I am still a relatively young man, but in my time I have witnessed a large amount of stupidity (much of it my own). But I am really at the end of being able to tolerate it. This virus has been the last straw for me, and I culling a lot of people I have known forever from my life. I just can’t take any more of it.
The proximate cause of my losing it has been the “Yeah but Sweden” shit coming from my barely literate friends on facebook who have spent their entire lives setting out to prove that half an education is more dangerous than no education. “Sweden did nothing and look they are approaching her immunity.”
First off, the United States isn’t fucking Sweden. Sweden’s population density is on par with West Virginia’s, not NYC or Atlanta or virtual most of the urban and suburban areas of the United States. Second, there are far fewer at risk people in Sweden because THEY HAVE ACTUAL HEALTH CARE and are in general healthier. Third, in Sweden, if you get sick, you can stay home and not give it to everyone at fucking Ikea or whatever their equivalent of McDonalds is because they won’t get fired for staying home when sick because they are not imbeciles. Sweden also is a mature socially conscious country, and if asked or advised to maintain distancing, they don’t need fucking red x’s on the ground, and they’ll wear masks and wash their hands, and so forth.
So the United States isn’t Sweden. But even if we were, Sweden’s mortality rate has been fucking awful. WORSE THAN OURS. And there is no real reliable information about herd immunity in Sweden, and they’re not close to it, anyway. So please just fuck off with the “but Sweden” crap.
At any rate, I was at my boiling point, so called up a guildmate to chat, and we both agreed that it is the aggressive, in your face stupidity that is so maddening. Just the refusal to do little things, like wear masks, or stay home when sick, or throw marches to demand the country re-open, or mock others for doing what they think they should. It’s the deliberate, in-your-face assholishness that just drive me insane.
So we talked awhile, and I was tired of driving around checking things out, and I got home, came upstairs, loaded up the old web browser, and what do I find? As if on fucking cue, Vice President Jeebus Humper pulls this fucking stunt:
Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday refused to wear a mask during his visit to Minnesota’s Mayo Clinic, which requires all staff, patients, and visitors to wear a face covering while at the medical center. In a since-deleted tweet, the Mayo Clinic called out the veep, saying it “had informed @VP of the masking policy prior to his arrival today.” But that apparently didn’t stop Pence from visiting with staff and even a patient in a crowded hospital room without wearing a mask. “Part of our protocol for ensuring your safety is to require all patients, visitors and staff to wear a face covering or mask while at Mayo Clinic to guard against transmission of COVID-19,” the hospital’s website reads.
I fucking hate these people and anyone who gets in the way of replacing them in November can fuck right the fuck off.
Professor Bigfoot
Let the church say amen.
Another Scott
You expected something different from Pence?
Hang in there.
Cheers,
Scott.
MomSense
I have become a horrible person. I never knew how much capacity I had for loathing until these motherfukers.
PenAndKey
The moment he refused to wear a mask they should have told him and his entire entourage to vacate the premises. He’s an elected official, not a lord surveying his domain.
Achrachno
Maybe Pence picked something up in the hospital and will take it back to the nest.
Major Major Major Major
You think you’re having a bad day, I decided to volunteer for a javascript UI ticket.
Achrachno
@PenAndKey: Yes! Forcefully and embarrassingly ejected.
Sab
@Professor Bigfoot: Glad to see you check in from sort of my neck of the woods,
Vtholder
Agreed 100%….someone,anyone think they’ve been given a vaccine?
Lyrebird
@MomSense: Yeah.
Diverting PPE shipments is up there with caging children & state-sponsored kidnapping. I really avoid the term “evil” and I don’t joke about soup nazies. But wow. Sometimes the terms apply.
E.
The Sweden thing must be getting play on Fox News because I got the exact same lecture today. “They have stayed open and are doing great. The virus is just an excuse for more government control by the deep state.” For the first time in my life I do not want to live in my country any more. The mishandling of this has ruined my business and most others like mine. As a baker, I’m not going to find a job any time soon and I will probably lose my house. But hey Ruths Chris will do okay. Maybe I can bus tables for them.
DRickard
@Achrachno: The universe is not that merciful.
CaseyL
We’ve been breeding for stupidity for a few decades now. There seems to be no penalty for being as dumb as a bag of hair. Fox/GOP/T* have weaponized the Stupid, but it’s been there seething for quite a while.
I really and honestly do hope we lose a bunch to COVID-19.
Hell, If I could infiltrate a GOP VIP Donor event, I’d volunteer as a carrier.
RepubAnon
What happens to folks who refuse to wear a mask in a “stand your ground” state? Just asking…
PenAndKey
@Achrachno: I get why they didn’t do it, but if any hospital has the clout to tell an idiot VP to take a hike in the middle of a pandemic it’s Mayo. They’re a top tier institution and the single largest employer in the entire Rochester, MN area. Trump and Pence only go there because the area votes reliably GOP and the surrounding communities are some of the reddest in the state.
If I had to pick a winner in a fight between the Trump administration and Mayo’s reputation and institutional power I’d pick Mayo every time.
It is, and hard. It’s also a classic example of the diehards spouting a line that even 30 seconds of examination shows is false, misleading, and idiotic. I may be stuck here in Wisconsin because my wife refuses to leave the area, but I’m right there with you in wanting out. If I could move my family to Toronto (where I have friends and a ton of industry contacts) we’d be on a plane next week, but my CRS score is too low to score a permanent resident card and the missus hates the idea of leaving my parents behind despite them being okay with the idea for the same reason I’m trying to get my son to learn French.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@MomSense:
I know. I feel the same way. I resent how they’ve managed to make me slide into wishing bad things on them.
I’m supposed to speak at a former colleagues virtual retirement party in half an hour or so. Instead of zoom, it uses Webex. So I’ll figure it out. I hope. And I was pleased to be asked. I’m a “mystery speaker” on the program. :-)
satby
I never knew I had the capacity I’ve developed for the hate I have for these people. And I live in Pence’s state. The Mayo Clinic should have refused entry to him, but knowing this administration’s proven track record of retribution for “disloyalty” they probably were worried they wouldn’t see another piece of medical equipment for the rest of the year. And how completely fucked up is it that they had to think of that.
raven
Drop over to Sic Semper Tyrannis and check out their perspective.
daryljfontaine
@Major Major Major Major: F (to pay respects)
D
PenAndKey
If you’d like, just act like you’re channeling me. I’ve got enough bad thoughts for most of these idiots to get me on a watch list if I say them out loud.
Jeffro
@PenAndKey: amen!
I will never get why people are afraid of ‘offending’ the TCNJs. They should have to follow the rules like everyone else, for the sake of everyone else.
F- Pence. “Unfortunately, we had to deny the Vice President entry as he refused to follow standard protocols for protecting himself and others during this pandemic.” Be. A. Leader. Stand. Up.
Ksmiami
@MomSense: In my darker moments, I just think that the virus sees them as a good meal. I just don’t want them to get innocents sick
Baud
@MomSense:
You’ll always be better than me.
@satby:
You too.
J.
Right there with you, John Cole.
Yesterday I had to deal with a friend who finds it very unfair that the government is telling her she can’t go out to lunch with her girlfriends or go on their getaway weekend. This, by the way, from a woman who lives in a big house, doesn’t have a job, whose husband and children still have jobs and are working from home, and has elderly parents, whom she is flying home from Palm Beach tomorrow because they, too, are tired of being cooped up in their condo.
Then today, a woman I work with wrote me how lucky I was to be in Florida, because “they say that UV light kills the coronavirus.”
I could weep (or kill someone).
J.
@satby: Same.
JPL
John, I love your rants and Pence was told my trump not to.
You also might rant about the fact that trump wants blue states to give up on sanctuary cities for money.
Martin
Yeah, my medication is definitely straining against the anxiety load. Sleep happens when it happens and not when I want it to happen. I really despise the kind of abuse of the public trust on display at multiple levels of government right now.
satby
@Baud: if you only knew.
@John up top, hope this means you’ve finally off-loaded that nimrod on Facebook who only shows up to fight with everyone.
The Moar You Know
We’re almost the same age, you and I, John. I hit that point three days ago. My wife and I, due to various issues, have to stay in this country for one more presidential term, plus maybe six months.
And then we are leaving. I don’t give a shit how we do it (I expect to lose most of our life savings and what passes for ‘net worth’ in the process) or where – prefer Europe. English speaking nice but not mandatory. We are leaving. A nation that can support the Republican party, anti-vaxxers, hippie woo, Bernie Sanders…I’m fucking done. AMERICA IS FUCKING BROKEN.
When the stupid people become an insurmountable majority, and that’s where America is today, it’s time to cut your losses and GTFO.
PenAndKey
I hate to say it, but the world is full of people better than your friend. At this point she’s not only being an idiot, she’s a threat to the health of you and the rest of her friends because you know full well she’ll break quarantine the second someone says she can safety be damned. I’ve lost a lot of former classmates/friends (when you grow up in a small town they’re practically the same thing) over this administration. I’ve lost all tolerance for them and if they think I’m a horrible person for it I’ll still sleep fine at night.
catclub
@E.: We need to respond Whatabout South Korea? Why can’t we do it that well?
Sab
This was fun. My very young gay neighbors from across the street were walking their corgies today. I have wanted to meet them for at least a year since they moved in. Plus I have a dog door that I have wanted to unload since my GSD died ten years ago. So today they were walking the corgies when we were walking our odd collection. So I charged up and said “Do you want a dog door? We have a spare one.” I came back triumphant from the initial contact ( they are midwestern gay, hence wary.) Husband said no, they are being polite. Three hours later one of them came over to see the door. Too big for corgies. Sorry, because they might actually need a dog door. Failure there. But they might realize that we really like them in the neighborhood.
leeleeFL
@MomSense: My level of hatred has me worried for my BP and my usually reasonable attitude.
I am watching Alabama look smarter than I expect Florida to be. I hope that I am wrong, but I feel like I should send a note of Congratulations to Gov. Ivey for not being as asshole.
Am I wrong?
Hang in there John Cole, I feel you! I have a lovely friend in Sweden and I am horrified at a 12% mortality rate! They are usually the smart Kids. This scares the crap out of me! Especially when I think where we would be if we had not gone into lockdown. The idea doesn’t bear thinking about.
hitchhiker
I’ve had to force myself to accept that my country is riddled with very stupid people who are eager to see me punished for sins they imagine I’ve committed against them. I’ve had to learn that there are many, many others who know this but think the situation profits themselves, and so are indifferent.
What I don’t have to accept is the pretense that anybody in either of these groups is “just kidding,” or that I’m “too sensitive” and need to learn to “take a joke.” Especially if the people saying these things are members of my family, or old friends.
It’s easy here in bright blue Seattle to simply put the barriers up. I’m not on facebook anymore, and I merely lurk on twitter and instagram. I have a couple of dozen trusted people outside my beloved family, and I suppose that can be plenty. In any case, it’s way too painful to see people I once liked celebrating vicious stupidity. They can just do it without me.
BruceFromOhio
That’s been my operating status since 2am, eastern time, on November 9, 2016. Right there with you, mate!
leeleeFL
@PenAndKey: They should have told him to hit the fucking road! I would love to see someone grow a pair and slap one of these assholes upside the head.
James E Powell
I don’t know about the culture in other places, but in America deliberate, in your face assholishness often gets respect, positive attention, and in the market place, money. I mean, as long as it’s being done by a conservative white male. I usually point to rolling coal as a recent good example.
Last week I was re-watching Season 1, True Detective. In the first episode, Cohle (McConaughey) is being questioned in a conference room. He lights a cigarette. The detective tells him he can’t smoke there. He gives the detective a look and lights it anyway. In the context of the show, is he an asshole? Aren’t we meant to read that as a more positive NFLTG?
We see these behaviors and we see them go without consequences because there is something in our culture that kinda sorta likes them.
raven
@Martin: I hear ya. I’ve had sleep issues for years with waking up at 2 or 3 and moving out to the couch so I don’t wake the lady up. If I’m lucky I toss and turn and go to the worse case scenario and then fall back to sleep after an hour. I’m hitting a 20 minute nap in the afternoon and it really seems to help.
catclub
I was interested to find out that New York State government did not actually do that good a job handling it, [they were late] and the west coast states did much better.
However, compared with the Trump shitshow, Cuomo looks like he is super on the ball.
Gov Bel Edwards daily news conference is wonderfully sane and sensible.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JPL:
he didn’t have to be told, directly– trump is as subtle as a sledge-hammer and Pence seems to have a toady’s instinct for what will please or offend his master, and appearing “weak” is one of the worst. And I’m sure trump’s been mocking people wearing masks for weeks
sidenote, but one of those small things that didn’t get enough attention, when trump said he couldn’t wear a mask when he receives “kings and queens and dictators in the Oval Office”
MattF
Today’s SMBC comic.
Delk
Fuck Pence. Fuck Trump. Fuck Covid. The title of the post is sending me to a comforting Nick Lowe rabbit hole.
dmsilev
It’s been some years since the last time I was there, but at least back then, the answer was in fact ‘McDonalds’.
TheWesson
Sweden is actually doing a lot of social distancing; just that not much of it is mandatory.
Public transit is way down; large gatherings are prohibited (and not being offered anyhow); restaurants are not permitted to be crowded; they’re all in small households and commonly work from home and so on.
I venture to guess that gatherings of any kind where people share an enclosed space and breathe each others exhalations is what really spreads the virus. If N people share a space, then there’s NxN chances for infection.
Anyhow – we’ll see! No one would have taken voluntary distancing seriously six weeks ago. Now maybe they’ll have gotten the idea.
stinger
@Professor Bigfoot: Amen.
Obvious Russian Troll
@Vtholder: No.
There is no vaccine yet. There is no secret vaccine that the elites have. There are vaccines undergoing trials now, and we don’t yet know if any of them will work and work safely. Derek Lowe had a post on the status of potential vaccines at his In The Pipeline blog last week, but it’s pretty technical.
Pence is just playing to his base, who doesn’t want to wear masks. Pence is also not that smart, so he thinks he can get away without wearing a mask. I would not be surprised if we learn later that Pence got the virus during this stunt or that he was spreading it during this stunt
Edit: My favorite stupid human trick was a few weeks ago when people on a sports blog I follow were talking about how China seemed to have beaten the virus and they didn’t have to do anything. Even if you ignore the near certainty that China’s numbers are wrong, China was welding people into apartments in Wuhan.
TS (the original)
@PenAndKey:
There is something seriously wrong with US institutions today & this act by Pence shows it in every possible way. The demands of trump to put the West Point graduates in danger is another such act.
I do not understand why the institutions do not say f.u. and I do not understand why the tweet was deleted.
PenAndKey
Ever since I discovered the Reapportionment Act of 1929 and gamed out what it’s consequences would be long-term I’ve figured America was doomed to collapse under increasingly undemocratic minority rule. I just figured I’d have more time, and if I got lucky I would be dead before it happened. We may still recover, but I’m right there with you. I don’t see the country surviving as a stable society for long if massive institution-level changes don’t happen soon.
If things continue to go sideways, if a minority vote continues to entrench itself into power, I’ll drag my wife and kids out of the country if I have to. I’m fine with trying to fix things if I can, but I’m not a patriot, not if it gets in the way to doing best for my immediate family. Hell, I have more friends in Canada than I do in the city I grew up in and literally the only people I’d miss are my parents and my brothers. My wife? Her dad has severe dementia, her mom’s a narcissist, and she’s good friends with our neighbors. I have a good career where I am but her’s is in retail and eminently mobile. My son’s grown up here and it would be traumatic to move but he’s young and wouldn’t be the first kid to get uprooted for a better life. My daughter? She’s 15 days old. She literally doesn’t care about anything but staying cozy and milk. Basically, we don’t have as many ties as she thinks.
If we have to sell our house, sell our cars, and start over somewhere else to ensure our son grows up in a true first world democracy I. will. do. so. And as much as I love my wife if things get bad enough I’ll happily tick her off if that’s what it takes to get to to see reason.
Cheryl Rofer
All this is bad enough, but I had an article recommended to me today by a friend. The article is by a bioethicist, who you might think could gin up some numbers and balance them against each other, but no. I’m not going to link the article.
The argument is pretty much the same as the MAGAs make, which is not quite fair because the author is actually thinking things out. Shutting down schools and businesses hurts people too. It really does – I am not being snarky.
It may be my background, which has always involved mathematics, but yes tell me about the injuries and please quantify them. I had the same argument with someone styling himself as an economist the other day. Don’t economists know about cost-benefit analyses? I guess not.
I’m also seeing today that, indeed, many of our governors had no idea of what was coming in January and February. Again, not snark – they didn’t see it coming.
BUT I FEEL LIKE I HAVE HAD MY HAIR ON FIRE SINCE SOMETIME IN FEBRUARY BECAUSE I KNOW HOW DOUBLING WORKS. Cite here a lily pad on a pond or rice grains on a checkerboard. And still even some of the more responsible governors don’t really get how doubling works. WE’RE STILL CLOSE TO DOUBLING ACROSS THE UNITED STATES.
On the good side, I ordered six bags of bark mulch from our local nursery, which has been allowed to reopen for delivery and pickup this week. There’s an area in my yard that really needs them. I can pick them up tomorrow. Looking forward to that.
Martin
Pro-tip: if you’re having trouble getting the status of your stimulus check due to the ‘Payment status not available’ message on the IRS site, change your address so it’s in all caps. e.g. instead of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue it needs to be 1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE. Use that Trump key.
Trapping 300 million people behind a lack of a MOVE FUNCTION UPPER-CASE() statement is a dick move. I’m just saying.
trollhattan
@PenAndKey:
Mother would like a word RIGHT NOW!
Uncle Omar
They’re not assholes. They’re pricks. The difference is that assholes don’t know any better while pricks are actually trying to be pricks. A good rule of thumb is “everybody is a prick until proven otherwise.”
oldster
We still don’t know whether the very idea of “herd immunity” applies to this virus.
Just the other day, The WHO said that there is as yet no evidence that previous exposure confers future immunity. Getting it once may not prevent you from getting it a second time. We also do not know whether you have to show symptoms to be a spreader. So even if you are yourself immune, you may still be making other sick.
If either of these scenarios is true, then there is no “herd immunity.” Instead, there’s just a very, very sick herd.
On the best scenario, “herd immunity” comes only with appalling, intolerable costs. One or two percent of our population is 3-6 **Million** Americans. That’s what they are talking about killing.
I seem to remember a party that held congressional investigations for about six years running because of the death of four Americans at a place called Benghazi. These fuckers never cared about the dead Americans. They care nothing about how many Americans they kill. All they want is power, and they’ll kill anyone to keep it.
JaneE
Trump and Pence get tested every week. He probably won’t give someone Covid-19. He didn’t even think about serving as a role model. If we are lucky, no one else will consider him one either.
cokane
More evidence that people are, generally speaking, simply too poorly educated to understand rate stats. Best way to explain it to them, is that if we had a death rate equal to Sweden’s, we would have lost ~76,000 instead of the 58,000.
Sweden’s death rate is also the 8th highest in the world (excluding really small countries here)
International Mikey
@Professor Bigfoot: Amen!
MattF
@JaneE: Right. And, I predict, the elite will get regular testing well before anyone else. Pretty soon, getting sick will be for losers.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JaneE:
No snark: I’d be surprised if trump has been tested once, shocked if it’s happened more than once. Unless they’re somehow sedating him, or using a saliva test not yet released to the public.
Punchy
And from what I remember, Sweden has a fantastic Bikini Team.
dexwood
Went to the neighborhood butcher shop earlier today. Waited in line to be admitted since only 10 customers are allowed in at a time. Everyone waiting outside kept their distance and all wore masks except the smoker, but, hey, he wore gloves. Dumbass. Inside, there was a couple in their 60s, who wore masks, but kept pulling them down to talk to each other and the guy at the counter. People kept giving them the eye and moving farther away from them. As I’m checking out, the same couple got in line behind me, but she was no longer wearing the mask which was now hanging from her neck. Before leaving, I turned to her and said that mask isn’t doing you or anyone else any good. Her husband puffed up and said to me what’s your problem. I replied, dumbasses like you.
Citizen Alan
As I’ve said many times, the thing I hate most about Republicans is that they caused me to hate them. I honestly don’t believe I hated anyone in the entire world before 2004 when I realized that George W. Bush wasn’t an electoral aberration but an actual indicator of what this country was. Now, 16 years later, I don’t even recognize Trump supporters as human beings. I literally don’t think they have souls.
Mart
Trumpet ex neighbor called my wife to pick up her stuff. Asked if she can come in with her man and have a beer. I say fuck no, they have been all over the place, do not follow social distancing, no masks, share pictures of large gathering celebrating granddaughter, etc. So wife opens door to say hi, and neighbor starts heading for it. I slam the door and holler, couple drives away miffed. Wife calls to apologize for me being an asshole. Ex neighbor says she does not understand what’s the big deal, why the cops just broke up a party they were at, and they had no right. So I think my wife gets it now, stay the fuck away.
les
Afuckingmen. I hate knowing that 2/3 to 3/4 of everyone I meet is a racist, sexist asshole; or, at best, perfectly fine with racist sexist assholes because greed. The stupidity is rampant, and willful ignorance is even more prevalent. Some days I wonder if this fucking country even deserves to survive, assuming it can.
Ksmiami
@Citizen Alan: Zombie morons- they really are too dumb to live
Searcher
@Martin: Do they require standard abbreviations? Eg, RD instead of ROAD?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@raven:
It’s fucking crazy. Dude goes on about “doctor philosopher kings” and crazy ass shit:
Johnson links to Trump’s campaign website or something as “evidence”. I mean, JFC!
Like I dislike China too and I blame them for partly letting this virus get out of hand but Trump 100% owns all of the nearly 60,000 fucking deaths! He sat on his fucking ass pretty much all of March. He kept claiming he’d invoked the DPA when there was no evidence he ever did!
Oh, he also claims in another post that basically, this virus is no big deal because hey, it only kills the old and vulnerable, so these shutdowns are completely unnecessary!
How does one even reach that level of stupidity? Or is it sociopathy? Why not both?! He reposted Larry C Johnson so that’s no surprise
Pat Lang is a fucking sycophantic, bootlicking lickspittle.
Cheryl Rofer
@dexwood: I have noticed that perhaps 1/3 of the people wearing masks (who are the vast majority in the grocery stores now) are DOING IT WRONG.
They are constantly pulling at them and adjusting them, or have them almost hanging off their faces. I saw one guy with it under his nose.
Drives me crazy, but I keep telling myself that it’s not plutonium we’re dealing with, and if it were, we wouldn’t just be wearing masks.
A Ghost to Most
Now imagine your whole fucking family has acted this way for 40 fucking years. You’d move to Colorado too.
Elizabelle
Did Dunning and Kruger ever make any estimates on what % of the population (US, I guess) suffers from the syndrome they described?
And, mind you, Fox News deserves a LOT of the blame too. I wonder if Fox viewers previously had some level of critical thinking ability, but surrendered it because it was easier to contract their thinking out to Fox — heavy, heavy repetition — or if they were always like that.
Thinking of the poignant stories of “I lost my grandfather to Fox News.” Some of these folks (the grandfather here) were lovely people, and plugged into their families before Fox enraged and isolated them.
And it seems the prevalence of those should be a clue that the First Amendment may not be strong enough to deal with Fox News and its comparable malefactors. It becomes a cult. These people are brainwashed, not entertained and informed.
Eunicecycle
Our governor in Ohio just yesterday came out and said with us reopening, wearing a mask in public will be mandatory. Today, he backtracked because he was told wearing a mask “offends” some people. So now it is encouraged but not required. What the hell is offensive about wearing a mask? Yesterday it was explained that it is best practice and that the business community actually wanted it to protect their workers. Now he backtracked? I’ve been so angry all afternoon, but I guess that’s on me.
pb503
@MomSense:
Amen!
Sure Lurkalot
@The Moar You Know: I tried to coax my 30 year niece to expatriate with her partner, who can work remotely from anywhere. I told her that I wish I had listened to my inner self and left when GWB was installed not once but twice. Now I’m stuck…I’m 65 and not marketable but she doesn’t have to abide by a country where 40% of the populace embraces a sick, evil, ignorant and lazy reality tv performer as a brilliant business person and effective leader.
I applaud your resolve and I hope you love wherever you end up.
raven
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I was torn whether or not to go further with it.
PenAndKey
I keep hearing this, but as a microbiologist it makes no sense to me. This strain doesn’t appear to have a high kutarion rate and humans don’t have any trouble generating lymphocyte memory cells for any other coronavirus. There’s no reason to expect this to be any different. It’s not a superbug, just novel virus and it’s lethality is still high because it hasn’t had a chance to attenuate down to equilibrium yet.
The cost for herd immunity may be high, but I’d entertain eating my degree if it doesn’t happen. The consequences of it not developing would put the entire science of immunology into question.
Elizabelle
The Sea Lion cake has landed!
I hope we have Sea Lion food too. Yea Avalune.
Barbara
@Eunicecycle: Wearing a mask here is not mandatory but no grocery store will let you inside without one.
Also, Sweden’s death rate, like ours, is disproportionately affecting the elderly and people in higher density housing, but especially immigrant populations. Of course, other people are dying as well, but the burden is higher in vulnerable populations. I am also told that many people are working remotely. Sweden’s rate of death is much higher than it is among its neighbors of Denmark and Norway. I have not seen figures for Finland.
raven
@Sure Lurkalot: I’m not going any-fucking-where. I’ll fight these motherfuckers if I have to.
Capri
What gets me is that exact same people who scream that you have no business talking about gun violence if you can’t tell the difference between a semi-automatic rifle and a rifle with a semi-automatic setting (or some such bullshit) are now all expert epidemiologists and virologists.
Elizabelle
@raven:
I woulda stopped right there. They are crazy, and crazy mean, and it’s all projection with these morons. And moron is the right word. Even if the person is an architect, or engineer, or even a physician. Sadly.
Barbara
@Elizabelle: Yeah, that noted crazy Democrat Mike DeWine.
raven
@Elizabelle: Johnson is ex-cia.
dexwood
@Cheryl Rofer: I told my wife about it when I got home. She said the virus might not get me, but someone will shoot me one day. I’ve heard that from her for 45 years.
kindness
Use the Unfollow feature John. It’s the only thing that has allowed me to keep some old friends on FB that horrified me one too many times. I think they did the same thing to me and I’m cool with that.
SandyZ
@Citizen Alan: Absolutely right. We didn’t used to think Republicans were evil, stupid and mean. We could just accept that there were some others among us called Republicans. Not anymore. And that is on them. And it is sad.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
58,640 corona virus deaths as of 21:22 GMT
58,193 dead in Viet Nam (9/26/1945 thru 4/29/1975)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
“look them in the eye”…. I think he confused his ‘rona mask with the ones Mother has him wear when they…. never mind.
Baud
@PenAndKey: People keep interpreting “no evidence of immunity” as “evidence of no immunity.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@raven: wasn’t he also a big proponent of the Whitey tape?
FelonyGovt
A person I know who has shamelessly asked me for free legal advice several times in the past has now escalated on FB to calling people names for having the temerity to question Trump’s leadership and statements. My high blood pressure is supposedly controlled with meds but I fear the meds don’t have a chance anymore.
I’m a lot older than you, John. I give you a lot of credit for figuring all this out at your age.
Charluckles
The not wearing a mask at this point has me seething with white hot anger. It’s everything I can do to not yell at people in public. What kind of heel puts the health and welfare of minimum wage employees at risk for some kind of tough-guy BS show?
raven
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m sure.
Eunicecycle
@Barbara: DeWine did say that an individual business could require it but I wonder how effective that will be. Will a store really turn away a customer? I guess if the rest of us threaten to not shop there any more, they will! I hope so.
Another Scott
@PenAndKey: Twitterization of information is trying to kill us all.
https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/immunity-passports-in-the-context-of-covid-19
They’re saying that rushing to say people are safe if they have some antibodies is way, way premature.
And it is.
That is all.
Cheers,
Scott.
Bill Arnold
I wonder when we’ll see someone in a stand-your-ground state, and open carry, shoo one of The Unmasked away with their gun, as a (possible) mortal threat. Preferably on camera and with press around. In my area (NY State mid Hudson valley), with 2.5 % confirmed reported positive(including recovered) and probably about 10-15 percent positive or recovered, this would literally be true. Fortunately we (NYS) have masked-customers-only(+masked staff) policies for retailers that are open. (For about 10 days now.)
Mayo Clinic should have told Pence to fuck off unless he could prove that he was not a carrier.
The confirmed cases that I know in my immediate circles were two Republican couples. None of the 4 ended up in the hospital, though it was “much worse than the worst flu” they ever had. I expect they were infected due to a lack of seriousness in their behavior; they were going out, visiting, to restaurants, etc, prior to getting infected.
raven
@PenAndKey: I’ll take that as encouragement .
cain
@Achrachno:
They should have offered him a bottle of bleach… you know, to be polite and hospitable.
Mnemosyne
@oldster:
I saw an epidemiologist point out on Twitter that we can only reach herd immunity through vaccination. Hundreds of years of smallpox outbreaks did not create natural herd immunity. Neither did measles, mumps, pertussis, TB, etc. The ONLY thing that allowed us to create herd immunity was the artificial intervention of vaccines.
Herd immunity is an artificial event that humans create through vaccine use. It’s not something that happens naturally, and the people who told us that it did were either stupid or lying or both.
Robert Sneddon
@Cheryl Rofer: That’s one of the reasons the WHO still hasn’t come out with a definitive “wear masks” recommendation. For most non-professionals wearing a mask is like Halloween or cosplay, for the pros it’s part of a complete PPE gowning process which they put on and take off with the help of trained assistants while a supervisor checks they’re doing it right. The downside is that people think masks make them invulnerable and they will do stupid stuff on that basis. See also concealed-carry.
Mnemosyne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Trump whined about how invasive the test was, so he’s had it done at least once.
cain
@E.: Someone mailed me about it as well with a link to a conspiracy show. I had pretty much the same reaction as John did. With some additional points:
* there is no science to back up herd immunity – they can still get it again.
* The old people are still vulnerable and they are still dying – and honestly what they are saying is that until a vaccine happens these people will have to be shut ins – and they would still have to close their borders.
ETA: fuck yeah, I made the 100th comment.. watergirl owes me some goulash.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@raven:
Bullshit of course. I’ve noticed that these clowns always state these things like their indisputable facts and require no further explanation or proof. It’s like, please explain how “the science was wrong”.
The WHO notified world governments in early January about this. They fucking knew. And I don’t think China purposefully allowed the virus to escape it’s borders. Why would they do that? China will pretty much always need somebody to buy their goods. Why kill the world economy? “Unleashed” seems to imply intent.
Which I guess is why Trump was still praising China in February (after the so-called travel “ban” even!) that it had everything under control, right?
Was that Lang or Johnson who wrote that?
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
Heard about Mackerelmedia?
raven
cain
@satby:
Trump would absolutely work to destroy them. Even if he lost MN supporters.
raven
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Johnson, Lang is focused on Biden and the Space Force.
Mnemosyne
@PenAndKey:
Serious question: which other deadly communicable diseases have humans developed a natural herd immunity for without the intervention of vaccines?
Chief Oshkosh
You guys have the TOTALLY wrong idea about the decisions made at the Mayo.
Now, imagine that you’re one of the medicos who’s been working non-stop to clean up this mess created by the maladministration. The #2 guy of said administration shows up for a photo op. He won’t do one goddamned thing to protect himself and he’s demanding to be taken into a room full of carriers.
Now, if I was that medico, I’d be thinking “Please proceed, Governor” and make goddamned sure to take him to the worst of the worst and nod approvingly as he shakes hands.
Fuck yeah! Now THAT is what I call opportunity knocking.
See, those Mayo guys are way smarter than you’re giving them credit for.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: Did it happen for the plague, the Black Death?
And was there some thought that some older people might have encountered a predecessor of the 1918 flu, and so they were less susceptible?
Never enough for “herd immunity”, but meant some people could survive amidst an outbreak.
raven
@Chief Oshkosh: I like the cut of your jib.
Wolf
Almost reached 1 Vietnam unit (58220 deaths).
Let’s start using this.
Robert Sneddon
@PenAndKey: The WHO is not saying exposure DOESN’T confer immunity, it’s saying the evidence is not yet in one way or the other. There have been anecdotal reports of second infections of people presumed to have already been exposed to COVID-19 but there’s no rigorous collected numbers. The existing science says sufficient levels of exposure to a coronavirus like COVID-19 provides a high probability of protection via serum antibodies for a given individual but we know that for many other viral infections, well-developed vaccines protect less than 100% of those treated.
Epidemiologists will be publishing papers on this outbreak for decades to come, torturing the data until it confesses but right now the signal is buried deep in the noise and the WHO is not going to come and definitively state that exposure = immunity right now.
Nicole
So interesting that “But Sweden!” is the new right-wing talking point. It was on Bill Maher’s show this past Friday- I stopped watching Maher years ago but a friend posted an interview he did with some quack doctor, David Katz, I think, who wrote an op-ed in the NYT a month ago concern trolling a shut-down. My friend who posted the interview mentioned Sweden, and less than five minutes of googling showed me that Sweden’s death rate has been higher than that of its neighbors. Opinion news shows (and opinion-news-comedy shows) count on an audience not googling to check their sources.
Maher is about 5 years away from going full Dennis Miller, if you ask me. Maybe less.
Elizabelle
@Wolf: In fairness, Trump is responsible for 90% of the deaths. Not 100%. There were always going to be some.
We could have done a lot more, though, a lot earlier.
VeniceRiley
@leeleeFL: I put my almost-spouse on keto. Her BP was scary high (like over 190/near 100) and, five weeks later, she is 138/82. We are working towards getting her off of 2 meds. Give it a shot, if you like.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
In a round-about way, this reminds me of an anecdote (probably apocryphal) about JFK’s first campaign. He was talking to voters and one guy was complaining about his take-home pay shrinking and when JFK got back in the car with his people he asked, “What’s take-home pay?” I doubt that happened, and I doubt trump understands why a payroll tax cut is a poor solution to the problems of the unemployed.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@raven:
@Mnemosyne:
The reason those diseases never completely went away before vaccines was that not everybody was always immune at the same time, I imagine. Sometimes immunity might wear off after so much time too and epidemics would flare up. Or naive populations would be encountered. Or new strains would pop up that the body doesn’t recognize as the same organism, such as influenza.
There would always be individuals or some other animal/vector that would serve as a reservoir for that disease
Baud
@Elizabelle:
Yeah, I think “herd immunity” doesn’t mean everyone is immune the way vaccine immunity would make people immune. It means enough people are immune enough that the virus doesn’t exponentially spread.
Redshift
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: “I get tested, so why should I think doctors at one of the most prestigious institutions in the country can judge safety any better than me?”
Chyron HR
@Eunicecycle:
“Wearing a mask violates my religious conviction that coronavirus is a Deep State Democrat Hoax.”
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I hadn’t heard that story before, and it may be true, but it sure sounds like the type of thing Republicans make up about Democrats.
Nicole
@Mnemosyne:
Excellent point. Going back to that stupid Maher interview I mentioned in a previous comment, the Katz guy was of the “let it burn through” mentality (while somehow magically protecting those at high risk of dying). Thank you for the reminder that infectious diseases have been burning through populations for millennia, and until the advent of vaccines, the only thing achieved was a lot of dead people.
Redshift
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He’s hearing from Republicans with the standard “tax cuts are the answer, what was the question?” attitude. And he doesn’t even bother to understand any more than “people are telling me,” so he understands even less than a know-nothing.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
This is it, exactly
Mnemosyne
@raven:
I asked Pen & Key a follow-up question, but here’s a snip from the history section of that Wikipedia article:
So doctors figured out that a temporary herd immunity effect could occur after an outbreak, and used that knowledge to use vaccines to create herd immunity to specific diseases by vaccinating far more people than it was safe to infect with the actual disease. That’s the part that the people who have been confidently telling us that we’ll all naturally develop herd immunity without needing a vaccine don’t seem to realize.
raven
@Mnemosyne: okee dokeee
bemused
@PenAndKey:
Seriously! So what if he’s a VP and a mighty pathetic one at that but Mayo should have insisted he wear a mask for the protection everyone Pence was in same vicinity with.
Appeasing the insane people in power is how countries go swirling down the toilet.
Aziz, light!
Many of the people who ignore the safety guidelines are fundies who, when confronted, say they have faith not fear and that Jeebus is protecting them from the virus. As for all those now-dead Christians, well, it was Gawd’s will that they died and now they are in a better place — or maybe they weren’t “real Christians.” Why should Jeebus’s best buddy Pence be any less sure that he won’t catch it?
different-church-lady
Ah, I think I see the problem.
But on the bright side, now we probably won’t have to deal with Pence 2024.
Chief Oshkosh
@Elizabelle:
I’ve heard that elsewhere, that there was a formula of some sort showing where we would’ve been if Trump had taken certain actions immediately, and that because he didn’t, 90% of the people who are going to end up dying will die because of that incompetence. Do you have link or other information about that?
Mnemosyne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
An interesting fact I re-encountered recently is that smallpox immunization was introduced to colonial America by one of Cotton Mather’s slaves, who explained and demonstrated a method of immunizing people from a smallpox sore that they used in West Africa for centuries. There was some early resistance to it because it was an African technique, but that was the standard until Jenner figured out that the less dangerous cowpox would also immunize against smallpox.
Redshift
@Nicole: Hmm, I suspect the real point of herd immunity is the difference between outbreaks and epidemics. For example, when I was a kid, there wasn’t a chicken pox vaccine, but there weren’t chicken pox epidemics, just periodic local outbreaks. So for something with low lethality, you can get herd immunity without a vaccine, to a level that most people don’t worry about it. For a lethal disease, like covid-19, you don’t get to that level without a hell of a lot of dead people.
Chief Oshkosh
@bemused: Again, think opportunity!
It’s like “plastics!” only with a real plan to better the world by very specific thinning of the herd.
Cheryl Rofer
@Robert Sneddon: Yes. Since people have started wearing masks here, they are less careful about distancing. Ugh
Booger
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Be sure you download the Webex app well beforehand and install it. It can be a real PITA when you’re late to the call and are trying to get connected.
tokyokie
The spousal unit and I have gone out a couple of times to get sundaes at the drive-through window of a frozen custard place, and each time we’ve gone, next door at a city park, a dozen or more teen-age boys are skateboarding, none of them wearing masks. I’ve ordered takeout wings a couple of times at a joint that brings the orders outside to the folks standing around waiting for them. Although the number of folks waiting for orders rarely dipped into single digits, I never saw more than two other people, including restaurant staff, wearing masks. Over the weekend, in the parking lot of a Dollar General near my house, a crowd of about 200 people were honoring a recently deceased local rapper, and yeah, few of them were wearing masks.
I’m with Cole and others on this thread in wondering, “What’s wrong with these dopes?” They all remind me of Union Gen. John Sedgwick, who, to reassure his men about Confederate snipers during the Wilderness Campaign, famously said, “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.” Whereupon he was killed by a Confederate sniper. Sedgwick chose not to take any precautions, and that strategy worked right up until the time it didn’t.
Redshift
@Chief Oshkosh: Here is one (NYT) reference for there being 90% fewer deaths if social distancing had been put in place two weeks earlier.
Origuy
Remember that when Europeans (and later Africans) came to the New Hemisphere, the people there had no immunity to diseases that the people in the Old Hemisphere had been dealing with for centuries. While people in Europe were still dying of smallpox or measles, the percentages were a fraction of what happened in the Americas. Whole cultures were wiped out, in some cases before any Europeans ever contacted them.
Mnemosyne
@Redshift:
I’m in the age group where my mom sent me over to our neighbor’s house to catch chicken pox because the vaccine hadn’t been developed yet. Luckily, the MMR had already been developed, so we didn’t have to worry about me catching one of those.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Booger:
Too late! I downloaded it earlier today and installed it and I still couldn’t get into the meeting. I’m so sad!
debbie
@A Ghost to Most:
I found it easier to never speak to any of them ever again.
TS (the original)
@Elizabelle:
Any form of fairness is long gone with trump – he gives none – he gets none. The deaths happened on his watch. If the GOP can go insane & have 15 enquiries about 4 people dying in Benghazi – then I’m looking forward to the Democratic party investigations into why so many deaths from COVID-19. And I can provide the answer before they even start. Trump ignored the many warnings he was given.
Another Scott
@TS (the original):
The reality won’t matter to Donnie’s supporters. We’ve seen this before:
Bush kept us safe!
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
@Elizabelle:
No. As the leader of the country, the buck stops at Trump. He gets 100% added to his toteboard. And maybe another 25% should even be added in, just because he was such a dick about it and because he’s only helping those who will help him get reelected.
Mnemosyne
@Origuy:
True. There is also some evidence that the virulence of things like smallpox lessened over the course of centuries in Europe. Fewer people died as time went on and the scarring was much less than when the disease first ravaged Europe. .
But, as you said, even that “lessened” smallpox virus was virulent enough to kill 90 percent of a population that had never been exposed before.
Zelma
@Mnemosyne:
I don’t know the science of immunity, just something of its history. We know that the worst pandemic in history was suffered by the Native American people when they were “discovered.” What killed them were diseases that had become “endemic” in Eurasia: small pox, measles, chicken pox, etc. Europeans got these diseases but more recovered than died. This implies some kind of genetic immunity. But the Amerinds had no protection and died by the millions. Or the Bubonic Plague. It killed 40% of the population when in first arrived, but while it killed lots of people in subsequent appearances, it was never as virulent. Deadly yes, but not as.
Smallpox was really awful for Americans in the 18th century because they had mostly lived separated from Europe. Washington vaccinated his whole army in 1776-77 or it probably would have disintegrated. While the British/Hessian army was disease ridden at the same time, they were not as susceptible to smallpox.
But until there were vaccines, these highly contagious diseases were always a threat. And until there is a vaccine, COVID-19 will continue to make people sick and kill them. We are just lucky that it’s not a bigger killer.
JPL
@Mnemosyne: I was removed from the home, since my immune system was compromised or so they thought. When my sons got the chicken pox, I didn’t.
Uppitywoman
@Vtholder: I’ve actually considered that since they are so flippant about sharing space with others. Plus, wouldn’t that just be typical of them?
Ksmiami
@Nicole: That’s not fair- it achieved a few things in history- the fall of Eastern Rome (Justinian plague) the fall of Ancient Greece etc, the loss of 30-50 million ppl during the Bubonic plague – and a rise in wages for the survivors so…
Redshift
@Mnemosyne: Yeah, my parents didn’t do that, but I know people whose families did. It seems likely to me that if we didn’t have that experience, a lot of the “let’s expose everyone and get herd immunity” idiocy wouldn’t exist, because idiots wouldn’t have an example to draw on and more wouldn’t understand it well enough to get bad ideas.
rikyrah
I feel you, Cole.
I feel you.
Barbara
My view is that Trump thinks that the highest risk people won’t vote for him anyway so he doesn’t care if they die, and that relaxing restrictions will make those who are most likely to vote for him happy. I am not sure how he factors elderly people into that equation.
How wold a payroll tax cut help people who are unemployed? It’s almost like a Zen koan.
But it all comes back to the reality that Trump really doesn’t care. He doesn’t care what happens to me or to you, whether we die or become homeless or whatever.
Mnemosyne
@Zelma:
Thank you! “Endemic” was the word I couldn’t remember.
IIRC, there is some historical evidence that European diseases started spreading in the Americas from where the Spanish made contact with the Mayans in South America and then spread north from there as people tried to flee, bringing the diseases with them.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
They heard a magic phrase – herd immunity – and figured that’s all they needed to know. Plus learning more hurts their head.
TS (the original)
@Another Scott:
I have long given up caring a hoot about Donnie’s supporters. I have become my father and can hold a grudge for 50 years. Bush has been relegated to history, we never hear from him or about him. His supporters don’t mention his name. Compare that to the living Democratic party ex presidents. People still look to them for guidance, invite them places, listen to what they have to say.
If anyone still thinks Bush kept us safe – they are fairly reserved about saying it out loud.
ArchTeryx
@PenAndKey: One of the findings is that the virus binds to ACE-2, which is structurally similar to CD146, a T-cell receptor. If it infects T-cells, building memory could be… difficult. It also can have an asymptomatic latent stage, quite unlike most CoV strains if I recall correctly.
If this thing infects and disables immune cells, then we’re in very deep shit, because we WON’T get strong herd immunity. That being said, it’s still early in the research cycle and everyone is burning their candles at both ends, so YMMV.
( And despite training for half my life to research RNA viruses and clinical virology, I’m sitting at home with my thumb up my ass because bioscience is so infested with cronyism and corruption that I, lacking connections, can’t even get a job during a historic pandemic. )
cain
We have to figure out a way to deal with entities like Fox when we are in charge. They and a lot of the apparatus around conservative circles is why we are circling the drain.
Redshift
@Zelma:
Hmm, I don’t think it’s necessarily genetic. Remember, a lot of people died in childhood in those days. If diseases are endemic, then the adults are people who survived them and lived to adulthood when their siblings died, not necessarily people who were immune from birth.
Barbara
@Redshift: Small pox was quite a bit more lethal than COVID-19, and it was endemic to Europe from early on — likely causing vast amounts of death among Romans — and continued to surface again and again. I think I was among the last set of kids to actually be vaccinated against small pox. It was so catastrophic that public health officials were desperate to eradicate it globally, and did, through vaccination.
Mnemosyne
@Barbara:
I was born in 1969 and have a smallpox vaccination scar on my arm. My husband was born in 1971 but I can’t remember if he has one. I think they stopped routinely vaccinating for it in the mid-1970s in the US.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Barbara:
Um, I have a close friend in Finland. Sweden’s considered a joke in Scandinavia at the moment because of how they’ve fucked up the response.
What they’re doing is comparing Iceland, Finland, Norway and Denmark’s combined death toll to Sweden.
Sweden: 2274
Denmark: 427 (far more densely populated than any of these countries)
Norway: 206
Finland: 193
Iceland: 10
That’s 836 combined deaths to 2274. Population comparisons, Sweden, 10 million, the rest combined 17 million.
How this whole Sweden thing has managed to take hold as a right wing talking point is beyond me.
BobS
@Robert Sneddon: People need to be taught that those surgical masks don’t protect the wearer- they protect other people from the person wearing the mask.
People who fail to wear one in public are guilty of failing to protect the people around them, even if they’ve recently tested negative (like Pence claimed). A couple of days ago, out of over 20 people in the department with resulted COVID19 swabs, only one had a positive result- the negatives included a couple ICU admits with chest imaging diagnostic for the virus, as well as other labs that were elevated, as would be expected in the disease. I’m increasingly of the opinion the swabs are not trustworthy in the least.
Redshift
@Elizabelle:
I’m lucky that my parents were never really TV watchers, but my father has gotten a diluted strain of it through the Wall Street Journal. He sent me a WSJ link today entitled “Do Lockdowns Save Many Lives?” saying he found the “sophisticated analysis” more convincing and “Perhaps the only value of lockdowns is keeping hospital facilities from getting overloaded.” Don’t know if it’s an op-ed or a “news” article, but it doesn’t make much difference since Murdoch took over there.
I feel like I ought to look up some actual sophisticated analysis and send it back, since I know anyone in the WSJ is more concerned with what’s best for their bank account than what’s best for people’s lives, but I just don’t have the energy to even look.
Mnemosyne
Also, if folks are interested in the history of epidemics, “The Ghost Map” is a fascinating book about the 1854 cholera epidemic in London and how scientists and doctors were able to stop it by figuring out how it was spreading. (Spoiler alert: it was the city’s sanitation system, or rather its lack of one.)
https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Map-Londons-Terrifying-Epidemic/dp/1594482691/ref=nodl
Redshift
@Mnemosyne: Huh. I was born in 1961, and I didn’t get vaccinated for it as far as I know. I certainly don’t have a scar.
Zelma
@Mnemosyne:
Actually, the native peoples of the islands where Columbus first landed died in huge numbers from European diseases as well as being forced into labor. One of the reasons that the Spaniards began importing Africans was because the inhabitants were dying of disease.
There is no doubt that the conquistadors were bad hombres and that the Native Americans suffered horribly from their actions, but most of their deaths were from disease.
There’s a really good book about pre-Columbian America, 1491. It’s sequel, 1493 is equally interesting about the impact.
OGLiberal
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I hear that he’ll be releasing it next week to prevent Michelle Obama from being Biden’s VP pick…that’s been his plan since 2008…his CIA mind outsmarted us, even though Michelle Obama has no interest in being a VP pick and Biden isn’t even considering her. Still, great plan…PUMA!
Uncle Cosmo
@MattF: Edward Teller once said that the human race will go extinct out of an inability to understand the exponential function.
I disagree. IMO Homo sap will rub himself out of the multiverse through an inability to comprehend probability and statistics. Waaay too many fucking idiots still take out meteor insurance & play MegaMillions & PowerBall like it’s a rational investment strategy. Not to mention all this reopen-the-country bullshit.
Mnemosyne
@Zelma:
Okay, that makes sense. I remembered that it was the initial contact in the Caribbean and Central/South America and then the diseases spread disastrously from there. I just didn’t realize that it was already spreading so badly from Columbus’s crew before the rest of the Spaniards got there.
Elizabelle
@Redshift:
Actually, isn’t that why we’re IN a lockdown? So at least he got that.
Zelma
@Redshift:
My mother was vaccinated while she was pregnant and even though I was vaccinated twice, once as a child and once before a trip to South America, the vaccination never “took.” No scar, nothing.
Another Scott
@Redshift: Really? You didn’t line up with your classmates in grade school to have one of these things held against your arm and hear a quick “puff” of air?
It’s a vivid memory for me (who was born the same year as you).
Cheers,
Scott.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The Bronx has achieved heard immunity according to this doctor.
https://nypost.com/2020/04/27/ive-worked-the-coronavirus-front-line-and-i-say-its-time-to-start-opening-up/
at the cost of 17,000 deaths.
Elizabelle
@Another Scott: Yeah, I remember that. Kindergarten maybe? Or first grade??
Didn’t we get TB tests, too?
Zelma
@Elizabelle:
The main value of the lockdown is to keep the medical system from getting overloaded. That’s what “flattening the curve” is all about. There will still be lots of people get sick under the curve. It just won’t be medical bedlam.
TS (the original)
@cain:
Didn’t President Obama try that to 100% outrage from the WHPC. And then they let trump lock them up in a cage as his rallies.
Elizabelle
@Zelma: Exactly.
Kifaru1
@The Moar You Know: I want to move back to Africa (Kenya) where I grew up. I can’t take it here anymore.
Redshift
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
It seems to tell them what they want to hear if you don’t look too closely (and no one getting it filtered through right wing media is looking at any source information.) And it conveys that anything that’s going wrong can’t be Trump’s fault because somewhere else did the same thing and is doing fine.
Yes, it’s ludicrous, but not more ludicrous than most wingnut talking points.
Redshift
@Another Scott: Maybe I did. I remember lining up in school for some vaccination one year, but I don’t remember anyone telling us what it was. We got told a lot more about TB (though that was testing, not vaccination.) I’ll have to check and see if my parents remember.
sdhays
@MattF: I used to read this all the time, but then I stopped for some reason (probably when my son was born). Thanks!
This is a good one for the Oxford comma lovers among us.
sdhays
Who was it that said we might “get our hair a little mussed”?
Mousebumples
Measles related immunology factoid – getting measles has recently been determined to act as an eraser for a lot (all ? I don’t remember, for sure) of your body’s previous immunities. Meaning people that have caught measles recently could get chicken pox (etc .) again.
Makes me wonder if that played into any of the previous lack of herd immunity.
Barry
@RepubAnon: “What happens to folks who refuse to wear a mask in a “stand your ground” state? Just asking…”
They’re white right-wingers, so they have the right to ‘stand on your ground’.
catclub
@Martin: hey, worth trying. I have been silently locked out of any electronic interaction with the IRS ever since I froze my credit reports.
Why did I freeze them? because I am a government employee affected by the theft of OPM records, and they told me to lfreeze them.
catclub
@sdhays:
General Buck Turgidsson
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): “Trump’s right when he’s wrong” ROFL that takes me back the articles all the serious people wrote doing the Bush Administration about the how Left was so wrong about him.
The problem with Trump’s travel ban to China was the virus was already here for two months, and the East Coast got infected from Europe. Even then the ban was half assesed and easy to get around.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: Here’s the sea lion chow:
Elizabelle
Very Concerned Seal.
I love it.
Good on Avalune.
Tehanu
What John and the rest of you all said. I’m disgusted and angry and sad and astonished, and I wish I didn’t hate these people the way I can’t help hating them.
catclub
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: How this whole Sweden thing has managed to take hold as a right wing talking point is beyond me.
Bring up South Korea instead. They had their first case the same day the US did, I think. But they did things right.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
And let us add,
61,000 deaths from Influenza from 2017-2018
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2017-2018.htm
A grim number which likely be reached tomorrow.
I am old enough to remember conservatives telling us this virus is just a little cold.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mnemosyne: I think you are over simplifying things – with these diseases there would be an outbreak, people would get ill, die or get the anti bodies, until like 30-70% of the population had the antibodies and the pandemic would die down to some low level noise. or it would be dormant in the percentage of the population that would just carry it like Typhoid Mary. Then in twenty to forty years and new generation would be born, older people die for other reasons until enough of the population would be vulnerable to the disease for new epidemic. Vaccines meant 100% of the world’s population would get the immunity and that was it for the disease because it had no hosts, like with small pox.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Also, it’s the NY Post, which a right wing rag. I doubt this guy has any evidence
Chief Oshkosh
@Redshift: thanks!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): He is a chair at the major hospital in the Bronx and other studies have shown 25% of NYC pop has the anti-bodies. My point, West Virginia has had no were near the death rate to even hint they’ve come close to herd immunity. New York State 119 deaths per 100K West Virginia 2 deaths per 100K.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Exactly. It was already here. And only Chinese nationals were ever banned entry to the US and TSA/CBP virus screenings were very lackadaisical anyway.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Granted. I’m suspicious of anybody that publishes an op-ed in the NY Post
RSA
Speaking of which, there was this article yesterday:
I had to laugh, having read about the origin of osteopathy in one of Martin Gardner’s books. Things have changed, I think, but the natural observation is that Ward knows all about impersonating a healthcare worker.
ltelf
@WaterGirl: Too cute – thanks for posting.
Melusine
The 2016 election was the last straw for me. The fact that there were millions of racist, sexist, exploitative rapey assholes who voted for him, let alone tens of millions, annihilated what little faith in humanity I had. Decency, kindness, and genuine empathy are rare in this world. Too rare to survive.
At this point all I can do is shrug and raise a glass to Darwin’s Revenge. Most people don’t want change, or hope, or equality. They just want to know someone else is suffering more than they are. Fuck ’em all and let humanity fall. We’re a blight on the planet anyway. Now she’a shrugging us off. Good for her. Maybe she can do something interesting with zebras.
Melusine
@Martin: Come sit 6′ away from me.
J R in WV
@VeniceRiley:
What, please, is “keto” — a medication? A yoga position? a rocket fuel? we dunno…
Fair Economist
@PenAndKey: COVID could very plausibly be like the human common cold coronaviruses, which you can catch again after 1 to a few years. I would expect that re-infections would be less severe, as is likely the case with the common cold coronaviruses, but that’s not guaranteed. So while a herd immunity approach probably will work, it is a reasonable possibility that even before the first round of infections are done (they have to be slowed to protect the health system) the initial survivors start to catch it again and sometimes die.
The point is that we can’t *count* on herd immunity as a control strategy. There is a non-trivial chance we could pay the price without ever getting control.
Gvg
@Mnemosyne: Pretty much all diseases eventually, but not to a nice safe level, just to the level where the population as a whole survives.
look the American Indians did not have as much resistance to European diseases and died at a much higher rate, to the point where archaeologists think that more Indians died before the actual white settlers arrived. It was still normal for many white children to die in infancy from these same diseases. It’s only compared to the Indians that that looks like immunity. It could have worked the other way too. I think Herpes? Is supposed to have come from Indians to Europeans.
milkmaids got cowpox, then didn’t get small pox…I think that was the first found vaccine.
Natural heard immunity comes from lots of people dying including perhaps yourself and many family members. Dumbasses don’t really understand what they are saying. Also it usually takes generations.
Melusine
@hitchhiker: Come sit by my bottle of bleach and we can drink to our health.
I’ll bring lightbulbs just in case the bleach isn’t enough. But you’ll have to insert your own.
trollhattan
@J R in WV:
Believe that was Clouseau’s combination nemesis-butler.
Melusine
@raven: Come nap 6′ away from me. Maybe it will be contagious.
J R in WV
@ArchTeryx:
I hate it that you aren’t working in in a lab at a well known research hospital, with your background.
John G. Cole, I too am very put out about these dopes peering around the aisles of Kroger’s as if they had never been into a real grocery store in their whole lives~!!~ And people with a mask around their neck, NOT THEIR FACE~!!~ What the fuck is wrong with those assholes??!?!?!?!!!!
All the inconvenience, none of the protection ~!!~
MomSense
@Zelma:
Three Times my pediatrician gave me the vaccine on my shoulder. No scar. My mom and grandmother the same thing. My grandmother was born in 1898 and my mom in 1937.
Bill Arnold
@Mnemosyne:
Seasonal influenza is a counterexample. I hesitate to write much down because a quick literature search shows a vast and old literature on influenza epidemeology and some of it is daunting and full of math. Gist, which could be wrong or partial: the annual strains eventually stop circulating, or rather respond to herd immunity with what is called “antigenic shift”[1]. Plus flu pandemics (generally due to recombination) don’t occur unless the new strain hasn’t been replicated in a generation or two.
[1] e.g. Why Do Influenza Virus Subtypes Die Out? A Hypothesis (Peter Palese, Taia T. Wang, 2011)
JoyceH
@Mnemosyne: “I’m in the age group where my mom sent me over to our neighbor’s house to catch chicken pox because the vaccine hadn’t been developed yet. Luckily, the MMR had already been developed, so we didn’t have to worry about me catching one of those.”
You must be younger than me, because my sister and I caught mumps AND measles AND chicken pox, all in second grade. Missed a lot of school that year. And – how’s this for old? – I remember the doctor coming to the house on a house call!
JoyceH
Odd thing is that Trump’s favorite tough guy, Putin, went to a COVID hospital and wore, and allowed himself to be photographed wearing, PPE from head to toe. When you know you’re tough, you don’t have to prove anything to anybody.
Fair Economist
@Mousebumples:
And we know COVID can attack and kill T-cells. Measles might not be the only one.
cain
@TS (the original):
Yes, I remember. What I’m talking about is not the press corp. I’m talking about labeling Fox News as “infotainment” not news. They need to register that they are infotainment and have a chryon indicating who they are and that they are under no obligations to tell the truth – the information is for “entertainment purposes”.
J R in WV
@cain:
Every 15 minutes, make them tell everyone they are NOT a news channel at all ~!!~ Make them drip their slogan about news!!!
Gbbalto
@Zelma: I was vaccinated as a small child and again in 2003. Definitely had a positive reaction in 2003 but no scarring either time.
Bex
@JaneE: Even if Dense tested negative yesterday, he could be positive today.
Skepticat
@Chief Oshkosh:
If. Only.
karensky
@Johncole. I am with you. It started with me hearing about unmasked Pence at Mayo Clinic. Then I started to read more about the Tyson Foods fuckery. Then I saw the photo of Pence in the room with a patient and medical staff, And, it ended (for now) with Trump’s planned EO to open meat processing plants.
There aren’t enough seasoned OSHA inspectors nor are there enough meat and poultry inspectors to handle this level of madness.
The Republicans and Thing 1 and Thing 2 are in love with cruel and death. Full stop.
Sloane Ranger
@Barbara:
It’s like any war of attrition, you kill more enemy soldiers than they kill your soldiers and you win.
Besides, all those old folks, well a percentage won’t vote due to physical or mental deterioration and the rest have more elections behind them than in front of them so are acceptable casualties.
Ben Cisco
@leeleeFL:
Not necessarily. Ivey’s my governor, and to be honest, I was as surprised as anyone at some of the decisions she made. It helped that Tuscaloosa and Birmingham imposed quarantines of their own. Plus, Ivey’s no spring chicken and as such is in an at-risk group. So yeah, Yea Alabama!
A Ghost to Most
@raven: You got that right. This is OUR country. I’m prepared to fight for it. I have to say, I continue to be <strike>disgusted</strike> dismayed at the lack of courage.
Omnes Omnibus
@A Ghost to Most: Yes, you are the bravest commenter here. As you continually remind us.
J R in WV
@MomSense:
We got a milk cow, a wonderful Holstein we named Molly, and not long after we started milking, after she came fresh, she got sores on her nose and udder.
I called and talked to our vet, who isn’t a large animal vet, but is still pretty smart. He thought it was probably cow pox, which was involved with the discovery of small pox vaccinations.
Not long after Molly broke out with sores, I got sores on my forearms and the backs of my hands. We only had the one cow, so we milked by hand. I believe the fact that I got cow pox sores indicates that I was NOT immune to Small Pox, which doesn’t mean anything right now, today — But it was pretty scary for a guy who had a big old scar from my Small Pox inoculations as a kid.
MisterForkbeard
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: The doctor doesn’t actually cite any figures to support this, unfortunately.
He just says that 43% of the people they’ve tested have it or have had it, and that there was a noticeable dropoff in a single afternoon in people coming in. And that he says that can’t be due to the lockdown but instead has to be due to herd immunity. Which doesn’t make any sense to me.
A Ghost to Most
@Omnes Omnibus: Fuck off. Trying to get liberals to grow a set is a lost cause. They’ll let this country fall if they can find a safe hidey hole. Good luck with that.
Go fucking hide in your ivory tower, with the rest of the gutless fucks.
Some people stop living long before they die.
Omnes Omnibus
@A Ghost to Most: You don’t know what I or anyone else will do if your war in the streets comes to pass. I don’t know what you will do. I do know that loud boasting about how brave and tough you are doesn’t mean shit. So, actually, I would appreciate it if you would fuck off.
LeftCoastYankee
It is the natural conclusion of a philosophy of”everyone who is not us is the enemy, and anything they are for, we are against.”
And when “not us” becomes pretty much everyone who can think for themselves, then all the good ideas are held by “not us”, and “we” most stridently oppose all the good ideas.
I like to imagine Dorian Gray type paintings which are growing in intelligence as their owners pursue Freedumb.
LongHairedWeirdo
For the record, I don’t wish Covid-19 on anyone, but, Pence, being a religious-asshole, should take it as a sign that he was wrong, and evil, if he catches it.
(A merely religious person wouldn’t have that obligation, but Pence is an actual religious-asshole – not merely “religious” and not merely “an asshole”, though I’m sure he qualifies for the latter on its own, in any event.)
LarryB
John, Unfortunately, It’s not just the MAGAs. I live in goody-two-shoes Berkeley, CA and there has been a stark erosion of social distancing in just the last week. Even people who know better are f***ing over it.
tam1MI
@Charluckles: As someone who was not unable to obtain masks until 2 days ago, I have to point out that sometimes you can’t help it. I improvised using a winter scarf and was religious about keeping 6 feet away from people if I could. But in a grocery store it’s hard to keep your distance. Point being, not everyone is going without masks to show how tough they are. Some us didn’t have any to begin with.
Persistent Illusion
@A Ghost to Most: Hey, I’ve lived in CO for 25 years. It’s not a walk in the park, unfortunately.
Ksmiami
@A Ghost to Most: I don’t want to share a country with Trumpkins- they are hideous and irredeemable and there is no way forward with them for our nation. So the choice becomes leave for your own sanity or figure out a way to destroy them
Matt McIrvin
@PenAndKey: I was having the Sweden argument with some MAGA chud on Twitter while simultaneously reading people in Sweden explaining on Facebook why it didn’t apply.
phein60
@Redshift:
Maybe it’s faded? I was born in 1959, in the Midwest, and mine is visible if you know what that ring-shaped scar is from. My youngest brother was born in 1961, and he has one, too.
We all got the smallpox vaccine, the polio vaccine, but also the measles and the mumps. My kids avoided those, FSM be praised.
phein60
@JoyceH: I hear you. My parents had 6 children all one year apart, and when the measles/mumps/chicken pox went through Kansas City, they’d have a lot of sick kids all at once.
My mom (RIP) said she didn’t remember the 1960’s, and it wasn’t because of drugs.
rikyrah
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
They are grasping on anything that they could shovel down to push back against the obvious disaster that Dolt45 has done.
SWMBO
@J R in WV: Keto is a carbohydrate free diet. It’s like Atkins on steroids. There are a lot of recipes out there for keto now. Gluten free but loaded with fats and meats. No sugar no flour no complex carbs really. I asked the endo about it and she said to be careful with it because it can cause kidney problems.
john fremont
@Mnemosyne: Not just human beings, but most mammals never developed herd immunity to rabies