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Coronavirus - To Ride, or Not To Ride

36K views 182 replies 21 participants last post by  Norfolk UK 
#1 ·
Today, I would've been somewhere around Medford, OR on my way to Palo Alto where my daugher and SIL live for an overnight stay before heading to Death Valley. I decided to cancel the trip. As it turns out, the governor shut down California anyway.

But my reasoning was simply that I felt it pretty selfish to be out riding and exposing others. I figure I'm one of those 86% that would be carrying the coronavirus and not show any symptoms. But my wife has chronic asthma. If I pick up the virus on the trip and give it to her...well, I won't even see her die because no one is allowed with coronavirus patients in the hospitals. They die alone.

And my in-laws are in their 90's. If I give it to them...they're gone too.

If you look at the map of how the virus spread, you'll see where the USA is covered in red dots. On the east coast, it's almost solid. Same on the west coast. And in the "fly over country", it looks like it has measles. But a month ago, there were only three red dots. Small ones. How did the coronavirus get out to those other areas?

Many of my entertainment (non-commuting) rides are hundreds of miles. Rides that maybe start over here in the Seattle area, head over Stevens Pass, go south along Hwy 97 till I get to Ellensburg, and head home over Snoqualmie Pass. I'm not interacting with anyone...till I stop for gas. Or I stop to use the restroom. Or I stop to eat.

I wrestled with the logic for days of why it was okay to be outside walking, but not motorcycling. (At least one state has banned motorcycle riding.) My conclusion is that when I walk, I stay in my own neighborhood. When I ride, I'm potentially taking that virus hundreds of miles across the state.

From ADVRider:
Dan Diego said:
Our Commander here on base said something so important today and I wanted to share it. He said instead of acting like you are trying to avoid getting the virus from other people, pretend you have it and try to not give it to anyone else.


Chris
 
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#73 ·
Meanwhile the car guys are still having fun in Oakland, CA. News reports last night said that the police had to break up two "sideshows" in that city consisting of hundreds of cars driving to intersections and then spinning around in circles, while the occupants of these cars watched some idiots drive around in circles as they hung out the windows and on top of the roofs and hoods, as the spectators urged them on to higher speeds in the hopes that they would be flung off and be run over. However, even with all of these targets the cops only arrested a couple of participants. So much for social distancing, health regulations and enforcement. :rolleyes: Meanwhile we are concerned about riding a motorcycle by ourselves and not interacting with anyone else, other an self-serve gas pump? :confused:

Yesterday morning (while wearing my mask and gloves) I rode to Alice's Restaurant to pick up a takeout breakfast to bring home. The restaurant owner told me that it has been crazy up there during weekends. He said that some motorcycle, but mostly car enthusiasts, were driving very fast on the adjacent roads and even spinning donuts in the nearby adjacent highway intersection. He said that some of the residents of the surrounding Sky Londa community are calling the cops claiming that the Restaurant is an attractive nuisance and should be closed down. Of course, this is nothing new. Some of the local residents have been saying that for as long as the 50 years that I have been riding to the restaurant for breakfast on Sunday mornings. Except back then, there were literately hundreds of motorcycles jammed into the adjacent parking lots, but now most of the activity is the result of high performance car owners that outnumber motorcycles probably 5 to 1. :confused: On the ride back home yesterday morning I was passed by several cars going around 90 mph and one motorcycle riding traveling close to 100 mph, while weaving across traffic lanes to get around slower moving vehicles. No cops in sight.

If I had to take a guess, I would say that around 90% of the Bay Area residents are following most of the virus crisis rules, but there are a good 10% who are rebelling against the regulations in sometimes an extreme way and any enforcement is very rare and quite spotty. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out in the end.
 
#74 · (Edited)
Lumpkin County recorded its first case on March 21, and didn't get to double digits until last week, when the number jumped to 11, then 19, and as of yesterday, 23. We have a small local hospital, but as of last report, it only has 12 beds. In light of changing circumstances, I have decided to stop riding USFS fire roads until the situation improves because I don't want to risk adding to the burden on our hospital.

On weekends the fire roads are too crowded with day trippers from the Atlanta metro area, and on weekdays, they are too deserted to hope for help in a reasonable amount of time if something happens.

I plan to continue short road trips, as traffic is extremely light around here. I'm probably more at risk from deer than from other vehicles. Once I had to brake hard to avoid a bear running across the road.
 
#75 ·
Couple observations since the weekend. I am still not riding but the Mrs and I took the car out for a ride Sunday. More cars are definitely back on the road versus several weeks ago. We see the same on the traffic cams on the morning news.

Yesterday, we both worked until about 8pm so too tired to cook and there was not much in the house to prep quickly. So we decided to do our first fast food run in months and hit the Wendys drive thru. Just before the Wendys there is a Taco Bell and the line of cars onto the main road was astounding. I know it was Cinco de Mayo but is the allure of a two-dollar taco at 8:30pm that strong? Even on Cinco de Mayo. This Taco Bell has incredibly slow service on normal day before CV19 - I am sure those people would be in line an hour or so. No exaggeration. And we do not have legal weed either.

As for Wendys, they did have hamburgers. However, they said they discontinued the side salads. WTF? Not sure if a temporary thing due to CV19 or longer term. If longer term, that sucks. I do all I can to avoid eating french fries and the side salad was a nice, fresh choice that only Wendys offered.

That is my musings for the week. Be safe. [:)]

Edit -
Meant to also add some thoughts on returning to work. We could see restrictions end here around June 1. Cases are still high. We have between 30-45 dead in my town with 30 confirmed and the rest some additional nursing home deaths they are starting to figure out. I am working but not traveling to customers. I have some concerns when we can.

Travelling on subways is filthy before all this. Now could be deadly. There is no hand sanitizer anywhere nor nitrile gloves to be found. I put in an order for 2 boxes of gloves to be received at the end of the month. Usually $5 for a box of 100 at Harbor Freight. I ordered from a third party on Amazon for 2 boxes at $75 delivered.
[:0]
I guess good insurance against getting sick or leaving the Mrs a widow (no comments!). Unless sanitizer becomes readily available and gloves - not sure how this will work.

Also - my wife made masks but once we get to regularly leaving the house and in and out of shops, we need something disposable. Not sure where all these customers in the grocery store are finding dispospoable masks either? My similarly overpaid for two boxes to be received mid-June. I guess that is what others are doing? The new normal, I guess.
 
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#76 ·
Speaking of disposable gloves, I was wearing a pair when I visited the Kaiser Hospital pharmacy the other day and the welcome-wagon lady at the entry told me to remove my gloves and toss them in the trash as they tended to pick up viruses and other nasty stuff that they didn't want in the building. After removing my gloves and throwing them in the bio-hazard container, she had me clean my hands with a foaming disinfectant that came out of a touch-less automatic dispenser. After rubbing my hands with the foam for 20 seconds and letting it air dry, I was allowed to enter the pharmacy.

Now I am not sure what to think about using disposable gloves to keep from getting, or not transmitting, the virus. No doubt they are great when pumping gas, but just getting the things off with your fingers is not easy and makes me wonder if that operation is all that safe, too. :confused:
 
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#77 ·
Richard, that is a very interesting view of the gloves. I guess if hand sanitizer were available, I could skip the gloves. Problem is that the sanitizer is like unobtanium. Cannot find anywhere.

An side note on the use of gloves, my father was in the food industry and i remember when the use of disposable gloves in food prep started coming in vogue. We always discussed the notion of someone preparing food with clean hands versus dirty gloves.
 
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#78 ·
Just like your hands, you need to know what your gloves have touched. If you wash your hands and then put on gloves, your hands stay fairly clean. Similarly the inside of the gloves.

But if you pat the dog, grab the steering wheel, pick your nose, rub your face, play with your mask and all those other things then the outside of the gloves become - as the pharmacy has stated - nasty.

When you remove the gloves your hands are still relatively clean. However, the pharmacy doesn't know what random body parts or whatever you played with before putting the gloves on, so they get you to kill the germs on your hands at the point of entry.

That doesn't seem too complicated.

In the privacy of your own home you might like to try putting on, then removing a pair of disposable gloves and take note of just where the outer surface of the gloves contacts your skin when doing those manoeuvres. Don't touch the outer surface of the gloves. If you do, you have made the gloves dirty and nasty. Try again.

Health workers don and doff surgical gloves without ever touching the outside. Ever. Myself, I would estimate I have worn about 50,000 pairs of surgical gloves and have never touched the outside of a glove.

Wandering about the streets touching people and things is the main way of picking up this virus (short of copping a coughful in the face, the ever-present hazard confronting health workers). But the main way of getting the virus is by touching your own face with nasty hands or gloves. Don't do that.

The main way of giving the virus is by touching your own face, then touching someone or something that someone then touches. Don't do that either.
 
#79 ·
What we noticed in the restaurant is the gloveless food preparers tended to wash their hands frequently in the sink and sanitary (bleach and soap) buckets and rags. The gloved workers tended to wear the gloves a long while wipe less frequently. And get gross like Peter mentions touching everything. My guess is if you get the hands dirty you feel it,notice and clean them. With the gloves...not so much.
 
#80 ·
Kind of like riding naked on a motorcycle as opposed to full riding gear. Riding naked and look down you realize that the road is a sanding belt and you slow down and take more precautions. Riding in gear you tend to think you are invincible.
 
#81 ·
I think the gloves give the wearer a sense of being clean and uncontaminated, when in fact, there's no difference in the germs on your outer surface...whether that's skin or latex.

Cuomo said something I found interesting. I only read the headline, not the article, but the new cases they are getting in NY are now from people who have been staying inside. But then are they staying inside, but their family members have been going around and then bringing the virus home with them?

Chris
 
#82 ·
@Chris - that is what I assumed as well when I first read it. I assume that it is other family members bringing it home. I presume it would not be from packages shipped to the house or take out food deliveries.

Yesterday, we did a grocery store run and went to Ace Hardware for a propane tank swap. This weekend again we saw many more cars on the road than in past weeks. Ace was actually pretty busy. The Home Depot is in the same shopping center as our grocery store and the lot looked really full. I think people are venturing more as they figure out the masks, distancing and all. I admittedly was tempted to go for a short ride today but my wife reminded me it is Mother's Day. I guess the gift of time alone would not be valued today.
 
#83 ·
We live ~60 miles north of Atlanta; due to sprawl, ~30 miles north of the hot zone. Lots of day trippers come up here on weekends. I try to stay off the roads and out of stores on weekends, waiting until our "visitors" have returned home. Roads are visibly more crowded Saturday, Sunday.

Last week a new neighbor moved in, 3 doors away. He is a rider with a KLR, FZ900, and TD250. If I can ride with company, I may start hitting the fire roads again, but I am nowhere near ready to eat out. Lumpkin County is now up to 76 cases, 1 death.
 
#84 ·
I heard on the KCBS radio traffic report today that the conga line was in full operation westbound on Highway 92 all afternoon heading for Half Moon Bay and the Pacific Ocean beaches. It is a mystery to me where they were all going, considering that every beach, parking lot and parking pullouts were blocked with no parking signs. Could they all have been going to restaurants for takeout meals on Mother's Day? And if so, why go to the coast for that? Not too many open restaurants and where do you park while making your takeout order? And then where do you go to eat it? Maybe it is just a habit heading to the coast on a Sunday for a drive. I saw lots of Sheriff cars along Highway 1 on the way home. I bet they had their ticket books warmed up. I just don't get it and besides the coast was cool and overcast today. Why not just stay around home, where it was warm and sunny and there were lots of open (for takeout) restaurants? Is sitting in your car creeping up a two lane road with hundreds of your neighbors a fun thing to do on Mother's Day? :confused: And then having to creep back at dusk to return home.
 
#85 ·
So more progress in my re-insertion to society this week. Looks like some warm weather is leading a lot of other folks out. However, many folks seem to be saying f-it to masks, hand sanitization etc and I would guess we would see an uptick. Have 6 more dead in my town since Monday and now up to 36.

As for me, the Mrs. and I did go to a number of places yesterday. Dry cleaners, Staples, Lowe's. I even did two trips to my dealer dropping off the CanAm for service and then swapping for the Sertao to get a new knobby and oil change. I am making sure to wear a mask and use hand sanitizer like a maniac - as well as wipes on the shopping carts. We finally have been able to find hand sanitizer at places like Staples and Lowe's - but none at the grocery stores.

Obervations? Lots of people don't wear masks. In stores which require it, you see people wearing under their noses or even mouths. I twice had to tell a lady to back off my wife in line at Staples. She kept stepping forward right behind my wife versus distancing. My dealer did a good job in the service areas. They meet you outside and take the key. On pickup just meet you again and take the credit card. No signing...and away. Also, traffic is building each day.

So today, off to the garden center for plants and the grocery store. And cleaning hands like a maniac and wearing my mask. Still cannot find nitrile gloves anywhere. Oh...one last thought. I can finally pursue my lifelong dream of a being a model. Thinking of putting out some headshots to get a gig as a mask model.
 
#86 ·
So first of all my 2 cents on the mask and gloves issues. Unless you are carrying a box of gloves with you and toss the pair you have on and don a new pair each time you touch something, wearing gloves is actually pointless and downright dangerous, as a nurse we change gloves constantly as well as wash hands or use ABHR prior to putting on a new pair. So unless you can do this don't bother.

Hand washing and social distancing is what will keep you safe. I can't say this enough WASH YOUR HANDS CONSTANTLY! You can make your own ABHR which I have done and carry some in each car and on each motorcycle, I certainly wouldn't leave my gloves on, touch the pump to fuel up then ride my bike again as CV can live on surfaces for a very long time.

Similarly masks. The only mask I would use as a lay person and what I have told my own father and grandmother to use are those that painters and the like use that have P2/N95 respirators in their filters that can be cleaned it reused. Cloth masks are worse than useless because they will not stop the CV particles from getting in or out and lull people into a false sense of security. And disposable masks are also useless after 30mins of weartime.

Your best efforts may all be for null if you and those in your home rely on gloves and masks to protect you. Avoid contact with others, social distance, wash your hands and you have a better chance at remaining safe and healthy.

Now to my own neck of the woods. We have seen some winding back on restrictions (not that the travel restrictions affected me as an essential worker) but as of midnight Friday we were allowed to go from 50km to 150km "recreational travel" and can be in groups of 10. Also some more businesses were allowed to open up. Social distancing must remain within these rules however. And as the distance is a radius from your home with discretion for those in rural areas we can actually have a decent ride/outing. Still cannot travel between the states though. Even with this I am avoiding others as much as possible.

We had had 0 new cases in my area for in excess of a month. Till last Thursday when it was announced in the evening that a nurse (aged care worker) from a local aged care facility had tested positive, the worst parts being she had been symptomatic at work and had continued to work despite being tested and awaiting results (yes she is a moron and a selfish twat), she had been symptomatic for 10+ days prior to the positive test. She had not only exposed residents, but other staff, visitors and members of the community and everyone else they come into contact with. So far we are being told those in the home have tested negative but TBH I don't believe they will remain negative and we will have an explosion of a cluster shortly. At least for now my workplace has remained CV free.

And in unrelated news, my furbaby Tango is into the vet for surgery tomorrow to remove a possible sarcoma, fingers crossed we got it early!

Alice

Sent from my CPH1701 using Tapatalk
 
#87 ·
My daughter hasn't worn a mask, gloves, or sanitizes anything, including gas pumps, (unless she has to to enter a store) since the scare started and she does all of the shopping for her family. Plus, she raises chickens and blows dried chicken poop around the yard with a leaf blower and doesn't wear a mask then either. (I would be wearing a hazmat suit if I did that!) So far this year neither she nor her family have been sick.

I rode up to Alice's Restaurant with three friends yesterday. We all brought masks with us as they won't sell you takeout food unless you are wearing a mask. There were a number of motorcyclists that arrived after we did, none were wearing masks or practicing social distancing. Shortly afterward a sports car club drove up and started to congregate in the Restaurant's parking lot (not a mask in sight), until the owner ran them off.

Yesterday I watched a video of a woman who lives in the Netherlands and is riding her Royal Enfield motorcycle around the country to show off her country. During the video she said that her country was pretty much open, including schools, playgrounds, hair and nail salons, massage parlors and just about everything else - except for bars and in-dining restaurants. So why are the Netherlands, or many other countries, different from the U.S. and its different states, which all have different rules on how to live with the virus?

So I have to ask myself, which is worse, the chance that you might become sick from the virus or the fear of getting sick of the virus? The news media, politicians and local health officers are certainly pushing the fear angle as hard as they can. But in the meantime the economy is collapsing, Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, are using the fear of the virus to hand out free future taxpayer money to their various constituents in the hopes that will get them elected this November. Meanwhile people are starting to be kicked out of their homes for lack of money to pay rent, are becoming homeless and perhaps even starting to wonder where their next meal is coming from. Rome is burning and it seems as if there is little being done to put out the economic fire that will keep the fire under control for more than a few months. People and businesses need to return to work this summer so that they can feed their families and go on living their lives.

As an example: Two weeks ago my county said that its residents could not travel more than 5 miles from home to exercise. Last week they changed that to 10 miles. But what is the difference between 5 miles and 10 miles from one week to the next that will keep you from getting or spreading the infection. If you are actually sick it is unlikely that you will be out jogging miles from home. Plus, it is the only county to have a rule like that. Why are the rules so different from one political jurisdiction to the next? Isn't the virus the same everywhere? Another crazy example is that different Bay Area county health official says that it is OK for large groups of people in his county to meet in a parking lot as long as they stay in their cars, but it is not OK for motorcycle riders to congregate in a group. That is the only time I have heard a rule like that before.

The economic situation caused by the fear of catching the virus is becoming catastrophic and I think it is about time we gave that some thought. I think we should also take common sense personal precautions against picking up the infection, but let's not make rules that are so draconian and mostly unproven (except in various health officers imaginations) that the world comes to a stop. [:(]
 
#88 ·
Gloves are simple,,. They protect the wearer, if used properly, not what they are handling,,.
* The checkout Lady at the grocery store uses the same pair of gloves for repeat customers so she he spreading customer bacteria from one patron to the next,,.
* The Subway Sandwich Lady disposes of her gloves after each and every sandwich is made and she does not come in direct contact with the customer or anything that they have handled?

Locally we have been allowed to do day riding however as things open up the question of weather or not it is safe to overnight in a hotel/motel, I know some of them are open for overnight stays and have implemented various procedure's however I'm not convinced that this is safe from C19 exposure,,. What are your thoughts?
 
#89 ·
One thought that I have is that I wouldn't want to be a bank teller. Unlike most stores, they don't seem to have an aversion to handling cash all day long. While they do wear gloves and are finally wearing masks and now have a spray shield installed at their station, I sure hope they replace those masks and gloves before going out for a takeout lunch and when going home before they get into their cars.

I really feel sorry for the low-cost motels that I usually stay in when traveling to a BMW rally and returning. They are typically located in the boondocks, most of the staff are of east Indian descent and seem to be operating on a very slim budget with family members running the place. While the big hotel chains, at least in California, are having their rooms leased by local and the state governments to house the homeless, I bet these mom and pop motels are rapidly going broke. And of course the small restaurants in these little tourist towns must also be on the rocks. I really wonder what these little towns will be like next summer. Many of them already had business areas that were looking pretty run down with many buildings empty. I just don't know how these small towns that depend upon tourist visits to their adjacent recreational areas are going to survive and I suspect that places like that are where most of us like to visit when touring. I feel so sorry for these people who do not have the support that residents of a big city receive. Somehow they have to make it on their own.

I am thinking about this now because the Chief Joseph Rally in Eastern Oregon which would have been held at the small cattle ranching town of John Day, population about 1800, is really going to suffer without the rally and the many other events that are held at the Grant County Fairgrounds during the summer. https://www.bmwro.org/content.aspx

Again, I keep wondering why the world can't develop uniform rules for how to deal with the virus, instead of letting thousands of individual local health officers dream up their own rules how their residents should live their lives. Isn't the virus pretty much the same all over? Why does every jurisdiction have to try to prevent its transmission differently? And there certainly needs to be more thought on making the rules simpler, clearly explaining why they are necessary and how people can protect themselves without shutting down so many businesses and causing people to loose their income and have to rely on government and non-profit handouts to keep them alive and well. There needs to be a common sense balance, here. We can't have the cure be worse than the disease in the long run.
 
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#94 ·
...............Again, I keep wondering why the world can't develop uniform rules for how to deal with the virus, instead of letting thousands of individual local health officers dream up their own rules how their residents should live their lives. Isn't the virus pretty much the same all over? .............
"Isn't the virus pretty much the same all over?" NO, IT IS NOT. Or at least not the way you seem to have misunderstood it.

Richard you seem to have asked this same or similar question about 6 times. The question is 'why is it different in different locations'? I'm sure I compared a remote mountainside with a CBD about a month or more ago.... I'll give it another crack

Can I ask you to consider just two things and then stop using the word "virus"? However, I am going to use the word right here: (1) the virus has a name, it is called SARS-CoV-2. If a person is infected by SARS-CoV-2 they end up with (2) the disease called COVID-19.

SARS-CoV-2 gets inhaled into host people (who now have COVID-19), it replicates inside them and after a few days the person starts to cough or snot it out of their body.

SARS-CoV-2 dies soon after being snotted or coughed or back-of-the-hand wiped out of a free swinging nose. On stainless steel it dies in minutes to hours depending on temperature, humidity and sunlight. It dies within seconds of contact with isopropyl alcohol and 5 minutes after contact with bleach. If it lands on your face, mask or hands - gloved or not - and then you touch your face or mask the virus may still be alive when you breathe it in or suck your thumb, pick your nose or otherwise find a way to get it in.

Even if the individual SARS-CoV-2 particles themselves are identical (pretty much the same as you say), that is not important. I'm sure from your repetitive identical questions that you are missing something very fundamental. You seem to be missing the understanding that both SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 exist in different densities in different jurisdictions. Density being how many cases per square mile.

Australia is roughly the same size as the lower 48. We have had about 7,000 cases in total, 99 deaths; today we have about 700 active cases, 45 people in hospital and 10 in ICU and 2 or 3 on ventilators. We have maybe 1 or 2 new cases in the whole western half of the country. Imagine basically no cases west of the Mississippi!!! There would be no need for a mask at all out there. They do not need to have the same restrictions as New York. In New York there have been 360,000 cases 28,000 deaths, and just yesterday another 1,700 people were diagnosed.

The local authorities in Western Australia and New York must sensibly need different levels of lockdown. Does that make sense? One place has basically no COVID-19 patients and the other place is freaking slithering in snot and SARS-CoV-2 and the ground 6 feet under is starting to become scarce. Now if you can see that those two places are at opposite ends of a spectrum, all other places are somewhere in between. If there are a lot of cases per square mile in your county, but the neighbouring county has lots of square miles per case, the local authorities will not necessarily have the same restrictions. Are you still with me?

Try to stop thinking about the restrictions in places that are not where you are. Its not helping. Just follow the guidelines of your authorities in your local area.

***********************************************************************************************************

Now I'll address your concerns about the oft quoted "The cure can't be worse than the disease". As a nation in this the USA has royally trucked itself. The USA had ample warning, did truck all to prevent the initial spread, cried like little truckers about the right to get a haircut and continued to snot cough and touch people all over the country when any idiot could see that was a trucking stoopid thing to do. As a consequence SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 have spread far, wide and oh so deep. If the 'lockdowns' were actually done properly instead of being fought against by masses in the streets armed with AK-47s then by now your curve would have been shaped like this:



Instead, all of the yibber yabbering has resulted in a curve that looks like this:



If you had simply done what was advised by your health authorities (not the pumpkin headed one) you would indeed be able to 'open it up'. The cure would have been absolutely nowhere near as bad as what you are all facing.

My 2c worth.
 
#90 ·
What about hotel rooms,,. Are they safe to stay in?
When I inquired they have a generic statement about Social distancing, shared facilities are closed like restaurants and pools and they say extra measures for house cleaning? One said they quarantine the room for 24 hrs prior to cleaning?
Personally I think its difficult to guarantee that the previous guest or room cleaning staff don't have C19, Asymptomatic or what ever,,.

What are your thoughts?
 
#93 ·
That is another good question. My guess is that high-priced hotels in large cities are likely well cleaned after every use, but probably not so much at small mom and pop motels in the boondocks. :confused: Most of those cheap motels seem to be pretty run down. (You get what you pay for and I tend to go cheap.) I bet they have considerable difficulty obtaining the proper cleaning and sanitizing supplies, too.
 
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#91 ·
My son is working at a Camper Van outfit that rents to the public and business is good. The Company sanitizes the van and equips it with sanitized gear. people are making the choice to rent a sanitized van over going to Motels and restaurants for meals.

QUOTE=Lag;2843033]What about hotel rooms,,. Are they safe to stay in?
When I inquired they have a generic statement about Social distancing, shared facilities are closed like restaurants and pools and they say extra measures for house cleaning? One said they quarantine the room for 24 hrs prior to cleaning?
Personally I think it's difficult to guarantee that the previous guest or room cleaning staff don't have C19, Asymptomatic or what ever,,.

What are your thoughts?[/QUOTE]
 
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#92 ·
My wife and I both travel on business and carried wipes for surfaces and ziplock bags to sheath the remotes. But now it it is even more concerning. We know in the past that maid were caught not sending glassware to the dishwashers but just wiping the rims to avoid carrying them downstairs. Who knows whatever else shortcuts are taken. I think we have to assume there is no consistency in standards. Even in chain hotels, most are owned and managed by franchisees who may or may not follow guidelines.
 
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#95 ·
Gerry, I think a person could do some precautionary measures when entering a room as you have described,,. When I inquired abought guidelines I was given a generic mission statement, but as you say there is no guarantee this is being followed,.

The one that gets me is the bedding, you don't really know what the procedure was when this was handled by the launderer or the hotel staff,,,, I would imagine most people think they are fine when they don't have symptoms so it would be tempting not to follow certain procedures for employees,,. Perhaps if the property could verify that the room had not been used or cleaned for 72 hrs, maybe but not a viable business model,,.

Unfortunately I do not see over-nighting as an option for the foreseeable future,,.
 
#96 ·
Sorry for upsetting you Peter. I am afraid that I have no medical knowledge and little interest in the subject. The last time I was sick, other than having a cold once every few years, was over 50 years ago and the last time I was in a hospital was when i got my tonsils removed and that was over 65 years ago. All I know is motorcycles, how government works, how to balance a budget and how to pay for things before you buy them. I have never heard the term SARS-CoV-2 before. Regarding my poor memory of pasts posts, I am sure you are right, however apparently you have a much better memory about what I say than I do. So keep up the good work and keep reminding me of my previous comments, the repeats of which seem to be triggered by the lack of any obvious changes around me. Meanwhile I will keep self-isolating myself while riding my motorcycles.
 
#100 ·
Fair enough Richard.

Some of us do, indeed have medical knowledge and do take an interest in this. If I can be so bold, your post shows that you are living under a philosophical rock, which you are entitled to do. When the sun passes overhead each day you may see a crack of light, but other than that it all seems to be the same. Discussing the 'corona virus' and having never heard it called by its name (SARS-CoV-2) takes some pretty determined effort: avoiding decent sources of information that don't just keep saying the same thing day after day or indeed keep asking the same thing day after day. Maybe your information sources are under a philosophical rock, too? Try clicking the TV channel clicker occasionally.

My memory of your questions is simply triggered by reading the same Q after is has been A'd many times for weeks.

Do keep safe and keep riding motorcycles. Just remember - oh, oh! - the Zombie Apocalypse red dots on the map. An area that is clear of SARS-CoV-2 today gets to join the party and gets a red dot when someone with COVID-19 catches a plane, train, automobile or motorcycle into that clear zone. That dot gets bigger when that person starts to snot.

 
#97 ·
I went to the Bun Cooler "Un"-Rally over the weekend. The actual rally was cancelled, but several of us decided to go anyway.

It was interesting to see the difference from the "official" policy and the reality. Idaho's official policy is that only local essential travel is permitted. If you come from another state, you are to self-quarantine for 14 days. If your stay will be less than 14 days, you are to self-quarantine for that period of time.

Clarkston, WA is just across the border from Lewiston, ID. There appeared to be no difference in anything as I passed over. When I got to the KOA resort at Kamiah, ID, I talked to the owner as I was paying for my reservation. She said that in Kamiah, no one was wearing masks. The sheriff in this small community where everyone knows everyone else, said he wasn't going to enforce the lockdown order. She said over in the larger areas like Lewiston, masks are the norm there. But even there, I doubt it is any different than in the Seattle area where some wear masks, and some won't.

The KOA resort has both RV camping and a motel. The RV camping area was probably 3/4 full. The motel had only the seven of us staying there. All of us are in the highly vulnerable category. Older, and I was one of the youngest. All of us overweight to varying degrees. And many with some kind of health condition. One has bad chronic asthma. I highly doubt any of them were carrying the coronavirus, because they'd probably be in the hospital if they were. And, we all did a good job of staying six feet apart.

I don't want to minimize the effects of the coronavirus, or how contagious it is. But I think I was safer there than when I did the last local shopping trip at Fred Meyer for two families. I wanted to go down an aisle to get something. I saw one person in the aisle, and they didn't have a mask. I went down the aisle with my KN95 mask on...and by the time I got to the other end, I went by seven people...all without masks. I got a better chance of being infected by those seven people, than I did on the entire trip this weekend.

Chris
 
#98 ·
Most of us think what we are doing is preventing us from getting the Corona Virus,,. In reality if your never in the proximity of a carrier what your doing is overkill and if your are in the proximity of a carrier it may not be nearly enough,,. The fact of it is that most of us have not been anywhere near a Corona virus carrier, the problem is you just don't know,,!!
 
#99 ·
There are some reports that the coronavirus was around in the USA back in November, but we didn't know it till just now. If that's the case, many of us might've been exposed and just had little to no symptoms.

I've quit trying to judge those who wear a mask, or those who don't. I just try to take care of myself and my loved ones as best as I can.

Chris
 
#101 ·
You rarely hear "SARS-CoV-2" over here. What the laymen hear most often is "Covid 19" or "coronavirus". If you got into an argument at a bar over the term SARS-CoV-2, you'd win the bet because technically you're right, but no one on the street would know what you mean.

Chris
 
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