covid politics

[Script]

Found the attached graphs in an article linked to above.

What are NJ and NY doing that LA is not ?

https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/Eb2ZppscQQSL0hMtiC1cxo6qHUo=/672x385/filters:format(png)/media/img/posts/2020/07/fourth_coviddeaths/original.png

 

[JohnRoberts]

OAN is poison. I've been watching it for over 5 years. They are as pro-trump as it gets. They have several one-hour specials about the "Seth Rich Conspiracy". They literally have propaganda garbage contradicting checkable facts.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/oan-trumps-new-favorite-channel-employs-kremlin-paid-journalist

POISON.

I can't watch because it is too favorable (seems unnatural). Even relatively politics neutral business news channels have become corrupted  with never-Trump bias.

Not surprising that competing world powers work to weaken us from the inside, it's what they do.

Good luck making sense of news reports. The WSJ still seems reasonably reliable (except  for obvious mistakes I've caught).

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

Found the attached graphs in an article linked to above.

What are NJ and NY doing that LA is not ?

https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/Eb2ZppscQQSL0hMtiC1cxo6qHUo=/672x385/filters:format(png)/media/img/posts/2020/07/fourth_coviddeaths/original.png

recovering already,,, trends look similar just displaced in time.  A little unexpected that results would be so similar in cases per million scale.

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

OK for today's local observations... pretty much 100% mask wearing at my Walmart for this week's shopping trip. Perhaps related to Walmart mandating mask use. 

MS governor mandated mask use for about a dozen counties (not my county tho).

Besides spit mask ads on TV for a dollah, Amazon finally has n95 masks for sale to consumers... still somewhat elevated price ($4), but not as usurious as scammers who sold them for as much as $20 ea. My one N95 mask was getting a little rough (dirty) even though I only use it for 20 minutes once a week during my food shopping.

I use a disposable dust mask for my daily post office visits.

I am still reading about shortages in COVID testing supplies hampering some testing activity. We will need even more testing to safely open the economy.

JR

 

[crazydoc]

New mandate to bypass the CDC in data reporting is a bit troubling.  Will there be transparency?

Hard to say what's really going on, but I have complete confidence that Potus Pants-on-Fire's HHS director certainly wouldn't manipulate data, not with an election coming up.  :

CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield told reporters on a conference call Wednesday that states were told to stop sending hospital information to the National Healthcare Safety Network site, the CDC’s system for gathering data, beginning Wednesday. Instead, all data will now be reported through HHS’ reporting portal, officials said, adding that the decision was made to streamline data reporting and to provide HHS officials with real-time data.
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/coronavirus/us-coronavirus-data-has-already-disappeared-after-trump-administration-shifted-control-from-cdc-to-hhs/2518374/

Here's the instructions from HHS, pages 9 and 10:
https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/covid-19-faqs-hospitals-hospital-laboratory-acute-care-facility-data-reporting.pdf

 

[crazydoc]

OK for today's local observations... pretty much 100% mask wearing at my Walmart for this week's shopping trip. Perhaps related to Walmart mandating mask use. 

Went for q2week shopping yesterday. Some improvement at Walmart with probably 8/10 wearing masks. We were told that starting Monday Walmart would mandate mask use for all stores in US. I don't see how they will enforce it, but I reckon they must have a plan - hire enforcers?

If enough people jump on board the mask train and start vocally social shaming to non-maskers, that would help, but probably lead to armed confrontations and shootings in this great free society of ours.

 

[Winston OBoogie]

Karma strikes another dumb f**k.

How about another one - game-show host Chuck Woolery who was re-tweeted the other day by Trump saying:

"The most outrageous lies are the ones about Covid 19. Everyone is lying. The CDC, Media, Democrats, our Doctors, not all but most, that we are told to trust. I think it’s all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. I’m sick of it."

But days later:

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/507663-chuck-woolery-deletes-twitter-account-after-announcing-his-son-has-coronavirus?fbclid=IwAR0WvPJtYjgHPLadc_mvQAA2mh3zLX7zvcIj0aXa884qqU5Shu8E35CHCo0

 

[Matador]

Hard to say what's really going on, but I have complete confidence that Potus Pants-on-Fire's HHS director certainly wouldn't manipulate data, not with an election coming up.  :

 

[crazydoc]

How about another one - game-show host Chuck Woolery who was re-tweeted the other day by Trump saying:

"The most outrageous lies are the ones about Covid 19. Everyone is lying. The CDC, Media, Democrats, our Doctors, not all but most, that we are told to trust. I think it’s all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. I’m sick of it."

But days later:

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/507663-chuck-woolery-deletes-twitter-account-after-announcing-his-son-has-coronavirus?fbclid=IwAR0WvPJtYjgHPLadc_mvQAA2mh3zLX7zvcIj0aXa884qqU5Shu8E35CHCo0

I guess there is a karmaman, like the sandman, who comes around at night and sprinkles karma over deserving folk. Maybe he's currently having trouble getting through the Secret Service, but I wish him luck in the near future.

 

[crazydoc]

another Sharpiegate!

 

[hodad]

One month ago, Mike Pence wrote in the WSJ:
"The media has tried to scare the American people every step of the way, and these grim predictions of a second wave are no different. The truth is, whatever the media says, our whole-of-America approach has been a success."

Sorry, Mikey.  Mission not accomplished.

 

[Matador]

Sorry, Mikey.  Mission not accomplished.

I guess he's still just watching a different movie?

 

[living sounds]

We were told that starting Monday Walmart would mandate mask use for all stores in US. I don't see how they will enforce it, but I reckon they must have a plan - hire enforcers?

Ask the shopper to put it on, if they don't ask them to leave, if they don't - call the cops on them.

Over here in Germany everybody is wearing a mask by government mandate for what feels like months now when shopping. I haven't seen someone without a mask in a supermarket yet.

 

[Winston OBoogie]

Over here in Germany everybody is wearing a mask by government mandate for what feels like months now when shopping. I haven't seen someone without a mask in a supermarket yet.

Germany as a whole has handled this a whole lot better than most from the beginning.
I've spent my time in this thread hammering the US response, but I don't have too many positive words I can say about my own country either.

We are supposed to start wearing masks while shopping from the 24th of this month.  The 24th?  Why not months ago?
I can't say how many folks are already wearing masks as I've left the house exactly 3 times since the beginning of March and only then under the cover of dark. 
But there are already idiots I've seen posting online in a local group who say they won't be wearing a mask come the 24th!!!
I'm fucking exhausted from the empathy and worry for the vulnerable out there. 

 

[iturnknobs]

...and if you didn't b*tch to your governmental leaders about the sign that reads No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service before Corona Virus... shut your f*cking mouth about wearing a mask in public. You had you chance to scream freedom and you didn't.

This doesn't even make sense....

People are free to agree with something or not regardless I think. Like the open the economy etc...

.  Implying that because people generally didn't have a problem with one thing means they shouldn't have a problem with another is goofy.

I'm not even certain it is government mandated to require shirts and shoes. I always thought it was a choice of the business owner's but I really don't know.

Not only does this make sense, but I'm guessing you are compliant with a seat belt law in your state that you can be fined for disobeying and it only protects you. Masks=Freedom. This is the new reality.

 

[Winston OBoogie]

I'm guessing you are compliant with a seat belt law in your state that you can be fined for disobeying and it only protects you. Masks=Freedom. This is the new reality.

Speed limits, smoking inside public places etc..    It's part of the Social Contract.  You give up some freedoms in return for protection of your principal rights and to maintain the social order.   

 

[crazydoc]

If enough people jump on board the mask train and start vocally social shaming to non-maskers, that would help, but probably lead to armed confrontations and shootings in this great free society of ours.

Wow, I didn't realize it's already been going on, multiple incidents. Google "gun not wearing mask".
Here's one from a week ago:

Arlo Kinsey was working behind the carryout counter at RJ’s Bob-Be-Que Shack in Mission last week when a middle-aged man dressed in a red Make America Great Again hat — and no mask — walked through the door.

“I asked him if he could wear a mask, since it’s what Gov. Kelly told us to do,” said Kinsey, 18..... The man said he had an exemption to the mask order: He then lifted up his shirt, revealing a gun in a holster on his hip.

“It was definitely a threat,” Kinsey said. “I was looking at the gun thinking he was going to shoot me.”

“My first thought was, I work in customer service and this is really what’s going to happen? All we’re asking is that you wear a mask for a couple of minutes. We could have taken your order outside if you didn’t want to. But you go into an air conditioned area without a mask on, and if I tell you to wear one, you’re going to shoot me? Wow. I make $8.50 an hour, plus tips — for this?”

Kinsey called for his boss, Bob Palmgren.....“(Kinsey) comes around and says this guy won’t put a mask on and has a gun, and I’m like holy sh*t. I run over there, and I’m like hey, what’s going on? And he shows me his Trump hat,” Palmgren said. “And I like Trump. Everybody’s got problems. But it doesn’t make a difference. You don’t have a mask on. And I’m like, your gun’s not going to kill coronavirus, now get the hell out of here.”

“I get people in here that don’t want to do it and think that we’re a small place so we won’t enforce it or something,” he said. “But if everybody gets sick, then I’m out of business. So I’ve got to enforce these rules.”

https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article244189047.html

 

[crazydoc]

I've spent my time in this thread hammering the US response, but I don't have too many positive words I can say about my own country either....  But there are already idiots I've seen posting online in a local group who say they won't be wearing a mask come the 24th!!!

I'm surprised. I thought all those people came to America hundreds of years ago.    ???

 

[crazydoc]

Glitch? :-\

https://floridahealthcovid19.gov/

Probably just that great new HHC covid reporting software.

 

[Winston OBoogie]

Glitch? :-\

Checking the site moments ago and, miraculously, total deaths to date have now gone down again (by almost half those in Scott's screen capture), as have the other numbers.  It doesn't inspire confidence in knowing what the actual numbers are. 
Especially on the back end of the scientist who created Florida's  online dashboard claiming last month she was fired for refusing to manipulate the data.    :-\

Edit:  Wait!  The numbers now are listed as exactly half what they were earlier today!