Coronavirus / COVID-19

[Seamus Fermanagh]

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.

Structurally, we set up a system from the outset where federal action at interstate level was limited. It was done on purpose to mitigate against tyranny. Nothing comes without cost -- and our history shows us having paid in blood and treasure several times for this choice.

On the cultural side of our handling this poorly, I think R-Samurai's points are worth noting.

[Pannonian]

Since Greece currently bars direct flights from the UK due to our situation with Covid-19, the PM's dad gets around this by going to his villa via Bulgaria. One rule for the PM's circle, another for the rest of us.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Interesting take from Down Under about what motivates people to comply with COVID health measures:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-...-time/12409134

The survey began five weeks after mandatory social distancing restrictions were introduced. It asked participants to report their level of compliance with social distancing restrictions during the past week. It found a substantial proportion of participants were not adhering to mandatory social distancing rules. Specifically:

50.3 per cent of respondents said they socialised in person with friends and/or relatives they didn't live with in the past week targetted
45.5 per cent said they left the house "without a really good reason"
39.6 per cent said they travelled for leisure
5.95 per cent said they went shopping for essential or non-essential items with COVID-19 symptoms, and
57.2 per cent said they went shopping for non-essential items when healthy.

The rate of non-compliance with restrictions increased as time passed.

The research also examined factors that predicted who was most likely to comply with restrictions. The two primary predictors were feelings of "duty to obey the government" and "personal morality". Simply, people were most compliant if they felt a stronger duty to obey government instructions, and if they thought it was morally wrong to flout the rules. These findings suggest social norms, rather than fear of COVID-19, motivated compliance the most.

Our survey indicated fear of punishment played little role in motivating Australians to observe social distancing rules during lockdown. Importantly, the best strategy would be to persuade citizens it's their moral responsibility to follow the rules, as this will help protect the most vulnerable among us.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Better late than never, I suppose:

https://www.uschamber.com/letters-co...ering-concerns

Some business leaders are finally starting to realize that there is no economy without gaining some measure of control over COVID-19. If this request (with many, many more names attached) had come on 2 April instead of 2 July, and was actually listened to and implemented in some form or another, the US wouldn't be in the situation it currently finds itself in. I'm not holding my breath that anything will come of this, but.....the Governor of Texas Greg Abbott, who has steadfastly refused to issue any kind of mandatory mask-wearing order (and blocked local municipalities from doing so), has now reversed his stance and issued Executive Order No. GA-29:

https://open.texas.gov/uploads/files...07-02-2020.pdf

Let's see how long it takes Donny Jr.---err I mean Ron DeSantis (Governor of Florida) to wake up to the facts

[ReluctantSamurai]

Seems to confirm what many virologists have been saying about indoor events....not yet peer reviewed, so apply a grain of salt:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...gid=1131322210

Elderly care facilities, meat-packing plants, prisons, and navy or cruise ships top the list. Churches and bars clock in at the next tier. The average person is not likely to be in the first tier of risk (except those foolish enough to set foot on a cruise ship). Pray in outdoor services or from home....and take George Thorogood's advice and drink alone.....

........or keep it within a small circle of friends

[ReluctantSamurai]

A little humor:

https://static.politico.com/dims4/de...n-sorensen.jpg

[a completely inoffensive name]

When my grandchildren ask me what we did during the lockdown year of 2020, I'm gonna tell them I shared some white-hot memes with like minded people.

[Idaho]

Since Greece currently bars direct flights from the UK due to our situation with Covid-19, the PM's dad gets around this by going to his villa via Bulgaria. One rule for the PM's circle, another for the rest of us.

In true British media style, working class people going to the beach are vilified, while it's generally applauded that middle class people can now go to their Italian villas.... Those same middle class people who brought covid in from their ski trips.

[Gilrandir]

When my grandchildren ask me what we did during the lockdown year of 2020, I'm gonna tell them I shared some white-hot memes with like minded people.

2020 turned out to be a bad year for white-hot memes. Black-hot seem to be more suitable.

[Pannonian]

In true British media style, working class people going to the beach are vilified, while it's generally applauded that middle class people can now go to their Italian villas.... Those same middle class people who brought covid in from their ski trips.

I doubt working class people, or at least the less privileged class that you mean by working class, are going to the beach. Pub maybe. Takeaways, and other food shops on the high street. Beachgoers are just as middle class as ski trippers.

[rory_20_uk]

In true British media style, working class people going to the beach are vilified, while it's generally applauded that middle class people can now go to their Italian villas.... Those same middle class people who brought covid in from their ski trips.

I've never felt so working class.

[Furunculus]

anyone feel like graphing out the data here:

https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/research/re...sponse-tracker

Stringency and policy indices

OxCGRT collects publicly available information on 17 indicators of government responses. Eight of the policy indicators (C1-C8) record information on containment and closure policies, such as school closures and restrictions in movement. Four of the indicators (E1-E4) record economic policies, such as income support to citizens or provision of foreign aid. Five of the indicators (H1-H5) record health system policies such as the COVID-19 testing regime or emergency investments into healthcare.

The data from the 17 indicators is aggregated into a set of four common indices, reporting a number between 1 and 100 to reflect the level of government action on the topics in question:

an overall government response index (which records how the response of governments has varied over all indicators in the database, becoming stronger or weaker over the course of the outbreak);
a containment and health index (which combines ‘lockdown’ restrictions and closures with measures such as testing policy and contact tracing, short term investment in healthcare, as well investments in vaccine)
an economic support index (which records measures such as income support and debt relief)
as well as the original stringency index (which records the strictness of ‘lockdown style’ policies that primarily restrict people’s behaviour).

Note that these indices simply record the number and strictness of government policies, and should not be interpreted as ‘scoring’ the appropriateness or effectiveness of a country’s response. A higher position in an index does not necessarily mean that a country's response is ‘better’ than others lower on the index.

https://github.com/OxCGRT/covid-poli...GRT_latest.csv

[Pannonian]

anyone feel like graphing out the data here:

https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/research/re...sponse-tracker



https://github.com/OxCGRT/covid-poli...GRT_latest.csv

What does that mean?

[Furunculus]

it is an attempt to build a comparitive profile on the relatives strictness of countries various lockdown restriction/enforcement policys':

https://quillette.com/2020/05/19/pod...e-to-covid-19/

[Montmorency]

Rt/projection resources for the US and world. Another Not sure how legit.
https://rt.live/
https://epiforecasts.io/covid/


Popular thread on a COVID survivor's personal experience, emphasizing the chronic adverse events that can accompany morbidity.

Hey, so, I got #Covid19 in March. I’ve been sick for over 3 months w/ severe respiratory, cardiovascular & neurological symptoms. I still have a fever. I’ve been incapacitated for nearly a season of my life. It's not enough to not die. You don’t want to live thru this, either. 1/

I am not unique. Support groups have sprung up all over the internet because medical science doesn’t know what to do with the hundreds of thousands of Covid patients who don’t get better in the (utter and complete bullshit, and they know it) CDC guidelines of 2-6 weeks. 2/

The CDC is also refusing to add widely-reported, terrifying symptoms to their lists. So here’s a grab bag of what patients like me are experiencing, so you know: Extreme tachycardia. My heart rate was once 160 while I was sleeping. Chest pain, like someone’s sitting… 3/

...on your sternum. Back and rib pain like someone’s taken a baseball bat to your torso. Fatigue like you’ve never felt before in your life. Fatigue like your body is shutting off. Fatigue so bad that it would often make me cry because I thought it might mean I was dying. 4/

GI problems, diarrhea to severe acid reflux. I had diarrhea every day for two+ months. Unbearable nausea. Also: Inexplicable rashes. For me, little broken blood vessels all over my body. For many of us, a constant shortness of breath that doctors can’t find an explanation for. 5/

Neurological symptoms. I had delirium & hallucinations. Many report tingling all over their body, an internal “buzzing” or “vibrating.” Also, insomnia & chronic hypnic bodily jerks. One symptom so weird that I thought it was just me, but it turns out it’s so many of us… 6/

was waking up in the middle of the night, gasping for breath. I also experienced tremors while trying to sleep, like someone was shaking the bed. Also: many report a “hot head.” Mine literally radiated heat, despite not hitting a high fever. Then, there’s the confusion… 7/

The “brain fog.” I couldn’t read or make sense of text at times. I couldn’t remember words. I’d stare at my partner at a loss for what I needed to communicate, or how to do it. Also: thickening of the blood, clotting. Weird, inexplicable changes to the menstrual cycle. 8/

Everyone knows the lung stuff already, so I won't elaborate. But it doesn’t just go away. I wake up every morning & when I breathe in, it feels like someone is crinkling plastic in my chest. And these are just the symptoms. I’m not even touching the physical damage done… 9/

...to patients’ organs and bodily systems. I’m also not touching the mental component of this, which is compounded by the very virtue of not knowing if it’ll eventually kill you. But long-term covid sufferers all report the same thing: that the recovery is non-linear. 10/

You’ll wake up feeling better and assume, like would be true for the flu or a cold, you’re on the mend. But then... you get worse. & then you're feeling better again! & then you’re bedridden, worse than before. It makes no sense. You start to think you’re losing your grip... 11/

or maybe it’s all in your head. It isn’t. Thousands & thousands are experiencing these cycles. At some point, I realized that this was causing a trauma response in my body, which only seemed to worsen recovery. And I’m someone who’s learned over the years how to tend to... 12/

their mental health needs pretty well. This experience is a whole other ball game. It is terrifying what it did to my mind. There are parts of the experience I am well aware I've blocked out in order to function, and times my partner has to remind me of things I've shut out. 13/

There's so much we don't know — including if these physical damages are permanent or, for some, will lead to chronic illness. But one thing we do know is this isn’t the fucking flu. Those of you taking risks (yes, you in masks, as well), please, please weigh them against... 14/

...experiences like mine. It's not "well, a tiny fraction of people die, and most people are better in two weeks." This is simply untrue. So many of us have suffered for months. Ask yourselves: is going to get a coffee, or getting a haircut worth being debilitatingly ill... 15/

...for 4+ months of your life? Or, is it worth condemning someone else to this experience? Tending to your critical needs (grocery, medicine) is a necessary risk. So is fighting for the lives of others (protesting, organizing). But I promise you, the risk is too great... 16/

...for a birthday party. Or a fucking bar night. Or visiting your fav restaurant. Good lord, I cannot stress this enough. Please. Wear a mask. Stay home as much as you can. And know that the recovery times associated with this illness are wrong. That people are suffering. 17/

Bolsonaro tests positive for corona. Let's hope it's nothing trivial. No, but maybe he'll have a road-to-Damascus moment and do something wholesome for his country. That didn't totally fail with Boris Johnson, right?

The story of Israel's pandemic, brought down to Switzerland levels but since May reaching new heights in a second wave, arguably caused by school reopenings and reopenings of other crowded indoor spaces. Uh oh!
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/...er-coronavirus

More on the discredited Swedish model.
https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coron...n-b1de3348e88b
https://academic.oup.com/cid/article...iaa864/5866094
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/23...-the-pandemic/

It’s probably all true. And while it’s frustrating that everyone admits failure but no one admits fault, looking for a scapegoat is futile. This isn’t the mistake of one person or a failure of the Swedish strategy as a whole. The Löfven administration did right by granting experts power free from political interference. But even the best leaders can’t repair a larger systemic failure in a matter of months.

The crisis Sweden is seeing today is the consequence of a government that has handed over responsibility to regions and counties at the expense of central oversight and, more importantly, a social democracy that has progressively abandoned its chief mission: protecting the most vulnerable.

As expected, the vast majority of US CV19 deaths are attributable to our unusually-inept and/or self-destructive government response.
https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/19/...vid-19-deaths/

Two recent studies published in Nature confirm the “astonishing effectiveness” of the type of government interventions we have discussed, especially when adopted early. Our analysis shows that with the same actions actually taken by other nations large and small, from East and West, the U.S. could have prevented 70% to 99% of its Covid-19 deaths. This has been a needless tragedy.

As expected, at least in the US the pandemic damages economic activity and confidence much more than government policies responding to the pandemic. The lesson has been there for those who want to learn it...
https://www.nber.org/papers/w27432.pdf

The collapse of economic activity in 2020 from COVID-19 has been immense. An important
question is how much of that resulted from government restrictions on activity versus people
voluntarily choosing to stay home to avoid infection. This paper examines the drivers of the
collapse using cellular phone records data on customer visits to more than 2.25 million individual
businesses across 110 different industries. Comparing consumer behavior within the same
commuting zones but across boundaries with different policy regimes suggests that legal
shutdown orders account for only a modest share of the decline of economic activity (and that
having county-level policy data is significantly more accurate than state-level data). While overall
consumer traffic fell by 60 percentage points, legal restrictions explain only 7 of that. Individual
choices were far more important and seem tied to fears of infection. Traffic started dropping
before the legal orders were in place; was highly tied to the number of COVID deaths in the
county; and showed a clear shift by consumers away from larger/busier stores toward smaller/less
busy ones in the same industry. States repealing their shutdown orders saw identically modest
recoveries--symmetric going down and coming back. The shutdown orders did, however, have
significantly reallocate consumer activity away from “nonessential” to “essential” businesses and
from restaurants and bars toward groceries and other food sellers.

Let's look at some recent events in the states. Samurai will be amooz.

https://twitter.com/NathanLerner/sta...08717974929408
https://twitter.com/StevenTDennis/st...22032598392833

[Ed. From a week ago]
Remember when
@GovWhitmer
refused to give in to Trump’s demands to end to social distance restrictions in Michigan?

Michigan is now down to 250 new cases a day.

Meanwhile Florida is at around 8,000.

[Ed. Yesterday]
*295* Arizona COVID deaths have been reported in the last 7 days.

Scaled to the country that would be like USA reporting 13,000 deaths in a week.

ARIZONA COVID testing positivity is WELL OVER 30% TODAY.

(New York is at 1.04%).

3,654 new cases on ~11K tests.

ARIZONA hospitalizations, ventilators in use, ICU beds in use & 7-day daily death average all at record highs today too.Chart with upwards trend

The White House reaction is in its stable equilibrium. From a week ago:

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he believes the coronavirus will "just disappear" even as cases explode across the U.S. and top health officials warn that the country needs to do more to stop the spread.

If you want to make a callback to February, he actually makes the same point in slightly-different language a lot. Sample from April 29:

It's gonna go, it's gonna leave, it's gonna be gone - it's gonna be eradicated.

The master plan is to continue to have no plan. It's a(nother) genuine crime against humanity.

The goal is to convince Americans that they can live with the virus — that schools should reopen, professional sports should return, a vaccine is likely to arrive by the end of the year and the economy will continue to improve.

White House officials also hope Americans will grow numb to the escalating death toll and learn to accept tens of thousands of new cases a day, according to three people familiar with the White House’s thinking, who requested anonymity to reveal internal deliberations. Americans will “live with the virus being a threat,” in the words of one of those people, a senior administration official.

“They’re of the belief that people will get over it or if we stop highlighting it, the base will move on and the public will learn to accept 50,000 to 100,000 new cases a day,” said a former administration official in touch with the campaign.

The acclamation of his base is his biggest priority, in terms of public contact.

President Trump has told people in recent days that he regrets following some of son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner's political advice — including supporting criminal justice reform — and will stick closer to his own instincts, three people with direct knowledge of the president's thinking tell Axios. Behind the scenes: One person who spoke with the president interpreted his thinking this way: "No more of Jared's woke s***." Another said Trump has indicated that following Kushner's advice has harmed him politically.
[...]
Trump now says privately it was misguided to pursue this policy, undercutting his instincts, and that he probably won't win any more African American support because of it.
"He truly believes there is a silent majority out there that's going to come out in droves in November," said a source who's talked to the president in recent days.
The president also pays close attention to Fox News' Tucker Carlson. A few weeks ago, in a brutal monologue, Carlson blamed Kushner for giving Trump bad advice.

"In 2016, Donald Trump ran as a law-and-order candidate because he meant it," Carlson said. "And his views remain fundamentally unchanged today. But the president's famously sharp instincts, the ones that won him the presidency almost four years ago, have been since subverted at every level by Jared Kushner."

Some have suggested one factor motivating right-wing realignment against public health governance has been the development that while the virus may not discriminate along social categories per se, social categories condition exposure and susceptibility to the virus. If you know what I mean and I think you do.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...-cdc-data.html




Mmm, ah, yes. At some point in between doing fascisms Tucker Carlson,

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Who will secure the existence of our people and our homeland?

Russia's favorite American commentator, went from being pro-mask to anti-mask. Remember, what you're seeing and reading isn't what's happening.
https://twitter.com/justinbaragona/s...55048205369344 [VIDEO]

anyone feel like graphing out the data here:

https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/research/re...sponse-tracker

https://github.com/OxCGRT/covid-poli...GRT_latest.csv

I know it's Oxford and WorldinData and whatever, and part of the dataset was used in the comparative study on US deaths referenced above, and I'm not reading the definitions or methodology, but this

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

is hard to credit at face value, that Italy and France score higher on a "Government Response Index" than China at their respective peaks.

[Furunculus]

i'm not sure the Swedish model can yet be deemed to be discredited.

"Conclusions
The Swedish COVID-19 strategy has thus far yielded a striking result: mild mandates overlaid with voluntary measures can achieve results highly similar to late-onset stringent mandates. However, this policy causes more healthcare demand and mortality than early stringent control and depends on continued public will."

This latter point rather presumes that public will accept enforcement against their will, and it is a matter of record that the UK government built policy against the assumption that tight lockdown would remain effective for no longer than three months - presumably due to growing non-compliance.

Re: "is hard to credit at face value, that Italy and France score higher on a "Government Response Index" than China at their respective peaks."

It is important to note that the blavatnik data does not attempt to measure the effectiveness of caronavirus policy, only its stringency in application.
So graphing it against reported cases as a measure of its accuracy might miss the point.

[Idaho]

It's important to factor in Sweden being a low density population with almost half the population living alone. Compared to, say, Italy where people live in dense multi generational housing.

[edyzmedieval]

Romania is discussing over reintroducing a generalised lockdown, after being a model to follow in the first two months only to now find ourselves as #1 in Europe in terms of new daily cases.

Unbelievable.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Romania is discussing over reintroducing a generalised lockdown, after being a model to follow in the first two months only to now find ourselves as #1 in Europe in terms of new daily cases.

Unbelievable.

"Sneaky Bastards for $1000, please"

[horns blaring, bells and whistles] "The Daily Double!"

[Pannonian]

Bolsonaro tests positive for corona. Let's hope it's nothing trivial. No, but maybe he'll have a road-to-Damascus moment and do something wholesome for his country. That didn't totally fail with Boris Johnson, right?

If you're looking for a Road to Damascus moment for the UK, you need to be looking at the relevant people in power. Not Boris Johnson, but Dominic Cummings. Johnson is the front man. Cummings is the decision maker, as seen most recently when one Tory MP threatened the highest ranking British general with Cummings's attention should he not do as he was told.

[Gilrandir]

Romania is discussing over reintroducing a generalised lockdown, after being a model to follow in the first two months only to now find ourselves as #1 in Europe in terms of new daily cases.

Unbelievable.

Own up to it: it's gonna stay with us indefinitely - until most of the world's population develop immunity through having contracted and survived the plague.

[Furunculus]

Johnson is the front man. Cummings is the decision maker, as seen most recently when one Tory MP threatened the highest ranking British general with Cummings's attention should he not do as he was told.

speaking as someone who approves of the UK's activist foriegn policy, and supports significant investment in UK defence to maximise our ability to project power...

... i sympathise with mark francois, because the grinding incompetence of MoD procurement is beyond belief.

yes, it was rude. no, i wouldn't have done it. but i do sympathise; "look, i want to give you the cash, but as a supporter can you please make an effort not to make me look like a fool!"

i listened to the whole two hours of that select committee last night, it is after all my interest.

[edyzmedieval]

Own up to it: it's gonna stay with us indefinitely - until most of the world's population develop immunity through having contracted and survived the plague.

The impressive efforts done by the country and the Minister of Health in the first 2 months were almost top notch, we had excellent stopping of the spread.

Measures of relaxation, even in the slightest, wrecked absolutely everything. Austria just blocked our entry into their country.

[Gilrandir]

The impressive efforts done by the country and the Minister of Health in the first 2 months were almost top notch, we had excellent stopping of the spread.

Measures of relaxation, even in the slightest, wrecked absolutely everything. Austria just blocked our entry into their country.

We are also having a surge. You can't stay at home forever. Once you step over the threshold the disease is gonna jump at you. So be ready to live with it.

[CrossLOPER]

We are also having a surge. You can't stay at home forever. Once you step over the threshold the disease is gonna jump at you. So be ready to live with it.

I have heard this line of thinking for a number of things, and I find that it a tool of the inept to claim that "it can't be done better". It's not just applied to the pandemic, either. All you ever hear the the constant promise of "final victory" or whatever.

It is being done better in other places, and I refuse to believe it.

[ReluctantSamurai]

We are also having a surge. You can't stay at home forever. Once you step over the threshold the disease is gonna jump at you. So be ready to live with it.

Most of this is, unfortunately, true (though the jumping at you part is only if your locality hasn't done a very good job).

Here in the US, we had a window of opportunity of about 4-6 weeks from late March through April to get a handle on the pandemic, but we squandered it by politicizing it, attempting to call it a hoax, and pursuing personal agendas both economically and personally. Many people here in the States are either unwilling, or unable to suffer another lock-down type of response. There have been many mis-leading and downright disingenuous statements from too many people, including our own health specialists. So, here we are....staring at a firestorm that's looking to be even worse than that of April and May.

Sports is trying to make a comeback; young people listened too much to all the hype that COVID-19 was a "Boomer Remover" and totally ignored everything that we had learned during those early months about how to suppress this virus; we have a president who is trying to force school re-openings even before there are guidelines in place to do so, and the very same president who urged states to re-open their businesses quickly (thereby bypassing many of the protocols necessary to do so), and you can see how that strategy has been an epic FAIL.

So now we have new infections spiraling out of control in some areas, and setting unthinkable records in the process. The death toll hasn't yet begun to show up, because it takes time to die from COVID-19...about 3-6 weeks. As an American, I am embarrassed to see just how ignorant and callous we are of what this pandemic means. Bereft of leadership from the top, we are doomed to an endless cycle of hotspots. First it was the Northeast and the West coast, now it's the South and Southwest. It will just be a damn game of Whack-a-Mole until there is a unity to getting the virus under control, because if there's an out of control situation Somewhere, it's going to reach Everywhere....again.

Until there's a unified approach, we will indeed just "have to live with it".....or die by it.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Most of this is, unfortunately, true (though the jumping at you part is only if your locality hasn't done a very good job).

Here in the US, we had a window of opportunity of about 4-6 weeks from late March through April to get a handle on the pandemic, but we squandered it by politicizing it, attempting to call it a hoax, and pursuing personal agendas both economically and personally. Many people here in the States are either unwilling, or unable to suffer another lock-down type of response. There have been many mis-leading and downright disingenuous statements from too many people, including our own health specialists. So, here we are....staring at a firestorm that's looking to be even worse than that of April and May.

Sports is trying to make a comeback; young people listened too much to all the hype that COVID-19 was a "Boomer Remover" and totally ignored everything that we had learned during those early months about how to suppress this virus; we have a president who is trying to force school re-openings even before there are guidelines in place to do so, and the very same president who urged states to re-open their businesses quickly (thereby bypassing many of the protocols necessary to do so), and you can see how that strategy has been an epic FAIL.

So now we have new infections spiraling out of control in some areas, and setting unthinkable records in the process. The death toll hasn't yet begun to show up, because it takes time to die from COVID-19...about 3-6 weeks. As an American, I am embarrassed to see just how ignorant and callous we are of what this pandemic means. Bereft of leadership from the top, we are doomed to an endless cycle of hotspots. First it was the Northeast and the West coast, now it's the South and Southwest. It will just be a damn game of Whack-a-Mole until there is a unity to getting the virus under control, because if there's an out of control situation Somewhere, it's going to reach Everywhere....again.

Until there's a unified approach, we will indeed just "have to live with it".....or die by it.

As has been said in this thread before, there is a notable percentage of folks for whom the idea of putting life on hold for a year to a year and a half is intolerable, so they are willing to accept the casualties and drive on.

I would expect this percentage to correlate strongly with persons who self define themselves as being "never sick" or "tough" since they are of the belief they will beat the disease if they get it.

[Gilrandir]

As has been said in this thread before, there is a notable percentage of folks for whom the idea of putting life on hold for a year to a year and a half is intolerable, so they are willing to accept the casualties and drive on.

"Intolerable" may have two readings:
1. When you are just tired of limitations and want everything to be as it used to be before.
2. When you are running out of money because you are out of work.
While the first is what could be criticized, the second is a survival issue so I can't blame the people of the second category for their readiness to take a risk.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Stupidity knows no bounds, nor geographical borders:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...o-unmasked-men

And unfortunately, the man died:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...sed-wear-masks

On a lighter note:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/trave...ty/4351812002/

Possibly a distant relative of this hungry critter:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...-rat/72579216/

[ReluctantSamurai]

This situation points up a major disaster just waiting to happen...as if the situation wasn't bad already:

https://www.mississippifreepress.org...s-virus-booms/

Mississippi hospitals are “stretched thin,” and Mississippians “will not be able to get the health care (they) need” as the novel coronavirus outbreak accelerates across the state, top health experts warned during a dire press conference this morning. Already, State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said, five of the state’s largest hospitals have already run out of ICU beds for critical patients.

The virus’ spread had begun to slow in Mississippi during May, as Gov. Tate Reeves began to reopen some businesses. By the second half of June, as the governor began a broad reopening of state businesses, Mississippi averaged just 11 novel coronavirus deaths per day, down from an average of 15 per day in May. In July so far, the state has averaged 15 deaths per day. Deaths rose sharply in the past two days, though, with MSDH confirming a record 34 new deaths on Tuesday and another 30 on Wednesday. Cases have also risen at record rates, with health officials announcing 705 additional cases per day on average since July 1. In June, the state averaged about 390 cases per day.

And the additional dread:

As the Gulf Coast enters hurricane season, the health experts warned today, Mississippi’s health-care system could teeter over the edge if a major hurricane struck. There simply would not be enough workers or resources available to deal with a natural disaster on top of the current pandemic if current COVID-19 trends hold up, the experts said.

“It’s going to be a New York situation, and we’re going to be in a parking lot trying to take care of people, and we can’t do it. And if a hurricane hits, I’m quitting,” said Dr. Alan Jones, a UMMC professor. Some present laughed at the grim assessment. Dr. Woodward smiled. “No quitting,” she said.

Ironic how these very same folks were probably looking at New York this spring and thinking that that can't happen here, are now facing the very same problems, even if it's on a smaller scale

Governor Tate Reeves has so far resisted the implementation of a mandatory mask-wearing order, citing:

He has faced political pressure from some who claim a mask mandate would violate their freedoms.

.
Wonder how free those folks will feel when they have to wear a ventilator?

And despite having one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in the world, the governor of South Carolina still refuses to issue a mandate requiring a mask for ANY situation:

https://www.thestate.com/news/corona...244136287.html

Measuring the number of new infections per capita over a seven-day period, June 28 to July 4, Arizona was the most afflicted, followed by Florida, then South Carolina, then the nation of Bahrain, and Louisiana in fifth — solidifying the southern U.S. as the global COVID-19 hot zone — according to New York Times data.

https://www.thestate.com/news/state/...44090802.html?

Roughly 1 in 5 tests in the state are coming back positive, according to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control. As of Wednesday, there have been 48,770 infections and 876 deaths — 38 of which were reported the same day. At the same time, hospitalizations continue to rise. DHEC says 75.5% of hospital beds are currently occupied.

Bars, restaurants, beaches and many other non-essential businesses and attractions were reopened weeks ago. Gov. Henry McMaster has said there are no plans to roll back any reopening measures, though the situation has continued to worsen. “At this point, the answer is individual responsibility, not mandates from the government,” McMaster said in June.

And....surprise, surprise! Both Governors are staunch Republicans