Coronavirus / COVID-19

[Pannonian]

The disagreement is being inflamed by the insistence on relating the idea to some 'pure' anarchist model, when we can parcel out variables and episodes (which is what a case study is for). As an Internet anarchist recently pointed out, when people (non-ideologically) return shopping carts to their holding areas without being prompted, they are upholding anarchist values. In terms of a case study one can obviously debate whether these observations have significance for the wider constellation of social and political functioning, how generalizable they are, but measuring prosocial behavior like shopping cart maintenance does admit an anarchist lens. If for some semantic reason you refuse to recognize it for a case study in "anarchism" as such because it's not behavior within a comprehensive setting (e.g. shopping-cart-like maintenance of commons in a commune/cooperative) - then let's leave it at that.

Why is that anarchist? Why isn't it Tory?

[Viking]

If for some semantic reason you refuse to recognize it for a case study in "anarchism" as such because it's not behavior within a comprehensive setting (e.g. shopping-cart-like maintenance of commons in a commune/cooperative) - then let's leave it at that.

That it should be mere semantics is precisely where the disagreement lies.

[Montmorency]

Yeah, masks are probably very effective on both population and individual levels, at reducing transmission of SARS-2. Tbh it's kind of convenient to be masked at all times in public - you don't have to worry about what your face is doing.

Recently published, on hundreds of millions of infections averted by lockdowns in Asia, Europe, US.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s415..._reference.pdf


Trump is imminently holding his first rally since before lockdowns began sweeping the country. Originally it was to be held on June 19, a national holiday for African Americans commemorating emancipation, at the site of an anti-black pogrom that occurred a hundred years ago. In the middle of a national wave of unrest against anti-black violence. Reagan eat your heart out. But the date of the rally has been pushed up a day, though it's still to be held in an indoor arena in Tulsa.

Meanwhile -

Early data from coronavirus tests of Minnesotans who participated in demonstrations after the death of George Floyd suggest the mass gatherings may not result in a spike in COVID-19 infections.

More than 3,300 people who participated in protests and community events after Floyd’s death were tested for the coronavirus this week at four community testing sites. Floyd died on Memorial Day after Derek Chauvin, at the time a Minneapolis police officer, knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

Results from about 40 percent of the coronavirus tests done in St. Paul and Minneapolis this week show 1.4 percent of participants who were tested had contracted COVID-19. Health officials are awaiting the rest of the test results and are encouraging anyone who participated in mass gatherings to get tested — regardless of symptoms.

The 1.4 percent positivity rate is lower than the 3.7 positivity rate of the more than 13,000 test results reported Friday. It is lower than the current seven-day average rate of positive tests, which is also 3.7 percent.

Goodie, an opportunity to compare the epidemiology of outdoor mass gatherings of mostly-masked young people to indoor mass gatherings of mostly-unmasked middle-aged-to-elderly people. (I believe Samurai has occasionally been posting some relevant incidents of the latter category.)


For those who are sensitive to such things, an eruption of nasty old tropes in the treatment of Native Americans:
https://www.propublica.org/article/a...their-newborns

prominent women’s hospital here has separated some Native American women from their newly born babies, the result of a practice designed to stop the spread of COVID-19 that clinicians and health care ethicists described as racial profiling.

Lovelace Women’s Hospital in Albuquerque implemented a secretive policy in recent months to conduct special coronavirus screenings for pregnant women, based on whether they appeared to be Native American, even if they had no symptoms or were otherwise at low risk for the disease, according to clinicians. The hospital screens all arriving patients for COVID-19 with temperature checks and asks them whether they’ve been in contact with people who have the illness. But for soon-to-be moms who appeared to be Native American, there was an additional step, according to clinicians interviewed on the condition they not be named.

Hospital staff would compare the expectant mother’s ZIP code against a list of Indian reservation ZIP codes maintained by the hospital, known informally as the “Pueblos List,” a reference to New Mexico’s Pueblo Indian tribes. If the pregnant woman’s ZIP code matched one on the list, she was designated as a “person under investigation” for COVID-19, the clinicians said. Lovelace does not use rapid COVID-19 tests, and babies were sometimes born before asymptomatic Native American mothers’ test results came back from the lab, a process that can take up to three days. As a result, the hospital separated Native American newborns from their asymptomatic mothers in at least a half-dozen cases, one clinician said. Such separations deprive infants of close, immediate contact with their mothers that doctors recommend.

“I believe this policy is racial profiling,” one clinician said. “We seem to be applying a standard to Native Americans that isn’t applied to everybody else. We seem to be specifically picking out patients from Native communities as at-risk whether or not there are outbreaks at their specific pueblo or reservation.” The Navajo Nation and several Pueblo tribes in New Mexico have recorded some of the highest per capita rates of COVID-19 infection in the nation. In response to the pandemic, the state has designated several counties as hot spots, including some that are home to tribes with large numbers of cases. But 10 of the ZIP codes on the Lovelace Pueblos List reviewed by New Mexico In Depth and ProPublica do not fall within those hot spot counties, nor do all tribes within those ZIP codes have a high rate of infection.

“Regardless of pending test results, pregnant individuals who are asymptomatic at the time of admission and have no history of high-risk contact should not be considered to be suspected cases,” the CDC guidelines note. In a follow-up email, Marquez said Lovelace’s residential geography screening applied to all patients: “Any patient admitted to the hospital for any reason from a designated hot spot region is tested for COVID-19 as a PUI (person under investigation), per CDC guidance.” Marquez’s claim was disputed by several clinicians who work in the hospital. Only ZIP codes with significant populations of Native Americans appeared on the list. Patients who did not appear to be Native American were not subject to further screening based on the ZIP code list, they said. The two other large hospitals in Albuquerque said they did not have a policy like the one described by clinicians at Lovelace. Mothers are not determined to be suspected COVID-19 cases based only on their home ZIP code or their appearance, officials at Presbyterian Hospital and the University of New Mexico Hospital said. Nor are asymptomatic mothers’ newborns separated for isolation pending test results at those other hospitals.

At Lovelace, only women who appear to be Native American were singled out for the additional examination, even if they showed no symptoms and had not been in contact with a person who has tested positive for the illness, clinicians said. “This isn’t about where you live or if you live in a hot spot — it’s about whether someone thinks you look Native,” a clinician explained. “The only people for whom we’ve been told to check ZIP codes are patients who appear to be Native.”

Why isn't it Tory?

I don't know what you're referring to, but something can be more than one thing.

That it should be mere semantics is precisely where the disagreement lies.

Putting the weight on "mere" gives the wrong impression, it's that I think there is good reason to implicitly define the relation of concepts the way I have, moving between theory to component to practice (I never offered or suggested an insight from observation to a model as closing the circle to theory, while allowing that someone could undertake the effort). I don't like your objections because the link between theoretical component and practice doesn't need to admit a specific context, but the substance of the link in its own right. For example, to study polygamist practices in their meaning and operation it is sufficient to define and identify polygamist practice; there's no reason why the phenomenon of polygamy can't be analyzed as such if it occurs outside marriage, or outside original Mormonism or some other society with institutionalized polygamy. The value or behavior can stand alone, and if it won't (household Stalinism) then you can reframe it until it does.

[Shaka_Khan]

[Pannonian]

I don't know what you're referring to, but something can be more than one thing.

I'd have thought that individuals adhering to unofficial social norms would be classic traditional Toryism. Not the new post-Thatcher Toryism, which is all about individual rights and outraging the libs. Which (the latter), AFAIK, bears some resemblance to what I know of anarchism.

[CrossLOPER]

Atlanta, Georgia, reporting.

After a steady decline, I have noticed more people wearing masks and gloves and distancing since the cases have started to go up. The behavior of people seems to rest on the binary ends of polite and considerate to fairly aggressive. People seem extremely tense.

[Shaka_Khan]

Very disturbing photo of the long term lung damage at 16:52...

[ReluctantSamurai]

Sensible discussion, although the product plug at the end was rather unnecessary

The hair salon case was interesting. Two COVID-19 positive hairstylists, 140 clients, no additional cases after 14 days Masks and social distancing protocol works...

[Pannonian]

Sensible discussion, although the product plug at the end was rather unnecessary

The hair salon case was interesting. Two COVID-19 positive hairstylists, 140 clients, no additional cases after 14 days Masks and social distancing protocol works...

If everyone had hair like Steve Stevens there would be no issues with social distancing.

[ReluctantSamurai]

More on in-house church services being....whatever you want to call it---super-spreader events, kill-zones, etc:

https://www.theguardian.com/global-d...19-coronavirus

Does this man even realize what he is saying?:

The pastor [Pastor Gilvrando Rodrigues, whose church is in Rio’s biggest favela, Rocinha] claimed God had allowed the pandemic, partly in order to help transform the church. Faith had become a commodity, Rodrigues complained.

And these prophetic utterances:

“Those who give, receive,” Rodrigues added, as he asked for help to fund building work on the church. “And those who sow, will reap.”

At a recent Sunday service he told congregants: “You’ve listened to the word and received God’s blessing. And now, whoever would like to pay tribute to the house of the Lord, feel free.

“I won’t accept having to cower in a cave, I won’t accept hiding in a hole because I have a calling from God,” Rodrigues added as he encouraged his flock – most of whom were not wearing face masks – to flout social isolation for their faith.

Yeeeeah. Apparently, taking his own advice, Pastor Rodrigues contracted COVID-19 himself. And after paying 'tribute' to the house of the Lord, 'feel free' to go out and infect as many other people as you can....

https://www.businessinsider.com/braz...nd-july-2020-6

"We are doing something that no one else has done," Pedro Hallal, an epidemiologist at the Federal University of Pelotas, told The Post. "We're getting near the curve's peak, and it's like we are almost challenging the virus. 'Let's see how many people you can infect. We want to see how strong you are.' Like this is a game of poker, and we're all in."

So the world gets to see what happens in a completely unrestricted environment.

....pssst [Brazilian SARS-CoV-2 to all its buddies all over the world]: "Hey, come on over to Brazil. Noone wears face masks, there are no lock-downs, and their Fearless Leader(2) believes we are just another nasty cold. Come on down, we''ll have lots of fun killing these stupid humans...."

[ReluctantSamurai]

Make of it what you wish:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etAIpkdhU9Q

I'm a rolling thunder, a pouring rain
I'm comin' on like a hurricane
My lightning's flashing across the sky
You're only young but you're gonna die
I won't take no prisoners, won't spare no lives
Nobody's putting up a fight
I got my bell, I'm gonna take you to hell
I'm gonna get you, Satan get you
Hell's bells
Yeah, hell's bells
You got me ringing hell's bells
My temperature's high, hell's bells
I'll give you black sensations up and down your spine
If you're into evil you're a friend of mine
See the white light flashing as I split the night
'Cause if good's on the left,
Then I'm stickin' to the right
I won't take no prisoners, won't spare no lives
Nobody's puttin' up a fight
I got my bell, I'm gonna take you to hell
I'm gonna get you, Satan get you
Hell's bells…

Seems an appropriate description of today's world

[ReluctantSamurai]

Don't usually post this many times consecutively, but I've got a lot of time to kill today with nothing else to do

With all the hype being given to COVID-19 vaccine development these days found this article from Down Under:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-.../12310814?nw=0

The world is in limbo and it’s unclear which, if any, of the more than 100 vaccine candidates might reach the finish line first. Broadly speaking, there are three classes of vaccine and each has its own promises and drawbacks.

The old-school approach that can carry some risk.
The new-school approach that’s worked well before but still takes time we don’t have.
A silver bullet that’s cheap and could be produced quickly — but it’s never been used in humans before.

All three approaches have this in common: scientists are racing to solve the biggest problem in the world by tackling a microscopic one first.

A good primer on what's being done throughout the worlds' labs today....

[Hooahguy]

Its been a week and I am still waiting on my coronavirus test results. This is a little ridiculous. Frankly if I'm not showing symptoms by Sunday I would have passed the 14 days they say people start showing symptoms after possible infection, so was taking the test even worth it?

I guess the next step is to take the antibody test.

[Montmorency]

Yet another kind of COVID visualization resource for the United States.
http://91-divoc.com/
http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/


New Zealand had likely eradicated SARS-2 from its shores by the beginning of the month. It has imported 3 cases in the past week, ones that hopefully don't have the potential to restart community spread.

https://www.voanews.com/covid-19-pan...ronavirus-case

Authorities are working to trace those who may have come into contact with the man and two women who flew from Britain and tested positive after being permitted to leave their quarantine early to see an ill relative.

As anticipated, for countries that successfully suppress their outbreaks their primary hazard going forward is reintroduction by travelers (a shame we can't have a uniform transnational authority for public health...). The only alternative to perpetually being on edge of exponential growth is strict quarantine protocols for all incomers, and that entails something more comprehensive than restricting a few "high-risk" countries according to paper indicators. That's why countries like Australia have banned general international travel for at least the remainder of the year. For those who do travel the international standard has been 2 weeks of isolation, which I imagine is typically paid for out of the travelers pocket. International tourism won't rebound for years.


I expect the US as a whole will exceed 500K tests daily in rolling averages) by the end of the month. However, the lack of federal response or national coordination lowers the ceiling and ensures that there will be (has been) a lot of inefficiency going forward.

As far as I know, specimens are not tested between states, or not in meaningful numbers. But the spread of disease is not proportional across the states. Thus you'll have New York #1 or 2 in the national ranks of testing each day while its outbreak is contained, whereas a state like Arizona - struggling to break into the 5-figures in daily testing - will rely on its native capacities to manage a serious outbreak. The intersection of "petri dishes of democracy" and sociopolitical failure.

A dark irony and a reminder that relative scale of testing alone (and no large countries are testing at the level we would like to see) is no substitute for committed and comprehensive national crisis management: The countries that are testing the most* - US, Brazil, Russia, India - are the foremost COVID hotspots. lolsob

Of course, there are some reasons for this. Populous countries have the potential for more infections than smaller ones, and tend to have more resources for testing. The named countries have more motivation to invest in testing *right now* because they are actually realizing that potential in the form of massive outbreaks. Countries, including larger ones, that by other indicators have small or contained outbreaks have more margin to choose to keep their powder dry. And on the other hand, other large countries that may be experiencing large outbreaks - Philippines, Nigeria - but haven't managed to mobilize testing on the same scale offer a submerged presentation according to their paper results alone. But then you look at a country like Japan, which seems to genuinely have suppressed CV19 despite having testing on the scale of New Zealand.

*Next-biggest testers after the named are the UK, Italy, and Germany with mid-5 digits daily. China's testing rate has never been reported per my awareness.

Its been a week and I am still waiting on my coronavirus test results. This is a little ridiculous. Frankly if I'm not showing symptoms by Sunday I would have passed the 14 days they say people start showing symptoms after possible infection, so was taking the test even worth it?

I guess the next step is to take the antibody test.

Everything seems delayed these days. My mail ballot, and some health insurance-related matters, both took over a month to be delivered.

I guess the NIH didn't want to recruit me for their national antibody survey, so I'm waiting on the next round of NYC free assays.

[Montmorency]

From a few days ago:





Correction! Earlier I referred to Brazil as one of the top testers in the world, but I had made an assumption from the rate of case growth and absent any recent data on testing on common resources like World in Data. In fact Brazil has only run over 1.5 million tests - fewer than Australia, but more than Kazakhastan (which have similar population size to each other). I knew that the intensity of an outbreak, as reflected in positivity ratios, would reduce the number of tests per confirmed case, but mistakenly assumed that given more than 90% of confirmed cases in Brazil have been identified just since the beginning of May, there would surely have been a corresponding growth in testing itself. Therefore it really hits home that Brazil (and its neighbors) probably are experiencing the very worst outbreaks in the world.
https://www.msf.org/coronavirus-covi...ntinues-brazil

...Brazil reporting 7,500 tests per million people, which is almost 10 times less than the US (74,927 per million), and 12 times less than Portugal (95,680 per million). With Brazil the second most-badly hit country in the world after the US, both in terms of total cases and in total deaths, it is clear that the situation country-wide is catastrophic.

@rory_20_uk put the Org ahead of the curve.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/17/w...ronavirus.html

Although the app has not failed, since the government is no longer sure it can even introduce it before winter.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Perhaps the most alarming part of Brazil's problems:

Nurses in Brazil are dying of COVID-19 faster than in any other country in the world, with almost 100 nurses dying from the disease per month.

And according to figures published by Bloomberg News, there are 15,000 nurses infected with COVID 19, which is 40% of the worldwide number of infections in the nursing community:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-anywhere-else

In addition, 114 doctors have also been killed by COVID-19:

https://oglobo.globo.com/sociedade/c...dia-1-24438369



As Pedro Hallal, the epidemiologist from Pelotas Federal University, stated that Brazil is playing a high-stakes game of poker with COVID-19, it appears that it's a game they will lose badly.

Up next----India.

[Hooahguy]

Got my results today, negative. I figured as much but its nice to know I didnt contract the virus from participating in the protests.

[Montmorency]

Yet another visualization tool, this time global/international.
https://www.covibes.org/




Also, I haven't looked at them before but John Hopkins produces some good US visualizations beyond its map UI.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/individual-states



The Gothamist has been doing pretty extensive daily data-based coverage of the New York epidemic. Here's a sample.
https://gothamist.com/news/coronavir...demic-new-york



Critical indicators as NYC moves into Phase 2 of restarting.



Damn, Sao Paolo.



Interesting news about age distribution in the rising curves of new hotspots in the South and Southwest.

The most important COVID story right now is the age shift.

In Texas: Young adults driving the spike.
https://texastribune.org/2020/06/16/...-young-adults/

In Arizona: COVID cases growing 2X faster among ages 20-44 than 65+.

In Florida: Median age of new COVID cases fell from 65 in March to 35 this week —>

See further tweets in chain. America's case fatality rate has been lower than Europe's for some reason, and the author offers the hypothesis is that recent infections (artifact of changing testing priorities?) - especially the new surges concentrated around Florida, Texas, Arizona - are driven by lower-risk young people.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Texas is following the same trend as the above graph for Florida:

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/06...-young-adults/

One of the areas of concern Abbott mentioned was Hays County, where 476 of the 938 confirmed cases are people ages 20 to 29. People in their 20s accounted for 50.7% of all the cases in Hays County as of Monday, an increase from Friday, when the age group made up 42% of total cases.

“What’s most concerning is that we’ve seen the largest increase in infection among 20-year-olds,” Nirenberg said in a televised interview with ABC, adding that city officials are seeing younger patients in the hospitals as well. “While they may survive an illness, younger people are going to be stuck with a pretty hefty medical bill at the end of it.”

"It is my current theory that elder persons have become more vigilant in taking precautions," Persse said.

Arizona:

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...-bear-n1231748

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...texas-n1231945

Ducey [Governor of Arizona], a Republican, said the majority of the cases were in the age ranges of 20-44.

Where are all the "Boomer Remover" jokes now?

It's relatively easy governors: REQUIRE FACE MASKS FOR EVERYONE! ENFORCE SOCIAL DISTANCING ON BEACHES! AND FOR GODS SAKE'S LIMIT INDOOR INTERACTIONS!

People are so fucking stupid and lazy here. They'd rather bitch about their rights being supposedly trampled by a few simple restrictions, which a lot of people don't seem to realize will lead to a quicker recovery in the long run. If Fearless Leader had just shown some spine in leading this country, then his stupid minions would've followed

And an ironic turn:

https://www.politico.com/states/new-...spikes-1294362

The three states’ restrictions go into effect at 12 a.m. and will apply to states with infection rates that exceed 10 people per 100,000 on a seven-day rolling average, or if 10 percent of the total population tests positive on a seven-day rolling average. On Wednesday that included Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Washington, Utah and Texas, Cuomo said. Most recent census estimates for the nine states add up to about 92 million.

California‘s newly released daily case data shows a record 7,149 new cases in the most recent 24-hour period. That pushes the state’s seven-day average to 4,633 cases, which would qualify 39.5 million residents from the nation's most populous state for the quarantine as well.

Anyone found out of compliance will be subject to a judicial order and a mandatory quarantine, Cuomo said. Fines can range from $2,000 to $10,000, depending on whether it is the first offense and if harm is caused.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Does this sort of thing happen elsewhere, or are Americans singularly stupid?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/22/u...officials.html

“I’ve been called a Nazi numerous times,” said Andre Fresco, the executive director of the Yakima Health District. “I’ve been told not to show up at certain businesses. I’ve been called a Communist and Gestapo. I’ve been cursed at and generally treated in a very unprofessional way. It’s very difficult.”

In California, angry protesters have tracked down addresses of public health officers and gathered outside their homes, chanting and holding signs. Last week, a group called the Freedom Angels did just that in Contra Costa County, Calif., filming themselves and posting the videos on Facebook.

More:

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/14/87671...fighting-virus

A review by Kaiser Health News and The Associated Press found that at least 27 state and local health leaders have resigned, retired or were fired since April across 13 states.

...we had seen a picture of the six of our public health directors posted on a Facebook page that was about reopening businesses. And there was threats around firearms and around stringing people up, comments about the fact that we were women or the fact that, just based on what we looked like, we obviously weren't health experts and shouldn't be listened to. But there was so much stress on our system that to be attacked that personally just added to the struggle of trying to go on with the behind-the-scenes pandemic response.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I'd put this in the Errata Forum but two weeks from now it's going to end up here anyway...

This certainly belongs in the Cersei Walk of Shame category:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...st-beach-chaos

On Johnson’s view of the scenes, the spokesman said: “Everyone should be able to enjoy the sunshine, and we understand people want outdoor exercise and to enjoy public space, but it’s important that we don’t undo the hard work of the British public in reducing the transmission of this virus.”

Ummmm Boris, it's a bit late for that kind of rhetoric

However, in my own home state there's this utter lunacy:

https://www.freep.com/story/news/loc...an/5318550002/

But will revelers wear masks, when some don't even wear tops? And if they gather on the lake, will boaters actually stay 6 feet apart to prevent catching and spreading coronavirus? "The thing is, it's kind of an unmanageable event, and we have not endorsed it — ever," said Deputy Steve Campau, a spokesman for of the St. Clair Sheriff's Office. "Our goal — and it has been for years — is to keep people alive."

In past years, the party has attracted more than 10,000 boats and 100,000 people.

[Montmorency]

Image from May that I hadn't yet seen. Fresh graves for Sao Paolo, Brazil fatalities. Beats anything on Hart Island.



US news: So that's it. This week New York's testing has been slipping to around 50K daily, while California (after having, perhaps for the first time, surpassed NY in testing each day of the week last week) has skyrocketed past 80K, past 90K daily. California alone is testing more than 2 or 3 other countries on the planet. And so it came to pass that the day before yesterday, July 24, in one heroic spurt, California finally overmatched the Empire State in cumulative testing: 3,592,899 to 3,551,952. On July 25, they were the first state to pass 100K tests in a day. GG WP

On the other hand, California this month has developed one of the worst positive-test trends in the country (albeit driven by the suburbs), while New York has maintained one of the best.


Arizona's outbreak is officially Brazil-tier, and in Florida de Santis knows that if at first you don't succeed, cook the books even harder.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/healt...1ff_story.html
https://www.businessinsider.com/flor...-july-4-2020-6

Florida was one of the first states to pull back public health orders and reopen businesses in mid-May. Now, as cases continue to surge there, the Department of Public Health has stopped tracking the number of coronavirus patients being treated in ICU beds at hospitals. The announcement came on Tuesday, after more Florida hospitals started to publicly report that all of their ICU beds were full, according to the Sun Sentinel. Previously, hospitals were asked to self-report the number of COVID-19 patients in ICU beds, but now they are only expected to report how many patients in those beds are receiving ICU-level care. The Department of Health told Business Insider Wednesday that the change is in an effort to better track the more serious coronavirus cases, as some hospitals have been using ICU beds for patients who didn't require critical care.
[...]
The number of new cases reported by day in Florida have more than quadrupled since the state began reopening on May 4. Nearly 5,500 new cases were recorded on Tuesday, a new high.
[...]
Jones also said multiple Department of Health sources have told her they've been instructed this week to change coronavirus numbers by "deleting deaths and cases" so it looks like Florida is improving ahead of July 4.

I wonder if Putin exchanged notes ahead of his rescheduled VE-day parade (held June 24). Or maybe he's altogether less irresponsible a leader.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53152725

The military units taking part have been in quarantine during weeks of rehearsals, avoiding contact with anyone not directly involved in the event.

The parade features some 13,000 military personnel, 234 armoured vehicles, and 75 aircraft performing the traditional flypast.

However, Texas leadership has perhaps decided the feared ad-hoc shutdown cycle will be preferable to either brazening it out or designing/implementing a measured and scientific public health plan (in the first place, though it's never too late to get on track).
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/25/u...reopening.html

Just 55 days after reopening Texas restaurants and other businesses, Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday hit the pause button, stopping additional phases of the state’s reopening as new coronavirus cases and hospitalizations soared and as the governor struggled to pull off the seemingly impossible task of keeping both the state open and the virus under control.

As even Joe Biden recognizes, you can't revitalize the economy without containing the pandemic.




New York has one of the worst tax revenue shortfalls in the country, at up to 40%. One of things that contributed to a weak recovery after 2008 was weak government stimulus, and a major component of weak stimulus was the lack thereof at the state/local level. At least the Feds did something for their part; state spending in general never recovered. Millions of government jobs across the states are currently at risk or have been lost over the past chrono quarter, and tens of billions set to be cut from state budgets. An economy can't sustain itself under those conditions, and it won't if the Feds fail to step up for the shortfall. UI expansion ends in a month...

It's relatively easy governors: REQUIRE FACE MASKS FOR EVERYONE!

As Washington State's Gov. Inslee did this week after rural Yakima county (rural counties in the PNW are chock-full of, and ruled by, anti-government white power wackos) started developing as many new cases as Seattle.

Does this sort of thing happen elsewhere, or are Americans singularly stupid?

Yes
https://twitter.com/RexChapman/statu...12010555932672
https://twitter.com/jkbjournalist/st...82643032203264

[ReluctantSamurai]

From the NYT article on Texas:

“The governor’s plan was always predicated on a very high rate of voluntary compliance with things like wearing masks and socially distancing,” said Mayor Eric Johnson of Dallas, a Democrat, who has been pushing for a statewide mask policy. “I think what we’re seeing is that was a miscalculation.”

The problem in a nutshell.

The Arizona situation is staggering:

And now, Arizona is facing more per capita cases than recorded by any country in Europe or even more than the confirmed number of cases in hard-hit Brazil. Among states with at least 20 people hospitalized for covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, no state has seen its rate of hospitalizations increase more rapidly since Memorial Day.

Government leaders don't seem to grasp a simple fact that any farmer knows---the herd follows the bell cow. And the biggest bell cow of them all could have mitigated much of the current situation:

Some residents noted that the Republican governor was following his party’s standard-bearer. “Hindsight’s 20/20, but yeah, it was a little late,” said Greg Cahill, loading his car with groceries outside a Costco at Phoenix’s Christown Spectrum mall. “I think he was a little slow. But he’s a conservative man and he wanted to do what Trump said.”

Borderline criminal behavior in Arizona:

[...] top health officials acknowledged having changed the testing count to include viral tests confirming an infection and serology tests determining the presence of coronavirus antibodies — a move with the potential to artificially lower the positivity rate touted by Ducey at his May 4 briefing.

....and in Florida:

Florida was one of the first states to pull back public health orders and reopen businesses in mid-May. Now, as cases continue to surge there, the Department of Public Health has stopped tracking the number of coronavirus patients being treated in ICU beds at hospitals. The announcement came on Tuesday, after more Florida hospitals started to publicly report that all of their ICU beds were full, according to the Sun Sentinel.

[Gilrandir]

The military units taking part have been in quarantine during weeks of rehearsals, avoiding contact with anyone not directly involved in the event.

Not only the units, but the "war veterans" (in fact, they are too young - usually around 70-75, sometimes 80 - to be real veterans) that were sitting around him and shook hands with him had been kept quarantined for two weeks as well.

[Montmorency]

I remember 5-10 years ago, there was this Internet trend of dismissiveness toward the zombie apocalypse genre, on account of a real zombie outbreak ostensibly being very easy to suppress. 'Zombies move so slow and you kill them by shooting them, world governments would immediately mobilize an effective response before hardly anyone noticed.'

I always did feel like that was weak tea.


Video on arguments against restrictions [VIDEO]https://twitter.com/i/status/1264988189455835138
This is very cute. [VIDEO] https://twitter.com/LozzaFox/status/1275147205918306305

I remember 5-10 years ago, there was this Internet trend of dismissiveness toward the zombie apocalypse genre, on account of a real zombie outbreak ostensibly being very easy to suppress. 'Zombies move so slow and you kill them by shooting them, world governments would immediately mobilize an effective response before hardly anyone noticed.'
I always did feel like that was weak tea.

Yes
https://twitter.com/RexChapman/statu...12010555932672
https://twitter.com/jkbjournalist/st...82643032203264

Just in case anyone missed it, the first is a 2-minute clip and the second...

From the NYT article on Texas:

“The governor’s plan was always predicated on a very high rate of voluntary compliance with things like wearing masks and socially distancing,” said Mayor Eric Johnson of Dallas, a Democrat, who has been pushing for a statewide mask policy. “I think what we’re seeing is that was a miscalculation.”

For context.
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/04...s-coronavirus/

APRIL 27, 2020

Gov. Greg Abbott said Monday that local officials cannot impose penalties on residents who violate rules about wearing masks in public — including those in Harris County, where county Judge Lina Hidalgo’s mask order went into effect that morning.

“We strongly recommend that everyone wear a mask,” Abbott said at a press conference where he announced his plans for reopening Texas. “However, it's not a mandate. And we make clear that no jurisdiction can impose any type of penalty or fine.

“My executive order, it supersedes local orders, with regard to any type of fine or penalty for anyone not wearing a mask,” he added.

I wouldn't even disagree in principle, but it's not clear what was done to compensate for mixed messaging and supply, and the oppositional mentality of many locals.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Sorry---just wear the damn mask. There's no better way for making Americans get the message than by imposing fines. However, this is a better alternative (as per the above Texas Tribune article):

"If you run into someone in a uniform ... he's not going to give you a ticket, he'll offer you a mask," Turner said. "That's what we're emphasizing, because it's all about your health."

[Shaka_Khan]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/startling...175319183.html

Startling images reveal coronavirus forming tentacles in cells. It may help identify new treatments.

Startling, never-before-seen images show that the new coronavirus hijacks proteins in our cells to create monstrous tentacles that branch out and may transmit infection to neighboring cells.

The finding, accompanied by evidence of potentially more effective drugs against COVID-19, published Saturday in the journal Cell by an international team of scientists.

By focusing on the fundamental behavior of the virus — how it hijacks key human proteins and uses them to benefit itself and harm us — the team was able to identify a family of existing drugs called kinase inhibitors that appear to offer the most effective treatment yet for COVID-19...

[CrossLOPER]

...“We’re not in the situation of New Zealand or Singapore or Korea where a new case is rapidly identified and all the contacts are traced and people are isolated who are sick and people who are exposed are quarantined and they can keep things under control,”...“We can affect it, but in terms of the weather or the season helping us, I don’t think we can count on that,” she said....

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/29/cdc-...s-country.html

People were joking about endless rolling lockdowns, but I didn't actually think it would happen.

[Idaho]

Sorry---just wear the damn mask. There's no better way for making Americans get the message than by imposing fines. However, this is a better alternative (as per the above Texas Tribune article):

You Americans were always going to do badly with this. You have conditioned yourselves to believe that collective action, caring for one another and self sacrifice are evil and unpatriotic. Which is so strange when so many of you are active Christians.

You also seem to have no notion of volition in the public space. Things are either mandated by law and backed up by fierce penalties or they are a total free for all.

[ReluctantSamurai]

You Americans were always going to do badly with this.

For multiple reasons, yes. An inequitable healthcare system, racial divides, economic disparities, and political divides.

You have conditioned yourselves to believe that collective action, caring for one another and self sacrifice are evil and unpatriotic.

Wasn't always so. The Tea Party movement in 2009 capped a very long decline from the passionate days of WW2, where arguably, we had our 'finest hour' in terms of collective action. As for volition in public, it's a difficult task to manage 50 individual states to act in unison. Personally, I think Americans have gotten soft & fat (provided you don't live in a ghetto). The pursuit of material gain has become the driving force behind the life of many Americans---as evidenced by how much consumer spending drives our GDP.

In 1950, consumer spending was 1403.69 USD Billion or roughly 60% of GDP. In 2019 consumer spending was 13413.81 USD Billion or nearly 75% of GDP. Bigger, better, more....or conversely, "what's in it for me". Looking at it from a federal perspective, it's not an easy task managing a family of 50 kids. Unfortunately, the 'big stick' approach is often the only one that works.

Face mask fatigue, and the imposition of fines is not endemic to the US, tho':

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ummer-heats-up