The Covid-19 Thread: News, Preparation Tips, Etc

oneastrocurlie

Well-Known Member
Yes please, because someone asked that question on NBC last week, and Stephanie Rule said that it wasn't true. (eta: Specifically, she said that you won't have to pay it back.)

Saw this at CollegeInvestor.com

"Is This Income, A Tax Credit, Or What?

This stimulus check is a refundable tax credit for 2020, being paid to you early. You will have to claim in on your 2020 taxes, but there is nothing to pay back... unless:

  • You received an incorrect amount based on household or filing (such as you're now divorced and should have received just a single check, etc.)
  • We are currently uncertain what happens if your earnings in 2020 exceed the AGI limits. However, it appears they will not claw back the check if your 2020 earnings exceed the AGI limits."
Link: https://thecollegeinvestor.com/33324/coronavirus-stimulus-checks/

It's rather confusing, but here a fairly decent breakdown about it from Money.com

Link: https://money.com/stimulus-check-advance-tax-refund/

That's basically what how the person on reddit explained. He or she just used numbers in an example.

This is not the comment I initially read (it was a while back and I'd have to search my history to find it) but here's how someone else explains it using numbers:

 

Ivonnovi

Well-Known Member
I'm sorry, vester. I'm sorry that these times are making it difficult to honor our cherished, loved ones.
@vester I am sorry for your loss
@Chicoro ITA with you

I am currently helping to plan a homegoing for no more than 10 attendees. Everyone has to be masked up, and it will be a non-frills ceremony. Just found out that the death was Covid19 related.
 
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Layluh

Well-Known Member
'If you're black you can't go out': Africans in China face racism in Covid-19 crackdown
Issued on: 11/04/2020 - 15:34Modified: 11/04/2020 - 15:37


This file photo taken on March 2, 2018 shows people gathering on a street in the "Little Africa" district in Guangzhou, the capital of southern China's Guangdong province. © Fred Dufour / AFP
Text by:FRANCE 24Follow
Africans in southern China's largest city say they have become targets of suspicion and subjected to forced evictions, arbitrary quarantines and mass coronavirus testing as the country steps up its fight against imported infections.


China says it has largely curbed its Covid-19 outbreak but a recent cluster of cases linked to the Nigerian community in Guangzhou sparked the alleged discrimination by locals and virus prevention officials.

Local authorities in the industrial centre of 15 million said at least eight people diagnosed with the illness had spent time in the city's Yuexiu district, known as "Little Africa".

Five were Nigerian nationals who faced widespread anger after reports surfaced that they had broken a mandatory quarantine and been to eight restaurants and other public places instead of staying home.


As a result, nearly 2,000 people they came into contact with had to be tested for Covid-19 or undergo quarantine, state media said.

Guangzhou had confirmed 114 imported coronavirus cases as of Thursday – 16 of which were Africans. The rest were returning Chinese nationals.

It has led to Africans becoming targets of suspicion, distrust and racism in China.

Several Africans told AFP they had been forcibly evicted from their homes and turned away by hotels.

"I've been sleeping under the bridge for four days with no food to eat... I cannot buy food anywhere, no shops or restaurants will serve me," said Tony Mathias, an exchange student from Uganda who was forced from his apartment on Monday.

"We're like beggars on the street," the 24-year-old said.

Mathias added that police had given him no information about testing or quarantine but instead told him "to go to another city".

Police in Guangzhou declined to comment when contacted by AFP.

A Nigerian businessman said he was evicted from his apartment earlier this week.

"Everywhere the police see us, they will come and pursue us and tell us to go home. But where can we go?" he said.

Growing tensions

Other Africans said the community had been subject to mass Covid-19 testing even though many had not left China recently, and placed under arbitrary quarantine at home or in hotels.

China has banned foreign nationals from entering the country and many travellers are being sent into 14-day quarantines either in their own accommodation or at centralised facilities.

Thiam, an exchange student from Guinea, said police ordered him to stay home on Tuesday even after he tested negative for Covid-19 and told officers he had not left China in almost four years.

He believes the measures are specifically and unfairly targeting Africans.

"All the people I've seen tested are Africans. Chinese are walking around freely but if you're black you can't go out," he said.

The US State Department on Saturday issued an alert advising African Americans, or those with potential contact with African nationals, to avoid Guangzhou.

Denny, a Nigerian trader evicted from his flat on Tuesday, said police moved him to a hotel for quarantine after he spent several days sleeping on the streets.

"Even if we have a negative test result, police don't let us stay (in our accommodation) and they don't give a reason why," he said.

'Crazy fear'

The infections in Guangzhou have sparked a torrent of abuse online, with many Chinese internet users posting racist comments and calling for all Africans to be deported.

Last week a controversial cartoon depicting foreigners as different types of trash to be sorted through went viral on social media.

"There's just this crazy fear that anybody who's African might have been in contact with somebody who was sick," said David, a Canadian living in Guangzhou who did not want to give his full name.

China's foreign ministry acknowledged this week that there had been some "misunderstandings" with the African community.

"I want to emphasise that the Chinese government treats all foreigners in China equally," said spokesman Zhao Lijian on Thursday, urging local officials to "improve their working mechanisms".

Separately, in an unusually open critique, the speaker of Nigeria’s House of Representatives tweeted a video of himself pressing the Chinese ambassador on the issue.

Today I met with the Chinese
Ambassador to Nigeria on the disturbing allegation of ill treatment of Nigerian citizens in China. I showed him the video clip that had made the rounds. He promised to look into it and get back to my office on Tuesday.

https://twitter.com/femigbaja/status/1248698266889457664



“It’s almost undiplomatic the way I’m talking, but it’s because I’m upset about what’s going on,” Femi Gbajabiamila says.

“We take it very seriously,” Ambassador Zhou Pingjian replies.

Nigerian Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama said he summoned the ambassador to express “extreme concern” and call for an immediate government response.

The complaints in Guangzhou contrast with a welcome reception to Chinese efforts in battling the coronavirus across the African continent, where Beijing this week donated medical supplies to 18 countries.

"When China engages Africa it's the central government that does that, but when it comes to immigration enforcement that happens at the local level," said Eric Olander, managing editor of the China Africa Project.

"That explains why there's an inconsistency in the more upbeat messaging we hear about Chinese diplomacy on the continent and the increasingly difficult realities that African traders, students and other expatriates face in their day-to-day lives in China."

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and AP)
 

Alta Angel

Well-Known Member
This. If we don't learn anything else from this ordeal, we better learn to bring manufacturing back to America and support American made products.
Cost of living is cheaper. You can buy materials and labor for less. If things or wages start to get expensive in China, they literal manipulate their currency so it remain cheaper to buy from them.


We as Americans will need to make a conscious decision to buy local, which cost more, or continue to be at the mercy of China.
 

Chicoro

5 Year Shea Anniversary: Started Dec 16th, 2016!
@vester I am sorry for your loss
@Chcoro ITA with you

I am currently helping to plan a homegoing for no more than 10 attendees. Everyone has to be masked up, and it will be a non-frills ceremony. Just found out that the death was Covid19 related.

To clarify, you are having a funeral for 10 people that died, who were members of your church? Who died from Covid 19? When you say attendees, are you talking about 'church attendees'?
 

ThirdEyeBeauty

Well-Known Member
Lol. Science is going to kill me. This has occurred forever in time. I have tried to old my breath in small enclosed places because my imagination saw what this video showed. If I tell folks all sorts of things fly in the area like that video would I scare anyone? I remember a frightening mycology experiment a group of us completed with the professor that occurred outside. It was eye opening. You start to analyze and overanalyze to get a better understanding. The human population around the world would be zero if you believe the human body cannot take care of these micro matters. Stress will kill you faster than those naturally occurring micro particles.
 

Chromia

Well-Known Member
*Clutches imaginary pearls and gasps before fainting* $30.00???? OMG that price is so disrespectful! :lachen:

I think I might have to see if I can find some online soon because there's hardly any in the stores when I have sent people to shop for us. Before all this happened I had 4 cases and now I'm down to the last pack. My oldest eats them around the clock and I have been trying to pace him with no luck.

They have already eaten up all the boxes of peanut butter crackers so we'll be out until I ask someone to go to the store for me again.

I really hate that online grocery shopping is not accessible to those of us with EBT and WIC. I called the WIC clinic near the end of last month to see if they were going to be lifting the deadlines for using benefits and they were like nah...you got 30 days to use it and dassit. F a pandemic. :look:

But WIC just went electronic so I guess I should be grateful for that and not complain too much. I BEEN said that could have been so much easier being electronic.
At grocery.walmart.com or on the Walmart Grocery app you can pay with EBT. $30 is the minimum order.

You can use more than 1 form of payment for the same online order, so if your EBT balance is less than $30 you can combine payment with a credit/debit card to bring the order total to $30.

New time slots open up at midnight.
 
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Ivonnovi

Well-Known Member
Whew chile. My state has limited the number of friends & family that can attend a funeral to 10. The must also stay 6 feet from each other. Which makes the planning and ceremony that much more emotionally challenging.

To clarify, you are having a funeral for 10 people that died, who were members of your church? Who died from Covid 19? When you say attendees, are you talking about 'church attendees'?
 

Dellas

Well-Known Member

vevster

Well-Known Member
The GOP got their wish to destroy or try to destroy the postal union. Trump threatened not to sign the bailout if postal service got the funds.

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-rejects-bailout-that-included-aid-to-usps-report-says-2020-4

What could happen with no public option to hold down the cost of shipping. Can you say 10 USD to send a standard letter?
The GOP never think of the long term implications and if consumers get hurt.
With all of us relying on mail order how can they do this!!!?!??
 

shortycocoa

Hair Weave Killer
At grocery.walmart.com or on the Walmart Grocery app you can pay with EBT. $30 is the minimum order.

You can use more than 1 form of payment for the same online order, so if your EBT balance is less than $30 you can combine payment with a credit/debit card to bring the order total to $30.

New time slots open up at midnight.

Is this for delivery or pickup? I know I remember reading somewhere that people were just choosing "pay with debit" at pickup and then using EBT when they get to the store to pay for their order but it would be nice if they updated the whole system so that we could get delivery also and not have to enter a PIN. I know some states have that as an option, but it hasn't trickled down to being nationwide yet.
 

OhTall1

Well-Known Member

Chromia

Well-Known Member
Is this for delivery or pickup? I know I remember reading somewhere that people were just choosing "pay with debit" at pickup and then using EBT when they get to the store to pay for their order but it would be nice if they updated the whole system so that we could get delivery also and not have to enter a PIN. I know some states have that as an option, but it hasn't trickled down to being nationwide yet.
Pickup definitely. Delivery I don't know. There's some info at http://wmt-grocery.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1671/~/what-payment-methods-do-you-accept? that I think also applies to delivery when you pay online.
 

discodumpling

Well-Known Member
DiBlasio & Cuomo are now having a pissing match. DiBlas says schools are closed till September Cuomo says he doesn't have the authority to say so. Guess what? I wasnt sending my kids back till September anyway. I wasnt waiting on the mayor or the Gov'nor to say it. My kids expected this.
There are no provisions or even TALKS of provisions on what the new normal classroom will look like. New rules and processes need to be implemented before I send my kids back to school.
 

Chicoro

5 Year Shea Anniversary: Started Dec 16th, 2016!
Good News

Governor Cuomo goes to Pathways Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Niskayuna, NY.

Before the governor starts to speak, someone yells out the window, "Hi Governor Cuomo!..[He says how are you and she continues] God bless you!"

He explains that this team representing and protecting the vulnerable population in nursing homes, calls him up. They offer and generously give to him and the state of New York, 35 ventilators to help save the people of New York.

The people of Pathways were not solicited, were not asked. They made the kind gesture out of generosity and kindness from 'out of the blue', as he puts it.

Governor Cuomo talks about how their gesture invigorated him during the difficult days.

He carries a store bought sheet, cake and sets it down. He then places his hands against the outside window panes of the hospital and says, "Thank you".

The state government is returning the 35 ventilators and is unloading them from the truck. Cuomo pulls out three (3) himself then says after the third one, "After this one, you're on your own!" And he smiles.





The video starts @6:37 seconds, before that it is on standby.

 
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Chicoro

5 Year Shea Anniversary: Started Dec 16th, 2016!
Good News

I ask the question, "Will he be a changed man, now?"

"On the advice of his medical team, the Prime Minister will not be immediately returning to work.

"He wishes to thank everybody at St Thomas' for the brilliant care he has received.

 
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Always~Wear~Joy

Well-Known Member
Great article. I put it in a spoiler since it's long. It's worth a read!




This article has been made free for everyone, thanks to Medium Members. For more information on the novel coronavirus and Covid-19, visit cdc.gov.


Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting*
You are not crazy, my friends

Julio Vincent Gambuto
Apr 10 · 9 min read


Photo: David McNew/Getty Images
*Gaslighting, if you don’t know the word, is defined as manipulation into doubting your own sanity; as in, Carl made Mary think she was crazy, even though she clearly caught him cheating. He gaslit her.

Pretty soon, as the country begins to figure out how we “open back up” and move forward, very powerful forces will try to convince us all to get back to normal. (That never happened. What are you talking about?) Billions of dollars will be spent on advertising, messaging, and television and media content to make you feel comfortable again. It will come in the traditional forms — a billboard here, a hundred commercials there — and in new-media forms: a 2020–2021 generation of memes to remind you that what you want again is normalcy. In truth, you want the feeling of normalcy, and we all want it. We want desperately to feel good again, to get back to the routines of life, to not lie in bed at night wondering how we’re going to afford our rent and bills, to not wake to an endless scroll of human tragedy on our phones, to have a cup of perfectly brewed coffee, and simply leave the house for work. The need for comfort will be real, and it will be strong. And every brand in America will come to your rescue, dear consumer, to help take away that darkness and get life back to the way it was before the crisis. I urge you to be well aware of what is coming.

For the last hundred years, the multibillion-dollar advertising business has operated based on this cardinal principle: Find the consumer’s problem and fix it with your product. When the problem is practical and tactical, the solution is “as seen on TV” and available at Home Depot. Command strips will save me from having to repaint. So will Mr. Clean’s Magic Eraser. Elfa shelving will get rid of the mess in my closet. The Ring doorbell will let me see who’s on the porch if I can’t take my eyes off Netflix. But when the problem is emotional, the fix becomes a new staple in your life, and you become a lifelong loyalist. Coca-Cola makes you: happy. A Mercedes makes you: successful. Taking your kids to Disneyland makes you: proud. Smart marketers know how to highlight what brands can do for you to make your life easier. But brilliant marketers know how to rewire your heart. And, make no mistake, the heart is what has been most traumatized this last month. We are, as a society, now vulnerable in a whole new way.

What the trauma has shown us, though, cannot be unseen. A carless Los Angeles has clear blue skies as pollution has simply stopped. In a quiet New York, you can hear the birds chirp in the middle of Madison Avenue. Coyotes have been spotted on the Golden Gate Bridge. These are the postcard images of what the world might be like if we could find a way to have a less deadly daily effect on the planet. What’s not fit for a postcard are the other scenes we have witnessed: a health care system that cannot provide basic protective equipment for its frontline; small businesses — and very large ones — that do not have enough cash to pay their rent or workers, sending over 16 million people to seek unemployment benefits; a government that has so severely damaged the credibility of our media that 300 million people don’t know who to listen to for basic facts that can save their lives.

The cat is out of the bag. We, as a nation, have deeply disturbing problems. You’re right. That’s not news. They are problems we ignore every day, not because we’re terrible people or because we don’t care about fixing them, but because we don’t have time. Sorry, we have other **** to do. The plain truth is that no matter our ethnicity, religion, gender, political party (the list goes on), nor even our socioeconomic status, as Americans we share this: We are busy. We’re out and about hustling to make our own lives work. We have goals to meet and meetings to attend and mortgages to pay — all while the phone is ringing and the laptop is pinging. And when we get home, Crate and Barrel and Louis Vuitton and Andy Cohen make us feel just good enough to get up the next day and do it all over again. It is very easy to close your eyes to a problem when you barely have enough time to close them to sleep. The greatest misconception among us, which causes deep and painful social and political tension every day in this country, is that we somehow don’t care about each other. White people don’t care about the problems of black America. Men don’t care about women’s rights. Cops don’t care about the communities they serve. Humans don’t care about the environment. These couldn’t be further from the truth. We do care. We just don’t have the time to do anything about it. Maybe that’s just me. But maybe it’s you, too.

Well, the treadmill you’ve been on for decades just stopped. Bam! And that feeling you have right now is the same as if you’d been thrown off your Peloton bike and onto the ground: What in the holy **** just happened? I hope you might consider this: What happened is inexplicably incredible. It’s the greatest gift ever unwrapped. Not the deaths, not the virus, but The Great Pause. It is, in a word, profound. Please don’t recoil from the bright light beaming through the window. I know it hurts your eyes. It hurts mine, too. But the curtain is wide open. What the crisis has given us is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see ourselves and our country in the plainest of views. At no other time, ever in our lives, have we gotten the opportunity to see what would happen if the world simply stopped. Here it is. We’re in it. Stores are closed. Restaurants are empty. Streets and six-lane highways are barren. Even the planet itself is rattling less (true story). And because it is rarer than rare, it has brought to light all of the beautiful and painful truths of how we live. And that feels weird. Really weird. Because it has… never… happened… before. If we want to create a better country and a better world for our kids, and if we want to make sure we are even sustainable as a nation and as a democracy, we have to pay attention to how we feel right now. I cannot speak for you, but I imagine you feel like I do: devastated, depressed, and heartbroken.

And what a perfect time for Best Buy and H&M and Wal-Mart to help me feel normal again. If I could just have the new iPhone in my hand, if I could rest my feet on a pillow of new Nikes, if I could drink a venti blonde vanilla latte or sip a Diet Coke, then this very dark feeling would go away. You think I’m kidding, that I’m being cute, that I’m denying the very obvious benefits of having a roaring economy. You’re right. Our way of life is not ruinous. The economy is not, at its core, evil. Brands and their products create millions of jobs. Like people — and most anything in life — there are brands that are responsible and ethical, and there are others that are not. They are all part of a system that keeps us living long and strong. We have lifted more humans out of poverty through the power of economics than any other civilization in history. Yes, without a doubt, Americanism is a force for good. It is not some villainous plot to wreak havoc and destroy the planet and all our souls along with it. I get it, and I agree. But its flaws have been laid bare for all to see. It doesn’t work for everyone. It’s responsible for great destruction. It is so unevenly distributed in its benefit that three men own more wealth than 150 million people. Its intentions have been perverted, and the protection it offers has disappeared. In fact, it’s been brought to its knees by one "); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">pangolin.

And so the onslaught is coming. Get ready, my friends. What is about to be unleashed on American society will be the greatest campaign ever created to get you to feel normal again. It will come from brands, it will come from government, it will even come from each other, and it will come from the left and from the right. We will do anything, spend anything, believe anything, just so we can take away how horribly uncomfortable all of this feels. And on top of that, just to turn the screw that much more, will be the one effort that’s even greater: the all-out blitz to make you believe you never saw what you saw. The air wasn’t really cleaner; those images were fake. The hospitals weren’t really a war zone; those stories were hyperbole. The numbers were not that high; the press is lying. You didn’t see people in masks standing in the rain risking their lives to vote. Not in America. You didn’t see the leader of the free world push an unproven miracle drug like a late-night infomercial salesman. That was a crisis update. You didn’t see homeless people dead on the street. You didn’t see inequality. You didn’t see indifference. You didn’t see utter failure of leadership and systems.

But you did. You are not crazy, my friends. And so we are about to be gaslit in a truly unprecedented way. It starts with a check for $1,200 (Don’t say I never gave you anything) and then it will be so big that it will be bigly. And it will be a one-two punch from both big business and the big White House — inextricably intertwined now more than ever and being led by, as our luck would have it, a Marketer in Chief. Business and government are about to band together to knock us unconscious again. It will be funded like no other operation in our lifetimes. It will be fast. It will be furious. And it will be overwhelming. The Great American Return to Normal is coming.

From one citizen to another, I beg of you: Take a deep breath, ignore the deafening noise, and think deeply about what you want to put back into your life. This is our chance to define a new version of normal, a rare and truly sacred (yes, sacred) opportunity to get rid of the ******** and to only bring back what works for us, what makes our lives richer, what makes our kids happier, what makes us truly proud. We get to Marie Kondo the **** out of it all. We care deeply about one another. That is clear. That can be seen in every supportive Facebook post, in every meal dropped off for a neighbor, in every Zoom birthday party. We are a good people. And as a good people, we want to define — on our own terms — what this country looks like in five, 10, 50 years. This is our chance to do that, the biggest one we have ever gotten. And the best one we’ll ever get.

We can do that on a personal scale in our homes, in how we choose to spend our family time on nights and weekends, what we watch, what we listen to, what we eat, and what we choose to spend our dollars on and where. We can do it locally in our communities, in what organizations we support, what truths we tell, and what events we attend. And we can do it nationally in our government, in which leaders we vote in and to whom we give power. If we want cleaner air, we can make it happen. If we want to protect our doctors and nurses from the next virus — and protect all Americans — we can make it happen. If we want our neighbors and friends to earn a dignified income, we can make that happen. If we want millions of kids to be able to eat if suddenly their school is closed, we can make that happen. And, yes, if we just want to live a simpler life, we can make that happen, too. But only if we resist the massive gaslighting that is about to come. It’s on its way. Look out.

 
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