*** OFFICIAL *** COVID-19 CoronaVirus Thread. Fresh epidemic fears as child pneumonia cases surge in Europe after China outbreak. NOW in USA (11 Viewers)

[parasaurolophus]

The stores here have nothing, you have to get in early and get lucky to get some items. Wife went to Sam's yesterday and they had no meat and the freezer section of the store was empty. Interesting thought about was now that everyone is home and everything is shut down, people are cooking a lot more meals at home hence no meat available.

I don't think a stay at home order is going to move the needle in our area, might be different elsewhere.

If they are anything like my wife, and use 8 dishes to make a bowl of oatmeal, you guys might want to stock up on dishwasher soap.

 

[Terminalxylem]

A little quick for that.  The whole point of flattening the curve is to avoid that vertical spike in exchange for long low plateau.  In theory the area under the curve should remain the same.

I don't think this is accurate, at least wrt deaths - the spike results in more dying, both from Covid and other illness, as medical resources are overwhelmed.

In the absence of a treatment/vaccine, the AUC may end up the same for total cases, as herd immunity is the endgame. But containment measures can stop if much earlier if perfectly executed, as they collectively can drop Ro to less than 1.

 

[Phil Elliott]

Sooo... 

I think we have tens of millions of cases in the US at this point. 

Ive been closely following this model since mid February and it's been extremely accurate on deaths, with US fatalities only recently accelerating from ~1 day lag to ~1 day ahead. 

The only curious part about that model is it showed massive infection numbers that would presumably be hard to hide. Unless, as some studies show, truly asymptomatic cases are prevalent (~30-50%)... which some studies are starting to confirm.

Now we have THIS STUDY which hypothesizes we had 10MM cases as of 2 weeks ago. If that's the case we could be looking at ~15-20% of the US population being infected at this point.

What does that mean? Good news would be confirmation that many folks are completely asymptomatic, we may be further down the line toward herd immunity than expected, and fatality rate is significantly lower than we thought.

Downside would be that the risk of catching it, if you're not already infected, is much higher as you're likely surrounded by infected people when you're out. 

Very interesting read. I look forward to results of Widespread antibody testing Down the road to confirm/debunk this. 

Mayo clinic set to rollout test next week that determines if people have the antibodies.  No announcement on when it will be resdily available.

 

[Phil Elliott]

Curbside or did you have to go inside?

Curbside, and used the app.

 

[Cjw_55106]

The stores here have nothing, you have to get in early and get lucky to get some items. Wife went to Sam's yesterday and they had no meat and the freezer section of the store was empty. Interesting thought about was now that everyone is home and everything is shut down, people are cooking a lot more meals at home hence no meat available.

I don't think a stay at home order is going to move the needle in our area, might be different elsewhere.

From my experience, Sams Club and Costco have less meat than the "grocery stores". I was lucky to get a 9lb chub of beef at Sams last week and used my vacuum sealer to separate it.  

 

[Capella]

Mayo clinic set to rollout test next week that determines if people have the antibodies.  No announcement on when it will be resdily available.

The article I read said not anytime soon for mass volume. All these great things that could help just take forever to roll out. 

 

[MTskibum]

Mayo clinic set to rollout test next week that determines if people have the antibodies.  No announcement on when it will be resdily available.

I would pay at least ~500 for that test if they open it up in private labs as well.

I know everyone *thinks* they have already had it. My wife is convinced, but I am less so.

We flew to Denver and then went to Frisco, Dillon, Copper Mountain in late February. We did all of the social activities, ice castle for the kids, eating out in crowded restaurants every meal, etc.  Both the denver airport with a few TSA agents and the ski hills are turning into hotspots.

Shortly after flying we picked up a dry cough with almost no other symptoms that lasted for 2 weeks. I had a slight fever on the first day, just under 100. My 5 year old daughter had a cough for 2-3 days, my 3 year old who shared drinks with us etc, never showed symptoms.

It is almost 90% likely to be a common cold. But still,  I would spend some money to find out.

 

[Pipes]

Northerners when they don't close Florida beaches: 

Northerners when they close local beaches: 

A bit different though since these beaches won't be open for months.

 

[Cjw_55106]

Because people can only go for emergencies, MN hospitals are reportedly losing 31M a day! 

Its a bit ironic that at a time like this, nurses and maybe Drs could actually lose their jobs. 

 

[parasaurolophus]

Make your own sourdough starter instead. Even better than yeast.  All you need is flour and water. Be ready to use in 5 days. Recipes all over the innernets.  

Follow up to this...

One thing you need to do for your starter is to scoop out some every day. I have been making skillet fried sourdough flatbreads out of the discard. Much better than just getting rid of it and they taste great.

 

[Terminalxylem]

I've still been reading that deliveries don't need to be wiped down - this is a source of frustration to me, it genuinely feels that no one really knows what the real guidance should be.

Nobody knows for sure, but the preponderance of evidence and experience with respiratory tract infections (including other coronaviruses) suggests the spread is mostly droplet + some fomites. The latter are more likely high risk surfaces which frequently come in contact with people's hands. Like an elevator button or door handle. A review of fomite transmission

Less clear modes of spread include "fecal clouds", fecal-oral, aerosols and activities like speech/breathing. Also haven't read much about blood borne, sexual, breastmilk or maternal-to-child transmission.

It's not "wrong" to wipe down packages and groceries, but I think it's probably overkill if you observe good hand hygiene and minimize touching your face. The virus definitely won't jump from a delivery to your airways - a satisfactory innoculum needs to contact your hand while the virus is still viable, then be transferred in sufficient quantities to your eyes, nose or mouth.

 

[ChiefD]

From my experience, Sams Club and Costco have less meat than the "grocery stores". I was lucky to get a 9lb chub of beef at Sams last week and used my vacuum sealer to separate it.  

Wife went to Costco yesterday and managed to grab some chicken breasts and one pack of chicken legs. They also had frozen chicken as well. 

Also got there when they had toilet paper. They had a line - one pack per customer. 

Yesterday was also my first day back at work after being gone for 3 weeks. Driving past all those restaurants - I was really craving french fries last night. 

 

[beer 30]

Curbside, and used the app.

Wife & D1 tried to do online orders for Sam's & Target yesterday. Entered all the info, moved it to a cart, hit order and both said there were no pickup options for the rest of the day and to try today. Wife got the same message from Walmart two days in a row. They finally said #### it and just went to Sam's, got pretty much everything they were looking for. We had stocked up on some chicken before the great shutdown, was just looking to get some ribs or pork chops for variety.

 

[Terminalxylem]

I would pay at least ~500 for that test if they open it up in private labs as well.

I know everyone *thinks* they have already had it. My wife is convinced, but I am less so.

We flew to Denver and then went to Frisco, Dillon, Copper Mountain in late February. We did all of the social activities, ice castle for the kids, eating out in crowded restaurants every meal, etc.  Both the denver airport with a few TSA agents and the ski hills are turning into hotspots.

Shortly after flying we picked up a dry cough with almost no other symptoms that lasted for 2 weeks. I had a slight fever on the first day, just under 100. My 5 year old daughter had a cough for 2-3 days, my 3 year old who shared drinks with us etc, never showed symptoms.

It is almost 90% likely to be a common cold. But still,  I would spend some money to find out.

Better check the testing characteristics first. Most antibody tests are fairly sensitive (80-90%+), but the positive predictive value of any test is influenced by disease prevalence. So if COVID isn’t too widespread in your community, a positive test is more like to be a false positive, for example.

 

[dickey moe]

I remember watching it when it aired in 1976.  

GB the chick on the horse.

 

[dawgtrails]

When looking at their statistics, an alarming amount of the people who died had underlying conditions.  You'd have to think that some of those deaths were to people who died from something else and just happened to have Covid-19 in their system.

Unfortunately we are not a very healthy populace. Many have underlying health conditions.

 

[Doug B]

Anyone else remember this movie?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8ddGM6Ok6g

I remember watching it when it aired in 1976.  

(Tangent: That opening scene has a few nice cars that, if maintained well, would fetch a ton at auction these days.)

 

[shader]

Are the statistics out of NY counting every patient that died with Covid-19 in their system to be logged as a Covid-19 fatality?

When looking at their statistics, an alarming amount of the people who died had underlying conditions.  You'd have to think that some of those deaths were to people who died from something else and just happened to have Covid-19 in their system.

In Dr. Bhakdi's open letter to German Chancellor Merkel he posited the same

I think we are under-counting the deaths.  We definitely aren't over-counting them.  But there is always a theory that someone believes in.

 

[ConstruxBoy]

Very long article from Morningstar discussing the economic impact in their view, for people interested. They did one a couple of weeks ago that I posted here. Interesting to see the changes. 

Morningstar

 

[shader]

Very long article from Morningstar discussing the economic impact in their view, for people interested. They did one a couple of weeks ago that I posted here. Interesting to see the changes. 

Morningstar

Thanks for sharing.  I'm busy and can't read the full article until later today, but judging by the headline, those guys have their heads in the clouds.  I think this is going to make the 2008 recession look like a cakewalk, unless things suddenly change in the next month. 

 

[[scooter]]

With 1 MM cases worldwide, hopefully we have more data on the contagion pathways. Have there been any instances of someone catching covid-19 via:

- grocery store packaging?

- walking outdoors without broaching 20 feet of another human?

I'd be curious if anyone comes across anything.  Seems like we are in an escalation of prevention measures without a lot of data to back this up - if there is data, I'd be curious in seeing it. 

In the YouTube video from the NYC doctor, he went out of his way to emphasize that all of their patients were known to have had direct exposure to someone with coronavirus.

Perhaps his experience was anecdotal, or perhaps he was downplaying the risk to reassure reassure friends and family, or perhaps the virus is so widespread in NYC that everyone has been directly exposed?

 

[The General]

Seattle restaurant legend talks “coming back” from this

This guy was one of the major players in the city. Places downtown were already struggling before this.

New things are always reborn out of opportunity but this is pretty scary stuff to the thinking that we just snap right out of this.

 

[ConstruxBoy]

Thanks for sharing.  I'm busy and can't read the full article until later today, but judging by the headline, those guys have their heads in the clouds.  I think this is going to make the 2008 recession look like a cakewalk, unless things suddenly change in the next month. 

Let me know if you change your mind after reading it. 

 

[[icon]]

Are the statistics out of NY counting every patient that died with Covid-19 in their system to be logged as a Covid-19 fatality?

When looking at their statistics, an alarming amount of the people who died had underlying conditions.  You'd have to think that some of those deaths were to people who died from something else and just happened to have Covid-19 in their system.

In Dr. Bhakdi's open letter to German Chancellor Merkel he posited the same

I see this "died with not because of" angle played up and frankly it seems silly. These people all lived with these comorbidities then suddenly coincidentally all died in the last week or two, and COVID was an innocent bystander?

Cmonnnnn     
 

The fact that infectious diseases often kills by exacerbating existing health conditions is nothing new. Hell, common flu fatalities are usually subsequent to the same associative effect through similar comorbidities. 

These people are dying as a result of complications of catching COVID. 

 

[shader]

Yeah, I'm definitely on the other side of this.  There's an economic benefit for NY if they over-report the number of Covid-19 deaths, as a lot of federal money gets pumped in for those.  No extra federal assistance is coming for the guys dying from heart disease or cancer that just happened to die with Covid-19 in their system.

Couldn't disagree more.  New York is overpaying for ventilators and PPE and are pulling their hair out trying to survive.  I don't think they are gaming the system at this time.

 

[shader]

People die from all kinds of things every day.  A LOT of people.  But there's financial incentive to state the cause of death as Covid-19.

OK, you made your point.  Perhaps take that conspiracy theory somewhere else. 

 

[[icon]]

People die from all kinds of things every day.  A LOT of people.  But there's financial incentive to state the cause of death as Covid-19.

 

 

[[icon]]

Couldn't disagree more.  New York is overpaying for ventilators and PPE and are pulling their hair out trying to survive.  I don't think they are gaming the system at this time.

 Its amazing what twists of logic people will contrive to deny what's staring them blankly in the face. 

 

[bigmarc27]

People die from all kinds of things every day.  A LOT of people.  But there's financial incentive to state the cause of death as Covid-19.

Can anyone guide me as to what kind of language I can use and not get banned?

dumb doesn’t adequately work, idiotic is too soft...  so where’s the line?

 

[bcat01]

Because people can only go for emergencies, MN hospitals are reportedly losing 31M a day! 

Its a bit ironic that at a time like this, nurses and maybe Drs could actually lose their jobs. 

This is happening everywhere.  Rural counties with only one hospital are at risk of losing their hospitals unless they get more state or federal help.

 

[Politician Spock]

Very long article from Morningstar discussing the economic impact in their view, for people interested. They did one a couple of weeks ago that I posted here. Interesting to see the changes. 

Morningstar

From the article:

We still assume 20% of the population is infected over the course of the year in our base case, with a slightly higher average death rate of 0.4% (up from 0.3% in our previous analysis).

I agree with their overall numbers IF only 20% of the population gets infected in 2020, and the death rate is as low as 0.4%.

But that's a big IF. 

 

[shader]

From the article:

I agree with their overall numbers IF only 20% of the population gets infected in 2020, and the death rate is as low as 0.4%.

But that's a big IF. 

I'm half-reading it while listening to a training call.  That's an absurdly low death rate that they've pulled from the sky.

That being said, I don't think we should expect to learn a lot from Investment companies.  It probably isn't in their own interests to paint a less than rosy picture.  I doubt anyone before the 2008 crisis expected it to happen, either (in fact I know they didn't).

The economic devastation we've already seen is worse than anything I can remember.  The govt is the only thing keeping the whole economic system from crashing right now.  

 

[sho nuff]

I see this "died with not because of" angle played up and frankly it seems silly. These people all lived with these comorbidities then suddenly coincidentally all died in the last week or two, and COVID was an innocent bystander?

Cmonnnnn     
 

The fact that infectious diseases often kills by exacerbating existing health conditions is nothing new. Hell, common flu fatalities are usually subsequent to the same associative effect through similar comorbidities. 

These people are dying as a result of complications of catching COVID. 

Exactly...people with HIV die of other causes...its just that the virus weakened them or made another condition worse.

People dying from this are usually said to have died from complications due to COVID.  Because, as you say, it exacerbates their other conditions.  Its my worry as an asthmatic (though, never had serious attacks like some).  Its not the virus...its how the virus would cause my lungs to react with my already known condition.

 

[RnR]

I see this "died with not because of" angle played up and frankly it seems silly. These people all lived with these comorbidities then suddenly coincidentally all died in the last week or two, and COVID was an innocent bystander?

Cmonnnnn     
 

The fact that infectious diseases often kills by exacerbating existing health conditions is nothing new. Hell, common flu fatalities are usually subsequent to the same associative effect through similar comorbidities. 

These people are dying as a result of complications of catching COVID. 

This brings us back to the harsh reality we're going to face until we have a suitable therapy or vaccine: We are going to have to focus on finding a way to protect the vulnerable AND keep a functional economy at the same time. These extreme temporary measures will hopefully save thousands of lives, and I think we're all on board with that. But it is just that... temporary.

 

[Politician Spock]

Seattle restaurant legend talks “coming back” from this

This guy was one of the major players in the city. Places downtown were already struggling before this.

New things are always reborn out of opportunity but this is pretty scary stuff to the thinking that we just snap right out of this.

Lot's of truth in this. The stimulus bill does have a lot in it for small businesses, but the way it's written, it could drive more bankruptcies than it saves.

For example, one requirement is that a small businesses payroll MUST be at pre-crisis levels come June 30th. If not, only 25% of the "loan" is forgivable. So if the market for that small business does NOT return to pre-crisis levels by June 30th, allowing the small business to have the revenue to have that payroll level, then all the stimulus bill did was make the small business pay for the crisis losses in the future... with interest. If the business, now with a smaller market than before, can't service a higher debt level than it had before, then it's bankruptcy for them. 

 

[sho nuff]

Hundustan Times: Born during coronavirus lockdown, Raipur twins named ‘Corona’ and ‘Covid’

Waiting for this in the "Parents stop with the effed up names" thread in 5 years.

"I got a new Kindergarten student today... K-Rona Vyrus Jones"

 

[hagmania]

If it’s true we’ve had 24M infected and only 5k deaths than we are in way better shape than any of us figure. Obviously some of those infected could still turn to death but likely not a large %

He or she still has that number doubling every 3-4 days though which I can’t imagine at this point. That’s my problem with those numbers. 

Well, if you're going to use the model like that, you really need to look at 2 weeks from that point re: deaths. (97k)

 

[Politician Spock]

I'm half-reading it while listening to a training call.  That's an absurdly low death rate that they've pulled from the sky.

That being said, I don't think we should expect to learn a lot from Investment companies.  It probably isn't in their own interests to paint a less than rosy picture.  I doubt anyone before the 2008 crisis expected it to happen, either (in fact I know they didn't).

The economic devastation we've already seen is worse than anything I can remember.  The govt is the only thing keeping the whole economic system from crashing right now.  

Not only is that a low death rate, but it's a death rate only applied to 20% of the population. 

I'm not trying to be morbid, and I optimism has it's place. But when advising others, being realistic should be paramount. 

 

[Fear The Turtle]

Unfortunately we are not a very healthy populace. Many have underlying health conditions.

Right, and not a very fit populace, either. Obviously, many factors are involved but I feel that our susceptibility to this thing directly relates to our societal fitness level. Rampaging anti-"fat shamers" deserve at least a small % of the blame. I swear when/if department stores open again, I'm going to take a hammer to one of these "fat" mannequins I see springing up all over the place.

 

[shader]

If you're looking for good news, yesterday France's new cases collapsed to 2,116.  I hope to see that carry over today.  I also hope to see a similar collapse in Italy.

Italy is a frustrating case.  Yeah their exponential growth has definitely stopped...But this weekend is 4 weeks since Italy has been on lockdown and they are still getting 4-5k cases a day. 

How long can a lockdown of this length continue?   How long MUST it continue?

If you think about it, Italy has 35,000 new cases in the last week.  So they are locked down for at LEAST another month.  

That's not good news for the USA, who has quarantine measures that are far less strict than Italy.

 

[Doug B]

Now we have THIS STUDY which hypothesizes we had 10MM cases as of 2 weeks ago. If that's the case we could be looking at ~15-20% of the US population being infected at this point.

What does that mean? Good news would be confirmation that many folks are completely asymptomatic, we may be further down the line toward herd immunity than expected, and fatality rate is significantly lower than we thought.

Downside would be that the risk of catching it, if you're not already infected, is much higher as you're likely surrounded by infected people when you're out. 

Very interesting read. I look forward to results of Widespread antibody testing Down the road to confirm/debunk this. 

Based on the "THIS STUDY" link you gave, are you sure about the part in red? From the study's abstract:

Here, we show how publicly available CDC influenza-like illness 15 (ILI) outpatient surveillance data can be repurposed to estimate the detection rate of symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections.

This particular mathematical exercise looks much more useful than most that have been posted in this thread. In its favor is that it is based on presentation of symptoms, and thus doesn't rely on a large hidden number of asymptomatic carriers. Low-symptom carriers, yes -- but not asymptomatics.

One thing also in the researchers' favor is that they admit up-front the limitations and weak points of their study throughout the paper (in red below; section in blue below highlighted for balance):

2.3 Epidemic Growth Rates and Clinical Rates
The true prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 is unknown. However, if we assume the excess non-influenza ILI is almost entirely due to SARS-CoV-2, an assumption that becomes more valid as the virus becomes more prevalent, we can use the excess non-influenza ILI to understand the constraints and mutual dependence of exponential growth rates, the rate of subclinical infections, and the time between the onset of infectiousness and a patient reporting as ILI.

3 Discussion
...
Our study has several limitations. First, the observed ILI surge may represent more than just SARS-CoV-2 infected patients. A second epidemic of a non-seasonal pathogen that presents with ILI or changing patient behaviors causing higher rates of presentation for typical seasonal ILI could confound our estimates of ILI due to SARS-CoV-2. Alternatively, it is also possible that our use of ILI data has underestimated the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 within the US. While early clinical reports focused on cough and fever as the dominant features of COVID, other reports have documented digestive symptoms as the complaint affecting up to half of patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID, and alternative presentations, including asymptomatic or unnoticeable infections, could result in ILI surges underestimating SARS-CoV-2 prevalence.

Additionally, our models have several limitations. First we assume that ILI prevalence within states can be scaled to case counts at the state level. This is based on the assumption that the average number of cases seen by sentinel providers in a given week is representative of the average number of patients seen by all providers within that state in a given week. Errors in this assumptions would cause proportional errors in our estimated case counts and symptomatic case detection rate. Second, our epidemic models are crude, US-wide SEIR models varying by growth rate alone and as such do not capture regional variation or intervention-induced changes in transmission. Our models were used to estimate growth rates from ILI for testing with COVID data and to estimate the mutual dependency of growth rate, the lag between the onset of infection and presentation to a doctor, and clinical rates; these models were not intended to be fine-grained forecasts for municipality hospital burden and other common goals for COVID models. Finer models with regional demographic, and case-severity compartments are needed to translate our range of estimated prevalence, growth rate, and clinical rates into actionable models for public health managers.

 

[shader]

Not only is that a low death rate, but it's a death rate only applied to 20% of the population. 

I'm not trying to be morbid, and I optimism has it's place. But when advising others, being realistic should be paramount. 

Facts are facts.  Cuomo had a great little speech on this two days ago.  He said that if you present the facts, you aren't being negative.  

 

[The General]

Lot's of truth in this. The stimulus bill does have a lot in it for small businesses, but the way it's written, it could drive more bankruptcies than it saves.

For example, one requirement is that a small businesses payroll MUST be at pre-crisis levels come June 30th. If not, only 25% of the "loan" is forgivable. So if the market for that small business does NOT return to pre-crisis levels by June 30th, allowing the small business to have the revenue to have that payroll level, then all the stimulus bill did was make the small business pay for the crisis losses in the future... with interest. If the business, now with a smaller market than before, can't service a higher debt level than it had before, then it's bankruptcy for them. 

Yup. Completely expect a million different unintentional consequences when the dole out trillions. Hopefully they can fix things on the fly but impossible to get them all addressed. 

 

[Doug B]

What is discouraging is that people can put the time into developing models and theories like @icon is sharing and I doubt we'll ever sort out the aftermath to figure out how many people actually had it.  It's ashamed because without that information it will be hard to learn lessons for the next time.

I disagree -- there will never be a hard number of infections, no, just like there never are for any disease. But you can rest assured that various means of sampling the population for antibodies -- allowing an educated estimate of population infected -- are forthcoming. Probably starting in earnest 6-18 months down the line, and probably an annual (or biannual) exercise in U.S. public health statistical analysis going forward.

 

[Cowboysfan8]

Wife & D1 tried to do online orders for Sam's & Target yesterday. Entered all the info, moved it to a cart, hit order and both said there were no pickup options for the rest of the day and to try today. Wife got the same message from Walmart two days in a row. They finally said #### it and just went to Sam's, got pretty much everything they were looking for. We had stocked up on some chicken before the great shutdown, was just looking to get some ribs or pork chops for variety.

I’ve checked my Walmart app for available pickup times pretty much every day for awhile now. It only ever shows today and tomorrow 

It’s booked solid every time I check

 

[Doug B]

Hoping wide scale antibody testing will provide true better case: infection numbers down the road. Will be really interesting to see. This is all fascinating. 

Not sure how broad they'll have to test antibodies ... maybe sampling of 20,000 - 100,000 Americans will be enough. Just spitballing, though.

 

[Lowly Clerk]

Just got a notice from our health district that a Dr. In a small clinic went to work not feeling well. Ten of the patients he met with now have symptoms and 46 people are quarantined. 

 

[Jagov]

Anyone else remember this movie?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8ddGM6Ok6g

Yeah, from childhood. It was around the time that Travolta was in Welcome Back Kotter. My brother and I called this movie Barbarino in a Baggie as well as Sweat Hog in Saran Wrap 

 

[ConstruxBoy]

I'm half-reading it while listening to a training call.  That's an absurdly low death rate that they've pulled from the sky.

That being said, I don't think we should expect to learn a lot from Investment companies.  It probably isn't in their own interests to paint a less than rosy picture.  I doubt anyone before the 2008 crisis expected it to happen, either (in fact I know they didn't).

The economic devastation we've already seen is worse than anything I can remember.  The govt is the only thing keeping the whole economic system from crashing right now.  

As I said the first time, they're pretty even handed in their analysis, much like The Economist for world news, at least IMO. But fair enough. 

 

[Doug B]

Most stores around here have instituted a hard "1 item" policy for most of the stuff that gets gobbled up.  It has really helped.

I swear I'd like to see the local news do an expose on TP and paper towels at local groceries and big-box stores. They never, ever have either anymore (except maybe for a very few lonely rolls of store-brand paper towels). No matter when you go. I mean, I'd like to follow paper-product shipments from the truck, to the back of the store intake dock, to the back-area warehouse, to the stocking of the shelves, to the purchasing by customers.

You'd have to have the same people going in every single day buying whatever the limit on packages is. People who have hoarded seem to be incrementally adding on to their hoard, still buying more paper products per week than they were two months ago.

This may not go over well ... but also: there's no way grocery/big-box employees are not taking a lot of paper products home off the top. Not stealing, I mean purchasing. One of the perks of a difficuly, thankless job.