I put this update on the original post, and then realized it probably should be on a separate topic.

Our daughter is working at the hospital in Brooklyn. She started yesterday.

They are definitely in a war zone.

Most of the hospital is the Covid-19 victims.

At the time, there were a couple of refrigerated semi trucks full of bodies.

Families are scared to pick up their loved one's bodies, and if someone doesn't claim within 15 days, then they are placed in a mass grave.

Funeral homes are charging up to $50,000 for a funeral.

It's so sad because the families can't say goodbye to the dying, and they can't have the terrible comfort of claiming the body.

She is helping where the patients are Covid positive. The good thing is that she has all the necessary PPE.

Today, in Salt Lake City, a group of people are holding a protest picnic. I believe that they should go to NY and have their little picnic beside one the refrigerated semi's.

Yeah, idiots everywhere need a dose of reality. Their "freedom" and frivolity are getting people killed. My friend's nurse daughter has gone to NYC to help. She's making $9K a week, plus free room and board. But, she says it's a war zone. Working 15 hours straight. I'm proud of her. Every American should be made to see footage of what's really happening in hard hit areas.

Probably why I could never work in the medical field hands on.

Thanks for updating us!!!

I'd go get the body. That is one thing I'd do. If it were my family member or members, I'd have to go get the body. Hell! I can't even move from my house (love my house anyway) because I have 4 dogs, a cat, and even a lizard buried in my back yard. I'd have to retrieve a family member. I'm not there, though.

The morticians should be prosecuted for price gouging.

NICE TO SEE BETH HERE.

I'll be watching for more updates.

Having been through that, the hospital will only release the body to a licensed funeral director. And if the funeral directors are putting a steep price on body retrieval and disposal, there's not much you can do. I wonder how much they are charging for cremation?

The only 'justification' I can see for increased funeral prices (which often don't include a burial plot) is that those with 'hands on' should take extra precautions... says me who knows nothing about funeral homes & body protocols, etc.

IDK if extra precautions are necessary with cremations, but if it was me involved, I'd make sure.

Which hospital? You said THE hospital as if Brooklyn had only one.

New York Presbyterian/Brooklyn. It's in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, which is very nice. And NY-P is affiliated with two Ivy League medical schools (Columbia and Cornell.) But I gave Val some general NYC safety tips yesterday that are necessary anywhere in NYC, especially for a woman.

Beth, glad to see you here. Everyone's been worried about you.

stillanon: I have the greatest admiration for your friend's daughter.

c12: I feel the same way! No matter what, come hell or high water, I'd have to get my loved one's body.

Summer: Thank you for checking out the area where she's at. Your safety tips are excellent-it's going to be very helpful for her.
I'll bet that cremations are expensive too.

She worked 14 hours yesterday and when she got back to the hotel, she needed to shower and wash her hair and wipe her shoes down with Clorox wipes.

She's worked in the ICU before, and from what she's described, it's so demanding mentally. I think all the frontline workers are strong and up to it.

I also admire the people who help that I have a tendency to forget about: grocers, garbage men, teachers, you name it.

Val, is she staying in downtown Brooklyn? (i.e. near the Barclays Center.) That's where I stay when I visit my nephew and his family. It's a nice neighborhood when you can get out and walk. There are some good hotels in the vicinity.

Brooklyn as a whole has improved greatly from back when I lived there. It's a lot more livable for average people now, with lots of parks, outdoor cafes, and activities. Back when, unless you were living in one of the nicest neighborhoods (i.e. Brooklyn Heights or Park Slope) it was just a place to hang your hat at night (I'm not referring to the observant Jewish neighborhoods, which have always been reasonably safe. They are their own communities.)

But Brooklyn is also a whole lot more crowded now than in the old days. It is absolutely packed. You used to be able to find on-street parking there without too much difficulty. I wouldn't bother with a car nowadays, it would be too much trouble. Which goes a long way towards explaining why NY-P hospital is packed. There is just a huge number of people in Brooklyn living in close proximity to one another.

It doesn't make sense to me that medical personnel, who need to be at the top of their game in order to take care of ailing people, have to work 14-hour shifts.

The most I ever worked was a 10-hour day, and that was an experiment. We worked four 10-hour days each week, to get the fifth day off. It sounded great at first, in that we could schedule doctor or dentist visits, or other stuff that can only be done on work days.

The downside was absolute exhaustion.

I can't even imagine 14-hour shifts.

It's a shame that people can't imagine what's really happening and therefore can't appreciate the danger. I wish it was more visible and therefore more real to them.

Thanks for the update, Val. It's comforting to know she's got the PPE she needs!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/2020 10:57AM by Devoted Exmo.

@valkyriequeen:
"Today, in Salt Lake City, a group of people are holding a protest picnic."

==Protesting against what?

~~~~iceman9090

"1,000 protestors gathered in one of the most infected zip codes in the state: downtown Salt Lake City's 84101."

The reason? They are bitching about the coronavirus restrictive limitations on their "freedom".

A surge in COVID-19 infections are coming: now we know one of the reasons why.

These protestors are such fools--dangerous fools.

--Our continuous good thoughts go to your brave girl.

I have two relatives in Utah who are nurses. They turned down the chance to make the extra $$.
Maybe they think SL will need them more!

who are broke and can't even buy food. I was that poor once. Try feeding your kids on $10 in a week. I posted about what my sister said about kids and their families not having meals for a few days in the Twin Falls, Idaho, area.

I'd rather die than live like some of these people are living. What about the lines of cars at the places they can get food and how they cry when they get it.

Where is the line drawn? I live in Cache County, which is lumped together with Rich and Box Elder Counties in Utah. We have 53 cases and no deaths. So I guess they lump us together for that reason. My loss of job came 1-1/2 years ago, but I had a "husband" paying the bills here. I bought the food for my son and I. Right now, we are all still working including my boyfriend. My son, husband, and boyfriend have essential jobs. We aren't hurting at all other than the fear of getting sick as 3 of us are over 60. My boyfriend is 67. He found out Friday that the guy he shares an office with is negative after being exposed to the virus and the test took 4 days to find out. That is our fear, but we have plenty of food, enough money, etc.

If I couldn't feed my kids, I'd be tempted to protest. Truly, after what I went through before, I'd rather be dead. I stayed alive for my kids.

When you live somewhere like I do, it seems ridiculous for so many places to be shut down when this virus has not impacted us health wise. Even IHC, the big medical company in Utah is losing money BIG TIME and laying off nurses. We aren't New York and we aren't CA. Or Michigan or Florida or Louisiana.

Utah has had 25 deaths so far. Wrap your mind around that one. How many people have died in traffic accidents in that time? More than 25? More than likely.

From the data so far, Utah is not going to be hit very hard. We have miles and miles and miles of empty spaces. People don't live on top of each other. To get to Logan, I drive past field after field after field, and when I leave in a few moments to walk my dogs 1-1/2 miles from my home, I'll be walking by a big park, an elementary school, AND farmer's fields.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/2020 12:44PM by cl2.

Utah has 25 deaths precisely because they have been shut down for a month. Sioux Falls SD went from 1 case March 26 to about a thousand now, almost entirely due to Smithfield meat packing plant.

The Navaho nation in the Four Corners area has plenty of space. They also did not shut down businesses and social gatherings, until a recent weekend curfew order. They are now one of the hottest infection sites in the country.

Sun Valley and Park City had significant outbreaks from visiting skiers. SL valley has most of the other Utah cases because it has the major airport and the intersection of two major interstate highways.

Utah has a very high number of college students both because of large families, and a large number of out of state students who come because of the Mormon influence. If the universities hadn't closed, Utah would be a smaller scale NYC, or a bigger scale Sioux Falls.

Yeah, closing almost everything is a blunt instrument. If you don't have a way to identify infected people and their contacts, a blunt instrument is all you've got to work with. Most smaller towns would be perfectly fine opening up. Until they got one active spreader.

We need serious testing, a treatment regimen that's effective or a vaccine. We're zero for three so far, though testing is finally becoming a little more available, and Utah thinks there is enough overflow capacity to handle a surge. That's not necessarily effective treatment, but at least we are not likely to have people who are denied treatment entirely because of overcrowding.

When do we have enough of a handle on this to start opening up? That's above my pay grade, but I'd keep a close eye on the states that don't have a stay at home order and see how they fare. If the Dakotas can't pull it off, nobody can.

I'd be interested to hear from your daughter why there are so many more deaths in NYC. I've read a few theories.

The poor neighborhoods are hit the worst, as they live in crowded conditions (like 3 families in an apartment).

Also, many deaths are people with underlying conditions. I've read that certain minorities have higher incidence of heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure.

Also the poor delay seeking medical care due to lack of money.

Then there is public transportation, subways and buses - few have cars, so the virus is spread easily.

If these are factors, doesn't seem like they apply to Wyoming or Utah.

Washington was hit early, but the crisis seems to be waning - a field hospital was taken down without seeing any patients. Ventilators were shipped to NY, though many doctors are questioning their use, as they may damage the lungs.

Smaller hospitals here in WA are cutting staff and some may go out of business as they aren't allowed to do elective procedures. And they have no covid patients.

The economy continues to crash. The solution is printing and throwing money around, but somebody has to produce something. Shelves on stores don't fill out of thin air.

I was listening to a leading epidemiologist, from Sweden.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfN2JWifLCY

Sweden did not shut everything down, but worked to protect the vulnerable. They left kids in school, which allows low risk to gain immunity and become no longer threatening to vulnerable. As opposed to U.S., where children will continue to be susceptible and for many months can spread to the elderly and those with underlying conditions.

Sweden is no worse than other countries with big lockdowns. But again, it depends on your population and conditions.

Now anyone that questions the lockdown is shamed, as though the economy doesn't matter and we can't even question things.

Its going to get really interesting in a few months of people out of work. Government will keep printing money to solve that problem. No shortage of money, so all is well.

From
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

For Sweden (who hasn't implemented restrictions), the number of deaths per 1,000,000 is 152.

For Denmark (who has implemented restrictions) ther number of deaths per 1,000,000 is 61.

For Norway, (who also has) the number is 30.

I suppose you can claim that a death rate 2 1/2 to 5 times higher isn't worse.

And an article about the 1918 pandemic

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-19/coronavirus-lessons-from-great-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic

Great thanks!

In many European countries, if your business collapses ( no matter what the cause) you are still responsible for any debts incurred until the day you die.

Understandably, this puts a damper on enterprise in good times and causes tremendous hardship for people in bad times.

No $1,200 stimulus checks for people and, so far, no help for small businesses in Europe.

Our U.S. president may not be perfect but we can be grateful to have a business man at the helm at this time.

And we can be super grateful the way the U.S. govt. handles business, and life in general.

Free Man: We just talked with our daughter and she said that the first thing she noticed when she got there was that there are so many crowded apartments and high rises close together. She thinks that plays the biggest big factor. That, and your other theories would seem to offer an explanation.

[|]: Sorry, I can’t figure out how to type your screen name, but thank you for The 1918 Spanish Flu story: pretty interesting!

Brother of Jerry: That is a surprise to learn about Sioux Falls: this virus spreads so quickly.

Yes, Val, Brooklyn is extremely crowded. It was crowded when I lived there many years ago. And now they are packing in even more people into the same amount of space.

It's why housing is so expensive there. My nephew and his wife pay over $3K for a small, two bedroom apartment in downtown Brooklyn. I can't remember if it's $3.2K or $3.4K, but it's a lot of money. And believe it or not, it's a subsidized apartment! -- that they had to enter a lottery to get. There are people in their building paying far more than that.

Salaries in NYC are higher, but not *that* much higher. The cost of living there is a good chunk of what drove me away. It's not just housing, but also the cost of food at the supermarket, eating out, clothing, etc. Everything costs an arm and a leg. Unless you have a very high salary, you don't have a good enough lifestyle (restaurants, the theater, etc.) to compensate you for living in such a crowded, expensive, and often unsafe place.

Just IMO. On the upside, NYC has tons of jobs, especially good jobs. But for me, it wasn't worth it.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2020 05:33PM by summer.

A happy, upbeat story to share, but it makes me cry as I'm typing it.

She sent a video and pictures.

She is walking from the hospital back to her hotel, and the street is lined with firetrucks and ambulances,firemen,and ambulance workers. They blast their horns, applaud, and yell encouragement to the workers coming out of the hospital.
The folks living in the apartments are all hanging out of their windows, banging pots and pans and cowbells can be heard too.

She said they all do this every evening at 7pm.

There really are some wonderful people in this world.

That is so sweet! The first responders in NYC are the best. The firefighters in my neighborhood used to sit outside of their firehouse, waiting for calls. After 9/11 I checked to see it they had survived, and they had -- they replaced firefighters at a firehouse in the northern part of Brooklyn who had been called to the twin towers.

I think the 7pm thing is wonderful. Chris Cuomo shows different areas every night on his show :) I am glad that she is in good spirits and doing well. I will be very glad when she is home!

Jesus. That whole bodies in the semi-trucks hits you hard. I couldn't handle being in the medical field right now.

I hope the first responders are remembered more than they were on 911. People always forget as time goes on.
I still remember that day like yesterday and all of the overworked first responders, especially not knowing how bad it's going to get or what happens next.
While people were running out of the towers, they were running in, and the hospitals were overworked then also

My mother died (NOT from Covid 19) on April 6th. I had heard that some countries were mandating cremation and my mother did not want to be cremated. So, I asked the funeral home if they could please do a quick burial (They call it "immediate burial"). She was buried 58 hours after death which is about as fast as it can be done without cremation. If the vault and casket are already there it can be done even sooner as long as the death certificate is done. Immediate burial is usually for religions that have strict rules about death. Mom did not want a funeral nor memorial so it made things easier for me. The weather cooperated as well. The men who dug Mom's grave wanted it done ASAP too because the next day it was supposed to rain very hard.

I'm so glad that Mom died before it got crazy here. I'm sure there were many more Covid cases than known because testing wasn't being done much here in the midwest at the time.

Pooped, I was so sorry to read that your mom had passed away, but like you say,it's better that it was before all this started happening there.

There are some positive updates from our daughter:

Last night, one of the Covid patients' vitals had gotten out of control. Because our daughter had previous experience in the ICU, she knew immediately what was happening, and was able to get the patient stabilized.

There were 2 other patients that she didn't think were going to make it, but thankfully, they did.
She is so happy for them, but it can be emotionally exhausting.

I'm proud of your daughter and people like her. She's both brave and compassionate. Thanks for sharing this with us, valkyriequeen.

That's awesome, Val!

This is a funny thing that our daughter sent to us yesterday:

Ever since she got to Brooklyn, she’s been too busy and exhausted to really look in any of the night stand or desk drawers.

She sent a photo and texted “Look what’s in my blank blank drawer!” It was a hard cover Book of Mormon!

We were laughing so hard and told her:”It’s a sign! Repent!”

She wrote a note and put it in the drawer next to the Book of Mormon: Don’t waste your time reading this; I wasted years of my life in this cult”.

Your daughter is a hoot! What a great idea!

I found my mother's combination scriptures when cleaning out the nursing home. I think I actually bought them for her many moons ago. They looked like she had never touched them.

I'm deciding how to dispose of them. Should I have a bon fire? Should I shred every page? Should I glue all the pages together or just tear out every other page (too much valuable time already wasted to do that).

Got any good ideas?