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CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk


Mrs Whiggins

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11 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

And what do you think is going to happen? Half of the state will ignore it, especially in the economic centers.

I work for a global company and we've been WFH since early March.  I somehow don't think the CEO gives a fuck what any of the red state governors are saying.

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2 hours ago, henrygandorf said:

let’s add that schools are the least likely to obey social-distancing guidelines if/when opened back up. we’re really gonna trust 6-14 year olds to stay 6 feet apart from each other after being cooped up for weeks?

No big deal.  Teachers are cheap and except for math and science teachers replaceable.  Really students might infect others in the community and grandparents but most of them wouldn’t die.  No big deal really.

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7 minutes ago, DigDug said:

Sweatergawd I'm gonna pop champagne the day that sorry scumbag bastard gets his fat ass shoved in a pine box.

I'm going to go with just water... maybe gatorade.

Want to be able to have something that will move through me quickly for when I piss on his grave.

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Just now, 4th&Five said:

I've said it before but they better bury his ass at sea.

Oh, he'll be under lots of liquids at any case... 

Problem is that, according to the Steele Dossier, this may actually be an affirmation for him.

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37 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

Okay, but what about me?  Am I just supposed to not see them once my work opens back up?  

This is the stupidity of trying to force a reopening.  People will not resume life activities until they feel safe, no matter what the government says.

Exactly. You don’t have to do anything. As for your situation, your work ideally will make allowances for your unique circumstances.

People will still do their own distancing as well.

39 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

And what do you think is going to happen? Half of the state will ignore it, especially in the economic centers.

That’s great.  A lot of things are not going to be the same. But a blanket order will probably be overdoing it once we’re past the peak. 

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4 minutes ago, GRHorn said:

Exactly. You don’t have to do anything. As for your situation, your work ideally will make allowances for your unique circumstances.

People will still do their own distancing as well.

That’s great.  A lot of things are not going to be the same. But a blanket order will probably be overdoing it once we’re past the peak. 

If contact with a high risk individual is considered a "unique circumstance" in the eyes of those planning the reopening, we are in deep shit.

Edited by Chuckie Finster
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Not sure if anyone posted this yet but Don's calls yesterday with bulge bracket bank execs regarding re-opening of the economy didn't exactly go as planned:

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly-coronavirus-special-edition/2020/04/15/closing-time-488927

 

Beyond the haphazard nature of the call, senior bankers are getting increasingly frustrated with Trump’s approach to the crisis. They say pressure tactics to reopen the economy as fast as possible make no sense if the virus isn’t fully under control and consumers and businesses don’t feel safe to resume anything close to normal activities.

“I really don’t understand how they are communicating on this,” one CEO told POLITICO on condition that neither they nor their firm be named for fear of angering the White House. “He’s got to stop talking about turning the economy back on and start talking about making people feel safe, things that are happening around testing and the health care system. That’s the only way you will really get the economy reopened over a period of time.”

Bankers are also saying similar things publicly on their earnings calls. Moynihan did it today, suggesting that stopping the virus and providing financial support in the meantime should both come before reopening. Dimon made similar remarks Tuesday. Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf said there remained a great deal of uncertainty about when it would be safe to fully reopen the economy.

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Did I miss a study that showed it wasn’t affected by seasonal patterns? I’m working off the assumption that it will behave in the same way as the other Coronaviruses. Of course it’s not an absolute. That’s also why I said it could be walked back if it proves to be wrong.


You know you can't study seasonality in three months, right?

The best glimpse is the map. Brazil has plenty of cases. Florida has plenty of cases. We've seen Ecuador. Singapore has having a flare up. It's been present in Australia.

It's skewed towards the northern hemisphere, but most of the world's population, economy, air travel routes, and countries with resources to test are entirely within the northern hemisphere. We don't definitively know its seasonality.

Hopefully it is seasonal, it may even be likely, but it's reckless to build a plan around the best case scenario. Fundamentally that's dumb as fuck, regardless of situation. And the impact of seasonality is likely to be muted given that this virus is significantly more contagious thann a cold/flu and we're still near zero in terms of immunity.
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17 minutes ago, 6th Street said:

Not sure if anyone posted this yet but Don's calls yesterday with bulge bracket bank execs regarding re-opening of the economy didn't exactly go as planned:

 

When people talk about how it would be good to have a "businessman" running the country, they usually don't appreciate how broad a term that is.  

A banker is a businessman.  A big part of being a businessman to them is to assess risks and protect their companies from risk. 

A developer is also a businessman.  A big part of being a businessman to them is to convince people that the risks are minimal and that everything will work out just fine.  

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I don’t understand. There’s a legit way to bridge between now and a vaccine. Diagnostic testing, antibody testing and contact tracing. This needs to be done on a massive fucking scale, and implemented first in regions on the other side of the curve. Necessarily this should be ran and financially supported by the federal government bc we all know the Oklahoma department of health doesn’t have the resources. 
 

Don’t cry on Twitter or from a podium in the Rose Garden. Make. It. Happen. It’s called leadership. Issuing guidelines and relying 100% on states while tweeting in ALL CAPS isn’t going to accomplish anything. Actually some weak red states like Florida may lift restrictions too early and a larger number of people will die. So that’s something 

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8 minutes ago, SquishMitten said:

OUAA. Catchy. How do you pronounce that? Oh...uh...AAAAAAAA!?! Seems about right

I was reading it more as "Owwww-uuuuh."  Kind of fitting for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party in this time of faces getting eaten, metaphorically speaking.

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1 minute ago, Pig Bellmont said:

I don’t understand. There’s a legit way to bridge between now and a vaccine. Diagnostic testing, antibody testing and contact tracing.

You see, they don't understand this.  They are morons.  Plain and simple.  We are led by morons.

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Quote
People protest Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's stay-at-home order on Wednesday in Lansing, Mich. (Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State Journal via AP)
Image without a caption
Opinion writer
April 16, 2020 at 12:07 p.m. CDT

The social distancing backlash is here.

Like many such eruptions of anger, it’s partly genuine and partly fed by political actors with their own preexisting agendas — in this case, mostly to rescue President Trump’s imperiled reelection campaign. And it will get ugly.

On Wednesday in Lansing, Mich., thousands of protesters came to the state capitol to demonstrate against the stay-at-home order issued by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D). Though Michigan now has the fourth-highest total of covid-19 cases of any state, with nearly 2,000 deaths, the protesters argued that Whitmer’s order is unnecessary and overly strict.

 

“It wasn’t really about the stay-at-home order at all,” Whitmer said later on MSNBC. “It was essentially a political rally.”

Indeed, the event was organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition. Though many protesters stayed in their cars, many others congregated on the sidewalks, making a point of not wearing masks. But some were wearing MAGA hats and carrying Trump signs, and Confederate flags appeared in the crowd (though I’m sure that was just about Michigan’s … um … heritage?). Similar though smaller protests have occurred in North Carolina and Ohio.

 

After the Lansing protest, Fox News swung into action, praising the protest on multiple programs. A representative of the MCC was interviewed on Tucker Carlson’s show Wednesday night, then came back for another interview on “Fox & Friends” Thursday morning.

The unmistakable message being communicated is that stay-at-home orders are a leftist plot, and conservatives should be rejecting them. It’s all over right-wing media:

 
  • Fox News host and occasional Trump adviser Jeanine Pirro praised the Michigan protesters: “God bless them, it’s going to happen all over the country.”
  • Pirro’s colleague Laura Ingraham tweeted a video of the protest, adding, “Time to get your freedom back.”
  • Rush Limbaugh accused Whitmer of being a pawn of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.
  • Twitter troll and acting director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell posted a picture of the Constitution with the caption “signed permission slip to leave your house.”

The natural comparison to make with these efforts is the tea party eruption, and there are some points of similarity, including conservative media fanning the flames of anger and the overblown rhetoric about liberty (though hopefully we can do without the Founding Father cosplay this time).

But the more useful comparison is to Donald Trump’s election itself.

Specifically, the way Trump’s campaign was built on the anger of working-class white voters, especially men. Like the protests against social distancing, it was based in legitimate grievances that were exploited by powerful forces on the right for their own political and economic ends. Those grievances

were then channeled into an act — voting for Trump — that was primarily expressive in nature.

Liberals are quick to attribute the white working class’s support for Trump to racism and xenophobia, and there’s no doubt they played an absolutely critical role. But it’s impossible to ignore the fact that when Trump told voters in Rust Belt towns that the “the system” was rigged against them, they had reasons to think he was right.

They’d watched for years as union representation declined, stable manufacturing jobs departed, health coverage grew more costly, and wages stagnated. The recovery after the Great Recession left many people no better off than before. Unemployment was low, but if the only job around is one at Walmart and opioids are ravaging your town, it’s hard to feel like everything is going great.

Trump spoke directly to that dissatisfaction — then layered on top of it a heaping portion of hate directed at immigrants, minorities and liberals. Never mind that “draining the swamp” turned out to be more tax cuts for the wealthy and making it easier for corporations to exploit workers and befoul already-struggling communities.

Many of his voters have chosen to ignore his actual agenda, so intoxicated are they with the idea of giving a giant middle finger to the forces they thought were holding them down.

The pain people are now feeling is even more acute. Twenty-two million Americans have filed for unemployment, wiping out a decade of job gains in weeks. In Michigan, roughly a quarter of the workforce is now unemployed, an absolutely stunning figure. None of us have seen anything like this in our lifetimes.

If you’re not sick and you don’t know anyone who has died, it’s natural to say, “Why are we doing this? Why can’t we go back to work?” Then along comes a bunch of Fox News hosts and conservative activists who tell you, “You’re absolutely right. You’re being forced to suffer needlessly. Those snooty liberals in their coastal cities who can comfortably work from home are just trying to screw you over.”

 

And once again, the solution being offered will only make things worse. Voting for Trump didn’t help people who live paycheck to paycheck, and defying stay-at-home orders will only give new life to the coronavirus, prolonging the pandemic and making it harder to recover economically.

But if Republicans can convince people that the only way to understand this crisis is through a partisan lens, they can tamp down difficult questions about Trump’s performance and minimize the political damage he’ll suffer, making it possible for him to win in the fall. That’s the goal, one they’re pursuing with all their usual cynicism — even as they fight against Democratic efforts to provide more support to those being hit hardest by the recession.

Could it work? Probably not, but it just might.


 


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/16/why-fox-news-republicans-are-promoting-social-distancing-backlash/

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1 minute ago, Biff Tannen said:

You see, they don't understand this.  They are morons.  Plain and simple.  We are led by morons.

Until someone can convince Trump that revealing the huge number of unconfirmed cases will work in his favor, we're not going to see him working toward the scale of testing that we need.  Only Trump matters.  If he could scale up industrial incinerators as a means to hide all of the additional deaths that would result from re-opening the entire economy in one fell swoop, I have no doubt that he'd try it.

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1 hour ago, RomaVicta said:

Here's the deal for me:

  • It seems strange to me that the success of social distancing and shelter in place leads some people to conclude that it must be ended.

You ever know anyone with mental illness that gets it under control with medication only to believe they are cured go off their meds and then be found naked slathered in peanut butter barking at the moon on a Tuesday morning?   Was that too specific? 

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16 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

I don’t understand. There’s a legit way to bridge between now and a vaccine. Diagnostic testing, antibody testing and contact tracing. This needs to be done on a massive fucking scale, and implemented first in regions on the other side of the curve. Necessarily this should be ran and financially supported by the federal government bc we all know the Oklahoma department of health doesn’t have the resources. 

yeah, but this sounds like work.  and work is hard.

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44 minutes ago, GRHorn said:

Exactly. You don’t have to do anything. As for your situation, your work ideally will make allowances for your unique circumstances.

People will still do their own distancing as well.

That’s great.  A lot of things are not going to be the same. But a blanket order will probably be overdoing it once we’re past the peak. 

I like how you're modifying this on the fly further revealing how little thought there was behind your first post. You still seem to have no grasp of the risks.

You at least respond to criticism and modify your plan. You'd be a better president than Trump. SAD!

screen-shot-2014-11-14-at-1-04-11-am.png

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1 hour ago, NWBuck said:

I'm going to go with just water... maybe gatorade.

Want to be able to have something that will move through me quickly for when I piss on his grave.

dont wash my shit off his grave and we are cool.  Feel free to shit though.  

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2 hours ago, GRHorn said:

Re: saving lives vs the economy. 
 

The numbers in a lot of states, including Texas, do not justify the widespread restrictions that are still in place imo. They were justified initially, but now with weather warming and it being clear that estimates overshot the mark pretty badly, it’s time to open things up. Whether it’s a process or not, it needs to happen. 
 

Open non essential businesses. Encourage continued mask wearing and social distancing in public. Probably keep schools closed. If outbreak flares up immediately then have to walk things back, but it’s unlikely. 
 

Over the summer, do as much work as possible on antibody testing, corona testing, ppe production. Investigate all therapeutic possibilities. 
 

Where the rubber will meet the road is when cases start popping back up in the fall. How will we handle shutting things back down if the numbers are high? Hopefully it will be more nuanced when we have more data. And honestly it will need to be. After how far off the big models have been, a lot of people will be questioning any warnings the next time around. And rightly so, if you think about it.
 

Gonna be a tougher sell. Hope we’re better prepared. 

I actually think these need to be done, but the caveat is in order to do this a SK level robust test/trace/forced quarantine program needs to be in place and effectively working. That is the only thing that can keep the small campfires all over the place from joining into a full blown forest fire. 

Problem is Trump and republicans have made their strategy to suppress testing and attempt to cover up the real data of how dangerous and damaging this virus can be. He thought he could lie and cover up like he always does but there's zero way to cover up a pandemic. Since he's failed us, and republicans have failed us by allowing him carte blanche to operate with impunity, we now have only two choices. 

1) open up prematurely and be forced into swift re-closure

2) keep closed for foreseeable future. 

The third option would be slowly open up in sections with corresponding implementation of test/trace/quarantine procedures but that's impossible as long as Trump and republicans continue to refuse to adequately set up such procedures. 

 

Edited by Wanker Bob
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1 hour ago, henrygandorf said:

guys, i think you're misinterpreting grhorn's post.

he's saying there were some high numbers projected in the initial estimate, and because of some aggressive measures like social-distancing and stay-at-home orders, we've fallen short of these projections.  but there's still time.  if we get out there, release the rocket-ship that is our pent-up economy, open up our schools, and get back to work, then we still have time to achieve these high goals set forth by our hero president and his fearless administration.

you guys sound like a bunch of whiners and quitters with your sheltered lives and low death totals.  that's not what america is all about.  the numbers are out there.  we have our goals.  there's no limit to what we can achieve, together.

 

 

I know you were shooting for a big gotcha post, but I’m afraid you fell flat. 
 

I suggested schools stay closed. 

I said maintain distancing in public as well as masks. 

People are going to alter their day to day lives in a number of ways that will help fight COViD. A number of people will continue to work from home.
 

So opening things up doesn’t even mean what it would have 6 weeks ago. 

Let me help y’all out. We’re moving from the phase where we do all can, sometimes to our detriment, to lessen the impact of the virus, to the part where we try to find a balance between virus containment and maintaining a functioning society/economy. And that’s fine and good. We’re about to pass the peak of the first wave. If we’re wrong and it immediately rages back, then we walk it back. This isn’t complex, nuanced thinking. 
 

The good news is you’re all welcome to stay home the same as you have been. 

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without large scale testing we won't know for 2 or 3 weeks whether it's raging back.  by then it's too late.  we're not going back to work without mass testing and trump doesn't want to do that so we're fucked until he is no longer calling the shots.

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I have @GRHorn blocked, but saw his post in @Wanker Bob's post...how exactly did the estimates overshoot "the mark pretty badly"?

H1N1 killed 17,000 Americans over a year and half... COVID-19 has killed over 34,000 in a month and a half.

Were you expecting all 100 - 200,000 to die immediately?

Edited by DixonHur
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I think the issue with testing is that it is an immense challenge that is hard to manage successfully. Which is why the Trump administration wants no part of it. Aside from testing showing their lies, it will almost be a certain failure since they care more about political outcomes than health and safety outcomes. It will also have a huge cost. Too many moving parts for these amateurs.

Really, their best bet to make themselves look like heroes is to call for shelter in place until mid to late May. Their narrative seems to be that the models were "so wrong", but they should use those numbers and shelter longer now and take credit for the resultant numbers as to how well they flattened the curve. Thing is, that they are so in the pocket of corporations hurting from lack of demand that they are listening to them to their own detriment. Opening early will be the death of this administration along with so many more Americans. 

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1 minute ago, burntorangebongos said:

I think the issue with testing is that it is an immense challenge that is hard to manage successfully. Which is why the Trump administration wants no part of it. Aside from testing showing their lies, it will almost be a certain failure since they care more about political outcomes than health and safety outcomes. It will also have a huge cost. Too many moving parts for these amateurs.

Really, their best bet to make themselves look like heroes is to call for shelter in place until mid to late May. Their narrative seems to be that the models were "so wrong", but they should use those numbers and shelter longer now and take credit for the resultant numbers as to how well they flattened the curve. Thing is, that they are so in the pocket of corporations hurting from lack of demand that they are listening to them to their own detriment. Opening early will be the death of this administration along with so many more Americans. 

Not to mention the Obama administration failed to create a test for COVID-19, 3+ years before it existed.

Thanks Obama!

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Well, it is cooler there. 
Exactly. And they don't have enough hair dryers either. If you just blast yourself in the face with warm air the virus can't grow. Once summer hits we will all be safe.

- idiots who reject all science and then are suddenly scientific experts spouting nonsense that will kill people.
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16 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

I actually believe he has no idea he's lying.  I think the "truth" for him is whatever pops into his head at any given point in time.  When he contradicts himself, he either doesn't recall any contradictory statements he might have made, or he just doesn't recognize the contradiction at all.  When he tells a lie, to him it's true.

I don't think he harbors a shred of the ability to discern right from wrong.

Yep.  When you get sober, you must become rigorously honest.  Addicts, of course, tell a lot of lies to cover their drinking/usage, but it becomes a flat-out habit. You discover that you tell white lies a lot.  Lies that have no reason to be told.   It's a little bit bizarre.

Lying begets lying and it's not just the tangled web.

Add in the narcissism and yes-men and he's completely lost his compass and bearings.

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