The message from Republican governors and politicians seems to be that since the virus is impacting only “those” people and not “regular folks,” the implication is it’s ok if the browns all get sick and die, as they are easily replaceable. That in itself is abhorrent enough, but the fact that they are dead wrong makes it somehow even worse.
When “those” people get sick, they continue to go to work and shop because they can’t afford to not work and they still need groceries and what not. And they infect more people. And when they go to the emergency room, they infect doctors and nurses and supply staff. And other patients, who may not be there for corona. And those people, not knowing they are infected, go out and infect other people. And on and on. That’s how fucking pandemics and viruses work- they aren’t aware of borders or race, and they don’t care.
And it’s not just that. More infected people means a hospital and medical community is overwhelmed, and the virus basically sucks all the air out of the room. You can’t deal with less serious issues because you have no staff. Those less serious issues can then metastasize into more serious issues. And if a medical community is overwhelmed, it can not deal with normal every day issues like people having strokes and heart attacks and what not. And on and on.
And that is not even going into the logistics of the PPE and other things that now need to be diverted to your newly created hot zone in bumfuck Georgia with a population density of 12 that should be serving as a natural firebreak for the virus. Now metropolitan areas with density and issues that make it impossible to control the virus the way a rural area could now have to compete for the same resources.
I don’t know hat is more depressing- that so many people are incapable of looking at something so obvious like this and realizing the issue, or that this mostly is being done because of corporate greed. Many of these new rural hotspots are at meatpacking plants. It doesn’t have to be that way. You can slow down operations so people do not need to be cramp asshole to armpit to keep up with the conveyor belts. You can install plexiglass in between work stations. You can give your employees proper PPE. You can check everyone’s temperature and pay people to stay at home when they are sick. You can do all og those things and keep making a profit.
Fucking hell.
Bobby Thomson
Time for some Masque of the Red Death.
I had no idea how uplifting that story is until now.
dmsilev
Yes, but you’d be making a smaller profit, and that makes Capitalism Jesus cry. We don’t want Capitalism Jesus to cry, do we?
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: Wasn’t he sent to suffer for our sins? If so, then yes. We should want to make him cry.
moonbat
That’s what I want to scream from my window every morning. “It’s a VIRUS! It doesn’t care about the color of your skin or who you voted for last election. It will kill you regardless.”
I mean seriously. What is so fucking hard to understand about that? It’s like Trump by example has reduced half the population to spoiled toddlers who demand the world goes back to the way it was before COVID 19 because they WHAAAAAANT it.
Damien
No, it’s not “Those People, You Idiots,” it’s “Those Idiots, You People.”
God help them if a virus emerges that attacks stupidity
Mai naem mobile
Yeah but then the CEO,CFO, the Founders, the Heirs, the CTO and the bigwigs at the PE firms who’ve invested in these companies would have to give up their private jets , the 3rd or 4th yacht and the 5th or 6th ‘second’ homes and ofcourse the New Zealand bunker. Let’s not forget those bribes to get their kids into the Ivies don’t come cheap either.
catclub
1.Always relevant:
A quote from a [now ten+ years old, I am guessing]four-year-old post by Jonathan Schwarz titled Global Warming: Why We’re Not 100% Doomed:
Sadly, Schwartz’s title notwithstanding, current indications are that we are, in fact, 100% doomed.
2. I am not sure how much is simply a;; the GOP govs and state legislators idiotically following Trump’s lack of patience, rather than billionaires whispering in his ear.
Mallard Filmore
Any idea about how international companies like Apple, IBM, will cope with travel to “safe” countries? What is the impact when executives have to take a 2 week quarantine when they exit an airplane for a meeting in Japan or Thailand? Will China and Korea allow their citizens to freely come here? (sure, but going home will be a problem).
Will those companies give up USA operations except for a sales force?
Scott Alloway
Thank you, John Cole, for being a voice in the wilderness. I linked this to my facebook page so more can see it. You are a hero to me.
Brantl
A legal suit was settled by the Supreme Court that is public companies have the make as much money as they can, for their shareholders. The opinion was written by a clerk, that had worked for the gigantic railroads.
Barbara
@dmsilev: I think many (not all) plants are trying to test and screen, but they are hamstrung by the lack of available local testing, which limits testing to people with symptoms, rather than being expanded to include people who are simply at higher risk. This is the coordinated national testing strategy that would allow for faster reopening without putting people at such high risk, it’s the strategy Korea and Germany adopted, and that Trump has rejected. Which is why I have concluded that he wants people to die. I have learned of multiple entities trying to set up their own labs after they have decided that there has not been nearly enough progress in ramping up testing. Call it the go it alone or I guess I have to do it myself strategy, but it is just one symptom of how deeply incompetent and immoral the federal response has been.
Jeffro
Donald J(im Jones) trumpov just wants his followers to let other folks drink the Kool-Aid FIRST, and now, NOW, to get the blessed economy rolling again, even though it’ll still splash on everyone else eventually.
He’s got a re-election/stay-out-of-prison campaign to win, after all.
hitchhiker
Same logic (i.e., lack of logic) with prisons and jails. Lotsa locked up folk are going to get sick? Oh, well! They’re not regular people, anyway.
Dumb shits don’t realize that guards and admin people — with families outside who move freely around the town — will carry the virus right outside with them, where it will be shared enthusiastically at the next choir practice while they sing God’s praises nice and loud.
You can’t keep this confined to those other guys any more than you could stop it by banning everyone flying in from China. It’s criminally stupid.
Barbara
@Mallard Filmore: The failure of Trump to understand the impact of our wildfire strategy for disease management on foreign investment and tourism is just one of many failures he is too stupid to predict, even though it is obvious.
Zelma
There is no place to hide. I live in Cape May County. Granted we’re in New Jersey, but we are far, far from urban areas and in the off season, have a population of less than 100,000. Our cases have gone from under 20 to over 400 in four weeks. We are approaching 50 deaths. Now some cases may have been brought by second home owners who have showed up contrary to the governor’s orders. But the highest concentrations are in towns where employees of the three near-by prisons live. And among workers and residents of nursing homes. So the virus is here and nobody is really safe.
And they are pressing to open the beaches and the boardwalks and allow the crowds to come. Look, these is going to be devastating to the Jersey shore. I have friends who own business and they are going to be hurt badly. But I don’t know how you enforce social distancing on the beach. So I guess I’ll spend the summer in my house.
Barbara
@hitchhiker: It has only been contained BECAUSE other people have been distancing. If they stop it will not be contained.
Jeffro
Rampell, on point: trumpov’s virus cure is even more magical than we dreamed.
(should say, “trumpov, enabled by GOP, pushing same non-solutions”, but whatever)
Yes, TAX CUTS! Take THAT, Covid-19!
At the end, a plea for sanity…and low-hanging fruit for Dems:
Enhanced Voting Techniques
That’s why Trump is their lizard king, they can and should, but they are to lazy too.
Butter Emails
@hitchhiker:
They may have been able to stop it with a far more aggressive and universal lockdown of our borders. but they decided to go the racist route instead.
Jay
danielx
@Mallard Filmore:
Dear me. What if other countries Just Say No to Trump’s insane policies that directly affect their populations?
JaneE
I was kind of surprised to find that my former employer was considered essential manufacturing. From the last tonnage numbers I saw they are probably running at a third to a half capacity, so not all the companies they supply are still working.
Unlike what I see at meat packing plants, my old employer made the CDC recommendations mandatory. They do work from home where possible, and the plant always did have a lot of physical separation between workers. Cleaning went from housekeeping to sanitizing, and more often. Masks were required if you were within 6 feet of someone. Plexiglass appeared wherever people needed to go in person. The gate guards got infrared thermometers to check every one coming in the plant, and anyone with a temp over 100 got sent to medical or their own doctor for clearance. And instead of complaining about the new requirements, they folded it into their required ISO contingency planning and added pandemic response to the other disasters they plan to keep working through.
From the things I see them doing, and the production numbers they publish, I would guess that their bottom line went in the red this quarter, and may well stay there for most of the year. Keeping their employees safe was at least equally important to getting orders out when I was working, and it looks like it still is. Not one out of 1000-1200 employees has tested positive, even though the plant continued to operate throughout the lock down period.
The work stations in meat packing plants never had to be that close together. It was just more profitable that way.
kindness
The 1% expect the rest of us to ‘acquire’ herd immunity. They’re separate and think they’re safe and that herd (us) is gonna get thinned a bit when it crosses the river filled with nasty covids. They don’t care. They’re different. I didn’t used to understand how the French went so crazy during their revolution. I’m beginning to see the light of it though. That’s sad.
HalfAssedHomesteader
@Brantl: That’s a myth. It’s an ideology that sprouted in the 80s. Right-wingers would like people to believe it’s encoded in law because it leaves them blameless for their callous decisions.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/harold-meyerson-the-myth-of-maximizing-shareholder-value/2014/02/11/00cdfb14-9336-11e3-84e1-27626c5ef5fb_story.html
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Salons, bars, and restaurants are reopening on May 15th in Ohio
dmsilev
SURE, THE VELOCIRAPTORS ARE STILL ON THE LOOSE, BUT THAT’S NO REASON NOT TO REOPEN JURASSIC PARK
FlyingToaster
In Massachusetts, one of the governor’s crony’s on “the reopening commision” is the head of Davio’s (restaurant chain). He was interviewed the other day and noted that although Georgia had reopened, he wasn’t reopening his Atlanta restaurant.
[paraphrasing] Here in MA, we’re at the top of our curve; I should be able to reopen up here in late June or July, and not kill my employees and customers. In Atlanta, they’re still on the upslope; I can’t risk reopening there.
Sane not-quite-billionaire. Understands that killing his customers will inevitably lead to killing his restaurant.
We’ve just reopened Garden Centers, Golf Courses (kinda, with distancing and no carts or caddies), and, alas, gun shops per a federal court order.
Next round of reopenings will be announced next week for opening the following week, and it looks like dentists and PCPs are in the mix.
Mallard Filmore
@danielx:
@danielx:
We will finally be on track to solve our trade deficit problem.
I expect this will hit before the election.
dmsilev
@FlyingToaster: California is opening some retail starting tomorrow, with curbside pickup only for the time being. Parks, trails, golf courses, this weekend, with rules similar to what you describe for MA. We seem to be on the slow post-peak downslope at least for now, with case counts dropping even as test rates ramp up, so hopefully we can loosen up a bit without undergoing a second wave.
JaySinWA
I expect that most if not all of the infections started outside the prison and were brought in by personnel and not by new inmates.
Sure Lurkalot
This is where I am. Retired, working partner set to retire. We’re getting lots of deliveries and go out mainly for walks (paths very close to my house) and golf (not me).
I feel guilty relying on people to food shop for me, an activity I loved in the before times. But I’m willing to not go out to indoor spaces to the greatest extent possible, lay low, tip well for a while. It’s not the retirement I envisioned, but things change (check out the movie by that name).
Am I helping or hurting?
mrmoshpotato
@Adam L Silverman: Extra funny coming from you. :)
HalfAssedHomesteader
@Jay: Any guy that determined to frame other people for sexual assault has, IMO, probably got A LOT of sexual assault in his closet.
mrmoshpotato
@Mai naem mobile: Make them pay a 91% tax rate to not be hanged.
wseattle
@dmsilev: Are you referring to locales within CA or the whole state? For the whole state, I don’t see any peak or downslope in new cases when I peruse the 91-divoc site.
mrmoshpotato
@dmsilev: LOL ❤️❤️❤️
Jay
@Sure Lurkalot:
helping
Jay
@HalfAssedHomesteader:
it’s the Franken Effect
+ mysogeny
+ rapey
JaySinWA
There is a whole article out there somewhere about how he tried and failed at that.
JaySinWA
@JaySinWA: Whoops, that was James O’Keefe. Can’t keep the slime balls straight.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jay:
At least that woman owned up to it in the end. Smearing a public health official during a pandemic ranks pretty high up there in “shitty things to do”
Ladyraxterinok
To take those measures the community has to care more about the health of ALL it’s people than the money being made
rikyrah
Maddow did a segment on Nebraska.
Multiple meat packing plant breakouts
Won’t give the numbers for nursing homes
Has not tested one prisoner
Wants to hide the test results of the state😒😒
Mohagan
@kindness: I truly started to understand the French revolution “excesses” when I first saw Versailles. My mother said the same thing about the Russian revolution after seeing the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.
Uncle Cosmo
@dmsilev: That’s it in a nutshell: Jurassisgrassic Park, the continent-wide version…
Gvg
I am doing a lot of deliveries and all curbside pickup. Turns out hardware stores and grocery stores can do this. They said they couldn’t before, what they meant is that people didn’t care before. The losses are you have to know what you want. When you just have a problem you want to solve and would normally go browse read packaging and look for something that will work, you can’t do that. So some sales and probabaly a lot of services won’t happen.
i had some expenses setting up to work from home. Internet service $30 a month I previously hadn’t bothered with but now mean I have a job when a lot of people don’t…cheap. I don’t have much extra time to be bored either. I mail ordered a desk floor mat, and curbside picked up a printer after a phone call for recommendation from local Best Buy. I bought a LOT of food by shopping just before shut down, curbside since-which means fewer sales purchases. Also odd shortages. So that has cost more and prices are creeping up but I best costs for suppliers have gone up. I don’t know, but it looks to me like a wash for my contribution to the consumer economy.
most of the places I do curbside at have been closed to the public except curb, so those aren’t so much endangered and get to keep jobs. The exception is the grocery stores. They have taken some measures, but IMO our local ones could be doing more however that is listening to next door because I haven’t gone myself to see. I am only somewhat at risk, but my parents are, and I want to keep seeing them and helping them.
J R in WV
I had to go to a warehouse last Saturday to pick up materiel to repair my roof, after a tree fell on the house. Was the least secure feeling since this all started. Before that Grocery was the worst, but there at least many folks wear masks. No one at the roofing material supply warehouse was wearing a mask.
When I first pulled up, there was one customer picking up and ready to leave and me. But shortly after I got everything I needed onto Rudy’s list to pull from the warehouse shelves, 3 or 4 more customers showed up, no masks, not really distancing much either. And I understand, workmen have to work together, but still, at the yard or a warehouse, you need to keep your distance.
Rates here are still pretty low, so odds are with me. But I have workmen coming to the house now, too. Wonder if he will have a mask? betting not…
Frank The Tank
John, I love ya man…but, you are thinking way too logically. I quote the Waco Kid: You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.”
Jado
“You can slow down operations so people do not need to be cramp asshole to armpit to keep up with the conveyor belts. You can install plexiglass in between work stations. You can give your employees proper PPE. You can check everyone’s temperature and pay people to stay at home when they are sick. You can do all of those things and keep making a profit.”
COMMIE!!! YOU COMMIE!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuZ24VBrbO4
How DARE you insist that billionaires part with ONE RED CENT for their workers. THOSE people are LUCKY to even HAVE a JOB, let alone gloves for the chanisaws, and YOU WANT THEM TO GET FACESHIELDS????
DO you have ANY idea how EXPENSIVE face shields are for 3700 employees? Hmm? I’ll TELL you – it’s the difference between 1.2 billion in profit this quarter and 1.20001 billion in profit this quarter. Do YOU have that much money to just THROW AROUND??
I didn’t think so. So how about you slink on back off to your corner, and let the people that UNDERSTAND BUSINESS decide who lives and who dies. Like it ought to be.
/ObviousSnark/