General Coronavirus chit chat thread - non-travel specific

[Denali]

Gripe!!! Telstra Bigpond internet not working for over a week! Our niece living in our home in Sydney is a school teacher. SM refuses to close schools Her school principal finally decided (like some private schools in Sydney) to close the school and move classes online. However, we have been with TB for our cable internet for over 20 years (and for 6 months from July last year we hardly use the internet as our niece had to be in the US with her parents when her mother was severely ill and passed away). Our niece said we have had no internet from Telstra for over a week. She called and called and no one answered. She put in a complaint via their website, no answer. She has had to go to school every day to use the internet to do the online lessons (failed working from home). Very frustrated for her. Hubby decided we have had enough so he signed up with a new provider. Will keep our fingers crossed that the connection will be successful this week so our niece can work from home.

When our NBN coughs itself, which is often, I use my phone as a hotspot. Or she gets a 50gb sim from Woolies and use that in a spare/cheap phone.

 

[Myrna]

When our NBN coughs itself, which is often, I use my phone as a hotspot. Or she gets a 50gb sim from Woolies and use that in a spare/cheap phone.

Thanks, Denali. Our niece has tried to use her mobile phone as a hotspot, but the signal was not good enough for her to do online lessons with the kids. The irony was that Telstra claimed they have given everyone extra GB - useless for our niece when Telstra broadband did not work. She has taken her computer from home to school and set it up so she can do the online lessons with the school kids in her class. She was supposed to stay.at.home! Arrrgh ...

 

[cove]

@Myrna Qatar on AA Miles could keep you away from economy travel for a trip to Sydney. It isn’t a good time to fly as 14 day quarantine is now in place.
i hope your niece gets a quick resolution to the Big Pond problem.
In PERTH a senior ABC announcer had issues working from home for 3 weeks because of Big Pond issues and ABC are the emergency broadcaster.

 

[Flashback]

So sorry to hear that @Flashback

That's life. See my response 2 quotes below......

Hang in there. We lost all our foreseeable work last week. Literally overnight. Not much you can do about it.

Agree, sucks but that's life.

It has just dawned on me. No one is talking about Africa. Why?

I had hedged my work, one in finance and one in mining. The one in mining is Africa. Needless to say both have gone down the gurgler so I'm back to sitting it out. Africa is not in as good a state as you think......

Funny, I can’t stand Doc Martin - his character just grates on me.

Is that the chap from the show in Cornwall? I had booked accommodation for my folks to visit Port Isaac, unfortunately not cancelled. They won't let up on the non-refundable booking.

My Breville toaster is seven and still going strong. I also can’t stand a bad toaster.

Amazon deliveries are also running behind.

Amazon is good here, booked on the 'free' delivery and delivered the next day!

I love stuff like this, which is one of the reasons I like Seattle so I much. It's everywhere, you just have to see it

View this content on Instagram

View this content on Instagram

Looks similar to some statues I saw in Bratislava. Great place, if you have the chance to go..... do it. Cheap and easy (1 hour train) from Vienna.

Gripe!!! Telstra Bigpond internet not working for over a week! Our niece living in our home in Sydney is a school teacher. SM refuses to close schools Her school principal finally decided (like some private schools in Sydney) to close the school and move classes online. However, we have been with TB for our cable internet for over 20 years (and for 6 months from July last year we hardly use the internet as our niece had to be in the US with her parents when her mother was severely ill and passed away). Our niece said we have had no internet from Telstra for over a week. She called and called and no one answered. She put in a complaint via their website, no answer. She has had to go to school every day to use the internet to do the online lessons (failed working from home). Very frustrated for her. Hubby decided we have had enough so he signed up with a new provider. Will keep our fingers crossed that the connection will be successful this week so our niece can work from home.

Hello Myrna, it's been a long time. Hope all is good over there.

 

[Myrna]

@Flashback - "Hello Myrna, it's been a long time. Hope all is good over there."
Hello there Flashback! All good here. Hope you and Mrs Flashback are keeping well and safe. Our sweet little Chloe is getting older (16+) but still enjoys her short walk around the block with hubby. Our travel has been put on hold - until we no longer have her then a big move back to Sydney permanently.

 

[Flashback]

@Flashback - "Hello Myrna, it's been a long time. Hope all is good over there."
Hello there Flashback! All good here. Hope you and Mrs Flashback are keeping well and safe. Our sweet little Chloe is getting older (16+) but still enjoys her short walk around the block with hubby. Our travel has been put on hold - until we no longer have her then a big move back to Sydney permanently.

On hearing the latest news in the UK it sounds like I need to extend my spreadsheet out, another 4-5 months is now (likely) gone but I'm keeping it on ice. Hopefully not, but more than likely it will be. If I can salvage the trip to Aus for Christmas, the first since we moved here, that would be OK.

 

[Myrna]

@Myrna Qatar on AA Miles could keep you away from economy travel for a trip to Sydney. It isn’t a good time to fly as 14 day quarantine is now in place.
i hope your niece gets a quick resolution to the Big Pond problem.
In PERTH a senior ABC announcer had issues working from home for 3 weeks because of Big Pond issues and ABC are the emergency broadcaster.

Yes, hubby has been mulling a trip back to Sydney to help our niece to sort out multiple issues at home. But he worried about leaving our little Chloe and me here in London if he could not fly back and of course the quarantine problem! School holidays in NSW do not start for another week, so this week our niece will have to go to school to do online lessons for her class.

 

[LadyC]

Isn't postal delivery classed as an essential service?

Yes. If anything, I understand Australia Post is currently trying to broaden services to assist households (eg the pharmac_ delivery service).

 

[Flashback]

Yes, hubby has been mulling a trip back to Sydney to help our niece to sort out multiple issues at home. But he worried about leaving our little Chloe and me here in London if he could not fly back and of course the quarantine problem! School holidays in NSW do not start for another week, so this week our niece will have to go to school to do online lessons for her class.

Well if around, happy to help as always, although I might be on my pushbike rather than the tube!

 

[tgh]

Myrna , the school has a duty of care to protect their staff as well as provide the facilities for them to work, this is not your daughters problem.
Someone at the school, or if that fails the union, needs to nudge or kick a butt.
Is it a private or public school ?

 

[Pushka]

Isn't it better to just say keep away from people, social distancing, so if they sneeze or cough you won't have any particles come into contact with you. Then wash your hands, rinse and repeat, multiple times a day to reduce as much as possible contact from surfaces and always keep hands away from face. Does it need to get any more specific or complicated than that for us mere mortals? And if that is correct, that is the message being sent from Health.

 

[Flashback]

This all seems to be getting very...... aggressive. I'm glad I stepped away for a few days.

 

[get me outta here]

Was just reading a post from a mystery shopper type person who had a job to report on a Hotel dealing with lockdown guests. If this is an example of the debacle at the airport dealing with returning people, the lockdown may be a good idea in theory:

“

 

[Myrna]

Myrna , the school has a duty of care to protect their staff as well as provide the facilities for them to work, this is not your daughters problem.
Someone at the school, or if that fails the union, needs to nudge or kick a butt.
Is it a private or public school ?

Thanks, tgh. It is a small private primary school (only up to year 4).

 

[Foreigner]

I’m planning to order flowers for family friends today. I’d think florists would do well if folks order flowers and cards online for delivery to friends and relatives. Provided they don’t have supply chain issues.

 

[Pushka]

Was just reading a post from a mystery shopper type person who had a job to report on a Hotel dealing with lockdown guests. If this is an example of the debacle at the airport dealing with returning people, the lockdown may be a good idea in theory:

“View attachment 211220

They should not be using elevators so the existing guests would be fine. I'd suggest stationing equipped service personnel close by might be a good use of resources now.

 

[Flying mermaid]

For the general public yes what you say is true. No aerosol transmission (airborne). Droplet transmission occurs when a person is in in close contact (within 1 m) with someone who has respiratory symptoms. So 1.5m rule to provide a safety margin. Plus hand-washing etc to prevent transmission from hands touching those droplets and then touching ones moth etc.

However for medical staff treating CV 19 patients some procedures such as intubation are thought to create aerosols and so special precautions need to be followed, both for the staff treating the patient and in the type of room that the patient is in when those procedures are done.

This is also why relatives of patients who have undergone these processes are not allowed to be in the same room as them including if they die.

You can read more here:

Modes of transmission of virus causing COVID-19: implications for IPC precaution recommendations

Scientific brief

www.who.int

Yes - I hadn’t passed on all the extra info she gave me - just extracted what was relevant to the discussion on here.

 

[andye]

While we are talking about doctors I found it totally incomprehensible that a group of doctors (33) chose to ignore a directive from police to quarantine in a hotel, left international and took domestic flights. I can understand that they viewed themselves as low/no risk and knew better than a bureaucrat, but surely no-one is above the law?

As with anything incomprehensible, it seems that it was not as straightforward as first presented. According to a follow up story in the Herald, their flight landed before the mandatory hotel quarantine directive came into effect. Apparently some of the party were told it would be OK to self-isolate at home (I.e travel onward) while others were told to quarantine. The decision was clarified that they would all need to quarantine but by that time many had already taken their morning connecting flight.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Was just reading a post from a mystery shopper type person who had a job to report on a Hotel dealing with lockdown guests. If this is an example of the debacle at the airport dealing with returning people, the lockdown may be a good idea in theory:

“View attachment 211220

I think with a post such as that you need to confirm which country it was actually in. And also whether it was an earlier hotel taking guests vs the new quarantine hotels that have now been set up in Australia. There have been many facebook type posts which are simply made up.

Personally I would be surprised if the quarantine hotels in Australia actually have any non-quarantine guests in them. Indeed the footage I have seen to date of Australian Quarantine Hotels have had police and the army in the lobby, outside the entrance and patrolling the corridors.

I would also be quite skeptical if in Australia that Quarantine Guests are actually exiting their rooms in any manner. There may of course be the occasional idiot who tries, but I would be surprised if this in Australia was not rare.

 

[Pushka]

I think with a post such as that you need to confirm which country it was actually in. And also whether it was an earlier hotel taking guests vs the new quarantine hotels that have now been set up in Australia. There have been many facebook type posts which are simply made up.

Personally I would be surprised if the quarantine hotels in Australia actually have any non-quarantine guests in them. Indeed the footage I have seen to date of Australian Quarantine Hotels have had police and the army in the lobby, outside the entrance and patrolling the corridors.

I would also be quite skeptical if in Australia that Quarantine Guests are actually exiting their rooms in any manner. There may of course be the occasional idiot who tries, but I would be surprised if this in Australia was not rare.

I think the Sofitel? has permanents staying there. Also, where people cannot go into quarantine safely in SA they are being housed in a Caravan Park that has both regular guests and maybe even permanents but as the property is large they can be separated well.