The Coronavirus thread

Even though I like pizza it could never match cake. 4 slices of typical chocolate cake is over 2000cal.

Quote: rxwine

Without eating junk? Constant cake and pastries would do it for me. Ice cream would be too heavy to consume enough.

My swallow is damaged from radiation. So, I consume pumpkin pie with whipped coconut topping, or cheesecake every day. I was binging Hagan Das ice cream every day with Sanders Fudge. But the lactose got to me.

Quote: AZDuffman

It is still making me fat unless I am an alcoholic living off booze calories. I am finally leveling off and losing a couple pounds so I watch my booze calories.

It's usually the stuff people mix booze with that makes them gain weight. Like I said I've been losing weight for the last 5 months very steadily and I drink every single day. But it's always long after I'm done eating.

Quote: AZDuffman

Yes, we have "State Stores" now called "Wines and Spirit Stores" though to us older folks they will always be State Stores. The system is the biggest purchaser of booze on the planet. There is a loophole for selling wine if you own the winery, otherwise to the State Store you go.

I have not seen a shortage but I do not buy much booze too fattening.

Yeah without getting too off topic this has always baffled me for such a conservative State, the only other State I know of like it is Utah (which is also conservative, though more understable because of other reasons where the goal is to make alcohol hard to get....)

I just find it bizarre when the State becomes the liquor store owner monopoly, seems like the opposite of what ultra conservative states will do (I guess PA is becoming more blue/purple, but this goes back a long way)....

I honestly have not bought a ton of liquor in PA, but I am curious how that effects prices (I remeber DE being the cheapest for booze and cigarettes, PA being the cheapest for dip -only state with no tax on smokeless-, NJ being worse for all of the above, for tri-State vice comparisons, but this is just my personal memory, not a mathmatical comparison).

Factoid:
More people died than were born in 25 states in 2020, far exceeding the 2019 record of 5 states with more deaths than births.

Quote: Pacomartin

Factoid:
More people died than were born in 25 states in 2020, far exceeding the 2019 record of 5 states with more deaths than births.

I read somewhere the average age in the United States for dying from covid is 78. I would be a lot more upset if the average age was 37. In California it's gone from 73 down to 67 being the average age. Most people in the upper age group we're sick anyway and covid just hurried it along.

Almost everybody in Walmart yesterday was wearing a mask because people are slowly realizing that being vaccinated is not what they thought it was. Being vaccinated is like wearing a seatbelt. It definitely will not prevent you from having an accident and it definitely will not stop you from being killed. But it does offer some protection. That exactly describes what being vaccinated for covid does. It is one of the reasons people are refusing it until it's vetted and tested for long-term results. They would rather take their chances because covid has a 99% survival rate.

In the 1960s seat belt commercials on TV we're like the pro-vaccination commercials today. Seatbelts we're guaranteed to save your life they told us. You were a fool and a moron if you didn't buckle up. IAndthis was before shoulder belts. It stopped you going threw through the windshield or thrown out of the car what is certainly did not save your life a lot of the time.

I saw this PS a commercial hundreds of times in the 1960s.

Quote: Gandler

Yeah without getting too off topic this has always baffled me for such a conservative State, the only other State I know of like it is Utah (which is also conservative, though more understable because of other reasons where the goal is to make alcohol hard to get....)

I just find it bizarre when the State becomes the liquor store owner monopoly, seems like the opposite of what ultra conservative states will do (I guess PA is becoming more blue/purple, but this goes back a long way)....

I honestly have not bought a ton of liquor in PA, but I am curious how that effects prices (I remeber DE being the cheapest for booze and cigarettes, PA being the cheapest for dip -only state with no tax on smokeless-, NJ being worse for all of the above, for tri-State vice comparisons, but this is just my personal memory, not a mathmatical comparison).

The system was set up after Prohibition ended. It is very entrenched. Various pols have wanted to get rid of it over the years. Others have called to spin off the retail stores but the state still wholesale monopoly. Some of what has happened?

Pre-1980s the State Stores were Soviet-style. You walked to a counter and told them what you wanted, they went back and got it for you. No browsing. Front of the store where the customers went was 4-500 sq ft only, and around the holidays the line went out the door. In the early 80s they started making them like a real store you shopped at. This was amazing to people when it happened.

They used to be closed on Sunday and holidays. Now they are open but not all of them, certain ones do and some do not. But that is business based. The one in downtown Pittsburgh has no reason to open Sunday or holidays for the most part.

Despite being a state monopoly the stores are always clean, well lit, and feel far safer than some ghetto stores you see in other states. The clerks tend to know their product very well. If they do not have an item in a store they will try to get it for you, though this can take time as they just move the order as other things go store to store. When Trump got the nomination I asked about Trump wine for fun and they had a few bottles but halfway across the state. Took 2-3 weeks but they called and said come pick it up.

Bottom line is there are too many interests to junk it and it works well enough that not enough people push for it.

Quote: AZDuffman

The system was set up after Prohibition ended. It is very entrenched. Various pols have wanted to get rid of it over the years. Others have called to spin off the retail stores but the state still wholesale monopoly. Some of what has happened?

Pre-1980s the State Stores were Soviet-style. You walked to a counter and told them what you wanted, they went back and got it for you. No browsing. Front of the store where the customers went was 4-500 sq ft only, and around the holidays the line went out the door. In the early 80s they started making them like a real store you shopped at. This was amazing to people when it happened.

They used to be closed on Sunday and holidays. Now they are open but not all of them, certain ones do and some do not. But that is business based. The one in downtown Pittsburgh has no reason to open Sunday or holidays for the most part.

Despite being a state monopoly the stores are always clean, well lit, and feel far safer than some ghetto stores you see in other states. The clerks tend to know their product very well. If they do not have an item in a store they will try to get it for you, though this can take time as they just move the order as other things go store to store. When Trump got the nomination I asked about Trump wine for fun and they had a few bottles but halfway across the state. Took 2-3 weeks but they called and said come pick it up.

Bottom line is there are too many interests to junk it and it works well enough that not enough people push for it.

Sounds like the State is doing a better job running it than the private sector....

Imagine if this carried over to other sectors like healthcare....

https://theintercept.com/2021/10/05/covid-pill-drug-pricing-merck-ridgeback/

"The pricing differential should be grounds to demand a better price under the Bayh-Dole Act, according to Knowledge Ecology International’s Abinader. Bayh-Dole, passed in 1980, regulates the transfer of federally funded inventions into commercial property and allows the government to “march in” and suspend the use of patents that were developed with government funding if it determines that the products are excessively priced."

"According to Gotham, who is based in London, the short story of molnupiravir already sums up the best and the worst of the U.S. pharmaceutical system. “It’s a great coup that the American government funded some scientists to develop antivirals,” he said. “The great tragedy is that, after their great success, they just gave it away to private industry with apparently no strings attached.”