I find this oddly charming — and Murphy knows we could use some charm, after this week:
How do masks change human behavior?
An Italian scientist who has studied cow sociability decided to find out. https://t.co/aOBr2Ker4g
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 5, 2020
… To measure how people respond to masks, Marchiori created the world’s first “social distancing belt”: a $30 contraption that looked like a gray handbag but included a data card, rechargeable battery and sensors capable of measuring the proximity of oncoming objects, or, in this case, people.
He fastened the social distancing belt to his waist as he walked through the streets of Venice and nearby areas during the height of the pandemic. With the help of some friends also equipped with social distancing belts, Marchiori measured more than 12,000 encounters with other people on sidewalks and in stores, all with the goal of determining how they reacted to people wearing masks…
Unmasked — even during the height of a raging pandemic — the sensors deployed by Marchiori found that fellow pedestrians actually drew closer to him as he passed them on a sidewalk, typically within a foot.
But when he donned a mask, people drifted back — nearly twice as far as when he wasn’t wearing a mask — suggesting the mere sight of protective gear activated the underlying knowledge among fellow pedestrians that keeping their distance helped keep them safe.
In other words, masks appeared to make an extremely social species less social — and less vulnerable…
Basically, behind the cognizance curtain, we’re social primates who want to be in close proximity. Masks are a signal to that portion of our brain to ‘remind’ us that not every other human should be approached, so they’re a social-distancing tool as well as a droplet-containment system. (Insert Gary Larson cartoon here.)
.
More states have seen an increase in new virus cases over the past two weeks than have seen a decline: 18 have seen a rise in new cases over that period, 17 have seen the count of new cases stay largely the same, and 15 have seen decreases. https://t.co/aNMWEm8BOv
— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) June 6, 2020
The US had +25,393 new confirmed cases of coronavirus today, bringing the total to 1,965,708. The number of active cases, which was just beginning to decline, rose again slightly. pic.twitter.com/JOPnMSE2Vh
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) June 6, 2020
New cases of the novel coronavirus are rising faster than ever worldwide, at a rate of more than 100,000 a day over a seven-day average.https://t.co/HIfixMhStt pic.twitter.com/0W6csCo4nv
— COVID19 (@V2019N) June 5, 2020
At least to judge by test results, the US, unlike the Europeans, appears to have given up on sustained COVID-19 containment. Consistent with the numbers for mortality too. @GregDaco via @SoberLook pic.twitter.com/kQIHHdvWK9
— Adam Tooze (@adam_tooze) June 5, 2020
Magical thinking won't help us here: #SARSCoV2 isn't gone & most of us are still 100% susceptible to it. Magical thinking won't throw up a force field against #Covid19. Please be prudent. https://t.co/fOuB2yKaqO
— Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) June 5, 2020
For those of you were wondering how the White House would manage to f*ck up vaccine development in the United States…https://t.co/Y8572fh4Ri
— Carl T. Bergstrom (@CT_Bergstrom) June 5, 2020
Wondering where things stand with development of #Covid19 vaccines? @WHO's latest update shows 133 vaccines are in development, 10 already in human trials. Many of these won't make it thru the pipeline, but this is still rather amazing. https://t.co/Tcff0xs20T
— Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) June 5, 2020
Russia reports 8,855 new coronavirus cases, 197 deaths in last 24 hours https://t.co/3RBPBRxrFd pic.twitter.com/YlfN6ghdyi
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 6, 2020
After a stuttering start, France has fared better than most in the coronavirus pandemic so far, especially when compared with the U.S., Italy, Spain or Britain. But despite the country's relative success, President Emmanuel Macron remains unpopular.https://t.co/tutBesZ4wF
— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 6, 2020
UK official Covid-19 death toll passes 40,000. We were told a ‘good outcome’ would be 20,000 deaths https://t.co/DUCiUn5fDa
— Beth Rigby (@BethRigby) June 5, 2020
Coronavirus: India overtakes Italy in cases with lockdown set to ease https://t.co/Sohtfbi79N
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) June 6, 2020
South Korea reports 51 new cases of COVID-19, mostly in the densely populated capital region as authorities scramble to stem transmissions among low-income workers who can’t afford to stay home. https://t.co/BLtUhLnTiX
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 6, 2020
Indonesia reported on Saturday its biggest daily rise in #COVID19 infections, with 993 new cases, taking its total number to 30,514 https://t.co/g10qgZE62N
— COVID19 in Asia (@SEACoronavirus) June 6, 2020
Grandma Surin goes door-to-door on her motorcycle nearly every day visiting dozens of homes to do temperature checks pic.twitter.com/wQw8nXaIHC
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 6, 2020
China reports three new COVID-19 cases, two asymptomatic cases https://t.co/pF34lLfMsb pic.twitter.com/Xe5QMOTIU5
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 6, 2020
Bolsonaro threatens WHO exit as COVID-19 kills 'a Brazilian per minute' https://t.co/rQyu5GZoUL pic.twitter.com/aRyGT4rekZ
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 6, 2020
Distinguishing the rates and pattern of #COVID19 occurring in the general population from those in long-term care facilities is both feasible and critical to control of infection in these high-risk settings https://t.co/0SWpEUacwR #Coronavirus
— JAMA (@JAMA_current) June 5, 2020
Robotics to the rescue: Scientists in Denmark have invented a robot that can perform #COVID19 tests without exposing healthcare workers to possible infection https://t.co/NpatTCsPQJ
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) June 6, 2020
After The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints brought back thousands of missionaries during the pandemic, many are now using smartphones, video calls and social media to help recruit new members. https://t.co/68VMFoqiuv
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 5, 2020
How not to medical: @CDCgov survey finds some people are using bleach & cleaning products in unhealthy ways because of #Corvid19 concerns.
People: Do not gargle with diluted bleach. https://t.co/S3d2xRLLSv— Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) June 5, 2020
Abbey Road Studios reopens with social distancing measures https://t.co/Y6CewDV9T8 pic.twitter.com/neJ1L2ILsU
— Reuters (@Reuters) June 6, 2020
NotMax
What’s this “we,” kemo sabe?
/a proud exception
;)
Geminid
The Grandma Surin video cheered me up.
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s daily numbers. 37 new cases: local infection 29, including 19 non-Malaysians, and eight imported cases. Total 8,304 cases. DG of Health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah notes that an anticipated post-Eid spike in new infections has not happened, so the Government will continue allowing more sectors to reopen subject to the relevant standard operating procedure. The Senior Minister for National Security announced today that open markets, night markets, and hairdressers will be allowed to reopen on these terms.
25 more patients recovered, total 6,635 recovered or 79.9% of all cases. Of 1,552 active cases, five are in ICU and none is on a ventilator. One new death, total 117. Infection fatality rate 1.41%, case fatality rate 1.73%.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Trump went to Main and demanded the state reopen, because he’s in such a position of power so of course.
Baud
The mask experiment explains why advertising is of such importance to well-known and even monopolistic businesses. People need to be reminded more than they need to be persuaded.
NotMax
@Enhanced Voting Techniques
And while there, in so many words called the governor a doody-head.
Baud
@NotMax:
Mark of pride for the governor.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
or a mayor, or a dogcatcher…
WereBear
@NotMax: Likewise, the “social primate thing” is easy for me when it comes to unwanted, unavoidable contacts.
The dark side of that whole baboon troupe matrix is how people sign over their brains to their Dark Lords, as we see with the Trump Cult.
gkoutnik
My Trupista sister-in-law said yesterday that doctors are offering patients who have respiratory illness but not COVID $1,000 to affirm in writing that they have the virus – so the hospital will get a $13,000 bonus from the Feds for treating a COVID patient. Or some such BS. The bottom line was that infection rates have been inflated by this process, and so the virus is much less an issue than we think it is.
Typical. I found a good explainer for anyone who encounters this. Seems that Laura Ingraham and Facebook were among the usual suspects.
Can’t make the link thingy work. Here’s the link:
https://www.statesman.com/news/20200422/fact-check-do-hospitals-get-paid-more-to-list-patients-as-having-coronavirus
terben
From the Australian Dept of Health:
‘As at 3:00pm on 6 June 2020, a total of 7,255 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Australia, including 102 deaths and 6,693 have been reported as recovered from COVID-19.
Australia had 4 new cases today, 2 of them ‘historic’ ie from antibody testing. Zero cases in Victoria today, for the first time since April 27. There are 21 patients in hospital, 4 in ICU, 2 ventilated.
opiejeanne
@Baud: I’ve noticed something different, probably because in this country wearing a mask and social distancing have become a political issue on the right. In an environment where 90% of people were masked, there is always that umasked person who won’t distance themselves, who walks down the middle of a store aisle so you can’t stay six feet away, or really even three feet away.
They act like assholes. They are undoubtedly Trump voters.
NotMax
@gkoutnik
Tell her you’ll pay her $1500 to hand over the check for a thou she gets from a legitimate hospital.
:)
Baud
@gkoutnik:
Not that I care to debate Trumpian logic, but a lower infection means that the virus has a higher fatality rate than we think.
opiejeanne
@gkoutnik: Good lord, how do people like this manage to dress and feed themselves?
Baud
@opiejeanne:
Trump voters aren’t the only group not wearing masks, but they’re the only group who would be assholes about it.
opiejeanne
@Baud: There is that. There is also the probability that not only have there been more cases than confirmed, there have almost certainly been more deaths that were not seen as related, or in Florida’s case, not listed as related.
WereBear
That hasn’t become politicized to cover up Republican malfeasance.
Yet.
opiejeanne
@opiejeanne: That’s been my thought. The large group of kids that walks past our house in nice weather accompanied by three adult women and not a mask among them are probably anti-vaxxers and think that never giving their children French fries will protect them from illness. They wave at us while we work in our garden. They are not aggressive assholes, they don’t come into our yard and deliberately breathe on us.
Today King County Washington opened up a bit by allowing barbers and hair salons to resume limited business, and restaurants to open their indoor seating at every other table. Patrons have to use the hand sanitizer at the entrance before they can be seated. I am going to continue to stay home and fight the slugs and bunnies for every last carrot and spinach plant, because the infection rate has risen here in the last two weeks, nearly double what it was. It’s too early; we haven’t met the criteria in this county for stage 1 reopening yet. And I’m wide awake at 4am, waiting for the promised thunderstorm to start. Last Saturday we had a big one that rolled us and the cats out of bed at about 6. That was entertaining.
mrmoshpotato
Close closeness! Oh, so close, so close! Ahhhh sixth grade vocabulary as part of English class! :)
P.S. Department of Redundancy Department
gkoutnik
@opiejeanne:
Right – but only if we’re counting deaths – and everything else – accurately.
rikyrah
@opiejeanne:
Spray them with pepper spray.
Social distancing, muthaphucka ?
opiejeanne
@rikyrah: I have growled at a couple. Then I go home and quiver with rage, and take it out on the slugs in the garden.
mrmoshpotato
Oh! Oh! By tens of millions of selfish shitstains using their votes to tell an extremely highly qualified woman to go fuck herself when she was running against a Soviet shitpile mobster manbaby con artist?
mrmoshpotato
Kill it with mummified chicken fajitas?
Yutsano
@mrmoshpotato: This is Great Britain. They can barely handle a spicy tikka masala. You want to wipe out a country?
@opiejeanne: I am very very worried about the loosening of restrictions here. I am afraid of the second bounce, especially on the east side. There’s going to be more spreading and Inslee will have to lock us down again. It won’t be an opening for Tim Eyman (can that stupid flea just go away?) but it’s not going to go over well.
mrmoshpotato
@opiejeanne: Louise has some advice for those kids. They’ll know what it means.
Go to 2:05
ETA – Wheeeeee big thunderstorm!
mrmoshpotato
@Yutsano: Here you go.
Matt McIrvin
In the US we seem to have collectively decided that a confirmed rate of around 65 new COVID cases per 1,000,000 per day is what we can live with. It’s the national average and if you look at the state charts, they’re all starting to cluster around that value. States with more cases than that are coming down, states with fewer are going up or stagnating. Since they’re all testing at different rates, the real infection rate might not actually be clustering–the death rates are all over the place.
There’s some overshoot–New York is actually doing better than that but given events there, I don’t imagine that will last long. Massachusetts is getting close to that level and I see people just itching to declare victory and loosen restrictions.
At that rate, you get about 0.2% of the population getting confirmed COVID every month, so a few percent a year (which may well be an undercount by a factor of several). The steady-state death rate, who knows. Probably you get a new wave in the fall/winter, though, which brings all that up.
debbie
@opiejeanne:
I have asthma, so I am prone to coughing. I’ve found a slight cough, even with my mask on, gets ’em moving pretty quickly.
WereBear
One cheering element is how the protests take place outside, which I understand will drop the infection rate compared to inside. Even then, it’s the congregating inside, like moving from the beach to bars or bathrooms or other venues, that does the most spreading.
Matt McIrvin
…The George Floyd protests and the horrible behavior of cops, especially in enforcing curfews, adds a new dimension to this: it means we can’t actually lock down like the countries that have really smashed the curve, because not only will people chafe against that, the police will use the restrictions as an excuse to abuse people in ways that will actually spread the virus (mass arrests and kettling, tear gas, etc.)
I mean, we’re seeing millions of people get so horrified by these goons that they’re advocating abolishing police, which probably means they’re not into putting some teeth in COVID shutdown orders either. And with some good reason.
Yutsano
@mrmoshpotato: …
Jeebus. No wonder my mom hated British food while she was there. I think when they go back I’ll suggest she does the French thing and get a hunk of bread, some meat and cheese, and picnic somewhere with my dad.
Matt McIrvin
@WereBear: I keep thinking about my friend who points out that a lot of places were loosening social distancing before the protests, so we could probably expect a rise in new cases in any event, but it’s going to be blamed on the protests.
Matt McIrvin
@Matt McIrvin: Of course, if the pattern I described above is true, if there’s some kind of social feedback that depends on the confirmed COVID rate, that means that in the steady state the more people get tested, the less real COVID there will be. The worst states will be the places where there’s the least knowledge of the actual rate.
Snarki, child of Loki
“Russia reports 8,855 new coronavirus cases, 197 deaths in last 24 hours”
How many of those are from the “fall from a hospital window” symptom, I wonder?
Gvg
I think the reason the US has given up is that we know there will be no effective action until Trump and th MCConnel GOP is gone, and we need to earn money to live. Things may change after Biden is inaugurated, but of course he will have a bigger job at that point. Winter and everyone stuck indoors is going to be bad I think, especially because Trump will already know he lost.
Trump is not smart but mostly he just doesn’t know how anything works except sort of advertising. He doesn’t even understand that ads need some reality behind them. Moron. Stupid gullible republican voters.
mrmoshpotato
@Yutsano: Can’t go wrong with a good loaf of bread and quality meats and cheeses.
Geoduck
The relevant Far Side cartoon, for anyone who doesn’t know, is the classic “How Nature Says Do Not Touch”. Mr. Larson doesn’t like the strips being posted anywhere but the official FS side, but it’s still easy enough to find.