Coronavirus

Effective this Friday, Minnesota goes into lockdown until at least April 10th. We've been doing a decent job with social distancing so far, but now everybody is ordered to stay home, with these exceptions:

1. Health and safety activities, such as obtaining emergency services or medical supplies
2. Outdoor activities, such as walking, hiking, running, biking, hunting, or fishing
3. Necessary Supplies and Services, such as getting groceries, gasoline, or carry-out
4. Essential and interstate travel, such as returning to a home from outside this state
5. Care of others, such as caring for a family member, friend, or pet in another household
6. Displacement, such as moving between emergency shelters if you are without a home
7. Relocation to ensure safety, if your home has been unsafe due to domestic violence, sanitation, or essential operations reasons
8. Tribal activities and lands, such as activities by members within the boundaries of their tribal reservation
9. Essential jobs, including health care, law enforcement, child care, food and agriculture, news media, energy, water, and critical manufacturing

The closure of bars and restaurants is extended to May 1, and schools will continue distance learning until May 4.

I am fortunate that my company is considered agricultural, so I get to keep going to work. The owners have offered me the option to work from home, but my involvement with HR, payroll, and other check writing would still require me to come in often. Our company is even busier than normal because people are also stocking up on pet food.

@Gary Sax: Yeah, stuff I'm reading is that the definition of 'mild' in literature is, "doesn't have to go to the hospital."

In AZ, the governor has decreed that cities cannot make their own distancing rules. His rules on essential services say that that golf courses are essential, for example. Our state effort has not been impressive, to say the least, we're testing almost no one either.

I've been mostly happy with the response in my state. it's far from perfect, and testing is still woefully inadequate. but most everything from schools to hair salons is shut down.

I checked in with some friends next door in South Dakota. holy shit. they're just closing the casinos that sit on the border with WY today, after the mayor of Deadwood 'pleaded' with them to close. The governor and the city mayors are pointing fingers at each other on which ones have the ability to close businesses. The state officially halted testing last week due to lack of supplies. I think they're back to testing to this week

USA RANT: This unquestionably required a coordinated Federal response from the beginning. We had plenty of warning for politicians and experts to get together and formulate bipartisan plans for a lockdown while protecting the economy. This could even have been the ongoing war that got Trump re-elected after showing everyone what a strong leader he was when he took credit. Instead our politicians are too divided to ever truly work together for the country. The Feds response is every state/territory for itself, pay the private sector for help, we're going to bail out the rich again, and we'll give everyone else a pittance to placate them. I've heard 15-20% require hospital stays so millions of survivors are also about to go bankrupt from medical bills regardless of what happens with the stock market. Voting in a handful of different people won't fix a broken system.

Gamestop deemed themselves an essential service and made their employees come in. Local governments said the were fine with it, because they never have more than 1 customer in the store.

Gamestop has been slapped down hard at least in CA .

www.reddit.com/r/GameStop/comments/fm6v8...app&utm_source=share

I suspect that from a business perspective, given their financial struggles, they felt it was worth the risk ( employees be damned ) . Marginal businesses like theirs will likely shutter for good when this ends, despite whatever bailout comes. And actions like theirs will not be forgotten when it comes time to decide who gets aid and who doesn't.

Elsewhere in CA, the mayor of LA threatened to turn off utilities of non essential businesses that defy the closure :

www.theeastsiderla.com/news/coronavirus_...5c-3bc82b80e659.html

I really want to hear how shit for brains Republicans that were whining about Obamacare “death panels” are justifying billionaire capitalists quite clearly stating that we have to decide to let some people die for the market.

These people are death cultists. If there is any good that will come out of all this, it is that hopefully people will see how utterly fucking monstrous the GOP are and how hopelessly poisoned their voters are. Hopefully people will come out of this realizing that capitalism is completely at cross purposes with LIFE.

We are under curfew and general stay at home orders...yet I’m still seeing tons of people out acting like it’s nothing. The selfishness and arrogance of too many Americans is absolutely appalling.

My wife and I are seriously thinking about moving our family to CDMX when this is all over- it’s really just a matter of if she will be able to continue her career there, and as she does a lot of work with Latin American productions anyway, it’s entirely within the realm of possibility. I’m through with this country. Voting isn’t going to fix anything, we have lost this nation to corporations, billionaires, and fascist capitalists. Coronavirus has blown the facade off.

news.gallup.com/poll/298313/president-tr...approval-rating.aspx

Jobless Claims were up to 665k during the Great Recession. Today they are 3.2MM and we're still only at the beginning of this.

A bunch of counties in NC have issued stay at home orders including mine, but not all and not from a state level yet. My county is through April 14 atm though that date is meaningless given how fast things change these days.

Gary Sax wrote: news.gallup.com/poll/298313/president-tr...approval-rating.aspx

Truly mind-boggling. I wouldn't trust him to mow my yard, let alone run the country.

hotseatgames wrote:

Gary Sax wrote: news.gallup.com/poll/298313/president-tr...approval-rating.aspx

Truly mind-boggling. I wouldn't trust him to mow my yard, let alone run the country.

Some people are very excited about the $1,200 check on the way, but their feelings may change when the bodies start stacking up in April. We're still just at the beginning of this, and some states are doing almost nothing about it. China and Italy have had it bad, but at least they both finally got very organized and proactive. The lack of federal coordination practically guarantees that we will have a terrible and lasting outbreak.

Michael Barnes wrote: My wife and I are seriously thinking about moving our family to CDMX when this is all over

I’ve been trying to talk my wife into moving to Uruguay for a couple of years. Given the cost of living differential we could retire there immediately. Thanks to prudent governmental investment in the 90s, the country has faster internet than the US and 95% of its energy is from renewables. And a better healthcare system, if that needs saying.

Unfortunately she’s not into it at all. We worked for 11 years to get our careers to a point where we could move back to her hometown in rural NorCal, and moving would mean seeing her family once, maybe twice, per year. (In person of course.)

Plus the social cost might be challenging. I’ve heard it takes about seven years to get completely integrated into a new community, even without a language barrier.
:-|

Shellhead wrote: Some people are very excited about the $1,200 check on the way, but their feelings may change when the bodies start stacking up in April. We're still just at the beginning of this, and some states are doing almost nothing about it. China and Italy have had it bad, but at least they both finally got very organized and proactive. The lack of federal coordination practically guarantees that we will have a terrible and lasting outbreak.

It's not just the lack of federal coordination (as bad as that is). It's also the lack of a coordinated international response. Basically, every country has been left to their own devices. Trump has spent the last 3 years shitting all over global treaties, alliances, and international cooperation. His stupid wall isn't going to keep out a virus.