Coronavirus

Sagrilarus wrote: "If we didn't do testing, we wouldn't have so many cases."

-- President Donald J. Trump (today)

The stupidest f*cking man in America.

This, from the guy who said that dodging STDs was his personal Vietnam? I guess now we know why he was never diagnosed with one.

Anecdotally, based on my experience at my retail job this week, the vast majority of people have decided that things are 100% back to normal and if they just ignore the pandemic or will go away. Most people aren't wearing masks, and I have been openly mocked by customers for wearing a mask and staying 6 feet away from people. I think things are about to go very poorly for the US over the next few weeks/months, and I pray that my friends and loved ones are spared.

Joebot wrote:

jeb wrote: It's time this whole anti-science thing goes away. Fight it.

Is this virulent strain of anti-science running through American culture a uniquely American phenomenon? Are other cultures around the world seeing this too? Just curious.

No, it's present in Britain too, bound up with a long-standing resentment and suspicion of knowledge that leads many people to indulge in a perverse celebration of ignorance.

Not long ago we had a government minister saying that Britain had "had enough of experts". Now we have ministers defending the confusing, contradictory and very much not scientific advice on what it is and is not safe to do as being that ancient enemy of science, "common sense".

A poll today suggests that government support has gone up, back over 50%, so people clearly like the anti-science shtick. They just want to go out, go to the pub, and have a good chinwag about how we should be sending all the foreigners home, just like the good old days.

If there's no hope of the voters holding the government to account, then there's no hope they're going to change tack and get a handle on this pandemic. They'll just send people out to die in "acceptable" numbers: after all, most of them are elderly or ill already and thus a drain on the welfare bill. So no big deal.

I guess I should feel lucky that, for us, it just means endless months of effective house arrest instead of facing death every day. But in truth, it's made me pretty depressed.

Ah_Pook wrote: Anecdotally, based on my experience at my retail job this week, the vast majority of people have decided that things are 100% back to normal and if they just ignore the pandemic or will go away. Most people aren't wearing masks, and I have been openly mocked by customers for wearing a mask and staying 6 feet away from people. I think things are about to go very poorly for the US over the next few weeks/months, and I pray that my friends and loved ones are spared.

This is AZ as well. The employees at the home depot my spouse was at aren't even bothering either which was wild.

The Michigan state legislature is shut down, due to fear of armed protesters in front of the capitol building. Michigan is now literally a failed state, because the government can no longer govern. I would like to personally thank the Founding Fathers for that idiotic Second Amendment that is now threatening our democracy.

Gary Sax wrote:

Ah_Pook wrote: Anecdotally, based on my experience at my retail job this week, the vast majority of people have decided that things are 100% back to normal and if they just ignore the pandemic or will go away. Most people aren't wearing masks, and I have been openly mocked by customers for wearing a mask and staying 6 feet away from people. I think things are about to go very poorly for the US over the next few weeks/months, and I pray that my friends and loved ones are spared.

This is AZ as well. The employees at the home depot my spouse was at aren't even bothering either which was wild.

I went to the grocery store a few days ago and the cashiers weren't wearing masks. Blew my mind, that one.

Shellhead wrote: The Michigan state legislature is shut down, due to fear of armed protesters in front of the capitol building. Michigan is now literally a failed state, because the government can no longer govern. I would like to personally thank the Founding Fathers for that idiotic Second Amendment that is now threatening our democracy.

I'm far from defending the Second Amendment as currently misinterpreted, but they can't fully be blamed for imagining that someday people would interpret "a well-organized militia" as "everyone should have unfettered access to automatic weapons,' and they probably thought militias that could be called up and dismissed were better than standing armies. But yeah, kinda sucks.

Sagrilarus wrote: "If we didn't do testing, we wouldn't have so many cases."

-- President Donald J. Trump (today)

The stupidest f*cking man in America.

Believe it or not, this is all part of the plan (not the plan to protect people from the virus, the plan to re-elect the donald).

The more people point out that our testing has been and continues to be a failure, the more he is going to downplay the importance of testing. He said it about Katie Miller being tested negative, then positive, and how that meant that testing was pointless. He will continue to bang this drum, and you can expect to hear similar arguments from his toadies in the coming weeks.

"I didn't fail this project; this project was stupid."

I don't want to make it seem like I am on the side of the maskless gun nuts determined to go to Fuddruckers at all costs, but I am trying to understand them. They make me think of Mary Mallon , aka Typhoid Mary. She has a bad rap, sort of. She was an aymptomatic spreader of a deadly illness, so that seems to fit our current narrative. And she also lived in a time and place where you had to work to survive. She was a cook and kept working to, you know, live and kept getting people sick. Not just rat-bitten poor people, but actual well-to-do folk! Something had to be done.

She was locked up, for three years, on an island in the East River. She refused to believe she was sick (she wasn't ill, but her samples indicated a massive load of circulating typhus). She eventually signed an affidavit saying she would take hygienic measures to keep others safe around her and was released. She tried to make it work as a laundress, but they are paid much less than cooks, so she changed her name, started cooking again and got more well-heeled people sick. Back to forced quarantine, for 23 years. She died on that island.

All told, she probably killed 50 people.

But, how do we reckon with asymptomatic carriers, as a society? She felt fine. Folks kept telling her how sick she was, but she did not feel sick at all. They kept saying you can't be a cook, you can't be around people, but rent is due, and food isn't free, so pay up. What was she supposed to do, exactly? They wanted to take her gall bladder out, which, circa 1910, must have seemed like quite an ask for someone that doesn't feel ill! Who are all these crazy people? Leave Mary alone! She wants to work! She wants to do what she's good at! People get sick all the time! People die every day! Who's to say what's causing it?

My biggest hope, is that in the wake of all this, we can change, deeply, the way things work. Think of how desperate people are to get back to work. They have to. Rent is due. Bills need to get paid. As much forgiveness you keep reading about, it's not nearly enough. Businesses will shutter, banks will foreclose, sheriffs will evict. These folks are so angry. They feel fine. They aren't sick. Why can't they go to work? Why can't they support their friends' businesses? Everyone seems fine!

What we really needed in this country was leadership, and bravery in the face of danger. We needed a plan of action that would keep people informed, safe, and not worried that they will be made homeless by the economic tornado in the wake of this disease. The US has trillions of dollars to spend. TRILLIONS. Even with how out of whack everything is in salaries/pay, the US could say: We guarantee your income. We will supplement your income by $1000/mo for a year and ensure you have access to credible sources in information on the latest news about this disease and its effects. But we need you to social distance, wear masks, and isolate as much as possible so we can get a handle on and eradicate this disease. If you want to help, we have training and Covid Corps work for you, delivering food and supplies to the homebound, coordinating track-and-trace efforts, and other essential activities. It will be tough, but it is a doable thing, and we have to do it if we want to survive.

Instead, Jeff Bezos will be a trillionaire by 2024.

jeb wrote: What was she supposed to do, exactly?

Wash her hands when preparing food. She refused to do that.

We could have avoided most of the economic issues if we had focused testing of all incoming travelers from abroad, including Americans who went on vacation, combined with extensive contact tracing. Then put just the afflicted in isolated treatment and leave everybody else free to carry on with their normal lives. Now it's too late to realistically do contact tracing. We are on the verge of re-opening our economy, not because we have done anything effective to address the virus, but simply for political and economic reasons.

I personally will be making zero changes to my current routine for at least two more months. When I am not at the office or purchasing groceries or gasoline, I stay home. Well, I do go running without a mask on, but only late in the evening when almost nobody is outside. I would wear the mask while running, except that I can't take in enough oxygen and might pass out.

ChristopherMD wrote:

jeb wrote: What was she supposed to do, exactly?

Wash her hands when preparing food. She refused to do that.

She (and others) didn't believe in the germ theory of disease. And why should she? She can't see any "germs." Her hands weren't filthy. Getting them wet with whatever sewage is spilling from the tap is supposed to make it better? What other cockamamie thing are they going to ask of her?

Like I said, I'm not saying Mary was right. She clearly was wrong and left piles of bodies behind her. But I can get the gist of what she was thinking and I am trying to think of ways to stop this from happening again. This country is going to have a lot of people that feel fine but are not and going to keep spreading this disease unless things are done to educate them meaningfully. But with the mountains of misinformation, I don't even know if this is possible. That's probably the mindset I understand the least--the folks originating the lies. Is it just for money? To sell some snakeoil? Is it for chaos, to sow discord and ruin to benefit some other state/actor (Russia? Elites?)? You can use the media to get people to believe things, but cui bono from not stopping the spread of coronavirus??

It was the Peach Melba. That's what killed them.

jeb wrote: That's probably the mindset I understand the least--the folks originating the lies. Is it just for money? To sell some snakeoil? Is it for chaos, to sow discord and ruin to benefit some other state/actor (Russia? Elites?)? You can use the media to get people to believe things, but cui bono from not stopping the spread of coronavirus??

Rupert Murdoch has made a fantastic fortune by creating a right-wing propaganda network that poses as a 24-hour news channel. Some of the lies are intended to benefit the rich, while other lies are intended to keep the conservative voters whipped up into a constant frenzy that leaves them vulnerable to manipulation. The result is complete polarization regarding nearly every aspect of American life. So if the liberals think that COVID-19 is a threat and want to temporarily shut down society as a precaution, conservatives are required to take the opposite position. Murdoch can't back off on this issue, because his network thrives upon the ongoing division in American society.

It was... the Salmon Mousse!