We’re really the dumbest fucking country:
During the early days of the pandemic, the public’s attention was fixed on various models, each showing a steep upswing, with cases steadily increasing each day, followed by the tail-end of the curve as cases fade away.
Americans saw, with increasing dread, the predicted upswing in the national numbers. Then, over the last couple of weeks, it stopped.
And yet, forecasters are projecting even more deaths on the horizon. A leaked document obtained by The New York Times projected more than 3,000 people could die each day by the end of May. Another historically conservative model, favored by the Trump administration, just doubled its projected death toll, too.
The tail-end of the national epidemic is not materializing.
“If you just look at the total number of cases, you’re going to miss what’s underneath it,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “It’s not a leveling-off. It’s a painful handoff.”
America’s current “plateau” isn’t good news, he said. Infections from the earliest-hit metropolitan areas are now spawning outbreaks of their own across the country.
If you take NY out of the equation, which is lowering the national numbers, the entire nation is on a steady incline. Yet we have this:
Republican elected officials are rushing to express support for a Texas salon owner sentenced to a week in jail and a fine for reopening her business in violation of a stay-at-home order issued by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. Members of the self-described party of “law and order” attacked a judge who enforced the order.
Dallas County State District Judge Eric Moyé sentenced salon owner Shelley Luther to seven days in jail and a fine of $7,000 for violating the stay-at-home order as well as Moyé’s temporary restraining order and a cease-and-desist order from Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins.
On a personal note, I had to go to the store today for produce and allergy meds, and did my usual overalls with full length sleeves, masks, gloves, and carrying lysol wipes, because I am not a fucking sociopath, and noticed that there has been a MARKED increase in the number of people out and about and a MARKED decrease in the number of people wearing masks. Apparently moving from the Governor’s “Stay at home” order to the current “safer at home” order has been interpreted by many as “fuck it, YOLO.”
Personally, I am expecting the entire nation to get hammered in about three weeks to a month, and last week I had a stern talk with my parents that NOTHING has changed, in fact things are getting worse, and they are still grounded for at least another couple months. They were fine with it, because they don’t want to die, either. I’m keeping my shit locked down and don’t intend to change anything. I am expecting at least a half million deaths.
Playing to Win: Day 10 (Your Life or Your Vote, Alabama)
Gin & Tonic
Why do you hate America?
Chief Oshkosh
Sounds about right, for 2020. For 2021? Who knows?
Professor Bigfoot
I think a half million, by the time this is finally under control, is optimistic.
Elizabelle
I would like to see a Nuremburg type proceedings once we get control of government back. And could be persuaded to support hanging for some of the worst of the worst. Or very long prison sentences. But hanging for Trump (OK, might escape via “diminished capacity”), Jared, McConnell. I would fundraise to buy the rope and scaffolding.
There is no excuse for this, and it would be a sin to let the murderers escape accountability.
?BillinGlendaleCA
We’re under a mandatory mask order here in Glendale, some seem to think a mask around your neck is sufficient.
MomSense
I witnessed the same thing over the weekend driving on Route 1 in Midcoast Maine. Ice cream shops, nurseries, restaurants, big box stores all with tons of people not wearing masks or keeping appropriate physical distancing. I didn’t get out of my car. I felt sick to my stomach. Maine has had low per capita infection rates and I think that combined with the warm weather gave people a false sense of safety.
If we have 3,00 deaths a day in May that’s about 90,000 people. JFC
I never want to be asked by the TSA to take off my shoes or carry only mini bottles of shampoo again because we now have proof the concern about the death of Americans is fucking bullshit.
trollhattan
On May 2 Amazon updated shipping status for my mask order: “SHENZHEN EMS, CHINA.”
Any minute, now.
On the positive side, our metroplex statistically is one of the top-five in the US for low infection rates. A good thing considering it got here pretty damn early compared to much of the country. Now if we could only keep those fuckers away from the Capitol with their shouty maskless open things up yesterday demands.
Gravenstone
A quote from a privileged white male poster at a gaming group I was affiliated with. I’ve been drifting away from them for quite some time, largely because of this particular moron. This overt exercise in pig headed stupidity and FYIGM just sealed the deal for me.
We are quickly becoming too stupid to continue to exist as a species.
Oh yeah, the genius above lives in suburban NYC…
Phylllis
Hubby and I figure we’re hunkered down for the long haul. No overnight trips, no eating out for at least a year, maybe a day trip to Greenville later this year. We had a vacay to Atlanta planned in July, Braves tickets, the whole shebang. That’s certainly no longer the plan. SC has allowed outdoor seating at restaurants with social distancing as of this Monday and several places in the Columbia area that opened have immediately closed back down because they couldn’t keep people from visiting at other tables or even pulling tables together.
Tl;dr: We’re masking up, social distancing, and wiping everything down* for the foreseeable future.
*Stocked up on eyeglass wipes from the FSA store two months ago–alcohol and surfactants in handy little individual packages.
trollhattan
@MomSense:
TBF we still freak over dramatic death (e.g., plunging six vertical miles). Drowning whilst on a hospital ventillator is rather undramatic, because only staff can watch. Just another day in paradise.
Mike S
There has never been a president or party with such careless disregard and downright disdain for the citizens of this country. The president and the Ron Paul “let them die” crew has taken over the “pro life party” and turned it into a death cult of personality. And in my state the Republicans of orange county are so angry that all of their representatives were swept away they’re willing to die on a Hill instead of changing their party.
trollhattan
@Gravenstone:
Ugh. “Smart” people can be pretty dumb when it suits them. I invite big brain to fly my airline, which has a better than 90% successful flight completion rate.
Ksmiami
@Professor Bigfoot: my original estimate was 1.5-2.2 million dead. The GOP=Death
FelonyGovt
We’re staying in with maybe weekly trips, with masks on, to get groceries. Our daughter won’t let us go anywhere else.
I have several in-person hearings (I’m an arbitrator) scheduled for June, July and September. They are all up in the air at present. The attorneys don’t want to do virtual hearings, but the physical hearing room is closed through the summer. The idea of getting in a small room with assorted other people doesn’t thrill me, but I do need the money.
dmsilev
Trump has become King Farquad from Shrek: “Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make”.
Death Panel Truck
@trollhattan: I ordered masks from China near the end of February. I got a PayPal receipt and a notice that they’d been shipped.
Still waiting.
trollhattan
@Phylllis:
Sports are going to be tough. Ask doctors (who don’t have 50-yard line seats) and they’ll tell you straight.
“Won’t be back in stadiums until well into 2021.”
Duane
Liberty and Death you say. The Missouri House is proposing to make brass knuckles legal in the state. It probably won’t pass but how we have fallen. Economic failure awaits us,and these clowns are thinking about brass knuckles.
germy
Bumper
@MomSense: when states have to hide and guard shipments of PPE or lifesaving equipment FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, which has told the states they are on their own as far as protecting their citizens, the feds (in this case, Republicans) have no standing to act all high and mighty about security theater
gene108
I am resigned to lots of people dying. My goal is to stay alive, and pray those close to me stay alive.
That’s all I can do in the face of so much selfishness and stupidity
Slappy Kincaid
Yeah, I don’t see football season happening this year.
This is going to be an even bigger nightmare in the fall.
Phylllis
@trollhattan: Here’s hoping it will at least bring about the end of high school football.
Betty Cracker
Florida rolled out its partial reopening Monday, and that was the YOLO signal for the idiots around here too. Had to visit a convenience store earlier, and I was the only one with a mask, including the cashier who loads the turbo dog machine. We’re doomed.
Like the elder Coles, most of my older relatives are sticking with the lockdown regime because they’d rather not die just yet. (I exclude my father from that list because he never took this seriously in the first place. My brother is also foolhardy.)
My mother-in-law is giving it at least a few weeks to see what happens, even though it’s driving her crazy since she’s highly social. Even the Trumpy aunts and uncles on my side of the family are staying home, which is a relief. I worry that the peer pressure will get to them though.
Croaker
@Elizabelle: 100% agree full on Nuremburg
No freebies or passes.
Cheryl from Maryland
Fuck these people. Maryland has been good, but now the idiot mayor of Ocean City is opening up the beaches to everyone, and numbers in the state are not going down. My husband is in renal failure and risks COVID-19 infection 3 days a week every week when he goes to dialysis. The clinic is good, especially with PPE for patients as well as staff and not allowing anyone inside but patients and staff, but this is a room with 20 people in it most of who have to open a vein for treatment and who knows what they and their families/friends are doing. We just found out he has moved up the transplant list to about 18 months’ wait. Which is good, but makes it even more stressful — he needs to survive this pandemic, and we are dependent on the good behavior of others.
Tractarian
Abbott and our scofflaw attorney general Paxton just came out with statements urging the immediate release of Ms. “I’m-So-White-I-Can-Thumb-My-Nose-At-A-Judge-And-Expect-No-Consequences” Luther.
Just infuriating.
tokyokie
I tried ordering nitrile exam gloves this morning on amazon. Couldn’t get any in less than a month. And I was just doing so because the nursing home where I work is running low and I wanted to protect myself. Hope the nursing home has gotten more in. It’s already run out of alcohol wipes (necessary for using before fingersticks and injections) and has resorted to using cotton balls soaked in isopropyl alcohol — and we can only do that because the spousal unit found 70% isopropyl alcohol at a nearby supermarket.
Leto
@Phylllis: my parents, Charleston area, have kept me apprised of how the state is handling things. I think they finally listened to me when I told them how much worse it was going to get, back in mid-March. They’ve been pretty hunkered down, but I keep reminding them to not take chances because they’re surrounded by morons. Not surprised that people there, as the weather has gotten better, are doing what you’re describing wrt to not social distancing/just not giving a shit.
PeakVT
I have found face covering compliance to be rather uneven in my local area. 100% at Costco yesterday, but more like 80% at Price Chopper (a low-end grocery store for those who are not familiar. The airport requires masks for entry but one of the airline staff was wandering around with hers pulled down, and a TSA staffer had his hanging on one ear (the airport was basically empty of passengers at the time). OTOH, Sunday was the first beautiful day of the year and only about 10% of pedestrians had one on their body at all.
smedley the uncertain
@Death Panel Truck: Me too. They’ve been shipped…. Arrival window is/was mid April – 8 May. Ran into Amazon reviews for this particular outfit… None have received their masks. Company has said in they were delivered by USPS. I’m not holding my breath. Heh, maybe I should be. Hate having to haggle with Pay Pal. Their dispute process is abominable…
Jackie
@Death Panel Truck: You might check with Jared. He may know where they’re at?
germy
General stupidity thread? Musk is a father.
Kent
This is one of the most fucking infuriating things about our American response to me. We shouldn’t have to be ordering our own personal supply from China. In Korea you can get masks in any pharmacy. The government has distributed billions. In Turkey they mail 10 masks per month to every family in the county.
Here? We are left to scramble to find fly-by-night Chinese firms on ebay and hope for the best.
It’s not even remotely easy to do the right thing, even if you want to
And don’t tell me about making your own. My mother is a seamstress. I’ve been trying to acquire the raw materials to make your own for her and 1/4″ elastic is basically nowhere to be found
Our local Costco won’t let you in the door without a mask. Good for them. But I wish it were easier. Even Costco doesn’t have masks for sale. If they can’t get them how are we to do so?
Litlebritdifrnt
I just blubbered my way through a show about Captain Tom, a WWII vet that has been walking lengths of his garden to celebrate his 100th birthday. He has so far raised £32 million for NHS charities. His single with Michael ball “You’ll Never Walk alone” went to Number 1 in the UK and he got a RAF flypast and a Blue Peter Gold Badge for his birthday. Cried for the whole half hour.
Amir Khalid
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Wearing a mask is encouraged here but not required. Some stores here won’t let you in without one, though. Most Malaysians do remember to wear theirs correctly.
Benw
@Elizabelle: meanwhile the WI state supreme court’s 5-2 conservative majority is preparing to strike down the state health secretary’s stay-at-home order (because of a lawsuit from the fucking Republican legislation!) with NO alternate plan in place. It is absolutely without question that this will kill people who otherwise would have stayed safe. Just to stick it to a Dem governor! Fuck these people
henrythefifth
GOP is the POD–Party of Death. I’ve seen an upswing of non-maskers out and about as well. My theory is that while they probably represent 25-30% of the population, they represent 75% of the people out there shopping like normal, bc they don’t GAF. While the rest of us only go out when necessary.
Calouste
@germy: I think that’s the “plan”. Hide the numbers in red states and then blame blue states who properly report the numbers. Of course, six months until the elections is way too long for that plan to survive reality.
germy
TriassicSands
This morning NPR reported that Washington State Republicans are suing Governor Inslee, saying his COVID-19 orders are unconstitutional.
The party of death.
When Republicans want to abridge civil liberties to fight terrorism, they claim the Constitution is not a suicide pact. Now, they are suing to turn it into a murder-suicide pact.
MJS
We all know Republican Governors are a stupid lot, but what are we to make of the Democratic Governor of New Jersey announcing that all beaches can be opened on June 1? Actual stupidity, or a tactic to quiet the baying, with the decision to be rescinded when cases continue to rise during May?
PenAndKey
I’m currently working and my wife is on maternity leave for at least the next month. Other than me working and picking up curbside pickup from our local grocery chain and Target we’re not interacting with anyone for the foreseeable future. And that was before the Wisconsin Supreme Court started making noises about their support for the state GOP lawsuit to “open the state back up” against the “tyranny of governor overreach” and how our stay-at-home orders are akin to the WWII Japanese-American internment camps.
I figure when they finally pull the trigger and strip the governor of his authority to issue such orders, and I have no doubt they will for blatantly partisan reasons like they’ve done since Walker lost his seat, it’s only going to get worse here. Too many rednecks around here seem to think that, because it hasn’t hit their little town of <1000 people yet, this is all an overreach. They honestly have no clue, and given how many experts are saying how bad this is, I’m convinced it’s willing ignorance. They’re in a death cult and won’t even admit it to themselves at this point.
Phylllis
@Leto: I live in the Columbia area now but still work in the school district in Tinytown where I was living (abt 80 miles NE of Chas). Very low reported rates of infection there, so I think the residents are lulled into a false sense of security. Folks act right offended if you step off from them for social distancing. I’m thinking of buying an old-fashioned walking stick to carry with me like my granddaddy to keep them at bay.
dmsilev
@tokyokie: One of my minions at work said he had luck ordering nitrile gloves from industrial suppliers like McMaster Carr. Looking at their website, they have some options with only modest lead times.
Cheryl from Maryland
@tokyokie: I don’t know if these are appropriate for your work, but I have ordered several pairs of band gloves, which I used for artifact handling at the Smithsonian. The tight-knit ones are especially good, and even the polyester/nylon ones can be washed in hot water and bleach. Like these —Gloves
Duane
@Death Panel Truck By now masks shouldn’t be so hard to get. More people would use a mask if they could find one.
germy
@Kent:
Hard to find elastic, but there’s other ways to make masks:
PenAndKey
The Wisconsin GOP is doing the same thing and we’ve got a hyper-partisan state level supreme court that’s going to let them. There’s no way they’re not all collaborating this idiotic strategy.
I’ve actually had people glare at me and scoff when they see me walk into the gas station near my work. It shouldn’t surprise me, the town I work in has less than 3500 people in it and despite the fact that there’s a hotbed of infections just a few miles up the road they seem to think the worst is behind us and that they don’t need to be cautious anymore.
ThresherK
OT: From Biden_Brigade, warning of the next fake accusation. SOmeone was on the ball and screencapped this person’s social media posts before they are scrubbed.
FlyingToaster (Chromebook)
I’ve been running numbers (the one thing I’m really good at; I used to tutor Business School students in Stats), and I’m predicting 2 million by December. Mostly because states that “reopen” will refuse to close, and don’t/won’t have any contact tracing at all.
Rural medical centers will basically succumb to this mess in June/July. Where the metropolitan West Coast and Northeast will have limited reopenings, the “real ‘mericans” will be dying at thousands/week.
germy
@Kent:
I visited my supermarket this morning during old folks’ hour. Everyone’s face was covered, including employees. People who didn’t have masks wore other face coverings, like scarves over their nose and mouth, bandanas, old shirts, etc.
DCrefugee
@Betty Cracker:
I was in a Sillysota convenience store/gas station *two weeks ago* and I was the only one ON THE PROPERTY wearing a mask, including the clerks behind the counter. Couldn’t leave fast enough.
I have family property in, ahem, southwest Georgia that I need to check on, but nahgahappen in the foreseeable future.
I’m very fortunate to work from home, anyway, and as long as my gigs hold out, I’m good. If all that falls down, which it may eventually, I’m of an age that I can start drawing retirement. But that’s not my first choice.
I got out yesterday for groceries — curbside delivery, thank FSM — but I’ll need to run some more errands for supplies over the weekend, before I can get hunkered back down to something approaching “normal.”
Since I have no desire to participate in the ongoing verification of Darwinism, it’s going to be a long, hot summer.
Amir Khalid
@Death Panel Truck:
If you buy online anything from China, it can be anybody’s guess, even in the best of times, when it will arrive. That has certainly been my experience, and I live closer to China than you do. In these times, I dare not buy from there.
Bill Arnold
@germy:
This, from that article, is just crazy:
How exactly is privacy justified for businesses that deliberately violate health guidelines? Especially since those violations will almost certainly will result in human deaths?
Tractarian
@ThresherK:
LOL – an alleged butt grab from back in the 70s? They’re gonna have to do a lot better than that to bring down Uncle Joe!
(NB: This is a joke. Groping is bad, mmkay.)
Emma from FL
@germy: That kid has a ready made “justifiable homicide” card. when he kills the arsehole.
Martin
I agree with John. Lockdown wasn’t the solution, it was the ‘evacuate the building’ step to make space for the solution, that never arrived. So now we’re all standing outside the building watching it burn, with the building manager wondering why nobody has bothered to go back inside. Even in March when lockdowns were grudgingly tolerated by the WH, there was no evidence that they would move onto the next phases. There’s been virtually no systemic expansion of hospital capacity, which is part of the solution, no coordination around testing, no contact tracing mobilization, no domestic travel restrictions.
The plan was, and remains, to let it burn through the population (even if they are unaware that is their decided plan), and if we find that contracting it offers limited immunity as is the case with most coronaviruses, then only a change in federal leadership will change the outcome be it in 2020 or 2024.
PeakVT
@germy: The problem with that video is that socks are pretty porous. That contraption needs to be lined with something much finer to be reasonably effective if the wearer coughs.
There is a diagram down in the thread of how to cut a sock so that a liner can be inserted.
Delk
I went outside today for the first time in 53 days. Went grocery shopping ?. 8 am with very few people. Everyone was wearing a mask. I got a few compliments on my plaid mask ?.
Emma from FL
@Kent: For what it’s worth, I saw an internet thing when the seamstress recommended using girls’ hair scrunchies. Stretch is perfect to reach ears.
JoyceH
I have pretty much resigned myself to the notion that 2020 will be ‘the year I stayed at home’ simply because SO many of my fellow citizens are selfish jerks.
And they’re following the leader. I noticed today that in that interview, Trump said he thought reopening could be done safely so long as people follow the guidelines – and then he said maintaining distance, and washing hands, and left out the ONE thing that would be most effective, because it’s the ONE thing he doesn’t want to do – wear a mask.
It just infuriates me because widespread mask wearing is the one thing we would have to do to get this virus under control.
“Models show that if 80 percent of people wear masks that are 60 percent effective, easily achievable with cloth, we can get to an effective R0 of less than one. That’s enough to halt the spread of the disease.”
That’s all it would take – that’s ALL it would TAKE! And too many of our fellow citizens won’t even do that!
germy
@Bill Arnold: They should be named and boycotted.
NYCMT
@MJS: We live in Queens but have beachblock property on Absecon Island near Atlantic City, and I think Murphy’s announcement is to draw the teeth of a strong protest from the shore community machers about a shutdown extending to summer. I actually drove down last weekend, since we’ve been shut inside of a two bedroom with a two year old and an eight year old since mid-March, and are planning to relocated to the Shore.
Downbeach was terrible. The weather was wonderful and people weren’t socially distancing worth a damn. A local real-estate agent invaded my personal space to hand me her goddamn card while I was waiting with my son for a deli sandwich. Death was gusting through Atlantic City but hadn’t really touched the wealthier people yet, and you could tell.
Lots of people on the block fled in March, from Manhattan, Philadelphia, Fort Lee. We stuck it out in Forest Hills despite the ambulances because we figured if we got sick the hospitals here would be a bit better.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@ThresherK: So she’s using The Onion as a source? Really? She does realize it’s, like satire, right?
germy
@Emma from FL: That’s what my wife has been using. She’s been making masks and mailing them to friends and family.
Bill Arnold
@PenAndKey:
Couldn’t find any graphs for Wisconsin on the state web site (?), just raw numbers, but here’s the NYTimes for the win:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/wisconsin-coronavirus-cases.html#cases
The new cases graph (and the 7 day moving average) is quite clearly on an upwards trend, so the Wisconsin State GOPi is, in fact, a death cult.
randy khan
In northern Virginia, mask compliance is very good in stores and other places where you’re likely to encounter people closer than 10 feet away. The local Safeway and Costco require masks for everyone who enters, and they have people at the door checking.
In my neighborhood, I’m seeing some masks but most of us just maintain distance (generally a good bit more than 6 feet), which by all accounts is sufficient.
Elizabelle
Make no mask wearing into the new smoking.
Not enough patrons in masks, and social distancing: you don’t shop there and tell them about it. Maybe by phone, later. And the staff must be in masks.
I realize that some of us live in one horse towns, and cannot make this stick. But it would seem that, as consumers, we have more power than we think to make the businesses make safety central to their operations.
Interesting tidbit from Phyllis, about the restaurant that shut down once it realized its own patrons were endangering everyone else’s safety.
I wish that this disease killed off the selfish, rather than just the vulnerable. And the unselfish are in harm’s way: healthcare workers and other essential workers are running a body count.
Steve Finlay
I posted the following comment on May 4:
“It won’t be long before one of the well-known wingnut extremists tells us that the USA’s higher death rate and case numbers prove that the USA responded to COVID much more successfully, wisely and effectively than other countries. We will be told that by killing off more people faster, the USA has rescued its economy faster, gotten rid of more unproductive “charges on the public purse” sooner, and made much better use of its resources than all those other countries (including mine) that pissed away their energy and money doing socialist stuff like saving lives.
Why not have a betting pool on who will say this first, and in which month? My money is on Bill O’Reilly in June, although I am not counting Sean Hannity out by any means.”
June? I was giving the right wing too much credit. Right NOW, Trump is only a few stupid phrases away from claiming that more American deaths is proof of his superior policy and stable genius. We might hear this argument before Sunday.
trollhattan
@Duane:
Yup. They’re being sucked into the TP Event Horizon–ZZOTTT
Subsole
@Elizabelle:
Life sentence.
Executions cost more than shipping them to ADX Florence and forgetting they exist. And we’ve also spent too much on these bastards already.
Also, no martyrs.
henrythefifth
@Death Panel Truck: Etsy has a lot of reusable cloth masks. I’ve ordered from several people and they arrived within a week. Just fyi.
Elizabelle
@randy khan:
Uh, no. Air conditioning. HVAC systems.
I would not count on social distancing alone except when outside, and at a distance greater than 6 feet.
kindness
I too am seeing a lot fewer mask wearers than previously. Thankfully no troglodites have given me shit for wearing mine.
Sab
Walking in the metropark with the dogs yesterday, wearing masks on us (not dogs.) Couple of young white men ( of course) drove by shrieking “go Trump” at us, because of our masks. It’s not easy to not think bad thoughts and wish ill wishes against such twerps. I hope their job search is long and uncomfortable.
Nicole
I just don’t understand the GOP thinking. Are they just hoping something will happen to turn things around and it won’t be so bad, or are they thinking… you know, I can’t even fathom where their heads are at, if indeed, they are anywhere. I just don’t get it.
I may have read it here, or on Twitter, but someone was speculating on how, after the Great Depression, the Dems had control of the House for several decades- really, until enough of the people who survived the Great Depression had died off for the GOP to get a shot at the House again. This is a Great Depression level event, with the power to turn people away from the GOP for decades (somewhat mitigated by FOX News, but there’s only so much spin even they can put on people dying). What is the GOP end game? Are they planning an autocratic takeover? Or, in the end, are they just being morons? I just don’t know.
Though, much as I appreciate Cuomo’s steady leadership in the past few weeks, the bloom is definitely off the rose. He’s been talking a lot about rethinking education, and partnered with the Gates Foundation, and his task force doesn’t include a single actual educator. I am not particularly hopeful at this point for the brighter future he keeps talking about if these are the people he’s lending his ear to.
HumboldtBlue
A sliver of sunlight amidst the cacophony of terrible news: Colorado Dems continue to kick ass. Hickenlooper has a huge lead over Gardner and Biden leads Trump 55-36.
Elizabelle
@Sab: I wish you could have filmed that. It seems film, and releasing it to the public, is one of the only things that changes behavior among the truly awful.
Fair Economist
@MJS: Outdoor activities like beaches are only debatably risky as long as services like food vendors are closed. It is certainly far less risky than congregating indoors, and the lower risk of outdoor activities is thought to cause much of the decline in respiratory infectivity in the summer.
Here in OC CA, even though the beaches were open until last week, we had almost stopped getting new cases from beach cities. Our cases are coming from poor areas, I suspect from people unable to distance and use hygenic measures.
hells littlest angel
Don’t worry. The virus will disappear once the weather gets warm, just like in Brazil.
Oh, wait …
Subsole
@FlyingToaster (Chromebook):
Yeah. Folks around here haven’t got clue one about what is barrelling down on us.
I feel like I’m getting shot at and all the folks next to me are trying to drag me out of cover.
Omnes Omnibus
@Nicole: The GOP as a whole has painted itself into a corner.
GregMulka
Saint Louis county and city will start opening on the 18th. Meanwhile, the county executive admits there aren’t enough tests and they won’t force businesses to mask their employees as he thinks the public will do a better job managing that than the county can. Currently, the numbers are flat for St. Louis county, not dropping. Saint Charles county, the neighboring white flight area allowed restaurants to open as long as they observed social distancing guidelines and customers ignored that because people are fucking idiots.
At least my CEO said there is no way we’re going back into the building this month.
Charluckles
@dmsilev:
My local store doesn’t have nitrile gloves in the health products section but strangely they are available in the auto parts and home tools section.
Bill Arnold
@Nicole:
Cuomo is about as center-right as it is possible for a Democrat in the Northeast (technically NY is mid-Atlantic) to be. He’s been competent and articulate re COVID-19, which contracts very well with the incompetent Federal response and the inarticulate (to be generous) D.JT. Trump press briefings/etc. But he’s still center-right.
randy khan
@Elizabelle:
I was referring to people outdoors, hence the mention of my neighborhood. I’m sorry (really – not being sarcastic) if I wasn’t clear on that point. As you say, indoors is different.
JMG
As of today, masks are required in Mass. anywhere people cannot easily be six feet or more apart. Which is easy to do when out in my suburban neighborhood, but less so in say, Somerville. Mask wearing was universal when I went to the supermarket and pharmacy on Monday. Beach openings are IMO inevitable, safe or not. People are going to go outside when it’s warm out come what may. Better to give them an outlet that can kind of be regulated than to risk having the social distancing policies collapse altogether. I mean, nobody MAKES you go to the beach. It can be avoided. Not so the pharmacy.
Gin & Tonic
@Fair Economist:
Where are you gonna pee? All well and good to stay six feet apart on the sand, but stay long enough and biology calls.
West of the Rockies
Right now all the Liberate protesters and Republican legislatures suing their governors are feeling all fat and sassy. Let’s see how they look in June.
Also, too, I am sick of the little bottom-of-the-screen pop-up ad I keep getting that features a monkey-faced old woman in a pink hat… The look of stupefied surprise on her face is irksome. That is all.
narya
I continue to go for runs–but early in the morning there’s almost no one out. I do pull up a neck gaiter as a mask if I see anyone a block or two away (and I can get outside w/o touching any public objects), and I’ve been seeing a fair number of mask-wearers. I had a contractor here today–both of us wore masks, and he’s even older than I am; I’m planning to renovate the kitchen. It wouldn’t start for three weeks (in Chicago), and I can essentially hand over the back of the condo to them so we wouldn’t interact . . . and I get anxious just thinking about it. It’s a very small, good, company, and, like I said, I can reduce interaction nearly entirely. But but but.
raven
We got our first CSA delivery ! Kohlrabi, asparagus, red leaf, peas and radishes!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Nicole:
Dems lost the House in the 1946 and 1952 elections for one Congress each time, but other than that held the House from 1931 to 1995.
raven
@Gin & Tonic: I pee when I go out to throw my bait!
Sab
@Kent: I have been using sports shoe laces that tie behind my head instead of elastic around my ears. My grocery carries those in the notions section. Also hair scrunchies work but you have to make the mask wider since scrumchies don’t stretch all that much. The mask almost has to reach your ears.
I really wish I hadn’t thrown out all my mother’s ancient cotton gloves when I cleaned out her house. She lived in pre-vaccination era. They had a reason beyond fashion for those gloves.
Bill Arnold
@Subsole:
You are being shot at, and some of the shooters are the folks next to you. Particularly the Unmasked. It’s more threatening behavior than if they were waving a loaded gun in your face. (Assuming they aren’t actually trying to kill you; some of them may well be trying to kill others. Early inheritances, opportunities to buy businesses or properties cheap, etc.)
evap
I made a bunch of masks with ties made from an old t-shirt. Then I repurposed elastic from a bunch of underwear in the rag box and some that I never wear. The repurposed elastic works really well and it’s covered in fabric and so softer and more comfortable than the elastic you buy in the fabric store. I sent masks to various family members and friends. It’s nice to have something useful to do!
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: I am told that everyone just pees in the ocean. They obviously did not go through whatever repressed WASPy toilet training I did.
Ruckus
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Isn’t it all of LA county? Or does Glendale have a more stringent order?
trollhattan
@Amir Khalid:
Am sure that’s the case. My mask buy looked like a typical Amazon purchase since they were listed as the vendor, and I was unprepared for the round-the-globe aspect. “Prime” time not so prime.
randy khan
@MJS:
New Jersey cases and deaths are on a pretty persistent downslope now. (The New York Times has pages for each state, which are really fantastic.) On top of that, the shore counties are among the least affected by the virus. So it’s not crazy to plan, at least tentatively, for some reopening. Also, New Jersey beaches have been at least partly open the whole time for exercise, etc., just not for sunbathing (although I can say as a native Jerseyan that if you want to sunbathe on a New Jersey beach before May 15, you probably are not going to have the slightest trouble maintaining social distance; in fact, people are likely to go out of their way to avoid you).
It’s worth remembering, in broad terms, that while we have a national pandemic, in a lot of ways we really have 50-100 separate parts of the country, each of which is being affected differently. Heck, even right around me, Virginia and Maryland are different from DC. So some states can and will open things up faster than others. You need to do it based on the science, though, not based on hopes ‘n’ prayers.
The Pale Scot
Parents, Mein Gott. I’m staying with my father. A guy who had a reputation for untangling International insurance company taxes others couldn’t. Now the bean counting logician recognizes the danger and the stupidity of opening up. But the lizard brain is infected with Fox syndrome so rationality gets shoved aside about “everybody wants money” “we have millions of tests” “I’m not going to live like this”
It’s like living with Smeagle
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: Glendale is mandatory all the time, anytime you’re outside.
Subsole
@Nicole:
There is no endgame.
These people have taken sweaty-handed neckbeard “You can’t tell me what to do anymore, moooommm!!” resentment and married it to that delightful melange of corporate culture that regards the nation as something to be stripped for parts, and cannot think past this month’s earnings statement.
They are basically an oroborous of garden slugs. No brain, no eyes, no heart, no spine, no sense and completely incapable of saying anything useful because their mouths are packed full of their own asses.
Mike in NC
Our local beaches reopened today “for exercise only” — no fishing or sitting or swimming. When I see a business with a REOPEN NC sign in the window, I make a mental note to not patronize them since they are pushing the Republican agenda.
Zzyzx
The analogy I use a lot is diets. You can get perfect behavior for a short period of time, but if you want something that is sustainable, you need to figure out a way of balancing what helps with what people will actually do. Otherwise, the first time someone cheats, they’re likely to go, “Oh well,” and then quit. So every time someone pushes to try to make the rules even stricter than the scientific consensus, I’m going to push back.
People are going to get this. The goal is still to slow the rate and keep the hospitals from getting overwhelmed. My personal rule is mask on (well when they arrive. Right now it’s a t-shirt covering my mouth/nose) any time I go into a store (basically once a week), but not on my early morning daily walk/runs on largely deserted streets, and do my absolute best to go into/cross the street when I see someone else on the sidewalk.
That feels like that’s the cultural norm in Seattle right now (almost everyone in my neighborhood masks inside stores, hardly anyone outside), and so far the numbers are showing that there hasn’t been a surge doing that, so for now it’s good. If the case loads go up, behavior will change, but for now, this seems to both be working and be somewhat sustainable.
Nicole
@Bill Arnold: Oh yeah, I know, and I was so pleasantly surprised to hear him talking like an actual Democrat a few weeks back, but the proof is in the pudding, and his task forces certainly seem to be same old Cuomo. Bummer. I was hoping this was causing a sea change for him, but no such luck.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I am off work tell Jun 1st, at lest. The way my boss talks none of the managmeent wants to die and I am getting my unemployment finally. Real America can go to it’s Mask of Red Death Ball and blood bath for all I care, the assholes.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike in NC: Isn’t swimming exercise?
Fair Economist
@Gin & Tonic: Bathrooms are a problem, and perhaps it would be a good idea to hire an aggressive cleaning crew. But the numbers here indicate we can control COVID with open beaches. The problems lie elsewhere.
Frankensteinbeck
@Nicole:
“Fuck you.” That’s it. You can get into the weeds of telling them what they don’t want to hear, an entire philosophy of hate and cruelty, racism, yadda yadda, but it all combines to “Fuck you.” It’s not logic. It’s spite.
There isn’t one. They’ve been told that the end game is an America where whites are not in charge, that they may live to see it, and that there is nothing that will stop that, so they’re in scorched earth mode. There is no unified strategy, and most of them don’t have a strategy at all, they’re just being angry assholes.
Ruckus
@Mike S:
Can’t admit they were wrong about anything, in their all for one, Me! world if they were ever to admit being wrong it would invalidate every thing else they stand for. They are after all completely committed, or at least should be.
Fair Economist
@Nicole: Cuomo is an evil man, just not evil enough to tolerate open mass murder. I am glad he isn’t but he is not going to be helpful outside of this kind of crisis.
Brachiator
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
A mask around your neck is just stupid.
@MomSense:
I think it is easier to just say “masks nearly all the time” rather than try to come up with exceptions and exclusions.
However, I think that I might be less concerned about people not wearing masks if I am out in public and people are maintaining social distance. The social distance is key.
But situations like this I think are foolhardy. In Dallas, masks are recommended, but not required.
They are straight up lying about doing the best they know. And in this situation, wait staff have to get close to customers. These idiots are gambling with the lives of their staff and customers.
Omnes Omnibus
@Zzyzx: This is more or less where I am – conceptually and behaviorally. I wear a mask in stores and when meeting clients in my office (yes, somehow my services are considered essential), but I don’t wear it while riding my bike (alone) or in my car, etc.
Gravenstone
@Bill Arnold: They proved their death cult status when they prevented the governor from delaying our primaries last month. They’re all about obtaining, expanding and abusing power.
Delk
I saw a couple of businesses advertising that they sell masks. One was a phone store. Don’t remember the other one. So if you are looking for masks keep your eyes open when you are out and about.
Doc Sardonic
@Kent: Strips of T-shirt work well. Has some elasticity and if you cut it 1/2 to 1” wide strips and give it a good pull holding both ends will roll right up into a stitchable tube*.
*For someone with the applicable skill set, which ain’t me. I have long hair and a good supply of hair ties.
Lapassionara
@GregMulka: I hope our Schnucks will still follow its current protocol after the 18th, with employees masked and 6 am limited to seniors.
I have a compromised immune system. I think I should carry a bell, or something, like lepers in the Bible had to do, chanting “unclean, unclean.” Then maybe people would keep their distance.
Subsole
@Lapassionara:
I’ve lived in some places where they’d be more likely to lay hands on you and pray the leprosy out…
Gravenstone
@Charluckles: if you live near a rural area, they’re often available at farm supply stores. Milking parlor workers have to wear them.
Kent
@germy: Oh, I agree, there are creative ways to make masks. My point is that in the richest country in the history of civilization we shouldn’t have to fucking make our own. The government should be air-dropping them like confetti.
Subsole
@Zzyzx: That’s a really good analogy. Gonna try it with my folks. My mom’s a health nut, so hopefully it resonates where my prior attempts fell flat.
PenAndKey
Rope is cheap, and I honestly don’t care how much it costs at this point. Pay enough to do it right, because if we so much as cause Trump or his friends to get a stubbed toe walking into the court room they’ll be screaming martyr anyway. I’m sick of seeing people from my grandparents generation who were known bad actors during the Nixon and Reagan administrations being able to grift and weasel to this day. I’d rather pay the premium to make sure we never have to deal with any of these malignant traitors again
From their home offices because they were following stay-at-home protocols, no less. They’re not even subtle about their you need to go back to work so I’m not inconvenienced tactics.
Doc Sardonic
@Gin & Tonic: wade out into the largest natural toilet ever concieved of by a an omnipotent schizoid supreme being?????
tokyokie
@dmsilev: Thank-you very much! I just ordered some that will be here next week; I probably have enough on hand to get through this weekend. And maybe the nursing home will have been resupplied by then. I work as the front-door screener and don’t have a lot of contact with the residents (except the smokers I have to let out several times a day), but having an N-95 mask and face shield (both of which I wipe down and reuse) as well as gloves, I feel as safe as I can be. The mask and face shield are my own, but I’ve been worried about the gloves. Thank-you once again. This site is more than a place to let off steam about proto-fascist dumbshits, it’s a community, and some juicer always seems to have a good answer in times like these.
Kent
Kind of like the dumbass motorcyclists who used to wear their motorcycle helmet on the knee to say “fuck you” to the mandatory helmet law.
Zzyzx
@Omnes Omnibus:
I also try to think of the metric seconds around people. If I’m closer than I like for one or two seconds, I’m not going to stress. If it continues…
The one time I freaked out was on my run yesterday. There’s one 5 block stretch that’s on a narrow trail that’s usually empty. Yesterday morning though, I saw that there was a walker in front of me (on an extreme shoulder) and two bicyclists coming the other way. So I slowed down to a walk (I was almost to my turn anyway) but then a third bike rider showed up and decided that he needed to pass the other two.
It’s not just that he couldn’t wait. It’s not even that he went within 6 inches of me. It’s that as he flew by me, he felt compelled to turn to me and scream, “HI!” If there’s ever a chance to catch it from outdoor activity, that was it. I was furious the rest of my run.
Ruckus
@Cheryl from Maryland:
You may be far more reliant on others but in reality we are all reliant on those around us to act in a civilized manor because we live in and among everyone else. The virus just makes that more highly visible and obvious.
Subsole
@Kent: That’ll teach us to not be born millionaires…
I mean, it’s sure taught me.
frosty
In the spirit of John’s post title I’ve been trying to to rephrase Churchill’s statement to Neville Chamberlain to fit Trump. This is what I’ve come up with:
”You were given the choice between an economic depression and mass death. You chose death. You will have a depression.”
Needs work. Not quite as stark as “You will have war.”
Elizabelle
@Brachiator: That’s insane about Hillstone, etc.
Time for folks to make up Grim Reaper and Masque of the Red Death costumes and hang around near those restaurants. It could get results.
Sure Lurkalot
@Kent: The mask I make is the duck bill type (patterns and instructions many places…I’ve used the ones at CraftPassion.com) which have casings to thread through whatever you use to attach it to your head. I use 45″ shoe laces. The page shows different ways to thread (I like the upside down way) because you can easily untie the top to let it down during those walks when you really are alone and can take it off for a while).
I’m thinking of doing a pleated one with casings as well for variety.
BTW, I’m a terrible seamstress but slowly improving!
You can get laces on Amazon in 2-7 days.
Omnes Omnibus
@PenAndKey: And I would rather not have state sanctioned judicial killings. Thank you very much.
Kent
I think their lizard brains recognize that they are incapable of actually effectively dealing with the pandemic themselves. That it is just too hard and requires things that they don’t believe in like effective public health care.
So they are just giving up and hoping that they can blame whatever happens next on Democrats.
I don’t think it will work. But then I’m always surprised by how stupid the American voter can be.
Ruckus
@Kent:
Use material to make a tie, rather than elastic. That’s what I do and it’s more comfortable.
Nicole
@Frankensteinbeck: I hope… that you’re right, actually, because a lack of a long-term plan on their part is the only thing likely to save the nation. I just don’t see how they GOP politicians can’t look at this and see that there is no way they hold onto power after six figures’ worth of Americans die due to governmental negligence.
Unless they have some plan for massive voter fraud, I don’t get it. As best I understand, current methods of ratfuckery is only effective when vote tallies are close.
Or thinking they’ll shut down elections. But even that depends on the virus traveling at a rate that works in their favor, calendar-wise.
But, yeah, the current crop of GOPers aren’t the ones who saw FOX News as a useful idiot; they’re the ones who actually grew up on it and are now the idiots themselves, so maybe, come November, we will still have a Republic, if we can keep it.
cain
@Death Panel Truck:
Wait till you get a note that says “seized by the feds” with a personal note of thanks from Jared Kushner.
MJS
@randy khan: The problem is, come mid-June or thereabouts, they aren’t NJ’s beaches. They’re the beaches for a large swath of the Northeast, including Philadelphia. There will be no social distancing on the beach I’ve been going to for the last few years, Long Beach Island, because it’s too narrow. Other wider NJ beaches, like Ocean City, have relatively large hotels near the beach and a large summer population which will also make social distancing difficult.
Brachiator
@Kent:
RE: A mask around your neck is just stupid.
Great analogy!
I remember some people claiming that they could ride a motorcycle better without a helmet. And I would think, “Let’s see. Professionals ride faster and perform daring stunts while wearing a helmet. So, if you need to be without a helmet in order to ride, you must be a mediocre motorcycle rider and problem more of a danger to the average person.”
Kent
Oh, I’m not arguing with you. I know there are a bazillion patterns and tutorials online and on YouTube. And people are being very creative.
I’m just saying that 3-months into this pandemic we shouldn’t have to be fending for ourselves in this manner. There should be pallets of free masks everywhere, in a country this wealthy and industrialized.
Bill Arnold
@Brachiator:
My company boycott-list is growing longer. (2 years is typical, but in this case, forever.)
Omnes Omnibus
@Zzyzx: Speaking of… I am going to out for my ride now while I am less likely to run into others.
PenAndKey
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s all well and good, but as far as I’m concerned we’re in the middle of a revaunchist civil war and I’m sick and tired of proactively “taking the high ground” while I watch the
Neo-ConfederacyGOP murdering thousands of my fellow citizens. There comes a time where the choice is either remove the problem, permanently, or accept that we’ll be dealing with it forever. If you can guarantee that a guilty verdict will result in life without even the potential for an early release I’d be right there with you.This is all beside the point though, because the chances of an actual truth and reconciliation committee or trials happening is slim to none as long as the GOP maintains it’s stranglehold on the Senate. They’re going to get away with what can arguably be described as treason without real consequences beyond the ballot box, so I may as well do more than pretend I’d settle for them getting a “three meals and a cot” treatment.
Ruckus
@PenAndKey:
They think they are superior, which is why they are republicans. They continue to conflate superior and stupid. They do both start with an S.
Bill Arnold
@Omnes Omnibus:
Cars typically have a cabin air filter (and a recirculate setting) and are probably[1] better than a mask if the windows are closed.
[1]Don’t know for sure, but definitely car interiors have less dust and pollen than they used to in my memory.
Subsole
@PenAndKey: Fair enough. I agree we cannot let these people Iran-Contra their way outta this.
bemused
@Nicole:
Minnesota republicans are pressuring Gov Walz to open up state more. Texas governor admitted to Texas legislators that re-opening would bring more covid-19 cases. Seems to me that people taking restrictions seriously aren’t going to be tempted to throw their masks away and rush out to restaurants, movie theaters, etc. Do republicans not realize it’s their voters that are the most likely to go hog wild pretending there is no virus threat and they are going to be killing off their own base?
Zzyzx
@Omnes Omnibus:
It’s amazing how much easier it is if I leave at 6:15 AM than if I do at 6:30-6:45.
Miss Bianca
@HumboldtBlue: Yeah, but as I keep explaining to people – Hickenlooper isn’t actually the Dem nominee yet. And won’t be unless and until he wins the Democratic Senate primary, which is June 30. As opposed to the Presidential primary, which was in March. As opposed also to the Democratic Senate *caucuses*, which were also in March. Andrew Romanoff won the caucus nomination, so he’s in the primary. Hick decided to go the petition route, and he got enough signatures to get on the ballot so he’s also in the primary. And unless enough Dems decide to vote for him in the primary, Hick ain’t going to be the nominee. Got that? Sure, it’s a wonderful system we’ve developed here entirely!
So those polls are kinds bullshit unless a). they’re also measuring how Andrew Romanoff would do in a match-up against Gardner, or b). they’re an indication that there’s enough popular support for Hick to win the primary.
Zzyzx
@Bill Arnold: I saw someone driving with a mask on the other day and the reason why i knew that was because they also had glasses and they were going 5 MPH because they couldn’t see.
10/10 for effort but, no, please don’t.
bemused
@PenAndKey:
They believe virus hasn’t hit their small towns yet but they don’t really know, do they? I suppose they think no symptoms, no virus, good to go.
PenAndKey
@Ruckus: I grew up around these yahoos. It always floors me how many honestly buy into the “we’re farmers, by God, and the only TRUE patriots in the country” rhetoric. They see their ignorance not as something to be overcome, but as a mark of pride and a tribal identifier. I honestly don’t think anything will ever convince them otherwise and the fact that they have majority power, despite a minority population, baked into our Constitutional framework is a very big part of why I fear the country will taught in future history classes as a failed democracy.
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
A lot of goods are mostly or all produced in China any more. At least for the US goods. If it’s not available off the shelf, it most likely will come from China.
Bill Arnold
@PenAndKey:
Wood chippers(slight mod required) are less wasteful[1], more humane if used head-first, and produce nice compostable results.
[1] when used in batch mode to minimize fuel use, OK?
Omnes Omnibus
@PenAndKey: You go ahead and be you. I continue to be opposed to the death penalty as are most first world nations.
Ksmiami
@Omnes Omnibus: They only see government as a way to enrich themselves and punish enemies not to actually Govern or make things better so they can’t actually do anything to ameliorate the situation and deserve no less than heads on pikes.
Elizabelle
@Zzyzx: The eyeglass fogging! You made me laugh.
Ksmiami
@PenAndKey: The only good Nazi is a dead Nazi
James E Powell
@Nicole:
What Republicans excel at is channeling the anger of white people and directing it away from themselves or their policies. This is all they are doing. They don’t know where it leads, but they really don’t have any other strategy that will work for them.
Brendan in NC
I just got told by my boss that I’m scheduled to start working at the office around Memorial Day…Yet I don’t see people modeling the behaviors that will allow us to do that….
Bill Arnold
@Omnes Omnibus:
(To be clear, I want something like Nuremberg trials with life sentences; the problem is that US politics won’t allow such things, though economic collapse will be focusing a lot of peoples’ attention.)
How would you propose preventing future instances of such large-scale mass murder? Let’s say, e.g., another pandemic, except deadlier, and people in power who would choose mass death?
I don’t actually trust the American political system to not elect similar people 4 or 8 years from now even if the Republicans are swept from national-level office in November 2020. Though by that time, global heating will be starting to kick in for real with e.g. crop failures.
Ksmiami
@Omnes Omnibus: At the rate Trump and his merry bunch of murderers are going, it won’t be state sanctioned – just a storming of the bastille part deux
Omnes Omnibus
@Bill Arnold: Are there no prisons? If you really what to have the conversation, are you willing to pull the lever on the trap door of the gallows? If not, then you shouldn’t ask someone else to do it for you. Before I went in the the army, I had a good number of sit and thinks about the circumstances in which I could take someone’s life or order someone else to do the same. I do not think I could do an execution; I won’t ask someone to do it for me.
Ksmiami
@Omnes Omnibus: But you’re assuming a state sanctioned approach where I see civil collapse –
Geoduck
I also vote in favor of strips of cloth used as ties for masks, instead of elastic around the ears. A lot less uncomfortable.
DaveinME
@MomSense: I saw the same thing closer to Portland. The majority of people entering corner stores, grocery stores etc., had no masks. Even worse small stores aren’t having their employees wear ANYTHING. I’m usually happy with our state and it’s general level of sanity, but the dumbfuckery has ramped up like mad.
Did you hear about this:
https://www.sunjournal.com/2020/05/01/sunday-river-brewing-owner-gives-in-to-state-after-licenses-seized-but-restaurant-remained-open-late-friday/
He finally relented when faced with the consequences, but sweet baby jeebus, WTF is wrong with people!
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Brachiator:
Here’s the thing – restaurants are a unique problem. Margins are so thin that they can’t open at half capacity, and people aren’t going to spend good money on meal tickets to be served by masked people wearing gloves. If we had a national financial response that geared at the lowest end and told the big bond and equities holders to “fuck off and enjoy your haircut this time – it has to trickle up”, restauranteurs and bar owners wouldn’t be so pressured to say and do dumb things.
I really do understand- they’re desperate, the financial ghouls never go away, and if they don’t open up every single one of their hopes and dreams die.
EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.
We’re being sacrificed for finance.
zhena gogolia
@Zzyzx:
I appreciate your calmness.
I have not gone in a store since March 13. I’m working at home, getting deliveries left on the porch, and go for walks on a pretty deserted road where it’s easy to keep distanced. Two different friends, out of the goodness of their hearts, have made cloth masks for my husband and me — he wears one when he goes to the office, although there’s no one there. I assume I’ll start going to the store and will wear a mask. I think it’s pretty standard around here, from what I hear.
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus: I am usually against the death penalty. Even for the surviving Boston Marathon Bomber. And for John Muhammed, the Beltway Sniper (who was executed, by Virginia). Would never be selected for a “death penalty qualified” jury.
But WRT Trump or Jared or — especially — Mitch McConnell? Hand me that rope, or that gun. No prob. I would volunteer. They are that bad. Crimes against humanity. Mass murder, that could have been prevented.
Sure Lurkalot
@Kent: I totally agree with you.
I’m up there in years and remember Johnson’s full court press to clean up America and keep it beautiful with a good level of buy-in from both industry and individuals. And even though I was single digit young, I remember seeing much less litter. For all of our faults, we used to have some sense of country.
Bill Arnold
@Omnes Omnibus:
There are prisons. How do we get the perpetrators of this response that was more concerned with wealth and greed and power than with minimizing death, into those prisons so that they can’t repeat their evil the next time such a choice comes around?
sdhays
I went to the local Wegmans last night and easily half of the employees weren’t wearing masks. I’m not in a state that is “reopening”, but I’m still shocked at the complete failure of leadership there. Easily a larger percentage of the customers were wearing masks than the employees.
Uncle Cosmo
I have one pair of blue nitrile gloves that I was given for free in an auto parts store last fall. I’d just bought a front turn signal light & the instructions for replacing it specified not to touch it with bare hands – halogen lamps get very hot & if there’s any dab of oil on the glass it can crack them. When I expressed some doubt as to how I was going to manage this, the salesman fished the gloves out from under the counter: Use these. (NB it was an easy procedure & now I wash those gloves each time I come back from the outer wilderness.)
PenAndKey
I am. Why? Because if the trajectory continues we aren’t looking at anything short of violent revolution within a few generations. If we have a reckoning by trial and the death penalty is an option for the guilty I would gladly put my name in the pool to do the job. I wouldn’t have said that before this virus, but at this point we have a death cult posing as a political party and I’ll be damned if I let them get away with a slap on the wrist for the deaths they’re still causing right now. Sometime the only way to save lives is to take some. And yes, I legitimately feel we have reached that point. Now we face the choice of deciding if we want to do so by rule of law or wait until the starving and dying masses decide who dies for us. History is very clear that it’s going to be one or the other.
mrmoshpotato
Yup. Spot on.
JaneE
Some of the smaller CA counties are opening up in spite of (or to spite) Gov. Newsom. FWIW, we on the backside have not had a new case in our county for a week, but we still have a half dozen tests outstanding. I would like to see at least three weeks with no new cases before I consider doing anything but stay at home. The county just north of us increased their self-isolation period from 7 to 10 days. If we open up we get tourists, easily twice the number of people as locals, and almost every one of them will be from somewhere that is still producing new cases. I assume the people I see walking together without masks are members of the same household, but that may be an erroneous assumption. Still, no new cases in a week is good news.
Zzyzx
@zhena gogolia: We all have to decide on our individual level of comfort.
I know that the R0 of this is between 2 and 2.5 which means that, while it’s easier to catch than the flu, it’s not measles. Yes, you can get unlucky and someone could sneeze at the wrong time or something, but for the most it’s being around an infected person for a long period of time.
It’s a fine line to walk between being cautious about this without falling into complete paranoia, especially because our brains are awful at understanding a threat that isn’t bad until it ramps up, when it can then become dangerous.
Also, if I’m being honest, it’s easier to be calm in WA where our curve is on the way down after a peak that never was so high and knowing that our company plans to have us work from home probably until 2021; they’re mailing us masks in case we do have to go in.
Jinchi
Here’s hoping you’re wrong on that prediction. Although Trump will still be giving himself an A+, since he rates himself against the “worst case scenario” of 2 million Americans dead.
Don’t forget to thank him.
mrmoshpotato
Oh there are so many cruel things that these fuckers deserve American Nuremberg trials for. This sabotage of the CDC and resulting death toll is just the latest. And we can’t forget the Muslim ban, kidnapped brown kids and desperate parents deported.
Ksmiami
@Elizabelle: when he was falsely elected, I told my friends and family that There were only two outcomes for Trump et al: jumpsuits or scaffolding and it’s looking more like the latter.
Jinchi
A Trump supporter who doesn’t want to stop going to museums?! This is clearly a Russian plant.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bill Arnold: That’s a different fucking question, isn’t it?
mrmoshpotato
@?BillinGlendaleCA: “I’m wearing my glasses!” “But they’re useless on top of your head.”
CapnMubbers
@Kent: I hate read “Are they all yours?”, blog of “Pastor” Steven Anderson’s wife in Arizona. (They are up to 11 children so far). Recently she posted tips for refusing to wear a mask at Costco, since we cannot be compelled by the store to mask—freedom and all that. She advocates claiming that you cannot wear a mask for health reasons! and that the store cannot ask the reason why.
Sab
@Elizabelle: I am always against the death penalty. Don’t kill in my name. They might be innocent. If not let them sit in jail and contemplate their past bad actions.
Nothing in my life has made me rethink these hypothetical positions. I had a close friend whose brother was murdered in a really stupid pointless hate crime. Victim was an amazing, talented wonderful person. Couldn’t get anyone to sign on to the hate crime aspect and they were busy and the defendant got 20 years for a glaring premeditated murder. Just because he was such a worthless doofus that they couldn’t prove intent because he had the mental capacity of a cockroach. If ever this was the case but it didn’t happen.
I will never be pro- capital punishment. It kills the wrong people. Let the others rot in jail, after they have had their appeals. I am big on appeals. We fuck up all the time on convicting even more than on pleading down. Last I heard we don’t try, so acquitals are a fantasy also.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ksmiami: @PenAndKey: Okay, you guys seem to have written off the whole electoral process. I have not. If we are in MadMaxLand, I would assume that most of us are already dead. Until we are, I plan on maintaining my stance.
ETA: I am not really interested in debating violence in the street fantasies. I wasn’t when it was TenguPhule and Goku, and I am not now.
Ksmiami
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m actually anti death penalty in criminal cases, but Nazi death cults are on a very different moral plain.
@Omnes Omnibus:
Jinchi
I’m pretty sure the store can still tell you to leave.
Just like they would if you claimed having a violent allergy to wearing pants.
RSA
@Cheryl from Maryland:
Good luck with your husband’s treatment! I’m in Maryland, and one thing I’m glad of is Hogan’s executive order about face coverings in public buildings. I don’t have to depend on people’s common sense if I need to head to the store–it’s the law.
RSA
@Kent:
We are the richest and most powerful country on this planet, in all of human history, and we’re watching youtube videos about how to cut up a sock to make a face mask. It’s unbelievable.
rikyrah
I am with you, Cole.
they can open up whatever the Phuck they want.
It ?won’t?be?me?
I went out Monday. I will be going out Friday. I don’t intend to leave the car.
planetjanet
@Zzyzx: Once I put my mask on, it stays on until I get home. So yes, I drive with my mask. My assumption is that the mask is contaminated as soon as I get near other people. If I take is off and put in in my pocket, it just spreads the contagion. I take it off and leave it in the garage until I can decontaminate it. I am not bringing anything into the house if I can avoid it.
rikyrah
@germy:
???????
RSA
@planetjanet: I live in an apartment building and the hallways are considered public areas, so I wear a mask going to my car. If I’m being strict, though I’m not always, I’ll drive with it on.
Brachiator
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Restaurants are not unique. Many businesses will have trouble surviving in a post pandemic world. Who is going to go to a movie theater? Will sporting statements fill up again?
Some cruise lines announced that they were going to start up again. They also depend heavily on retirees. Are older people going to be foolish enough to sail on death cruises?
Supermarkets are going to find it hard to survive if they have to permanently restrict the number of customers and continue to reduce hours so that they can clean and disinfect the premises.
And in California and elsewhere businesses have been working with state and local governments to try to come up with rules that they might be able to live with.
Earlier, Los Angeles county officials suggested that restaurants would have to have staff wear masks and gloves and use disposable single use menus. Seating would have to be reduced and other measures taken. You know what? Restaurant owners did not object. There were also recommendations to permanently relaxing rules relating to alcohol takeout.
I have no idea what this means, or how it can be turned into workable fiscal policy.
A lot of people claim desperation. But few answers come out of panic. The world has to change to adjust to the pandemic. Shit, we have done it before, and even have tools available that earlier societies did not have when they were trying to recover from plagues.
Subsole
@Jinchi: The Klaus Barbie museum, perhaps?
Wolvesvalley
@Kent: I have been using Scunci hair elastics. Three per side, knotted end to end, work pretty well. But I’ve been attaching them by hand because so far I haven’t figured out a way to make them cooperate under the sewing machine foot. Some people might find the knots annoying.
I did find 10 yards of 3mm elastic cord in stock at Amazon recently. It’s supposed to arrive on Sunday.
The Pale Scot
@Gin & Tonic: Pee? Take a swim.
Other MJS
@JoyceH: I saw that article and my jaw dropped. I hope it gets lots of attention.
Brachiator
@PenAndKey:
When the new civil war starts, what will separate you from the asswipes who stormed a state capital screaming about liberation?
mrmoshpotato
@ThresherK: Did…..did this woman just take The Onion seriously? SMH.
Another Scott
@randy khan: In my bit of NoVA, J and I are among maybe 5% of people wearing masks outside when we walk our dog Ellie. People are generally good about keeping 6′ away, but one never knows when a bunch of kids are going to suddenly ride by from behind, or dogs will want to get acquainted and leashes will suddenly get tangled and etc., and that 6′ limit will quickly be broken.
It’s a bit of a pain, but it seems much safer to wear a mask all the time when there’s any chance at all of meeting someone. Once one gets infected, it’s kinda too late. :-(
Stay safe, everyone.
Cheers,
Scott.
Dog Mom
@sdhays: Hmmm, not sure where you are at, but I am in Wegman’s home town. I was at the flagship store this past weekend and a couple of the other stores in weeks past. I think I saw one employee without a mask. They have closed all the food bars and moved shelves and displays to provide more room, added distance markers on the floor and changed doors to an entrance and exit. Nearly all customers had a face covering of some sort. I was pretty surprised by that.
Another Scott
@frosty: Excellent, but maybe make the last sentence, “You will have both.” Probably doesn’t scan as well as Churchill, but I think the rhythm is better.
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
@Zzyzx:
Being able to work from home greatly helps reduce risk of exposure. And it is very good that your company is providing masks. Very forward thinking.
Duane
@The Pale Scot: With the number of people that won’t wear a mask or distance properly, I’m not sure they aren’t peeing in the pool, too.
Another Scott
@Zzyzx: One of the guards at work died of COVID-19. The story we were told was that he most likely caught it from a previously infected other worker at our place of employment. Since the guard’s usual interactions with other employees is simply to look at their badge, maybe flip it over, say “Hello Mr./Ms. X, have a nice day”, it makes me wonder how much interaction is really required for transmission and infection.
He was 63. :-(
Yes, it not like measles. But it is very infectious. It’s prudent to be careful.
Cheers,
Scott.
PenAndKey
Oh, I’m sorry, are we supposed to pretend that entrenched minority rule leading to pandemics and starvation aren’t a historic trigger point for violent revolutions and societal collapse now? You think I want to live in a society that’s at risk of a civil war if current trends persist? Or is your issue that I said I’d be willing to serve as executioner if a lawful trial gave a death penalty verdict for crimes against humanity and mass murder? Because, if so, too bad. If you think that makes me a wannabe Jacobin that’s your problem.
J R in WV
@CapnMubbers:
Oh, well, that’s OK, then, Don’t wear a mask, and go somewhere else to shop, because EVERYONE who comes into this store must wear a mask. Thanks for stopping by, hope you find everything you need, SOMEWHERE ELSE!
Bill Arnold
@Omnes Omnibus:
To be clear, your’s is the correct stance. I fear what societal breakdown will bring, and how not-improbable it is. Also we have been relatively free of political assassination and death squads in this country, remarkably so given that a decent (low end) sniper rifle can be had for less than $1000,,. and it may not stay that way if there are millions of relatives of people who died because of the willful incompetence of the D.J.. Trump administration. So pushing vigorously (non-violently, but not necessarily politely) against the GOP death cult is in order, to minimize the probability of such outcomes both by giving hope and reducing the net level of misery.
Brachiator
@PenAndKey:
I’ve been around a long time, and the people I’ve known who talked the biggest game about revolution invariably were cowards who ran the other way when shit went down. Or they were unreliable and could not be counted on for much of anything.
However, I note that many Balloon Juice posters have remarkable skills and talents. So, perhaps you are a stone cold revolutionary waiting for your opportunity.
If you are a real, committed Jacobin, that might end up being your problem. Things never work out for them in the end.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: I am just going to point out there is only one death penalty prescribed in the Constitution. And the circumstances for getting that conviction are well spelled out. Otherwise the US government and the states have no business prescribing the irreversible penalty.
J R in WV
@Ksmiami:
So…
This amounts to 3 x WW II up to 4.5 x WW II deaths. We are so Fucked!
PenAndKey
@Brachiator: oh FFS, get over yourself. Pointing out that a plausible outcome of the GOPs conduct isn’t a happy ending, that our system of government has a major weakness that enables said conduct and it’s on track to get worse as the population imbalance between states continues to amplify, and also saying that I consider their conduct so bad that if they faced a trial and I was asked to pull the lever (a statement only made because others tried to throw the “don’t say they should die unless you’re willing to be their executioner” line) I’d have no qualms doing so isn’t wishing for a revolution. What’s your issue here, that not everyone shares your absolutist view on the death penalty, even for treasonous conduct which actually does call for the death penalty as punishment in our own laws? Do you also think the Nazis who were executed after their trial should have just gotten a prison sentence? Because in case you haven’t noticed, the malignant sociopaths in charge of the US right now are on track to kill over 100k of us on the low end, and we’re already well past the crimes against humanity level here.
Comrade Mary
Question for y’all who are using nitrile gloves or yearning for nitrile gloves: why are they important to you?
I can see why medical personnel, food service workers, and other people who work with the public for several hours a day use them. Gloves + hand sanitizer frequently applied on top is a better choice than hand sanitizer frequently applied to bare hands, because that way lies hamburger mitts.
But when I go out for a brief shopping trip, I wash my bare hands before I leave, put on sanitizer before putting my mask on in the outdoors line-up, re-apply sanitizer before I enter the store, go briskly and carefully through my shopping, and sanitize again as I leave. Hands, mask and fridge/freezer groceries all get cleaned or sanitized as soon as I get home. (Room temperature supplies sit in a safe corner and think about their sins for 2-3 days before I touch them again.)
I never skip my mask, but I don’t see any additional protection from gloves for my brief trips to the outside world. I don’t breathe through my hands, so they’re not at direct risk, and gloves (if I had them) would be one more thing to manage and potentially get wrong for no real advantage that I can see.
I know you’re all smart people, so what am I missing?
randy khan
@MJS:
For what it’s worth, I was a Jersey kid and go to the Shore every summer. Even on LBI (where I went as a kid), there’s generally been enough space for social distancing on the ocean side, and the bay side isn’t really beachy; there certainly is plenty of space in Cape May, where I go these days, in Wildwood and on the Monmouth County beaches. (I can’t speak to Ocean County in general, as I never really went to any beaches between Manasquan and LBI.)
I think we will, in any event, see different behavior than in the past. People naturally crowded towards the water, but my expectation is that they will not do that for a while, and will use more of the actual beach.
dopey-o
@Bill Arnold: there will come a time when we will want the entire list of the stores and companies who just can’t wait till it’s safe to re-open. Big searchable spreadsheet posted on the internet. Maybe an app linked to Apple / Google maps. I want to know who my friends are.
if I survive.
dopey-o
@Omnes Omnibus: STOP IT! No sane person really wants executions, it’s a freaking rhetorical device used to emphasize the horrifying extremities of the the current madness. I
My mother taught me in the 50s of the moral vacuity of the death penalty. I know murderers serving life sentences in prison and I am glad they are still alive. I taught my children the Church’s stance on the death penalty and nuclear weapons.
And I don’t mind an angry outraged poster giving a verbal fillip to his / her despair. Please light up or leave me alone.
Brachiator
@PenAndKey:
This is probably a dead thread. Sorry I missed this comment.
Thing is, I never offered my opinion about the death penalty.
artem1s
It’s not surprising that the usual suspects are trying to control the message. They’ve had a lot of practice protecting their favorite babies. Tobacco, Guns, CFCs, leaded gas, rolling coal, homophobia, climate change denial, anti-vaccine, misogyny, etc, etc, etc. And they are really good at yelling squirrel when they don’t want us looking at the messes they create. They tried Reade. They will be back to screaming about their favorite boogie men next. Caravans of brown people invading out borders, poor whiddle white men who can’t tailgate, malls every where closed for business (oh the huge manatee!). Typically there is an upswing in coverage from the media (both sides dotchaknow), a hand full of the usual foaming at the mouth politicians and pundits get some TV time and clicks out of it. The Orange Plague is bored now and trying to declare it’s fixed and over now.
I have a hard time believing that this will work any better now than it did in January. Maybe the sane majority are not just waking up to these tactics, but also finally being more vocal about their antipathy towards the minor views. Voting with our feet – withholding our patronage – might just be the perfect cure to this particular disease.
artem1s
@Comrade Mary:
I typically have gloves around the house – art projects – so they don’t feel so strange to me. I was gloving before I started wearing a mask. It helps me to remember this isn’t normal. The workers and other customers are touching the stuff I touch. I use them because not every store has self check out. It helps me to remember that I am a potential spreader if I’m going from store to store. Pumping gas, moving stuff on shelves, touching freezer doors, shopping carts, post office. It helps me with a routine of preparation and clean up. I have outside cloths and I have inside cloths too. It made sense to me to start with gloves because of the early emphasis on hand washing. Now that I have a better understanding of the role of masking, that has taken precedence over gloving. But I don’t intend to stop doing both until the state has better testing and tracing plans in place.
FYI, a quick dip in bleach water and a rinse in the sink, and the gloves are completely reusable. No need to horde or go thru them as if you are a front liner.
dr.puck
@MJS:
Confidently predicting events two weeks into the future is a fool’s game under the circumstances.