Last week, President Donald Trump decided that the country must open back up. He issued a slide package about requirements for opening things back up. The next day, he issued three “LIBERATE” tweets, naming specific states. The purpose of those tweets seems to have been to encourage demonstrations against distancing provisions issued by those governors.
The demonstrations themselves seem to be centrally directed rather than spontaneous, and financially supported by the right-wing money machine.
The White House requirements lay responsibility on the states only. The federal government has abdicated its role in making sure that citizens are safe. They are also almost entirely devoid of measurable criteria. The one exception is the “gating criteria.”
- Downward trajectory of influenza-like illnesses (ILI) AND “covid-like syndromic cases” reported within a 14-day period
- Likewise for “documented cases” OR “positive tests as a percent of total tests”
Exactly how these “gating criteria” are supposed to work, or who is to make the judgments and how, or which data are to be reported to make up these “downward trajectories” is not explained. Nor is a “downward trajectory.”
No state, and certainly the United States overall, has seen any such 14-day decrease to justify loosening distance restrictions. A Gallup poll shows that 70% of the nation would prefer to continue as we are.
Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland, a Republican, has said that the state’s daily death toll, hospitalizations, and ICU bed use must all decline every day over a 14-day period before he will consider loosening restrictions. His full plan is to be released this week.
The White House requirements make the states responsible for testing. This, along with the states’ having to procure personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators on their own, has resulted in a scramble and presumably a bonanza for middlemen. Apparently various components of the tests are in shortage, which accounts for the current decrease in testing. The federal government could identify these shortages and require production of the missing components under the Defense Procurement Act.
Testing is essential to bringing and keeping the progress of disease under control. It looks like people who are incubating COVID-19 but have not yet shown symptoms can spread the virus. It’s also possible that some people may carry the virus and never get sick. Those people cannot be identified without widespread testing. Harvard experts argue that we need at least three times the level of testing we have now.
As more people become sick and recover, it will also be important to test for immunity, about which we know little. We do not know whether having had COVID-19 confers a robust immunity, how long that immunity lasts, or whether it could, as has recently been found for dengue fever, make a subsequent infection worse. It would be valuable for individuals to know if they are immune. The numbers of immune people are important for gauging how and when to begin opening the economy back up. Antibody tests are coming onto the market now, but they are uncertified by the FDA and variable in reliability.
Plans must also be in place to return to stringent distancing if lessening those requirements leads to a flare-up. The parameter for the disease’s spreading, R, seems to be approaching 1 with stringent distancing. But herd immunity, the fraction of people who are recovered and presumably immune, which must be 70% or higher to be effective, is under 10% and probably less than 5%. Criteria should be set ahead of time and made public so that there are no surprises.
Further complicating the situation is that federal officers have been interdicting supply shipments to the states. On top of the forced competition among the states, the seizures make access to PPE and other necessities uncertain. Numerous seizures have been reported; the Chief Physician Executive of Baystate Health in Springfield, Massachusetts, published his experience in the New England Journal of Medicine. No explanation has been given for these seizures. The federal government is actively undermining the ability of the states to deal with the pandemic.
There is no reason to believe that it is safe to back off from distancing now. The numbers of cases and deaths in the United States are still going up. We must have a period of decrease in those numbers before we even consider it.
Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner
lee
According to this article we are at our max testing rate of about 145k/day.
I’m not sure how accurate that is. It indicates we will never have enough testing.
PenAndKey
I’m sure it’s been discussed, but how exactly are they able to do this? I keep seeing reports about this but it appears to be a peripheral story that almost has the feeling of “we can’t suppress this news, but we’re not going to talk about it”, and I’m at a loss for how something that’s basically piracy isn’t causing a massive uproar. This is the sort of thing that, if Obama had done it, would have resulted in him being impeached and in prison by the end of the week, ffs.
The federal government has made it plain as day that the states are on their own. What right or authority does it have to take their orders, without notice, compensation, or even explanation and do who knows what with them?
Cheryl Rofer
@lee: This “maximum” is constrained by a number of factors, including limited availability of swabs and reagents. Trump has to use the Defense Procurement Act to force companies to manufacture them. Then testing can go up.
I’m also suspicious about anything published on Medium these days. There has been some real garbage there.
germy
henrythefifth
The tweet about the 2nd Amendment in VA was particularly egregious. It’s clearly an incitement to violence. Governor Northam recently signed into law some common-sense gun reforms that aren’t really that draconian, but the 2nd Amendment-ers are freaking out about. They simply say you can only buy 1 handgun a month (so you are limited to 12 a year–or 24 a year if you’re married and have your spouse buy as well), background checks for all gun purchases (reasonable), and that if you want a concealed carry permit, you must take an in-person, not online course. No limitation on long guns. Of course, the gun nuts (I am a gun owner who supports these measures) freaked out. There’s even a handgun loophole–if you have a concealed carry permit, you can buy as many handguns as you want. So it’s not even as bad as they claim. Of course, at Cabela’s one day I heard some guys talking about how someone is going to shoot the governor over this and the Democrats are going to lose the statehouse (they won the statehouse running on this, in part). How many hands do these people have that they need so many guns? Rhetorical.
r€nato
Because the so-called liberal media is as housebroken as is the average American.
Cheryl Rofer
@PenAndKey: I hope there are a bunch of reporters looking into this. It’s more than scattered reports now. Mafia tactics by the federal government.
Chyron HR
@germy:
“McKinsey! Austerity! ICE! Shitlibs! REEEEEEEE!”
Ah, this must be some of the brilliant progressive politics I’ve heard so much about.
L85NJGT
Oil has dropped under $12\bbl.
Desperation time, and you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.
Lee
@Cheryl Rofer: good to know. Thanks!
germy
Alex
The Michigan Senate Majority Leader has already announced that the Republican-led Legislature will crash Michigan out of “stay at home” when the governor’s emergency authorization ends in 9 days. Test positivity rate is 30%, and apparent mortality over 7%, worst in the nation. The astroturfed protests are being coordinated around the country out of Michigan with DeVos funding. We are going to see individual counties trying desperately to keep things under control, but the parts of the state outside Detroit Metro are pretty sure this epidemic is just another Detroit problem caused by black people not being able to manage things. It’s going to be ugly.
I expect this week the feds will openly start using supplies and bailout funding to extort “re-opening” from states and locals.
germy
Fascinating but depressing thread:
Ohio Mom
I watched one of Cuomo’s presentations and as I remember it (wouldn’t recommend anyone making bets based on my memory though) we need a rate of spreading under 1.2 — above that, the virus takes off again.
He said that New York was currently at .9. Seemed like a mighty thin margin of error to my untrained ears.
Cheryl Rofer
@germy: Interesting thread, but the mistake that Mak makes is to accept Trump’s framing of the protests. They are NOT coming from any general feeling against the restrictions; the polls show clearly that upwards of 70% of the US wants continued lockdowns. The protests ARE being coordinated across the country by the rightwing money machine.
MattF
@Ohio Mom: Also, that 0.9 number has error bars. See Kevin Drum’s discussion.
dmsilev
There’s also the story (reported in Politico and similar places) that Trump is refusing to have aid to states and cities in the next relief bill because he wants to use that as “leverage” to force them to reopen on his timetable.
BobS
The original post is a very clear and succinct explanation of where we stand with respect to the loosening of restrictions. Thanks.
Ohio Mom
Alex @12:according to Josh Marshall’s Twitter, Trump is indicating he will sit on bailing out state and locality bailouts as leverage to get them to open up already.
I still believe the US will eventually repair itself from all the damage Trump is going but I am adjusting my timeline outwards. It’s going to be quite the slog.
charon
@PenAndKey:
The point is to prevent tests from reaching end users. Fewer tests = fewer cases confirmed = better numbers for Trump.
Trump needs good numbers for various reasons.
Wyatt Derp
Trump will never issue measurable criteria for re-opening because he can then be held responsible for failing to meet them. He will be vague enough that he can declare victory no matter what happens. Page one of the incompetent but shrewd managers playbook.
dmsilev
@Cheryl Rofer: At least some media outlets are doing an ok job reporting that. From the Post yesterday,
Pro-gun activists using Facebook groups to push anti-quarantine protests
germy
@Cheryl Rofer:
The protesters are against the restrictions, but they’re a minority of the population. The problem is the media is amplifying their protests. I agree it’s an astroturf movement, and surely reporters know that. I’m not sure why it’s being treated as a spontaneous, grassroots cause.
Roger Moore
@Alex:
They have already said they don’t want any more funding for state and local governments in the bailout bills because they want to force states to open up. My big question is what they think they will gain by forcing the end of stay at home orders. Do they really think the economy is going to go right back to where it was? Do they think the pandemic is going to stay under control?
BobS
@Wyatt Derp: He may not, but Fauci and Birx should be pressed on that repeatedly.
Cheryl Rofer
Maybe this will help elevate the issue.
Nora
@germy: Didn’t they learn anything from the Tea Party bullshit?
Bobby Thomson
It’s not that complicated. The federal government is run by a cut rate mafioso who wants to control the supply of PPE and ventilators for personal profit and leverage. That’s why states have taken to ordering and receiving supplies secretly.
Cheryl Rofer
@dmsilev: Yes. Even the NYT has mentioned that these protests are being organized centrally.
Hungry Joe
A good friend — my hitting partner (tennis), actually — got sick a few weeks ago. Shortness of breath, extreme fatigue, terrible body aches. Was told he couldn’t get tested because his symptoms weren’t severe enough. Finally got an appointment to be tested, but had to wait five days. Was told he’d get results in 48 hours. It took eleven days; he got the results only yesterday.
After some ups and downs, he’s been feeling better and better for more than a week now. Back to normal, though well short of full strength.
Oh, the test results? Positive for Coronavirus. How many hundreds of thousands — millions? — are experiencing what he did, and worse? It took him weeks, and perseverance, to finally become a data point.
Bobby Thomson
@Nora:
That media will credulously report their astroturfing as spontaneous uprisings? Why yes, yes they did. And they did.
Roger Moore
@Nora:
Yes, they did: right wing protests are extremely colorful and make entertaining copy. This is the problem with letting our news media be run by entertainment companies.
different-church-lady
God bless the WaPo:
Yeah, paywall, but even just the abstract tells you what you need to know. Just three. Thanks Zuckerberg.
Bobby Thomson
Don’t assume they know or care, or that they are even independent of the people funding this. And don’t call me Shirley.
germy
@Roger Moore: The Woman’s March after Trump’s election. Now THAT was a protest.
Not forty dummies blocking ambulances and screaming bullshit.
henrythefifth
@germy: I just hate that a few hundred protesters show up brandishing guns and all of a sudden they act like half the country is demanding we open up. This is organized, but it’s (so far) just a sliver of the crazies, yet the media loves reporting when white supremacists show up with big guns. It’s an addiction.
Ohio Mom
[email protected]: Thanks for the link. I can see how slippery the data is.
Calouste
@Nora: They did. That it made for easily accessible, readily available content. You don’t expect media personalities to actually do work now, do you?
JMG
Yesterday there was a “Reopen Cape Cod” protest at the Bourne Bridge rotary. Usual couple dozen or so Trumpists. Today Gov. Baker noted it violated the ban on gatherings of 10 or more, and said if local police wanted to break up similar gatherings in their towns, it was OK by him, although he wouldn’t order such a thing.
germy
@Bobby Thomson:
I was actually wondering the same thing. Not all of them, but the ones tasked with writing the headlines or editing the reporters or choosing what gets the most attention.
waspuppet
@Wyatt Derp: It’s in the substance abuser’s playbook too. Actually standing and answering the question “You said you would (do X). Did you do it? Yes or no?” is their greatest fear. They will do literally anything to avoid it.
Shalimar
@Chyron HR: She actually makes a good point. Your point seems to be “I don’t like her, so everything she says is by definition ridiculous.” Do you have anything intelligent to add to the conversation?
MattF
@henrythefifth: WaPo article about a trio of gun-nut brothers (they regard the NRA as hopelessly liberal) are behind a lot of Facebook activity.
PenAndKey
@Cheryl Rofer: So here’s a morbid question, but what happens if “this” doesn’t stop? The next step beyond hiding supplies and obfuscation convoys is armed security. I never thought I’d see the day where that’s a consideration, but with people dying the states, cities, and even hospitals are going to be desperate. Desperate people aren’t going to follow the usual “let them take it, then fight them in court if you think they don’t have the right to do so” advice. And anyone that’s serving as an escort and guard for medical gear will know that they’re transporting life-saving supplies, likely to their community, and may very well treat attempts to take those supplies as a deadly assault. That’s a recipe for disaster.
The only thing I can think of that could provoke a more volatile defensive response would be famines, and that’s the sort of thing that burns down societies.
rikyrah
waspuppet
@Roger Moore: They want people to roll the dice between hopefully not getting the virus, or hoping that if they do they can recover before and paid sick time they’re lucky enough to have is up, versus losing their jobs. This is life for non-union, non-sick-time, minimum-wage workers all over the country every day, and they have never made any secret of the fact that that’s how they want it to be for everyone.
And the fact that Trump is pushing something 70 percent of the country is against because “it will help his reelection chances” tells you a lot about what his reelection strategy is. And it’s not good.
different-church-lady
@Bobby Thomson:
Knowing or caring does not enter into modern news media. All that matters is that they have a freak show to put on our screens.
germy
LGM reader comment:
rikyrah
@Alex:
They can open what they want…
Doesn’t mean that people are going back.
I know that I won’t
rikyrah
@Hungry Joe:
uh huh
uh huh ?
Cheryl Rofer
@PenAndKey: This worries me too. And it’s okay with the Republicans.
Unless total societal breakdown is what he’s after (and it may be), I don’t see how any of this helps Trump. Opening things up too early will lead to more deaths in the summer. Every destructive thing he does pushes its bad results closer to the election. People who aren’t Trump fanatics or Republican destroyers will blame the President. His numbers are going down, and I can’t see how his current course pulls them back up.
Cheryl Rofer
@rikyrah: This is an important point. And something like 70% of the country agrees with you.
Alex
@Roger Moore: I used to think their plan was to rail against the Dems for ruining the economy, while staying safe because of the same policies they condemn. A “Hold me back!” approach. But I’m coming to realize that rich white people think they will be insulated while they agitate for their employees and service workers to go back to work. They actually are blinded by privilege enough to think they can make money while hundreds of thousands die, and they don’t want to have to skip manicures and lawn service while they do it.
MattF
@Cheryl Rofer: Trump has a rigidly limited behavioral repertoire. The fact that it’s killing people isn’t on his radar.
PenAndKey
@rikyrah: I’ve got a newborn at home. As much as I’d love to be able to go to the hardware store and get the supplies to start my garden in my new house this year before planting season ends, or stop at the camera shop and figure out which camera I want like I was planning to do this spring, I’m not heading back to stores until the doctors give the all clear. That goes triple for businesses and bars, because while the GOP zealots in the Wisconsin Legislature and Supreme Court may succeed in voiding Evers’ stay-at-home restrictions that doesn’t mean we are obligated to oblige.
I honestly think he’s a malignant narcissist, and I don’t think he’s capable of any other course of action because he can’t operate in a world where his usual tricks don’t work. And I don’t think he’s worried about winning a majority of the vote, to be honest. He’s worried about winning the electoral vote and the GOP keeping power. They don’t need a fair election to do that, and it’s looking more and more like they’re not even pretending they do.
Shalimar
@rikyrah: You’re not going shopping. I’m not going shopping. Most people aren’t dumb enough to go shopping. But some people are. And the person behind the counter at J. Crew has no choice but to go back to work and risk her life to serve them.
different-church-lady
@rikyrah: Here’s the problem:
a) They go back, give each other Corona
b) Infection and deaths go up, curve bends upward
c) Everybody’s forced stay-cation extends into perpetuity, economy re-craters.
Omnes Omnibus
@rikyrah: @Cheryl Rofer: One problem is that a lot of the money for unemployment comes form the federal government. If people end up faced with a choice of going back to work or not being able to support their families, well, back to work they will go. People will still avoid optional things, but they will go to work.
Roger Moore
@germy:
This is more or less what I said about the problem with letting our news media be run by entertainment companies. Their primary metric of success is engaging and capturing their audience. Informing their audience is a much lower priority, even for the companies that aren’t propaganda networks.
germy
@MattF: In his last press conference, he referred to someone “not having the brains he was born with.”
It was such an oddly specific and old fashioned sounding insult, it made me wonder if he heard it from his father (directed at him).
germy
@different-church-lady: Hoping at some point this cycle is broken by a vaccine or effective treatment.
Shalimar
@Alex: They’re right that their risk is far less than the employees and service workers they’re forcing back to work. But it isn’t zero. As some of them will find out.
charon
@MattF:
That was before, now his senile dementia (frontotemporal dementia) has progressed to where he is incapable of strategy, planning, prioritizing, and to where he is cognitively impaired to the intelligence level of a small child.
germy
@charon:
People like stephen miller and william barr have assumed that role, unfortunately.
Shalimar
@different-church-lady: Perpetuity underestimates their lack of concern for everyone’s lives. We are barreling towards a 2nd wave now with all the talk of reopening. It will be significantly worse than the 1st has been. And that still won’t stop big employers and politicians from pushing us towards 3rd and 4th waves.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Here’s my thought – if we “but deficit spending and muh stock portfolio and muh blessed church services” our way into resuming the old normal now, before we’re ready, there will be little public appetite for a renewed lockdown when the spike becomes evident. Acceptance of the death of granny will become the price paid to make billionaires happy.
Americans suck in general.
PenAndKey
History would disagree. When the choice is life or death suddenly a lot of otherwise inconceivable scenarios become options as well. The choices given are stay home or risk death going to work. That only works as long as everyone in society thinks that doing so is less dangerous than going after the individuals or groups forcing them to make that choice. Most people are peaceful. Of those that aren’t, most are cowards. But not everyone, and history is filled with people who put a line in the sand and lashed out when pushed over it.
Roger Moore
@Cheryl Rofer:
There are at least a few ways this helps Trump. The big thing is that it gives him a big stock of supplies that he can distribute as he wishes at a time when people are desperate for those supplies. So he can pass them out to his political supporters in an attempt to woo voters with tales of how they were able to help out. Alternatively, he can give them to Republicans’ monetary backers, who will sell them for a massive profit, some of which they’ll share, either in the form of political contributions or outright graft. Trump can’t see an opportunity for massive corruption and not take it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Ignoring, of course, the 70% who don’t want things to reopen yet.
rikyrah
Healthcare racism is real????
mad citizen
@PenAndKey: “So here’s a morbid question, but what happens if “this” doesn’t stop? ”
Here is an alternative thought that just popped in my head: secession. Really, if you were a state or group of states (Mass, VT, NH, Maine, Rhode Island) tired of the BS and wanted to leave and form a new nation, this is the ideal time. Does anyone really think Trump could execute a successful civil war?
My initial comment to this post was this obvious observation: This is the shittiest shitshow in the history of this nation. As someone here posted over the weekend, trump occupies spots #1 through #5 on the Worst Presidents List.
There should be a groundswell to have this dude resign ASAP. The Dems need to start talking about crazy the era of Trumplicans is.
Roger Moore
@Omnes Omnibus:
But if people avoid optional things, that’s still terrible for the economy. If sales at non-essential businesses tanks even though they’re allowed to open, then they’ll go bankrupt and we’ll wind up in a recession anyway. To fix the economy, it’s not enough to declare the economy open again. You have to fix things to the point that potential customers are willing to come out and patronize those businesses.
Omnes Omnibus
@PenAndKey: But the choice isn’t a bare life or death. It is a risk of becoming ill with a chance of dying versus an increased chance of being ill with a chance of dying. A lot of people will choose their paycheck if they need to. This is why the stay at home orders and support are necessary. People shouldn’t be forced into that choice.
@Roger Moore: Agreed. It is the worst of both worlds. But that’s Trump for you.
MattF
@Omnes Omnibus: I suspect it’s more than 70%. There’s a segment of the population who will publicly sign on to everything Trump says. But will they actually risk their lives? Not so obvious, IMO. We’ll see, once the second wave of infections gets going for real.
Fair Economist
@L85NJGT Real oil prices in Texas are the lowest they have ever been in all history.
rikyrah
You know this is the truth
rikyrah
@Roger Moore:
We need testing testing testing
JMG
Store reopens prematurely. There are only a few scenarios, aside from the extremely low probability of they all live happily ever after. 1. A worker or workers get sick from the virus. Footage of store on six o’clock local news. Many fewer customers. Therefore, newly rehired workers laid off/furloughed once more. 2. A customer or customers get sick. Footage on six o’clock news. NO customers. Store closes, this time for keeps.
Speaking as a consumer, I have three major discretionary luxuries. 1. Playing golf. It is POSSIBLE I could return to this activity in the summer. In theory distancing should be easy at a course, especially the way I play. 2. Travel. Nope, nuh-uh, nossiree. Get on an airplane? 3. Eating out at favorite restaurants. I’d love to sit at the bar and have drinks and dinner with Alice, but I don’t think so, not for some time.
Recreation and luxuries such as dining out have been the areas of the economy most crushed by the virus. They will remain crushed no matter what Trump does. Who’s going out to the ballgame if they start up again. Just imagine the 10-15 pairs of hands passing you your hotdog in the fifth inning.
Kay
I’ve been doing the Shared Work plans for small business clients – it’s a nice program- the idea is the state picks up a percentage of your payroll and that way you can keep people employed. The people at Ohio job and family services have really been trying, but it’s difficult. I had one that was a mess (partly because the employees won’t follow DIRECTIONS even though they have a numbered set of directions, with photos of the interface screen they will encounter, but okay). Anyway, after two weeks and many fruitless phone calls on this one plan I got the Ohio JFS worker who just wants to finish this thing so she said “put them on the phone, we’ll file it for them”. I could hug people like that, if it were lawful, which it’s not.
I think compliance with the distancing orders will be easier when people start getting their bennies and they are starting to get them, thanks to all these state employees busting ass. Ohio hasn’t distributed the enhanced unemployment benefits yet but we’re assured they’re coming.
I haven’t done any apps for the small business grant/loan because the unemployment side looked to me like the low fruit that we could do immediately, and I don’t know a single business who has gotten one of those grants, so that’s less positive. My fear is small independent restaurants are going to get killed and it’s so sad because a lot of people have put their entire lives into these small businesses and it just kills me when they lose one.
So, here anyway, unemployment working as planned, small business grant/loan subsidy a bust. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the federal grant/loan managed by the Trump Administration doesn’t work but the unemployment managed by the states does. The Trump Administration is incompetent.
rikyrah
@Cheryl Rofer: I
you saw that my Governor had to resort to spy-like shyt to get our state’s supplies from China.
shyt makes no sense ??
khead
@L85NJGT:
This will kill every fracking well from Pennsylvania to South Dakota to El Paso, Texas.
Fair Economist
@Shalimar:
For a while. But the people going will be too few for J. Crew to make money keeping the stores open so they will lay off at least most of those workers. That will in turn feed back to demand.
Sweden is “staying open” (sort of) which will kill a lot of people – but travel is down 95% and movie attendance down 90%. They’re still getting an economic crash. I suspect even people orchestrating these lame
murder-suicide“open the country” events know this – this is purely for political purposes.Jeffro
@germy:
He channels Fred Trump a LOT more than people realize…”don’t be a cutie pie”, etc etc.
I’m shocked that none of his political rivals have ever hit him for his daddy issues. Chris Wallace did the other day, but come on: it’s the lowest-hanging fruit there is with this guy.
ziggy
About 2,500 of those numbskulls converged on the state capital of my city (Olympia, WA), and I am pissed! Thurston county has been doing quite well, with fairly limited cases, despite the fact that we are directly down the I-5 corridor from the heavily infected counties of King, Pierce and Snohomish. I really hope they kept to their germy selves and didn’t go into local stores, or visit locals. I doubt many of those were from the immediate area.
Everyone is tired of the lockdown, getting fatigued, this really doesn’t help morale.
Jeffro
@Cheryl Rofer:
@Roger Moore:
I think House Dems are looking into the pandemic non-response by trumpov…they would do well (if they do it quickly) to also look into what’s going on here with the feds confiscating and redistributing PPE, tests, etc.
(“look into” as in “hurry up and impeach the MF again”)
BR
As I wrote last night, people will vote with their feet. If people don’t feel safe, it doesn’t matter what the government(s) do. I don’t know why this isn’t the main point of the discussion.
This is what free market folks always love to say — individual choices is what make a market, not government choices. So if the government “reopens” but nobody shows up, does it make a sound?
Baud
@Kay:
Hey you! Good to see you again.
PenAndKey
That will be little comfort to the loved ones of those that get ill and die because they were forced to work or starve. Fear may be a big motivator but as you said it’s largely abstract and can be rationalized away. People are supremely good at pretending that risk probabilities mean they’ll be fine because the risk isn’t a certainty. They suck at statistics and are good at wishful thinking, basically.
They can’t do that when their loved ones are already dead, and it doesn’t take many people who have (in their mind) lost everything to decide the situation can’t hold or that someone needs to pay for forcing the choice in the first place. As you said that’s the choice that stay-at-home orders with assistance prevents. But now, with multiple centrally organized protests against the stay-at-home orders around the country and an increasingly organized GOP push to get them revoked, that’s a choice people will find themselves making all the same.
If you get sick and die yeah, your own wishful thinking ran out and you’re gone, but if your loved ones die? The wishful thinking is still gone, and now you’ll have to deal with the new reality. Not everyone does so peacefully, and it really doesn’t feel like the GOP fears that particular scenario as much as even a brief review of history says they should.
feebog
@JMG: Fellow hacker here. I’m in SoCal and we had a story in the local news last night about at least one Ventura county course opening in Ojai. They removed all the ball washers and water stations. Restrooms, restaurant and proshop are closed. No carts, you walk with your push cart. It’s about an hour and a half drive, but I’m ready to go.
Kay
I do think they could do a better job designing small business bailouts next time. The PPP program doesn’t make a lot of sense for a restaurant or a hair salon or a tattoo parlor, because it requires so much to go toward payroll and those businesses are CLOSED- they don’t need employees. Arguably both you and your employees are better off on unemployment than taking a grant/loan to retain employees when you have no work for them. They need to think about “closed” (totally) and “open” (reduced hours) and design for those two possibilities. If the virus really is the new normal hopefully they’ll get better at it. As far as where the money is going to come from to keep all these businesses afloat with what I anticipate to be rolling shutdowns over months and months I have no idea. Looks to me like we need to rescind the Trump tax cut, and quick. We’ll need revenue.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
States have their own air national guards. That’s how California handled the problem.
raven
@Kay: hi
danielx
Posted this downstairs by mistake….oops.
Went to Lowes this weekend, one at which store management is clearly not following any guidelines about only permitting X number of people at a time in the store. I needed to replace a bulb socket for a three way lamp which provides most of the light in the family room, plus picking up another spray bottle to keep one sprayer of Lysol solution in the kitchen and one in the garage. I wore gloves plus one of our precious store of N95 masks – sister in law bought a hundred for five bucks each on Amazon so that another sister in law (a doc) would have them for work, since hospitals aren’t providing them to radiologists.
Parking lot was packed, and I almost turned around and left, but – six mile drive to get there, etc. So I go in and maybe half the people in the store were wearing masks, if that many. Store employees had them. A lot of people were not observing any social distancing measures; I stopped to maintain distance between a mom and two kids, none of them wearing masks, and some jerk ran her cart (lowboy variety) into my ankles from behind. Fortunately for me (and her) I was wearing boots, but still…anyway, the thought that kept running through my head was “what the fuck is the matter with you people?”. Spousal unit wanted me to pick up mulch, but I took one look at the outdoor lawn and garden center and thought, nope, nuh-uh, ain’t happening. Line was fifteen deep, three feet apart max and not a fucking soul wearing a mask. If it was a question of picking up necessary food or medicine, well, yes, reluctantly, but not for garden stuff. I want to plant flowers and such as much as the next person but I’m not willing to risk dying for it, which a lot of people evidently are.
But the woman bopping around with two little kids, maybe four and six? And she wasn’t the only one I saw with children in tow without masks. How big a fool does one have to be to put one’s children at risk?
germy
danielx
@Kay:
Good to see you!
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
*sigh* People suck. I just got a random cold call. Some asshole’s soon-to-be-former brother-in-law died, and left his 150K estate to the guy’s soon-to-be former wife.
You guessed it – caller wants a slice, which I was happy to report would not be made his as a function of Kentucky law.
catclub
This is the media and white people protesting, (with traitors flags),
you are talking about.
So, no.
I am guessing the astroturfers are looking to find a missing white girl to throw into the mix.
(Lost because she was wearing a mask and mis-identified??)
James E Powell
@germy:
I would bet that their editors & news directors are telling them that they don’t want that story. And I would bet their editors & news directors tell them that because they want to keep their jobs.
The press/media always present right wing extremists as good old American salt of the earth Heartland people whose rage is justified by something something [but definitely not the policies enacted by the people they vote for]. It’s because right wing extremists are good for the ruling class
@Roger Moore:
The fact that their actions promote and support the ruling class is not a coincidence.
The Thin Black Duke
@Kay: Welcome back, Kay.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Kay: Great to see you here!
Tazj
Hospitalizations are still increasing here in Erie County, NY and sadly the decrease in patients in the ICUs seems to coincide with deaths so it doesn’t seem we are close to a slowdown yet. Hoping things will turn around shortly. My husband says things are starting to pick up in the hospital but nothing is unmanageable yet.
I’m seeing this argument from conservatives that is driving me crazy. In regards to attempts by the federal government to seize PPE and hospital equipment they’re saying, “What did Democrats think was going to happen when the DPA was invoked?The federal government now has the power to do that.”
I’ve never read the law concerning the DPA and I’m not a lawyer anyway, but it can’t be right that this is how the DPA is property executed. I have to believe states would get more notice and things should be much better coordinated, and shouldn’t the federal government be paying for the equipment?
Jinchi
A Trump-nominated federal judge is doing his part to ensure that the pandemic continues to thrive in Kansas.
germy
@James E Powell:
And with that you hit the nail on the head.
JMG
@James E Powell: There are more and more print stories on the astroturf nature of these “protest” groups. There will never be TV stories on that topic because it cannot be conveyed with video images alone and requires some second-level thinking from the viewer.
catclub
everybody with kids in daycare knows that KIDS ARE CARRIERS.
The risk is probably more to others, as well. (Yes, I know that kids now are NOT in daycare.)
jl
Thanks for important post. I would only add that low number of new cases is only an index of feasibility of early surveillance (‘sentinel surveillance’ is the jargon word) and traditional meningitis, TB, etc., outbreak control methods working, while other institutional and infrastructure methods (health and safety codes, for example) are put in place.
I think Cheryl’s criteria for herd immunity is too strict, I think 50 percent is more like it.
Getting close to herd immunity is good enough, say 40 percent, since in that case, the acute stage of any outbreak that turns into a local epidemic will be much smaller and slower. So, makes outbreak control easier.
But opening up is all about being able to do traditional outbreak control for a disease that has a basic reproduction above 1, and iffy herd immunity, which we do with at least half a dozen other diseases. Covid-19 is a new problem and combines relative high R0 with quick problems for health care system. But, we do it with bacterial meningitis, though that requires longer and closer contact for transmission than covid-19.
Thanks again for important post.
Elizabelle
Cuomo O’Clock. Missed the beginning. He’s talking about the governors working together and coming up with state forecasts. Budget assistance. How the federal government is not coming through.
Baud
@catclub:
And yet they go unpunished.
catclub
@germy: you know, this reminds me of the sane billionaires and the insane billionaires. And getting the economy open, just to end up killing a lot more people, and overwhelming the healthcare system. Is right there in the insane billionaire’s plan. and it is destructive of even their overall goals.
satby
Darn
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Jinchi:
So I read the order. Looking at all the restrictions Broome built in, it would be simpler to remain closed.
Elizabelle
@Jinchi: I think that when federal judges do that (allow in-person worship services), they should be there throughout the event to monitor distancing compliance/put themselves in harm’s way too.
These decisions are not without impact.
MattF
@Tazj: ‘You’re saying you didn’t realize that Trump would use the act against those he perceives to be his enemies?’ A fair point, IMO.
Elizabelle
Cuomo talking about how the economy has “closed down” for those with the luxury to stay at home.
Not so the essential workers. Half of which are women.
It is not essential workers out there politicking on behalf of Trump and their overlords.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@satby:
I weep at the crisis faced by oil commodity speculators.
Elizabelle
Cuomo is for hazard pay for those who have to work now. “Give them what they need.” Suggests a 50% bonus.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Elizabelle:
“But my sincerely held beliefs about freedoms and the Commons….”
BobS
@danielx: I picked up things at H Mart yesterday- there was a guy standing at the door preventing anyone without a mask from entering the store. That should be a requirement for any open business.
Also, listening to Cuomo’s briefing, he alluded to the city’s response to 9/11 to make some points about re-opening. Coincidentally, I had noticed this morning that we’re at ~42K deaths, the equivalent of fourteen 9/11’s. That could be a useful ‘yardstick’ to measure Trump’s failure.
Elizabelle
They’re going to deliver one mask per person for residents of public housing. And hand sanitizer.
Cuomo: “This is cause and effect on steroids. What we do today is going to affect tomorrow. You will not need to wait for the history books …. the future is really in our hands. We can control the beast.”
I guess he speaks of the virus. Not our Beast in chief.
Jinchi
@JMG:
Aren’t there pretty strong laws against a federal employee lobbying the government?
Elizabelle
Cuomo: Smart is tough, united and loving.
Elizabelle
Q: “the president just tweeted that testing is up to the states, not the federal govt.”
Cuomo: The pres is right WRT the states. Logistics, coordination. 300 labs in NYS. — they’re regulated by the states. … all within the states’ purview. The pres is right about the states should lead …”
But now talking about how securing supplies is a real problem for the states. WRT national manufacturers. Would like the federal govt to help with the supply chain.
Jinchi
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Let’s hope they actually enforce those restrictions.
Ohio Mom
Great to see you Kay!
Your experience with Ohio JFS tracks with mine. When Ohio Son was a minor, we had to undergo an annual review by JFS to get his Medicaid Waiver renewed. Our County DDS handled the paperwork, much like you are doing for your clients.
Some years our DDS point person would recognize the name of the JFS staff assigned to our review and sigh, and warn me it was going to be rough.
Those were the years I ran around copying extra and usually irrelevant documentation, all to placate a JFS worker with a permanent hair up her ass.
Other years DDS looked at the JFS staff name and correctly predicted smooth sailing.
satby
There just better be prosecutions after this is over. Profiteering, theft, reckless endangerment: we don’t even need to be particularly creative, those are long established laws. And maybe using RICO on the Republican party.
Elizabelle
The volume of testing will be determined by how much the national manufacturers provide the kits.
Second function: tracing, after testing. Army of people to be investigators to trace contacts of every person who is positive.
Q: use the Defense Prod Act to ramp up production and hire the tracers?
A: Cuomo thinks tracers should be a state responsibility. Easier to coordinate. “Too discrete” an action for the feds. Anything “granular” and specific to a state — leave that to the state. Parable of painting with a roller (feds) vs. the brush.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
It begins
Man Who Called Ohio’s Lockdown Order ‘Bullshit’ Has Succumbed To COVID-19
I’ve been wondering how many stories like this we’re going to see, and that we won’t have any idea how many of yesterday’s buffoons actually catch it, how far and to whom they spread it…
Elizabelle
Cuomo: “nobody is to blame.” (Ha! But I guess it’s to soothe the Vector in Chief.)
Mike in NC
Ten years ago right wing billionaires funded the bogus Tea Party movement of assorted racist and reactionary groups, protesting That One in “their” precious White House. The Reopen States movement is simply Tea Party 2.0 with all of the same assholes pushing the winger agenda. Corporate media will continue to look the other way.
Elizabelle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: John McDaniel, aged 60. Buh bye!
White man, pictured in camo. Of course.
ETA: The late Mr. McDaniel was the dreaded third generation of family business: industrial manufacturing and machining. Their website. His son, OSU grad, is now VP.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Virus don’t care what you say about it.
Gin & Tonic
As to media coverage of the “protests”, here’s how it gets around. Current headline on the site of 5 Kanal, Ukraine’s Channel 5: “Protests in the USA: demonstrators demand an end to the quarantine – doctors opposed.”
See, both sides.
japa21
Two quick comments.
I am glad to live in Illinois. Sure has its issues but it works, specially with Pritzker. Got my first UI deposit last week, 2 weeks after applying. Considering the crush of applications I am thrilled, and it included the extra money from the Feds.
Secondly, concerning church attendance. We have extended family relatives in northern Wisconsin who are pissed about not being able to go to church on Sundays. They will be driving down to Madison to participate in a protest later this week. They say their constitutional right to practice their religion is being infringed upon. To me, people do not practice their religion by going to church, they practice their religion by how they live their lives and engaging in behavior that threatens the lives of others is not practicing any religion that I know of.
catclub
@Elizabelle: and he looks like he has aged 15 years in the past two months.
The Thin Black Duke
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: If it takes one funeral at a time for these idiots to get a clue, so be it. I’ll shed no tears.
Elizabelle
@catclub: Ah. I listen to Andrew more than look. I bet he actually works 20 hour days. I bet he is exhausted and running on adrenaline. For weeks now. It helps to be an experienced government executive to meet this challenge.
Whereas: the Vector in Chief is just looking more orange and more lizardly, by the day. Vector’s self-assigned job: Don’t fight the virus. Fight those who are fighting the virus. Especially if they are Democrats.
Spanky
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: This is my “Fuck’em” face.
bluefoot
@Hungry Joe:
My nephew never got tested. He had symptoms 5-6 weeks ago. his doctor said it was likely COVID-19 and called the county Dept of Health and had my nephew put on their list for getting tested. Despite calling every day for weeks, my nephew never got tested. He and my sister (his mom) finally gave up. He quarantined himself from symptom onset to 14 days past his last day of symptoms. But until there’s an antibody test, we won’t know if it was actually COVID-19.
The numbers are a crock – testing capacity isn’t increasing so of course we’re seeing a plateau in new cases because we’re not testing for them. It’s insane and sociopathic.
zhena gogolia
@bluefoot:
CT is using hospitalizations as a metric. I don’t know if that’s more rational, but it seems to be.
Miss Bianca
@japa21: So, I suppose quoting Matthew 18:20 at your relatives – “where *two or three* are gathered together, there shall you find me” or the strictures against publicly performing your piety would just get you called a libtard fascist or something, eh?
Ksmiami
@Roger Moore: my genius spouse says if we had good government ppl in place they would start work projects to plan when the virus wanes but unemployment Is high- so another FDR set of public works, Infrastructure etc
Elizabelle
Good question about whether schools will reopen with smaller class sizes when they reopen.
A. State has 700 school districts. By law, they cannot reopen on their own; state law supersedes.
Dodged question about class sizes.
Kay
@Ohio Mom:
Ohio pulled the Shared Work people off and put them on regular unemployment, so they had people who were like office support staff doing the job but they must have put the experienced people back on that program because the lady this AM knew what she was talking about.
It’s really difficult for everyone. We have one employee with special needs kids and after a week of “working from home” where she wasn’t getting anything done she asked for straight unemployment. It’s just too much for her with no school and no help. I’m just taking it one day at a time. I plan on surviving this :)
Gvg
@danielx: Here in Gainesville Fl Ace hardware stores, a large chain of small old fashioned hardware store are doing curbside. You order on line, get an email it’s ready, go pick up, call the store you are here. I ordered border fences to keep the dog from walking through my just seeded flower spot, which a dog cannot perceive because there is nothing there yet. It worked fine, an employee was waiting on the sidewalk asking names and bring out the orders to put in the back. That was earlier before cases got high.
this morning I needed something from Home Depot, a weed eater. I considered the issues and thought I might have it delivered, but discovered they are doing curbside too now. They weren’t before. I suspect they were afraid they couldn’t handle the volume. Anyway I ordered pick up because delivery was more than a week and went ahead and added fertilizer and cow manure since I was going anyway. According to directions you order for pickup in store, then park and call them. I chose to put a vinyl liner I have for transporting messy things inside the back of my minivan. It’s like a huge sack with the open end at the tailgate and Velcro ties that go out the door frames and over the roof of the van to keep the top up. It’s clear on top to see out and as thick as a pool liner so no punctures. This was so they could put everything in the back without exposing me or them and keep my car clean. I didn’t even have to open a window. They texted me from a few feet away outside my car. The parking spots marking curbside had brand new wooden painted signs and outlines with the phone number and extensions to dial.
if you have a suitable car, I bet you can get mulch. Not all locations are doing this it said. I expect you could get them to bring out the mulch and leave it next to your car, for you to load yourself if your car is too small to open for them? Not sure though.
Check out local sources too. Some places might deliver. I have hesitated because I am afraid my neighborhoods streets are too small for big trucks to back up to my back yard.
some businesses have been quite imaginative and clever about how to operate. Ask around on Nextdoor and things like that.
catclub
you would think that an omnipotent omniscient Being could figure out Christians not being in churches due to local conditions.
It couldn’t be that going to church is simply performative group signalling, could it?
Cheryl Rofer
@Kay: Great to see you back! Hope your family is staying healthy!
Miss Bianca
@catclub: Nooooo, couldn’t be! >: >
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Elizabelle:
That’s THE Ohio State University, TYVM (based on this being a real stringent point in the bio).
That whole “The” bit always pisses me off for some reason.
laura
@Kay: Kay! Your presence is like a cool hand on a fevered brow
We absolutely need confiscatory tax rates to wring the idle capital out of the soft smooth palms and put it to the social goods we so desperately need. And that is how you get a virtuous cycle of the velocity of dollars in communities.
Elizabelle
@satby: Absolutely. No pardoning for this. Accountability. Federally or state provided housing and vittles.
hitchhiker
The protests are just stupid people venting their rage in front of tv cameras, and yes, it’s just like the good old tea party summer.
One of my strongest memories from that period is Jon Stewart opining on the Daily Show that, “obviously, this is coming from a very real place.” His point was that these clowns in their tri-corner hats really were pissed off and wound up and concerned about the future of America. Their emotions were real, see?
His point was that you can’t just dismiss people who are experiencing Real Feelings, even when the Real Feelings are the desired outcome of extensive & sophisticated manipulation. At the time, I wanted to shake him. Had he never spent quality time with a toddler? It’s not necessary to respect Real Feelings when the kid is screaming over which shoe goes on which foot.
The first rule is to ignore them. The second rule is to distract them. The third rule is to never, ever take them seriously. If the press is going to show up with cameras, they ought to turn those cameras on each other and conduct interviews about anything except the “protests.” It should be understood that the “protests” are just like tantrums: insignificant wailing that will pass if you move on.
japa21
@Miss Bianca: Yep
Ksmiami
@PenAndKey: Brickbats- ThAts why the GOP endgame is so stupid – violence and civil breakdowns affects everyone. Plus our enemies are watching our poor response and planning accordingly. Epidemics through history have brought mighty empires low
PST
Absolutely right. I like Medium as a way of stumbling across things that fall outside my usual line of sight, but nothing gains even a fraction of a degree of credibility by virtue of appearing there. Seeing something “on Medium” is like seeing something “on Twitter.”
TMan1955
@PenAndKey: he knows the many secrets that have NOT come out yet, will put him in jail and destroy his name and real estate empire, if he does not get re elected. I think we have not yet seen the bottom of his egregious criminal behavior.
Feathers
@jl: Herd immunity isn’t really possible with CORVID-19, due to the long non-symptomatic infectious phase. To get to a herd immunity of 60%, you would end up infecting 93% of the population. https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1251999295231819778
Here’s the paper (from 2012) the thread is based on: “A note on the derivation of epidemic final sizes”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3506030/
Aleta
@Kay:
“I plan on surviving this” Very good news!
“just taking it one day at a time” seems like best possible strategy at this moment for me
And it’s good to be reading your thoughts again.
Amir Khalid
@catclub:
Perish the thought.//
rp
@hitchhiker: Stewart lost a ton of credibility during that period. He turned into the same serious media tsk tsking both sides type that he’d been making fun of for the previous decade.
Kay
@Cheryl Rofer:
They are healthy. Our middle son is staying with us- he’s an “essential” and on a job close to me so he’s out and about all day but he washes his hands and all that. It’s nice for the youngest because he’s really “social” and misses marching band and track and his friends. My middle son is fun (aka dangerous) and the youngest is enjoying having him around. My husband is suffering the most. No tennis, no sports on tv, limited court appearances so no bs-ing with other lawyers and he can’t travel. He’s going bananas. I can’t deal with him anymore. “Find something TO DO”. He’s bad at all of this.
Dorothy A. Winsor
This thread made me feel like I’m not insane when I feel completely baffled by what these folks think will happen if they get their way and people are forced back to work. It’s like they’re working for the virus which only wants to spread.
kindness
Trump isn’t ordering test kits because he thinks lowering the number of positive tests make him look better. There is no other explination.
CaseyL
The news was once part of a “public service” requirement for having a broadcast license. It was never intended to be a profit center. That changed with Roone Arledge. He had made sports a major revenue producer for ABC, and used the same formula to make the newscast a profit center.Other networks followed his example, and that led directly to “infotainment” replacing “news.”
This was a long time ago, and journalists were worried about it even then – even before media consolidation eliminated independent news departments by folding them into one asset whose only purpose was to generate ad revenue.
Now, media consolidation has eliminated any truly independent televised news organization altogether. Now, vulture capitalism is eliminating independent print journalism.
So, to answer the question: No. “News reporting” has no incentives, and plenty of outright DISincentives, to report politics in an accurate, factual, contextualized manner. Print journalism is on its last legs. Network news is either Sinclair (pro-Trump, pro-GOP) or “infotainment” (revenue!); cable news is even worse.
Soviet propaganda outlets continued printing and reporting state-sponsored news right up until the fall of the Berlin Wall, and probably right up until the final collapse of the USSR.
I don’t expect anything different from the US news outlets. They will be covering T* press conferences without contextualization, and RW “protests,” even as tens of thousands of people continue to die. They will not make a big point of noting the “protests” are coordinated.
They will not make a big point of noting that the Feds are refusing to coordinate/fund testing in order for T* to force governors to end lockdowns too soon: if the governors give in, the MSM will call it a “victory for the President” and leave it at that. When people start dying by the tens of thousands again, the MSM will report it without context (just like they report increasingly wild weather without saying a single syllable about GCC).
The US is in an endgame begun by the people who have funded the GOP since Reagan, and probably earlier than that. I have no idea what comes next, but my guess is that the US does split into semi-autonomous regions – it’s already been doing so, and the deliberate failure of the federal government to provide for its citizens in the face of a pandemic will hasten the process.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
thread with link to paper
Brachiator
I do not understand this at all. Unless, Young Jared is selling the intercepted supplies on the black market.
I also sadly suspect that under the current “liberate” atmosphere, some people may resist testing, or refuse to cooperate if they test positive for the virus. The result will be to insure the further spread of the disease if there is a further outbreak. But now, right wing idiots are much like anti-vaxxers. They both deny reality. Worse, these right wing idiots are willing to let people come down with the disease or die. For them infection is an ideological act of God.
Again, the end result is that Trump is using an authoritarian populist appeal to get what was denied him by the false assertion that he had total authority as president to declare the states open again. It is despicable, but we have a president who openly declares that he only cares about having his most uninformed whims carried out.
Fair Economist
@Roger Moore:
Phooey. You’ve been to lefty protests, correct? They are VERY entertaining! Some impeachment ones here in Orange CA had a FANTASTIC “Devin Nunes’ Cow” costume which was made to bounce and jiggle and jingle, and it was hilarious. There were more people there (at a single protest) than at the entire Huntington Beach protest. How much media coverage did it get? Zip.
The media covers wingnut protests waving the traitor flag and calling for mass deaths of Americans because they *want* to.
BobS
@rp: You could say that Stewart was “a dick” with respect to the ‘both sides do it’.
Ruckus
@charon:
Massively more deaths make trump look better?
How the fuck does that work?
Ruviana
{{{Kay!!!}}}
Kelly
and Canadian bituminous oil sand production
The Thin Black Duke
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I think part of the problem is these idiots never had to personally deal with the consequences of their hateful ideology. Whether it was children being tossed in cages or Nazis marching in the streets, these atrocities were happening far, far way to people they didn’t give a damn about. But it’s different when the virus is next door.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: No, Trump will tout low numbers from tests and imply that everyone is being tested.
Fair Economist
@Kay: We’ve been doing pretty well until today. Hubby still goes out and shops and eats takeout in parking lots way too often, but he’s careful and OC CA is not too bad so it’s OK. However, son just ran out of pot money (his fault for not filing taxes earlier) so things may get more exciting in a bad way. He’s been pestering me for a “loan” all morning.
Uncle Cosmo
@khead: Every fracking oil well, probably. But how many of those are there? Honest question, I don’t know. However, my impression is that most fracking has been aimed at liberating natural gas from the rock so it can be drawn off – which is a major reason why methane (Brit. Engl. meee-thane) is the fuel of choice for load-leveling power plants, not petroleum. And I don’t see how the price of oil affects natural gas fracking – unless it stays low enough for long enough to persuade the utilities to convert the gas-burners back to burning oil. And I don’t think the utilities are anywhere near ready to bet the franchise on that.
Ruviana
@danielx: They closed our Lowe’s yesterday for not observing the appropriate distancing and mask rules.
MagdaInBlack
@japa21:
2 weeks? Good, I filed a week ago. Thanks for the hope boost. The waiting, ugh.
Stay safe down there in Schbrg.
Arlington Heights here ☺
Elizabelle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Christopher Ingraham being the WaPost reporter based in way north Minnesota, who had all the crickets running loose in his home a year or two ago. Box ‘o crickets delivery that went awry.
Skimming the paper. Obviously, a problem is that Fox’s viewers are ” disproportionately elderly — a population among whom the coronavirus may be up to ten times more fatal than among the general population.”
But: if Hannity is killing his own audience off, who are we to argue? (For the audience of aggrieved old critters. The collateral damage they’re causing: we can and should scream.)
I think Murdoch family attorneys are taking a real serious look at that paper.
ETA: And, of course, our hugest problem is the huge-assed Vector in Chief, who scarfs Hannity shows like well-cooked hamburgers.
If Hannity, Fox News, and Trump get sued out of existence, that would go some measurable distance towards restoring sanity and comity.
Amir Khalid
@kindness:
And of course he doesn’t anticipate governors yelling at him that WE NEED MORE TESTING, GODDAMNIT! Or the media asking about it.
RobertB
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I’ll call it “An Ohio State University” at work sometimes. The alums love it. :)
James E Powell
@JMG:
We’re doomed.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
Good to hear back from you, Kay!
Do you have an opinion on DeWine reopening the state beginning May 1st? I know they say they won’t rush it, but still
Fair Economist
@Uncle Cosmo: No, most fracking wells are aimed at getting profitable oil, and the nat gas is a byproduct. Enough nat gas has been coming off to drive nat gas prices to all-time lows, which has been the main driver of the death of coal electricity, although solar/wind is taking over now. There is some fracking for gas, but it’s not the majority. I suspect some of that nat gas is driving the insane oil prices – actually negative in a few specific places – because if the nat gas is in demand, it comes up with oil that has to go somewhere.
Long term this crash will produce some wild price swings which will help the transition to better power sources. Utilities like consistency. Back-conversion to burning oil is very unlikely because they know the price will bounce back in a few years at most. The massive capital cost of fossil fuel infrastructure is once again working for us – it takes many years to make those investments back, and once the years aren’t there the investment stops, even before the fossil fuel is actually unprofitable.
Uncle Cosmo
@germy: I ought to change my nym to Aunt Cassandra, ‘cuz I’ve been shouting this at the deaf for years:
And it’s not hard to understand why the GOProject has been humming along so smoothly. Non-rich folks aren’t stupid. They can see there’s no way to make the oligarchs pay their fair share of anything – in fact, any share of anything – because those bastards have control of the legislature, the judiciary, the executive, the police, the lawyers, the press, and the prisons. If they want something better for themselves and their families, they have no real option but to either suck up to the bazillionaires, or take it away from people who have as little power as (& ideally, even less power than) they do.
It’s ridiculously easy to persuade those on the bottom that it’s those people over there (who don’t look like you, talk like you, worship like you, love like you or think like you) who’ve been sucking up all the good stuff that you & yours by rights deserve – because the alternative, that it’s the bazillionaires who’ve been stealing from you and them with equal aplomb, means you ain’t never gonna get shit.
(I’m not saying that’s where we are – but all across the planet, that’s where we’re sliding faster down the slope toward the cliff to each day, and there ain’t a lot of handholds left to grab. :^( )
mrmoshpotato
@japa21:
Oh really? I seem to remember some Jesus fellow saying something about not being all, “Look at me! I’m praying!”
James E Powell
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I’m a Buckeye Till I Die, but I’ve always considered emphasizing “THE” something not to be taken seriously. It came into use well after I graduated (1980). I never mention it unless it’s like a “Hey Dumbass!” “That’s MISTER Dumbass!” context.
Ksmiami
@Uncle Cosmo: But at least the virus will reduce their numbers too-
different-church-lady
Welcome back Kay. This time go with “Illegitimi non carborundum.”
Uncle Cosmo
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Just FTR, it is also THE Johns Hopkins University – but since the only form of sportsball my Alma Mutter is anydamngood at is a minor variant of ice-hockey-sans-ice called “lacrosse,” the definite article tends to get lost in the shuffle. (In fact, most of us breathe a sigh of relief on the rare occasions non-alums & anyone from more than 40 miles away from Charles & 33rd remember the “s” in “Johns”.) /tmi
James E Powell
@hitchhiker:
It’s more than that. The ruling class provides a target for the people’s unfocused rage and frustration to make sure that the target isn’t them.
And you’re right. It is exactly like the Tea Party. Bush/Cheney gave tons of money to the ruling class while economy tanked. The ruling class directed the resulting rage at the black president. The press/media cooperated in the effort because serving the ruling class is their essential purpose.
Roger Moore
@catclub:
The worry is that the shepherd won’t be able to fleece his flock if he can’t see them in person.
mrmoshpotato
@Cheryl Rofer: @germy:
It’s almost like Dump is a Soviet shitpile mobster conman.
Oh wait.
It’s almost likeDump is a Soviet shitpile mobster conman.Fixed.
different-church-lady
@hitchhiker: Incoherent rage and resentment are indeed real emotions.
different-church-lady
@kindness: Now let’s be fair here: maybe he just hasn’t figured out how to skim a profit on them yet.
different-church-lady
@CaseyL: I have a slightly different theory: journalism was plenty yellow and tabloid in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It may be that mid 20th century high-minded journalism and news was actually an anomaly; we only thought it was the standard because it was what we grew up with.
Soprano2
Boy are you right about this!!!! We looked at getting one of these PPP loans for our bar, but it really won’t work well for us because a) we aren’t doing carryout and b) most of our employees have applied for unemployment, and with the extra $600 a week they’ll be making more than I could pay them! What would really help businesses like that out – money to pay the bills that don’t stop, like utilities and internet and phone and DirecTV. I’m lucky that I can afford to pay those bills for a few months for our pub, but I’m afraid you’re right that it’s going to be a bloodbath among local restaurants. This weekend the woman who owns a local Italian place we like that just opened up last summer was on TV almost crying about how she’s doing her best but if this isn’t over in a few weeks she’ll probably lose everything and have to close up. How come more aid isn’t directed to people like her and her business!!!!!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Fair Economist:
Considering the big “Trump flag” I saw on the TV machine at their “open the country” event, yeah.
different-church-lady
A. Whitney Brown used to start his act with, “I’m A. Whitney Brown. Not The Whitney Brown, just a Whitney Brown.”
H.E.Wolf
@Kay:
Glad to see your comments; and glad to know your family’s well.
L85NJGT
@Roger Moore:
Somebody here noted the lack of the professional class at snake oil churches. I think this was meant in context of being rational voices in favor of cancelling services, but they are also the fiscal means to sustain the institution through a quarantine.
grandpa john
@catclub: The problem, they don’t get to pass the offering plate
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I wonder who’s in charge of social media, Fredo or Gummo?
the only thing that surprises me about this is that I thought Daly had gotten sober
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@different-church-lady: as I recall, A Whitney Brown was really funny, and often pretty dark, on the original Daily Show, then he kind of disappeared. It seems like Colbert is the only one from the pre-Stewart days to have had a high profile.
grandpa john
@Amir Khalid: And as a friend of mine was once informed, ‘It’s good for business ‘
germy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He still has opinions, we just never see him on TV anymore. I remember him from the old SNL days.
Barbara
@Roger Moore: He won’t be able to shame them into giving even though they find themselves newly unemployed.
japa21
@MagdaInBlack: Make sure your direct deposit info is correct. I had been receiving unemployment a few years ago and since then my bank had been absorbed not once but twice. Didn’t even think of it at first but then double checked and the old info was still in the system. Changed it or I would never have seen anything. BTW, they had asked me to certify which is how I knew I had been approved, even though I still haven’t received written confirmation.
Not Schaumburg. In Hoffman Estates where we call it Scumburg.
At least the weather is beautiful.
MagdaInBlack
@japa21:
TY. I did verify the direct dep. How long after applying did they ask you to certify? I should insert Tom Petty “The Waiting” here.
I nearly typed Scumburg…..? but thought better.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Trump mistakes approval rating to be like audience ratings for a TV show.
Kay
@Fair Economist:
My husband is mourning because we had a plan to extend my daughter’s parental leave- we were both going to take consecutive weeks with the baby when she went back to work- today. He was really looking forward to it- baby is adorable and he likes kids. But-we’re not allowed to go and even if the states didn’t have stay home orders my daughter and her husband are health care professionals and they said “no”. It turned out okay for the baby care. Her husband was furloughed – he does “elective” medical care and they’re in NY, so no work for him, so now he’s staying home with the baby.
She’s encouraged by how practitioners are figuring out how to provide care. She says “we’ll get much better at treating it”. On the flip side she’s a little worried about the indications it may cause lasting problems with cardiac issues. There are a LOT of people in the US with cardiac risk factors.
cain
Yes, in fact it’s in the addendum in a new book for the Gospels – “Trump:28:15 – When asked, thy must sacrifice – it’s good for business”
Calouste
@Omnes Omnibus:
At the current test rate (145,000 tests per day) it will take more than 6 1/2 years to test the entire population of the United States. Just a number to throw out there when someone says that everyone can get tested.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Price of oil is now…. [checks notes] …. 10 cents a barrel (no joke) (graph)
So. Much. Winning.
japa21
@MagdaInBlack: 2 weeks.
Kent
I call it “The OTHER OSU”
But then I grew up in Oregon.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Eric Boehlert sums up the national media’s obsession with the Cosplay Patrick Henrys
cain
On the other hand if we just simply decide that Trump supporters are all plague carriers and just setup social distancing x10 with them we should all be safe. Complicated if they are your own family members living in your roof or you in their roof though.
hueyplong
Now 1 cent a barrel.
Even Putin might want Trump dead soon.
Ball is in your court, Vlad
cain
Does this meant hat stupid pipeline from Canada through the U.S. is in danger?
Robert Sneddon
@Uncle Cosmo: Oil in now cheap enough that companies operating combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) generating plants are looking at converting some of their installations over to burning oil instead of natural gas. It’s apparently not too difficult technically speaking, the gas turbines are derived from aircraft engines that burn kerosene so the parts are there. There’s some licencing hoops to jump through to change fuels, some emissions control measures to meet but after that, cheap energy! Yay!
cain
@Ruckus:
What deaths? It’s all fake news. The obit page could be a small novel but ‘nope, nothing unusual about that at all.. none of them are covid, it is all fake news’.
The world has to change even more drastically such that none of what they used to exists.. the meltdown of the entitled must continue till the bitter end.
tam1MI
This is awesome!
Scott Dworkin (@funder) Tweeted:
Two nurses stage a counter protest ? https://t.co/GzInxIp5y2 https://twitter.com/funder/status/1252065710165106689?s=20
cain
@kindness:
I’m trying to figure out how all this is going to come out in the inevitable congressional hearings and investigations. I’m trying to figure out what stonewalling they will do.
In this case though, congress doesn’t have to talk to the white house, they can ask the WHO and hospitals and what not how many kits were ordered.
Corner these assholes at the end – then go after all the republican governors as well. Hold them all culpable.
cain
There seems to be good evidence that this is just a shakedown by the right wing – using DeVos money. It’s all planned. This isn’t some grass roots whining..
It’s designed to pull the media in (who are also run by right wing assholes) and give them cover.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
40% is 131 million or 1.3 million deaths, which sure as hell beats Dr Phil’s “appetizing” 9 million dead, but still sucks. More to the point that’s at lest two more months of this. Maybe the FSM willing, the that 40% will be mostly asymmetrical or mild cases and push the numbers of dead down bellow 1%. Iceland and Norway did serious testing and it is 1 death per 500 infected, so that would be 260,000 dead to get to 40% the hard way.
Cheryl from Maryland
@khead: Good.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Kay!!!
Good to hear from you. Glad to read your dispatch from rural Ohio :)
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@cain: I think it’s safer to say this same fugue of idiocy that is the Anti-Vaccers, Young Earth Creationists, Chemtrail believers and Flat Earthers. Yes, it’s the DeVos funded, but the DeVos family are all anti-science and belive the same thing as those fools in those protests.
J R in WV
Off Topic, but important.
Chrome browser users, Google has announced a newly discovered vulnerability in Chrome Versions earlier than the newest release, which is Version 81.0,4044.113.
This vulnerability allows hostile hackers to run code on your device, and is the most serious type of code vulnerability.
Folks should check their current install of Chrome to be sure they are protected.
Brachiator
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I’m not seeing any consensus that herd immunity, to any degree, is going to happen.
Barbara
@Kay: And if that weren’t enough, there is a high — like really high — incidence of renal failure for those with COVID-19 diagnoses who are admitted to the ICU. Enough that there is an emerging shortage of dialysis associated devices, drugs and assorted equipment. No one knows whether the damage will be permanent.
P.S. Nice to see you and sorry about not getting to spend time with your darling grandbaby.
Another Scott
@catclub: No, no. Those Learjets and all that “pool maintenance” aren’t going to pay for themselves. Jesus’s messenger has cash-flow issues!!1
Cui bono?
Follow the money….
Cheers,
Scott.
Betty
@Jeffro: Um, I am a bit younger than Trump and have been known to use that expression. So not necessarily a daddy thing. It also should also be noted he said that to a female reporter, if I remember correctly. He really can’t stand strong women.
Betty
@Jinchi: Her part.
cwmoss
@satby: If there aren’t prosecutions or some form of peaceful accounting for the criminal enterprise that is now the entirety of the GOP, then angry mobs and lampposts will be next, and frankly, they should be. Let’s remember that part of the impetus for enacting the labor laws of the 1930s was the desire of capitalists to avoid wildcat strikes and the violence and business disruption that came along with those strikes. Today’s business titans, aka morons, are unaware of the lessons of history.
rikyrah
@Kay:
How’s the baby girl?
You face timing her ?
Madeleine
Yay! Kay! The well-informed, the sane.
MisterForkbeard
@Kay: I would like to pile on with the others and say I’m happy to see you again. I hope you and yours are doing okay :/
jl
@Feathers:
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I wasn’t recommending a herd immunity approach. My point was that any approach to herd immunity is an aid to outbreak control because the acute epidemics that will occur will be smaller, and most importantly, be much slower to develop to the exponential explosion stage (‘inflection point’ is a term often used), so gives outbreak control more time for prevention.
I read the Bergstrom twitter thread and references a few days ago. It didn’t say herd immunity was impossible, that was about the fact that the infectious disease dynamics for large epidemics overshoot the herd immunity prevalence, and the final size of a large epidemic will be larger than needed for herd immunity by a considerable amount.
Letting this kind of epidemic rip and just wait for herd immunity is a very bad approach to control, if you want to call it control. And since we don’t know yet how long immunity in individuals will last, using it for covid-19 may just result in society going through this mess in a year or so, which would be very bad. How close a large area is to herd immunity will play a role in how to design surveillance and outbreak control programs. Maybe not in California, but around NYC, NJ and Philiadelphia area.