The coronavirus spread updated in real time

[_honorentheos]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9nfbeK5LAl0

Sums it up.

[_EAllusion]

[quote="Jersey Girl" post_id=1224021 time=1588990021 user_id=16]
What about the Lincoln Project, you guys? How influential do you think they really are??
[/quote]

Not very, but it's an outsized influence. They're never-Trump (ex) Republicans who are a tiny group in the country, but have outsized influence because they hold institutional ties from before when they were excommunicated from the Republican party. This gives them some modest reach.

The way their "mourning in America" ad got the coverage it did was pretty clever. They bought for 5k an ad on Fox in DC during a show Trump live-tweets all the time. The ad was smartly aimed at upsetting him, which caused a Trump freakout, which then led to millions of dollars of free advertising of the ad that they didn't have to pay for.

They're not going to rescue anyone, though.

[_EAllusion]

Garrett usually is solid in her reporting, so if this is correct, it's (again) worse than I imagined:

https://Twitter.com/Laurie_Garrett/stat ... 6897502209

Garrett is reporting that the White House has a two-fold plan to deal with COVID politically. 1) Sow doubt about the mortality numbers, suggesting they are highly inflated. 2) Start outlawing the use of older products by executive order, for example making it illegal to drive a semi-truck older than 10 years on US highways, in order to juice economic demand. This is based on anonymous sources, so this goes to her credibility of using them, which thus far has been good.

To the former, she points out some official rhetoric already coming out along those lines, and, of course, you'd have to be under a rock not to notice the massive surge in this narrative in social media where there is a war of troll-bots going on. To the latter, she points to a single example of an executive order banning the acquisition or installation of bulk electrical power equipment produced by "foreign adversaries" which turns out to be a major source of bulk electrical power equipment for the country.

[_ajax18]

I'm just glad to be working again and it seems more than a few kids with broken glasses feel the same way. Right now there's 40 million others who can't get a job even if they want one. I've come to realize how much I needed work in so many more ways than just a paycheck. It's not greed for people to want to go back to work. Dead or alive, I had to get out of this house.

Anyone who wants to stay home is free to do so. I don't believe these people are cowards. But think for a second about the people continuing to work who are making staying at home even an option an option for you.

[_EAllusion]

You weren't on house arrest Ajax. You could "get out of the house." I get that you find work fulfilling, but stay-at-home orders weren't just about protecting you from yourself.

Stay at home orders are not the biggest reason why people are staying at home Ajax. People are staying at home because they don't want to catch a deadly disease or spread it to others. Only some of them, enough to drive a burning pandemic as it turns out, need to be kept away by legal order. Many businesses that are closed down are simply incapable of operating with a massive loss in their customer base from all those people who don't need the government to tell them to modify their behavior. You don't help those businesses or employees by rescinding stay-at-home orders. You walk them off a plank. To the extent this is about creating conditions where businesses can demand people work in unsafe working conditions or get fired without having to worry about civil liability or unemployment, that's some real Charles Dickens level cruelty going on.

When it comes to thinking about others, you probably should think about all the people being killed because a few selfish people can't change their lifestyle or provide the means for others to do so in the most trying of circumstances. They help to remove all possible nuance for risk-benefit decisions with behavioral changes. Can't have tough conversations about what activities are safe with accommodations at what infectious risk levels when people just demand to do what they want regardless of who they hurt along the way.

It's worth thinking about if catch COVID and kill some people you interact with, is it their blood on your hands?

[_ajax18]

It's worth thinking about if catch COVID and kill some people you interact with, is it their blood on your hands?

Every single patient came in wearing a mask as requested. All glasses and contact lenses are dispensed by mail. Patients wait in the car before entering the exam room. I'm sure there are plenty of kids running around who are asymptomatic and would test positive. My older and at risk patients have the option to order online and I'll gladly renew their prescription without an exam during this unprecedented situation.

I spent six weeks looking for a job of any kind and like many of my patients found nothing, at least not until the day before I was scheduled to return to work. I haven't forced anyone to leave their house. I've found many people agree with my view that there are many cures far worse than death.

[_Chap]

I've found many people agree with my view that there are many cures far worse than death.

Death for who, exactly?

Are you saying that you, or any of the people who spoke to were of the view that you or they would rather have died than have been unable to work during the lockdown?

Oh, I get it - you and they wouldn't have minded much if some other people they didn't know had died, rather than you and them having been unable to work during the lockdown!

Death for someone else ... figures. But of course you would have thanked them for their service. So that's OK

[_ajax18]

What's unselfish about all the essential workers risking death to make shelter in place even an option?

This is going to spread sooner or later and probably already has. 40 million unemployed is not the best option.

What about places like Rio de Janeiro or Mexico City? Where is the mass death from this?

[_Chap]

What's unselfish about all the essential workers risking death to make shelter in place even an option?

Sorry - are you suggesting that if a 'shelter in place' order is not in place, the chances of death run by essential workers is less? Surely they are still out there doing their jobs and running the risk of infection as before - except that the risk would be much greater for those workers without the shelter order, because they would come into contact with much greater numbers of people than if there was a shelter order?

I think I must be missing something in ajax18's post, or he has left it incomplete. As it stands, it doesn't seem to make much sense.

[_ajax18]

What about people in third world countries that never had the funds to social distance? There's not near as many deaths as predicted.

I still haven't met someone with Covid but I've met plenty of people unemployed and ruined economically because of it