again, open whatever you want. nobody’s got the disposable income and nobody’s got the cash flow and nobody’s gonna consume enough to cover the expense of just unlocking the doors every day until the virus is under control https://t.co/BXWsNqUXYe
— kilgore trout, social scientist (@KT_So_It_Goes) April 9, 2020
He and his SCOTUS buddies were so close to locking in the theocracy of their dreams — and then: diverted by a plague! You’d think a man with his education would appreciate the historical resonance, but right now ‘Ever Lower’ Barr just wants to yank the country back onto his Train to the Sixteenth Century…
An honest answer about what comes after letting up on stay-at-home orders from @mlipsitch https://t.co/nAYQvOuFjt pic.twitter.com/1jfc9Spdkt
— Irin Carmon (@irin) April 9, 2020
even if every hardcore MAGA lunatic sits at chili’s seven nights a week pounding margaritas and babyback ribs it’s not enough to cover the missing business of the 70% with functioning brains who won’t go near the place and chili’s is flat broke in a month
— kilgore trout, social scientist (@KT_So_It_Goes) April 9, 2020
most operations that can safely operate are still operating in some limited capacity remotely or via transactions occurring through minimal social interaction. everything else requiring rubbing shoulders is held hostage to getting the virus under control
— kilgore trout, social scientist (@KT_So_It_Goes) April 9, 2020
Look, if a few million people who aren’t Bill Barr have to die, is that Bill Barr’s problem? If they were good Christians, like him, they’d be going to a better place anyways! And the sanctity of The Market would remain untouched!
He wasn’t mad when Trump made up a fake emergency to loot DOD funds for a vanity project, but now that a pandemic is killing tens of thousands he’s getting squeamish https://t.co/8I6O9E9Zew
— Cody Fenwick (@codytfenwick) April 9, 2020
One month ago. Trump was downplaying the virus, comparing it to the seasonal flu.
Two days later states were closing schools, travel from Europe was suspended, the NBA shutdown their season, and the stock market tanked. https://t.co/85i0tCB5oE
— andrew kaczynski? (@KFILE) April 9, 2020
debbie
I cannot believe Trump is saying that today! Wasn’t it just a couple of days ago he was telling everyone it would be very bad for a while
ETA: Just realized the date stamp wasn’t for the Trump tweet. He said this on March 9. I hope Frum included this in his opinion piece.
jl
Thanks for important post. There are two camps advocating for getting out of extremely costly social distancing shut down policies as quickly as possible: the ‘ignorant fool’ camp and the ‘disease control expert with good theory and lots of practical experience’ camp. More detail on that below (I take the IMHO liberty of reposing some comments from previous thread). So, important to keep those two camps distinct, since if you don’t pay attention to what they are really saying, might be easy to confuse the two.
” So, remember there are two camps talking about how to end extremely expensive social distancing shut downs asap. The ‘ignorant fool’ camp, and I probably don’t need to explain that. Then the experienced epidemic and outbreak control camp with lots of practical experience with diseases that have some similar characteristics to covid-19 in terms of control: bacterial meningitis, TB, whooping cough. To name some names: Gottlieb, Mostashari, Friedan. (and, edit for this re-post, Fauci).
The ‘ignorant fool’ camp talks about arbitrary end dates, and when the numbers get ‘little’ and when only 15 cases, hey, I guess they’ll go away by themselves.
The camp with good theoretical foundations and practical experience in infectious disease control talk about putting measures in place that will allow much cheaper forms of transmission control to be put in place and TESTED REAL TIME IN US CONTEXT, as extreme economic shut down controls are gradually lifted. So appropriate and massive testing program in place (two flavors, testing for control measures, and testing for population surveillance), contact tracking and quarantine, syndromic surveillance, early environmental surveillance (e.g. signs of bug in wastewater, enclosed public areas, etc), good supply and population policy on use of masks. And letting experience from successful experiments in other countries and states being the guide. ”
”
More evidence on why extremely costly measures like social distancing shut downs are unsustainable, both in US and internationally. Some examples, no time to get links.
Immunization programs for polio and measles being shut down internationally. Already harm to monitoring and maintaining US immunization programs. Anyone want to add outbreaks of adult whooping cough to problem of monitoring for covid-19? Make diagnosis harder, whooping cough has basic reproduction number > 5, no or borderline herd immunity for adults. (Edit: cough and fever first symptoms, how many clinicians who haven’t seen much will get the characteristics of the whooping cough correctly in time to weed out false positives? How many covid-19 cases will be confused with whooping cough in an outbreak of something hard to figure out?)
Neglect of normal health system population health maintenance. Every avoidable heart attack, stroke, transition from prediabetes to diabetes, means more high risk people. Increasing ‘flatten the curve’ efforts in the future.
In US, more and more reports of health professional layoffs in news (unbelievable!), more and more problems keeping primary care providers operating for non-covid-19 population health maintenance. “
A Ghost to Most
Barr is a christian fascist through and through.
OT, something is happening in my family of wing nuts. A realignment appears to be forming, and folks seem to be distancing themselves from my crazy ass Nazi brother. Could be nothing, could be something.
NotMax
It’s almost magical* how the strategic national repository of lies auto-undepletes.
*Not Glinda magic, the other kind.
ziggy
This is not true at all. I know of many businesses, like me and many of my suppliers, who could function with very little risk of transmission. A lot more could be done to bring back the economy short of a full opening, but it’s going to take some work to organize and supervise it all.
OT–my dog is RUINED! He is completely spoiled rotten by Coronavirus days! Expects interesting activities organized for him all through the day, plus treats and early dinner. I do NOT know how he going to adapt when life returns to normal, if ever!
Baud
@ziggy:
This is your life now.
Another Scott
nycsouthpaw blew up on Barr. The first time I’ve seen (her?) curse on Twitter.
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
@ziggy
Heh. Dogtopia.
Flashed back to a Grummle in WoW talking with a vendor. “I want to return this yak you sold me. It’s broken.”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl:
Not really unbelievable. The kid is an OR nurse and they were asking staff for volunteers for furlough due to the decline in elective surgeries, the kid did since she doesn’t have kids to support.
Geoboy
@Another Scott: Certainly the Jabba the Hut look is popular amongst the most devote Trumpians.
dr. bloor
Kilgore has this, though: Even though the administration doesn’t care about their response getting an F and is only invested in seeing the American people fail and keep them company, the people are earning, what, a B or B+?
jl
I think Trump may be confused by his billionaire buddies coming in pleading that the economy needs to open up quickly in a ‘beautiful big bang’ and the economy comes roaring back, and people like Fauci who try to explain to him why and how we need to get off the shut down tactics asap, but it will be futile unless it is done right. Maybe it is just me, but I don’t have much faith that Trump can figure out what they hell is going on.
And Trump has far less self awareness than Harding who said “Oh God, I hate this job. One man comes in and says one thing, then another man comes in and says something else. I just don’t know what to do”. Or even GW, who could at least say ‘Heh heh, I’m not a disease man, here’s my disease man to explain it”.
The ‘ignorant fool’ camp will lead us from one disaster to another. One problem with popular reaction to the nonlinear dynamics of an infectious disease process is that it runs more or less by short memory linear extrapolation. So, it will over react to whatever the short term trend is.
So, a sudden big bang following a decline in cases and death will lead to too rapid and too extreme departure from social distancing and other good decentralized individual control measures (not shaking hands, washing, masks, etc.) That leads to a rebound that can be worse that the original epidemic peak.
Once that rebound gets rolling, then, as Bill Gates said, people aren’t going to go out or want to buy much or go to work if they see a pile of bodies piling up at every corner. And these kinds of rebounds did occur in the 1918 pandemic and they were often worse in the very areas that had the earliest and strongest social distancing shut down policies.
So, the ‘disease control experts with lots of practical experience’ camp, IMHO, will be recommending steady but incremental relaxations of shut downs, with real time testing of feedback loops, and lots of very high quality public education programs. And a large and flexible arsenal of cheaper transmission control techniques to deploy and test ready when shut downs are gradually relaxed.
Uncle Jeffy
We’ve got all kinds of emergencies, but one of the biggest is this fascist shitpile and his boss, President Shit-for-Brains.
E.
@jl: Maybe try complete sentences and then when you have that figured out, move up to thesis sentences followed by supporting evidence?
danielx
If there was ever someone who looked like the archetype prick lawyer, it’s William Barr. Further confirmation every time he publicly opens his pie hole.
ETA: most particularly when he is opining on topics about which he knows nothing.
ziggy
@Baud: No it’s no MY life, it’s my DOG’s life!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@A Ghost to Most:
That’s interesting. How right wing are your other family members to your brother? Are they reachable in your opinion?
jl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I just heard news report that in SF Bay, some hospitals are resuming urgent elective surgeries and medical therapies, which is good news. Means that for time being, they still see excess capacity for beds and ICU spaces.
And everyone is worrying about revenues, of course.
jl
@E.: ” Maybe try complete sentences and then when you have that figured out, move up to thesis sentences followed by supporting evidence? ”
My main references were included. Go read them. They have twitter feeds, they have references they have explanations, they have links to research.
[Scott] Gottlieb, [Farzad] Mostashari, [Tom] Frieden. Sorry for typo, but google search corrects it.
no_absolutes
Barr is a menace.
Captain C
When this is all over Barr needs to be behind bars for the rest of his miserable, hateful life. He and Moscow Mitch have done as much as anyone to break the US.
A Ghost to Most
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): My brother and cousin are only reachable with a .50 with a good scope.
My BIL reached out to me after 13 years of radio silence, and a Trumpy sister reached out to me as well. I am way too far out of the Earth2 loop to know what’s going on, but fractures appear to be forming.
rikyrah
Until we start testing like South Korea and Germany, we will not get our economy back.
When I tell you that I refuse to get on a bus anymore that has no more than 3 people, I mean that.
Take the actual CTA ‘el’ trains?
Hell no.
Uh uh.
Nope.?
J R in WV
@jl:
See, I thought @E. was talking about Pretend Attorney General Barr’s need to start with complete sentences, move up to thesis sentences, etc.
But you may be correct, @jl, @E. may be talking about your comments, which seem well laid out and thoughtful to me. I don’t know much, so when I have medical questions I either call my former ER Doc friend, or my former epidemiologist professor friend and ask them. I don’t go to Trump or Barr for those issues. No, No No~!!~ Nor E..
jl
@jl: Also, Ashish Jha has lots of expertise in what testing programs need to look like for ending shut downs, and clear explanations.
TS (the original)
@Anne Laurie
Thank you for all your posts – especially in recent times – they have been so informative & useful
?BillinGlendaleCA
@rikyrah: Yeah, I’m not ridding Metro(or Metrolink) here in LA anytime soon.
Adam
Dumb question, but why exactly is the AG weighing in on this pandemic? Or are we just totally at the lol nothing matters point now?
Zelma
I believe the American economy is 70% based on consumer spending. Do you know any consumer (us) who when things “open up with a Big Bang” are going to go on a wild spending spree? Financially this has not hit me much at all: retired, SS, MDR, etc. But I can tell you right now I will not be going out for my traditional 3-5 meals out a week, which is probably my greatest contribution to the economy. I’m not crazy. Just leaves me more money to give to Democratic candidates.
Mike in NC
Now if only fatso Bill Barr would try to hide under his bed.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
I always knew these people were frauds. They scream about the “sanctity of life” and they proclaim themselves the “party of life” yet the second their stock portfolios take a hit up they immediately start calling for “death panels”.
Their embrace of religion was always a fraudulent maneuver to shield their bigotries and greed behind the Bible.
Roger Moore
@danielx:
Someone needs to explain to Republicans that Boss Hogg was the villain, and they should stop the cosplay.
NotMax
@Adam
It’s pulling the
wagonsmagats into a circle.karensky
@Annie Laurie Thanks for this post. I really liked your comment about Bill Barr and his wanting to go back to the 16th century because every time I think of him, I imagine Torquemada.
chris
So is “subterranian” Barr going to find a way to charge people who refuse to go back to work on May 1? Hey, maybe he can turn aggravated mopery and moral turpitude into capital crimes.//
dmsilev
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch: When Barney Frank said that for them, “life begins at conception and ends at birth”, he was 100% dead-on accurate.
Amir Khalid
@Roger Moore:
They are of an ilk with BoJo, who thought that the mayor of Amity had the right way to deal with the beachgoer-eating shark: keep the beaches open.
dmsilev
@Roger Moore: They must be so confused by that show. Ordinarily, anyone with a Confederate Battle Flag painted on their car would automatically be the hero.
Roger Moore
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Agreed. I started taking the Gold Line* to work the day the stop opened across the street from my work, and I drove to work only a handful of times in the ~4 years since then. My coworkers staged an intervention and convinced me to protect myself by driving as long as the safer at home order is in place. It makes me sad, but I think commuting by train is out until further notice.
*Excuse me, the L line
dmsilev
Washington Post headline:
I feel that “Trump says $STUPID_THING, contradicting experts” should be a macro on every reporter’s and headline-writer’s keyboard.
TS (the original)
Trump has pinned his re-election on the stock market since day 1. He knows if the Fed stop propping it up and/or the scientist say social distancing must continue he is 100% f..ked. Everything he says & does relates to “what is good for trump”. He needs 4 more years to make himself the billionaire he always claimed to be – by stealing from the people of the US.
I really can’t imagine too many think tanks/business organisations/charities/whatevers wanting him on board when he leaves the whitehouse.
Kirk Spencer
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
It’s causing me to think hard about mass transit.
Simplistically, mass transit is a social good. Except when it’s a death trap. So places that have been trying to get decent mass transit or high speed trains are now in a tough spot.
I’ve been an advocate (verbal and a buck or two in various campaigns) for high speed rail, in particular supporting the Houston to Dallas HSR, for some time. But if it were running today it’d be dying.
I’m thinking this is a conversation that mass transit supporters need to be thinking about now, about “how do we protect the masses we’re transiting”, for when they go pushing their good tomorrow (figuratively speaking).
dmsilev
@Kirk Spencer: It also is an issue for private “transit”. I was reading something earlier today that noted that TSA screenings in a recent day were about 94,000 people; the usual number for an average weekday is 2.2 million. Anything that solves the “airline” problem so to speak should be applicable to trains and buses. Different scale, of course, but same basic problem.
Baud
@Kirk Spencer:
Every other country in the world relies heavily on mass transit. They’re not all going to move to cars.
Kirk Spencer
@Baud: Agreed. But in those nations it’s already established, so there’s the advantage of ‘going back to what is/was’. Unfortunately I’m in the non-Northeast or far west US. I tend to advocate for mass transit development, and so this is a stumbling block. It’s a really good counter-argument from the people who don’t want mass transit or rail.
FelonyGovt
@Roger Moore: Yes, I was going to look into taking the express bus into downtown L.A. when I need to go, instead of driving and having to park there, which stresses me out. But no more. It will be a long time before I want to get on a bus with other people.
Another Scott
The virus don’t care….
Cheers,
Scott.
TriassicSands
No amount of education will help Republicans or religious zealots (often one and the same) be anything but the evil creeps they are.
Brachiator
@Zelma:
I understand where you are coming from. A lot of my habits will likely change. And opening this up some,
Will takeout become more of a standard? Will there be more up-scale takout places, or will the middle and lower tier places, including places like Carls Jr and Jack in the Box, make more plays for business?
Will people go out to the movies or settle for more view on demand movies? There are a ton of movies which have had their openings delayed, and even more movies in pre-production. Budgets could be slashed and entire productions cancelled.
Same question about theater and concerts.
Theme parks and the travel industry. Anybody up for a cruise or even a long trip on a plane?
Sports?
The Trump administration is hot to “open up” the economy again. But how much might be transformed into a new economy?
And the people have a clear choice, no matter what happens with the economy. Trump’s stupidity and infantile impatience will set us up for another disaster unless he is defeated and kicked to the curb in November.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore: Yeah, I usually use Metro/Metrolink to get to places where drving and parking is prohibitively expensive/onerous, I’ll be on the train/bus when this is over, but I’ll give it some time.
@Kirk Spencer: The same would apply to cabs and ride sharing, public sharing of transportation resources is just a fact of life in urban life, we all can’t drive private cars.
Baud
@FelonyGovt:
Frankly, now is a great to drive and to find parking. It’s the traffic that makes driving awful.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@FelonyGovt: I’ve taken the bus/train all over LA*, and I’ll do so again, but not now.
*Downtown, Pasadena, Arcadia, Santa Monica, Watts, Hawthorne, Long Beach, the Getty Villa, the Getty, Griffith Observatory…
kindness
I do believe there is a (wealthy) contingent in the GOP that wants a full on theocracy. And they want to use that to make half of us criminals for being who we are and control us. That sounds like an exaggeration but Bill Barr wants to shove his Orthodox Catholicism down our throats. And it’s a pity there are a contingent of non orthodox nominally Christian republicans that think their money will protect them so they don’t care. People who refuse to learn from history will repeat it.
JMG
@Brachiator: I was a sportswriter for 30 years. It’s still how I keep track of time, which is why I’m very disoriented now, and it is also the only industry I really know much about and follow closely.
I have been following very closely the stories about sports possibly restarting. Most of them are blue sky nonsense, like the baseball biodome in Arizona. Oh, yeah, we’re gonna isolate every players in the majors in an artificial city. The very first night, 25-33 percent of those players are gonna leave the reservation if they have to climb barbed wire fences to go out looking for women. It’s been that way since Ring Lardner’s day and it will never ever change.
But I digress. More serious discussions, especially among college sports administrators, are pretty much operating on “gosh it’d be nice if we have football, but if we’re lucky, we’ll be back in business by Christmas.”
That’s my bet for the whole country. We might be back to “normal” at this time next year. Then again…
TriassicSands
@Adam:
Trump has probably ordered all hands on deck in his push to
kill as many people as possible“open up the country and ensure that the cure isn’t worse than the problem. ”If every major figure in the administration is calling for Trump’s grand reopening debacle, then the medical experts will have to yield…or so Trump may think.
What is Barr worried about? Civil rights, of course. After all they’re a central tenet of fascism.
CarolPW
@Another Scott: One of the most appropriate times for your usual “cheers.”
Brachiator
@Baud:
True. But will transit systems adapt or become more “pandemic aware.”
Some transit systems were incredibly crowded. Will countries allow crowds to grow again to the same degree?
And this might apply to many other venues where you have crowds. Might some testing become a permanent part of social life?
If you have a temperature, for example, you can’t board a bus, buy a movie ticket, etc?
A Ghost to Most
Rick Wilson, at the Beast:
HumboldtBlue
The virus caught up with this lovely story, one that began in 2016.
Baud
@Brachiator:
Hard to predict. Depends so much on how this disease progresses and whether we see a vaccine or treatment anytime soon.
Ken
Speaking of criminal enablers of Trump, what’s been happening with Rudy Giuliani? Last I heard he was scouring Eastern Europe for the “truth” about Biden. I don’t suppose we’re lucky enough that he’s stuck in Belarus, sharing vodka and saunas with its dictator?
Brachiator
@kindness:
The total cynic in me says that there is a lower tier of plutocrats who want to push theocracy to control a chunk of the populace, but the upper tier want a nativist libertarian wonderland unfettered by any governmental or regulatory control. In the UK, Trump’s mini-me Boris Johson and his chief advisor Dominic Cummings have been pushing hard for this as part of their no-deal BREXIT plans.
And of course, grifter-in-chief Trump and his weasel buddies will try to strip the country of as much of its assets as they can.
It’s going to take a lot to stop these goons, but we can do it, beginning with solid victories in November.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Chris Hayes scored a rare interview with Bernie. I wonder he landed him.
Baud
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
Hahaha.
sdhays
@jl: The second camp doesn’t exist in the administration in any capacity to influence policy. Nothing, and I mean nothing, like this will happen on a national level until Joe Biden is President or we achieve herd immunity.
Chyron HR
@A Ghost to Most:
Trump spent months boosting Bernie—and will continue to try to stoke the Bernie base into a state of righteous fury
“Try”?
A Ghost to Most
@A Ghost to Most: more Rick Wilson:
danielx
OT but – if you need to ease your heart , tune to swamp family tv on YouTube right now. I know I sound like (ahem) a broken record, but if Key to the Highway doesn’t get to you…
sdhays
@Baud: Serious question: Have you seen anything to suggest that we may see a vaccine “soon”? Because I’ve set my expectations that it will be 12 months, at minimum, and also I expect that the vaccine will be widely available in the United States long after it is developed. Just wondering if there’s any specific ray of hope or you’re just leaving open the possibility.
Patricia Kayden
Baud
@sdhays: I was thinking soon meant within 2 years.
Ken
I think I must be missing something. Trump hasn’t shut anything down, except some international travel. It’s all been the governors and mayors, plus the NCAA, Disney Corporation, the Catholic Church, NASCAR, etc. So just how does he propose to “open back up”?
I don’t even think he can resume international travel, because many other countries have now closed their borders to the U.S.
Brachiator
@Baud:
Yep. Lots of variables. There have not been any Zika virus transmissions in the US since 2019. If something like that happened with this virus, everyone would breathe a sigh of relief.
But if there is a new outbreak…
And people think of a knockout vaccine, like a polio or smallpox vaccine. But a solution that was more like a flu vaccine, which at best only provided weak or incomplete protection might also require testing protocols and self-isolation to provide more social safety.
And any health-oriented regime requires a sane federal government interested in the welfare of the people.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Brachiator: Will takeout become more of a standard?
Take out is both safer than say a crowed grocery store and quite cheep. So yes.
Fair Economist
@jl:
Essential medical services can be restarted without dropping distancing measures in general. San Francisco is already relaxing restrictions on elective medical procedures.
We can’t substantially relax distancing measures until cases start dropping, because we have to keep R-e (effective R) below 1. Until cases start dropping, we haven’t gotten it below 1, and we have no leeway to relax.
Patricia Kayden
mrmoshpotato
Waaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!! Our stocks are losing money because we destroyed the black guy’s pandemic response team out of racist spite! WWWWWWAAAAAHHHJHHHH!!!!!!!!!
Baud
@Patricia Kayden:
Gin & Tonic
@Patricia Kayden: So Joe isn’t that horrid woman. Got it.
Ella in New Mexico
@Adam:
Trumps numbers on his Corona response are in the 60% negative range, and his overall approvals. are tanking back down to his normal 38-45% zone. Even Brit Hume and the frigging Wall Street Journal Op-Ed page is criticizing him for his Idiotic and destructive Rally daily briefings.
So now he turns to his Go-To tactic: throw a stink-bomb our there to distract from all the bad coverage and get him back in victim status with his “Base”
trollhattan
@sdhays:
From what I’ve read this and that potential vaccine has begun trials. Assuming one is both effective and safe and receives accelerated approval, then production would take many months. What I’ve not read are any promising early results.
I could be an effective treatment is found before a vaccine is developed, since an existing drug or drug cocktail could possibly prove helpful. Come to think of it, there’s this malaria drug…..
joel hanes
Once we have a reliable vaccine, and have done mass vaccination, we’ll be free to go back to the status quo ante.
But I doubt that cruise ships will ever again be what they were just five months ago.
Mike in NC
@Ken: Old Rudy was seeking dirt on Biden. New Rudy is trying to sell bogus pandemic cures.
joel hanes
@Ken:
what’s been happening with Rudy Giuliani?
Rudy’s been striving to regain relevance by …
pushing the hydrochloroquine thing. He’s one of the reasons that Trump is hung up on it.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-04-06/rudy-giuliani-covid-19-coronavirus-hydroxychloroquine
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator: One of the problems with the flu shot is that it’s shooting at a moving target since it mutates quite a bit. That doesn’t seem to be a problem with the SARS-Cov-2 virus.
catclub
I think the problem is that we really do not know the repeat cycle timescale. For viruses the only timescale we know is once
in 100 years. There is plenty of reason to suspect that timescale will be shorter next time. But if it is 100 years, then mass transit will come back. Look at hurricane recurrence time – my guess is 30 years for any given location, which is long enough for people to forget and build everything up again.
For all the people today saying that this will change everything, It sure was not the case for the last virus pandemic – that was actively forgotten. So sample size of one says we will forget this one, too. So by that logic, mass transit comes back too.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
That’s exactly right.
catclub
@mrmoshpotato: I am amazed stocks are up so much over the past two weeks. I think there is lot of ‘things getting worse, mom and pop businesses cannot re-start miseries’ that the stock market is already looking past.
Also any second waves of infection that result in even longer lockdown cycles.
I still think if I bought airline stock and held it for 2-5 years it would be up more than the rest of the S&P500 – apparently other people have the same idea.
Redshift
@Adam:
Conservatives have been conducting a war on expertise since Reagan. To a conservative politician, expert input is “just another opinion, worth no more than mine.”
If that’s your mindset, then anyone who claims to be a smart guy is entitled to opine on any topic.
Mart
Boris Johnson and his merry gang of murderers Plan A was to let the pandemic get everyone in the UK sick (70%); have herd immunity, problem solved. Seemed to me that was the Trumpets original plan. Now it seems more take a bunch of nasty hits until we get to the herd immunity. Otherwise why the continuing clusterfuck with testing/contact screening? Three problems with the plan. Boris Johnson almost got killed. Keep hearing credible reports of hospitalized Covid-19 survivers getting a repeat infection, some dying. Nobody who is not a true believer, or is not forced to work, will go anywhere but the grocery and pharmacy. Kills my wife and I that we can not see the Grandkids, but will stay that way I expect for at least a year.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I’m at the point that I’m actively rooting for anyone who gathers in large groups to get Covid-19. I know that they could end up spreading it to innocent people in their communities, leading to some of their deaths, but the fact of the matter is that innocent people are getting sick and dying right now because these same morons aren’t practicing social distancing. I see them coming to our local big box with their SO and/or kids, instead of having one person doing the shopping to reduce the risk of transmission in the store. I see them milling outside the full parking lots of a couple of our local churches. This largely conservative community voted for the Orange Asshole, approve of everything he does and think that he’s the greatest thing ever. They’ve lost touch with reality and if a plague has to rip through their groups and their communities then let it rip. Let reality loose on them.
Governing with a conservative is like trying to take a drive along the edge of a deep canyon and they keep trying to put the car in reverse while at speed while grabbing the wheel and trying to go off the edge so we can get to the bottom faster. It’s not going to end until they get their way. Time to thin the herd.
catclub
Thats just crazy talk.
Redshift
@catclub: Train and mass transit advocates helped get significant mass transit funding into the recent relief bill. (Republicans wanted nearly nothing, of course.)
chris
@kindness: Read up: Council for National Policy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_for_National_Policy
raven
Anyone use instantcart?
Ksmiami
@Captain C: I don’t think these fat thugs have thought about the violence that is headed their way if they continue their assault on the non crazy 50 percent. Barr will be a slow moving easy target just saying
@TriassicSands:
raven
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Hey brah!
Redshift
Oh, hey, the official White House email today accused Voice of America of putting out Chinese propaganda instead of “promoting America.” That seems totally normal.
If I recall right, it was because they had a story about the measures China employed and how the WHO considers some of them a model for other countries. Instead of, presumably, calling them dirty liars who must have fifty times more cases and deaths than they claim, way worse than us.
Lapassionara
@joel hanes: I remember cruise ships after 9/11. Deader than door nails. They came back. I don’t recall how long it took, but they came back.
Redshift
@Brachiator:
I was telling a friend in New Zealand how much I envied her having a competent government. She wished we could have the same.
cleek
duh
the plan is: complain that the inevitable hasn’t happened yet. while it hasn’t happened, blame Dems. when it does happen, claim victory.
don’t play along.
Miss Bianca
@A Ghost to Most: I hope for your sake (and theirs) that that is true.
sdhays
@Baud: Ah, ok. Thanks.
@trollhattan: That’s what I’ve seen too. When I see talk about getting a vaccine developed “soon”, it’s typically people who simply can’t accept that this isn’t going to “go away” in a month or two (and, to be fair, I’m having trouble comprehending it myself, even though I’ve accepted it in the abstract). They’re pinning their hopes that all those scientists and experts will save them from having to accept a permanent/semi-permanent change.
There’s no silver bullet that is going to magically appear and make COVID-19 no big deal in a couple months. With a great deal of effort, we might be able to establish some modified, semi-functional new normal the way South Korea and Singapore have, but we’re not realistically even going to attempt to do that until sometime next year assuming Joe Biden is elected (or sooner if the FSM decides to call Dump and Dense home to “join the choir invisible” – but we’re not that lucky).
oatler.
Mort Drucker has died at 91.
sdhays
@Redshift: Well, I suppose that’s one way of legitimizing Voice of America in the minds of our adversaries… //
satby
@Odie Hugh Manatee: hate to say I almost agree, but it’s really out of our hands either way. Innocents will get sick enough to die as often as the guilty will.
Good to see you though.
Miss Bianca
@A Ghost to Most: OK, OK, now I get it…it’s when I find myself saying “right on!” to *Rick Fucking Wilson* that I know the End Times are near. I knew there had to be a sign, I just didn’t know what the sign was going to be…
Well, Ghost et al, been nice knowing ya…
Jeffro
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
This, this, and also this.
sdhays
@Mart: I don’t think Dump et al even had a stupid plan. They just didn’t think they needed to do anything, and if anything really did need to be done, the “Deep State” would autopilot itself through the trouble. Except that they had already successfully hollowed out that part of the “Deep State”, and the problem was so big that the government is set up to expect a functioning White House with a minimally functioning adult as President surrounded by basically competent staff. Oops….
Jeffro
@TS (the original): I really can’t imagine too many think tanks/business organisations/charities/whatevers wanting him on board when he leaves the whitehouse.
I snarfed just reading that, thanks! =)
Maybe a no-think tank? That would work for him.
He sure as hell is gonna be surprised how little a wingnut welfare pension amounts to…might have to cut back on the spray tan or something there, Donnie. But don’t worry, we have plans to make sure your room and board are taken care of for the next 20 to life once you leave the WH…
Patricia Kayden
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: Bill Kristol has been not wrong quite often lately.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: ANOTHER SIGN
Redshift
@sdhays: Yeah. I’m worried about the models predicting a peak in various places in the next few weeks. I think way too many people interpret that to mean it’s when this will be over.
On top of that, I will confidently predict that behind Trump’s warning that the next week will be very bad is his belief that it’ll steadily get better after that. I even suspect that’s what some of his underlings told him to get him to take it seriously just for a few days.
Jeffro
If we were a serious, science-driven country with great leadership (aka Germany, New Zealand) then we could actually flatten the blessed curve right into the ground, test EVERYONE, trace anything that remained, and be done with this shit by the fall.
But we aren’t, and so we won’t, and so this is going to drag on whether trumpov decides it’s time for ‘economy go BOOM! again’ or not.
I for one am not going to crowded places of any kind until there’s a vaccine. I just don’t care – I’ve been to a million concerts and traveled a lot and can live on the memories for a couple years easy. And as noted upthread, that’s just that much more money I can donate to Democratic candidates.
rikyrah
@raven:
not yet. They service a grocery store that I like. It actually is the next one that I am going to order from.
rikyrah
I just can’t???????
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: THAT’S ALL I’M SAYING! OMG! ::hair on fire::
lamh36
Welp. My four days off are over. Back to the lab tomorrow.
Been good to have a mostly Coronovirus free moratorium die a few days.
But now back to the grind
rikyrah
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
not one lie told??
James E Powell
@Omnes Omnibus:
I know, but agreeing with him makes me feel like I’m falling for a con.
Sab
Young nephew of a close friend died last night or early this morning. Something respiratory.Don’t know if it’s coronna. Three very young children left behind. Large close knit family. They cannot even have a funeral.
I am so sick hearing about government. I want to hear about all these families.
Miss Bianca
@Jeffro: It sucks for me personally, both for my work life and my art life – the entire business model of a theater depends on people being willing to congregate freely. Our outdoor Shakespeare festival might work, because we could limit access to a certain number of people and take social distancing measures, but no one is going to want to come to movies any more. This may kill us. I’m trying not to go there, just yet.
Jeffro
@Miss Bianca: I am very sorry for you and for those whose livelihoods depend upon live performances, big gatherings, and the like. Sincerely.
I hope everyone in that ‘boat’ gets together and demands that the government act smartly to solve this problem, instead of just opening back up in a hurry.
rikyrah
????
Brachiator
@JMG:
I had been thinking mainly about pro sports, but you are right.
And here there are layers. First, colleges and universities have to get back into the traditional education business.
And then college athletics. And other related activities.
Tenar Arha
@raven: The only experience I’ve had with it was not successful in getting groceries.
I tried a week & a half ago to use their shopper service for grocery pickup from Wegman’s, but couldn’t get a time slot no matter what time of day I logged on. But it was just before the nationwide shopper services slow down & it was the weekend, so I’m not surprised I couldn’t get a reserved time to pick up my pre-ordered groceries.
Did you have a similar experience?
ETA I’m going to try again the next time I need groceries. Hopefully I’ll have better timing then.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud:
apparently this is separate from forthcoming details on his public option, but as a certified neo-liberal corporatist sell-out, I wish he had put the two together so they seemed like a bigger ask. Announcing a Medicare buy-in (Biden’s current plan, per his website is a “Medicare-like public option) for 18-59 would’ve been better strategy. IMHO.
sdhays
Oh, yes. That’s not really a prediction; it’s pretty much absolute fact.
Mary G
Thanks for all the great work, AL. Barr worries me the most because he is willing to go to great lengths to ensure permanent Republican rule. His “give me the authority to lock anyone up for any length of time” emergency ploy didn’t work, but you know there are more things up his sleeves that we need to fight back against.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@sdhays:
one wonders how many deaths are acceptable? of course, they don’t give a shit about people, so the answer is “one less than keeps people from going back to work and back to spending”
patrick II
We won’t be able to immunize for at least a year. The economy cannot stay shut down that long. So, right now, while we are in the shutdown phase, we should be creating a national plan to restart the economy. There is not one being created by the Trump administration that I know of — except that we should all go to church on Easter Sunday, wouldn’t that be nice?
Whatever the plan, we should know:
1. The economy cannot be totally restarted at once.
2. In which order should the economy start up? Some entities are more important to prime the pump than others.
3. Which organizations will have learned how work can be done at a distance? They should be encouraged to continue at least for a while.
4. To start people back to work where physical presence is necessary, we need tests to find out who has had the disease (and is hopefully immune) and who hasn’t had the disease, and of course, who is sick. There is no such large scale capability now, and I haven’t heard of a national plan to create one. And good luck finding people in this administration capable of managing such a plan if we had one.
5. Guidelines for businesses that by their nature must interact with the public.
Regards,
No Tom Levenson
LongHairedWeirdo
@TriassicSands: Thinking on it, I think you might have hit on something. Trump might well be having people go out to make all possible arguments, so that he’s covered by someone with an impressive sounding title whatever he decides, and he gets to preview the reception.
Making it Barr about the economy is a good tactic, in that case. If Barr gets a bad reaction, then Trump can assume that if he (another dolt with no idea about how to proceed) makes the same proposal, it will turn out badly.
James E Powell
@Adam:
He sent Barr out because Barr is a shameless liar and experience shows that the press/media will not challenge him or question what he says.
Mart
Toilet paper tip – we are getting low. Heard – I think on MSNBC – that apart from hording, a lot more people are taking care of business at home than at work, restaurants, or play. So with hoarding and increased demand, residential supply network is swamped; while business supply chains have some fat. Google janitorial supplies, office supplies, etc. Today I lost an order while entering cc# as sold out while typing. Ended up paying for a big ass carton. Also got one for my daughter. Daughter is having problems with diapers. Gonna be a long year. What’s the status on bidet availability?
The Thin Black Duke
@patrick II: Good ideas. But none of this will happen under the current administration, unfortunately. So what happens in November is our only shot to fix this shit.
Mary G
@raven: I’ve used Instacart for a couple of years now, and love it. It’s like Uber where the people who actually do the work get screwed – if you tip online, they deduct the tip from the “wage” they pay, which can be as low as $2 per order, so I tip generously whatever the trip is worth to me in cash. My last two people have worn masks and gloves and I have not gotten infected with common sense practices of washing/wiping down things before I put them away, and washing my hands. They have most of the bugs ironed out, so what you click on is usually what you get. You can select replacement items or say don’t replace that thing. You can put notes like “green bananas” or whatever on each thing. They will sometimes text from the store with questions.
Of course, lately stores run out of a lot of things. Order when you first get up, before the store opens, when the stock has been replenished. Best to wait a few days to get the first appointment in the morning for delivery. More stuff seems to be actually obtainable then.
Kirk Spencer
@catclub: since I had to duck out, and worse am about to do so again I was going to refrain from further comments. But I’m seeing that incorrect meme a lot. That boy about once a century pandemics.
See Asian flu and Hong Kong flu and swine flu for just a few examples. They were on track to be pandemics. Bit we had a system and agencies on place and we did what experts said was needed and those remained bad flus. Not pandemics.
The idiots broke the defenses in their greed and disdain, and we all get to pay the price we avoided many times over the past century.
MazeDancer .
Trump wants there to be another reinfection in the Fall. So people can’t vote.
If he “opens things up”, maybe he gets a little economic boost. Cycles of opening and closing work for him. As long as people can’t vote in November.
dmsilev
Karma:
After her colleagues dismissed the pandemic, ‘Fox & Friends’ weekend co-host contracts the coronavirus
sdhays
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The thing is, they’re just going to keep making this argument over and over again for the rest of the year because we’ll have these fits and starts as we flail around with little testing and no coordination. They simply don’t give a shit about the virus; they just want Anthony Fauci to stop being a jerk and let them “reopen” America. NOW! They literally cannot think more than 2 weeks beyond the present.
I wonder how many times people in Dump’s 40% are going to hear him say the same thing over and over again, only for it to turn out to be a total lie and a disaster that leads to another round of lockdowns and deaths before they just get sick of it.
Another Scott
@raven: We’ve only used it once, with a small local grocery (Balducci’s), for a pickup order. J wanted me to minimize my time in the store (it usually only takes about 5-10 minutes anyway, but we decided to try it). The per-item price is about 10% more than the normal price in the store, and there was a $1.99 pickup charge.
The app works pretty well – they tell you when they’re shopping and give you a chance to make changes (if you’re quick). I didn’t use the app on the first order, so I didn’t know that how to pick up the order. The app tells them when you arrive and they’ll bring it out to you.
In that case, it took longer than it would have if I had done the shopping myself. It may be faster if you do everything as they expect with the app.
HTH a little.
Cheers,
Scott.
sdhays
@MazeDancer .: I absolutely believe that Republicans are gaming out how to leverage this to their advantage, but I don’t believe Dump can’t think that far ahead, himself. And I don’t think the people surrounding him really can either. I think they’re too panicked about the stock market and real estate prices.
Moscow Mitch, though…he’s definitely plotting.
LongHairedWeirdo
@catclub: Keep in mind, in any corporate bankruptcy, common stock is (almost always) zeroed out… you need a bit more information than the raw stock price versus its norm; you also need to know if it’ll emerge on the other side without having go through a bankruptcy.
barbequebob
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
Do you mean to say that killing grandma to save the economy is not how you celebrate family values?
debbie
@Baud:
Those proposals won’t help Biden’s electability beyond the Dems.
raven
@Tenar Arha: I just set up and account and it says tomorrow 1-3 from Adli.
raven
@Another Scott: Our’s doesn’t have pickup, just delivery so I set that up.
Kristine
@raven: I used it for the first time today. I’d do it again. I paid a premium–$2.00 service charge plus $3.99 delivery fee–and added a 20% tip for the delivery person. I don’t believe the products themselves carried a surcharge, but this was an Aldi so most stuff was less expensive than other stores anyway.
I scheduled drop-off for whenever they could fit me in tomorrow and received my order today. A friend ordered from the same store, and received conventional fruits instead of the organics that she ordered. If you’ll accept a substitute for any item, you can choose it ahead of time, let them pick, or state no substitute.
raven
@Kristine: Cool, I went ahead and bought a month “express” subscription for $9.99 so I get unlimited “free”. I was wondering about the tip, I put in 10% but maybe I need to bump that up? My order is $100 so maybe a sawbuck isn’t enough.
James E Powell
@raven:
I haven’t seen sawbuck outside of crossword clues in many years.
raven
@James E Powell: Yay!
NotMax
@raven
Strong vote for more than that. Slip ’em some additional cash upon delivery.
Look at it this way – you probably tip a waiter more than 10% and he/she brings you only enough food for one meal.
raven
@NotMax:
@NotMax: good plan
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@debbie:
Those proposals won’t help Biden’s electability beyond the Dems.
I suspect it will appeal to a lot of people between 55 and 64– and that’s a lot of voters– but as an initial roll-out on the most important non-trump issue, especially now, it’s a mayonnaise sandwich on Wonder Bread. Lowfat mayo.
Unflavored ice-milk.
Lukewarm decaf.
A box of raisins in your trick-or-treat bag.
Another Scott
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Rain on your wedding day??
Hehe.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kristine
@raven: I just figured that these folks are on the front line and a few bucks is the least I can do. The delivery person looked like he was in his late teens or 20s. He wore a mask and I think gloves.
My only complaint was that whoever packed the bags put heavy stuff on top of the eggs. I didn’t say anything because no eggs broke and I didn’t want to post a complaint on their site, but I may add a comment in my next order.
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think people of all ages who wouldn’t qualify for student loan forgiveness or who have already paid their debt off will be very resentful. And you just know Trump will exploit the hell out of that.
Another Scott
So, why did Adam’s thread upstairs (apparently) get pulled??
Cheers,
Scott.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@raven:
Yo, Smooth! :) I was pulled away by my wife and then I dived back into our Mustang instead of checking back in. I hope you and yours are holding up well. :)
@satby:
Yeah, it is out of our hands… unfortunately sanity isn’t going to rule here. While I don’t want to see anyone die, I don’t have a problem with those who willingly expose themselves biting the bullet.
Tenar Arha
@raven: ?? cool.
debbie
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
We got plenty of those idiots should you need some. I wish COVID-19 on all of them.
Racer X
So let’s use some math shall we?
Trump says 37,000 people die of the flu every year. So 37,000 divided by 365 equals 101 deaths per day.
Yesterday the number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the US was 1900.
Therefore Trump is an asshole.