Happy Leap Day! While today is February 29th, and there will not be another until the year 2024, we’re still not having a February 30th. So I would finish that milk off in the next couple of days and not wait for one. Welcome to the Deja Vu.

Well I hate it but let’s talk about Coronavirus just a minute. You are likely to get CORVID 19, the disease caused by coronavirus, but it’s not going to be that bad. The good and bad news is that while deadly it’s really not that deadly. That’s why containment is difficult and perhaps impossible. If people got really sick after transmission, and many died shortly thereafter, it would be easy to identify those patients and set up an effective quarantine. The reason that quarantine efforts have failed is because for many the symptoms are mild if any. Those with symptoms are often misdiagnosed as having cold or flu. Yes, over 2,000 people worldwide have died. Most of those case are in China where the disease was first observed in humans. Meanwhile in the United States over 8,000 influenza patients will die during this current flu season. If the spread of coronavirus could be halted that would be fantastic but it looks more and more everyday like that is not going to happen. The fatality rate, however, is around 2.7% so the reaction is largely unmerited.

Epidemic vs. Pandemic? You may have heard these words tossed around a lot lately. An epidemic is an outbreak of a disease with greater occurrence than usual in a particular area. In 2015 there was an epidemic outbreak of zika fever in Brazil that did spread to a few other places. A pandemic means disease is widespread globally. The CDC and World Health Organization have been hesitant to call the coronavirus outbreak pandemic because that might incite panic, which the media seems to insist on causing anyway, and because it would require different strategies to control. There are those that believe containment is still possible; if they declare a pandemic then containment efforts through quarantine would be abandoned and the focus would shift to treatment of those affected.

And now for something completely different:

Who remembers Dippity-do? Someone suggested getting Bernie Sanders something heavy duty like Dippity-do for hair control and that got me to wondering if they even still make this and/or where it came from in the first place. The product appears to be widely available in Canada and available in the US through Amazon if not in stores. Today it looks like this for women:

While the men’s product come in either cream or paste.

‘Tis the season for Girl Scout cookies. Take a break from those New Year’s resolutions and support your local Girl Scout troop. There are gluten free options or you can make a donation to buy a box for our troops currently serving overseas. If you see at booth at your local (insert store here) stop on by.

That’s Johannah and I one year ago at Chick-fil-A’s Daddy Daughter Date Night. Tonight’s theme is a royal ball so we’re looking forward to that.