covid politics

[JohnRoberts]

It's pretty clear to me that vaccines transparently vetted by the medical establishment will be a reasonable choice, and I will get one. What the current POTUS says (whether he keeps his job or gets fired) has absolutely no bearing on vaccination. He is not only an ignoramus, but a narcissistic prevaricator, and his opinion on anything belongs in the trash bin.

Not sure if this is politics or science, but Brazil is having a government leadership scrum over importing 46M doses of COVID vaccine from China. Brazil's president rejected it, but the country's health regulators approved the import.

Interesting times..

JR

 

[rob_gould]

Good piece from Monbiot about corrupt spending by the UK's Conservative government during the Covid-19 crisis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4NNb0fmKR4

His language is emotionally charged at times, but his fundamental points are well made.

 

[iturnknobs]

...got a neighbor...Staunchly republican, diabetic, living with a pacemaker and not observing guidelines. One would think this guy might stay home, but... ‘Murica. Real life Darwin Awards applicant. Potential Fox News casualty. “Bravely Republican” might be a nice epitaph, huh? Nursing home in my town with 66 cases. Open up the country... my grandparents are already dead.

https://www.sltrib.com/news/2020/10/25/with-coronavirus-cases/

Utah hospitals are projected to start sending the elderly home to die while the young are prioritized in over-flowing hospitals. Republicans, ask and you shall receive. It's just a shame that others have to die because of your stupidity and selfishness. SHAME ON the USa.

 

[iturnknobs]

https://www.essence.com/health-and-wellness/mississippi-maskless-white-people-covid-19/

Karma or science? Republican.

 

[JohnRoberts]

https://www.essence.com/health-and-wellness/mississippi-maskless-white-people-covid-19/

Karma or science? Republican.

typical partisan BS...  I guess I need to apologize again?  : : :

The only person I saw at walmart shopping last week not wearing a mask was a younger black man. 

I wasn't wearing my mask today while woking out in my yard, but I wore my mask and gloves to the Post office this morning.

JR

 

[L´Andratté]

(...)while woking out in my yard, but (...)

You´re "woke" nowadays?

 

[JohnRoberts]

You´re "woke" nowadays?

I was woke before it was a word... but that was a Freudian slip.... 8)

[update- I am confident that I am considered the opposite of woke here, because many here have told me how they feel. I was young once too, just not recently. /update]

JR

PS;  I would have accomplished more woke out in my yard today but my 1.3mm chainsaw blade doesn't fit into my 1.1mm chainsaw bar... 

 

[iturnknobs]

typical partisan BS...  I guess I need to apologize again?  : : :

I do not and cannot understand how facts are partisan. It is science and fact that more white people are getting sick in Mississippi because they are following the lead of a clown, politics aside... unless the director of the Mississippi Health Department is a member of the deep state.

The only person I saw at walmart shopping last week not wearing a mask was a younger black man. 

Tell me more. I can't wait to hear what you were implying.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I do not and cannot understand how facts are partisan. It is science and fact that more white people are getting sick in Mississippi because they are following the lead of a clown, politics aside... unless the director of the Mississippi Health Department is a member of the deep state.

Perhaps...Sounds consistent with CNN's world view.  I read about it being President Trump's fault and that wearing a mask is somehow a political expression.  (If so how come they hand out masks to everyone at his rallies?)

Tell me more. I can't wait to hear what you were implying.

If anything I was making a factual observations, admittedly anecdotal. I only mentioned it because it was contrary to the thesis you have posted. I live across the street from my post office and observe a small fraction of people not wearing masks there. The majority not wearing masks there is consistent with my local population distribution, and not racial. Caveat clearly unscientific...

Only one week away from a vote, I am suspicious of all "news" stories painting a partisan agenda.

=======

Not to change the subject but I just read an interview with two co-authors of the "Great Barrington Declaration". They seem eminently sensible.

To paraphrase there will be significant negative unintended consequences from economic shutdowns that disproportionately affect poor blue collar workers. Also when normal public health practice is suspended or delayed it will lead to previously suppressed infectious diseases returning, more suicides, drug overdoses, etc.

The blowhard in chief addresses this as "the cure shouldn't be worse than the disease". While media tries to blame him for every single covid death. It is the nature of political discussion to simplify topics to binary choices, the consequences from ignoring everything else can have a longer tail impact on public health. Of course we will have to wait until much later to accurately gauge what happened.

I hope after the vote next week, we can have sensible discussions again (always the optimist).

JR

 

[Winston OBoogie]

Good piece from Monbiot about corrupt spending by the UK's Conservative government during the Covid-19 crisis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4NNb0fmKR4

His language is emotionally charged at times, but his fundamental points are well made.

I always watch anything George Monbiot reports on for DDN. 

It used to be that there was a veneer that somewhat obscured corruption or cronyism in the UK, but what has happened recently seems in plain sight to me.

The biggest scandal, which Mr Monbiot talks about in the clip, is the contract to SERCO for £12 billion to produce a track & tracing system for the spread of the virus.  A system which has utterly failed.

Besides Serco's links to government ministers, what isn't mentioned in the clip is that the UK were offered, for free, a system developed in Ireland which did work.  I believe the development cost of it was £775K so Dog knows why Serco's price was £12 billion?
Anyway Boris Johnson's government declined the free offer in favour of plundering the public purse for their self interest.

I am at a loss as to why the general public here is not more outraged and marching upon Westminster to demand a refund.   

 

[hodad]

Perhaps...Sounds consistent with CNN's world view.  I read about it being President Trump's fault and that wearing a mask is somehow a political expression.  (If so how come they hand out masks to everyone at his rallies?

This of course ignores the statements of various Trump admin officials that this is a "free country" and wearing masks "is a choice." 

Your example of Wal-mart is actually apt.  Somehow Wal-Mart, by mandating mask wearing, has gotten near-100% compliance (I have seen this in rural areas as well.)  Are you telling me that Trump could not do the same at his rallies?  Are you telling me he could not at least have encouraged mask wearing 4-6 months ago? Are you telling me that it was just coincidental that all the state and local politicians who decried mask wearing were Republican? 

It is obvious that the act of not wearing a mask has been politicized by the right, and especially by Trump. 

This of course does not mean that all who do not wear masks are conservative or politically motivated. Nonetheless, your pooh-poohing of the political nature of the anti-mask movement is ludicrous.  Are you trying to convince us or convince yourself by being so duplicitous? 

 

[Winston OBoogie]

"... Are you trying to convince us or convince yourself... ?"

I  noted the slight hedging of bets in his prefacing with "Perhaps" so, probably the later of the two. 
I hope so.

 

[crazydoc]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/27/politics/white-house-ending-covid-19-pandemic-accomplishment-record-cases-spike/index.html

Good news, folks. Covid is over.

Yup, we've got that horse back in the barn.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, said on CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Monday that the US was at a tipping point, where aggressive action could stem the worst of the pandemic.

"But we're not going to do that and I understand why. There's a lot of fatigue set in and a lot of policy resistance to taking strong action ahead of, you know, the spread," he said.
"I think we're right now at the cusp of what's going to be exponential spread in parts of the country."

At 69,967 new cases per day, the 7-day average of new cases is at the highest levels since the pandemic began, bringing the national death toll to 226,524, according to data from Johns Hopkins.

If the current trend continues, the US could see 100,000 new cases per day, Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of Brown University School of Public Health, said Tuesday.
Like Gottlieb, Jha said that could be avoided, but "there's just not enough policy impetus to act as we need to, and I'm worried we're going to hit 100,000 in a day at some point in the coming weeks," Jha said.

The policy: "We’re rounding the corner. It’s going away."

 

[hodad]

[i}

At 69,967 new cases per day[/i]

Even without the almost inevitable uptick, that's a half million new cases every week.  Here in Georgia we had been maintaining relatively low infection rates, but that's coming quickly to an end. 
Another sobering thought:  if the nation as a whole were seeing infection rates like the Dakotas, we'd have over 300,000 new cases per day. 

 

[JohnRoberts]

Y'all continue arguing among yourselves, you don't need my help.  :
===
Today my dentist's office called to reschedule my next teeth cleaning appointment. Apparently they are making adjustments for one less dental assistant. I suspect I'll get the rest of that story later. The appointment is actually a few days earlier but at a less convenient time. 

They were using protective masks, gloves, and full face shields before COVID so I expect all will be safe.

JR

 

[crazydoc]

I went to the dentist a few weeks ago for routine maintenance - it had been postponed from April due to pandemic. Dentist, hygienists and techs were wearing masks, but not the office staff. My one remaining wisdom tooth had a cavity, so I elected to have it pulled (I'll be dumb as snot now.) Had to see an oral surgeon (I guess the dentist doesn't pull those teeth way in the back) for this - had it done 2 days ago, again back staff with masks and office staff/receptionists without.

I guess SARS-CoV-2 doesn't hang out in the front.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I went to the dentist a few weeks ago for routine maintenance - it had been postponed from April due to pandemic. Dentist, hygienists and techs were wearing masks, but not the office staff. My one remaining wisdom tooth had a cavity, so I elected to have it pulled (I'll be dumb as snot now.) Had to see an oral surgeon (I guess the dentist doesn't pull those teeth way in the back) for this - had it done 2 days ago, again back staff with masks and office staff/receptionists without.

I guess SARS-CoV-2 doesn't hang out in the front.

Taking a wild guess the the established use of masks and face shields for dentists is typically about bacteria and mouth microbes, not covid... The more professional employees working on open mouths are probably better educated/informed than front of shop personnel.

I'll pay attention to mask behavior but my cleaning appointment is over a week away. 

JR

PS: I had my wisdom teeth pulled last century... I didn't really notice an impact on cognition, but how would I?  :

 

[crazydoc]

The nutjob doesn't fall far from the tree - it is what it is.

In an interview on Fox News' “The Ingraham Angle," the president's son said that medical experts who have been talking about a surge in cases are "truly morons."

“I went through the CDC data because I kept hearing about new infections, but I was like, 'Well, why aren't they talking about deaths?'" Trump Jr. said, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Oh, oh, because the number is almost nothing. Because we've gotten control of this thing, we understand how it works. They have the therapeutics to be able to deal with this."

"It's gone to almost nothing," he repeated, adding that the U.S. is "outperforming Europe in a positive way."

 

[Winston OBoogie]

I opted to pull a painful tooth myself during the UK national lockdown earlier this year.
My usual dentist couldn't get me in within a timeframe that seemed manageable so, enough whiskey to dull any big pain, but not too much that my wits were completely gone and, with 30 minutes of work I got that sucker out. 

It's possible that since I already have no wisdom teeth, my diminished cognitive skills allowed me to do this bit of home dentistry.

 

[ruffrecords]

So Germany and France are going in to lockdown "to save Christmas" and it looks like the UK might follow suit some time next week. I think this is madness and almost certain political suicide. The science presented by the governments own scientific advises is diametrically opposed to that presented by the Barrington Declaration (whose signatories have been vilified in social media and branded akin to climate change deniers).

Shielding the vulnerable and letting the majority of the population get back to work seems a much more sensible approach to me.

Cheers

Ian