I watched the Andrew show almost to the end today. Special guest Mike Bloomberg came on to tell how he would spend more of his billions on the contact tracing program that he’s helping to fund via his connection to the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins, since our federal government’s public health efforts are as fucked as anything else Trump touches. Bill de Blasio was on, too, and man he’s a bloviator. “Why take a few words to say what can be said in 10 sentences?” asked Bill de Blasio, repeatedly. When Bloomberg is more charismatic than you, it’s past time to work on your speaking skills.
But we’re not here for theater criticism. The substance of New York’s re-opening plan is a massive test, trace and isolate program, coupled with fact-based tripwires that will stop re-opening if we’re running hot. For example, all hospitals have to keep a 30 day supply of PPE and at least 30% capacity over and above elective surgery. The rate of transmission (Rt) needs to be 1.1 or less. If any of these (and other) tripwires are hit, the regional re-opening is paused by the board that’s in charge of re-opening.
Here’s the thing: while I’m sure a lot of retail businesses want to re-open, I predict a lot of resistance on the part of employees who are now working at home, and by potential customers. And since New York is putting its eggs in a test-trace-isolate basket, that’s just fine for our purposes. The more people who voluntarily isolate, the fewer cases we’ll need to test and trace.
Personally, I’m not going to eat in at a restaurant, go to the gym, or go to the movies for a long time. I might get my hair cut if I can be sure the hair salon is taking precautions seriously, but, then again, I might not. Friends will be 6 feet apart or virtual for a long time. It’s not like you magically can’t die just because we’re at Rt of .9 instead of 1.1 or 2.0. I think almost everyone has seen enough death to understand that, except the few bleating morons who are protesting and running their yaps on TV. Fuck them all, individually and collectively, but no matter what they or any other politician says, I predict that isolation will be the norm for a long time to come.
Explainer On Immunity And Vaccines And Open Thread
Ryan
Shit man, you didn’t even raise the response from the Federal government. Isolation for the foreseeable future is a best case scenario.
rikyrah
Baud
@rikyrah: Fuckin’ A.
randy khan
@rikyrah:
Perdue says “grim” and I think “fantastic.”
JMG
I believe the crunch time for more-or-less voluntary isolation will be at the end of next month, when it will be warm to damn hot everywhere in the US. Keeping people indoors in their residences in NYC or Chicago or Philly during a summer heat wave will be impossible. Also dangerous. We have to start thinking of ways to make it safe for people to go outdoors. Otherwise, many will crowd into guaranteed air conditioned theaters, bars, etc.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I’ll get a haircut and a pedicure, because those are always my go to’s when feeling low. I’m just going to have to trust that process.
I’ll go to a restaurant which is sizable enough for a good, newer dishwasher, but I’ll be damned if I pay premium prices to eat and drink off disposable plastic (which is a floated proposal out there).
JPL
@Baud: He was fundraising.. oh no scary dems..
CliosFanBoy
@randy khan: truth. people getting health care, regaining the world’s respect (slowly), non-white people and young people voting, copes (sometimes) being held to account for shooting unarmed black men, schools getting funding, truly a hellscape!!!
JPL
Kemp lifted all the stay at home orders, except for those compromised or over 65 until June 13th.
Punchy
Here’s my take — this was a one-time shutdown attempt. There wont be another. No matter how bad Round 2, Viral Bugaloo gets, the GOP-controlled states will never, ever allow this again.
If this moderate respite doesn’t “take” (and it wont in some states), there’s no going back. It’ll be a full-blown, many dead medical apocalypse and still the GOP will refuse to step back. But since this is most deadly in the urban areas, and they vote Blue, this seems to be the goal.
When blue-haired crackers are kicking it in South Dakota, that’s when I may expect the GOP’s attention.
danielx
@randy khan:
“grim” = rich people paying higher taxes. Can’t have that.
joel hanes
Bloomberg made a bunch of promises to Democrats early in his Presidential campaign, and has summarily broken most of them. Watch what he does; ignore what he says he’s going to do.
Gin & Tonic
How about all those billions he was going to spend on advertising for the eventual Democratic candidate, if it wasn’t him? What was it, a whole week after he dropped out that he fired everybody?
Fuck him and the horse he rode in on.
Kay was right.
BruceFromOhio
@rikyrah: I welcome this scenario.
ChrisS
@JPL: Did he open up the mansion to tours?
BruceFromOhio
My employer is predicting same. The buckeye may slowly get back to business, but my team and I have been directed to continue remote work with no end date at this time.
joel hanes
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Pretty much any commercial dishwasher built in the last fifty years is sufficient to reliably kill and remove SARS-CoV-2 from dishes and silverware — from the grease-cutter in the detergent, and from the sanitizing agent in the detergent. The high-temperature rinse > 180 degrees is a nice touch, but probably not better in an important way.
Again, the primary mode of infection seems to be inhaling droplets exhaled by the infected, and the next most prevalent might be droplets -> surface -> hands -> face. So being in the presence of other people is a significant risk; clean dishes are probably a much smaller risk than the presence of the waiter. Or any other customer seated in that restaurant whose exhalations are blown about by the ventilation.
Phylllis
I can’t imagine being comfortable in a restaurant or movie theater until there is widespread testing and a vaccine. I’ll go back to my hairdresser, because he’s a sole proprietor & only has one customer at a time in the shop. I’ll go back to my nail salon as well, because their sanitary practices already exceeded requirements.
What I’ve observed is that most folks just do.not.get. social distancing. I’ve also noticed a fair amount of people who get downright offended if you move away from them to make space.
Betty Cracker
As soon as it’s allowed, I’ll go get an eye exam, which I had stupidly put off for months in the Before Times. My present glasses are fine for distance, but I can’t see shit close-up anymore.
LevelB
@rikyrah:
We can only hope.
I wish there was more hope of getting rid of Jody Hice also, but picking up one (or two!) senate seats in Georgia would be indescribably awesome.
B.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Punchy:
Yup. This shutdown was one-time only. This shitty, worthless nation (Rev. Wright was right – “God DAMN America”) wasted the opportunity, couldn’t get shutdown economics correctly due to cult like adherence to ideology and this time it spreads like wildfire.
Why should I even bother with masks? I may as well go lick the doorknobs at nursing homes, hospitals, GOP HQ, McConnell’s house, etc.
feebog
I think we will be surprised at how quickly conservatives disregard social distancing and use of face masks. Witness what is happening in California. A few counties opened their beaches. It went well in Ventura and Santa Barbara, people kept their distance and almost all wore masks. Orange County was like nothing ever happened. Hordes descended on beaches without regard to distancing or mask protocol. So now Governor Newsom is closing all beaches statewide. He can’t legally shut down some an leave others open, so everyone is going bear the consequences of the moronic behavior in OC.
rikyrah
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
how does one eat in a restaurant with a mask on???
Peale
At what point do we just get in and start protesting at statehouses with guns? Looking at Michigan, its the only thing that works. Being white, male and brandishing a gun at the statehouse seems to be more effective than anything we’ve come up with.
Mel
This, a thousand times.
Absolutely right that whether it’s 1 case transmitted or 5 cases transmitted by each person serving as a vector, a certain percentage of those 1:1 transmission cases will still become horrifically ill, and a significant percent of those will die. People need to remember that when they’re whooping their way to the Sunday Buffet at Cracker Barrel or where the hell ever the nutters plan to congregate to cough all over the employees being forced to work just so the deplorables can get some biscuits and gravy.
The new info about the micro-clotting and the cytokine cascade that so many Covid-19 victims are experiencing is deeply concerning. As a person on immune suppressants, who has an autoimmune hyper-coagulation disorder,
I can say with certainty: clots that can move to the brain, heart, or lungs are dangerous enough, but at least they can be identified with proper imaging, and clot-busting drugs can be used in conjunction with heparin to try to combat them.
Micro-clotting cascades are a different story. The microclots are tiny, and in Covid-19 they can appear in the thousands. They choke off the small vessels’ blood supply and thus oxygen to fingers, toes, alveoli in the lungs.
I think I’ll tolerate my Covid hair for a few more months. If need be, I can always break out the dog clippers or dig for my Mom’s old Flow-bee in the storage shed.
JPL
@ChrisS: hahahahahha
StringOnAStick
Here in the Denver area my county is still on lockdown until May 8, but people are getting very slack about masks and social distancing. Costco customers are better, but the groups of people out hiking or biking without masks is becoming maddening. I just don’t think we’ll have to wait until fall for Round Two, it will pick up again any day now.
MJS
I don’t think isolation will be the norm for long. There are too many stupid people out there. Red states will be pushing for large gatherings to be permitted. I expect at least NASCAR, and possible MLB to push red state governors to allow events to take place. Red state governors being mostly morons, they’ll agree, not only for the economic benefit, but to please Trump. People will attend because many are morons, and also to stick it to the libs.
When the inevitable spike in cases hits, the same finger pointing happening now will occur again. The only difference will be that if Trump loses in November, all fingers will be pointing at Biden and the Democrats, asking how they’re going to fix the problem.
Jinchi
I’m still flabbergasted at the decision in Georgia. Gyms, nail salons, bowling alleys? Are these the foundations of Georgia’s economy?
There are so many other businesses where you can create reasonably safe social spacing. It’s like they’re trying to kill people.
randy khan
Based on my workplace, which is spread across the country in big cities, and what I’m hearing from colleagues and friends in similar situations, I’d say that a lot of office workers will not be required to come into the office for a while after cities reopen.
Once you figure out that working from home is viable (if not ideal), there’s good reason to wait until it’s clear things are okay. Just one COVID-19 case popping up in an office will shut it down for days or even weeks, and will cost a lot of money for things like deep cleaning. It’s not worth taking the chance.
Nicole
I’m in the same emotional boat you are, mistermix, re: what I’ll feel comfortable doing, with things that require me to be indoors in close quarters with other people being waaaay down on my list. Which sucks, because I’d like a haircut, but so it goes.
Even being in the grocery store is making me anxious; I’m watching the weather now and planning to go when it’s raining, because I figure as unpleasant as that will be, it’s likely there will be fewer shoppers.
Peale
@StringOnAStick: We aren’t going to hear about round two. They are fascists for Christ sake. Most of the GOP beliefs that this is about forcing your opinionated beliefs on them. They’ll get rid of the reporting. They’ll claim that there’s only 3% unemployment. Trump will announce that there’s a vaccine on November 2nd that’ll just turn out to be sugar water and the GOP will demand that we inject ourselves with it and move on. Those people dying are dying from a new Freedomvirus.
narya
The one ray of hope I have are polls showing that some not-small percentage of folks thinks current measures don’t go far enough, and overall over 80% of folks are on board. Yeah, it sucks. Yeah, it’s gonna last awhile. Yeah, there are covidiots who aren’t distancing, masking, etc. And yeah, those things also affect the rest of us. But enough info has gotten through, that people recognize that reopening w/o testing is suicidal. Sure, go ahead, reopen your business. Pierce also says there are a lot of wildcat strikes going on that aren’t getting reported, and I would expect that to increase as well.
download my app in the app store mistermix
@Nicole: Yeah, I’m planning my grocery store visits with about the same care as the way D-Day landings were planned. It’s crazy, and I don’t enjoy it. Everyone but 1 were wearing masks last time I was there, and I see no reason for that to change for a long, long time.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Betty Cracker: When I got close to 50, I learned a new phrase…reading glasses.
dmsilev
@rikyrah:
So far, I’m not seeing a down side.
JoyceH
What I’m hoping to see, sooner than a vaccine, is a treatment better than shoving a ventilator tube down your gullet for 3-4 weeks and you’ll probably die.
BTW, did anyone see Trump today say that HE was in charge of the vaccine project? So the guy who suggested guzzling bleach is going to be the guy to decide whether or not a vaccine is safe? I can see it now, “Might work, might not, might kill you, might not. What have you got to lose?”
Peale
@JoyceH: My prediction stands. A week before the election Trump will announce that there’s a vaccine. It’ll be bogus. It’ll kill half the people who inject themselves with it. And those who live will give birth to blind children, but it’ll be taken by 1/2 the population who’ll believe it works wonders.
MattF
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Agree. Also, when you get past 60, the word ‘cataract’ starts to circulate among your social set, and reading glasses are the fix for eyes that don’t accomodate any more.
Fair Economist
@Punchy: It’s not just killing people in the cities anymore. Alabama’s map, if you look at rates, has the worst rates in rural areas and small cities. Birmingham and Montgomery aren’t too bad (both now have liberal African-American mayors, hmm). The total numbers are worst in the cities because they have the most people, but respiratory infections normally do spread to the country after the cities and one like this will spread very well even in lower-density areas.
dmsilev
@rikyrah:
If you dare, do a search for the video clip where Sean Hannity, advocating for reopening baseball stadiums, demonstrates his proposed technique for eating a hot dog while wearing a mask.
Kirk Spencer
On Monday Harris county (Biggest chunk of Houston) went on a 30 day mandatory mask order. Our censored governor forced all such orders to be voluntary only along with other overrides of control measures.
We’ve only just maybe plateaued. So I’m guessing the numbers in two to three weeks will bring hordes screaming hoocoodanode and notmyface .
Fair Economist
@feebog:
I apologize to the rest of the state for my county. I do my part to nag but there are a lot of idiots here.
Fair Economist
@Kirk Spencer:
This is such a slo-mo disaster that bad effects won’t show up in the numbers for a month. The numbers in 2 weeks will reflect actions now, and even with dumb policies growth is slowed just by people being aware there’s a problem and it takes a couple of weeks for the rates to crank up. Of course then it’s a couple weeks of horror before any policy can crank them down again; see Italy, Spain, and the UK.
khead
@MJS:
NASCAR announced a season restart today. No fans, but still.
Jeffro
@danielx: Jamelle Bouie of the NYT has up a nice series of tweets pointing out that we’re not really talking about “economy vs Grandma” here…we’re talking about “doing nothing to preserve the idea that the government can do nothing (in order to keep tax rates on the rich low) vs doing something with the full faith and credit of the US government to keep people safe until the pandemic has passed”. Full stop.
Gin & Tonic
@dmsilev: Anything like Michelle Bachmann’s husband eating a corn dog?
Forget it, I lost my appetite already, and it’s not even 5:00.
Nicole
@download my app in the app store mistermix: The grocery stores in my area are requiring masks- no mask, no go in, but, being NYC, the aisles are extremely narrow and there’s no way to maintain a 2 foot distance, let alone 6. So even with the masks on, it’s nerve-wracking.
This week I roller-bladed nine miles round-trip (so as not to have to take public transportation) to pick up something I needed for work from B&H (judging from the people ahead of me in line, everyone is starting a podcast). On my way back, I did my best to avoid pedestrians on my way to the street, but one guy glued to his phone was not paying attention and I lightly (LIGHTLY) brushed him with my plastic-clad elbow as I went by and I realized it was the first time I’d had physical contact with a human being besides my husband and my child since mid-March. And I was anxious about it the whole skate home, even though I knew it was very unlikely I’d pick up Covid-19 from my elbow guard brushing someone’s sleeve. Ugh.
I think actually, what I really miss is wearing contact lenses, because I’m so tired of my masked breath fogging my glasses. But I ain’t sticking my fingers in my eyes right now.
Baud
@Peale:
What worked there?
Jeffro
I think by per capita measures, we are doing something like 5x or 6x the infections and deaths?
It’s almost like good government matters, or something…
khead
We’ve been doing takeout once or twice a week since this whole thing started. You know, support the local peeps and all that. But there’s no way in hell we are going into a restaurant – or any other venue – with more than 5-10 people for a while.
Joe Falco
@LevelB: I’m right with you on Hice. There’s two people running on the D side. I’m voting for Andrew Ferguson who seems to have an actual campaign running. Last I checked, the other person doesn’t even that going for them.
different-church-lady
Screw Kansas: what’s the matter with Michigan?
H.E.Wolf
I figured your question was rhetorical (and your examples were a hoot!). In case you know anyone who’s asking seriously, this graphic (in spite of a typo in the header) has some useful info.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EW0Y2JDU4AQsA9l?format=jpg&name=medium
Logging off now, to finish making a cloth mask. Thank goodness we aren’t being asked to sew hazmat suits; with my rudimentary sewing skills, I’d be out of luck.
Jeffro
@dmsilev: I know, right? Shouldn’t he get a commission for writing our fall campaign ads?
Soprano2
Our city announced their reopening schedule today. Our pub still can’t open, because we’re a bar, and they have to stay closed for at least 3 more weeks. Even if we were a restaurant I’m not sure I’d open for table service, because based on our square feet and their formula we’d only be able to have 12 customers at any one time. No playing pool, no live music, no karaoke, and our charity poker players definitely wouldn’t be able to come back. No one can sit at the bar. I’ll be surprised if very many restaurants even open for table service under these conditions. Hair and nail salons and massage therapists can open if they use masks and other sanitizing practices. My therapist has already told me that she’ll take my temp and we’ll both wear masks until I have to turn over, and so on. I hate to say it but I’m going to go because I need it badly. Honestly, I’m glad we can’t open for table service yet – I can’t imagine trying to control people who are drinking in the way these rules dictate. I’ve seen some commentary on FB, and a lot of local people are unhappy – “We don’t have many cases or deaths, why can’t everything open NOW!” the MAGAs wail forlornly. They don’t understand that the whole reason things aren’t bad at all here is because we did stay-at-home 3 weeks before the governor mandated it. I hope our city and county government keeps being cautious. There was a lot of reference to “the governor’s order” and “the president’s guidance” at their press conference today, probably to head off the accusations that they aren’t going fast enough. There is a big Tyson chicken processing plant in Monett, which is about 40 miles southwest of here. I’m just waiting to hear about the outbreak that’s almost certainly going to happen there eventually.
different-church-lady
@Peale: Odd usage of the word “effective”.
Jeffro
@Fair Economist: Good. Let’s have those red-state hospitals overwhelmed by Memorial Day, please…then the ‘muricans can think about that while trying to figure out their next armed protest.
different-church-lady
@rikyrah:
I know: competence and compassion give me the screaming heebie jeebies.
gvg
Actually, there are a heck of a lot of improvements we could do to our working remotely if we sent 1 tech person in to do certain tweaks and other people went in alone maybe once a month….totally stay away when we had to do it so fast (our highest people had trouble believing it would actually happen) To be fair, it has been surprising that people actually did shut the economy down and stay sort of home. Sure it was a logical proposal, but until you saw it happening, it was hard to think people would.
I bet a lot of businesses could improve their situation by just a few adjustments. Going back to the way it was…not going to happen.
I have gotten to the point where I don’t even do grocery shopping in person anymore. Most businesses figured out how to do what they had to do and did what they said they couldn’t before.
I am seeing some weird shortages. I have had enormous trouble finding sewing machine needles and white thread. Must be a lot of people sewing, and not just masks, that is a big hobby.
hitchhiker
The big question I have is about churches. Here in the land of the un-churched, not that many people were going anyway, but I’m aware that for a whole lot of people, Sunday morning is still where they check in with their friends and sit close together for an hour, with lots of singing.
The scariest covid story around here is about a group of 60 members of a community choir who gathered in early March. None of them were symptomatic that night, and they were only together for a couple of hours — but within weeks 45 of them had covid, and 2 of them were dead.
That’s 75% of the group.
So, who wants to go hang out in a small church and sing songs? If you’re in the midwest or the south where that kind of thing is still an important feature of your life, and if you’ve been told this thing is mostly a hoax designed to harm your president, are you going to go? Is your pastor going to want you to go? Are you going to bring your kids?
different-church-lady
@Punchy: Little by little, death will become personal for more and more people. There’s still an abstraction component to this — it’s invisible and in many places distant.
But some months from now it will be more common to know someone who died from COVID-19 than not. It’s inevitable.
JMG
The exceptions get all the attention, and naturally freak out the more aware, but I remain pleasantly surprised by how most people have followed the virus regulations and/or suggestions since this began. I mean, I was at the town dump today and everyone had a mask on. It’s not like people get close to each other there. Yesterday I saw two teenage boys playing frisbee on one’s front yard. They didn’t wear masks, but they stayed like 10-15 yards apart and each wore gloves.
raven
Ya’ll see Hugh Acheson on Ari last night? He’s a Canadian transplant with several eateries in Atlanta and his home base is here in Athens and he was really good.
khead
Is it possible to just take a bulldozer to the Michigan protestors? Asking for an Occupy Wall Street friend.
See, also, They Live.
raven
Baud
@raven:
It’s hard to be among the echelon of worst Senators, but Loeffler is making a good effort.
Mallard Filmore
@rikyrah: To still be a Republican in the Age Of Trump, you have to be OK with baby-snatching and trafficking, kids in cages, child cruelty, and a massive death count.
God damn them all.
different-church-lady
@?BillinGlendaleCA: People think buying their first set of reading glasses is a rite of passage. It’s not: the second pair is.
The first pair is a novelty. The second pair means you can no longer function without them.
Eventually you start hiding them everywhere, like a squirrel and acorns.
The Thin Black Duke
In the end, it doesn’t matter what delusional narrative the GOP tries to spin. COVID-19 will have The Last Word.
JPL
@Baud: She’s actually making Doug Collins look good. ugh Just my opinion, but the stronger democrats are running for Perdue’s seat. That seat would be easier to flip.
zhena gogolia
@different-church-lady:
Even using the words “grim assessment” in this context is obscene. We’re seeing lots of “grim assessments” these days, and they mostly involve agonizing deaths caused by incompetence at the top.
trollhattan
Holy shit, Coronaman!
LevelB
@Joe Falco:
Does he have a website, or just the Facebook page?
Thanks,
B.
different-church-lady
@zhena gogolia: Not assessments so much as final judgements.
Matt McIrvin
@different-church-lady:
Will they get the message? Or will they decide they love death?
Jinchi
Quick,without looking, try to guess what the number of confirmed cases was 14 days ago. Even looking backwards, it’s hard to believe how fast these numbers have been growing.
The Thin Black Duke
Hell no.
Ksmiami
@Jeffro: I’m hoping for the great culling tbh
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I was talking to my boss last night, we are still furloughed which is fine by me; after all who is going to buy laser eye scanners during this mess? I am sure there a people have to deal with eye problems right now, but those aren’t enough to keep the place I work at busy. All we would do is show, try to look busy and screw company budget up right. July is a far more sane time for back to work because there should be some demand by then.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@trollhattan: Sounds like Russia is going to show Trump how it’s done with screwing one’s country up with an infectious disease.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@raven: One of my friends does analyst for companies like this and her and coworkers have been predicting this commodity crash for a while. Mostly the managers don’t listen to them because their guts tell them this time is different, they are the Masters of the Universe and they can change reality. Sounds like this firm decided to listen to their math geeks.
And before any gets to indigent about this, remember it’s those Math Geeks who are protecting everyone’s retirement fund and 401K for these Master of the Universe gamblers.
Another Scott
@Punchy: Dunno. If/when the hospitals are overloaded, things will change – even in red states. The 3%ers and the rest of the RWNJs are a minority.
The “flatten the curve” thing was designed to prevent hospitals from being overloaded, and to buy time. Short of massive testing and tracing and isolation, we’re not going to get ahead of this thing (unless we get lucky somehow). We can’t eliminate the virus by just muddling through, and there’s probably going to be a new wave in the fall (at least according to Fauci and the experts). Opening up Georgia may keep people from collecting unemployment, but it’s not going to fix things.
We still don’t know how this is going to play out, but we do know that it’s much, much worse than it should have been. People close to you dying has a way of focusing attention, so I suspect these “openupX” things are going to fizzle fairly soon.
Cheers,
Scott.
joel hanes
@Another Scott:
there’s probably going to be a new wave in the fall
IMHO, because of the red states “re-opening”, there will be a second wave no later than July.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
we are all Ukraine now.
trollhattan
@Matt McIrvin:
By November 1972 everybody at least knew somebody who lost somebody in Vietnam, if not directly, and Nixon rolled. The real criminals were those Kent State hippies.
Jeffro
@Ksmiami: me too but somehow it’ll still be the libs’ fault
Jeffro
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: funny he picked SD and not GA or AL or almost any other red state
Another Scott
@rikyrah: Probably the same way one smokes a cigarette with one on? :-/
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/chinas-smoking-death-toll-set-to-double-in-2030
(That’s actually a protest mask. Well done!)
Cheers,
Scott.
Sab
@different-church-lady: Betsy deVos and her family momey.
RaflW
An aviation industry analyst I follow is now saying that the airline and aircraft industries will take four to eight years to recover to 2019 levels. This range I think takes into consideration regional variations.
Masks, cabin sprays, and middle empty seats won’t be enough to get me back aboard much before a vaccine or at the very least some damn good treatment protocols with significant mortality and disability reduction.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@trollhattan:
This isn’t 1972, this isn’t Nixon, and this isn’t a far off foreign war where those deaths happened over several years. 60,000 people died in 2 months
mrmoshpotato
@JMG:
AC – rock it if you got it.
But yeah, it’s gonna be tough. Our 18-mile lakefront trail in Chicago is currently closed, as well as all of the parkland along it and Chicago Park District playgrounds.
patroclus
@Nicole: Wow, that sounds eerily similar to an experience of mine earlier this week. I was innocently taking a walk outside for one of the first times since the pandemic hit; minding my own business and enjoying nature. Then, my phone rang, and it was my 97-year-old Dad, WWII hero, doing one of his rare calls while suffering from various ailments at an assisted living facility where he has been imprisoned for weeks, with no human contact. I’m very concerned about him and his health and that of his fellow inmates and every word from him was a treasure which I will always remember.
When, all of a sudden, some crazed roller-blading probably-COVID positive woman, with extremely foggy glasses due to wearing the wrong kind of mask which enhances fogging, acting like she owned the whole path, much less the whole park, blazed literally out of nowhere and completely whacked me EXTREMELY HARD with her elbow guard, sending me sprawling, disconnecting my phone conversation and leaving me bruised, bloody and discombobulated without so much as a “by your leave.” She looked like she had just carelessly been shopping at B&H amidst multiple COVID-positive non-isolating people without a care in the world.
I truly hope that those were not the last words I ever have with my Dad and that I don’t contract COVID and die due to her carelessness.:-)
The Thin Black Duke
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Well said.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@MattF:
I’m counting on the whole artificial lens thing on Medicare in 10 years….
CarolDuhart2
@khead: I don’t know how this will really work. Gate receipts are a significant part of revenue, and while some events can be made pay-for view, not all things are can be. And what about the players? Players don’t all live in the same city anymore, and travel can be pretty dangerous as well. And what if you are a player who lives with someone with health issues? Do you, or can you, afford to spend a whole season in a hotel room?
Duane
@Soprano2: Living in a repub area, we’re lucky the mayor and county health director are solid public officials. The mayor was Gov. Matt Blunt’s COS, but he not a RWNJ. We’ll all be better off with their approach instead of following Gov. Parson off a cliff.
ETA: That Tyson’s plant was here until recently. Good riddance!
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
I have to do an eye exam every year, because old geezer eye issues. 2 years ago I had to start wearing glasses for mid range, already have to use reading glasses. Wore glasses/contacts for over 35 years, then laser surgery. I recommend it to anyone – but oldgeezerness will get you, and your eyes.
rikyrah
ICAM??
rikyrah
@download my app in the app store mistermix:
A friend described it as doing ‘ Seal Team 6-like reconnaissance’
mrmoshpotato
LMAO!
trollhattan
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I’m not predicting a Trump blowout like Nixon’s but am warning that the public will become bored with death counts and it will not impact the election in the way that some imagine.
We watched Vietnam body counts lead the news every night for years, on all three network news broadcasts. And that was it–three networks. It was twisted into “Walter Cronkite lost Vietnam.”
chopper
@Punchy:
god knows how bad that scenario would be if the thing mutates a bit towards more deadliness. not very likely (the overall mutation rate of the virus is low, since the genome is pretty large compared to say the flu) but far stranger things have happened.
mrmoshpotato
@Jeffro:
Are you certain? Some actor assclown said back in the 80s that the government was the problem, and millions of morons still picked him to run part of the government.
mrmoshpotato
@different-church-lady:
AMEN! A-FUCKING-MEN!
The Thin Black Duke
@trollhattan: That’s ridiculous.
trollhattan
@mrmoshpotato:
It wasn’t so long ago a Michigan governor poisoned the water and ruined the piping system of an entire city in order to save some bucks. I guess there’s a hunk of the population who said, “Damn straight!”
trollhattan
@The Thin Black Duke:
Right? Was mortified at some of the reactions when Cronkite died. Some grudges carry long and large.
smedley the uncertain
@MattF: Not a bad thing. I wore corrective lenses for 60 years (ruined my dreams of being a Navy pilot). Along came cataracts , the best thing to happen to me. A lens was inserted to correct for the cataract . Insurance only paid for single vision so I chose distance vision ; I sail a lot and for driving distance vision is important. No corrective requirement on Drivers license; a first in 50 years… Reading/near vision is easily accommodated by $5.00 ‘cheaters’ which are scattered all over the house and in the car and boat. FYI, off the rack sun glasses at Walmart offer a near vision bifocal which is fine for reading instruments. Oh, one other thing, I can see the color blue now.
The Thin Black Duke
@trollhattan: Yeah, but equating this pandemic to Vietnam isn’t realistic. Assuming that people will get amnesia by November is buying into the GOP’s narrative that everything will be ‘normal’ once we relax the restrictions. It’s predicated on the crazy idea that nobody will get sick. That’s not going to happen. Everybody will know somebody who got sick, who lost their job, who lost their business, who lost their son, daughter, mother, father, best friend, and this is going to happen for months. The idiots who are losing their shit because they can’t get a haircut aren’t going to throw themselves on the COVID-19 grenade for the cause.
J R in WV
@trollhattan:
I was in boot camp when the Kent State murders went down. No hippies were shot, just average college students walking from one class to the next. My fellow boots were all competing to be the most fierce militants, willing to kill to protect our boot camp barracks.
IT was all I could do to not go off on those bastards, but I had been working on keeping my head down and remaining anonymous as I tried to avoid working to kill South Asian farmers in the ‘Nam.
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan: Apparently so!
prostratedragon
@rikyrah:
how does one eat in a restaurant with a mask on?
Way late I know, but this is a Zen koan of our times. (I’d been wondering the same thing.)
Joe Falco
@LevelB: http://www.georgiacantwait.com