Produce has been the hardest thing about grocery orders for me.
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and here I was thinking I was employer of the year! I had no idea online groceries were a touch and go issue.
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I legit love grocery shopping, and miss it very very deeply. Completely giving up in person shops might be impossible for me.
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Grocery shopping used to be one of my favorite errands and now in-person is debilitatingly anxiety-inducing. Wondering how long it will take post-vaccine to be fun again.
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I have completely given it up and am going kind of insane, honestly. Now itās terrifying though.
But, Iāve had few issues with produce! Other than with Imperfect Foods, which, well, it is RIGHT there in the name.
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We had grocery pickup yesterday and it sucked big time. We didnāt get what we needed for dinner and wound up getting take out. Soā¦ I am very sympathetic to the nannyās position! It is great for name-brand snacks, not so good at knowing what you want as a replacement if they donāt have hoagie buns.
Iām sorry it was awkward! Iām sure she doesnāt think it was controlling. That would be if you were insisting, not offering.
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Interestingly, produce was mostly fine. Potatoes, check. The bananas were lovely. Broccoli crowns, you bet. It was the poblano peppers that threw them and we got no peppers. If we had asked for jalapeno, we probably would have gotten them.
We also got no pepperoni, I think because this moves around the store and can be tricky to find and they just gave up.
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Iāve not been inside a store and also have not bought fresh produce that was not bagged potatoes, onions, carrots, and apples since March. Well, I did buy l bananas 2-3 times before I gave up. Husband got us spinach salad once when he went in for wine and beer (alcohol is not available curbside here). Weāve just eaten frozen vegetables, those things in a bag I could wipe down/quarantine and vegetables we grew or foraged since then.
Ironically, husband is eating more vegetables than ever before because weāve discovered he likes them roasted, and frozen vegetables roast just fine. And greens grow in our hoop house even in January.
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Oh, overall I love it so much. Itās saved a lot of time. As long as you werenāt weird about itā¦Iām sure sheās stopped thinking about the interaction.
In other news, a teacher in school age has covid. She subbed in the infant room. Only the babies have to quarantine because older kids wear masks. And neither of our kids classroomā¦ But the teachers all get together in the office maskless. Soā¦
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Hit and miss produce is why we started using Dumpling for groceries. The fees are more expensive than instacart but you only get charged in-store prices so it kind of evens out?
I leave detailed notes and use the same shopper every time. I was very happy that she and I had the same definition of āavacados that will be ripe in 3-4 daysā and every time I get apples I just say āwhatever looks goodā and I always get beautiful apples. I think it helps that she is trying to get repeat business from specific customers, and probably also that we tip really well.
It doesnāt necessarily reduce the number of people in the store, unless she has a few orders that she can fill at once. But, instacart is our only other option and I donāt think they pay workers very well.
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Iām sure she thinks itās a great opportunity! But yeahā¦ Groceries are hit and miss for good delivery and the first time from a place is a huge hassle
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Yay. Oregons Health Administration is saying 200k doses have been given, which is nearly 5% of our population. Hopefully that means weāre picking up steam and doing better than our rather angst-inducing initial numbers. Gov Brown says the 12k per day is goal is being met. 
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There are many different variants, for the reasons people said above, and most of them are inconsequential. Three in particular are on my radar right now: B.1.1.7 (UK), 501.V2 (South Africa), and P1 (Amazon basin, Brazil). All three have quickly become the dominant in their geographic regions, and they all share the N501Y mutation in the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein.* The RBD is the part of the spike protein that attaches to human cells & is a particular target for antibodies. These variants donāt seem to be more lethal, but they appear to be more transmissible; the UK variant was shown to be ~50% more transmissible in modeling studies. This is a problem because many more people become sick all at once, overwhelming health systems and resulting in more deaths. These areas are all experiencing surges right now, with the need for oxygen to be rationed in some places.
Thereās some evidence that vaccines will be effective against the UK variant. The South African and Brazilian variants also share the E484K mutation in the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein. In the lab, this mutation appears to help the virus evade antibodies. Itās still thought that vaccines are still (hopefully) effective, for reasons already pointed out, but not certain.
Is there a more transmissible USA strain circulating right now, in addition to the holiday bump, thatās driving up our case numbers and causing 3k-4k deaths a day? Whatās going on in Southern California and Arizona right now? Who knows, the US so far hasnāt done much genomic surveillance (sequencing virus samples to identify which variants were dominant).
The purpose of lockdowns is to 1) reduce the case numbers to relieve health systems and, 2) buy us time to vaccinate as many people as possible. I continue to be cautiously hopeful that mass vaccination will get us out of this. According to the Bloomberg vaccine tracker, the US administered ~900k shots a day this week. Here in NYC, vaccine supply has already become the limiting factor. A 24/7 mass vaccination site in Brooklyn that opened last Sunday had to shut down on Friday because they ran out of doses. The Mt Sinai Health system also had to cancel a bunch of appointments because not enough doses are coming.
*The N501Y mutation in itself isnāt enough to make the virus more transmissible. Many variants that are clearly not more transmissible also have this mutation. The UK, South African, and Brazilian variants have many mutations in the spike protein, and other factors at also involved.
(Hope the above is not too technical.)
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Would antibodies acquired by contracting one strain be effective against a different strain?
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Iām not the original asker but I thought your answer was excellent and well-explained.
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Hopefully, yes. When exposed to virus or vaccine, we develop many different antibodies and also a whole host of cell-mediated responses that donāt rely on antibodies (T cells, macrophages, etc). There are, however, alarming reports that the P1 variant may be driving reinfections in Manaus, Brazil, which is why it came under my radar. But we donāt have any definitive answers yet about whatās going on there.
Even if it is the case that certain new variants can cause significant reinfections (and we donāt know it is at all), new mNRA vaccines can be developed quickly, as others have said. Itās possible (and we donāt know yet if itāll be necessary), weāll be getting multivalent vaccines in the future that have mRNAs for several different types of spike proteins.
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While weāre on the science train. Vaccines and breastfeeding! So my understating is a vaccinated mother can pass antibodies onto the suckling infant, right? So one could presume a covid vaccinated mother may be passing immunity, to some unknown degree, onto the nursling? It gets fuzzy for me though where I feel like I read actual specific antibodies might only actually cross very early for infants, and then once the gut closes up more at like 3-4 months or whatever, itās not working the same?
This is terribly worded Iām sure, I need to go to bed, just curious if someone knows/has looked into this. 
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I agree. Thank you.
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@anomalily in case you need to feel better about not going to the rink (obvs where/when youād be on the ice is less crowded than hockey but still)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hockey-covid-arena-air-quality-1.5871960
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Ugh that did actually make me feel a lot better even if I am also sad about it
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