— Your Rideshare Driver (@ride_trips) May 22, 2020
Sunday's entire @nytimes front page is a partial list of Covid-19 victims. "The 1,000 people here reflect just 1% of the toll. None were mere numbers." pic.twitter.com/oh86xAUdRL
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) May 23, 2020
Coronavirus testing in the United States is disorganized and needs coordination at the national level, infectious disease experts say in a new report https://t.co/4qwvbyQWQA
— CNN (@CNN) May 24, 2020
#Coronavirus cases pass 5.25 million worldwide https://t.co/Mjx9nHehgl
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) May 23, 2020
#UPDATE In Europe the number of #COVID-19 victims was stabilising in many countries, prompting governments to move away from lockdowns towards lighter social distancing measures – even as the virus toll was rising in Latin Americahttps://t.co/Zz6rHVb3Kg pic.twitter.com/9BzdI5mfiB
— AFP news agency (@AFP) May 23, 2020
May 23, pandemic watch
The big 5 (BRIM-US)
The tragedy in Brazil is unchecked, very soon to be #1 in cases and deaths/day
Still no travel ban ????->????, which is incredible.
The other 3 countries are still ascending.
The US being part of this group speaks volumes. pic.twitter.com/ptGGsxmAn6— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) May 23, 2020
"Swaminathan, chief scientist @WHO, believes an
optimistic scenario is a #vaccine produced in the 'tens of millions' next year…mainly distr'ed to hlthcare workrs & far larger volumes in 2022. To inoculate the world & defeat #Covid19 cld take 4 to 5 yrs."https://t.co/fs0I8RFNBi— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) May 23, 2020
?The WHO has published a #COVID19 Monitoring & Evaluation Framework listing the key #publichealth & essential #health services & systems indicators to monitor preparedness, response & situations during the COVID-19 #pandemic. #BeatTheVirus #TogetherWeCan https://t.co/CWPGHic1ja pic.twitter.com/rDedMqaDVo
— Dr. Melvin Sanicas ?? (@Vaccinologist) May 23, 2020
Re 1) above –A recent article @NEJM showing almost 50% drop in hospitalizations from heart attacks https://t.co/ZBRtOlmrO9
Similar other reports exist from US, Italy and Spain. Shows changes in healthcare seeking behavior due to pandemic. Secondary costs of pandemic.
— Dr. Nahid Bhadelia (@BhadeliaMD) May 23, 2020
What have we learned from autopsies of patients who have died from #COVID19?
A lot.
My summary of > 200 from 10 reports
The prominence of clot, vascular micro-thrombi, involvement of organs besides lungs, especially heart and kidneys, possible/? unique features in lung pic.twitter.com/JPDiRauBV9— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) May 23, 2020
Placentas from #COVID19-positive pregnant women show signs of injury, mostly abnormal blood flow between the mother & fetus The finding points to a new COVID complication & could help inform how pregnant women are monitored during the pandemic https://t.co/C7UULLQt7M pic.twitter.com/m7WtFkV20p
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) May 22, 2020
NEW hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine study with 96,032 coronavirus patients from 671 hospitals across six continents (!!!) finds exactly what everyone should expect by now:
– no benefit
– cardiac toxicity
– decreased in-hospital survivalhttps://t.co/f8L6ExaQ7L— Nsikan Akpan (@MoNscience) May 22, 2020
2/ NY State set criteria for reopening all schools and businesses a few weeks ago, and all trends point toward a late June or early July achievement of targets for cessation of most, if not all, #COVID19 #lockdown requirements, after 9 weeks (so far) of collective hardship.
MORE pic.twitter.com/VzKDLhBm55— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) May 23, 2020
More than 160 contenders in the race for a COVID-19 vaccine @AFP pic.twitter.com/QkjtC4R1dA
— AFPgraphics (@AFPgraphics) May 22, 2020
This is the kind of screwball mistake you expect from a 1st year public health grad student, not what is supposed to be the world's premier disease-fighting institution.
C.D.C. Test Counting Error Leaves Epidemiologists ‘Really Baffled’#COVID19 @CDCgov https://t.co/hYDEE5ojRw— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) May 24, 2020
The @CDCgov + 11 states mix results from #SARSCoV2 antibody tests and tests that measure viral mRNA. But Ab tests measure whether you have ever been exposed to the virus, while RNA tests tell if you have the virus right now. HUGE apples-&-oranges screw-up.https://t.co/b78lW1dfNn
— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) May 24, 2020
Someone compared remdesivir’s effect on coronavirus to that of tamiflu on influenza, and there’s new evidence to support that hypothesis:
Antiviral drug remdesivir effective against #coronavirus according completed research on the drug: 1000 patients; 10 countries. Published in New Engl Jrnl of Medicine. Given by IV for 10 days, drug accelerated recovery of COVID patients compared w/ placebo https://t.co/BWnFzHRdmz pic.twitter.com/yaIeixkPbr
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) May 23, 2020
Muslims around the world begin marking a sombre Eid al-Fitr, many under #coronavirus lockdown, but lax restrictions offer respite to worshippers in some countries despite fears of skyrocketing infections https://t.co/8KrcNJdeI6 pic.twitter.com/Ek55yQc2Cq
— AFP news agency (@AFP) May 24, 2020
China reports three new coronavirus cases after first day with none https://t.co/l8RPUPP7Dl pic.twitter.com/pYtHz1gqDd
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 24, 2020
India will organise special trains to get at least 3.6 million migrant workers stranded by the pandemic lockdown back home, authorities said Saturday as fresh coronavirus cases in the country hit a new daily high @AFP https://t.co/VjRPHwMcHO via @YahooNews
— AFP South Asia (@AFPSouthAsia) May 23, 2020
Coronavirus: Why reopening French schools is a social emergency https://t.co/colF4zL8Ei
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 24, 2020
Dozens of anti #COVID-19 lockdown demos were held across Germany, part of a growing movement that includes conspiracy theorists, extremists, anti-vaxxers and people concerned about a curtailment of civil libertieshttps://t.co/A8dOsVoC8p pic.twitter.com/dP7UBThHGm
— AFP news agency (@AFP) May 23, 2020
Spain's far-right party Vox called for large demos as its leader alleged the country's leftist government "has been incapable of protecting its people, its elderly and its health care workers" during the #coronavirus crisis https://t.co/Uh3Zwpjf4c pic.twitter.com/OfrOdG9Lcf
— AFP news agency (@AFP) May 23, 2020
ICYMI: Sun-seekers in Greece returned to the beaches with umbrellas placed four meters apart practicing social distancing pic.twitter.com/0rM4uSejgF
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 24, 2020
Citing a threat of the coronavirus from Mexico, the Trump administration banned hundreds of thousands of people from crossing the southern border. But in Mexican border cities, many are worried about the disease coming in from the other direction. https://t.co/isp2Gmsurk
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 23, 2020
Rest of World? to America??: Terrific, more for us!
New U.S. poll: "50% of respondents said they plan to get vaccinated for the virus, 'if and when a #coronavirus #vaccine becomes available,' 23% said they won't get vaccinated & 27% said not sure."https://t.co/KpGq4uPmNI
— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) May 23, 2020
Anatomy of a shitshow. https://t.co/ggAZQs15oZ
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) May 23, 2020
Trump has not budged when it comes to stopping flights from Brazil, now the second-leading country in the world for #coronavirus cases. So many people are dying of COVID in Brazil, there aren't enough gravediggers to bury the dead https://t.co/7DZatakDOl
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) May 23, 2020
Every big industry's proposal to how to fire things back up despite the lack of any meaningful management of the pandemic is just the first act of a slightly different horror movie. https://t.co/7IpUM3ARhp
— David Roth (@david_j_roth) May 23, 2020
Florida man, at his finest. (From the photo, he fits each mask with a proper respirator — I wondered how anyone could breathe through a tanned snakeskin… )
"I took something that's very serious and turned it into a fashion statement," says the Florida craftsman who makes face masks to tackle the #coronavirus pandemic out of the skin of invasive pythons and iguanashttps://t.co/8bHS3jK4Ef pic.twitter.com/e1C9sX8zjs
— AFP news agency (@AFP) May 23, 2020
Brachiator
A comment and response from an earlier thread.
RE: I know I shouldn’t be shocked by the hordes of young white people out drinking in crowds today. I still am. It’s breathtakingly evil.
I was recently looking at two stories about how the virus spreads. One story discussed hygiene, distance and time as factors and gave an example of infection in a restaurant and a fitness center.
The other story detailed how a single person infected 87 percent of the singers at a choir practice in Washington.
If people attending church services this weekend don’t at least wear masks and practice social distancing, they are inviting infections.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
There’s a travel ban on Canada, but not Russia or Brazil.
Amir Khalid
I have no idea if the DG of Health will hold his usual afternoon media briefing, since even he must take some time off for Eid. I follow the livestream and take the numbers as announced by him. If he does not, then I’ll just link to Malaysia’s Worldometer Covid-19 page.
cliosfanboy
@Amir Khalid: happy Eid Amir
Amir Khalid
On travel restrictions, this is what I think every country should do: no one in but permanent residents and repatriating citizens; no one out but tested, coronavirus-free foreign nationals repatriating to their home country. The only exceptions should be for medical professionals on Covid-19 related business.
OzarkHillbilly
Missouri hairstylist may have exposed 91 people to Covid-19, officials say
In other news, water is still wet, the sun still rises in the east, and the moon isn’t cheese.
Brachiator
We are not going to get this from the Trump administration. And most states and localities are easing up on quarantines and lockdowns. People are tired of staying in, even if they are reluctant to rush back to work and to social spaces.
That few people appear to get seriously ill from the virus is a mixed blessing. It encourages a false sense of security, and makes it easier for people to rationalize rushing back into “normalcy.”
So, questions might be
— what can we do to try to reduce the risk of infection in social spaces?
— what can we do to protect those most at risk from serious illness and death?
— what can we do to prevent hospitals from being overloaded with a surge in cases?
— and how can we best prepare for a possible winter outbreak of the virus?
I presume that there will not be any national testing, contact and control effort, and that there will not be a miracle vaccine developed and administered before the end of the year.
ETA:
Amir Khalid
@cliosfanboy:
Thanks. As the international reporting says, I’m just having a quiet day at home. At least, unlike Saudi Arabia, Egypt or Iraq, Malaysia is not under 24-hour curfew for the next few days.
OzarkHillbilly
Oh nononooooo, little donny told me the bestest, safestest, most superduperous vaccine ever is on the way. It will be here just in time for the election! In fact they will probably give it when you vote! But only if you vote in person in a red district with an all Republican ballot.
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly: Shot chaser:
FREEDUMB!!!
Amir Khalid
So, no daily briefing today. Malaysia is reporting 60 new cases; 53 from local infection including 44 foreign nationals, 7 imported infections. (That high figure for foreign nationals is likely related to new infection clusters at two detention centres for illegal immigrants.) Total 7,245 cases. 33 more patients recovered, total recovered 5,945 or 82.1% of all cases. Of 1,185 active cases, nine are in ICU and four of those are on ventilators. No new deaths, total remains at 115 deaths — we’re down to about one death every other day or so. Infection fatality rate 1.59%, case fatality rate 1.90%.
Robert Sneddon
@Brachiator: Germany, an example of a country doing the right thing promptly with fewer cases of COVID-19 than its neighbours, relaxed its lockdown a couple of weeks ago. A church congregation that attended services on the 10th of May under the new looser rules (2 metre social distancing indoor etc.) now has 40 registered cases of COVID-19.
Do the right thing, get few cases resulting in lots of pressure to reverse the actions that reduce the spread of this disease because it’s not spreading, loosen restrictions, the disease spreads. It’s a can’t win situation.
WereBear
I do not believe there are any genuine civil liberty concerns among this group. It’s wall-to-wall wingnuts.
gkoutnik
I sent this to my Senators and Congressperson:
When I was in college, during the Vietnam War, we went down to the Post Office, the only Federal building in our college town, and, on its steps, we read all the names of all the men and women who had died in the war up until then. It took all weekend, without stopping.
Where did we get the names? The Congressional Record. Some Senator or Representative had read them all into the record.
Time to read in names again. And when it’s done, I’ll be glad to stand in front of the White House and take my turn reading from the list.
ixnay
On a lighter note, the ixnay household took to calling it “the corvid” a while ago. Occasionally we call out crows or ravens.
Did not quite frost here last night. This after high 80s two days ago. (Yes, should be in gardening thread, but am on my kindle.)
terben
From the Australian Dept of Health:
‘
As at 3:00pm on 24 May 2020, a total of 7,109 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Australia, including 102 deaths and 6,506 have been reported as recovered from COVID-19.
Over the past week, there has been an average of 9 new cases reported each day. Of the newly reported cases, the majority have been from Victoria.
Of cases with a reported place of acquisition, 62.1% have recent international travel history, including over 1,300 cases associated with cruise ships.
To date, over 1,224,500 tests have been conducted nationally. Of those tests conducted 0.6% have been positive.’
This is an increase of 3 to the total of confirmed cases. Of the approx. 500 active cases, there are 33 patients in hospital, 5 in ICU.
On a personal note, I had a civilized breakfast inside my usual cafe this morning after the rules were relaxed to allow indoor dining. Two of my regular breakfast companions were there to share a meal with after many weeks. Their latest news was that their daughter, who now lives in Vermont, has had a baby recently. I can only imagine how fraught that might be in the midst of a pandemic. However, everything went well and all are safely home.
Steeplejack (phone)
Mel
@OzarkHillbilly: The fact that she acknowledges that she was symptomatic, and willfully chose to go on pulling her Typhoid Mary routine is the final slap on the face of reason and basic human decency.
It’s just incomprehensible.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Brachiator: I sing in a chorus, and we were still having rehearsals in early March for a big concert in April, but I was getting increasingly edgy about the risk and agonizing about withdrawing. I finally decided that I was no longer comfortable about rehearsal and was going to send the withdrawal email, when the governor (Wolf, PA) announced our lockdown and the director cancelled the concert.
It was only after that, that people in the chorus heard about and started circulating the story about the Washington chorus. It kind of hit home as you can imagine.
The thing that chills me about that one is how it spread over an entire choir. Most are arranged the way we are, by section. Yes, you’re close to your neighbors. But the chorus as a whole is spread out across an entire large room, the farthest section has got to be 50 feet away. And yet from one person in Skagit Valley somehow it reached 45 out of 60 people in that rehearsal hall.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@gkoutnik: For all their faults, sometimes the NYT hits the mark. After 9/11, they ran full obits on every single person who died in the attack, a few a day till they were done. Ordinary people who would ordinarily get maybe a one-line death notice in the Times, if that. It was a monumental effort and deeply moving.
Nelle
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I lived in Kansas then and had home delivery of the NYTimes. I felt a moral obligation to read each one of those obits.
Today’s Des Moines Register had over seven pages of obits and death notices. Numbers continue to climb but hey, we’re getting back to “normal.” My seemingly moderate Democratic neighbor who works at a hospital sounds like she is getting radicalized.
J R in WV
@Mel:
NO it isn’t. We have a name for it: MURDER!
J R in WV
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Skagit Valley — i have cousins in Skagit Valley. I hope they don’t sing in the choir. Really, I’m pretty sure they don’t, I would have heard by now if any of them did. But they could, is my point.
So scary, trying to stay safe.
RepubAnon
@J R in WV: I’m going with “desperate, and in denial.” Given the low wage job, coupled with lack of a social safety net, sick pay, etc., and one could see how the person could convince themselves that they just had a mild cold.
In the Republican cult, the new “bitter almond Kool-Aid (r) challenge” is increasingly popular – even though nobody seems to repeat it.
YY_Sima Qian
One snippet I saw reading the NYT article on the mixing antibody test counts with PCR test counts at state and national level: the number of antibody tests is only 5 – 10% of the number of PCR tests? That is incredibly low! And how many of those antibody tests are the rapid type with dubious utility? In China, virtually all COVID-19 testing in health care and quarantine settings involve a combination of PCR and antibody tests (blood drawn directly from the vein, l am not aware of the finger prick rapid tests in widespread use here). CT scan is standard for both screening and diagnoses.
The reason for the battery of testing is the still high false negative rate of the PCR tests, and some COVID-19 patients simply do not produce large enough amount of virus in the nasal cavity or throat area to be picked up by swab. Antibody tests and CT scans are important supplementary tools. Yes, patients will typically test positive for PCR earlier than antibody or show ground glass pattern on chest CT, but the exceptions are frequent enough that relying on a single PCR test is highly problematic.
The two recent confirmed cases exported from Wuhan to Shanghai had no outward symptoms at all, despite testing positive on PCR. The only reason they were deemed to be confirmed cases was signs of slight viral pneumonia on the CT scan. Reading the case reports in China in recent weeks, it appears 2 PCR tests are mandatory to determine infection and recovery, 3 PCR tests during the course of a 2 week quarantine.
If it is standard practice in most parts of the US to rely on a single PCR tests to determine if someone is infected, without supplementary tests, then I am concerned that a non-negligible percentage if the tested cases have been erroneously cleared. This is in addition to the tight testing criteria ignoring a lot of people with mild to moderate symptoms by design, and not capable of detecting asymptomatics/presymptomatics. These gaps in surveillance and screening may not be catastrophic when there is effective lock downs and strong social distancing, but will likely become apparent when restrictions are lifted.
Elizabelle
@OzarkHillbilly: That’s terrible.
The first friend of a friend who died of coronavirus was a hair stylist, from Florida, weeks ago. Very early on.
Ms. Vector may end up killing or greatly injuring people who are known to her.
YY_Sima Qian
The single domestic confirmed case reported by a China yesterday is still from the Jilin City outbreak, a close contact of a confirmed case reported on 5/22. Probably was tested when traced as a close contact on 5/22, then retested on 5/23, and diagnosed on the same day (most likely using CT scan).
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, I don’t even have to read that to know it’s the Super Cuts person here in Springfield. I’m not surprised, because there’s pent-up demand for haircuts. That they worked 4 days with symptoms, though, and went to the gym twice, makes me want to facepalm. I hope everyone there was following the mask rules. Probably 15% of the people I saw in WalMart yesterday were wearing masks. Down here lots of people think it’s over. If they’d follow the recommendations it might be! We’ve been pretty lucky so far, but these bastards are trying to change that. I’m still worried about the poultry plant in Monett. That’s less than an hour away from here.
Soprano2
Adding, our health director is good, and city officials are thankfully listening to him. He was really angry about this. He said we have testing here, if you have the symptoms go get tested! I asked my husband if he thought this virus might finally kill our “power through it if you’re sick” culture, and he said he doubts it.
I’ve resigned myself to no choir until there’s a vaccine or good treatment. It’s too dangerous, especially if you have a super spreader.
Brachiator
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
The choir in Washington broke into a smaller group during one session and mingled during a lunch break. They were just being social. Now we have to be more cautious.
I hope that you and everyone in your choir are okay and continue to stay safe.
Quiltingfool
@Soprano2: Lake of the Ozarks area – I saw a picture on Twitter! showing hordes of people in a “bar” pool at one of the local lake restaurants – not sure, but it looked like Blackwater Jacks, a very popular lake establishment. Frankly, I’m not surprised. It seems like tourists and people who have a lake home (2nd home) have decided Missouri has immunity. Now, those of us who live here are taking a much more wary view…the ones that are working (like my husband) are being as careful as they can, but the visitors are not. Have seen license plates from the surrounding states, as well as Florida, New York and Louisiana. Ain’t gonna be pretty.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
People do not like to be told what to do, no matter if it saves their lives or not. And this is not an american thing, it is a human thing. We still live in a world that survival of the fittest supposedly creates the proper survivors. We make movies about it, we write books about it.
I’d say we are on our own. Each of us. There really isn’t any loss of concept of what to do, just the desire from a large portion of the public to do it. Some societies are more amenable to the restrictions because they understand better, even if the understanding is limited.
So maybe the fittest do survive. Those that take reasonable precautions, those that risk exposure no more than absolutely necessary, wear masks, whatever else is reasonable to do. Those that adapt because they recognize that a virus doesn’t care what you think, or how much sun you get or how little you mix with strangers, or…….. Sure the risk is higher because far more people will become sick and die, but that’s when the risk falls because there aren’t the number of possible exposures. The world will be a different place for sure, possibly worse, maybe better.
It’s a large experiment in human stupidity and survival.
Ruckus
@Steeplejack (phone):
That’s nasty. And very, very on point.
WereBear
@Ruckus: They always saw “owning the libs” as something with zero consequences for them.
Kirk Spencer
@Ruckus: Problem, of course, is that while stupidity kills, it kills more than just the stupid.
trollhattan
@Quiltingfool:
Yeah, Kos posted this.
My inlaws bought a hunk-o-land on Bull Shoals Lake intending to build a retirement-vacation paradise there. That was in fall and then they had to winter there when the fifth-wheel got stuck in a frozen field, and after that decided maybe California weather was preferable. Also perhaps not being so close to the other inlaws.
It would have been years of, “Why don’t you come visit?” if they’d actually built there.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
True enough. However, most people all over the world were remarkably cooperative during the early phase of the lockdown. I heard someone say that they were surprised that no governors declared martial law or had to call out the National Guard to keep the peace.
The problem (and also good thing) is that hundreds of thousands of people did not drop dead an hour after catching the disease. Everyone is not equally at risk, and this is causing some people to devalue the threat entirely. And of course you have that idiot Trump, who does not understand the disease or even basic science encouraging people to ignore scientific advice and return things to normal. He gives those who don’t want to be told what to do an excuse to behave recklessly.
Some people just want to close their eyes, cross their fingers and hope for the best. Unfortunately, Trump is trying to make this national policy.
This is not what the idea means. Darwin wrote about a struggle for existence. Organisms survive in all kinds of ways. Fighting, hiding, becoming parasites. You get successful, or lucky, and you get to pass your genes along.
This is the other problem. People are being asked to save their neighbors, not just themselves. A 19 year old who could shake off the effect of the virus is being asked to avoid getting the virus so that she does not accidentally pass it on to someone with a heart condition who might die. Some people just don’t get it, or can’t imagine the chain of events that might lead to someone falling ill.
Very true. And some of us are determined to fail.
AnotherBruce
@Brachiator: I wonder if Governor Inslee extended the stay at home order because of this? It isn’t hard to follow the guidelines, but the consequences can be deadly if you don’t.
AnotherBruce
I see this was awhile ago. So probably not on the stay at home order, which ends 5/31.
lgerard
Good News Department
Heavy Metal drummer beats COVID-19, comes out of a coma with a new attitude
Bill Arnold
@Robert Sneddon:
Interesting. From various articles found with google, I have found not statement about whether all the congregants were wearing masks/face coverings or not. Does anyone know?
Bill Arnold
@Bill Arnold:
E.g. the Wall Street Journal article piece says:
But nothing about face coverings.
Ruckus
@WereBear:
Actually I think they saw it as a real positive for them.
Winning is everything, how and the cost is unimportant.
Ruckus
@Kirk Spencer:
Yes it does. But what is the reality of the current situation?
The stupid has been freed and encouraged. The stupid is supposed to be taken into account by the not stupid in charge. But in many sections of the country and in DC, those in charge are the stupid. They have no idea how to take the stupid into account as a negative.
Quiltingfool
@trollhattan: I went over to Kos and read the story and comments. Whoo, Missouri got dragged and rightfully so. I was amused by the comments referencing the Netflix show, Ozark. I’ve watched it and have been irritated by the Kentuckian accents of the actors who are portraying people who have lived in this region for generations. They don’t sound like that…rural folks sound “country” not “southern!” Also, didn’t really get the poppy field/heroin thing. Would have been more authentic showing run down trailers used as meth labs or a field or two of pot plants. My biggest fear as a soil scientist in the late 80’s (in this area) was stumbling on a pot field and getting killed by people or traps set up to keep people out. I was in places that were way off the beaten track. I remember being in one place where all of a sudden the hair stood up on the back of my neck, and I left pretty fast. I don’t think it was anything, just my overactive imagination, but I remember thinking that the place I was at would be a good place to bury someone you didn’t want found!
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Wasn’t defining what Darwin said, only that many people have distorted it and think that living by that distortion is acceptable. I think you may have assumed that I was doing the same. I wasn’t.
And absolutely people are affected differently but there is really only one way to fight this currently, cut down on the risk of exposure. Distance and protection. Same as not getting pregnant. Distance and protection. Chance is an extremely crappy way of avoiding either. Some do understand that it takes a long time for an effective vaccine development and production and that to avoid the higher risk groups from suffering they have to practice distance and protection, but that every living human and probably every living animal is a possible carrier.
This is going to take, IMHO, at least a year from now, quite possibly longer before the threat is contained, and even after containment, transmission/having the disease is possible, even if highly unlikely.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
Fair point. Of course, living by a distortion of reality is no way to live.
But it is not just that people are affected differently; we have a fairly good idea of the risks to the young, the healthy and the elderly. But people are discounting accurate information and Trump’s interference makes things worse. So governors may need to come up with new strategies to account for defiance and stupidity.
This is interesting. If 95 percent of pregnancies resulted in painless miscarriage, practically no one would use birth control. With the virus, the apparent fact that most younger people do not get sick is causing people to ignore the larger problem of letting the virus circulate through the population.
Right now, there is no way to predict when a vaccine might be available or when containment might occur. But it will become harder to deal with the pandemic if people don’t wise up and do better.
E.
How fitting we will hit 100,000 dead Americans on Memorial Day.
Mel
@J R in WV: True.
So far, I haven’t seen any indication that either of them will face any legal consequences. Just a lot of blathering from the local health department about how supposedly awesome Great Clips is for keeping basic appointment records.
Not so awesome at giving a shit about the health and lives of their staff, customers, or community members, apparently. Letting any symptomatic employee work and come in contact with others makes the employer as guilty as the employee.