(PA-Coronavirus shutdown) My wife & I are both "essential"
 

My wife works at the local hospital and as a machinist with jobs clicking the magic "keywords", we are both considered essential. This means we can actually earn money to pay bills, eat and not be a burden on society.

The hospital aspect is straightforward. My employer has numerous medical equipment companies we do business with in addition to water treatment and military contracts.

One of the very large companies we make medical products for had their legal team contact the owner very early this morning ( as in it was still dark ) to let the owner know he would be working due to the medical manufacturer supplier exclusion.

In this chaos, it's nice to know our jobs are secure. :angel:

~~~~~~~~~~~~

My boss told everyone straight out, if you feel bad, just go home. One of my coworkers has MS ( under control VERY well ) so he bailed and will be back after everything calms down.

At the hospital, only employees can enter except for the emergency room. The only other exception is ONE person at a time can visit someone who is dying or if a woman had a baby, only the father can visit.

As of Monday, all hospital employees will have their temperature taken to be allowed to enter the hospital.

:willy:

Those are pretty much the same standards our local hospital is going with.

Mary just told me if you are in the cardiac unit and are well enough to leave your bed, you spouse can call the nurse's station to request a visit. Then when you arrive at the hospital, you call again while you are parked at the main entrance and they will wheel you out to the vehicle. You do the visit in the vehicle out in the parking lot and then call for them to get you when you're done.

:seasix:

So what? PA is going to issue you some kind of identity card so you can leave the house? I'm less scared of a virus that might.......might kill 3 percent of the people who get it, than I am of the government's response.

Are the PA police going to be walking around saying, "Stop and show me your papers?"

I've known cardiac patients that would use that as an opportunity to chain smoke about five cigarettes.:lol:

If I'm about to die of the Wu flu, I'm going to start smoking cigarettes, what the heck.

There better not be any ID required. there are already a few lawsuits in the works for the governor creating all the restrictions. I think he exceeded what is allowed the constitution of Pennsylvania. :issues:

It is here, zero visitors unless they are allowed one support person for specific procedures. The support person cannot be changed per patient.

More than likely yes... During local emergencies here(hurricanes), when they Institute a curfew the wife has papers from work for her to pass when curfew is in effect.
It will be a total cluster for sure esp for a few days. :slap:

I got a text from work:

"Bitch, show your ass up", I feel the love.

:Jeff '79:

I walked the dog.

Investments, which help pay the bills, have cratered.

The only one here going to work is the 17 year old. :D

Very happy you can still earn a living. :seasix:

We service about fifty medical facilities. They all have gone to little tents outside to take temperature prior to allowing anyone to enter.

We drafted a letter explaining our line of business and why the drivers are on the road. (HVAC for medical facilities and refrigeration for food distribution). Its a simple measure to avoid any bullshit. There are still idiots who wont listen and are running around willy nilly.

They will claim all is fair under emergency provisions. By the time it gets tested in court, this will be over.

Just stay safe

We went to the beach yesterday and got sunburned.
Excellent social distancing was being practiced by all and the temp was 83°.:D
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Most essential if you ask me

CV official stats as of Friday:

total confirmed cases worldwide: 298,393
total confirmed deaths worldwide: 12,755

4.5% death rate. Typical flu season in the US causes a death rate of about 1.5%

the 4.5% rate will lower over time. The infection-to-death ratio should not be overly relied on in the early stages like this; it can be very mis-leading.

FYI:

Test kit availability always lags an outbreak. Because of this... testing is only done (this early on) to those showing serious symptoms. Due to this typical lack of test kit availability, the infection-to-death ratio is skewed... always... at the beginning. All outbreaks like this start out with a prelim higher ratio. Once tests are plentiful, then more will be tested... offered to those barely showing any symptoms (those less likely to die from it or even get seriously ill from it).

The typical 1.5% statistic is compiled after the entire event is over, after test kits became plentiful and massive testing has been eventually carried out.

CV is one of the worse ones to hit us in awhile; but I just read an email from someone claiming the CV death rate is "20 times worse" that a typical flu outbreak :rolleyes:

The milling machine I'm currently working on is in a 25' x 60' room and I'm the only one in the room.

There are four machinists and even when we work next to each other, we're still a good distance away from each other. There might be one or two people at the time clock in the morning but it's easy to make space.

Total amount of folks at the business is 25.

there are some extraordinary measures being undertaken by trades guys and engineering teams as emergency measures. it has to do with how ventilation air is delivered and rooms pressurized in medical facilities, in effort to stop any ability for germs to spread room to room. some of those guys have to go inside massive ducts to install partitions to redirect air. obviously they are wearing protection as best they can. they are doing this quietly and with confidence that they are helping the cause. meanwhile people are flipping out that they are going to work. sad.

In my town, the hospitals are allowing us to work more or less normally (HVAC). The refinery's and plants are taking my mechanics temperature and splitting their crews in half on 2 week cycles. It seems odd at first but some of these plants have some greater risks than the hospitals do.