Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.

Every day Vance writes another chapter in the book called “Worst VP Pick Ever”.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

No one could have predicted…

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

ha ha ha! Nice try weird people.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

“Joe Biden deserved better than he got from some folks in his own party.”

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

Let’s finish the job.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / COVID-19 Coronavirus Update (Informational / International) – Monday-Tuesday, March 9/10

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update (Informational / International) – Monday-Tuesday, March 9/10

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Looks like it’ll probably be moved to October:

Can’t figure out a screenshot, but this has been TRENDING on Twitter all day (in case of widespread social quarantines, I guess…

#PlayWithLife
>Ready to #PlayWithLife? Create, explore, and be YOU with @TheSims!


Politics, once again, trumps science:

Reader Interactions

36Comments

  1. 1.

    Chyron HR

    If you’re scheduled to travel March 10 – April 30, 2020 and would like to change your plans, there is no fee to do so

    We should have this thing licked by May, right?

  3. 3.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Top coronavirus doctor: Patients with high blood pressure at greater risk of dying

    Let’s see, COPD? Check. Prediabetic? Check. Allergic to anti-inflammatories? Check. High blood pressure? Boy, the hits just keep on coming.

    On the “good” side, I cancelled an early season day at the ballpark with my son (4/9, business man’s special, Dodgers) and taking my granddaughter to see a DaVinci exhibition at the STL Science Center.

  4. 4.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Holy shit, I just saw that press briefing Trump gave at the CDC and that idiot claimed he was an expert on the disease because his uncle worked at MIT.

  7. 7.

    The Dangerman

    @yellowdog:

    Early May is about when the health system is predicted to collapse.

    I have a minor procedure scheduled for April 13th (13 is a lucky number, along with 31 … think about it) but it’s at a satellite building to one of the main Hospitals in town…

    …and I haven’t a clue when to call to cancel the thing. Visiting that Hospital campus is madness on an average day, by mid-April, it could be the Village of The Damned.

  10. 10.

    JPL

    YY_Sima Qian. hasn’t commented in a while.    I hope that things are returning to normal for him.

  11. 11.

    The Dangerman

    @Baud:

    Your doctor should know.

    Yeah, I’m anticipating the phone call from his office to pull the plug.

    I figure I’ll give it 2 to 3 weeks. If we are turning into Italy, I’ll pull the plug before he does.

  13. 13.

    Gin & Tonic

    Still looking at going to Kyiv in April to visit my son. Haven’t booked anything, but airfares are dropping. A semi-prominent foreign-policy guy just returned from there, via Istanbul, and commented on how both KBP and IST were clean and efficient, and authorities in Kyiv were measuring every traveler’s temperature, whereas IAD was … not so much.

  14. 14.

    Sab

    Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) has Ohio’s first three tested positive cases. Two came off a cruise. The third went to a conference in DC.

  15. 15.

    Anya

    I feel like Italian government’s reaction is just creating hysteria. Banning weddings, funerals and quarantining millions of people? I don’t know if this will be helpful.

  16. 16.

    Raven Onthill

    Suppose, just suppose, that Warren Harding was President during Pearl Harbor?

    I am realizing that western nations can respond, because they have in the past. This is no different than mobilizing for a war. But…but…we’ve had all these failures of leadership.

  18. 18.

    Barney

    Here’s a big test of how widespread the virus is in the UK and Ireland:

    Cheltenham Festival: key race meeting goes ahead despite coronavirus

    Ian Renton, a regional director for the Jockey Club, said: “We’ve been liaising very closely with government over the last fortnight and they have been extremely helpful in keeping us informed of their views and advice. We were very pleased to hear from the culture secretary yesterday saying that they wish to see business as usual, which allows events such as this to continue.”

    …

    The festival is setting up additional toilets and hand-washing facilities, and extra staff will operate in all toilet areas to ensure soap and drying facilities are constantly available. Twenty-four hand sanitiser boards have been set up around the course.

    …

    Renton said there was no sign that the number of Irish visitors had dropped off significantly. Thirty extra flights are put on by Ryanair on the Dublin to Birmingham route during the festival.

    A huge number of people will be jammed together not only at the course but on the way to it. Last year more than 130,000 people used Cheltenham Spa train station over the four days and 80,000 travelled in the shuttle bus service between the town centre and racecourse. Fifty staff coaches a day from as far afield as London, Swansea and Coventry converge on the site.

    Any large fall in numbers would be a blow to the area, as the event is worth £100m to the local economy. A record-breaking total of 266,000 people attended the four-day event in Gloucestershire last year.

    https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/mar/10/cheltenham-festival-key-event-in-racing-calendar-goes-ahead-despite-coronavirus

    What could possibly go wrong? A quarter of a million people. Twenty four hand sanitiser boards. Even the BBC’s racing reporter said the epidemiologists will be observing it with interest. Rather in the way they look at their Petri dishes, I imagine.

  19. 19.

    Kirk Spencer

    I’m going to suggest keeping an eye on Houston for a spike in, what, 2 weeks or so?

    The Houston Rodeo is ongoing, and has 65000 to 100,000 people attending each day. It’s a move and mingle event (as opposed to the only mingling being at entrance and exit like sporting events).

    We’ve already had a handful of confirmed cases (8 if I’m counting correctly), and all were active socially. So it’s already circulating here. The rodeo just gives opportunity for wide dispersal.

    If I recall it’s about 5 days of incubation (with a  2-14 day overall window range) and per the note above another 8-9 from onset of disease to end of infectious window. Given when our first cases appeared, everybody who has it and is attending the rodeo is infectious and only in the early stages of illness (coughing and sneezing, wiping hands before grabbing samples from the bbq tents, etc.)

    Next week for worry, two weeks for the first big surge. At least Houston has a lot of medical centers.

    edited to add — total attendance has historically been over 2 million – and while there’s a lot of repeat attendance buried in that, I’d be unsurprised to learn it’s at least half a million unique individuals.

  20. 20.

    Princess

    Shout out to Monica Green! She’s a fabulous historian of medieval medicine, with special interests in Plague, and is well worth a follow.

  21. 21.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Sab: According to Gov. Mike Parson the other day, Misery has “nearly 17 cases”. Yes, that is an exact quote.

  23. 23.

    Anonymous At Work

    @Booger: I just can’t believe a Catholic nation made dying illegal.  Isn’t that literally against the Catholic faith?

  24. 24.

    ByRookorbyCrook

    @Anya: There aren’t enough hospital beds in Northern Italy to respond to the rapid rise in CorViD19 cases. They are trying to mitigate the spread, but are well behind the curve so these sorts of bans are necessary. Or they could ration care; oh wait they are already doing that. The dead can wait. True love is forever. The sick need treatment.

    Also Italy has a higher ratio of doctors and ICU beds per 1000 citizens than the USofA.

  25. 25.

    bluefoot

    Here in Boston, a biotech company had a 175 person, 2 day meeting with people from all over the world. So far 32 people at the meeting have tested positive. That’s pretty damn contagious. I assume the virus is circulating pretty freely in the Boston area by now even though everyone who attended the meeting is supposed to self-quarantine.

  27. 27.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Raven Onthill: If a Republican had been president and not FDR Japan would have simply overrun the Western Pacific with no opposition from the US, so no Pearl Harbor.  It would have also meant Nazi Germany wins WWII because of no socialist Lend Lease to the UK and Soviet Union.

  29. 29.

    Ramalama

    @WereBear:  Which reminds me … aren’t they the same people who say things like, “The market has spoken” whenever people want cool things from the gov’t (or at the very least, less horrific things)?

  31. 31.

    WereBear

    @Ramalama: I have been watching their response on Twitter.

    It’s always a mix of “you’re just whining because you lost” and “I don’t care what <insert country here> is doing we’re Amurricans” and “it’s all a Democrat hoax so I sneeze on people har har” and I figure they will have a higher infection rate than Democrats.

    What else can anyone do?

  32. 32.

    Ramalama

    @bluefoot: Ugh. I was just in Boston to vote on Thuper Tuethday. What a letdown. And now I’m back in my Quebec hinterlands, possibly spreading things to the folk who have come up here to retire. Trying not to touch my face. Trying not to touch my face.

  36. 36.

    Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)

    @Booger:  Agreed, but the last one that size was for Pope John Paul II.

    It’s the wedding for 16 million that really throws me!

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