Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

It’s a new day. Light all those Biden polls of young people on fire and throw away the ashes.

T R E 4 5 O N

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. don’t touch it.”

Donald Jessica Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

The revolution will be supervised.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

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

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

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

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

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

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

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / Social Distancing and Keeping Fit

Social Distancing and Keeping Fit

by | 173 Comments

This post is in: ,

Cole has asked me to do some posts on the effects of the novel Coronavirus and COVID-19 on national security under my Silverman on Security tag in addition to the normal nat-sec posts I do under that category. I’m going to cover a range of items both domestic and foreign and I’ll have the first one of these posted sometime tomorrow.

Until then, because of the need for all of us to socially distance as much as possible, we’re going to need to think about staying fit, or as fit as possible for our readers and commenters with physical limitations. My go to when I can’t get to the gym is to use a suspension trainer. I specifically use the name brand TRX. For those that don’t want to, or cannot afford to, buy the TRX, there are cheaper suspension trainers for sale ranging from $29 all the way up the $149 for an actual TRX. For the DIYers among us, if you do a keyword search you can find instructions and videos showing how to build your own.

Suspension trainers allow one to do everything they would normally do with free weights or weight machines, but without needing actual weights or weight machines. Or even a gym. Because I’d plateaued with the free weight regimen I’d been working on for the previous year, I’m already about 5 weeks into a regimen with my TRX to get myself unstuck. So skipping the gym for a while and using the TRX at home isn’t a real sacrifice or change for me right now. Though I did order a heavy duty anchor so I don’t have to keep attaching it to a door. A major benefit of working with suspension trainers, name brand or not, is that it requires one to activate their core for every exercises. This means that even if I’m just working shoulders, I’m still using far more muscle groups than I would normally be using when doing my shoulder split. And there is definitely a cardio aspect to using a suspension trainer, which is nice as it can supplement walking, running, swimming, or any other form of cardio you might be doing if you don’t have access to a gym. Or, like now, while we’re all trying to self isolate. I’ve never tried, but I would expect that one could even adapt the weight portions of most CrossFit routines so they could be done with a suspension trainer at home.

Here’s several very helpful videos that demonstrate how to use a suspension trainer properly. They cover almost every exercise one can do across every muscle group. The last one in the series is an EXCEEDINGLY advanced routine and I’m only positing it to show everyone just exactly what one can do if one wanted to really push it. Just for everyone’s information: I would never try to do half of the exercises in that routine!

Here’s the really, really, really advanced workout!

Open thread!

 

Reader Interactions

173Comments

  1. 1.

    Kent

    Doesn’t coronavirus kill mainly via lung infections?

    I would think beefing up your cardio would be the best way to build physical resilience against this disease.

  3. 3.

    randy khan

    I am, uh, not a particularly fit person, but I do try to get some exercise every day, and that is one thing I’m worried about now that my company has encouraged us to work at home.  I’m really going to have to look for ways to get it done.

  5. 5.

    Morzer

    Just for everyone’s information: I would never try to do half of the exercises in that routine!

    Another illusion shattered.

  7. 7.

    Martin

    Italy had a bad day yesterday, but a good day today. That may simply be an anomaly in how the numbers are being gathered and reported but today saw a drop in the number of new fatalities and a drop in the number of new cases.

    I don’t expect a drop in fatalities this early, so I’m not going to read anything into that. The drop in cases could be the system getting overwhelmed or a legit drop in cases. I’m going to hope for the latter.

  8. 8.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Kent: The better cardiovascular shape one is in, the better off one is going to be. But that’s in general. In specific, I’m sure we’re going to see people in very good physical condition to get just as hard as those who aren’t.

  12. 12.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Morzer: That woman is, relative to her size, significantly stronger than I am. And she has trained to specifically be able to do those exercises. She’s a badass!

  14. 14.

    guachi

    For the last ten months I’ve used my smart trainer and Zwift to do a lot indoor cycling at home.

    Great success boosting my fitness. At my Naval command we can ride an exercise bike for our twice annual fitness test. Out of 700 people who chose to do the bike I ended up with the best overall bike score and I’m 45.

  16. 16.

    Procopius

    I had never heard of suspension trainers before, but I’ve advocated body weight exercises for years. Thank you for publicizing this.

  17. 17.

    Gin & Tonic

    Thanks for this Adam, very helpful. I’ve thought about getting one of those, maybe now I will.

    My go-to for cardio and for clearing my head is my road bike, which I’m going to continue to do, because it doesn’t put me in contact with anyone, and I’m the only one who touches the bike. I recognize this isn’t for everyone, and is not inexpensive, but I’ve been riding for decades. I have the advantage of fresh air, semi-rural roads, little traffic and very nice scenery.

  18. 18.

    Suzanne

    @dmsilev: I spent most of today walking around outside, away from other people. It rained for the last three days, but it was sunny and lovely today. I was at the park and there were sooooo many people not social distancing, so I left.

    I have a friend who is an English teacher in China, and he reports that life is getting back to normal there.

  20. 20.

    opiejeanne

    @Martin: Washington State now has 40 deaths from the virus, and the number of cases of infection that I heard yesterday was 570+. but tonight it’s about 560. I dunno, did the number change because some people recovered?

  21. 21.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Procopius: You’re welcome. I did shoulders this evening followed by a 1 and 3/4 mile walk with the dog lanterns. I’m sore right now. Tomorrow is arms and then I’m done for the week.

  25. 25.

    Suzanne

    @gene108: Take extra Vitamin D, then. It strengthens the immune system.

    Anecdata: SuzGrandfather (who raised Suz) got melanoma on his ear later in his life, because he never thought to put sunblock there, and his hats covered his face but not ears. Anyway, he became very concerned about sun exposure and wore long sleeves and pants everywhere and would not go outside if it wasn’t dark. His health declined very quickly afterward, and the doctor said the low Vitamin D was incredibly harmful.

  27. 27.

    Another Scott

    Cheryl recently asked many questions about SARS-CoV-2 testing.

    Olga Khazan at TheAtlantic (via GovExec):

    […]

    Here are the four main reasons the testing issues have been so bad:

    1. RED TAPE

    The Food and Drug Administration has a protocol called emergency use authorization, or EUA, through which it clears tests from labs around the country for use in an outbreak. Getting more of these tests up and running would greatly increase the capacity of doctors and public-health officials to screen patients for the coronavirus.

    Former FDA officials I spoke with said that during past outbreaks, EUAs could be granted in just a couple of days. But this time, the requirements for getting an EUA were so complicated that it would have taken weeks to receive one, says Alex Greninger, the assistant director of the virology division at the University of Washington Medical Center, which is located right near the heart of the American outbreak. Greninger told me clinical labs were not allowed to begin testing at all before they had received the EUA, even if they had already internally made sure their tests worked. Though these regulations are in place to ensure that faulty lab tests don’t get used on patients, several microbiologists told me they felt the precautions were excessive for a fast-moving outbreak of this scale. “The speed of this virus versus the speed of the FDA and the EUA process is mismatched,” he said.

    Read: What will you do if you start coughing?

    On February 28, Greninger and dozens of other clinical microbiologists wrote a letter to Congress complaining that the EUA process was slowing down the ability of their labs to deploy coronavirus tests. “Many of our clinical laboratories have already validated [tests] that we could begin testing with tomorrow, but cannot due [to] the FDA EUA process,” they wrote. The following day, the FDA changed the EUA process so that labs like Greninger’s could begin testing—they would just have to submit data for the FDA’s authorization two weeks later. But weeks had already passed during which many labs and hospitals were unable to use their tests.

    […]

    It’s a good read (and part of a series at TheAtlantic (now available without the paywall)).

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  28. 28.

    Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]

    @Gin & Tonic: Bike riders represent!  I’ve been car-less for 2 years now and mainly go to work by bike in Albuquerque. It’s been a great source of passive exercise for me.

  29. 29.

    opiejeanne

    @gene108: I’m paranoid about leaving the house too, but it’s also been pretty cold outside recently. Tonight it will drop to 28F, which is pretty cold for March 14 in this area. I’m looking forward to Monday when the highs will be in the 50s and 60s, and sunny.  We can work in the garden, getting it ready for spring.

  30. 30.

    hitchhiker

    I’m 67, and a couple of years ago I started going to a local Y.

    That didn’t go well … I don’t seem to be able to restrain myself when I’m in a group exercise class; I taught group exercise in the 90s and loved it. There’s nothing quite like leading a bunch of grownups into a frenzy of sweating with your favorite music. In my 20-teens class, I was repeatedly hurting myself by forgetting that I’m not in the 40-something body anymore.

    SO ANYWAY on Jan 1 this year I started a little exercise routine to do on my own, with the plan of ramping up repetitions v e r y s l o w l y, 1 more per week. Like, 10 crunches became 11 crunches. This is week 20, and I’m staying with it. The idea was to figure out how to get stronger without damaging myself, and it’s kind of working as planned. Just think, by 2021 I’ll be able to do 50 (modified!) push ups!

    I never imagined that I’d need to do it this way because of a virus, but okay.

    Also, my dog gets walked for a couple of hours every day. We don’t go fast, but we keep going, and there are plenty of hills.

  31. 31.

    Kent

    @Adam L Silverman:@Kent: The better cardiovascular shape one is in, the better off one is going to be. But that’s in general. In specific, I’m sure we’re going to see people in very good physical condition to get just as hard as those who aren’t.

    Right, of course.   I’m just saying that if someone is starting a NEW exercise regime to increase fitness in the face of coronavirus, then cardio should probably be the focus rather than weights and strength training.

  33. 33.

    RSA

    Nice! I recently gave my (younger) brother a TRX package that he installed; I’ll have to ask how it’s going.

    Thanks for the videos. In the last one, the trainer is really impressive! Although I do laugh a little about the setting—some videos look as though they’re in a facility that could be a military installation, a university gym, or maybe an airport, in a random corridor no one is using at the time… :-)

  34. 34.

    Redshift

    I suspect your exercise levels are considerably above most of us here, Adam. ?

    I need to get back to walking; I’ve slacked off in my first couple of days working at home. My exercise recently has consisted of taking walks with coworkers and sincerely intending to get back to the gym soon.

  35. 35.

    Ruckus

    Adam

    I have a TRX and have to say it is a grand workout. Hard to use in my apartment but then right now I can only do some of the real basic stuff. But I will agree that it is amazing what you can do with it.

    I started watching the last video and it actually hurts to watch it, because at my age I doubt that I could do, well any of it.

  36. 36.

    scav

    @opiejeanne: Yup, another gardener as gym devotée.  I was antsy today and went out to wheelbarrow and fling mulch about despite the wind.  At least ten yards were delivered, so there’s more mild weight training out there waiting for me.

  38. 38.

    Martin

    @opiejeanne: Officially from my data

    • 572 cases
    • 37 fatalities
    • 1 recovered

      • I think that’s earlier in the day, though. My guess is some clarification in the count.

  39. 39.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Another Scott: Thanks for making me read that. I’ve had it up in a tab the past couple of days and hadn’t gotten to it. It doesn’t really answer any of my questions.

    I understand why reporters try to put that hard science stuff into simple words, but it can make it very difficult to decipher what they’re talking about. Or if they’ve got it right. I’m trying to go through the article and point out where this makes for problems in what she’s saying, but it gets too complicated for a comment.

    I’ll just say that, of her four “reasons,” I would divide the problem as

    1. 20%
    2. 10%
    3. 20%
    4. 50%

    And I strongly suspect that number 1 is, in fact, a subset of 4, so that’s 70% on managerial screwups.

  40. 40.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Redshift: As is the case with any fitness regimen, you start at your level and increase the difficulty, whether that is weight, some other form of resistance, distance, tempo, etc as you progress. You’re not competing against anyone. Except, perhaps, yourself from yesterday.

  41. 41.

    The Dangerman

    Hold the hell on; are we really approaching 40 and no one has reminded us to not forget to hydrate? Unacceptable, not soldiers (what move did the the unacceptable, soldier come from … was that Full Metal Jacket?).

    Yeah, I could google, but … lazy.

  42. 42.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ruckus: Have you considered ordering an anchor point for it that bolts into a stud in the wall or ceiling? You can always remove it and patch it if/when you move out.

  44. 44.

    opiejeanne

    @scav: Yes, we’re having the youngest take our truck and pick up garden supplies, because we aren’t leaving the lot except to go for a walk.

  45. 45.

    Martin

    @Another Scott: So, this is where I think the Trump folks don’t know how their agencies work. When they have authority (as Katie Porter pointed out) they don’t use it, presumably because they either don’t know they have the authority, or because they think government works on autopilot and they shouldn’t have to do anything.

    One of the nicer aspects of government is that relatively often responsibility and authority go together. If your title makes you a policy officer in some area, that generally means you need to be the one wielding that sword and not waiting on your boss or some other agent to tell you to do that.

    We saw a lot of that conflic/lack of awareness in the impeachment hearings as well. Government is a dynamic thing. It’s not the lump of salt that the GOP seem to believe.

  46. 46.

    dmsilev

    @Cheryl Rofer: Reason 1 is definitely a subset of 4. With an engaged and competent White House, there’d be somebody or some group that could identify the bureaucratic roadblock and override it Because Emergency. With the White House we currently have, however…

  47. 47.

    MoCA Ace

    I have totally let myself go over the last several years and it was really catching up with me.  I joined Weight Watchers to help switch my eating habits and I have lost 20 lbs in 6 weeks.  Thirty more to go! Who knew a good diet was good for you?

    Anyways, I joined a gym three weeks ago but didn’t go because I had a very sore knee at the time.  Twenty pounds later it feeling pretty good but there is no way I’m going to be swapping sweat with anyone now.  I still have some dumbbells so I guess its the Spartacus workout in the basement (at least the ones I can do) and bike riding.  The weather is finally breaking and the snow and ice are just about off all the back roads around here.

  48. 48.

    joel hanes

    UV is really hard on virus particles, whether in aerosol droplets or on surfaces.   Taking a brisk walk outdoors in the fresh air is not going to work your upper body like Adam’s workout, but it’s probably a really good idea.   Caveats if your local air quality is bad, or if your only options are places in which you’ll encounter many people.

    I believe there was some evidence for an “outdoor effect”, both daytime and nighttime, of reduced infection of influenza.   I can’t find the article I read, though.

  51. 51.

    opiejeanne

    @Martin: Three more deaths were added by this evening, but the cases reported on the local news was fewer than that 572, so they got the deaths right but not the cases.

    I’ve been  keeping track, and when I looked at the deaths from a week ago, we’ve more than doubled it in 7 days, but the really interesting thing is that the number of cases a week ago was about 100. I realize that as more people get tested the percentage of deaths will drop, and I am really angry that we don’t have enough testing materials for the Common Folk, but an entire basketball team plus staff were tested in Oklahoma, because that’s what really matters.

    Also, Ronna ROMNEY McDaniels being tested because she feels poorly and has the sniffles.

    Sorry, I’m just an angry old woman right now, as well as worried.

  54. 54.

    TEL

    Love the TRX. It’s become my go-to over the past year for weight training because of the emphasis on core strength and balance. While I can do some of the easier front-facing and side plank moves on the last video, I can’t even begin to do some of the pull-up moves nor the crazy steep angles she is doing. She is crazy strong!!

  55. 55.

    Ruckus

    @dmsilev:

    I walk 2 or more miles on days it isn’t raining. Takes about 30 min. I’m going on 71 yrs old. I have one of my bicycle shop fitting bikes I used to build in my front room to use on days it is raining.

  56. 56.

    MomSense

    I think I’m having some panic/anxiety.  I’m going to try to watch HGTV or something and shut my brain off.

  57. 57.

    Jeffro

    We’ve been doing decent-length hikes each morning this past week here in central VA, and not only is it good exercise, it does help calm the mind for the day ahead.

    My workplace’s aquatic & fitness center is tentatively staying open for now, so I will be trying to get those laps in on M/W/F while hitting the elliptical & stair master machines on Tu/Th.  And then kayaking on the weekends.

    Adam, I used to do TRX a while back and thanks to your post will be adding that back in as well.

    A little OT but still: I am seeing how many cities are seeing a surge in younger folks hitting restaurants and bars (perhaps while they can?) and I confess, we had a nice family dinner out last night at a local Mediterranean place.  But after reading more about asymptomatic transmission, for the next several weeks, we’re going to ‘socially distance’ ourselves for real through mid-April.  Good books and family board games and that’s about it…no more going out, no more happy hours, none of it until the situation is well under control.

  58. 58.

    dmsilev

    @Ruckus: On normal days, before the coming of the Great Plague, I generally shoot for around 5 or so miles. When I was in the middle of my weight-loss period, I regularly hit 60 miles a week (8 a day during the week, 10 on Sat/Sun). That was a fairly substantial time commitment.

  59. 59.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Martin: No, it is because they were specifically instructed not to!

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-says-he-took-coronavirus-test-as-questions-mount-over-his-personal-risks-in-face-of-pandemic/2020/03/14/d01dda88-6620-11ea-b3fc-7841686c5c57_story.html

    “They’re trying to scare everybody, from meetings, cancel the meetings, close the schools — you know, destroy the country. And that’s ok, as long as we can win the election,” POTUS told guests at Mar-a-Lago last weekend.

  60. 60.

    Avalune

    I think the apartment manager would have a fit if I got one of those.

    I’ve been really lazy the last four days trying to get over whatever cooties Leto passed to me. Assuming I feel well enough tomorrow and the weather doesn’t suck, I plan to get on the bike. I don’t know if we’re going to be able to do the bike tour in May now but I’ve lost just about 40lbs so far and want to keep up the training as if we were going to be there. I’ve got free weights and stuff for some light strength stuff too.

    If I don’t quite feel recouped enough for that, I still want to some house sanitizing (and Leto sanitizing if he doesn’t stop coughing) and something a bit more generally productive than what I’ve been doing.

    Dog deffo has to go for a long walk. She’s stir crazy already. I have a video of her sassing me pretty hard today!

  62. 62.

    Suzanne

    @joel hanes:

    UV is really hard on virus particles, whether in aerosol droplets or on surfaces.
     

    Dude. I spent much of the day outside, and I sought shade, and I still got a little bit of sunburn. I wonder if there will be some way to track if sunnier places see slowing of the virus transmission sooner.

  65. 65.

    Ruckus

    @Suzanne:

    I’ve had so many things frozen off that I now wear long sleeve T shirts when I’m outside. White in the summer isn’t too hot, as I don’t live where you do…. And I also take half the recommended maximum of D per day, 2000 IU up the other day from 1000 IU. I may go up to 3000 IU per day, been thinking about it. Anything to help.

  66. 66.

    randy khan

    @dmsilev:

    I’m pretty sure walking outdoors by yourself is quite low risk, particularly if you’re not in a city.  That’s actually my plan; it’s what I do when I’m in my office – I take a break and walk, and have made it a habit to walk to colleagues’ offices rather than calling them, which isn’t a lot of steps each time, but adds up over time.

  69. 69.

    Suzanne

    @Ruckus: SuzGrandfather ended up not dying of cancer, but of valley fever (aka Coccidioidomycosis). His case was really bad because he was generally weak and his immune system was crap…. he exercised less because he was avoiding all sun, had developed a D deficiency, had lost muscle mass, etc. He had survived the cancer treatment just fine. Irony.

  71. 71.

    Ruckus

    @hitchhiker:

    As we age we just can not do all the stuff we used to. We want to but our bodies just are not willing to go along. And when we hurt something we take longer to heal. Just part of the deal. Doesn’t mean we have to give up we just have to be a bit realistic. Smarter helps as well. My bike shop was also a triathlon shop and I worked with a couple of triathlon trainers, one who had held the Canadian Ironman record for quite a few years. It bothered me at first that he could warm up on a pro treadmill at 6 min 30 sec miles and the fastest I could run warmed up was 10 min miles but only for a short time on the same treadmill. But that’s why he held the record for so long, he is an exceptional athlete and I don’t qualify as a decent age grouper. You can build on your strengths but only so far and as you age that strength level lowers and your risk of injury increases.

  72. 72.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Mike in NC:

    I enjoy the learned commentary, it’s just the scene I just saw of two Genoese soldiers carrying what in reality was a one-ton stone like it was a bag of cement made me chuckle.

    I know little of the era so at this juncture anything novel is of interest and even the basics of the development of the bombards is worth following up on.

  73. 73.

    Kelly

    FInally fresh snow in the Cascades. My wife and I are planning 5~7 mile xc ski trip in ungroomed terrain Monday. We like to hike, xc ski and kayak with just the two of us anyway so isolation comes naturally.

  74. 74.

    Kent

    @Chetan Murthy: Logical that the virus would spread rapidly in crowded and generally unsanitary cities like Manilla.  The bright sunlight might reduce the viability of the virus airborn on on surfaces, but it wouldn’t affect direct human to human contract which is the most likely vector anyway.

    I wouldn’t expect heat to make a population less vulnerable.

  75. 75.

    Ruckus

    @Suzanne:

    My oncologist is amazed at my recovery from cancer. I seem to have no ill effects and no lingering issues. I put some of that to general health, even though all is not perfect. I could lose 10 lbs and am doing PT to get back some of the finer muscles to help with my balance. It’s working a bit but I’m not there yet. And it’s like my answer to hitchhiker, as we age we just can’t do what we used to do. We want to, but our bodies say fuck off more than anything else if we try.

  76. 76.

    JoyceH

    @MomSense: Do you have streaming? Over on Amazon Prime they have many seasons of Bob Ross painting and on Netflix there is Monty Don touring French and Italian gardens and helping people with small spaces achieve their big dreams. Bob Ross and Monty Don are the most soothing guys I know. Oh, and fitness? My goal for the isolation period is to get to where I can make it all the way through a 30 minute “senior chair workout” video.

  79. 79.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Maggie Haberman@maggieNYT
    · 2h
    “Indeed, several advisers to Mr. Trump on Saturday privately expressed irritation at Ms. McDaniel for publicly acknowledging her illness.”

  83. 83.

    MoxieM

    Yeah. Darn it. I had just started a routine (can call it a routine if you’ve gone once?) to the local Y, which, amazingly, has a small heated therapy pool.  This is a thing I need since I am riddled with arthritis, afflicted with spinal lumbar stenosis, annoyed by intractably hip bursitis, and way, way more.  On the plus side, my innards are all good. I’m like an old pickup with a terrific drivetrain, but the body is rotted out with rust.

     

    I’m guessing the answer to the unanswered question is that I should hold off going to the pool for a while. Bummer.

  89. 89.

    Zelma

    I do TRX stuff with my trainer all the time.  And I’m closer to 80 than 70.  But I don’t try most of the stuff in the videos.  I’m not suicidal.   I really like using it.  I never thought of getting it for my house.  But I’m not sure where I could put it.

  90. 90.

    Jeffro

    I see that the orange moron tweeted “SOCIAL DISTANCING!” earlier today.  Seriously, that was the tweet, as the kids say.

    Which, granted, is the extent of his ability to put together a sentence, much less a presidential address.

    But still…we’re going to have to address this severe lowering of standards next go-round, America.  This kind of babble and incoherence (just two weeks after “HOAX!  It’s all a Dem hoax!”) isn’t good for our country or the world.

  95. 95.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Major Major Major Major: To be more serious, the issue isn’t how much he likes Biden, as Brianna Joy has been out and about on social media today trashing him on healthcare so it doesn’t appear that Bernie’s fondness has any effect on the campaign. The issue is that Bernie is a monomaniacal, megalomaniacal, inflexible ideologue. He has perpetual tunnel vision. He is incapable of seeing the bigger picture, let alone acting on it.

    Beyond that, I just saw reporting that the state of Pennsylvania is closing its liquor stores this evening. PA’s liquor stores are all owned by the government, though some bars and restaurants can sell take away from their surplus stock. As a colleague and good friend of mine likes to say: “as long as people can still buy alcohol, there won’t be a revolution”. Bernie and his followers wanted a revolution and they are naive enough to believe they can get one that is non-violent and will deliver everything in their ideologically pure fever dreams. When the mess from the novel Coronavirus and COVID-19 response is all said and done, they will be lucky not to have had to live through a revolution that they couldn’t control and that isn’t intended to give each of them a unicorn.

  98. 98.

    Redshift

    @Major Major Major Major: When I was going to the gym, I was doing a version of the seven-minute workout in the elliptical. It’s great because my personal difficulty with sticking to exercise is the time it takes; I always have other stuff I’d rather be doing. (Unless I’m going for a bike ride.)

  104. 104.

    smike

    @Ruckus:

    The “takes longer to heal” bit is the thing I try to keep in mind at all times. That seems to include almost all injuries, as I have come to learn.

  108. 108.

    Martin

    @gwangung: I’ll quibble with that a little.

    Resiliency means that you can’t be held hostage by a sociopath. So, my suggestion would be that future national responses like a pandemic have a set of triggers that hang off of actions like a declaration of emergency. I like France’s Stage 1-5.

    That declaration could be made by the president, or by a vote of Congress, or by a vote of state Governors. That gives you plenty of fallbacks. And you amend the executive powers to authorize these actions not to the president but to individual agencies. It doesn’t matter if the President doesn’t want to screen people at airports, we’re at stage 3 and that’s what happens. You don’t have to wait for the task force to meet. You don’t have to wait for the agency head to okay it.

    You as a CBP officer have the following authority and responsibility when this happens. It was codified when the pandemic plan was voted on by Congress and signed by the president. When we hit stage 3, you start doing x, y, z. It’s part of your training. You have that documented in a binder somewhere. Agency heads are there to ensure it happens correctly, not to give that authority.

    Now you have something that won’t get hung up in politics and won’t get slowed down by red tape. A lot of the things that president was complaining about in the regulations, granting exceptions for things, are automatic under a national emergency. He didn’t need to redo any rules, he just needed to do that one thing, and our system doesn’t allow for anyone else to do it.

  110. 110.

    Ruckus

    @MoxieM:

    I live in a senior complex (over 55) and there is a spa. We just got a note this morning that the spa and meeting room is closed because of the virus. Not a bad idea….

  112. 112.

    Adam L Silverman

    @oldgold: They are. O’Hare has an over five hour long line to get from your plane through customs and arrivals. Governor Pritzker apparently couldn’t get through to anyone Federal so he tweeted at the President in the hope of getting his attention.

  113. 113.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Martin: Ken’s talking about the protein that’s responsible for photosynthesis in plants.  IIRC there’s another cycle involving a different protein, and that one is …. less (?) common ? But Rubisco is the most common one.  So …. since all animals eat more than their weight of plant matter pretty quickly, it’s a good bet that there’s more rubisco on Earth, than all the animal protein, period.

  114. 114.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Adam L Silverman: what if they had a revolution and everybody went to Señor Frog’s for two-for-one shot night instead?

    Edward-Isaac Dovere@IsaacDovere
    50m
    it’s so weird that we can’t get larger action on climate change when people can’t be convinced to take one Saturday night away from bars

  115. 115.

    mrmoshpotato

    We can all agree Hillary would’ve been just as bad, right?

    Glad we had this talk.  FSM help us with what SNL’s cold open is in 2 weeks.

  117. 117.

    Jean

    We all do what we can, given our ages and abilities.  I walk my dogs –there are few people out walking where I live, so social distancing is fine.  I have a horse.  I’m not just riding, but walking back and forth to fields, mucking a stall and paddock, cleaning tack, grooming my horse.  I probably spend two hours or more when I’m at the barn and outside of it.  Few people are there when I go in the late morning, and we aren’t there to have long conversations.  I wash my hands when I get there; I wash again when I leave.  I take Vitamin D3, 4000 u a day.  That’s perfectly safe.

  118. 118.

    TS (the original)

    @Martin:

    It doesn’t matter if the President doesn’t want to screen people at airports, we’re at stage 3

    I doubt this would have been needed pre trump.

  119. 119.

    CaseyL

    My preferred form of exercise is hiking, and we’re finally getting to the time of year when that’s possible.

    Other than that, I like to walk.  Finding an uncrowded place to do that is a challenge, though.  Greenlake is a local beloved park where there are usually droves of people.  Ditto nearly every other park in Seattle.

    There is one park a few miles north of me that is a genuine jewel:  a large-ish piece of very nearly old-growth forest, saved from logging by being some rich person’s property a hundred years ago until they donated it to the community as a park.  You take the trail up and around, the trees close around you, and you can almost forget you’re in a city. I rarely see other hikers there; can’t imagine why.

    Maybe I’ll go there tomorrow, if the weather is good.

  121. 121.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m aware that the same self proclaimed revolutionaries won’t vote because they can’t bring themselves to either have to wait in line or to request an absentee ballot/vote by mail ballot because that would inconvenience them.

  122. 122.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Redshift: Just playing the hits.  The stupid stupid hits.

    C-SPAN apparently has his whole first inaugural speech up.  I think I’ll watch Storybots teach about the common cold instead.

  124. 124.

    Jean

    @Major Major Major Major: Ha.  I don’t walk in a park, but down a path behind my house and into the woods, or along around a cul de sac that has few if any people walking around and we’re at a distance from each other.

    Tonight, we did go to the golf club with 4 other people (it wasn’t at all crowded), yet that may be the last time for awhile.  Across the room, I heard people talking about Obama and H1N1, and I wanted to leave right then.  I don’t golf, my husband does.  Most members are Republican.  Even tonight, they were talking about the “hype.”

  125. 125.

    Martin

    @Chetan Murthy: Look, I’ve been to fucking Chipotle, so I know  what I’m talking about. There’s chicken, steak, barbacoa, sofritas, and carnitas. You can go anywhere and on the protein menu there will be chicken, and this is clearly the most common by mass.

    I’ve never seen Nabisco or whatever on a menu board, so I don’t believe you.

  126. 126.

    Mike in NC

    @Adam L Silverman: My Navy Reserve unit in the late 1980s did quarterly drills at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. Suffice it to say trying to buy a six-pack of beer was quite an education. Weirdest liquor laws I ever saw in this country.

  127. 127.

    Suzanne

    @Chetan Murthy: UV is not perfectly correlated with heat. UV light systems are used often in operating rooms to sterilize surfaces. Usually the light has to be sustained over some time, though, so it will probably need to be direct and bright for a while, and we’re not even at the equinox. And it will only work on surfaces that are outdoors or near a window. Falls under “can’t hurt, might help”.

  129. 129.

    Martin

    @TS (the original): It should have been. If this was a hostile act a decapitating first strike would necessitate it. A major earthquake while the president and governor are at a rally could be debilitating.

    Even with perfectly competent leadership, having these kinds of plans are important for events with a national impact.

  131. 131.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    don’t get the chaos at international airport terminals.

    you can always fly to a major city in Canada and find a connecting plane to a US destination.

  136. 136.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    @Morzer: He started out as a Marxist, who lost his way over middle east policy (just like Hitchens).  Returning to his roots wasn’t that difficult.

  139. 139.

    Morzer

    https://twitter.com/NAChristakis/status/1238934000187707400

    Flu pandemics recur reliably but unpredictably every decade or so, and their extent and intensity varies. With COVID19, we may be in midst of a once-every-50-years event, perhaps similar to 1957 pandemic, but not as bad as the 1918 pandemic. Let’s talk about the 1957 pandemic. 1/

    The 1957 pandemic ended as people became immune over a period of three years. Possibly the virus became less virulent too. We can expect COVID19 to similarly become ‘endemic,’ but probably after several waves of affliction, alas. https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3291411/ 19/

  140. 140.

    Ruckus

    @smike:

    I’m a machinist and we get cuts, scrapes and small bits of metal imbedded in hands (and other places) all the time. Soap, water, hydrogen peroxide and neosporin is your friend in these matters and I heal using that method as fast as ever. However if I just wash and hydrogen peroxide the wound I don’t heal anywhere near as fast as I used to just doing that.

  142. 142.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Martin: (cracks open a beer)

    Go on.  It’s not like you have several scientific libraries of knowledge at your fingertips.

  143. 143.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    (Yair Rosenberg)))  @Yair_Rosenberg  2h
    The mayor of Hoboken is closing all bars and restaurants. The mayor of New York is not. Maybe when this is over we can trade.

  144. 144.

    Kent

    @David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:

    don’t get the chaos at international airport terminals.

    you can always fly to a major city in Canada and find a connecting plane to a US destination.

    Is the chaos in the departures or arrivals?   They are separate and isolated from each other.

  147. 147.

    Martin

    @Kent: It’s arrivals, starting the screening that should have happened 2 months ago, clearly with not enough staff/training/equipment.

  148. 148.

    mrmoshpotato

    Hearty socially isolated fuck you to the people who said that Trump and Hillary were the same and a preemptive fuck you to the folks gearing up to do the same with Trump and Biden.— ? damned sinker ? (@dansinker) March 14, 2020

  161. 161.

    Major Major Major Major

    @mrmoshpotato: Yeah, you just install it from the microsoft store and then you have a linux shell on your windows computer. You run it from the start menu, if they still even call it that. I assume it’s basically a sandboxed VM except Windows handles seamless filesystem integration.

  162. 162.

    Chetan Murthy

    @mrmoshpotato: Doubt it’s Linux hardware drivers.  It’s a decent emulation of Linux POSIX syscall interface, combined with enough of the standard daemons that you can copy over your binaries and they just work.  The “ABI” in short.  Got nothing to do with drivers.  IIUC, b/c FFS I’m never running Windows.  Never did, and i started on 4.1 BSD.  So see no reason to start.

  163. 163.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Chetan Murthy: Hell, it was never -that- hard to do.  MSFT did it once before, and then bowdlerized the thing over time.  It’s all a question of whether they’ll be forced to keep this thing alive by the force of the market.  And who can tell …..

  166. 166.

    2liberal

    @Gin & Tonic:  My go-to for cardio and for clearing my head is my road bike

     

    what parts of RI do you ride in ?  When I lived there the East Bay bike trail was a fantastic ride for me, I’d start at one of the East Prov parking lots, go to the Bristol harbor and back for about 25 miles

  167. 167.

    sdhays

    @Major Major Major Major: Except when it doesn’t (if you try to edit a file in the Linux filesystem from Windows, you get a weird scenario where the file both exists and doesn’t). I’ve found it rather disappointing, to be honest.

  169. 169.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Whatever’s going on under the hood, I think it should do most of what I want.

    Oh, I’m sure it wouldn’t.  B/c y’see, I’ve been using UNIX professionally since 1984.  I’ve used 4{1,2,3,4}BSD, AT&T V{6,7}, Sys{III,Vr1,Vr2,Vr3}, Masscomp, various Coherents, SCOs, SUNOS since the SUN-1 Multibus refrigerators, etc.  I’ve -never- used Windows, except for a short time in a VMware image to run IBM’s VPN software.  I don’t have any idea how to use Winders, whereas until Ubuntu got stable, I used to install Debian “by hand” using Knoppix as a boot environment.

    It would be colossally stupid for me to use Windows.  If I were to switch to something, it’d be MacOS, with FreeBSD at the bottom.  I mean, sometimes I have to debug down to the kernel.  I once debugged -into- the kernel to find an IBM DB2 bug.  So no way I’d use something like Winders, that I neither understand, nor have any incentive to learn about, nor can get the source code for.

    Oh, that’s the other reason: I know that enterprise software is the shittiest software in the world.  I will never use it unless I am forced, and will work as hard as possible to not.  I made my career as the last-resort debugger of enterprise software: no way I’m gonna voluntarily submit to that sewage.

  173. 173.

    Barney

    If you have stairs in your house, try jogging up and down them. I did this once to prepare for a walking holiday, and I think it worked – half the time, you’re going up a gradient steeper than anything you find outdoors on a road or path. Whether or not the sound of it will drive anyone you live with crazy is another matter, of course …

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