Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Not all heroes wear capes.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Republicans in disarray!

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

An almost top 10,000 blog!

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

No one could have predicted…

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / Open Thread: Snark in A Time of Just-the-Flu

Open Thread: Snark in A Time of Just-the-Flu

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192Comments

  2. 2.

    PenAndKey

    Well, what a way to end the week. I received notification that my son won’t be returning to elementary school until 4/3 here in Wisconsin. That’s…. swell.

    But no worries folks, Trump says it’s not his fault! And my student loan payment interest is being waived (not the payments, just the interest)! FFS, what a shit show.

  6. 6.

    mad citizen

    I think I’m dense because I’m not understanding the point of Chris Kyle’s tweets here.  Does he work for Google but somehow wants to say stuff that might get him in trouble?

  7. 7.

    Mai naem mobile

    @Baud: ofcourse he does. Did you expect anything else? The thing is he keeps on taking about the deaths from the swine flu under Obama and the fucking moron does not realize that he is talk9ng about numbers(inflated numbers but lets not even go there) after the pandemic was over. COVID19 isn’t over. He is just asking for Karma to bitchslap him witha much bigger number than  Obama’s by the time this thing is done . And,oh yeah, we aren’t even taking the economy into consideration.

  8. 8.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Baud: I’m constantly aghast at how the media just flat refuses to say “lies” about literally everything Trump says.

  9. 9.

    Mary G

    OK, I’m rapidly leaving “impeach the motherfucker” territory for “tar and feathers would be nice”:

    Donald Damn Trump sent a signed chart of the Dow to Fox News today after his press conference….no…words.pic.twitter.com/vUWDL9nGPF— Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule) March 13, 2020

  10. 10.

    sanjeevs

    U.K. government just uturned and will ban public gatherings. Their plan before was just to let people get sick and rely on herd immunity.

  11. 11.

    Mike in NC

    Fat Bastard is speeding up plans to have his bloated ugly head carved onto Mount Rushmore before two million Americans die of coronavirus, sources say.

  12. 12.

    Ken

    This may stick around in the historical assessment of Trump

    Quick, name two things you remember about Harry S. Truman.

    (Two, to allow for the Dewey headline.)

  15. 15.

    Ken

    @sanjeevs: Their plan before was just to let people get sick and rely on herd immunity.

    In fairness, that’s the only plan now.  The hard part is not overwhelming the healthcare system until that happens.

  16. 16.

    hells littlest angel

    “I DON’T TAKE RESPONSIBILITY AT ALL” should be on his tombstone.

    And soon.

  17. 17.

    PenAndKey

    @Roger Moore: You don’t survive being dumped in hot pitch. The feathers are just an execution accent detail.

    But yes, I agree. If the administration doesn’t face an actual criminal trial for their conduct since this started I’m afraid there will be literal riots. This sort of event is what destroys governments and societies, especially if we follow the current trajectory of being Italy 2.0 by two weeks from now.

  20. 20.

    lamh36

    Helloooo Juicers!

    Trying to catch up on news I missed. Feels like I don’t know what the heck is going on since last night. I went to bd early to be well rested for my interview today.

    So let me tell ya’ll bout my interview. I’ll seperate it into parts so the comments won’t be too long.

    Interview was for 9am in BR. So I had to get up early to shower and wash and go my hair, then drive 1 1/2 to BR from NOLA. So I woke up at 6am got to BR or bout 8:15. Stopped at my sister’s house to go potty before the interview (sis actually lives bout 15 min from the place).

    Arrived at the lab for 8:30. Took 15min to woosah, settle my nerves and breath and chill. I checked with security at about 8:50 for my interview. .. (1/4)

  21. 21.

    lamh36

    @lamh36:

    I waited in the lobby for the interview folks to come get me and about 9:05 the Micro Mgr (the guy I’d be working directly under) got me from the lobby and we went to the interview conference room.

    It was a panel interview, 3 people…the Micro mgr, the former Supervisor (she got a promotion, the position I applied for is for her replacement), and the Lab QA/QC Mgr. The interview started out with them telling me about the job and then they had two pages of questions that they had to ask all the applicants. The took notes of the answers you gave.

    The interview went on for about 1hr and 15 mins, then they asked me if I had any questions, which I did. I have 3-5 questions I always ask for any lab job I apply for. 1)what are the day to day work duties, 2) What kinda of instrumentation do you have (always good to know if I have experience with equipment, 3) How many techs will be under my supervision, 4) What do you expect from the person you hire, 5)what’s the process from here. (2/4)

  23. 23.

    lamh36

    @lamh36:

    So what they told me was they were interviewing all the applicants today, then early next week, they will be making a decision, then it goes to the HR manager, the state takes is time as usual, so the entire process once they make a choice can take about 3 weeks.

    While the were asking questions, I was also observing, and I noticed the sheet on the table had 3 names on it, including mine. So I’m thinking it’s me along w/2 other applicants. I’m not sure if he saw me looking, but I only was able to see one entire name, and it then he put another sheet over it.

    Here’s the interesting part…the name I did see was the name of a former coworker! In fact, I’m pretty sure I trained her a little bit while I was there. I already know her experience level in def not as long as mine, but I don’t know if she had done more in the five plus years since we worked together, but who knows.

    the even more interesting part…when he walked me back to the lobby after the interview, guess who was in the lobby, I assume for the next interview, MY FORMER COWORKER who’s name was on the list! We were actually on great terms, so when I saw her we hugged (although maybe we shouldn’t have w/the Coronivrus stuff…oops…LOL) and I told I thought I recognized your name. And she recognized my name from the sign sheet. I wished her good luck. She said “you too”. (3/4)

  24. 24.

    lamh36

    @lamh36:

    One other interesting tidbit, when I asked them about the process after this, I mae sure to mention my upcoming Masters degree graduation!!! I was like, ok, I was just wondering the timeframe, cause I don’t know if you noticed, but I in school right now for HCM, and I graduate in May.

    The Mgr guy was like “oh, is that online?” and I said, “well it is now…LOL…but it was on campuse late evenings…” so it didn’t interfere with my work schedule.

    Anyway, all in all, it went as well as it could. I put my best foot forward, and I think I came off pretty well.

    It’s in the universe’s hands now.
    (4/FIN)

  28. 28.

    PenAndKey

    @lamh36: Wait a tic, micro manager? lab? QA/QC? Do tell! You’re not in my area, but I’m a food industry QA/QC Manager myself and my last job was as a microbiology qc lab supervisor at a fermentation facility. If you ever need any contacts or the like up in Wisconsin just let me know.

  30. 30.

    Martin

    @Ken: ‘The buck stops here’.

    Maybe not the best choice to point out how an expression won’t define a president.

  31. 31.

    Mary G

    These fucking weasels. I hope Nancy just holds the damn vote.

    A senior White House official now says the coronavirus bill deal has hit a snag. That person says “Text doesn't yet reflect agreement between Secretary Mnuchin and Speaker Nancy Pelosi.”— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) March 14, 2020

  33. 33.

    Martin

    BTW, 4chan is going to have a fucking field day with the Google test thing. I give it 48 hours before they render it useless.

  36. 36.

    Amir Khalid

    @MisterForkbeard:

    Two reasons:

    1. Characterising what Trump (or anyone you’re reporting on) says is editorialising. Editorial comment needs to be clearly distinguished from straight reporting, so that the reporter isn’t colouring facts with their opinion. At least, that’s the theory.
    2. Calling someone a liar in print can get you sued for defamation. Defending a lawsuit can eat up a hell of a lot of a newspaper’s time and money over a span of years, even if its defence is eventually successful. My own newspaper spent something like a decade and tens of millions of ringgit defending such a lawsuit. Being businesses, newspapers (and non-print news media too, of course) would rather not risk that.
  37. 37.

    Roger Moore

    @Mary G:

    That person says “Text doesn’t yet reflect agreement between Secretary Mnuchin and Speaker Nancy Pelosi.”

    Shorter Trump: “I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further.”

  38. 38.

    Aleta

    Another Trump lie:

    Google is not working with the US government in building a nationwide website to help people determine whether and how to get a novel coronavirus test.

    …

    (Statement by Verily, a division of Alphabet, Google’s parent company)   “We are developing a tool to help triage individuals for Covid-19 testing. Verily is in the early stages of development, and planning to roll testing out in the Bay Area, with the hope of expanding more broadly over time.”
    …

    Carolyn Wang, communications lead for Verily, told The Verge that the “triage website” was initially only going to be made available to health care workers instead of the general public. Now that it has been announced the way it was, however, anybody will be able to visit it, she said. But the tool will only be able to direct people to “pilot sites” for testing in the Bay Area, though Wang says Verily hopes to expand it beyond California “over time.”

    The triage site should be put live within a few days, and it will be hosted at Project Baseline, the Verily website where people can sign up to take part in clinical trials.

  40. 40.

    hueyplong

    @Roger Moore: 
    1. He integrated the armed forces.

    2. In retirement he continually called Nixon “a sonofabitch.”

    I’m feeling charitable about every president except Trump.

  41. 41.

    Mike in NC

    @PenAndKey: The brutal act of tarring and feathering a person was accurately portrayed in the John Adams miniseries on HBO, and I think more recently in ‘Outlander’.

  42. 42.

    Sister Golden Bear

    Just got an email from PG&E that they’re suspending disconnections for people who can’t pay their bills, and will work with them long-term to figure out payment plans.

    When P fucking G & fucking E has more compassion and planning than our president…

  44. 44.

    Amir Khalid

    @Roger Moore:

    3. He celebrated his election victory by brandishing a newspaper whose front-page banner headline proclaimed that his opponent had won.

    4. He was the namesake of a character on Twin Peaks.

    5. I think the band Chicago had a song about him.

  45. 45.

    Mike in NC

    @Ken: Truman had this sign on his desk that read “The buck stops here”, while Trump only cares that the buck stops in his pocket.

  47. 47.

    Martin

    @Aleta: So it could be open to the public, but it doesn’t do what the president indicated.

    Also, 4chan will still break it.

  48. 48.

    Kent

    Well, he’s not technically wrong about firing the entire National Pandemic Response Team from the NSC.  Technically that was John Bolton during his short tenure there.  But obviously that isn’t the sort of thing the National Security Advisor does on their own.   He would have to have clearance/sign-off from the Oval Office to do that.

    Another reason John Bolton is not our friend.

  49. 49.

    lamh36

    @lamh36:

    I left BR and had to head to work for noon.  I made it in just enough time to be on time for work.  I actually worked 1/2 a shift today.

    Guys…OMG guys… it was CRAZY at work when I got there.  My hospital has a patient population that the EXACT elderly target for Coronavirus!  The ICU areas where we put patients in isolation until testing results come back has been full since yesterday.

    It was sooo weird, I was literally at the State Public health lab this morning.  And learned some new information about their workload and workforce that made me more sympathetic…but still.

     

    It was CRAZY!  I mean my lil hospital aint’ nothing compared to the bigger hospitals in town, and I can only imagine how crazy it is there.

  50. 50.

    TS (the original)

    @Mary G:

    A senior White House official

    When there was a real President – senior White House Officials had names. They stood by what they said. They weren’t afeared of being fired if their name got mentioned.

  51. 51.

    Another Scott

    @mad citizen:

    as the Google privacy engineer dealing with the fallout of this paper: look at the publication date, three months before GDPR came online. https://t.co/XXuvx1DoCj— chris kyle (real) (@Theophite) March 13, 2020

    It sounds like he’s saying he works for Google, but Twitter is often inscrutable to me. Dunno.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  54. 54.

    TS (the original)

    @Martin:  And I foolishly believed what he said (or what one of his sycophants wrote).   No wonder it is so hard to get the deplorables to believe the truth about this horror show when someone who knows trump lies all the time believes something he said.

  55. 55.

    Mo Salad

    @Ken: 1. There is no period after the “S”. It is not short for anything. It is literally just “S”.

    2. Failed haberdasher.

  56. 56.

    lamh36

    @PenAndKey: yep.  I’m a Med Tech and I worked in Clincial Micro labs my entire career.  The position I’m up for is for Public Health Lab Supervisor

  58. 58.

    Mart

    I thought they must of given the fat hazard good stuff to snort today. He was nasty to reporters with hard questions, and repeatedly lied, but he was very good at it.

  59. 59.

    lamh36

    @Mary G:  The answers didn’t scare me from wanting the job, so that’s good.  I can def see myself using it as a stepping stone to eventual getting a job as a Micro Lab Mgr.

    What I need now even with my Masters degree, is work experience as a Supervisor.  I’m trying to get out of hospital clinical lab, and this experience coupled with my Masters degree will make it esier to leave clinical labs behind

  60. 60.

    RSA

    “I just think it’s a nasty question,” the president countered.

    From the Mother Jones article.  I can’t be the only one (between Generation X and the Boomers, for context) who thinks the President sounds like a pre-schooler in his common use of “nasty”, can I?

  61. 61.

    RedDirtGirl

    John mentioned The Shock Doctrine recently. This is disaster capitalism at its finest. Grover Norquist wanted to shrink government to an easily – drownable size. Now the captains of industry can buy it cheap and strip it for parts.

  63. 63.

    Dan B

    My neighbor across the street has Covid-19.  And two schools near us had students test positive.  It’s a concern because our next door neighbor is the principal’s assistant for another nearby school.  Her daughter, son in law, and their newborn live together.  We’ve got very old and infirm neighbors.

    And there are friends who say they can’t be socially distant.  It infuriates me that they don’t consider the people they could infect.

    We are looking for zinc lozenges, when the stores are mostly empty late tonight.

  67. 67.

    NotMax

    @Mo Salad

    3. Added the balcony to the design when the White House was gutted and reconstructed from the outside in.

    4. Some kind of bombing overseas.

    (#4 a lame attempt at a present day student response.)

  68. 68.

    PenAndKey

    @lamh36: What I need now even with my Masters degree, is work experience as a Supervisor.  I’m trying to get out of hospital clinical lab, and this experience coupled with my Masters degree will make it esier to leave clinical labs behind.

    Truth be told, until you get to director level you’ll actually find that your supervisor/management experience is the more valuable skill set to highlight. I had a somewhat unorthodox education. I had a little over a decade of manufacturing supervisory experience under my belt before going to college and I stopped at a BSc in microbiology. I got my lab supervisor spot thanks to my experience more than my degree, to be honest.

  70. 70.

    gwangung

    Just noting that the theatre artists in Seattle are not letting things go without a response. Plans are being made to livestream plays (including, hopefully, MINE), and even now, a number of staged readings have switched to streaming, starting TOMORROW.

  72. 72.

    Mary G

    This is giving me whiplash, but I guess it’s good:

    I fully support H.R. 6201: Families First CoronaVirus Response Act, which will be voted on in the House this evening. This Bill will follow my direction for free CoronaVirus tests, and paid sick leave for our impacted American workers. I have directed….— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 14, 2020

    Take all the credit, liar. Nobody believes you had shit to do with it except whine and waffle.

  76. 76.

    Another Scott

    @Amir Khalid: 6.  He has no middle name.

    7.  He was from Independence.

    8. He headed some sort of anti-corruption committee during the war before FDR picked him to be vice president.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  78. 78.

    Mary G

    “A source at Google tells WIRED that company leadership was surprised that Trump announced anything about the initiative at the press conference. What he did say was also almost entirely wrong.” https://t.co/pcdMSdw8L1— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) March 14, 2020

  81. 81.

    Martin

    @Mary G: That was someone telling Trump that if he opposes it, Nancy will dunk on him so hard it’ll be June before he can stand again.

  83. 83.

    TS (the original)

    @Mary G:

    Take all the credit, liar. Nobody believes you had shit to do with it except whine and waffle.

    So he told the staff it was unacceptable, saw the feedback & dropped the staff over the usual cliff.

  84. 84.

    Chris T.

    @Mo Salad: There is no period after the “S” [in Harry S Truman]. It is not short for anything. It is literally just “S”.

    Sure, but if you abbreviate his middle name `S`to `S.`, you get the period! It’s nicer that way because it’s shorter and easier to remember.

    (do I need a snark-mark?)

  85. 85.

    PenAndKey

    @lamh36: Judge Dannenberg isn’t pulling any punches:

    The Court, under your leadership and with your votes, has wantonly flouted established precedent. Your “conservative” majority has cynically undermined basic freedoms by hypocritically weaponizing others. The ideas of free speech and religious liberty have been transmogrified to allow officially sanctioned bigotry and discrimination, as well as to elevate the grossest forms of political bribery beyond the ability of the federal government or states to rationally regulate it. More than a score of decisions during your tenure have overturned established precedents—some more than forty years old– and you voted with the majority in most. There is nothing “conservative” about this trend. This is radical “legal activism” at its worst.

    This needs to be said loudly and repeatedly, and it’s good to see someone actually having the guts to do so.

  87. 87.

    lamh36

    Oh another thing on the job I interviewed for today. it’s a public health job, so I may even be able to qualify for loan forgiveness

  89. 89.

    mali muso

    So I’m trying to decide whether or not to let the kiddo go to daycare next week, which for whatever reason remains open despite the locals schools being closed.  I will be working from home for the next two weeks, and solo parenting as DH is out of town, so I would definitely be more productive if I didn’t have to entertain a 3 year old.  BUT, sending her to daycare to exchange germs with other germy toddlers seems to run counter to the whole social distancing thing.  What to do…

  90. 90.

    Martin

    So, there’s a thing called Goodhart’s law: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”

    Possibly the greatest example of this happened just this week with Trump not wanting the cruise ship passengers to be evacuated because it would cause his numbers to go up. A low number was the target. Once it became a target, it could no longer be relied on.

    I’m not saying the infected number isn’t important – it is – but we can’t trust it. We don’t want the fatalities number to be high either, and a low number there is also going to be a target (the target, in fact) but its a harder number to cover up because of how we determine cause of death. That’s the number I focus on. I would focus on hospitalized as well if available (I think NY will start reporting that) for the reasons that lamh@49 illustrates.

  92. 92.

    Mike in DC

    @Mary G: As I understand it, most deaths from COVID will manifest as acute respiratory failure similar to severe pneumonia.  So any spikes in fever deaths, pneumonia, etc are likely due to COVID, even if undiagnosed.

  93. 93.

    J R in WV

    @lamh36:

    Best of luck, young Master of Science in Microbiology, with your job application and career. (or whatever the official degree title is — maybe you should have taken a transcript of the grad program with for the interviewers?)

    We’re all rooting for your wild success~!!~

  101. 101.

    lamh36

    @J R in WV: (Health Care Management)…and thx.

    Since it’s a state job, I may actually have to submit transcripts, so they’ll likely get one from me anyway if I go further in the process…LOL

  102. 102.

    Another Scott

    @Amir Khalid: Kinda sematics, I guess. :-)

    Snopes:

    […]

    Unable to decide between a middle name honoring Harry’s maternal grandfather (Solomon Young) or his paternal grandfather (Anderson Shipp[e] Truman), John and Martha opted not to give little Harry a middle name at all and settled on something that could represent either grandparent: the letter ‘S’ by itself. (As Truman biographer David McCullough noted, using a single letter that stood for nothing specific was “a practice not unknown among the Scotch-Irish, even for first names.”)

    Although the ‘S’ was not technically an abbreviation and therefore did not need to be followed by a period, Truman’s full name was generally rendered as ‘Harry S. Truman’ during his lifetime, and Truman himself used letterhead bearing the name ‘Harry S. Truman’ and signed his name with a period after the ‘S,’ as shown in these excerpts from letters on file at the Truman Presidential Museum & Library:

    [image]

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  103. 103.

    J R in WV

    @Amir Khalid:

    My dad called a local politician a cheap crook repeatedly in editorials, got sued, lost, damages were $1.00 (one dollar) yet he (and the company) hired a DC white shoe law firm to appeal to the Supremes, IIRC cost $20,000 back in the early 1960s. They won.

    Dad said if he hadn’t done that, every scalawag he ever criticized would have been suing them, but after winning in the Supreme Court, which was a BIG HEADLINE in his paper, no one ever sued again, ever. It’s in libel law textbooks still.

    There was a ton of vandalism too, paint thrown on the side of the house, phone calls threatening to throw acid on me so I couldn’t walk to school anymore, herbicide sprayed on the shrubs and trees and lawn. This was before the lawsuit, IIRC. I was in early grades, just a little guy, didn’t know about the phone threats til years later.

    Small town politics, guy thought he was King Dick of the county. Not so much. Dad had a lot of grit!

  105. 105.

    Ken

    @Martin: It might have been some of the big players who stayed long in the market today expecting the bill to be passed.  It appears the Dow average is one of the few things Trump understands.

  106. 106.

    Mo Salad

    @NotMax:  During that reconstruction he was staying at Blair House, where he was subjected to an assassination attempt by Puerto Rican separatists.

  107. 107.

    Geminid

    Truman held the Roosevelt coalitiion together one last time when he beat Dewey on 1948. And he had 3rd and fourth party opponents Henry Wallace and Strom Thurmond, both Democratic party defectors, challenging from the left and the right. One hell of a political feat. Besides the accomplishments mentioned already, he presided over the post WW2 demobilizaton, and the transition of the war time economy to peacetime. I remember thinking when Bill Clinton concluded his presidency, that Clinton did OK, but his toughest challenge would have been Truman’s 7th or 8th toughest.

  108. 108.

    Ken

    @HalfAssedHomesteader: Or volcano monitoring systems.  I’m trying to remember, didn’t some Republican mock those in a State of the Union response, only to have a volcano in Alaska erupt a few days later?

  109. 109.

    Suzanne

    @lamh36: I believe in you! Good luck! It sounds like you did great!

    My house went up on the market at lunchtime. Four groups have looked at it so far. Three more are already scheduled for tomorrow. Please PLEASE think good house-selling thoughts for me.

  110. 110.

    Ken

    @J R in WV: Hmm, I think you just revealed enough data so that we can find your secret identity, “JR”.  Can’t be too many Supreme Court cases that fit.

    And congratulations on your dad’s victory.

  111. 111.

    Amir Khalid

    @J R in WV:

    Not everyone in journalism has balls like your dad. In my day senior editors at Malaysian newspapers were typically picked by the political parties that owned them (the papers, that is) through business proxies. It was also common for an ambitious journo to cultivate a political patron. It may still be; such habits die hard.

  115. 115.

    Amir Khalid

    @Ken:

    It’s not a thing Trump would have had occasion to learn about. The Trump Org has always been privately held, nicht wahr?

  116. 116.

    lollipopguild

    Truman was in France in WW1 in an artillery unit, making him a combat veteran. Very different man/president from prezident golden calf.

  117. 117.

    Mike in NC

    Harry Truman’s greatest accomplishment might just be the fact that he never wanted to be president. It was forced on him. Unlike dozens of weasels in the time since.

  119. 119.

    japa21

    OT, but wanted to bring folks up to date (as if any of you care) about what I am seeing at Costco/  This morning I talked about how yesterday was busier than anything I have ever seen there.  Turns out approximately 8,000 people came through the doors.  This morning they opened early as the line of people waiting to get in was about 1/8 mile long.

    They had gotten in lots of water and some TP and paper towels.  Only the water remained by the time I came in for my shift at 12:45.  By 5:30 the water was also gone.

    New things they are out of.

    Baked beans, Nutella, Cheerios, any olive oil other than extra virgin, 6 different items that were in their new sales flyer, 2 types of their dry dog food, salt (for seasoning), Kirkland cheese pizzas, Spam and the item that proved to me we are facing an apocalypse, puppy training pads. Also bread.

    Things they are close to out of:

    Sugar, oatmeal, several dried fruits, most frozen vegetables,.

    I am sure I am forgetting things.  Next time you are in a Costco, check the shelves above the items that are being sold. Many are empty.  Everything is supply chain driven.

  120. 120.

    J R in WV

    @Ken:

    I’m so secretive… I’m not hiding much at all.

    Hell, Fed Ex has trouble finding me with full name and address, that’s how far up the hollow I am. They have to stop and ask neighbors for directions, and still leave packages for me at my neighbor’s house.

    If I tell them not to direct strangers up here, I’m solid gone. We ask people to ship Post Office or UPS. Those folks are good union people, not contractors taken advantage of.

    ETA: I like to think I inherited at least a little grit from my dad.

  121. 121.

    Mary G

    The Fox Business show hosted by Trish Regan is going on hiatus following controversial comments she made on the air Monday about the coronavirus. I guess even Fox has a limit. https://t.co/z8HDhK9JdT— Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule) March 14, 2020

    Wow, now do Tucker, Sean, and Laura.

  126. 126.

    J R in WV

    @Lapassionara:

    March 13, 2020 at 9:42 pm

    @J R in WV: Wow. What a story. Your Dad rocked!

    He did. Rockefeller Republican, strong supporter of Martin Luther King Jr, kind and gentle parent, loved by his daughter-in-law as well as his nieces and sons. Atheist, Nudist, Republican a long time ago, may have been unique in the universe!  Loved classical music, theater, wrote both a column and an editorial or two most of the 6 days a week his paper published. Founded the first FM radio station in the state, a classical — jazz — broadway station.

    Died on election day 2004 after a long battle with leukemia. Miss him every day. I strive to live up to his example.

  128. 128.

    mali muso

    @japa21: Woah!  I live less than a mile away from our Costco and it’s almost like a regular grocery stop for me because it’s typically so convenient.  But I’ve given it a wide berth since last week.

  132. 132.

    Suzanne

    @japa21: Mr. Suzanne was at Costco earlier in the week and they were out of paper stuff, but they had everything else. But panic is setting in. (Panic is not the same as preparedness, of course.)

    He went to the store to pick up a prescription, and they were mostly stocked. Running low on pasta, but okay on most other stuff.

  133. 133.

    NotMax

    FYI, at the CDC site –

    Regulations and Laws That May Apply During a Pandemic

    Of some note from there (emphasis added):

    Under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act) of the PHS Act, the HHS Secretary is also authorized to issue a PREP Act declaration that provides immunity from liability (except for willful misconduct) for claims of loss caused, arising out of, relating to, or resulting from administration or use of countermeasures to diseases, threats and conditions determined by the Secretary to constitute a present, or credible risk of a future public health emergency to entities and individuals involved in the development, manufacture, testing, distribution, administration, and use of such countermeasures. A PREP Act declaration is different from and not dependent on other emergency declarations.

  134. 134.

    Gin & Tonic

    So that idiot Utah Jazz player, Rudy Gobert, who made a point earlier this week of rubbing his hands all over the microphones and tape recorders on the table at their “press availability” and then later tested positive for COVID-19, apparently infected an elementary school kid here in RI who’d gotten his autograph at Boston Garden back last Friday, when the Jazz played the Celtics.

    Great work, dude.

  136. 136.

    Ken

    @Mary G: What happened?  Did she miss the pivot from “coronavirus is hoax made up by Democrats” to “coronavirus is horrifying danger that only Trump can prevent”?  (Which is all very 1984 to me: Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.)

  140. 140.

    Mai naem mobile

    Jeebus, I just went to Trader Joe’s and it was fucking cleaned out of a bunch of stuff. A lot of fruit gone. The fruit and veggie stuff was reduced down to apples, onions and avocados(I think their avocadoes are on the expensive side.) A lot of the junky snacky food gone(tortilla chips, popcorn.)  Their regular red salsa. Fucking oatmeal gone. Most pasta – gone.Brown sugar gone. A lot of empty shelves at a fucking Trader Joe’s. My sister told me earlier there were lines at grocery stores near where she lives and I thought she was exaggerating. People have gone nuts.

  142. 142.

    Uncle Cosmo

    I have been referring to COVID-19 as Old Farts’ Flu (OFF), which is misleading but those of us old (fart) enough to recall when “to off” was slang for “to kill” may note a certain bitter appropriateness:

    Hey, you know that old fart who owned the corner house? He got OFFed last week!

    At that it’s still not as revolting as a slang term for COVID-19 I heard from a young whippersnapper at a Big Lots store** earlier this evening; Boomer Remover.

    ** Which FTR had a decent stock of inexpensive paper towels & toilet paper & even a few bottles of hand soap.

  143. 143.

    A Ghost to Most

    @Suzanne: My wife hit the grocery store around noon today. She said it was crazy, with lots of empty shelves. Since I’m the early riser, I will hit the store at 5 AM opening, to get what she couldn’t, assuming they restock over night.

  146. 146.

    Eunicecycle

    @Suzanne: My daughter put her house on the market Wednesday and had 4 offers by the next day. All at or over asking price. And this is in Ohio! Good luck.

  147. 147.

    Amir Khalid

    Some YouTubers I follow have been griping that their videos got demonetised for mentioning coronavirus. What’s up with that?

  150. 150.

    Ken

    @lamh36: Fresh out of self-quarantine, @tedcruz is headed back in after he learned he shook hands with another person infected by virus.

    Dude, stay away from Mar-A-Lago.

  152. 152.

    danielx

    Note – sister in law the radiologist saw four cases today. Same diagnosis, bilateral interstitial pneumonia – which is the one I’ve heard mentioned from Italy (over and over).

  153. 153.

    Suzanne

    @Mai naem mobile: Yes, I took the Pittsburgh job. I am already working for that firm and have been working remotely from home, with some travel. My main project is in Cleveland, though. All travel is on hold until this gets figured out.

  155. 155.

    Brachiator

    The Atlantic has a fiery condemnation of Trump. The final paragraphs:

    Donald Trump is shrinking before our eyes.

    The coronavirus is quite likely to be the Trump presidency’s inflection point, when everything changed, when the bluster and ignorance and shallowness of America’s 45th president became undeniable, an empirical reality, as indisputable as the laws of science or a mathematical equation.

    It has taken a good deal longer than it should have, but Americans have now seen the con man behind the curtain. The president, enraged for having been unmasked, will become more desperate, more embittered, more unhinged. He knows nothing will be the same. His administration may stagger on, but it will be only a hollow shell. The Trump presidency is over.

     

    I wish it were so. But his defenders and supporters are willing to go down in flames with him. They will adjust to his lies, erase or reverse his statements as needed. They are his human sharpie.

    It’s up to the rest of us to repeal and replace this charlatan.

  156. 156.

    sdhays

    I just have to say that last picture is breathtaking.

    @lamh36: Congrats in the strong interview and good luck on the job!

  158. 158.

    frosty

    @lamh36: Good luck! It sounds like the same process I went through for a County job many years ago. I had two standard questions: What’s the best (worst)  part of working here?

    Sounds like a good opportunity for you, fingers crossed!

  159. 159.

    Mai naem mobile

    @Suzanne: Good for you. I don’t think you’ll have a problem selling the house as long as you’re not asking a ridiculously unrealistic high price  for it. I have a feeling you’re selling right before a recession hits.  I still can’t believe the crazy prices in Phoenix.  I see prices higher than the prices right before the crash in ’07.

  160. 160.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Amir Khalid: One of the tech channels I follow had problems with that, went with “the beer flu” for a while and can’t say that either.  The idea is to keep out misinformation about the virus, but it’s difficult to discuss some of the problems with tech(iPhones being delayed) without mentioning the virus.

  162. 162.

    danielx

    @danielx:

    Plus the dipshit ER doc didn’t think, so he, all the nurses, techs, etc all were exposed. Sis in law was all “great, who’s gonna run the CT scans?”

  163. 163.

    Another Scott

    The JH coronavirus map seems to be having issues being updated now. I didn’t see the numbers change most of the day. The US total is 2134 now, but it shows no cases in GA. News reports indicate there are 42 confirmed cases there.

    It’s a huge job. I hope they find a way to make it more timely. It’s a great resource.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  165. 165.

    Martin

    Italy is making no apparent progress thus far. They haven’t bent their fatality curve at all. In fact, today it got ever so slightly worse.

    They’re on pace to hit 10K fatalities in a week and 100K a week after that.

    This is what a makeshift hospital in Italy looks like. They did the same thing in Wuhan. That’s us in a week, at least somewhere. Fatality rate in those facilities is around 5%, compared to around 1% for a non-stressed hospital.

  167. 167.

    Another Scott

    CalculatedRiskBlog:

    FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2020

    The Sudden Economic Stop

    by Calculated Risk on 3/13/2020 02:54:00 PM

    I just spoke with a tile sub-contractor who mostly does remodels. He was completely booked for the next several months, and all of his jobs have cancelled for the next 8 weeks.

    He has a great reputation – and a good network – and he has been busy for years. These cancellations caught him by surprise. He will have to layoff his workers until he finds work.

    This story is happening all across the country. This is a sudden stop for the US economy like nothing I’ve ever seen.

    It might take a week or two to show up in the weekly unemployment claims report, but we are going to see a sharp increase in claims. Since this week was the BLS reference week for the March job report, the crisis will probably not have a huge impact on the March report.

    We don’t know how long this will last, but China is only now slowly recovering – so this might last for several months or even longer. Stay healthy!

    Bill McBride is one of the few people who was screaming about the housing bubble before it blew up under W. He looks at lots of numbers every day.

    Be careful, and hang on.

    :-(

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  168. 168.

    Martin

    @Another Scott: So, typically in data science you run a process that grabs the data from your external source, then cleans it up and merges it into your internal data source. Odds are the state of GA didn’t update their data until after JH ran their process.

    That happens. They’re after overall trends so having a single data element being off isn’t that big of a deal. Italy missed their cutoff yesterday.

  169. 169.

    JanieM

    @Martin:

    They’re on pace to hit 10K fatalities in a week and 100K a week after that.

    Wait, that JH chart shows 3062 deaths in Hubei, but  Italy will be at three+ times that many a week from now, and 100,000 two weeks from now?

    Seriously?

    Edited to fix a typo.

  170. 170.

    Brachiator

    @Martin:

    Italy is making no apparent progress thus far. They haven’t bent their fatality curve at all. In fact, today it got ever so slightly worse.

    The distribution of fatalities by age groups resembles what was seen in China. I could not quickly find a breakdown by gender.

    As of March 12, 2020, the spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Italy has hit mostly people over 50 years of age. In fact, as the chart shows, about 76 percent of individuals infected with the virus was over 50 years old. By contrast, only one in five individuals who contracted the virus were between 19 and 50 years old.

    1.2% of the fatalities involved people age 0 to 18

    22.8% of the fatalities involved people age 19 to 50

    37.5% of the fatalities involved people age 51 to 70

    38.5% of the fatalities involved people older than age 70

  171. 171.

    Another Scott

    @Martin: Georgia’s numbers are back in the JH map now.  2174 confirmed US cases, 42 in GA.  I guess it was a glitch of some-sort.

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  173. 173.

    ziggy

    @Another Scott: That’s odd, I can see a few people stopping a remodel due to their paychecks being cut, but ALL his jobs have canceled? We are having our floors redone on Monday, the installer called to double check that we are still on, seemed a bit nervous about us canceling. The psychological effects of the uncertainty may have a much bigger effect on the economy than the actual physical restrictions.

  174. 174.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Mary G: No no no.  Too nice and tar should be used for roofs, feathers for down pillows or comforters.

    American Nuremberg trials (that probably will end in hangings for some)

  179. 179.

    opiejeanne

    @Ken: 1.he used to mow his own lawn in Independence, MO after his Presidency had ended, much to the embarrassment of other people who lived in that town.

    2. An old chestnut that may be true: Harry Truman was talking about farming and explaining the role of manure on soil.

    “You should tell the president to say fertilizer,” a friend told Mrs. Truman.

    And Mrs. Truman replied: “You don’t know how long it took me to get him to say manure.”

  181. 181.

    opiejeanne

    @Mo Salad: I had an uncle named R B with no periods. The army can’t have that sort of name so during WWII he was known as Robert.

  182. 182.

    Leto

    @Martin: So that’s about 10 miles away from the base I was stationed at, Ghedi Air Base. Ugh… I have no idea if they’ve sent dependents home or if they’re still there and having to ride this out.

  184. 184.

    Martin

    @JanieM: Yep. China got on top of their problem early. In fact, they had about as many cases as we do now when they locked the country down. They started reducing the number of new cases immediately, but you couldn’t really see that until 12 days later.

    That’s why early intervention is so important. Nothing humans do can ramp exponentially. You can’t ramp production that fast, or shift resources. If you get behind an exponential function, you’ve lost – there’s literally nothing you can do except take increasingly small chunks out of it. But if you get in front of it early and can knock it down to a growth rate that you can scale ahead of, you can beat it. China has so far. South Korea nearly has, though they’re wobbling just a little.

    We’re a week behind Italy. At 10K deaths Italy’s hospital system will be completely overrun, at least in some areas. In the US, we can go a bit longer than that because we’re 5x larger. But we’re talking 3 days maybe?

  185. 185.

    Martin

    @Brachiator: The breakdown shouldn’t resemble China to much. China has very few people in the older age brackets. Italy has a lot. Italy had the lowest birth rate in the world for quite a while – lots of old people, not many young ones. China had this huge population boom before the one child policy and then it leveled off.

    I mean, I would expect the fatality rate for comparable age groups to be similar.  It’s possible it’s hitting the populations differently. China typically has multigenerational households. That’s why I’m worried about the US. We pile all of our older residents in concentrated communities. They’re just bombs waiting to go off for something like this. If we can protect those communities, we could do really well here, but we’re not really doing that. There’s going to be a Zumba class in Florida that ends up killing 10K people.

  186. 186.

    opiejeanne

    @Martin: The “somewhere it will happen” is likely to be the PNW.

    This afternoon I looked at mr opiejeanne and said, “I don’t want to die, and I don’t want you to die.” He agreed with this sentiment. “So, what are we going to do?”

    The youngest is in Seattle and has agreed to do some shopping for us so we can stay on our almost acre and hopefully stay safe.  She says she’ll wear gloves and a mask when she delivers stuff to us; her mil sent her a shipment of nitrile gloves and masks, just because she could.

    We will do some intense gardening once the soil warms up enough, so we will have fresh produce most of the summer.

  187. 187.

    opiejeanne

    @Martin: We are now getting emails from Icelandair as they try to figure out Trump’s ban on travel from Europe, but also the shifting epicenter which is now Europe. They are already offering to reschedule the flight, but I’m going to wait until the 15th of April to see what they end up doing. They’re already cancelling some flights to and from the US. I thought I’d rebook if they’d allow the same dates next year, but usually they don’t want to book a year out. And now I’m wondering if a year away is going to be long enough. I am surprised Washington hasn’t been singled out as a place no airline wants to serve right now.

  188. 188.

    joel hanes

    @ziggy:

    People do not want a person from a different household coming into their house during the pandemic unless it’s essential.

  189. 189.

    Anne Laurie

    @Amir Khalid: Some YouTubers I follow have been griping that their videos got demonetised for mentioning coronavirus. What’s up with that?

    Two things:  One, every night since I started running a twitter scan for ‘coronavirus’, there’s many many webcam-scam-style  video tweets with scam-ish ‘headlines’ — kpop coronavirus hot chix vodka — using the word as a lure.  I’m sure it’s at least as bad on a social media channel it’s easier to monetize.

    Two, YouTube has announced it’s added extra content supervisors to remove ‘unhelpful’ or ‘misleading’ coronavirus related content.

    So I suspect some people using the word sarcastically, or even casually, are getting ‘demonetized’ by tired moderators too busy thumping scammers & pr0n huxters to discriminate.

  190. 190.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @opiejeanne: All the kid said was he’d heard people call COVID-19 “Boomer Remover.” (We were discussing mattresses at the time.) I’m gonna roust out his manager in & get him in trouble for that??

    Jeebus cripes, some curmudgeons are getting really testy in their – dare I say it? – old age.

    (ETA: I presume the “Karen” reference is something snarky – I missed it.)

  191. 191.

    arielibra

    Upon this heap of dead thread let me add: Truman always insisted on washing his own socks and underwear, even in the White House; he felt this was not a task one human being should ever have to do for another.

  192. 192.

    trollhattan

    @Brachiator:

    Nixon had supporters waving fan signs as he boarded the helicopter for that final ride away from the White House and we all know True Trumpers will never quit him. But kneejerk Republican voters disquieted by what they bought in ’16 are surely having a tough time with their purchase. And if they don’t personally know somebody hit or even killed by the virus, everything they need to know will be revealed in their next 401(k) statements.

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