Coronavirus / COVID-19

[Greyblades]

I don't think this is true. But I don't blame you for thinking this; right wing media makes conservatives think they lose all the time so that people become more receptive to radicalization.

Why are you acting like I said the republican party doesnt win power? I said they do win power and that they broadly dont use that power in the way they were expected to by those that vote for them.

Secure the border: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Fence_Act_of_2006
Cut taxes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_tax_cuts
American Interests: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americ...Protection_Act / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_U...s_steel_tariff / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presid...or_AIDS_Relief

Half of this I have already shown above is false. The other half is revisionist history.

Truly these wiki links have dispelled my illusion that despite promising otherwise all the neocons were willing to give outside of thier own self interest were token efforts. I have been tricked, been misled and, quite possibly, bamboozled!

No wait, sorry that was before I actually read them to find out only three are relevant of which only the tax was an actual fulfilment: Bush's fence covered 680 miles out of 1,900, the steel tarrif was undone in a year and a half.

As for the rest I find myself baffled you thought overseas aids relief, emissions reduction and legal protections for the armed forces comes anywhere close to outwieghing allowing your industrial might to be moved overseas to a strategic rival, especially now its come back to bite you and the rest of the western world hard in this epidemic.

Everyone approved of the War in Afghanistan. Conservatives and moderates approved of the war in Iraq. Everyone approved of the PATRIOT Act when it came out. They agreed with Guantanamo Bay. Public support collapsed for these things years later.

Didnt say my criticisms didnt also apply to the democrats did I? Knowingly and otherwise; everyone in positions of power partook in evil save a few notable outliers. Some of those same outliers are rather prominent these days.

Conservatives never looked to uphold the Constitution.

You, uh, wanna run that by @Seamus_Fermangh?

Consider yourself fooled.

You know the whole "takes one to know one" insight requires the knowing one to have actually learned from being one.

I really dont think one still engulfed in every fantasy since your initial fooling can lend your experience into identifying current fools.

Leftists would disagree, and if that doesn't make you rethink your position you are simply in it for the movement not the meaning.

Less leftists, more democrats methinks. Cant avoid people noticing your party supported Bush and Obama's middle east shithole making so you have to pretend it's stain isnt the evil it actually was, else you'd have to question why you keep voting for thier appointed leaders.

With the exception of trade, Trump is still giving them everything they would want. Aggressive foreign policy to Iran, tax cuts, devolution of powers to the states, appointment of conservative judges.
There is another reason why they disagree, perhaps you should actually read what they say.

I like how you reinforce my point when attempting to decry it. I wonder if you even read them yourself, what with you not actually using thier words to reinforce the point.

Hell you even touch upon a worse interpretation. screw lip service; maintaining a detrimental trade situation is more important to them than all the pro conservative things trump does.

Yeah, its sad how easily recent history is forgotten to continue the victim complex of conservatives.

Ladies and gentlemen we've finally found a victim complex the Dems dont want to sustain in perpetuity!

[Montmorency]

I have been tricked, been misled and, quite possibly, bamboozled!

Sole correct statement.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Damn! Even the goats are protesting:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...san-jose-video

[Montmorency]

Aztec philosophy on how to handle disease outbreaks.
https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2...rdTWp2VIqL5FtY

The Aztecs were no strangers to plagues. Among the speeches recorded in their rhetoric and moral philosophy, we find a warning to new kings concerning their divinely ordained role in the event of contagion:

Sickness will arrive during your time. How will it be when the city becomes, is made, a place of desolation? Just how will it be when everything lies in darkness, despair? You will also go rushing to your death right then and there. In an instant, you will be over.

Facing a plague, it was vital that the king respond with grace. They warned:

Do not be a fool. Do not rush your words, do not interrupt or confuse people. Instead find, grasp, arrive at the truth. Make no one weep. Cause no sadness. Injure no one. Do not show rage or frighten folks. Do not create a scandal or speak with vanity. Do not ridicule. For vain words and mockery are no longer your office. Never, of your own will, make yourself less, diminished. Bring no scorn upon the nation, its leadership, the government.

Retract your teeth and claws. Gladden your people. Unite them, humor them, please them. Make your nation happy. Help each find their proper place. That way you’ll be esteemed, renowned. And when our Lord extinguishes you, the old ones will weep and sigh.

If a king did not follow this advice, if his rule caused more suffering than it abated, then the people prayed to Tezcatlipoca for any number of consequences, including his death:

May he be made an example of. Let him receive some reprimand, whatever you choose. Perhaps punishment. Disease. Perhaps you’ll let your honor and glory fall to another of your friends, those who weep in sorrow now. For they do exist. They live. You have no want of friends. They are sighing before you, humble. Choose one of them.

Perhaps he [the bad ruler] will experience what the common folk do: suffering, anguish, lack of food and clothing. And perhaps you will give him the greatest punishments: paralysis, blindness, rotting infection.

Or will he instead soon depart this world? Will you bring about his death? Will he get to know our future home, the place with no exits, no smoke holes? Maybe he will meet the Lord of Death, Mictlanteuctli, mother and father of us all.

Only an Ancient Alien or time traveler could have written this.

[Hooahguy]

FBI serves warrant on Senator Burr (R-NC) in investigation of stock sales linked to coronavirus.

If they take down Loeffler too I will be very happy.

[Viking]

It should be difficult to dispute that societies have existed in forms that could be described as relatively anarchic. But the measures endorsed by the Swedish government and people also exist and are being put into practice. Another term for what's happening in Sweden is voluntarism, but of course voluntarism is a core component of anarchism. If your complaint is truly that you oppose the use of the label "anarchism" within any existing hierarchical framework, then that just strikes me as a frivolous foofaraw, maybe even a Catch-22. Would you say that there is only anarchism in a black bloc screaming "**** the state, the state is over?"

[...]

These are all fine questions as far as they go, but not strictly relevant to a debate over the validity of calling a phenomenon anarchic. Maybe you would be appeased by the formulation that the Swedish strategy is a trial in anarchist values.

Suburb dwellers Anne and Frank believe in the value of having tidy lawns. If we use a hot new element from contemporary American political philosophy, namely alternative facts, we know that the value of having a tidy lawn is of course also an important aspect of Stalinism.

If we discover that the lawn value of Anne and Frank in practice makes life much better in the suburbs, this is of course not a validation of Stalinism, because Stalinism is so much more than this one value. It might be technically correct to say that the value is Stalinist, but there is more to it than that.

If we return to anarchism, anarchism is likewise much more than voluntarism. Removing the state from the equation is potentially a huge deal as far as outcomes are concerned. So even if the original statement is adjusted to say that we have a test of anarchist values in Sweden, that revised statement would seem to be more about rhetoric (you have an experiment that might be technically correct to associate with anarchism and which can have promising or disappointing results) than something of practical value (the experiment might not teach us much at all about what ideological anarchism would be like in practice).

[Furunculus]

very interesting article on the climatic/physiological effect on transmission and mortality:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/202...g-coronavirus/

The University of Maryland found that most cases fall along a narrow east-west corridor of 30 and 50 degrees of latitude, which includes northern Italy, the Pacific Northwest, Japan, Iran, South Korea, France, Spain and Germany. All share similar climatic conditions.
...
Weather records in the hardest hit countries had similar average temperatures of between 5°C and 11°C and humidity of 47 to 79 per cent, which is close to laboratory conditions in which coronavirus thrives.
...
Researchers from the Anglia Ruskin University compared the numbers of coronavirus cases to the average levels of vitamin D for 20 European countries and found a significant correlation.

Italy and Spain have both experienced high mortality rates, and scientists found both countries have lower than average vitamin D levels.

This is partly because people in southern Europe, particularly the elderly, avoid strong sun, while their darker skin pigmentation also reduces the body's ability to produce natural vitamin D.
...
Dr Lee Smith, Reader in Physical Activity and Public Health at Anglia Ruskin University, said: “Vitamin D has been shown to protect against acute respiratory infections, and older adults, the group most deficient in vitamin D, are also the ones most seriously affected by Covid-19.

“A previous study found that 75 per cent of people in institutions, such as hospitals and care homes, were severely deficient in vitamin D.”

[Viking]

Wow, only one new covid-19 case confirmed during the last week in the city where I live (> 280 000 inhabitants). 4 March there were 15 confirmed cases in the city in total, compared to 222 people in all of Spain and 86 in all of the UK, according to the Johns Hopkins resource. It did not have to turn out this way; a bullet was probably dodged.

[Montmorency]

[Hooahguy]

Trump says that he is taking hydroxychloroquine.

Just... wow. There is so much to unpack here. Does he have the virus and taking a risky drug to treat it? Or is he taking a risky drug as a preventative measure? Or is he lying and trying to get others to take it? Who knows. What we do know is its criminal for the VA to keep using the drug despite it having a nearly 30% fatality rate.

The stupidity, it hurts.

[CrossLOPER]

Trump says that he is taking hydroxychloroquine.

Just... wow. There is so much to unpack here. Does he have the virus and taking a risky drug to treat it? Or is he taking a risky drug as a preventative measure? Or is he lying and trying to get others to take it? Who knows. What we do know is its criminal for the VA to keep using the drug despite it having a nearly 30% fatality rate.

The stupidity, it hurts.

He is either trying to distract people (which works because the media seems incapable of ignoring him for a day), or he is really in deep in terms of believing his own BS.

[Montmorency]

Fun fact: The vast majority of US governors currently hold approval ratings of over 60%.

very interesting article on the climatic/physiological effect on transmission and mortality:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/202...g-coronavirus/

Usually with this type of analysis the flaw is in overlaying a correlation with population density, but here I must congratulate the authors on having (re)discovered the concept of the Global North.

Anyway, does the 'summer weather' hypothesis itself account for what's been going on in South America or the Middle East for many weeks now? Probably not very well. Here is the cutting-edge on lack of effect of seasonality and local climate on SARS-CoV-2.
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/...id-19-pandemic

I mean, it stands to reason as virtually all (i.e. approaching all) transmission takes place in enclosed or indoor spaces, which tend to be climate-controlled. No one's going around coughing on random rocks or walls or pavement outdoors that people then lick.

Facts:
He and his wife were coming down with Covid.
They had a young child.
They're based in Durham, and have no support network in London.
His wife's folks have an entirely separate residence on their (castle) grounds.
A relative was from this location able to offer childcare support while they were convalescing.

Does any of that matter?

There is an exemption to assist vulnerable people (like young children).
The generality above was defined specifically in relation to a situation where both parent are ill.

To judge whether there can be a justifiable invocation of codified exemption I would have to see the primary text.

Here is the text of The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020 with respect to restrictions on movement.

There are 13 categories of exemption, or "reasonable excuse." The one that potentially applies is

(d)to provide care or assistance, including relevant personal care within the meaning of paragraph 7(3B) of Schedule 4 to the Safeguarding of Vulnerable Groups Act 2006(1), to a vulnerable person, or to provide emergency assistance;

There is no claim that emergency medical action motivated the travel. The alternative is personal care for a vulnerable person as specified in another act.

(3B)Relevant personal care means—

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

(a)physical assistance, given to a person who is in need of it by reason of age, illness or disability, in connection with—

(i)eating or drinking (including the administration of parenteral nutrition),

(ii)toileting (including in relation to the process of menstruation),

(iii)washing or bathing,

(iv)dressing,

(v)oral care, or

(vi)the care of skin, hair or nails,

(b)the prompting, together with supervision, of a person who is in need of it by reason of age, illness or disability in relation to the performance of any of the activities listed in paragraph (a) where the person is unable to make a decision in relation to performing such an activity without such prompting and supervision, or

(c)any form of training, instruction, advice or guidance which—

(i)relates to the performance of any of the activities listed in paragraph (a),

(ii)is given to a person who is in need of it by reason of age, illness or disability, and

(iii)does not fall within paragraph (b).

From what I'm reading about Cummings' situation retroactively invoking the vulnerable person care exemption for his actions would be abusive.

I wonder if the UK government isn't needlessly inflating a PR disaster.

This is the very opposite to the maxim: always think the best of people until they demonstrate otherwise.

That's an extreme, but unfortunately not unique, grade of lenience to demand. Pannonian has no shortage of cause to think less than the best of Cummings. Along the road to improving the world comes dispensing with unlimited benefit of the doubt for conservative (white) men.

Suburb dwellers Anne and Frank believe in the value of having tidy lawns. If we use a hot new element from contemporary American political philosophy, namely alternative facts, we know that the value of having a tidy lawn is of course also an important aspect of Stalinism.

If we discover that the lawn value of Anne and Frank in practice makes life much better in the suburbs, this is of course not a validation of Stalinism, because Stalinism is so much more than this one value. It might be technically correct to say that the value is Stalinist, but there is more to it than that.

If we return to anarchism, anarchism is likewise much more than voluntarism.

The obvious problem with the analogy is that the voluntarism is an essential component and is universally recognized as such. Tidy lawns is not a particularly significant or meaningful component of Stalinism (leaving aside the conflation of scope, the difference between a mass movement of tidy lawns and a single family's preferences). Now, if Sweden looked like a one-party state in which the leadership emphasized heavy industry and violent suppression of political dissent, centralized consolidation of social control and intervention, it would be fairer and more insightful to say it was adopting Stalinist practices and values.

Removing the state from the equation is potentially a huge deal as far as outcomes are concerned. So even if the original statement is adjusted to say that we have a test of anarchist values in Sweden, that revised statement would seem to be more about rhetoric (you have an experiment that might be technically correct to associate with anarchism and which can have promising or disappointing results) than something of practical value (the experiment might not teach us much at all about what ideological anarchism would be like in practice).

I don't understand your distinction, but it sounds like splitting hairs. The political and economic behavior of groups has in any context potential implications for political philosophies in general, unless the stance is one of pure thought. How Swedish people behave in this event is just one more qualitative case.

Unrelatedly, I just watched the Norwegian show Beforeigners, and I notice that every Norwegian show I've ever watched has evidenced a preoccupation with outsiders changing Norwegian culture. Which reminded me of you. Is this a general tendency with Norwegians that I should understand?

Wow, only one new covid-19 case confirmed during the last week in the city where I live (> 280 000 inhabitants). 4 March there were 15 confirmed cases in the city in total, compared to 222 people in all of Spain and 86 in all of the UK, according to the Johns Hopkins resource. It did not have to turn out this way; a bullet was probably dodged.

The point is, where the disease is suppressed, lives are saved, period. Reduce transmission and you can sustain that permanent containment with a relatively-light touch, alongside testing and tracing infrastructure for any localized flareups (like the one South Korea dealt with in workmanlike fashion this month).

Countries that can't or won't do this will suffer the worst and will be judged.

As an aside, Sweden has over the past week or two has achieved the highest per-capita COVID death rate in at least Europe (sometimes tied with UK). Higher than Spain or Italy.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/202...ate-per-capita

Also, despite claiming to be ramping up testing from late April their testing growth has been linear. And the first preliminary results from antibody survey probably dramatically overstated the prevalence to-date of COVID among Swedes.

And this here is good for a chuckle.

Trump says that he is taking hydroxychloroquine.

Just... wow. There is so much to unpack here. Does he have the virus and taking a risky drug to treat it? Or is he taking a risky drug as a preventative measure? Or is he lying and trying to get others to take it? Who knows. What we do know is its criminal for the VA to keep using the drug despite it having a nearly 30% fatality rate.

The stupidity, it hurts.

Lysenkoism, next on the checklist of the USA following in the footsteps of the USSR. I'm not sure whether I want to think he's lying this time.

Speaking of which:

Designer of Florida's COVID dashboard (pretty much every state has one of these interfaces by now) was ousted for refusing to restrict data to make the government look better and grease the push to reopen.
https://www.floridatoday.com/story/n...te/5212398002/
https://www.tampabay.com/news/health...ning-she-says/

The CDC and other states may be on a similar book-cooking page, as Samurai reported (antibody test in testing aggregates).

He is either trying to distract people (which works because the media seems incapable of ignoring him for a day), or he is really in deep in terms of believing his own BS.

It's typically safe to rule out anything that requires planning or foresight, so the latter. Remember that this is the "germaphobe" who has no problem doing pornstars unprotected and shaking hands during a pandemic.

https://www.ft.com/content/97dc7de6-...d-371e24b679ed

...an unnamed administration official is reported to have told the paper that trying to advise the president is like “bringing fruits to the volcano... You’re trying to appease a great force that’s impervious to reason.”

https://twitter.com/WindsorMann/stat...42025641070599

Trump is crazy enough to take an unproven drug, dumb enough to say so, and dishonest enough to lie about it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/u...ief-trump.html

Mr. Trump, who has mounted a yearslong attack on the intelligence agencies, is particularly difficult to brief on critical national security matters, according to interviews with 10 current and former intelligence officials familiar with his intelligence briefings.
The president veers off on tangents and getting him back on topic is difficult, they said. He has a short attention span and rarely, if ever, reads intelligence reports, relying instead on conservative media and his friends for information. He is unashamed to interrupt intelligence officers and riff based on tips or gossip he hears from the former casino magnate Steve Wynn, the retired golfer Gary Player or Christopher Ruddy, the conservative media executive.
Trump rarely absorbs information that he disagrees with or that runs counter to his worldview. Briefing him has been so great a challenge that the intelligence agencies have hired outside consultants to study how better to present information to him.

https://www.vox.com/2020/4/7/2120988...on-catastrophe

But there’s a third aspect to him that I find is almost the key to everything. So far, we’ve been talking about Trump as if he cares about risk and he wants to manage it well. I don’t think that’s true. I think that his whole life is about doing whatever his impulses tell him to do. And then, after the fact, telling a story that renders him the hero of the story — the person who saved the day. He’s always done this, no matter the facts. I actually think he moves through life thinking, whatever happens, I can undo it with a story. That’s why he’s so numb to [experts]. He has no use for them. So I don’t actually think he’s thinking in terms of risk.

And a hundred more excerpts like them over the years.

There is enough of a sense among various leadership cadres around the world that, having slowed things to enhance our health infrastructure as much as practicable so they are not overwhelmed, it is time to accept the casualties and move on. Trump cannot say that in public any more than could any other Western leader. But do I think he's willing to move on under those conditions? Yup.

How do you justify saying that? According to most Western leaders and public health experts in theory and practice, your premise is rejected outside those cases of total failure. In practice any death is very likely unnecessary and avoidable. That is why the general consensus is aiming at suppression and containment, and for Europe's part few countries are really failing. The whole point is that most governments refuse to "accept the casualties and move on." Anyone in power who immanentizes the worst case by reference to the mere potential of a worst case is a fifth columnist to the species at best.

This seems up your alley, by the way.
https://onethingyoucando.com/2020/05...p-this-fall-2/

Also, of historical interest (Palin).
https://twitter.com/DavidNeiwert/sta...71502536822784

Remove him from office then, and get on with it, already....

Pannonian doesn't have that power. He's not Cummings' boss, and from what I gather while many (most?) Conservatives dislike Cummings personally they appreciate his willingness to move fast and break things in their service.