The Corona Virus March 22, 2020

There are currently 33,022 reported case in the US and 416 deaths.

New York has 15,793 cases and 117 deaths
Washington has 1,996 cases and 95 deaths
New Jersey has 1,914 cases and 20 deaths
California has 1,642 cases and 30 deaths
Illinois has 1,049 cases and 9 deaths

I'm not sure what to make of the New York numbers as they have essentially stopped testing except for health care workers and those who are hospitalized.

New Jersey is still testing fairly aggressively and expects to open up at least two and possibly three more drive through tests stations. The issue as far as I can tell is the availability of test kits. I don't have any information on testing capacity.

There are two steps to this process. The first is to collect a sample which doesn't sound very pleasant to be honest with you since they swap both down your throat, which doesn't sound too bad, and down your nose which reminds me of the time a doctor had to reset my broken nose. To be honest the nose swab sound a tad uncomfortable.

Then they send it to a lab which has access to a test kit. The test kits are apparently the big bottle neck. Supposedly more tests could be run if more kits were available. It seems to take about four or five days to get the results.

What I would like to know is where are these fast turnaround tests people like Hoffman La Roche were talking about that could do a thousand tests a day?

UPS says they're delivering my exercise bike tomorrow and it weighs like 79 pounds. Damn, that's more than I thought. To be honest this is shaping up to be one of my poorer ideas. I just hope it doesn't turn into a complete disaster.

ShopRite is also supposed to deliver my first food order tomorrow. I noticed they said they weren't doing any substitutions which means if they don't have exactly what you ordered I suppose you're not getting it.

I ordered 42 items. Let's see how many I actually get.

In the latest I hear that several start-up companies are offering home corona virus tests that you can order on line. Given the current loosened FDA restrictions these tests have been mainly "green lighted" but not approved in the conventional sense of FDA approval.

Sounds like a proceed at your own risk sort of situation.