@luminata Chocolate syrup is always shelf ready and very nice over sliced fruit. Chocolate chips can be melted,either in a microwave or in a pan over water like a small double boiler, poured onto parchment paper and sprinkled with nuts and or dry fruit like raisins, dried apricot or dried cranberries, coconut, orange zest (whatever you like) Then just refrigerate it until it hardens, crack or break it into pieces and store in a container. We all can spend time in our kitchens letting our imaginations run free.
A friend of a friend who is a Professor of Emergency Medicine posted on Facebook about the COVID-2019 in response to a number of questions he had been receiving. It's quite a long post much of which details his rough calculations as to the mortality rate, but I thought this part of the post is worth sharing:
It's worth noting that at any mortality rate, disruption to our social and economic order could potentially do as much harm as the virus itself. For example, many people live paycheck to paycheck, so if their work is shut down they'll have no money to buy food or medicine, or pay rent. If schools are closed, as they surely will be, many households will be financially strained. And for anybody who ends up in the ICU with Covid19, the medical bills could be crippling. A public health problem of this magnitude that affects everybody certainly puts "Healthcare for all" into a different perspective.
In some epidemics the supply chain is disrupted and critical infrastructure may collapse. This pandemic likely will not be severe enough to cause such a collapse in and of itself, but public mismanagement, antisocial behavior, and panic could combine to make things much worse.
We will need to pull together to get through this. We need to keep the system working. We need to be kind: we can't afford to treat each other badly. Nobody is going to be able to hide long enough to avoid exposure, especially since a doorknob or a perfectly healthy-seeming person may be a vector.
Craig Feied, MD, FACEP, FAAEM, FACPh
Professor of Emergency Medicine
(This is from a public post but please delete if inappropriate)
Also, No Knead Bread: flour, water, salt, yeast.
@lovendures Yes and during the Ash Wednesday service, he hugged, kissed, and shook hands with those in the front row. I'm not sure if the article you linked to shows photos of that, but I saw them somewhere online.
What a mess.
I feel like the mythic Cassandra -- I have been worried about this since January 23, when I first started researching the coronavirus (I do medical editing and fact-checking, so I am familiar with understanding a good deal of medical data--not all of course, not saying I'm an expert).
However, for weeks I tried to contain my fears so long as the disease remained inside China, since I didn't want to seem like a nut (I know people think I'm a nut half the time anyway). When it hit outside of China, I knew we were in for it. Thankfully, there are a few close to me who are listening. But I feel like most people continue to put their head in the sand and think it's just more fake news.
I hope that I will have worried over nothing. I pray I am wrong. But I fear I am right.
This story from ProPublica, a reliable and transparent investigative organization, tells us why we aren't yet testing in the U.S., what went wrong, and compares our situation countries that are much more advanced than the US which feels more like a third world country in its response. We dropped the ball due to, what appears to be, the CDC's decision not to use the World Health Organization's guidelines and instead to develop their own test. The test that CDC developed and distributed in mid February also tested for other coronaviruses and as such ended out having a high false positive that was then recalled.
I also do not feel safe with Pence at the helm and Trump's need to hush up the information about the virus. I remain suspicious of the slowness of the CDC in getting out test kits.
This excellent article by Heather Cox Richardson, dated 2/27/20, sent to me by a friend, summarizes so well how this pandemic has been coming since the Reagan era. It fits how many of us feel about a rolling wave that is now at the high water mark with Donald Trump. It's not just about the virus but it may be culminating with the virus. I hope you can find it. I could post the whole article but best to send people to her website.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com
It starts like this...
"It appears we are in the chaos that churns in between more stable eras.
The coronavirus is grabbing the headlines, and it is a huge story in its own right, but it also lays bare the rot in the Republican Party that has put Trump in the White House. The coronavirus is a pandemic now, meaning it is a disease that has appeared on a number of continents, and it is killing people, although the numbers of infections and the death rate is so premature that I would not draw any conclusions yet. We know it’s not good, but just how not good it might turn out to be is still unclear.
But the coronavirus and the subsequent selling-off in the stock market of the last several days reveals what feels to me like an endpoint of a political era.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan won the White House by arguing that the activist government of the New Deal, the laws that regulated business, provided a basic social safety net, and promoted infrastructure, were destroying American liberty. “Government is not the solution to our problem;” Reagan said in his inaugural address, “government is the problem.” ..." Go to her website to read it, dated 2/27/20
According to Dr. John Campbell on his daily COVID-19 podcast, the South Koreans have developed drive through testing for the Coronavirus, thus eliminating spread in hospital and clinic waiting rooms. The patient drives to the test, then goes home to self isolate. Test results in two days. We need this here.
I am humbled at the thought that I may die, that my loved ones may die, that my child might die.I' will buy lysol and other cleaners. I will take precautions.
But knowing how random it is, is forcing me to heal myself. I can not indulge in anything other than self forgiveness and love. I cannot weaken myself.
When in circumstances that provoke existential fears, wise folks, like you, take the opportunity to get real, to live the lives that we have always planned to live, our personal best. What better lesson to learn than: I forgive and love myself. I will treat myself with kindness?
Does anyone agree with me that we are in a most educational time?
New York City and New York state are developing their own tests to detect the coronavirus amid issues with a test developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), BuzzFeed News reported.
Earlier this month, the CDC released a genetic test in the US for the virus, which was sent to approximately 100 state and city labs, in addition to overseas sites. However, the test's results were proven unreliable and fewer than a dozen labs produced definite results, according to the report.