The title of this post is what a friend of a friend used to say to people who were complaining about their work. The picture is from Lunch with Andrew, which is shaping up to be some very long-running TV. His announcement today that schools would remain closed for the rest of the academic year (basically through the end of June) was accompanied by this long and daunting list of what schools would have to figure out to re-open.
If you want to understand part of the reason why Trumpy governors and legislators are agitating to “just open everything up”, it’s because a phased re-open is a shit ton of a four-letter word that starts with “w”. It’s going to require that people who aren’t accustomed to doing anything (except flapping their gums) lead or participate in an intelligently-guided sustained effort. They just can’t do it, my friends. And that comes from the top, where a guy who is used to “stealing, loafing and whining” isn’t doing shit about testing, which is an absolutely vital pre-condition to phased re-opening.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
This twitter thread is fascinating
https://twitter.com/ginasue/status/1255847979740794885
I am thinking that article in the New York Post from that ER doctor is that New York should open was really about; they forced to poor to work threw this mess, get ill and now these “essential workers” have died or are better. So what the excuse of the rest of the city not to take the same risk they forced on the poor?
MattF
Speaking of testing, I just got this email from LabCorp:
I’ve been hollering about testing, this could make a difference.
Baud
Work work work work work.
kindness
The French maybe weren’t wrong about how they carried out their revolution. I always had thought they were wrong. Now I’m not so sure.
Elizabelle
That’s right, MisterMix. Flapping their gums. And guns.
You reminded me I missed Cuomo O’Clock today. Thank dog for C-Span. Today’s Andrew. About 45 minutes worth.
Has anyone else been having weird insomnia (that was not chronic before the lockdown)? Have had the hardest time getting to sleep and staying asleep, and coffee o’clock is happening at 10 or 11 am these days. Maybe it’s the lack of the usual roaming around …
JaySinWA
“Work?!” Maynard G. Krebs
Elizabelle
C-Span informs that new White House
paid liarpress secretary Mc… whatever her name is is having a press conference at 2 pm today.That’s … refreshing. Maybe this is how they take the spotlight off The Donald. Maybe she wants to get in there and try to flame the Biden story more.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: Work Hard Or Die Trying Girl
Barbara
All references to current WH press secretary should be written thus: Kayleigh (Racist Shithead) McEnany. She got the job because she was willing to GO THERE wrt Barack Obama.
mrmoshpotato
@Elizabelle: Every question: “Why did you mobster shitbags ignore the warnings and response guidelines from the World Health Organization?”
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle: She just started.
Mike in NC
Has anybody predicted when the death toll of Americans from the Trump Virus will exceed 100,000? I hope Brad Parscale is designing the commemorative coin.
Widespread testing will begin once Jared Kushner figures out a way to skim a profit for his crooked father-in-law.
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne: Oh, and jeez, I’m already throwing up a little.
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: Just looked at the feed.
She looks a bit like a Trump, via birth or marriage.
Didn’t she report someone had tears in their eyes as they thanked the Trump admin for … whatever.
Gag. It’s very PR.
She speaks very rapidly. That’s hard, for catching quotes.
A disabled American just made a little speech at a White House function that “America is not broken.”
KaylaKayleigh calls him “an American hero.”I join Subaru in retching.
Elizabelle
She speaks really, really fast. Not good in a press secretary, but at least this one is meeting the press.
She just pledged to never lie to the press. From the podium. (Question gave her an out: will you promise never to lie to us from that podium?)
Ruckus
@Baud:
Clicked on your link, found this there……
Ceci n est pas mon nym
For the first time since early March, an online retailer (Target) claimed to have some TP in stock and available for home delivery. I ordered a 12-pack and they acted like I actually purchased it and they’ll send it to me.
I’m not quite ready to believe it till it actually comes knocking on my door though.
I also put in an order from an Etsy shop. Apparently there are people on Etsy who repackage TP rolls with artsy wrappers and sell them at inflated prices. The person I went with claimed to have some in stock as well and I put in an order. Again, I’m skeptical whether I’ll actually see anything any time soon.
When I worked for the government I was a tiny cog in the massive DoD Acquisition machinery. So I knew about how much work went into logistics and planning, in kind of an academic way. But I never really appreciated those folks before the way I do now.
Ruckus
@kindness:
History sometimes shows the effective way forward. There may be other ways. There may not be.
Elizabelle
Turned her off. It was just a barrage.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Elizabelle: So if she stops and walks 10 feet to the left of the podium before answering a question, that’s a tell?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Elizabelle:
I’m having more trouble sleeping than usual too. I’m either worrying about the pandemic or worrying about the election. They take turns.
Jeffro
Flailing, flailing, flailing for six more months.
trumpov will be back at the podium regularly with a week, two tops.
Love it! Thanks GOP!
Ruckus
@Elizabelle:
I have to be tired to fall asleep. Physically, mentally doesn’t matter but my body has to have the desire, I can not will it to sleep. This is a problem with only working 3 days a week. I had to work this week and I’ve been up till 2 to 3 o’clock every morning, go to sleep and get up at 7. Not good and healthy but there it is. Have always been a night person so it’s somewhat a part of my life but still, sleep is necessary…..
Elizabelle
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: We shall find out.
I was surprised by the motormouth delivery. She looks so much like a Fox News blonde (or a Trump, but I repeat myself). Don’t spend much time at all listening to Fox, but would guess they have to speak more slowly and more clearly to allow for the processing speed of their
dupesviewers.Always figure a GOP White House is a reliable pipeline to Fox News careers or appearances …
Elizabelle
@Ruckus: Yes. I suspect the not being worn out or sufficiently exercised is a factor. I hope you get some nights with more than 3 hours of shut eye. Yikes.
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Also anxiety. No doubt.
Ruckus
@Elizabelle:
Does faux news actually want their viewers to process what they say, or just follow along and do as they are told?
I’m going with do as they are told.
LeftCoastYankee
I preferred “That’s why they call it Work, and not Super Happy Fun Time.”
Or when people complain something is “hard”, when it is not actually “difficult to do”, but “requires work or changes by me”.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle: She is very slick, very glib. I don’t trust her as far as I can spit, but she’s good at the rapid patter. Kind of like a 3-card monte dealer.
Mandalay
@Mike in NC:
Someone here who knows about this stuff can probably just plug these numbers for the death total into Excel and give us the answer:
But any guesstimate has to be better that Dr. Fauci’s from April 9:
Ooops.
Ruckus
@Elizabelle:
I do get more sleep when I don’t have to get up in the middle of the damn night, at 7am. Or when my upstairs neighbor gets up at 7:30am every morning to clean. Maybe I should hire her to clean my place, or does she clean every day because……. I really don’t want to know, do I?
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Chuck Todd seems to have liked her, so there’s that.
Mandalay
@SiubhanDuinne:
Agreed. I thought that Sarah Huckabee Sanders was way better than Kayleigh McEnany (and KellyAnne Conway) because I felt like she truly believed in Trump, and that came through when she spoke.
McEnany and Conway would say anything if the price was right, but I don’t believe that of Sanders.
rikyrah
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: A swindler who comes up to you on the street.
And paid with our tax dollars. It really, really bothers me that all these shitwads are making bucks. Those jobs should have gone to Hillary staff and administration.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Mandalay: There’s a lot of fluctuation in the day-to-day reported death counts (which most experts admit are far below the most probable actual death counts).
But if I look at the daily data on my favorite Covid stats site, I see the daily average seems to be well over 2000 people per day. If that rate keeps up, we’ll see 100,000 around mid-May.
With the number of idiots clamoring to be infected, I expect we’re beginning another wave, so those rates may start accelerating in about a week.
As for Fauci’s comments, if you look at the data around April 9, it does look like we were past the peak and should have then begun a decline. Instead we have a sustained new case rate of about 30,000 per day. The models didn’t account for idiocy.
JaySinWA
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Costco 2 day had their house brand TP available for order on the 29th, with a 14 day window. the other part of the order came yesterday, the TP is on its way today per UPS. Last I looked it was sold out again, Charmin was still available.
Elizabelle
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: And the death toll is so under-reported.
Does anyone know if any states are doing blood draws on all deaths, home or in care, so we can find out after the fact the decedent’s COVID status?
danielx
@Elizabelle:
all the above, and literally woke up screaming from a nightmare* a couple of nights ago which hasn’t happened in a long, long time. Did not like.
I was being chased by something really ugly. No symbology there, nosiree.
Nicole
I’m so very sad about schools being closed the rest of the year (although I knew it was coming) because my kid is going to be very sad about it, although his school really has worked hard to continue distance learning. And it’s going to be a lot of work, yeah, to figure out how to continue education in the fall- as Cuomo said, it’s not just about the kids getting sick; it’s about the people they could infect after they leave school. And, of course, the first questions from reporters after were, “But how will you paaaaaaay for it?” Dudes, they don’t even know WHAT the new form of education will look like yet, let alone what it’s going to cost. But the alternative is not acceptable for anyone who thinks human lives are worth more than rich people’s bank accounts.
I was amused when the young reporter who is always asking about protesters brought them up again and Cuomo pretty much said the protests going on at that moment outside the building were bush league compared to what’s gone on during a regular legislative session. Ha!
Nicole
@Elizabelle: I’m having trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep, yeah. To add to it, I have a sleep app on my watch that is always happy to tell me how much good sleep I DIDN’T get the night before. Allegedly only 5 hours of last night’s sleep was considered “quality.”
(And yet I can’t not wear the watch because in the morning I really want to know how long I slept.)
debbie
DeWine has announced the shutdown order will be extended to May 29th (with gradual reopening of some businesses along the way). Stay tuned for many heads to explode!
rikyrah
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Ok….
The meat packing plants have a workforce that is majority non-White.
But, here’s the thing…lots of Whites work in those plants , and the town’s of these plants have not shut down, and are in rural, White areas. You think Ms. Rona is just stopping with the non-White workforce???
Do I even have to start with you about the prisons?
Outside of the complex at 26th and California, here in Chicago, every other prison in the state is in some rural azz area. The prison population is damn near all Black and Brown, but errrrbody else who works there is White.
Once again, I ask…you think that Ms. Rona is going to just stop with the prisoners?
Next, we get to the Nursing Homes…
WHO do you think the patients are?
Been pointing out for awhile that while the face of Medicaid is a single mother with multiple children,the largest percentage of Medicaid dollars taken is from Bob and Suzy’s Grandma and Grandpa.
Of course, who works in these Homes?
The non-Whites.
Once again, do you think that Ms. Rona cares about only infecting the workers, but is gonna leave Bob and Suzy’s Grandma and Grandpa alone???
There are states who still won’t do transparency, with regards to Nursing Homes. The Federal Government refuses to step up to the plate and demand this data.
Nursing Homes, prisons, meat packing plants- breeding grounds for Ms. Rona to go to town. And, the attack points for rural areas in red states.
Brachiator
@Elizabelle:
There are reports of increases in vivid dreams, insomnia, increased jitters, etc. I can easily believe that it might be related to “lack of the usual roaming around” and other disruptions.
I’ve certainly had an increase in vivid dreams, and dreams I remember more after waking.
Mandalay
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I’ve noticed that as well. And the daily death count is always lower on Sundays, so we shouldn’t make a big deal of any single daily total.
But it’s infuriating that the Administration brags that the numbers have reached a plateau, as though that’s a great achievement, when we continue to get over 2,000 deaths every day.
No biggie. Let’s open up!
Elizabelle
I am sorry to hear that many of you are experiencing sleep disruption too.
Welcome to the new normal. Alas.
Cheryl Rofer
@Mandalay: Should hit 100,000 somewhere around mid-May if the plateau holds.
Phylllis
District Safety/Risk Manager Directors had a Zoom meeting yesterday here in SC. There are so many granular issues that have to be considered. We’re going to have to rethink how we schedule custodians, for one. Do you hire more to work overnight & early morning to sanitize for each day? And who are we going to hire? Many districts have had open custodial positions on the books for months.
There’s been talk of having sanitizing stations in hallways–good luck getting the sanitizer to fill them with. Our regular cleaning supplies are on backorder as it is. You can’t get masks now; where are we going to get all the masks staff are going to need? That’s just a starter. I was cautiously optimistic that we could get back in school by the Tuesday after Labor Day. Now I’m unsure about that.
Zzyzx
@rikyrah:
that’s where I am too. With real issues, no one has time for the silly stuff.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
These places are hotspots all around the world.
And hyper-locally, in Pasadena, California, 4 out of 5 deaths related to the virus have occurred among nursing home patients and staff.
Some of the issues are related to poverty and race, and just in lack of equal access to health care for some populations. In Singapore, they are having to deal with an outbreak of the virus among migrant workers, who live and work pushed together in relatively crowded conditions.
The way we allow people to live, especially poor people, must change. But even nursing homes and assisted living facilities for the well off are dangerous places for some patients.
One other odd factoid. In the UK, there have been a significant number of deaths from the virus among medical professionals. The first 10 doctors to die from the virus were black, Asian or other minority (BAME). Nurses are similarly at risk.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Maybe, the real hot spot is NYC and the surrounding region and that’s slowing down. The real growth seems to be in the rural counties and while they are getting hard it population size, the New York numbers will just dwarf it.
Searcher
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: It all depends on your trend line.
If I fit a 10th degree polynomial to those numbers, I can get an R^2 of 0.999… and extrapolating on that trend line indicates that after today, I expect the total death count to begin dropping.
It’s worth noting that while lock downs can slow the spread of the virus, because we still have people out and about who are likely to catch it, you shouldn’t expect what we’re doing now to stop things cold.
Rather, our current best case scenario is that something like 5% of our population will catch it — the “essential workers”, plus the people they come into contact with — instead of 85%, which means we’re still looking at a death toll in the ~150k neighborhood. Which is both much worse than what’s happened so far, and way, way better than the 2.8+ million who would be expected to die if this runs unfettered through the population.
Barbara
@debbie: The most recent Ohio numbers have not looked as good as they had, at least according to the Washington Post.
Barbara
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Right. NYC numbers are dwarfing the increases that are occurring in other places. New Jersey is not quite as bad as New York, but it’s second worst.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: In India it has been religious gatherings.
Brachiator
My problem is that I am normally a night person, so I have trained myself to deal with traditional work schedules. I normally take some time off after tax season, but I am taking some extra time off because of the pandemic, and the lockdown — and the absence of anywhere to go at night — has knocked me into my preferred rhythm. So, I take an early evening nap and then if I let myself go, don’t really want to go to bed until 4 am and then sleep until 10 or 11 am.
This was great when I could go out to a movie or dinner. Not so good if my main activity is going for a nice walk.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@rikyrah: I was thinking that’s why the blacks are hardest it in this, they are the most likely to be considered essential and forced their risk their lives.
Consider this irony; in the Republicans in their eagerness to school those Lazy Strapping Bucks on T-bone steaks are going to yank the socialism that’s keeping their lily white voting base safe threw this (not to mention, forsaid Strapping Young Buck is going to be in good shape and therefor more likely to shrug off a visit from Mrs Rona and then spread it to his white boss who sits at a desk all day)
And you are right Mrs Rona is coming to call on Rural America next.
hueyplong
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: “And you are right Mrs Rona is coming to call on Rural America next.”
Well, they have issued an invitation. Rona doesn’t believe in social rudeness or distancing.
Mallard Filmore
@rikyrah: Local news show (not in Florida) just now had a short segment about a man in Florida, worked on land for a cruise ship company, had his unemployment application rejected.
The crisis is just starting. As the tweet says, when the election rolls around “NOBODY gives a flying fuck what’s in Joe Biden’s papers.”
patrick II
I have been married to a wonderful woman from Taiwan for 47 years. Yesterday we received an email from my niece in Taipei asking for my wife’s citizen number so that she could send us some spare N95 masks. When I lived in Taiwan in 1970 water buffalo were still pulling carts with farmer’s rice to downtown Taipei. Now we are the country that others are sending care packages too in times of crisis. Not even our doctors have all of these masks.
I am not sure what to do if I receive them since they are specifically being sent to help family members.
When I was young I was told to appreciate and finish what was on my plate because there may be a poor child starving in China. Now they send us aid.
narya
@rikyrah: The place I work has set up temporary sites so we can bring tests and care to a Hispanic neighborhood and a largely AA neighborhood (in Chicago). In the Hispanic neighborhood, the data I’ve seen so far suggests a positivity rate somewhere around 50%. Now, we’re not testing the whole neighborhood of course–but it’s clear that there are pockets where folks just do not have access to care, and who may be frightened to go get care or just not know where to go. I’m proud of our work, but damn, the need is just so so high.
Sab
@debbie: Thank God. Our local newspaper has a front page story about dental hygienists outraged about back to work with inadequate masks. Everything they do aerosolizes saliva.
I think I’ll move my appointment back six months.
japa21
Last week I checked Georgia’s numbers for the day before they opened up. New cases 781, deaths 345. Earlier this week new cases were in the 400 range. Today, one week later, new cases 1,006, new deaths 22. Next week will be worse. Great job there Governor Kemp.
Brachiator
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
When you consider the global aspect of the pandemic, this becomes a lot more complicated.
But it is nuts to see how easily some people resort to stupid, false, conclusions about the pandemic. I recently read a couple of stories in which the idiots who are defying lockdown and social distance rules insist that young people cannot get the virus. And there are racists who seem to believe that white people are “naturally” more immune to the virus than blacks or Hispanic people.
The Moar You Know
@Elizabelle: Oh yes. It’s fucking horrible. I’m lucky if I’m getting three hours of sleep in a night, and I’ve always been one of those 8-9 hour people. Been going for more than a week now. I know what the problem is; expanded work day that now goes from about 6am until midnight with little structure, and (for me worst of all) loss of all my music gigs. Not that I relied on them for income, hell, they barely paid for the gas, but it got me out of the house at least once a week, worked me physically hard, and got me to be sociable. All gone
Plus, of course (and certainly the #1 factor): the low grade absolute terror of being alive in a time of a rather extreme pandemic. I have just enough of a biological sciences background to understand just how dangerous this virus is. That’s not helping me sleep any.
Sab
@hueyplong: I am so glad that Rona Romney McDaniel has that first name.
Emma
Annoyed that Cuomo is getting credit for having a good media operation when his polices re: COVID-19 are usually too little, too late. De Blasio, of all people, said that he was closing NYC schools a few weeks ago, and according to my NYC friends, Cuomo threw a hissy fit on live TV about how it wasn’t De Blasio who controlled school closures.
Anyway, good old Jay Inslee is doing a press conference in a couple hours: https://www.tvw.org/watch/?eventID=2020051012 according to an email today from the King County council chair, he’s expected to extend our lockdown. (And yes, our schools were canceled for the rest of the school-year almost a month ago.)
Brachiator
@Sab:
Their caution is totally understandable.
I got a friendly email from my dentist noting that he and his staff are available for emergency treatment. He outlined some of the steps he has taken to ensure safety for his staff and patients.
japa21
Illinois just announced new figures. 102 deaths and 3,137 new cases. I think that is a record high for new cases. And we’ve been locked down since 3/21. I can’t imagine what the numbers would be like if we weren’t.
Scuffletuffle
@patrick II: you married into a wonderful family!
Brachiator
@The Moar You Know:
Here’s one thing that stands out for me.
I swear to dog that every now and then I would stop and say to myself, “I can’t believe that Trump is president.”
But this has now been replaced with my waking up some days and thinking “I can’t believe I am living through a time of a global pandemic.”
It is like living through some of the crazy science fiction movies I used to watch.
Duane
Speaking of work to do, every meat packing plant in the US needs COV-19 testing for their employees. The Triumph plant in St. Joseph MO has 295 cases out of 1623 tests so far. Results from 1400 tests are pending. The most basic thing to operate these companies safely, tests, and Trumpov couldn’t bother.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: It’s simple! Someone will surely suggest that they lock the workers in the nursing homes and meant packing plants – can’t have them infecting the communicates, you know – and it won’t even be horrifying to the powers that be, because the Rs surely consider them (black, hispanic, immigrants from shithole countries) as less than 3/5 of a person.
Sab
@debbie: I am waiting for Mike deWine to have to tie his hair back with a scrunchy like my husband does now.
WaterGirl
@Cheryl Rofer: Do you expect the plateau to hold With various states opening things up?
The Moar You Know
@Brachiator: Read Book I (about the first 300 pages) of The Stand. NOT AT NIGHT. It is so on the nose that I caught myself wondering the same thing about Stephen King that I always wonder about Nickola Tesla – were these guys from the future?
tokyokie
I just got a text message from the nursing home that is the location of the largest cluster of cases in the Dallas-Fort Worth area — 24 staff and 34 residents as of a week ago, and I assume it’s gotten worse since then — asking me if I want to work as a nurse there. I’ve unsuccessfully applied there two or three times — that’s how they had my phone number — and though it’s a nicer facility than most and a short drive from my house, I’m not interested. And I’ll remember that they only turned to me after a sizable percentage of their staff had been incapacitated by the disease.
patrick II
@Elizabelle:
First question: Was the crowd at Trump’s inaugaration the largest in history?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Brachiator: here is a funny thing to consider; segregation really got going at the end of the 1918 Pandemic. 1919 was the infamous Red Summer with all those race riots threw the US.
Steeplejack
After my grumpy day yesterday I am having a much better day today. Got outside in nice weather (sunny, 60° here in NoVA), drove my friend to work at Trader Joe’s and stopped at La Unión on the way home to pick up enchiladas, chips and salsa. Just finished those with a homemade margarita and feel reënergized—well, okay, almost—to dive back into the turgid news stream.
Also sorted out the “whose ashes?” question (see morning thread) and got a clean but distant bill of health from my primary doc in a slightly bogus (as in make-work) “phone conference.” And I finally filled out my census form on line. Mr. Productive!
Might go read on the bed with an option to doze. Even writing this has tired me out a bit.
The Thin Black Duke
@The Moar You Know: Here in Massachusetts, a beloved and invaluable music venue is closing it’s doors . And, most likely, it won’t be the last.
Brachiator
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
This is not even remotely true. And there is an entire chunk of American history that can be devoted to issues of racism and pandemics.
The San Francisco bubonic plague of 1900 – 1904 was a result in part of the horrible mistreatment of Chinese workers and, of course, cramming them into Chinatown. Governor Henry Gage denied there was a plague, demonized medical officials, and insured that things were worse.
And then there were the periodic outbreaks of yellow fever, where ignorant whites believed that black people were somehow immune, ignoring how black communities were ravaged by the disease.
This had less to do with segregation, and more to do do with attempts to reinforcing the racist hierarchy of American apartheid after World War I.
Cheryl Rofer
@WaterGirl: I think there’s a good chance we’ll see numbers start going up again.
J R in WV
OK, some will recall that Wednesday we had a Black Oak tree fall on the house, right over the front door.
I called Davey Tree service, which has done work for us last summer. They got the tree rigged (roped up to other trees so as not to fall suddenly) yesterday morning, and had it off the roof and sawn up into short pieces yesterday. In the meantime I tried to find a roofer to come out and repair the rubber membrane, which has holes in it.
No one called me back. Not one. So today I visited the Atlas warehouse, which sells all the material needed to deal with what if formally called an adhered EPDM membrane roof. They have improved the technology, now they sell pre-glued patch material with a layer of paper protecting the sticky side. It rained last night and this morning, but it’s sunny right now.
A good friend will come over tomorrow to help me with the job, something like a dozen holes. You have to clean the existing membrane with a solvent, prime the area you will patch with another solvent and a scrubby pad, peel off the paper and roll the new patch onto the existing rubber with a heavy roller gadget. There’s trimming of the patch, no square corners, which are more inclined to peel than a round corner.
The nice guy who runs the warehouse had his pooch, a Wire-haired German Pointer bird-dog at work with him. Really sweet big very fussy puppy, he told me he has hunted birds (grouse and quail) over the sweet puppy from South Carolina to Maine. She used to stay home with his wife, but he lost his wife to a traffic accident some time back, so now she comes to work with him.
Regarding the Plague… Governor Jim Justice (R) big coal has decided to open the state back up for business on Monday next !!! Somewhat to my surprise, no one I spoke to first at the convenience store nor later on at the Roofing Material warehouse thought it was in any way smart to relax the quarantine this soon, the consensus was “It’s just starting to work to reduce things now, the perfectly chosen WRONG time to attempt to open for business.” And these were people in business!
Brachiator
@The Moar You Know:
My brother and I were going over all the movies we have seen that dealt with plagues, invasions and catastrophes that forced humans into hiding.
Mike in NC
@The Moar You Know: Donald Trump is so sick and twisted that even Stephen King couldn’t have imagined him.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Laziness may not be the only possible cause of incompetence, but it’s hard to be competent if you’re lazy. I’m sort of astounded at how many incompetent people are in powerful positions. There’s a range of competence in any field, but I’m not sure you usually see this big of percentage.
Steeplejack
@Mike in NC:
Gregg Stillson in The Dead Zone is getting there.
Elizabelle
@Steeplejack:
Glad that got resolved. Some random schnauzer’s. LOL.
In time, you must add another housecat to the mix. Aged or not. Although Stella remains irreplaceable.
Brachiator
I am listening to the Los Angeles county pandemic briefing. A startling statistic. About 48 percent of the deaths involve institutional settings. Jails, nursing homes and other places where people are deliberately placed in close social contact. I don’t know if this includes Navy vessels.
It would have been worse if schools were not closed down.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@japa21:
How do the death numbers compare? It’s possible the new case numbers come from more testing, but the death numbers should tell the tale.
The Moar You Know
@The Thin Black Duke: I had to explain this to some asshole recently (one of the “Die For The Dow” team) – that even if California lifted all restrictions tomorrow, which is literally the last thing I want to see happen, there weren’t going to be any gigs because most of the venues I’ve been playing at are already out of business, and of the few that might be able to re-open, well, good luck getting anyone to go there. Or play there for that matter. That venues might already be out of business, for some reason, never seemed to occur to this idiot. As was the idea that nobody was going to go. The poll numbers on that are crystal clear – almost 90% not willing to go to concerts or sporting events until cure/vaccine widely available.
I’m done with playing music for people until there is a vaccine/cure, personally.
MomSense
Welp. Georgia had 1100+ new covid cases in the last 24 hours. Heckuva job, Kemp.
Duane
@tokyokie: Nursing homes should all be tested for Cov-19. Everyday it’s another home, another meat plant with serious outbreaks. Are all the Navy ships being tested? Waitng till people are sick or dead is a crap plan.
Mandalay
Whenever you think Politico can’t get any worse, they never fail to let you down even more. Here’s some serious sewer material from lowlife scum Ryan Fucking Lizza…
What the fuck? Do these vermin truly see absolutely everything in life as a battle between (smug) liberals and conservatives?
Fleeting Ex-istence
My bad dreams are of the I-didn’t-do-the-homework anxiety kind. My daytime level of unease is more morbid and scary, apocalyptic chaos and destruction. Otherwise, it’s fine…
Steeplejack (phone)
@Elizabelle:
I have decided that my veterinary death metal band is going to be called the Random Schnauzers.
raven
RE: sleep. This reminds me of “he was so different when he came home”. My answer has always been “what kind of person wouldn’t be different”? My answer here is the same “what kind of person wouldn’t have sleep issues with what is happening”? My dogs are struggling, the world is totally uncertain in a way none of of us has ever seen and, as the Doors said “The future’s uncertain and the end is always near”. I sleep from 10 pm until @ 3am and get up for the normal old man trip to the pisser. Most of the time I go to the couch and toss and turn, maybe I get back to sleep and maybe I don’t. I hit a nap in the afternoon but Bohdi is so cookie obsessed that he nudges me awake to give him more. Shit is fucked up and it makes total sense that people are having sleep issues.
raven
@The Moar You Know: My brothers floyd cover band put a full show up on FB live last night and had several hundred views. They did a bunch of deep cuts and the entire Dark Side of the Moon. They had the Orange County Fair, Canyon Club, Hermosa Fest and a bunch more this summer. Poof.
Brachiator
Four weeks ago in Los Angeles County, 79 deaths
Most recently, 1170 deaths.
And a big story is the ongoing protests in Orange County to open up the beaches in Southern California.
On the positive side, some small business owners are coming up with lots of good suggestions about what they might do to accommodate a new reality.
jl
OMFG, is mixtermix suggesting that important high paid people have to do something that involves the ‘w’ word, like us ‘lesser’ people. Isn’t that the slipper slope into tyranny? Next someone will suggest that the ‘h’ word, as in h*** w***. Then we’ll be at Mao style important people genocide.
Every righting thinking person knows that freedom means that the Trump/GOP orders us ‘lesser’ people into meat packing plants and frozen french fry factories so they don’t have to worry about their happy meals.
This society has become so corrupt, degraded, that it cannot wipe its own ass well enough to sustain its continued existence, just maybe.
debbie
@Barbara:
Yes, probably because testing has increased. They’ve also begun reporting nursing home cases and deaths, and that’s definitely not looking good.
debbie
@Sab:
I’ve had allergic asthma for 5 years and I am prone to coughing. I expect the dentist will kick me to the curb post haste.
debbie
@Sab:
Fran would never stand for that! ?
rikyrah
@Elizabelle:
When I can get to sleep, it’s late. Then, I sleep for a few hours, get up for a bathroom break, and most mornings, can’t get back to sleep.
realbtl
@The Moar You Know: My 84 yo musical partner- I’m 72- practiced for the first time since Dec 20′ apart in my living room. We both decided no indoor gigs for this summer. Not worth the risk.
But it sure felt good to play again.
Jinchi
@Nicole: How does your watch know how well you slept?
debbie
My sleep hasn’t changed all that much, but there have been one or two dreams I could have done without.
raven
@Jinchi:
These are the best sleep tracking apps for Apple Watch
Mary G
@Brachiator: Yep, one of my housemates came home and said that there are at least 1,500 protesters crammed cheek by jowl in Huntington Beach right now. A mix of right wingers and teenaged surfers. Idiots
ETA: Like all of youse, my sleep cycle is trashed and my dreams are disturbing. Every other library book that becomes available seems to be sci fi dystopian. They aren’t as entertaining as they used to be.
Elizabelle
Canada is just so goddamned smarter and more civilized than we are. WaPost in the past hour:
Canada announces immediate ban on ‘military-grade’ assault weapons
And there’s a possibility of “grandfathering” some weapons at the end of the 2-year period. Not good.
Naturally, the conservatives whinged about overreach by the “Liberals’ ideological agenda.” Let them.
WereBear
@Steeplejack (phone): I like it. Germans know their metal.
Elizabelle
@rikyrah: Yep. Exactly. And you have to be up early for work, so rougher still.
Once it is light outside, I fire up Forensic Files youtubes on the laptop, and that puts me back to sleep for 90 minutes or so. The soothing voice.
Hoodie
Good observation, most wingnut philosophy boils down to laziness. I guess that’s why they value capital over work. They view sitting on your ass collecting rent as morally superior to work, and they found a clever way to glom on to a virtue — working hard to accumulate capital for something like your retirement — and conflate it with rent collection. Hate to say it, but Frum and Rubin have been pretty dead on about Trump and his ilk. I guess they have had more up close personal contact and recognize it for what it is.
Feathers
My sleep has been terrible. 5 hours is a good night. Part of the issue is that it never normalized after the daylight savings times switch. I’m not hungry for dinner until an hour or so after dark. Too many 9pm meals. And I’m not tired enough for bed for 3-4 hours after that. One AM last night was actually good. It’s usually a week or two to get back into the cycle, but not this year.
VeniceRiley
Andrew Sullivan out with the hot take of “Biden is guilty by his own standards” You can set your clock to these people.
Uncle Cosmo
Unless you have some sort of justification for using “a 10th-degree polynomial,” that result is worthless. No, pardon me, worse than worthless because it gives the false impression that the fitted curve has any validity (or predictive value) whatsoever.
The worst thing that ever happened for the understanding of data was the development & marketing of affordable stat software that allows almost anyone (including most especially nitwit econometricians who consider themselves doG’s gift to mathematics**) to run all sorts of razzledazzling analyses without a clue as to whether they’re appropriate for the data & what they might signify. It’s the statistical equivalent of handing a 5-year-old a ball-peen hammer & a blasting cap & telling him to go play in heavy traffic. I can’t count how many times during my career as an applied mathematician/statistician I had to explain to prospective clients who didn’t understand why they needed my somewhat-pricey services,
Even a persuasive guy like me couldn’t always convince them. Sheesh.
**I worked for a jerk like that once. He got the definition of a basic concept in matrix algebra wrong, & even after I & several of his colleagues showed him a half-dozen textbooks with the correct definition, still insisted he was right. Fuckhead.
mrmoshpotato
YES!
Elizabelle
@Steeplejack (phone):
I just like those words. Sound very Coen Brothers or Lebowski-esque.
Mallard Filmore
@rikyrah: I have needed that mid-night bathroom break since I got out of diapers. It might be easier for you to go back to sleep if you can refrain from turning on the bathroom light.
Elizabelle
@mrmoshpotato: At least one or two Brits are walking around dressed as Plague Doctors. With the nightmare-inducing long black beaks.
bemused
@Mandalay:
So ridiculous and stupid.
Elizabelle
@VeniceRiley: Title of Sullivan’s email announcing his latest essay was so aggravating it went straight to trash. I don’t follow him in NY Mag anyway. Not worth the click.
laura
Gee, I wish Rikyrah would commence to front paging. Each and every utterance, retweet and link is data rich. She’s that good. She’s must read. Not to knock a notch off other top commenters, but Rikyrah just brings it with consistency and a deeply moral character. Signed, a fan.
japa21
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I doubt it comes from increased testing. Atlanta’s mayor was interviewed by Rachel and said there was no increased testing being done, if anything, less testing. Too early for death numbers. They will probably start rising above what they were late next week. And cases should rise even more.
japa21
@mrmoshpotato: So they are using HS girls as reporters down in FL?
japa21
@Cheryl Rofer: I agree. The main reason why I think there hasn’t been a sharper rise is NY’s numbers are finally going down. Take their numbers out of the mix this past week and the numbers would be showing a more dramatic increase.
Uncle Cosmo
@mrmoshpotato: Si! Oui! Jawohl! Ano! Igen! Da!
Now all we need is a new set of lyrics to “Don’t Fear The Reaper”….
Galahad Threepwood
Oh Trump is doing something about testing, all right. He’s telling everyone that we’re doing the best Testing (his capitalization) in the world because we have the most cases in the world. Every time I think he can’t fuck this up any worse, he finds a new low.
Galahad Threepwood
@VeniceRiley: I saw that pop up and was just like, “Here we go”. Regular as clockwork on this shit. Fucking Sullivan man. I really do not know why I used to think he was reasonable. He’s just as bad as the rest of them.
Jinchi
That’s not actually easy. The problem is that it’s a moving target that responds strongly to how people deal with the pandemic. Georgia and other states reopening is going to drive the numbers up. We have no idea how much, yet.
The number of new confirmed cases/day in the US peaked around April 10th. The number of new deaths/day peaked about 10 days later. Between the 10th and the 17th the new daily caseload dropped. But after that they didn’t anymore.
So will the deaths/day continue dropping like they have in the last week (putting us under 1000/day next week)? Or will they stall out where we are now (at around 2000/day)?
And any repercussions of reopening fitness centers in places like Georgia, Arkansas and Iowa won’t be seen in the numbers til mid-May.
Cut the guy a little slack, on April 9th there were only 16,000 dead. “Closer to 60,000 than 100,000-200,000” already sounded horrible. Trump’s still giving himself a pat on the back for keeping it under 2 million.
Jinchi
@VeniceRiley
Andrew Sullivan almost 1 year ago:
Dan B
@Mandalay: Do you mean actual death toll or reported death toll?
BTW a friend sent a pandemic interactive calculator that allows you to plug in low restriction, medium, and extreme a few weeks, followed by a different low, medium, extreme until the end of August. Extreme measures produce 84,000 deaths. Low produces 2,000,000 by August 30. The model is for the US.
This model is being used by health professionals. Scared me.
Ksmiami
@jl: Exactly- pandemics don’t necessarily destroy an empire/country but they reveal weaknesses and set the stage for permanent decline.
japa21
Just got a news alert that the WH will not allow Fauci to testify to any House committee investigating response to the pandemic.
WaterGirl
@Cheryl Rofer: I think so, too.
Ruckus
Guess what just happened at my place.
A bunch of assholes just drove through the complex honking their horns, with signs on the side of their vehicles, no one wearing a mask. I flipped off a few, they knew what they are doing. Some people are just fucking brain dead. I called the cops they said there is nothing they can do unless they continue to do this for an extended time.
I get being bored. I even understand being stupid, one can only work with what they’ve got. But being fucking assholes? That takes at least a bit of effort and completely ignoring what is going on in the world around them. Especially as I live in a senior complex. Everyone here is a high risk for this shit, some are especially high risks. I wonder how they’d feel if people drove by their houses firing a shotgun or an AR into their living rooms? Would they think it’s a hoot?
Fair Economist
Another new high in daily cases in OC. Two days in a row.
The county site has a breakdown by city, from which I can infer the new cases are coming from poor/immigrant areas because of the cities showing growth. The beach cities had problems earlier but are not having a lot of new cases now, which makes me think the beach ban actually isn’t addressing the problem. What we more likely need is some kind of outreach in the poorer communities providing whatever it is they need to shelter properly.
Ajabu
@The Moar You Know:
well, you’re in a better situation than I am. I’ve done nothing but play music for over 50 years. I used to joke that in a worst-case scenario I could always go on the street corner with the tip jar to pay the mortgage. Even that is now unavailable. In a period of three days in mid-March I had over $4500 in cancellations. Every musician in the country is out of work and I don’t know if or when I’ll ever work again. Fuck this…
Fair Economist
@japa21: Testing hit a new all-time high in the US yesterday, so increased testing is part of the increased cases. Probably not all. Here in SoCal there has been a big jump in testing over the past week but there has been an increase in hospitalizations so the recent increases in confirmed cases is likely both increased testing and a real increase in cases.
J R in WV
@raven:
OK, as a long time Floyd Fan, having seen them at the beginning of their tour and at the end of that tour, back when…how about a link to the video? Please??? ‘Cause surely, there’s a captured video somewhere!
Thanks!
japa21
@Fair Economist: Was referring specifically to Georgia where there is not a lot of new testing. Definitely not enough to account for almost doubling the new case load.
Ruckus
@Fair Economist:
If you are poor, in our economy you most likely have a service job of one type or another. And a lot of those are still open because they provide a relatively needed service. Those people go to work because they have little choice. And our wonderful federal government is basically doing shit about it. Also as rent in most of the populated areas of CA have high rent rates a lot of people have to live together in higher concentrations than otherwise. So more exposure = more cases. It isn’t that they want to die, it’s that their choices are limited.
Ladyraxterinok
@mrmoshpotato:
TV reporter didn’t keep social distance with Grim Reaper–or so it looked
The Pale Scot
@Mary G:
Use to be a Walking Dead junkie, haven’t watched one since the Shitgibbon was installed.
Reality is getting too fuckin’ real yo