A huge motivator for the Republicans is simply to avoid any hint that the problem is a problem that requires the government to contribute positively to a solution. Obvious measures like public health lockdowns combined with UBI are a no go for the party of small government. If they can open up economies, but not enough people go shopping to save businesses, well that’s a failure of the business owners isn’t it? If they can’t turn a profit it’s not the government’s fault! What’s that, you want us to help the economy? OK, here’s some tax cuts for the rich. USA! USA! USA!
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I agree with everything in this post except for Trump being a player in this game with actual agency. The man is a terrain feature on the game board not a player. Obviously everything would be better if Trump weren’t president, except that as other people have correctly pointed out the GOP would control the Senate and would be stopping any form of economic stimulus in an attempt to gain political advantage.
We’re all fucked, and the reason for why is the political/economic system which are hopelessly intertwined.
He’s already got 4 kids so doesn’t qualify - (strictly speaking with the awards original meaning in mind and all).
/pedant
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Thinking about this mutated version taking off in Europe and coming to the US, it does potentially answer questions on why the outbreak in China was not worse. If they had a less contagious version it could hav3 been easier to contain. Then it got modified in Europe, tore through there and came to the US. Also could be the original is what we saw on the west coast of the US.
Did you hear there was a confirmed case in Paris in December? I don’t think we can say if a, b, or c are true.
It’s still much more likely in my mind that population density, unrestrained movement and lack of face masks are the key factors.
Yes, I also read that there were almost certainly cases in the US before the first reported one in January. It’s just why didn’t I (or the person I got it from) spread it to anyone else? That’s what doesn’t make sense and why I think the chance is almost zero that I had it
Exactly. I haven’t learned yet how to eat my spaghetti through my mask. If we wanted to expose ourselves to the virus and put our lives at risk we’d have begged to do that six weeks ago. This is just a way to avoid providing more relief money to businesses and people.
Doesn’t that only apply if at least one of his kids has themselves reproduced?
Maybe they read the couple of flaming emails I sent them.
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Maybe you gave it to a whole bunch of people and they were asymptomatic or just had a mild sickness.
New Yorkers are staying the F home best they can cause it has hit them personally and hard.
I’d really like to know what he means by this. Like, the lefty in me wants to say that to him, “the American way of life” is that the market provides for people and gives them purpose, and if we stay shut down then we’ll have to start UBI and other social programs, which would prove that the market just isn’t needed for people to survive. But that can’t be it, right? He must truly believe that without the market or economy, we would descend into chaos.
Can’t wait…
Trump ‘will report very definitively’ on virus origins
US President Donald Trump has said he will release details to support the theory that coronavirus was released from a laboratory in the Chinese city in Wuhan, where the pandemic began.
“We will be reporting very definitively over a period of time,” the president told reporters at the White House on Tuesday.
Early cases of the virus were linked to a food market in Wuhan late last year, and the head of US national intelligence has rejected conspiracy theories that the virus was intended for use as a weapon.
But information obtained by the Washington Post found that diplomats had sent two warnings to Washington about a Chinese research facility, over fears that the institute’s research on bat coronaviruses could risk a new Sars-like pandemic.
China rejects the idea and has criticised the US response to the crisis.
I’m guessing a lot of people will at least be going out to get hair cuts, etc. Certainly more than if we remained on stay at home orders. There’s a segment of the population that just doesn’t seem to care
Sort of a corollary to this is the initial amount of virus you’re exposed to might be very important in the severity of the illness. A small dose might get you a mild case and a huge dose might kill the same person. Would explain all the disconcerting stories of young healthy doctors and nurses dying of this thing. Seems reasonable that they’re more likely to get a higher and longer exposure to the virus. And then in places like nursing homes and hospitals it might be a vicious cycle. Them more severely sick you are, the more likely you’re shedding large amounts of the virus.
It all seems a bit fuzzy now - more inclusive I guess - but while I’ve always understood it to be before they get a chance to breed,
Current Darwin Awards website says this - but I’m not convinced it always been that way.
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I made that point a month ago.
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I may be teaching you to suck eggs, but ‘partial unemployment’ is the way France is supporting businesses by covering their payroll during the crisis. It’s not actually losing the job, you still have it, though of course people could be made actually unemployed (according to existing rules) if the company isn’t able to take everyone back once it needs to make such a decision.
Whether this counts as restructuring the economy, I don’t know.
Agree these are mostly speculations. But they are mostly reasonable.
I assume indoor proximity, long exposure time and air movement patterns that is mostly horizontal or static accounts for the bulk of R. People sitting on their own blankets with their own quarantine group on the beach may have low personal risk.
Most people are doing the hand washing pretty good so that’s probably a low risk. Workers that are handling the same things could still have higher risk.
We have got to get good data on how effective masks are. But completely reasonable to just wear them for now.
Outdoor in shoulder to shoulder crowds is still a no-no. The 1918 parade stuff should confirm that.
The real problem is that people can’t seem to get reasonable measures due to lack of unified leadership. The alternative is lockdown mentality cause enough people are idiots to keep R>1.