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Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

helpwithcovid.com

81–90 of 218 posts

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as you don’t have any other diseases, you’re statistically sort of “safe”. 0.2% risk of dying for your age group regardless of physical health according to https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-se... Wash your hands, stay safe.

For comparison, the death rate across all age groups of flu is 0.1%. Extrapolating out, a failure to contain the virus will still mean tens of thousands of young healthy people dying in every country. That's why governments are finally admitting "Herd Immunity/Flatten the Curve" without total containment is not an option.

Flat statements about what strategies are or aren't options don't seem helpful. It's not a good option, ideally we'll have total containment, but it's important that we not see it as a betrayal if it's decided in a couple weeks that total containment isn't feasible.

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#82
post #57
post #45

Please consider reaching out to your elderly neighbors and offering your time to gather groceries/supplies for them. Or posting a note near the entrance of your apartment complex with your number. This alone will have a huge impact. They have a very real chance of dying if they contract covid-19. Take a moment to imagine how you would feel if you could not safely leave your home. A lot of us have the amazing comfort…

Buying recently for 3 groups. My cart is always full and that causes extreme anger of other shoppers. And supermarket personnel complains about my volumes. Getting tired of explaining why I am buying this way. I am afraid, that grocery shopping will be limited anyway soon. Edit: printing missing equipment parts with 3D printer would be easier for me.

Print out a sign and stick it on your cart.

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#83
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> please consider reaching out to your elderly neighbors I live in a densely packed city. I have no idea who lives in my neighborhood. I would be glad to help anyone at anytime though. I am just not clear how to go about it.

Have you tried Nextdoor?

My Nextdoor is also a great source of information about which local stores still have things in stock, which businesses are changing their hours, etc.

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#84
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I joined a community group that is doing just this, and as an hour ago have a list of older neighbors to check in on, and possibly help with obtaining food and medications. I do wonder if at 39 i am in fact young enough to be in the most-likely-to-survive-if-exposed group.

Every group is "most-likely-to-survive-if-exposed". The numbers they seem to be working with is around 15% for ages 80+. That's not odds you want to take but it's by no means an automatic death sentence.

If I'm interpreting the news correctly it seems that even a lot of not-so-old people (30 and up) seem to be ending up in intensive care with some frequencey, but that aspect of it (bad pneumonia) just isn't deadly in healthy people under 50 if you are given quality care. Elderly people seem to suffer myocarditis or failure of other organs.

What's worrying about that though, is that the high survival of healthy people under 50 seems to be conditional on the availability of ventilators and ecmo. Few countries can guarantee that in all scenarios.

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#85
post #45

Please consider reaching out to your elderly neighbors and offering your time to gather groceries/supplies for them. Or posting a note near the entrance of your apartment complex with your number. This alone will have a huge impact. They have a very real chance of dying if they contract covid-19. Take a moment to imagine how you would feel if you could not safely leave your home. A lot of us have the amazing comfort…

I joined a community group that is doing just this, and as an hour ago have a list of older neighbors to check in on, and possibly help with obtaining food and medications. I do wonder if at 39 i am in fact young enough to be in the most-likely-to-survive-if-exposed group.

Along with being young and healthy, the people going out in public to do things should wear gloves and a mask if possible. You might be relatively safe, but you still might take up a hospital bed, and you still might transmit it.

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#87
post #45

Please consider reaching out to your elderly neighbors and offering your time to gather groceries/supplies for them. Or posting a note near the entrance of your apartment complex with your number. This alone will have a huge impact. They have a very real chance of dying if they contract covid-19. Take a moment to imagine how you would feel if you could not safely leave your home. A lot of us have the amazing comfort…

I'm not a practiced germ-o-phobe. There is certainly a risk that I will mess up and touch my face without disinfecting my hands.

Given this, would shopping for my neighbors even be helpful? I'd hate to be the one doing them in..

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quit being hostile to people trying to help. It's the lowest of the low you can be during a world-wide crisis.

Anyone is free to spend their free time as they wish and trying to help is very noble. However, there are some very mundane things people can do that would seem to have a lot more impact than many of these projects. Volunteering to delivery groceries is one. It is like volunteering to help out a soup kitchen. Sure, they could probably use some help with their website or other technical issues, but mostly they just ne…

So do those, instead of arguing about it in a time-wasting forum.

When I shop for my groceries, I make sure to ask my elderly neighbours if they need anything. However, that's something a very large amount of the population can do. So I choose to spend the spare time I have applying my overall-rare skills where they can have the most impact, such as helping improve efficiency of testing in labs and remove technical speedbumps from hospital staff.

Anyone who wants to be a fucking moralist over this can quite frankly shut up, bunker up in their home and go back to wasting their quarantine watching Netflix and reading HN.

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#89
post #87
post #45

Please consider reaching out to your elderly neighbors and offering your time to gather groceries/supplies for them. Or posting a note near the entrance of your apartment complex with your number. This alone will have a huge impact. They have a very real chance of dying if they contract covid-19. Take a moment to imagine how you would feel if you could not safely leave your home. A lot of us have the amazing comfort…

I'm not a practiced germ-o-phobe. There is certainly a risk that I will mess up and touch my face without disinfecting my hands. Given this, would shopping for my neighbors even be helpful? I'd hate to be the one doing them in..

You should assume everything you get at the grocery store has been touched by someone with it, including the bag they hand you. Whoever you give it to should be sanitizing it, or you could help them with that with fresh gloves and distance.

Re: Covid-19 projects looking for volunteers

#90
post #73
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you don't really disprove the US-first mentality OP is mentioning. Not the grandparent, but I don't think that was the point. We're out of time to finesse ideal planning. We need hardware. Now. Ventilators are hardware. A device in the US means the US doesn't need to source it from somewhere else, and at the end of the day it's likely to save a few lives somewhere, and that matters. I mean, sure, maybe your compatr…

But there is a choice, and as a Canadian why on earth would you expect me to work for your reserve supply instead of mine? The US needs a reality check.

I don't know how to answer that. I can tell you that as an American, I might not necessarily want to help with a "Ventilators for Canadians" project (vs. other stuff I could be doing), but I certainly wouldn't argue it shouldn't exist.

Get stuff done folks. The time for parochialism has passed, and the time for recriminations and justice must be in the future.

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