there when I need some. Better stock up now." But that does not explain why they have to  buy six of the largest packs.
We always buy one pack of toilet paper when we are running low and have never run out. My wife even gave a couple of rolls to a friend because her workplace had none and the shelves were empty.

I am more inclined, if it starts looking like it is getting serious, to stock up on red wine. Takes up less space and some even improve with age if you don't drink them quickly.*

*Disclaimers
1.The ones I buy are probably not cellaring prospects.
2.I have never held onto any long enough to find out if aging actually does improve.

[JeffH]

Told Yers! :taunt: Post #183 this thread

Looks like a waste of $2million and 6.44 million downloads.
COVIDSafe the Clayton's* election promise.

'Dishonest': COVIDSafe app has not detected a case despite 6 million downloads

*A politician's promise when there is not actually an election scheduled.

[Ozcoins]

So what is the correlation between
"Listens to advice on social distancing"
And
"Listens to advice on using the app"?
Those that install the app will be the same people who actually social distance, wear masks, wash hands, get tested  etc.
Those that do nothing to protect themselves (and others) will be the ones that catch and spread the disease.
I am still happy to have the app installed.
I would much rather that I (and others) get contacted, than not be contacted.

[JeffH]

It does seem that the distancing/isolation/hygiene measures are all important.

The app has identified contacts but, so far, none that haven't been identified with the manual tracing procedures. That suggests that obtaining and/or following up the data provided by the app is too tardy. Faster action might free up tracing staff for other important tasks. But manual tracing still needs to be done as the app will not identify all likely close contacts.

[nealeffendi]

Sorry guys, masks don't work as has been shown by multiple RCTs (randomised controlled trials) over many years. The size of the pores in face masks are measured in microns and the virions are fractions of microns. Bit like trying to keep mozzies out of your house with chicken wire.
As for hand sanitisers they are only moderately effective as they only kill a percentage of the bug and then evaporate within a few seconds. Soap and water and proper technique (work the lather between and around your fingers and the combination of the soap and the scrubbing action will both remove any gunk that might be harbouring the bug as well as do a decent job of killing it. Then wash the suds away and you have clean hands. Scrupulous hand washing between every patient was used in Korea and was very effective in stopping nosocomial infections of other patients and staff.
As for social distancing, that is a joke. They decided early on that they needed to "do something" and they picked up some kids school project and ran with that. About a month back a peer reviewed research paper on actual results with this bug showed that there was little difference in infection rates between 2n and 1m spacing and the only way that the numbers went up in a big way was by actual physical contact.
Best way to control this virus is by high risk people self isolating and everybody else getting on with getting the bug until enough herd immunity exists for the pandemic to burn itself out (making it relatively safe for high risk people to then emerge).
All lockdowns do is slow down the time until herd immunity builds up so Australia will be one of the last places to get to that goal (though a few more guards bonking with quarantine hotel inmates might speed that up).?