Don't touch your face. Touch MY face. pic.twitter.com/fprAJkxevO
— Mig Greengard (@chessninja) March 11, 2020
Some of this will be, as a former Repub once said, inoperative by the time most of you read it, but… for the record.
I plan on scheduling one or more posts for daylight hours Thursday, where they may or may not mess up the timeline…
Me: I thought the governor had given assurances that the test would be free?
ER check-in receptionist: Yeah I’ve been hearing some crazy stuff.— Michael Hobbes (@RottenInDenmark) March 11, 2020
Inside the hospital slammed by coronavirus:
• Nurses use menstrual pads to refurbish gear
• Quarantined staff have been called back to work
• Reused face shields are cloudy with bleach residue
• Still, staff call in: "If you need me, I’m available."https://t.co/BqfZLFGpWi— Mike Baker (@ByMikeBaker) March 11, 2020
NEW: Elections officials scramble for options as coronavirus worries mount by @eliseviebeck https://t.co/hTAsOBUEOO
— Matea Gold (@mateagold) March 11, 2020
For many people this decision is likely to do more to drive home the seriousness of this crisis than anything our trash president could say anyway https://t.co/pTb4yuppu2
— laura olin (@lauraolin) March 12, 2020
Brb reading archived content on Wuhan hosting a 10000 family banquet in early January https://t.co/kQoi4WmgKp
— Rui Zhong ?? (@rzhongnotes) March 11, 2020
I keep seeing/hearing this weirdly defiant "don't let the terrorists win!" attitude toward the virus (this article is just one example) and I wonder if people realize the virus …does not care? https://t.co/pxWrZrPYst
— katiebakes (@katiebakes) March 11, 2020
Also good news, Gov. Cuomo finally convinced the organizers of NYC’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade — ‘the oldest & largest in the world’ — to “postpone” having two million people crowd together to watch 150 thousand marchers. (Apparently over the head of Mayor de Blasio, failed presidential candidate.)
New: We made a chronological list of 28 separate false, misleading or dubious claims Trump and his senior officials have made about the coronavirus. It's staggering to see them all in one place. https://t.co/CF7wgiAyHr
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 11, 2020
"It is my experience that when the people ask questions that are not in their own best interest, they should simply be told to keep their minds on their labor, and leave matters of the State to the State." https://t.co/KKWT1YhEvT pic.twitter.com/GQYhriAXZj
— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) March 11, 2020
The US President has banned all travel from Europe for 30 days, excluding UK.
This is a distraction:
– US has local transmission already
– we’re struggling to even conduct surveillance to know our burden
– ignores vital mitigation steps we know we need to do now#COVID19— Dr Alexandra Phelan (@alexandraphelan) March 12, 2020
If air cargo is not allowed through, then the White House may have just substantially worsened the shortage of materials needed to conduct the coronavirus test. https://t.co/RQhzsNqcgT
— Maryn McKenna (@marynmck) March 12, 2020
It appears we are a week or so behind Italy. A ban on flights from Europe isn’t going to change that. More decisive federal action — massive testing and social distancing — appears to be necessary to “flatten the curve.” pic.twitter.com/GP1YcNpuFs
— Atul Gawande (@Atul_Gawande) March 12, 2020
In order to stop #Covid19, the US – like every other country – needs to fight the virus within its borders not at the border. That means building up the capacity to diagnose cases, trace their contacts and isolate them.
— Kai Kupferschmidt (@kakape) March 12, 2020
Coronobyl. https://t.co/LTmyaa8Fyu
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) March 11, 2020
Murphy the Trickster God is not a subtle scripter.
It is remarkable, scarcely plausible in cinematic terms that little more than a month ago Adam Schiff was on the floor of the Senate saying you know in a crisis Donald Trump will think of himself and not the national interest and that that made him a danger to the country.
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) March 11, 2020
What's amazing about Trump handing over COVID-19 to his idiot son-in-low is that his electoral interests are STRONGLY ALIGNED with this being handled effectively. His incompetence transcends even his direct self-interest
— Scott Lemieux (@LemieuxLGM) March 11, 2020
Dr. Anthony Fauci testifies it will take considerable time to develop a coronavirus vaccine, noting misinformation on the topic that has circulated. Trump has repeatedly asserted a vaccine is coming soon. Fauci says going too fast could be "detrimental" to public health. pic.twitter.com/yWAacI8Z7J
— Oliver Willis (@owillis) March 11, 2020
Trump is reportedly waiting on whether to make an emergency declaration until Jared Kushner "finishes his research and comes to a conclusion himself" https://t.co/0dWYImgi6U
— Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) March 11, 2020
'we must secure the existence of our portfolios and a future for luxury hotels.' https://t.co/Qu2grY3wz5
— zeddy (@Zeddary) March 11, 2020
Every time one of these guys goes out of the way to mention that they're working tirelessly on behalf of the fucking cruise ship industry, which is surely among the most inessential businesses on earth, I become more serene and calm. https://t.co/wUkdaqUGXP
— David Roth (@david_j_roth) March 11, 2020
I feel like it should get more attention that Trump is STILL CURRENTLY trying to cut CDC funding. https://t.co/5ixMajZLv0
— Harry Stein (@HarrySteinDC) March 11, 2020
I thought my expectations had hit bottom but I did not think we'd have to keep revising a short writeup of a scripted presidential address because the White House spent the next 90 minutes explaining the president got the main points wrong
— Tom Scocca (@tomscocca) March 12, 2020
Now that journalists are facing the threat of #covid19 personally, a little more of the faux professional equanimity towards Trump's bullshit is falling away.
— Lindsay Beyerstein (@beyerstein) March 12, 2020
The president has been calling up friends after hours, to ask them what they think about coronavirus. They told him:
1. *they* don't know anybody with it.
2. Trump is super-duper healthy.
His conclusion: Keep shaking hands. "You have to live your life."https://t.co/VrkdUuE54g— David Fahrenthold (@Fahrenthold) March 10, 2020
Former Secret Service agents said Trump should stop doing rope line handshakes with supporters but the agency is powerless to make him stop. https://t.co/tY4AEkwVaw pic.twitter.com/VPB7YvsvnY
— David Nakamura (@DavidNakamura) March 10, 2020
Among those ‘friends’:
Rush Limbaugh: Coronavirus is like the common cold, and "all of this panic is just not warranted" https://t.co/G4Ap7ZwiSb
— Media Matters (@mmfa) March 11, 2020
No one is gleeful! We all have people in our lives at elevated risk! We don’t want a f*cking disaster on our hands and are desperately trying to communicate the seriousness to the public while praying the WH can get its act together. https://t.co/0kVU1bqy4i
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) March 11, 2020
— W. Gyude Moore (@gyude_moore) March 11, 2020
A Human Comedy for our times!
I wonder how many are taking it with them. https://t.co/47xE6rIPvk
— Schooley (@Rschooley) March 11, 2020
Shorter version: partisanship is killing us
— G. Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) March 11, 2020
different-church-lady
Not to be a killjoy, but a couple of days ago I thought I read that pets can get this Godzilla-bug too, so you can’t touch that face either.
Martin
@different-church-lady: I think they can carry the virus, but not be infected by it.
Chetan Murthy
@Martin: Maybe not: https://qz.com/1816853/your-dogs-and-cats-cannot-spread-the-coronavirus/
opiejeanne
@Martin: Yes, there was a dog that tested positive in Hong Kong, sort of, and a horse somewhere else. Both had very low levels of the virus, and I’m not sure whether I believe the stories yet.
opiejeanne
@Chetan Murthy: That’s a relief. One of the cats was sneezing earlier. Probably just got into some dust when she sneaked into the garage.
opiejeanne
The tweet about Inslee saying that testing would be covered, and the tweeter finding out that the hospitals aren’t aware of coverage, the criticism of Inslee is a little unfair. How many days ago was that? It’s going to take a few more days to get that up and running.
mrmoshpotato
The life’s legacies of the tens of millions of voters who used their votes to send a message (that Hillary Clinton could go fuck herself) just keeps getting better and better.
It’s 4AM here, so I can’t scream, so I should probably watch some standup then try to get some sleep.
ETA – Marc Maron’s End Times Fun seems appropriate.
WereBear
It’s one dog and it’s weakly positive. It’s far more likely it was a problem with the test used and it has led to animal cruelty in some areas. I think that’s the least of our worries right now.
Mary G
Our Tom Levenson has a piece in the Atlantic about conservatives trying to make “Chinese virus” happen plus a couple of historic examples.
Ascap_scab
Why the UK exemption, you ask? Because Trump owns three golf course resorts there. Aberdeenshire, Donegal, Turnberry.
Sab
I think we will go apartment hunting for my demented dad tomorrow. Fuck work and its tax returns that need to be done.
WereBear
All along people keep accusing me of over-reacting when the whole problem is that everyone in charge is UNDER-reacting. Trump basically told Italy, “Hold my beer.”
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@Ascap_scab:
/fixed
Chetan Murthy
@WereBear:
Until there is suffiicient testing so we can know where the infection is *not* (aka “surveillance testing”), it is not possible to overreact. We have to assume the worst. I have family who are in self-isolation. I haven’t left the house but once (groceries) for over a week. I’m not planning on leaving the house more than once a week. Many, many people do not have this luxury, and that is a matter of some shame and cringe. But people should do whatever they can do, whatever they can do, right now, until we get some idea of where things are going. B/c If Gawande’s graphs are predictive of the future, we’re all in for a world of shit in about a week.
Chetan Murthy
@Chetan Murthy: Triage has begun in Italy. Another thing we can do is to encourage all young people to do what they can, too. (1) b/c if they catch it, they can spread it to an older person, and (2) if they get a severe case, they’ll get a respirator, and some older person will *die*.
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=87544
Martin
@WereBear: Yeah. Everyone struggles with that. We’re wired for linear extrapolation. If we had 10 cases last week and 20 cases this week, then it should be 30 cases next week, not 400 cases.
You predict 400 cases (because you did the math) and everyone looks at you like you’re crazy – and you feel like you’re crazy – and you want to just keep quiet because part of you feels like you’re saying nonsense, and then another part of you is like ‘but I did the math – it’s right – someone needs to speak up’.
Martin
@Chetan Murthy: Fuck. I was expecting 80 or maybe 75, not 60.
Chetan Murthy
@Martin: I’m 55. If, god forbid, I get severely ill, I’ll get a ventilator. Someone my mom’s age? She’ll be left to die in a corridor on a gurney. We all have loved ones who are elderly. And unless we all work hard to stay healthy, work hard to stay out of the way of contagion, we’re gonna be killing those loved ones.
Shalimar
I didn’t watch it so I can’t address personally how Trump was, but I’m still trying to wrap my head around how incompetent it is to have literally several weeks to prepare for a 10 minute address and still manage to get all the key details not just wrong, but wrong in ways that your staff knows are wrong and has to correct throughout the rest of the evening. Narcissism is powerfully stupid.
OzarkHillbilly
WASF.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ascap_scab: Yeah, they aren’t part of Europe.
Robert Sneddon
@Martin: Basically everyone on the planet is going to be exposed to COVID-19 over the next year or so. All the preventative actions being taken, face masks and enhanced hygiene everywhere isn’t going to stop this happening since the virus seems to have a high R number, i.e. it spreads easily from person to person. Dealing with that near-certainty is the new norm, not attempts to contain COVID-19 and totally prevent infection of large swathes of the population. Slowing down the rate of infection gives a chance to develop a vaccine and produce enough doses to maybe ameliorate the effects of this disease but it’s not going to happen soon, maybe not even this year.
I read something recently to the effect of “We’re all stuck here aboard the cruise ship Planet Earth.” which I think sums it up.
OzarkHillbilly
@Chetan Murthy:
As it should. And I’m one of those who will be left in the hallway to die.
Martin
@OzarkHillbilly: Ever get the feeling all of those atheist millennials and Gen Z’s actually had a secret religion and its goal was to drop the biggest ‘Ok, Boomer’ nuke on the planet?
WereBear
That’s pretty much the size of it. I know even this won’t sway Trump fans. Aside from that hardcore crazy third, I think it might open some eyes about how we need competent government.
And how it’s your own ass at stake if you don’t do your bit. In a previous thread, some red-staters shared how moving to a blue state improved their lives with actual working infrastructure that the people in their previous state doesn’t even know can exist. It provided some insight: Trumpists hate government because their own sucks so bad.
It would never occur to them that the answer is more/better government. They are oblivious to how it all works. That Libertarian streak of “people will just build roads” comes to mind.
Gvg
@Shalimar: I don’t believe he said them wrong, I think his whole team intended what was said, thought those were the correct decisions and then the market meltdown during the speech plus I assume screaming from wealthy donors forced them to back track. They are all too stupid and sociopathic to even know how stupid and out of step they are with society. They fundamentally do not understand this crisis. Trump thinks everything is about spin and propaganda. I think he also thinks human actions and thought are the source of everything that happens. He and therefore his team just don’t really get reality.
Chetan Murthy
@Gvg:
Is there anybody left in the WH who *does* get reality? I mean hell, even Tom Bossert is ringing the alarm bells ….
Ohio Mom
Sab: I believe this is why God created the filing extension.
opiejeanne
@WereBear: I missed that thread. Which one, do you remember?
WereBear
@opiejeanne: It was Living in a Conservative Paradise. From the post:
Ken
@Martin: 10, 20, 40 not 10, 20, 400. Not that it matters much, it’s only another another 3 1/2 weeks to get to 400.
WereBear
@Ken: But it’s not straight square root. It’s cubing, and then all of those are cubing…
This is how Milan can seem normal one week, and the next it’s mayhem and lockdown. Because it happened that fast.
Anya
@Ascap_scab: I think it’s also more “dipshits unite” kinda decision. since 2016, the UK and the USA have been trying to see who makes the most harmful decision for their country. So it’s more like two lying rightwingers sticking together.
WereBear
@Anya: What I read, and believe, is that Trump’s tiny brain thinks the answer is to ban travel to Italy, but it had to extend to the whole EU.
And now tests will be even less available because of the material chain being broken. Which might even had been planned, if there is a working brain in this administration, because Trump also seems to think that “no tests = low numbers = no problem.”
He gets more like Stalin every day.
Ken
@WereBear: Exponential growth multiples by the same number at each step. In Martin’s example, start with 10 and multiply by 2 each week.
Also log2(10) = 3.33 near enough, so if something is doubling every week, it will go up by a factor of 10 every 3 1/3 weeks.
Chetan Murthy
@Ken: If it were doubling every week, that’d be …. so sweet. Instead, per Gawande’s chart from the FT, it looks like 33% daily. which is …. 7.4x a week. Agh.
Anya
@WereBear: That makes sense. There is never a good time to have a cognitively impaired megalomaniac who has difficulty with recall, decision making and attention as a leader but it is the worst of time for us and for the world to have him as the person making decisions about consequential matters where he lacks basic understanding.
Ten Bears
Just curious as to what an ‘essential’ gathering of a thousand or more is?
Ken
@Anya: I’d nominate that for a rotating tag but it wouldn’t fit.
Ken
@Ten Bears: Political rallies, megachurch services, rodeos, basketball games…
Ryan
Well… Partisanship isn’t killing all of us.
low-tech cyclist
The calls are coming from inside the house, and his answer is to lock the doors. Fucking brilliant.
satby
@opiejeanne: hey, read about the accident and your lilac. Glad no one was killed, and if there is a piece of the lilac with roots left, soak it in a bucket of water for about an hour, and then replant it. It should survive if you baby it along the rest of the year. If you see new growth you’ll know it worked.
tjmn
@Robert Sneddon: the cruise ship “Princess Earth.” Or is it Earth Princess?
Jinchi
The Democratic primary may be basically over, but I’d love for the next debate to have the moderator ask a single question: “How should we deal with the coronavirus pandemic?”, and then let the final two contenders simply lay out a detailed, well researched, credible plans so the nation could remember how this is supposed to be done and what a functioning government would look like.
I’d even be fine if Trump decided to steal it word for word and pretend it was his own speech.
Geminid
New Covid-19 guidance from Joe Biden et al: wash your hands often, and flush your president 15 times.
Jinchi
In Universe 2, Trump is shutting down travel to protect the Europeans from us, but then we don’t live in that universe, do we.
opiejeanne
@satby: Thanks for the info. I don’t know if I can save it yet, I haven’t seen the condition of the root in daylight yet. David says the tow truck driver dragged the broken off part outside of the fence for some reason. It was a pretty big plant.
The kid’s father came and apologized. The kid looked to be about 16 and they took him away in handcuffs.
I think about my kids, and how good they were. We never got a phone call like the one last night, they really didn’t hang out with kids who did drugs, or pulled stupid stunts like last night. I am so grateful for that. They did other stuff they thought I didn’t know about, but it was all pretty harmless.
Martin
@Ken: It’s 400 because we didn’t do any testing in the 10, 20 weeks. That’s why we’re doubling every 48 hours or so.
LongHairedWeirdo
Who wants to bet Jared isn’t doing research into the hows and whys of epidemics, and is instead seeing what securities to dump or short before the emergency declaration?