Stay Safe Everyone!

[Mister Tee]

That friend I mentioned picking up a prescription for last week is now in the hospital on a ventilator. I guess everyone knows about the scary fatality rate associated with ventilators. Just have to hope he's one of the fortunate few who recover. This would be my first "but I just talked to him on the street a few weeks ago" connection to this crisis, which otherwise exists mostly as abstract numbers.

And those death numbers are, as I guessed last week, going considerably higher than expected. Even the IMHE has backed off their model some, as their projected "final" (August) number will be here in 48 hours or so. I found this Twitter account, of a guy from MIT, who has dissented from IMHE for some time.

https://twitter.com/youyanggu

He sees a roughly 75% chance the August total is in the 125,000 range -- possibly worse if this insane "we're fine, let's reopen" movement catches on. The saving grace is, many of the citizens of those states (SC, FL, GA) are smarter than their Trump-hugging governors, and will stay home regardless of official policy. Still, the attempt to goose the economy at the expense of health will end up damaging both.

As awful as Trump has been for three-plus years, we'd been relatively lucky that his long-term damage to the country was more psychological than empirical. But our luck ran out in year four.

[Sabin]

I started to feel slightly relieved this past week, like perhaps we were going to get through it. And then i read this.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.co ... index.html

Dr. Thomas Oxley, a neurosurgeon at Mount Sinai Health System in New York, and colleagues gave details of five people they treated. All were under the age of 50, and all had either mild symptoms of Covid-19 infection or no symptoms at all.

"The virus seems to be causing increased clotting in the large arteries, leading to severe stroke," Oxley told CNN.

"Our report shows a seven-fold increase in incidence of sudden stroke in young patients during the past two weeks. Most of these patients have no past medical history and were at home with either mild symptoms (or in two cases, no symptoms) of Covid," he added.

Very few things scarier to me than a pandemic that causes strokes in young people.

[OscarGuy]

Unfortunately, that might not be enough considering I still see Bernie supporters bitching about Biden's mental state.

[Sonic Youth]

Those who are dumb enough to believe Trump are his most ardent supporters. At least them dying from ingesting bleach will keep them from killing people with the virus.

And they might not die. They could just get very sick and to the hospital where resources are stretched enough already.

I'd have thought that - in a normal universe - if accidentally declaring all of Europe, including goods and cargo, forbidden from entering the U.S. wasn't enough to invoke the 25th amendment, this would be. But that would be viewing things through a 2016 perspective. In 2020, we've become far more flexible. That said, I know a few Trumpians, and between things like his Easter declaration, the Capt. Crozier scandal and now this, the bloom is really starting to come off.

[OscarGuy]

Those who are dumb enough to believe Trump are his most ardent supporters. At least them dying from ingesting bleach will keep them from killing people with the virus.

[Big Magilla]

Randy Rainbow's A Spoonful of Clorox song parody:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPDPzbLFeP4

[Big Magilla]

And yet over a hundred people called Maryland's hotline inquiring about how to do it.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11478422/ ... ure-virus/

[mlrg]

How much of a dumb fuck you need to be to inject or ingest disinfectant into your body. This is in the self called most developed country in the world

[Big Magilla]

Big Pharma tripled the cost of an anti-diarrhea AIDS drug that may help treat COVID-19 patients.

Kind of ads fuel to the fire as to why Trump and his cronies are pushing the questionable malaria drug they have an interest in, doesn't it?

https://www.axios.com/pharma-jaguar-hea ... 58e3b.html

[Big Magilla]

We are really in the Twilight Zone now, aren't we?

Every time I open my door I think of Gladys Cooper as the frightened old lady who invites Robert Redford as a wounded cop into her home even though she fears he may be the Angel of Death in the 1962 episode "Nothing in the Dark":

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734603/reference

This N.Y. Times article reminds me of the one or maybe more episodes set in an empty department store:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/busi ... e=Homepage

[OscarGuy]

Politicians are worried that they are going to be laid off by the corporations who pay them, so they want to bolster the economy damned be the costs. Now, if all the people whining about Democrats and Republicans in this country are the same, would recognize that it's consistently been the Dems (even in deep red states) who have erred on the side of caution and stop bitching about who the standard bearer is and realize that it isn't really two sides of the same coin, but two entirely different coins, maybe we could move forward.

[Precious Doll]

A few days ago the WHO released a statement that included the six conditions that countries must meet before lifting lockdowns. They are:

1. Disease transmission is under control

2. Health systems are able to "detect, test, isolate and treat every case and trace every contact"

3. Hot spot risks are minimized in vulnerable places, such as nursing homes

4. Schools, workplaces and other essential places have established preventive measures

5. The risk of importing new cases "can be managed"

6. Communities are fully educated, engaged and empowered to live under a new normal

I'm personally horrified that some countries have already or are about to lift lockdowns when they are clearly not meeting the above.

Whilst the WHO lost an awful lot of credibility in relation to their early handling of the pandemic (Tedros will have to got but now isn't the time) they have since formally declaring a pandemic have actually provided sound, strongly and sensible advice. However, very few countries seem to be paying much attention to them.

[Big Magilla]

It came upon us in waves.

In January, we hoped that it could be contained in China.

By early February, it seemed inevitable that it would spread to the rest of the world.

By mid-February, events scheduled for March and April in the U.S. began to be postponed or canceled altogether.

By the end of February, a shutdown seemed imminent. At this point , a 2-4 week shutdown seemed very optimistic to me, even though I had no idea how bad it would get. I was thinking it would last through April.

By mid-March, I was thinking this could last until Memorial Day (May 25th this year).

By early April I was thinking if things don't ease up dramatically by Memorial Day, it could be extended to the 4th of July or beyond.

Now I'm thinking if people are stupid enough to go to tattoo parlors and nail salons and other petri dishes in Georgia and wherever else they're reopened now, this is going to get worse instead of better and by the time it sinks in, re-closures could last through Labor Day (September 7th this year). If there is no let-up by then, closures could last until November or beyond.

We will get over this. Things will reopen to a new normal. What that looks like, nobody knows, but it will happen gradually if we're smart.

[Sonic Youth]

Anyone who thought a pandemic caused by a virus without a cure or vaccine could be stopped in 2 to 4 weeks, especially when they know what's going on in other parts of the world, clearly isn't very smart, but how can you expect deep thinking from a Trump voter?

I believe that would be most people in general, Magilla, including school systems around the country who at first scheduled school closures to last only 2-4 weeks. I don't think the intricacies of killer viruses is common knowledge. My daughter's school was first shut down with the intention of keeping it closed for only two weeks, initially. Back then, 2-4 weeks seemed like an eternity.

[Big Magilla]

I know the protests are bogus. (One protest was funded by the DeVos family, and for a group of alleged small business owners, there are an awful lot of gray-heads among them.) But there are hundreds of thousands of newly unemployed people who were told early on - remember this? - that a lockdown of two weeks, maybe four at most, would be enough to defeat the spread, and are now told this could go on through the summer and the food supply chains are in peril.

A lot of small business owners are "gray-heads" or people who retired from other jobs, put their life savings into a business only to see this happen, so I don't doubt their sympathies are genuine if ill-advised.

Anyone who thought a pandemic caused by a virus without a cure or vaccine could be stopped in 2 to 4 weeks, especially when they know what's going on in other parts of the world, clearly isn't very smart, but how can you expect deep thinking from a Trump voter?