Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

The words do not have to be perfect.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Russia bombs Ukraine’s maternity hospitals; Republicans in the House can’t sort out supporting Ukraine.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

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

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / COVID-19 Coronavirus Update (International) – Saturday/Sunday, March 28/29

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update (International) – Saturday/Sunday, March 28/29

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  2. 2.

    Mike in DC

    I’d bet good money that Russia has massively understated its problem.

    I really need this exponential growth curve to crest or flatten sooner rather than later.  We’re on a trajectory much closer to “worst case scenario” than best case or even middling case.

  3. 3.

    WereBear

    @Mike in DC: We’re on a trajectory much closer to “worst case scenario” than best case or even middling case.

    Come on, we all knew with Trump in charge, the CDC stacked with Dominionists, and the federal government run by inept racists it would be Worst Case Scenario.

    It’s all in the Laboratory of the States now.

  4. 4.

    OzarkHillbilly

    NYT: Medical Expert Who Corrects Trump Is Now a Target of the Far Right

    At a White House briefing on the coronavirus on March 20, President Trump called the State Department the “Deep State Department.” Behind him, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, dropped his head and rubbed his forehead.

    Some thought Dr. Fauci was slighting the president, leading to a vitriolic online reaction. On Twitter and Facebook, a post that falsely claimed he was part of a secret cabal who opposed Mr. Trump was soon shared thousands of times, reaching roughly 1.5 million people.

    A week later, Dr. Fauci — the administration’s most outspoken advocate of emergency measures to fight the coronavirus outbreak — has become the target of an online conspiracy theory that he is mobilizing to undermine the president.

    That fanciful claim has spread across social media, fanned by a right-wing chorus of Mr. Trump’s supporters, even as Dr. Fauci has won a public following for his willingness to contradict the president and correct falsehoods and overly rosy pronouncements about containing the virus.

  5. 5.

    Cermet

    While the media and the voters of the orange obnoxious gas cloud continue to support the stupid in chief just wait till this virus strikes the waste land (i.e. the laughably called heart land.) These gun clutching bible loons will quickly discover now stupid and mistaken they were to support that asswipe in the oval office. As they and relatives fall ill and either have no hospitals in their area or or the distance one has little equpiment and doctors, they will suffer and hopefully, at least, decide not to vote. They are incapable of learning a lesson from their self inflicted stupidity.

  6. 6.

    WereBear

    The good news is that the clueless and ignorant: the ones still Republicans because “my family has always voted Republican,” and everyone else in their smug white suburbs parrot Fox News and they have a Confederate legacy lurking in their subconcious they are completely unaware of and those who cling to religion without realizing that also means the rabid weasels of the Dominionists, that actual Death Cult; they may leave the party.

    But like a snowball packed into an ice ball, this will mean the existing Republicans will become more fanatical and determined and conscienceless.

    We have to cut down on their ill-gotten gains. It’s the only way to be sure.

  9. 9.

    WereBear

    @Cermet: gun clutching bible loons

     
    Well said!

    The worst of them will never give up their racism/sexism, just as Britain remains shackled by their class system and India, the caste system.

    In a world which, more than ever, runs on science and competence, these systems of securing the least capable the most power have to be dismantled.

  11. 11.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    This is from Twitter, so I don’t know how true it is

    Eric Garland
    @ericgarland
    ·
    11h
    Replying to
    @ericgarland
    TRUMP WAS BRIEFED AT LEAST BY JANUARY 18, 2020

    FIRST COVID PATIENT IN WASHINGTON STATE DIAGNOSED JANUARY 20

    THEN THEY SHIPPED OUT OUR RESERVES OF PROTECTIVE GEAR (to China)

  12. 12.

    WereBear

    @Litlebritdifrnt: It’s completely true: it was part of shutting down the virus in China. Many countries did it.

    But these stockpiles were not replenished for when our nation needed them. That’s the issue.

  14. 14.

    waspuppet

    Concerned Russian doctors sounded the alarm that potential coronavirus cases are being ascribed to pneumonia and seasonal flu without testing. During just one week in March, 63,000 SARS cases and 406 cases of pneumonia have been recorded in St. Petersburg.

    Watch for this in the U.S., since Trump is Grover Dill to Putin’s Scut Farkus.

  15. 15.

    rattlemullet

    Under tRump and republican lack of governance and we will become the Un-United States of America. What Lincoln saved tRump has put asunder.   Soon to be 50 new counties without Federal leadership as the founders conceived a government for and by the people has become a government for and by the free market.

  17. 17.

    Tony Jay

    Well, Britain’s Bondage Dungeon waiting-room of a Government is still not bothering with widescale testing, are lying about who made the decision to ignore both an offer of 25,000 functioning ventilators from a private company AND an E.U. Offer of cooperation in mass-sourcing ventilators, have given the contract to produce ventilators to a well -known vacuum cleaner manufacturer who just happens to be a major Tory donor and Brextremist, and are now laundering blunt denials that Funny Fat Man ever dismissed the need for social distancing through their gaslighting allies in the ‘Independent’ State Media.

    But never fear, apparently it’s all China’s fault because of reasons. I’m sure that the 14+ million morons who voted to keep on shitting all over those whinging layabouts in the NHS (that’ll teach them to be so offensively brown and funny accented) are gobbling it up. They must be soooooooo relieved to hear it’s definitely not their fault. Phew!

    These fucking people.

  18. 18.

    Sloane Ranger

    What I cannot understand is why there are cruise ships still afloat. Most closed down weeks ago. Docked where they could and sent their passengers home. Why didn’t Holland America? Did they actually believe Trump’s assurances or was it just that they couldn’t let that lovely lolly go and were prepared to risk peoples lives to keep it?

    Just heard Michael Gove on the radio saying that the UK’s lockdown will last “a significant period.” The Scottish Chief Medical Officer is saying 13 weeks. Gove is threatening stronger measures if people don’t comply with the current rules. I never thought I would agree with him on anything more controversial than the day/date/time of day.

  19. 19.

    Karen S.

    The mom and stepdad of one of my wife’s co-workers are on that Holland America cruise ship. The cruise was a birthday present for one of them. It’s unclear if they’re sick or not. I do wonder how the cruise industry comes back from this. My wife and I took my mother on a cruise back in 2012 because it was something she’d always wanted to do. I’m glad we did it. Mom had a great time. It was my one and only cruise. I doubt I’ll ever go on a cruise again.

    Also, the father of one of our friends died from coronavirus a couple of days ago. I can’t put into words the intensity of my anger at and loathing for Trump and anyone who willingly works for him or voted for him.

  21. 21.

    debbie

    I woke up to this goddamn news this morning and just know this will be a very angry day.

    On behalf of the city, the Mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, was on hand to receive 250,000 face masks donated by the UN on Saturday, destined for health workers in the metropolis that is home to the Organization’s Headquarters.

    Mr. Guterres said that the face masks stored in United Nations facilities, werer part of UN stocks, deemed surplus to requirements.

    The UN chief praised medical professionals in New York City who, he said, have been working “courageously, selflessly, and tirelessly in response to the spread of COVID-19 across the boroughs,” in a reference to the five boroughs into which the City is administratively divided (Manhattan, Queens, The Bronx, Brooklyn and Staten Island).

    Noting that the UN speaks “with one voice to express our resolute support for this great city and its proud people”, the Secretary-General expressed his hope that the “modest donation” of face masks will makes a difference.

    New York, declared Mr. Guterres is “not just our home or the headquarters of the United Nations. It is a vibrant international capital through which the world communicates, debates, trades, and prospers”.

    United Nations and US Mission personnel are currently working with the Mayor’s office to ensure the swift delivery of the face masks to medical facilities around the city.

    Once again, the world steps up where a Republican administration refuses to.

  22. 22.

    Tony Jay

    @Karen S.:

    I ‘m sorry to hear that and don’t blame you a bit for your anger. There’s no justification at all for what those people did.

  23. 23.

    Sloane Ranger

    @Tony Jay: At least Dyson’s have a reputation for producing a good product. My anger is directed at Wetherspoon’s whose Brexit supporting CEO wanted to keep his pubs open and whose response to the closure was to punch down at his staff by reneging on his promise to keep paying them and telling them to go get work in supermarkets.

    I had recently started re-using their pubs but never again.

  24. 24.

    Geoboy

    @rattlemullet: Come now!  The Republican Party has been building to this moment since 1980.  Reagan laid the groundwork (“The goverment is the problem”), Gingrich poisoned Congress, and W started the trend to bleeding us out, both militarily and economically.  Trump is merely the culmination of decades of malfeasence.

  25. 25.

    Karen S.

    @Tony Jay:

    Thank you. I also want to thank you for sharing your insight on Brexit and other things related to politics in the UK. I really love reading your work.

  26. 26.

    Karen S.

    @Sloane Ranger:

    Thank you so much. My wife and I are going out to visit my elderly parents today. I worry about them a lot. Their health is okay, but they’re 92 and still living in the home I grew up in, which brings other worries apart from worrying COVID-19.

  27. 27.

    Kirk Spencer

    Apropos of the theme, I learned yesterday that my aunt became a victim of this virus. The last one of my father’s generation, her death at the age of 91 comes at the end of a long and adventurous life, filled with glory and misery as all well-lived lives are.

    I’d not been in the same room as her for almost 20 years now, though we occasionally conversed if for no other reason than sharing the same birthday. Nonetheless, I am a bit dismayed that we shall be unable to gather the clan for her farewell and are instead doing small but heartfelt pieces from across the country.

    Today, I had an individual inform me this virus is a hoax. I was surprisingly restrained in my response, as neither of us left the confrontation bloody or bruised.

    Several days ago I ran numbers and added some flavor. Allow me to repeat the flavor.

    If we are lucky, by the time this is over most of us will only know of someone we used to know who died of this disease. If we are not lucky, most of us will have been invited to or felt the need to attend a few funerals.

  28. 28.

    joel hanes

    @Kirk Spencer:

    If we are not lucky, most of us will have been invited to or felt the need to attend a few funerals

    I’m reading the obits in my hometown.

    There is no traveling to be with someone during their last days.   There is no visiting them in the hospital, even for their spouses and children. There are no funerals.

    As a nation, our luck ran out in Nov of 2016

  30. 30.

    Tony Jay

    One minor positive of the last four years has been how many people have shook off the restraints of socialization to show us exactly who they are and what they think.if the rest of us. Unfortunately it turns out there’s lot of them and they enjoy the benefits of their political allies consolidating full-spectrum dominance of the Media. 

    Not sure how that situation reverses itself without the kind of violence societies don’t fully recover from.

    My God, I’m being a grumpy arse today. My apologies.

  32. 32.

    catclub

    @WereBear:  yes, this was the right decision at the time:

    THEN THEY SHIPPED OUT OUR RESERVES OF PROTECTIVE GEAR (to China)

     

    But not restocking at emergency level of priority was the crime.

  33. 33.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @catclub: Except the Chinese government is claiming that no material aid every came from the US government, at any point during the epidemic in China. The supplies that came with the evac flights (of US consulate staff and citizens out of Wuhan) were donations collected by companies and individuals in the US, the majority of whom were Chinese nationals or emigres in the US, and US subsidiaries of Chinese companies. This was reported in China right after the evac flights took place, when Pompeo was boasting about how much aid the US was sending China. In fact, the US Embassy in Beijing’s website only stated that the State Department “facilitated” the shipment of donated supplies to China…

    Unless there were other shipments that were not well publicized, I wonder what happened to the materials from the reserve. Someone sold them to China?

  34. 34.

    Calouste

    @Tony Jay: Society always recovers. Germany recovered from the Nazis, the 30 Year War, and the Black Death, for example. Humans die, but humanity moves forward.

  35. 35.

    Jinchi

    @YY_Sima Qian: In fact, the US Embassy in Beijing’s website only stated that the State Department “facilitated” the shipment of donated supplies to China…

    So Trump is taking credit for someone else’s work… Again.

    And unless I’m mistaken. Trump still has not invoked the Defense Production Act to order factories to start producing face masks and other PPE. He has only invoked it to demand a single company (GM) produce ventilators.

  36. 36.

    L85NJGT

    I find Dyson products functional, but over designed and over priced.

    Where is the value in letting every going concern slap together a prototype, and then???

    Ramping up volume production takes time, and the big health care manufacturers have an army of techs to teach healthcare staff how their stuff works. Any realistic production proposals would be licensed knockoffs of existing equipment.       

  38. 38.

    Just Chuck

    @OzarkHillbilly: I’d say that’s some North Korea type of shit, but even in the DPRK it was the state apparatus that did that sort of thing.  This is more like a cross between that and brownshirts.

  39. 39.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Tony Jay:

    These fucking people.

    Take heart.  It might be too much to ask for Dominic Cummings to succumb from this pathogen, and it might be too much to even ask for BoJo to succumb (b/c older), but at the very least, we can pray for them to spend a couple of weeks gasping for breath.  I have shared your enormous anger ever since reading about their “herd immunity” brain-fart.

  41. 41.

    Tony Jay

    @Calouste:

    You have a point. I was thinking shorter term about the turn to political violence legitimizing it, but yeah, a different t society can emerge after the knives get resheathed.

    The cost though.

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