The Walls Come Down: No Travel Betwen US and Europe for 30 Days

[The Romulan Republic]

It occurred to me- but so do the geopolitical consequences of the US collapsing in disorder, which he's done everything he can to push us toward. To say nothing of the dead in Chechnya, Syria, the Ukraine...

The man's a murderous, expansionist despot who, thanks to his control over the Russian Mafia-political system and his nuclear arsenal, is about as immune to consequences as any human being can realistically be. Death by natural causes is the only real justice ever likely to find such a man.

Really? Really? So you'd want Putin to croak and potentially set off a major power struggle that goes nuclear and kills a few billion people. Because that would be real justice for his crimes against humanity.

Yes, I want a nuclear war that will kill billions of people. That's totally what I said.

Russia didn't go nuclear when the Soviet Union fell and I doubt it'll go nuclear now. But in the unlikely event that Putin's death=WWIII, well, who's fault is that for setting up a system that can't survive without him? The man's not immortal, he's going to croak sooner or later, whatever anybody wants to happen.

Dude, log off the internet and get help. I'm not even joking.

No. You don't get to insinuate mental illness as an ad hominem.

Do it again, and I'll report your ass.

[aerius]

I imagine this is going to be expensive. A quick skim read of their points are that people are being missed because current test only detect people who have the infection. Antibody tests obviously will test those who had the infection and recovered. However to help them understand exactly who is has been infected, they would need to test presumably a shit load of people who are currently well to see if you had been infected (unless they just focus on people who had symptoms in Jan and recovered). Either way I imagine this will cost resources and with the current testing kits strained as it is, I wonder how we're going to do that.

I am not a doctor so I don't know how we'd do it. I'd imagine some kind of random sampling in various areas of the country to get a representative sample of the population and see how many people have the antibodies. That should tell us where we are on the curve along with the actual infection & death rates, and once we have all that we can make logical policy choices.

[loomer]

The Union of BC Indian Chiefs is calling for a halt to Coatal GasLink construction due to COVID fears. The fact they even have to call for it is fucking bonkers.

[The Romulan Republic]

The Union of BC Indian Chiefs is calling for a halt to Coatal GasLink construction due to COVID fears. The fact they even have to call for it is fucking bonkers.

There's a lot of debate around continuing construction in general right now. A lot of construction is being billed as "essential", but the safety risks to workers are obvious. Some construction has just shut down despite the fact the government deems it "essential" (saw this through a Canadian socialists Facebook group I'm on).

[loomer]

The Union of BC Indian Chiefs is calling for a halt to Coatal GasLink construction due to COVID fears. The fact they even have to call for it is fucking bonkers.

There's a lot of debate around continuing construction in general right now. A lot of construction is being billed as "essential", but the safety risks to workers are obvious. Some construction has just shut down despite the fact the government deems it "essential" (saw this through a Canadian socialists Facebook group I'm on).

Construction generally is bad, but CGL and other projects that involve mancamps in predominantly Indigenous areas are even worse. You've got the great combination of a population with every indicator of increased COVID-19 mortality and poorly-regulated FIFO workers with inadequate hygiene infrastructure both on the job and at rest. It creates an additional risk factor for inter-community transmission, whereas construction works that use only local labour within a community only create the risk of a local hotspot and intra-community transmission.

[The Romulan Republic]

The Union of BC Indian Chiefs is calling for a halt to Coatal GasLink construction due to COVID fears. The fact they even have to call for it is fucking bonkers.

There's a lot of debate around continuing construction in general right now. A lot of construction is being billed as "essential", but the safety risks to workers are obvious. Some construction has just shut down despite the fact the government deems it "essential" (saw this through a Canadian socialists Facebook group I'm on).

Construction generally is bad, but CGL and other projects that involve mancamps in predominantly Indigenous areas are even worse. You've got the great combination of a population with every indicator of increased COVID-19 mortality and poorly-regulated FIFO workers with inadequate hygiene infrastructure both on the job and at rest. It creates an additional risk factor for inter-community transmission, whereas construction works that use only local labour within a community only create the risk of a local hotspot and intra-community transmission.

Yeah, that makes sense. Unfortunately.

[aerius]

Yes, I want a nuclear war that will kill billions of people. That's totally what I said.

Russia didn't go nuclear when the Soviet Union fell and I doubt it'll go nuclear now. But in the unlikely event that Putin's death=WWIII, well, who's fault is that for setting up a system that can't survive without him? The man's not immortal, he's going to croak sooner or later, whatever anybody wants to happen.

I don't know if you were alive in 1991, but Russia ain't the Soviet Union, and the rest of the world is quite a bit different now than it was then.

PS. Syria and the Ukraine were toppled by Obama's administration so you can't even blame those on Putin & Trump

No. You don't get to insinuate mental illness as an ad hominem.

Do it again, and I'll report your ass.

Ok, fine, so you're not mentally deranged, you're just stupid and douchey. Gotcha.

---

In other news, did anyone hoard condoms like they did with toilet paper? Cause unlike TP, condoms might actually run out.
https://www.voanews.com/usa/condom-shor ... p-producer

Condom Shortage Looms After Coronavirus Lockdown Shuts World's Top Producer
By Reuters
March 28, 2020 11:36 PM

KUALA LUMPUR - A global shortage of condoms is looming, the world’s biggest producer said, after a coronavirus lockdown forced it to shut down production.

Malaysia’s Karex Bhd makes one in every five condoms globally. It has not produced a single condom from its three Malaysian factories for more than a week due to a lockdown imposed by the government to halt the spread of the virus.

That’s already a shortfall of 100 million condoms, normally marketed internationally by brands such as Durex, supplied to state healthcare systems such as Britain’s NHS or distributed by aid programs such as the UN Population Fund.

The company was given permission to restart production on Friday, but with only 50 percent of its workforce, under a special exemption for critical industries.

“It will take time to jumpstart factories and we will struggle to keep up with demand at half capacity,” Chief Executive Goh Miah Kiat told Reuters.

“We are going to see a global shortage of condoms everywhere, which is going to be scary,” he said. “My concern is that for a lot of humanitarian programs deep down in Africa, the shortage will not just be two weeks or a month. That shortage can run into months.”

Malaysia is Southeast Asia’s worst affected country, with 2,161 coronavirus infections and 26 deaths. The lockdown is due to remain in place at least until April 14.

The other major condom-producing countries are China, where the coronavirus originated and led to widespread factory shutdowns, and India and Thailand, which are seeing infections spiking only now.

Makers of other critical items like medical gloves have also faced hiccups in their operations in Malaysia.

In emailed comments, a spokesman for Durex said operations are continuing as normal and the company was not experiencing any supply shortages. “For our consumers, many of whom will be unable to access shops, our Durex online stores remain open for business.”

“The good thing is that the demand for condoms is still very strong because like it or not, it’s still an essential to have,” Goh said. “Given that at this point in time people are probably not planning to have children. It’s not the time, with so much uncertainty.”

[Gandalf]

In other news, did anyone hoard condoms like they did with toilet paper? Cause unlike TP, condoms might actually run out.

I guess in a few months were going to see a lot of unwanted pregnancies. Hopefully the clinics are able to do their jobs.

[The Romulan Republic]

In other news, did anyone hoard condoms like they did with toilet paper? Cause unlike TP, condoms might actually run out.

I guess in a few months were going to see a lot of unwanted pregnancies. Hopefully the clinics are able to do their jobs.

Well, didn't Republicans already try to classify abortion as not an essential procedure? I think it was in Ohio.

But with so many people confined at home... well, predictably, there's going to be a lot of pregnancies. People are already predicting a new Baby Boom next year.

[loomer]

The calls to prioritize Indigenous communities continue, with fears that the cultural impacts could be devastating. One big issue is sorry business, which for those unfamiliar with the concept is a practice* of collective grieving for the lost - kind of like a wake that lasts a week or three (sometimes more) that brings basically the entire community together. When you put it together with a pandemic, you get a potentially very ugly combination with no real way out - either you do it and risk spreading the disease, or you don't and leave people with additional trauma. It's a big deal in some of the most vulnerable communities.

(*: Or rather a set of practices with different protocols from community to community, nation to nation, and so on. It's a convenient English term but, like 'dreaming', its deliberate broadness renders it somewhat overly generic.)

[ray245]

When you say that it's "always the lower level authorities" doing things like silencing health care workers, is this because of a top down expectation, or just something that happens?

It's more about the notion of a middle-management level, whose jobs is to make sure things can appear to run smoothly for the higher ups. Middle-level management usually do not have any strategic foresight, nor are they expected to look at things from a much bigger perspective.

Making things function quietly might work well if everything is already running smoothly, but its a job description that doesn't allow people to make good decision in times of crisis. Avoiding a panic is all and well when there isn't stuff to worry about, but when things goes out of control like this one, you tend to end up being ill-prepared for the job.

[ray245]

Show me the math and the proof for that. You can't. Because the testing outside of a few countries in Asia doesn't even come close to getting a statistically valid sampling of the population. We have researchers at Oxford and Stanford who believe the virus is far more widespread than the confirmed cases would suggest. Additionally, they both say we need much better testing, particularly antibody testing to confirm where we are on the curve so that we can make the right policy decisions.

Since that testing isn't available right now, the next best thing we have is the Diamond Princess where we crammed 3700 people on a ship and let the virus run free. Extrapolate that out to the entire US and you add about 25% to the annual deaths. Like I said, bad, but not TEOTWAKI.

The Oxford study has a lot of important caveats. The authors were not saying half the population are definitely infected, but this is an optimistic model based on a number of assumptions.

https://www.ft.com/content/14df8908-6f4 ... 503995cd6f

And the Diamond Princess is not exactly a study of what happens when the healthcare system collapses. Fatality rate depends heavily on healthcare treatment as well. In Singapore for instance, we have a massively lower fatality rate because the outbreak is still somewhat contained compared to many other countries. Likewise in Korea.

In Italy, once the healthcare system is under strain, fatality rate massively increases.

[MKSheppard]

NBC News: More than 1,000 of New York City's cops have COVID-19. The NYPD says that 1,048 uniformed members and 145 civilian members tested positive for the virus.

17 have recovered and returned to the job.

15.6% of the department's uniformed members are out sick.

[Solauren]

Yeah, because THIS won't backfire....

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 39331.html

Coronavirus: US doctors warned they will be fired if they complain to media about lack of resources

'Nurses and other health care workers are being muzzled in an attempt by hospi­tals to preserve their image … those on the front­lines are being silenced'

by Oliver O'Connell

Hospitals are threatening to fire medical staff that talk to the media about working conditions or a lack of equipment during the coronavirus pandemic.

Bloomberg reports examples of disciplinary action taken against healthcare workers across the US, most shockingly including the firing of Dr Ming Lin, an emergency room physician in Washington state.

At a time when needs are greatest and hospitals are overstretched, it seems counterintuitive to potentially worsen the problem through dismissals.

Also cited by Bloomberg are a nurse in Chicago who was fired after emailing colleagues that she wanted to wear more protective equipment while on duty; and a warning from NYU Langone Health system in New York that employees that talk to the media would be terminated.

Dr Lin spoke with The Seattle Times to share his concerns that the failure to adopt needed protec­tive measures placed caregivers and patients at risk and was told on Friday that he no longer had a job.

The Washington State Nurses Association released a statement decrying the decision: “At a time when our state faces a critical shortage of front­line caregivers – as we are appealing for volun­teers and trying to reacti­vate retired nurses and doctors and pressing nursing students into service – it is outra­geous that hospital manage­ment could retal­iate against health care profes­sionals for speaking the truth.”

The Chicago nurse, Lauri Mazurkiewicz, urged colleagues to wear more personal protective equipment rather than a simple mask and was fired by Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Ms Mazurkiewicz has asthma and cares for her father who has a respiratory disease. She has filed a wrongful termination lawsuit.

NYU Langone Health employees were told on Friday that anyone who talked to the media without authorisation would be “subject to disciplinary action, including termination.”

im Mandler, a spokesman for NYU Langone Health, insists that “it is in the best interest of our staff and the institution that only those with the most updated information are permitted to address these issues with the media.”

New York’s Montefiore Health System has a similar policy and reminded staff on 17 March that all media requests must be vetted by the public relations department.

Not all hospitals are taking this position, with New York’s Mount Sinai actively scheduling interviews between staff and the media. The University of California San Francisco Medical Centre has also encouraged medical workers to talk to the media.

Honestly, I hope US hospitals are stupid enough to fire staff, especially Doctors and nurses, post this pandemic. They'd be welcomed with open arms here in Canada.

[The Romulan Republic]

Taiwan to donate 10 million face masks:

https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news ... ff1e00222a

[loomer]

It's hit the Kimberly's health workers. Halls Creek, Kununnura, and Broome. This is more or less how the first part of the nightmare worst case scenario begins, so. Fuck.

[MKSheppard]

Re NYC:

FDNY:
2,800 out sick (16.5% of FDNY force)
282 are positive for COVID

[Ziggy Stardust]

Worst case scenario is Diamond Princess infection & death rates. So about 20% overall infection rate and about 1% of the infected drop dead. Work that out to the US population and that's about 65 million infected and 700,000 dead. So a bit over twice the number that drop dead from obesity every year or 1.4 times the number of tobacco related deaths. Bad, but hardly the end of the world as we know it.

Covid-19 killed 912 Americans yesterday (March 31). The two leading causes of death in the US (heart disease and cancer) have average daily death counts of 1,774 and 1,641, respectively. The next leading cause (accidents) killed an average of about 466 people per day. So Covid-19 is already the third leading cause of death on a daily basis, and this pandemic is just beginning. Even the best case plausible scenarios I have seen indicate Covid-19 getting to around ~1,500 deaths per day at its peak in mid to late April. However, current models suggest that the peak death rate will be over 2,000 per day, with the higher end estimates at over 3,000. Meaning, the current trend suggests a high probability that this becomes the leading cause of death by a factor of two in the next month.

[aerius]

Some early data on the effect of the lockdowns on transmission rates in the Seattle area
https://www.kuow.org/stories/seattle-ar ... xperts-say

Excerpt:

Based on a simulation built on COVID-19 testing results and death data, local researchers estimate that the potential for new infections is lower than it was at the outset of the local coronavirus outbreak.

Epidemiologists evaluate the number of people that might contract a disease from an infected individual by calculating a disease's basic reproduction number. In other words, understanding whether a single person is more likely to infect one or three other people with their illness is critical for developing disease mitigation strategies.

In King County, that number is believed to have dropped from approximately 2.7 additional cases per infected individual to 1.4 — or by half — up until March 18. The ultimate goal is to get the reproduction number as far below one as possible.

"Because each infected person is spreading to more than one secondary person, on average, the epidemic is still growing," said Daniel Klein, one of the researchers behind the new Institute of Disease Modeling report.

Unless we can drop R0 below 1 we're gonna have some hard choices to make.

But let's assume we can get R0 to 0.5. The generation time for covid-19 is about 5 days, given the number of cases we can work out how long a lockdown will need to last for the virus to extinguish itself. If we take Miami which is at a bit over 2000 cases, that's 11 generations before it halves down to the last case. Then maybe another 10 days for that case to run its course and either recover or drop dead. So 65 days total before the last case is extinguished. Run the numbers for NYC and you get about 3 months. That gives you a ballpark for the minimum length of lockdowns needed to contain & eliminate the virus, assuming an R0 of 0.5.

If we can get it down lower, great, if we can only get it down to 0.8 or so then you need to triple all the numbers above. And that's when we're gonna need to make some hard choices and come up with a better plan. 9 months of lockdown is going to drive suicide rates through the roof and I wouldn't be surprised to see murders going up as well. Not to mention the health issues & stress of living under a prolonged lockdown, lots of folks are gonna drop dead from that.

[MKSheppard]

Covid-19 killed 912 Americans yesterday (March 31). The two leading causes of death in the US (heart disease and cancer) have average daily death counts of 1,774 and 1,641, respectively.

400 people have apparently died so far today from COVID in NYC. Cuomo has also said they're not expecting the peak until late April.

EDIT: Healthdata predicts a peak on April 10th at 845 a day for NY

Healthdata projection

Click on green "United States of America", and toggle to NY

[MKSheppard]

[MKSheppard]

Rule #1 of SHTF. Have most of your SHTF preps in advance of SHTF.

Rule #2: See Rule #1

Linkypoo

Coronavirus Australia stockpiling: Additional access to recreational firearms banned after demand doubles
Summer Woolley
Tuesday, 31 March 2020 2:43 am

Victoria has announced new enforcements following the National Cabinet’s decision to put a temporary ban on additional access to firearms and ammunition across the country.

Police Minister Lisa Neville said the state had seen “a doubling of attempts to access firearms - category A and B - and also of ammunition” in the past week.

“We are concerned by those figures,” she told media on Tuesday.

“And we’re also concerned about this is an incredibly stressful time for people and we know that there are pressures around family violence and also around work and people spending a lot of time together.”

The ban - which is effective immediately for the foreseeable future - applies to sport and recreational uses of firearms, not primary producers or security guards.

Neville said the decision was about “keeping our community safe”.

Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton said increasing numbers of people seeking firearm permits had been consistent across the country.

“There was no need for this attempted stockpiling so we’re nipping it in the bud right now,” he said.

Sutton said about 2,200 permits had been applied for in the past week, compared to the average weekly total of fewer than 1,000.

Firearm and ammunition sales have now been banned in Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia.

Victoria recorded 96 new cases of COVID-19 overnight, taking the state’s total to 917.

[ray245]

Some early data on the effect of the lockdowns on transmission rates in the Seattle area
https://www.kuow.org/stories/seattle-ar ... xperts-say

Excerpt:

Based on a simulation built on COVID-19 testing results and death data, local researchers estimate that the potential for new infections is lower than it was at the outset of the local coronavirus outbreak.

Epidemiologists evaluate the number of people that might contract a disease from an infected individual by calculating a disease's basic reproduction number. In other words, understanding whether a single person is more likely to infect one or three other people with their illness is critical for developing disease mitigation strategies.

In King County, that number is believed to have dropped from approximately 2.7 additional cases per infected individual to 1.4 — or by half — up until March 18. The ultimate goal is to get the reproduction number as far below one as possible.

"Because each infected person is spreading to more than one secondary person, on average, the epidemic is still growing," said Daniel Klein, one of the researchers behind the new Institute of Disease Modeling report.

Unless we can drop R0 below 1 we're gonna have some hard choices to make.

But let's assume we can get R0 to 0.5. The generation time for covid-19 is about 5 days, given the number of cases we can work out how long a lockdown will need to last for the virus to extinguish itself. If we take Miami which is at a bit over 2000 cases, that's 11 generations before it halves down to the last case. Then maybe another 10 days for that case to run its course and either recover or drop dead. So 65 days total before the last case is extinguished. Run the numbers for NYC and you get about 3 months. That gives you a ballpark for the minimum length of lockdowns needed to contain & eliminate the virus, assuming an R0 of 0.5.

If we can get it down lower, great, if we can only get it down to 0.8 or so then you need to triple all the numbers above. And that's when we're gonna need to make some hard choices and come up with a better plan. 9 months of lockdown is going to drive suicide rates through the roof and I wouldn't be surprised to see murders going up as well. Not to mention the health issues & stress of living under a prolonged lockdown, lots of folks are gonna drop dead from that.

This is what you need to do once you've brought down the infection rate:


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... navirus-uk

The lockdown only buys us time: to really defeat the virus we need mass testing now
Devi Sridhar


After squandering valuable time to prepare for the spread of Covid-19 in February and the first half of March, the government made a dramatic U-turn and put the country into lockdown two weeks ago. But amid the drama of shutting down our entire way of life – with kids out of school, shops closed and millions working from home – we appear to have forgotten that lockdown itself is not the solution to coronavirus. It is simply a means of slowing its spread and buying time – while we race to catch up.

The real question facing Britain now is how to most effectively make up for lost time: what can we really do to fight this instead of simply cowering in our homes and waiting for it to blow over? If things carry on much as they are now, one possible scenario is that we will find ourselves in an endless cycle of lockdown and release over the next year – while the population slowly acquires the virus and hopefully gains immunity.

From Chinese data reported to the World Health Organization, we estimate that roughly 80% of people who contract the virus will not need medical attention and will have mild symptoms (largely children and people under 40); 14% will have severe disease including pneumonia; 5% will require critical care for respiratory failure, septic shock and multi-organ failure; and 1-2% will die regardless of medical care. Therefore, the challenge for the government (in the absence of a vaccine or treatment) is to ensure that healthcare capacity is not overwhelmed; that while the virus is transmitted throughout the population, the 19% who require either hospitalisation or an ICU bed are able to access that care and survive.

The burden on the NHS will be tremendous, especially given concerns about lack of appropriate personal protective equipment, and this will have knock-on effects on other services it offers: routine surgery, cancer treatment, the ability to deal with emergencies such as heart attacks and strokes. The decision whether to extend lockdown will be made by looking at the modelling of NHS capacity in three weeks’ time as well as assessing public willingness to comply.

In an optimistic version of the above, over the next three to four months an antiviral therapy would be discovered while we hold out for a vaccine. Antiviral therapies would give doctors an additional tool to treat critical patients with, while vaccines would provide a prevention measure so individuals can build up immunity and the necessary antibodies before being exposed to Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. Effective therapies have helped with how we deal with HIV/Aids (antiretrovirals), malaria (antimalarials) while vaccines have been effective against measles, mumps and rubella. Repurposing a drug that has already been tested for safety in humans would be the quickest path, and clinical trials are taking place for antimalarial cocktails (chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine), remdesivir and plasma therapies, which involve extracting antibodies from recovered patients and injecting them into ill patients.

The endgame would be a vaccine that is widely available, effective and affordable. Currently there are about two dozen vaccine candidates, with several being tested on animals and one imminently due to begin testing on humans. However, time is the problem, as vaccines require three phases of clinical trials to test for safety, side effects and whether they actually work. It will take about a year to 18 months even if all goes to plan – and even then, given all countries would be looking to acquire the vaccine, manufacturing enough of it would present a further challenge.

But instead of quarantining the entire population, the most pragmatic way out (and assuming anyone could be carrying the virus), would be via a more nuanced and data-driven approach of mass-testing 75-100,000 people per day. This would not be testing random people but rather those presenting with symptoms, and then tracing all of their contacts (household members, colleagues, flatmates) to ensure they are also tested. All those who are virus-carriers would be put into a mandatory two-week quarantine in their homes, enforced through tracking and fines. This will allow the public health community to identify where exactly the virus is, to break further chains of transmission and to keep case numbers low and within the NHS capacity limit. It would also allow most of society, and the economy, to continue on a somewhat more “normal” basis.

The testing capacity could be built up through using private and university labs, as well as working with South Korea and other partners to bring in rapid diagnostics as quickly as possible. SD Biosensor, a company in South Korea, is making 350,000 test kits a day and is scaling up, but currently is prioritising the US, United Arab Emirates and Indonesia. When a reliable antibody test is available, one that shows whether someone has had it or not, individuals with high likelihood of exposure should be tested to see what percentage of immunity has built up and ensure they can be kept in the workforce.

If we want to work towards the best-case scenario, then we need to place the highest political priority on acquiring the testing kits, while drawing on apps and big data to support contact tracing. Through this path we can start quarantining only those carrying the virus, and not the entire population. The economy, society and health all win in this plan, and it seems the best way out of our current situation.

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

[aerius]

This is what you need to do once you've brought down the infection rate:


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... navirus-uk

That ship sailed a while back, we don't have the testing capacity to do that nor will we have it for the foreseeable future. I'm looking at my province's updates and we have a testing capacity of around 4000/day for a population of 14.5 million spread out over an area the size that's the size of France & Germany put together. Also, we ain't Singapore, Taiwan, or South Korea, we do not have the capability to back-trace contacts as fast or effectively. We also have a bigger distrust of authority in general, especially in America which is gonna make things really fucking fun.

[Enigma]

Hobby Lobby defying lock down by reopening stores.

As Hobby Lobby continues its mission to keep doors open in the face of the coronavirus, the arts-and-crafts retailer is quietly reopening stores around the country, defying states' stay-at-home policies.

On Monday, the company resumed business in several states where it had been forced to temporarily close. A March 28 memo obtained by Business Insider equipped managers with talking points for "how to respond and communicate if visited by a local authority that asks why we are open."

In a separate leaked note sent early last week, executives wrote that the company "is going to make every effort to continue working the employees."

The reopenings include stores in Ohio and Wisconsin - which both enacted strict shelter-in-place orders on March 24 - where nearly all Hobby Lobby locations have been reopened after shuttering for only one week. During calls made to each location by Business Insider, employees confirmed that all 19 Hobby Lobby locations in Ohio were open as of Monday afternoon, as were 17 out of 20 stores in Wisconsin that were still listed as "temporarily closed" on Google.

Of the three stores closed in Wisconsin, at least one was forcibly shuttered by police officers after briefly opening on Monday, according to local reports. An employee at this store told Business Insider on Monday that the store was closed but employees were there "working on projects." A similar incident was reported in Jeffersonville, Indiana, where local authorities forced a store to close after it was open for one hour on Monday morning.

Hobby Lobby did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

'I want to stay home to stop the spread of the virus."

Despite mandates in at least 32 states calling for the closure of nonessential businesses, Hobby Lobby appears to be doing everything in its power to avoid shutting its doors.

Four Hobby Lobby employees in North Carolina, Ohio, and another state in the Midwest - who spoke with Business Insider on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution but whose employment statuses and identities have been confirmed - said they continue to receive contradictory instructions regarding store operations.

"The main thing is they're not really telling us anything," one employee in Ohio said. "Last Monday we closed because we were a nonessential business basically, and that was fine with me. Not even four days later, we're reopened because they're saying we're essential now."

The employee, who is also a military veteran with post traumatic stress disorder, said his attempts to contact the Ohio Department of Health and the office of Governor Mike DeWine have gone unanswered.

"My wife is pretty furious. We're trying to take care of my mother who had knee surgery and also has multiple sclerosis, which is an autoimmune disease. I don't want to bring it home and get her infected," he said. "I used to love working for this company, but since this pandemic I've seen how callous and irresponsible it has been."

"This has all been so stressful and exhausting," said an employee in a nearby Midwestern state, where stores have yet to close despite mandates from lawmakers. "I don't want to stay home because I'm too lazy to work. I want to stay home to do my part to stop the spread of the virus."

Employees question Hobby Lobby's 'essential' proclamations

Elsewhere, in states including Colorado and North Carolina - which recently enacted stay-at-home protocols in the last few days - Hobby Lobby is avoiding shutting down altogether, insisting it is "essential" because it sells educational materials and products for home-based businesses.

However, employees told Business Insider they are frustrated by these justifications, given that Hobby Lobby does not sell universally accepted essential items like food, toiletries, medicine, and cleaning products. While big-box stores like Walmart and Target provide services widely considered essential, craft stores are not on the list, nor are they included in guidance issued by the Department of Homeland Security.

"They are not exempt," Conor Cahill, press secretary for Colorado Governor Jared Polis, told the Denver Post regarding Hobby Lobby on Monday.

Adding to their frustration, two employees said the company's warehouse in Oklahoma City has been closed until further notice, meaning stores aren't even able to restock inventory that managers and executives are claiming are essential in the first place.

"Hobby Lobby is fighting that we are an essential store," a Hobby Lobby employee in North Carolina said. "There is absolutely nothing in Hobby Lobby worth spreading this illness. I'm honestly appalled at this company and the way it doesn't care for its employees and only about making their money."

The employees said they are worried about both their personal safety and a lack of resources needed to maintain a clean and sanitized workspace. The North Carolina employee said her team is not allowed to wear gloves or masks while working because management told them "it would make customers uncomfortable."

Others are concerned their stores aren't equipped with adequate cleaning supplies or the manpower needed to clean effectively. Hobby Lobby executives began slashing jobs and cutting salaries last week in order to cut costs in states with stores required to close because of state regulations.

"Management is being so secretive and won't be open with what's going on," another Ohio employee wrote in an email to Business Insider. "We also don't have the employees to do the extensive cleaning that they say we are doing on the website because payroll keeps telling management to cut hours. I'm just very anxious about this whole thing and don't understand why no one is helping us employees out with this situation."

Dollars over everyone else.