All things COVID-19

[Mike]

He's proudly not politically correct, and happily supported by people who think the rest of the world needs to learn to take a joke.

All things COVID are the fault of the malicious Chinese.
Today's graduates are all fat and lazy.
Psychology is a scam.
All people named Jeremy are terrible.

[Tahlvin]

The response to his commencement speach:

[Kyle]

Wow. The problem with his "jokes" are that: (1) they aren't funny; and (2) it's not clear which ones are jokes and which ones are dogmatic talking points. Way to punch-down, dude. Real brave.

I guess what I find most appalling is that he seems to be contemptuous of his audience. You can't shave for this? I get the unkempt hair- there's been a lot of that in the quarantine. But you couldn't take ten minutes to shave before pre-recording this? It's not like it was a live event and he just had to run in after important congressional business. This was recorded in advance, and he couldn't bother to practice basic grooming and instead wanted to show up looking and sounding like he's still a little hung over? How little do you care about the graduates that you're supposedly speaking to?

So tone deaf. So bad. What a chump.

[Phoebe]

Honestly the most popular and sincerely meant response to this I have heard from people is that he might have been drunk or on drugs. My sympathy for him might be greatest if he came out with a press release explaining that a bad thing was happening in his personal life or something and he was on a colossal bender when he wrote and recorded the speech - in fact he could probably benefit from explaining the last 3 years of his life this way. Like maybe he had a knee surgery in 2017 and developed an addiction to painkillers? Maybe one of his parents or family members is deathly ill and he is beside himself with grief and has taken to the bottle? That might make sense of what we saw.

Extroverts are really crazy with this whole quarantine thing though - maybe he's having mental health issues and that's why he's making bitter cracks about psychology and therapy, because he knows he needs help but doesn't like the fact that he needs help and is still in denial?
Certain people, none of whom live with me, thankfully, and I won't name names because they are specific people, are naturally super extroverted and just cannot bring themselves to stay the hell away from other people. Like you will tell them that they have to wear a mask and stay a certain distance away if they want to have any contact, and physically they will start approaching and drifting over and you cannot make them go sit alone in a chair away from everyone! If you haven't witnessed somebody who has this problem it's really a thing to behold. I am exactly the opposite, so literally I will be backing up and giving them my best offended cat face, and yet here they come! Stop, stop it! I try not to go in my front yard at certain times of day.

Anyway, that's all the energy I have to come up with excuses for that jackass. I'm comfortable accepting the fact that he might just be a jackass.

[Phoebe]

So the counterpoint: as much as I enjoy not having to see most people, I miss my parents terribly. I get to talk to them, but talking on the phone is sometimes hard for my mom so I don't even get to talk to her as much as I would like. They don't seem to know how to figure out video conferences, which is frustrating because again I could set them up to do this if only it was safe for me to go to their house for a while. I'm seriously considering self quarantining within this house, just so that two weeks later I can spend some time with my parents without fear of hurting them. I could just go live there for a few weeks. I really miss my mom. I get to talk to my dad a little more and see him a little more, in the limited way we do, so it's not as if I don't like him just as much, but I really miss my mom and miss being able to see her and give her a hug.

[Mike]

[Phoebe]

Yeah, don't major in psychology! Instead of majoring in psychology and having a happy, productive life doing work that helps people, with a happy and well-adjusted family, you could have majored in "government" and, despite going to the best universities, returned as the former valedictorian of your high school class to give a completely embarrassing and self-owning speech.

[Eliahad]

Well, I feel like Trump has won. I have no idea what information to trust any more. *sigh*

[Phoebe]

[poorpete]

The executive branch has repeatedly told us:
You're on your own

Told states, told New York:
You're on your own

And when churches reopen because of political decisions, and when the virus continues to ravage congregations, they will say, sorry:
You're on your own


On a personal level, just like the virus' weird all-over-the-board symptoms, it seems only apt that the pandemic line of personal success, between Shakespeare/Newton uber-creativity to being dead from the virus, is also so broad. Don't be hard on yourself if you're somewhere in the middle. Maybe be just a little bit disappointed. And a little bit glad.

[bralbovsky]

Fundamental, murderous objection to intentionally bad data.

Stalin level dishonesty.

Having said that, here's my difficulty: people think it's like the rats in the grain - spontaneously generating - that they have no agency about transmission or prevention.
I know people who behave as if it's like pollen, ubiquitous, and if they step outside, they're doomed, and others who basically believe that if they can't see it it doesn't exist (unless it's the wrath of god upon gays or 45's virtues).

Simple operations of physics and biology seem entirely out of reach.

Also...anti-vaxxers eager for their president to spontaneously generate a vaccine. This one, apparently, they'll trust.

I'm thinking of changing my signature to "Just not enough time or ammunition..." but the FBI....

[FlameBlade]

Congratulations, USA. 100k deaths.

[FlameBlade]

So many people at beaches all over USA. Let us start the countdown.

[Tahlvin]

But at least Trump got to play golf this weekend.

[Phoebe]

Hi Julie from your only slightly different sister in the US:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.thegua ... olefjivrhY

[Tahlvin]

Two weeks after the conservative-dominated WI State Supreme Court ruled in favor lawsuit by the GOP-led state legislature and overturned the governor's stay-at-home order, and WI sets a new daily record in number of positive tests and deaths. The GOP legislature sued because they wanted to have a say in how the order was implemented, since they wanted rural counties that were less affected to be treated different than urban areas. But when the governor tried to meet with them to come up with a plan, they refused, leaving it up to each county and city/town/village to come up with their own rules (which in turn have been threatened by local GOP-led groups with similar lawsuits). In addition, the GOP-led legislature is now blaming the Dem governor and his administration for the problems the state unemployment agency is having with keeping up with the unemployment claims, problems that are occurring due to over a decade of GOP government neglecting it.

In other news, a former coworker of mine has tested positive for COVID-19.

[Eliahad]

I keep forgetting that the "plan" was never really about keeping people from dying, just to keep the hospitals from being overwhelmed by people dying.

[Phoebe]

Yep. It is interesting to look at the death rates in different states versus the number of cases, because in some instances it means that the testing was too limited and the cases are much higher than thought, and in other cases it indicates better or worse access to care for those who are sick, or a greater number of outbreaks nursing homes and the like. Horrible. I wonder if people (aka VOTERS) really grasp how much worse we're doing at this than almost any other nation so far.

[Stan]

Despite the headline switch, Covid-19 still exists. From the data things have slowed in the U.S. but is still going at ~1,000 deaths/day. Still active in the communities so many local flare ups likely.

Meanwhile, worldwide, the number of cases is rising faster than ever, though some of that might be from testing in some countries but the deaths per day seem to be increasing still in places like Brazil. As long as there are lots of new cases (~100,000/day worldwide), you can expect new infections in the U.S. from external as well as internal sources.



I'd looked a bit at measuring impact by excess deaths, not just cause of death, it increases U.S. deaths by a quarter to a third. Elsewhere, it can be a big increase but the numbers get muddy.

[Phoebe]

I don't know why we are unable to talk about the risks presented by protests. So far all I have seen is (correct) observation of the hypocrisy of anyone who defended lockdown protests now criticizing current protests. Okay. But what about the fact that lockdown protests were stupid, and thousands of protesters being exposed to pepper spray and tear gas could make impact of the virus even more likely, on top of the basic problem that they can't seem to maintain distance even when they try. Kind of puzzling because intentionally spreading people out at the protests makes them even more impressively large, or suggests lining long swaths of sidewalk with rows of people, which is harder to disperse. I get the sense people think if they're wearing a mask and they're outside, they're safe, but when you're densely packed among other people breathing the same air for hours, it's not good. I feel like no one in the media wants to talk about this because they don't want to create controversy over the protests, but I'm a little surprised that people who fully support the protest don't get out there and talk about this more.