Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

“But what about the lurkers?”

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

After roe, women are no longer free.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

This really is a full service blog.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

In my day, never was longer.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / COVID-19 Coronavirus Update: Sunday / Monday, August 16-17

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update: Sunday / Monday, August 16-17

by | 56 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Not, sadly, the Onion:


Putin has a ‘vaccine’; his mini-me, in emulation, wants a ‘cure’:

… Senior administration officials familiar with the internal conversations around oleandrin have raised concerns about the way this botanical extract — pushed by Andrew Whitney of Phoenix Biotechnology — is being promoted at the highest levels of the Trump administration.

There is no public data showing oleandrin has ever been tested in animals or humans for its efficacy against COVID-19, but the extract has shown some evidence of inhibiting the virus in a non-peer reviewed laboratory study…

People not getting paid to push the stuff point out that oleander is toxic to cancer cells (and possibly viruses) because it’s really really poisonous! And widely known to be so — it’s been a plot point in bestselling mystery novels, not to mention all the people living in areas where oleander thrives, who have to keep their kids (and cattle, horses, goats, and dogs) from eating so much as a single leaf. One has to assume that if Trump demands some ‘oleander pills’, his medical handlers will be giving him placebos, but not all of his followers may be so lucky.


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Also in Italy:

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Professor from commentor Raven‘s town suggests, at the very least, closing the bars early:

… We have to limit the operation hours of bars in college towns for two reasons:

– Students will not be able to take necessary precautions to limit/prevent spread of COVID-19 while under the influence at bars (maintaining six-feet separation, using hand sanitizer, wearing masks, and limiting contact with those outside of the house/dorm unit).
– Alcohol significantly affects the immune system which will increase susceptibility to illness and could also increase complications of disease…

(I too have doubts this would work, but there is a salutatory effect in just indicating the authorities intend to try… )

Reader Interactions

56Comments

  1. 1.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s daily numbers. 12 new cases. 10 cases from local infection, all Malaysians: four cases from the Tawar cluster and two from the Sala cluster in Kedah, three from the Tawar cluster in Penang state, one detected after presenting with symptoms in Selangor. Two imported cases, both non-Malaysians, arriving from Syria and the Philippines. Cumulative reported total 9,212 cases.

    17 more patients recovered and were discharged, total 8,876 patients recovered — 96.35% of the cumulative reported total. Active and contagious patients being isolated/treated in hospital dipped to 211 patients; eight are in ICU, two are on respirators.

    No new deaths since 31st July; total is still 125 deaths — 1.36% of the cumulative reported total, 1.39% of resolved cases.

    DG of Health Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah was elevated today to the rank of Tan Sri in the Malaysian honours system, in recognition of his leadership in the fight against Covid-19.

  2. 2.

    NotMax

    Worldwide reported cases reached 21 million at the end of last week. On a track to pass 22 million by this time tomorrow.

    An increase of 1,000,000 in four days.

  4. 4.

    jl

    The outbreak in Spain is reported to have started with ag workers in Catalonia who tested pos and bosses threatened them if they left work to quarantine. Then it spread through the region and through Aragon via bars and nightclubs. I don’t know who is protesting in that clip. The murderous bosses who started the outbreak? Wouldn’t surprise me if ordinary people are pissed about putting up with more control measures.

    Corporate and public agency neglegence played a substantial role in 9 of the 16 countries with current outbreaks and resurgence.

    Also, Spain began a massive expansion in testing program in response. So we’ll have to wait for bump in the death rate to see how bad it will be. Death is a lagging indicator, but best unless someone can account for effect of big increase in testing.

  5. 5.

    WereBear

    The last thing people understand is a slow-moving crisis. It’s just not going to get organized under this administration. It’s like trying to sort out the closet with the help of a dozen two-year-olds.

  6. 6.

    Betty Cracker

    JFC, oleander? Growing up in Florida where the damn things grow all over the place, I was told as a child that if you eat so much as a single leaf or chew on a stick or throw a branch on a campfire, that toxic plant will kill you deader than a door nail. At least, I think that’s how my granny put it.

    @WereBear: Love the closet-sorting analogy!

  7. 7.

    jl

    Australia’s outbreak is reported to have started with gov neglect of control measures in public housing for poor, and in densely housed immigrant communities. Then Victoria contracted out entry protocols for its hotels and the contractors did a crap job, if they did anything. I read an investigation was opened on it. I’d like to hear from any BJ Aussies if they have info.

    Edit: does my phone’s spellcheck know what an Aussie is? Keeps changing it.

  8. 8.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Yesterday, China reported 0 new domestic confirmed cases and 1 new domestic asymptomatic case, at Ürumqi in Xinjiang “Autonomous” Region, the first time the city and the country reported no new confirmed cases for over a month. 7 cases are currently in critical condition, and 23 in serious condition. There are currently 378 total confirmed cases at Ürumqi, and 127 asymptomatic cases (126 in Ürumqi, 1 in Changji Prefecture). 23 confirmed cases recovered yesterday and were released from hospitals, 2 asymptomatic cases were released from medical quarantine, 2 critical and 3 serious cases improved to moderate conditions. There are 9,446 close contacts remaining under quarantine and medical observation.

    At Dalian in Liaoning Province, 1 confirmed case has recovered and were released from hospital. 28 cases are currently in the hospital, and 4 asymptomatic cases remain under medical quarantine. In the summary report of its outbreak response efforts, Dalian municipal government reported that they commandeered 212 hotels with 19,586 rooms, and used them to house 10,839 close contacts for quarantine. Within 3 days of detecting the outbreak, Dalian increased its testing capacity to 1.047M samples per day, using 10 : 1 sample batching, and with support from the rest of the Liaoning Province. All 6.614M residents in the city have been tested, those in Medium Risk areas were tested 3 times, and those in High Risk areas were tested 4 times!

    For the 2nd day in a row, neither Shenzhen or Shanwei in Guangdong Province reported any new cases, confirmed or asymptomatic. Shanwei has tested 37,669 individuals, with results obtained from 34,284, only the 3 asymptomatic cases already reported on 8/14. Shenzhen has tested 83,423 individuals, with results obtained from 58,459, only the 2 asymptomatic cases reported on 8/14. It seems both cities have dodged the bullet. 

    The two asymptomatic workers at the Freshippo supermarket in Luohu District worked in the shellfish section, while the confirmed case exported to Shanwei was selling yogurt products. This is yet another cluster potentially associated with imported seafood, after the outbreaks at the Xinfadi produce exchange in Beijing and the imported seafood processing plant at Dalian. Coincidentally, the initial Wuhan outbreak happened at the Huanan Seafood Market. Then there is the Auckland, New Zealand cluster, with one of the initial cases working at a cold store. Yes, relatively speaking, fomite transmission may be far less important than droplet or aerosol as a vector, and packaging of imported frozen food products perhaps even less so. However, if human to human transmission has been crushed, and the top vectors been greatly reduced, by all the non-pharmaceutical intervention measures, then the low probability tail risk events become more prominent and deserve more consideration.

    Yesterday, China reported 22 new imported confirmed cases, 36 imported asymptomatic cases, and 2 suspect cases:

    • Guangzhou in Guangdong Province – 8 confirmed cases, 2 Chinese National returning from Sadi Arabia, 2 from the Philippines and 1 from the United Arab Emirates; 20 asymptomatic cases, 9 Chinese nationals returning from Saudi Arabia, 7 from the Philippines, 3 from Bangladesh and 1 from Bolivia
    • Foshan in Guangdong Province – 2 asymptomatic cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from the US and South Sudan
    • Qingyuan in Guangdong Province – 2 asymptomatic cases, both are Chinese national each returning from the Philippines
    • Kunming in Yunnan Province – 4 confirmed cases, all Chinese nationals returning from Indonesia
    • Shanghai Municipality – 3 confirmed cases, 1 British national coming from the UK via (Moscow), 1 Russian national coming from Moscow and 1 Chinese national coming from Singapore; 2 suspect cases, no information released
    • Xi’an in Shaanxi Province – 3 confirmed cases, all Chinese nationals returning from Singapore; 4 asymptomatic cases, 3 Chinese nationals returning from Singapore and 1 from Pakistan
    • Chengdu in Sichuan Province – 2 confirmed cases (1 previously asymptomatic), 1 Chinese national returning from Egypt and 1 from Indonesia
    • Rizhao Port in Shandong Province – 1 confirmed and 2 asymptomatic cases, all Filipino crew member off a cargo ship
    • Qingdao in Shandong Province – 3 asymptomatic cases, all Chinese nationals returning from Russia
    • Zhangzhou in Fujian Province –  1 confirmed case (previously suspect), a Chinese national returning from the Philippines
    • Xiamen in Fujian Province – 1 asymptomatic cases, a Chinese national returning from the US, via Canada
    • Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province – 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Singapore
    • Chongqing Municipality – 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Singapore

    With more international flights resuming, there has been a surge of imported cases into China. Singapore is a major source, I assume these are Chinese nationals working as guest workers in the city state?

    Today, Hong Kong reported 44 new cases, 31 from local transmission, 11 of whom do not have clear source of transmission. Another 20 cases are preliminarily confirmed.

  9. 9.

    Mary G

    The OC is much improved since the governor shut bars back down.

    New cases today 342 vs. 1,032 on 7/7/20; only one death.

    Testing positivity 6.9% down from 14.9% in July

    Hospitalizations 422 down from 722 in July

  10. 10.

    Chyron HR

    So if Trump is “re” “elected” will he:

    A) actually start imposing public health regulations to fight the virus because he no longer needs to pretend that everything is fine for the sake of his campaign, or

    B) abandon even the barest pretense of doing something about the problem because he no longer needs to pretend to care?

  14. 14.

    WereBear

    @Betty Cracker: Yes, when my family lived in Florida there was constant warnings. I know many highway dividers were planted with it, because they could handle the challenging conditions, AND no one would wander by.

  15. 15.

    jl

    Trump should have stuck with hydroxy. Docs are still fiddling with that stuff as a useful part of tx protocols early in disease for people likely to have clotting problems. Every clinician I’ve talked with about can’t imagine why anyone ever thought it would be good for anything else: a minor aid early in care for some patients. Main interest was during debate over what caused the hemoglobin problems and parallels to malaria. Anyway, someday he might be able to unload those 60 million pills he made the govt buy.
    We should watch for news story about which billionaire got a corrupt contract to unload a ton of oleandrin.

  16. 16.

    Jack Canuck

    @jl: That doesn’t sound right to me (right here at Fun Central in Melbourne). The inquiry in Victoria is directed at the contracted-out work managing the quarantine system for incoming travelers, which for the first months of all this was by far the largest source of new cases in Australia. I haven’t been following the details on that side of things too closely – too many other things to do with remote teaching right now – but I believe the thinking is that the outbreaks in some public housing towers which kicked off this second round in Melbourne probably came about as a result of someone bringing it out of the poorly managed and staffed quarantine system, not the other way around. The state gov actually acted quite quickly on the public housing outbreaks, though they could certainly have done better on communicating with residents etc.

    And since I’m here, here are Australia’s & Victoria’s numbers:

    Victoria in the last 24 hours:

    • 282 new cases (continuing to pull the seven-day average down)
    • 25 deaths (a new high)
    • 657 in hospital, 44 in intensive care
    • Currently 7474 active cases, 334 deaths
    • A lot of the cases and a large majority of the deaths are linked to severe outbreaks in the aged care system, to the point that the government has taken over management of at least three private aged care facilities.
    • I believe over 1000 health care staff have been diagnosed with the virus.

    For Australia as a whole (including Victoria):

    • 290 new cases in the last 24 hours
    • I think 26 deaths, but I couldn’t find that number quickly
    • 7768 active cases (estimated)
    • 674 in hospital

    We’re two weeks into Stage 4 restrictions in Melbourne and Stage 3 in the rest of the state (and everybody’s got their fingers crossed that we’ll actually be able to go back to Stage 3 in mid-September). All schools in Melbourne are teaching by remote learning and will be for the remainder of Term 3 (four more weeks). Year 11 and 12 students were back for three weeks at the start of term, but Year 10 and under have been remote for the whole time. This is on top of remote learning for the first 6-8 weeks of Term 2 (depending on year level). As a teacher I’m exhausted and stressed, even though I’m lucky enough to be at a high-end school with good tech and only teach year 11 & 12 this year (though I am faculty head too, so I get extra stress that way). My wife teaches primary school art, and those year levels have so many more challenges in many ways. She’s also at school twice a week supervising for kids of essential workers that are on-site, and my son in year 4 is home needing help and supervision (sometimes – honestly he’s a superstar with his work and self-sufficiency, thank god).

  17. 17.

    JPL

    @Betty Cracker: First thing that came to mind was the fact that someone is gonna mix it with bleach..    A drop of this and a drop of that and then we’ll know the response to what do you have to lose.

  18. 18.

    jl

    @Jack Canuck: Thanks. Your report sounds like what I read and what I tried to say, except how quickly the govt should have gotten on top of the public housing. Maybe I didn’t express myself well.

    I definitely read about a large outbreak among immigrant communities, it’s in my notes. Were those stories incorrect?

    Is view there that source of a lot of resurgence there unknown?

  19. 19.

    Jack Canuck

    @jl: The public housing outbreaks were, as you might expect, poorer communities with large immigrant or “ethnic” populations, but I honestly can’t remember seeing much if any discussion of it here in terms of ‘immigrant communities’ – the conditions for the rapid spread were overcrowded housing, people in ‘essential occupations’ (e.g. service jobs, mostly) who couldn’t stay home and who were exposed when out, buildings with restricted entrances and probably poor ventilation that required everyone to use the same small number of elevators, etc.

    The evidence seems to be lining up with the current wave having originated with faults in the quarantine system and thus ultimately with travelers who brought it home with them, but I don’t think that’s been conclusively proved yet. There are a large number of cases that they haven’t been able to link to know cases or clusters, which is obviously worrying. On the other hand, at least the numbers have been declining from the high of over 700 at one point last week (I think, it seems to go so fast!), and they’re taking the enforcement seriously. Every day there are a couple of hundred nitwits getting fined over $1600AUD for breaking the curfew, not wearing a mask, or being out either for no approved reason or further than 5km from home.

  21. 21.

    cmorenc

    @Betty Cracker:

    JFC, oleander? Growing up in Florida where the damn things grow all over the place, I was told as a child that if you eat so much as a single leaf or chew on a stick or throw a branch on a campfire, that toxic plant will kill you deader than a door nail. At least, I think that’s how my granny put it.

    Oleander flourishes in coastal areas of southeastern North Carolina – we have seven oleander bushes in the yard at our beach house on the barrier island of Sunset Beach, NC, and oleanders are prolific along our entire street – nearly everyone has one or more.  They also bloom prolifically from spring through fall.

    Fortunately, other than the beautiful color of their blossoms, there is nothing about the plants that seems possibly tempting for eating, and while the flowers are mildly pleasant in smell, the aroma isn’t temptingly edible the way the small bright orange seeds from palm trees superfically seem to be.  Fortunately, the palm seed clusters aren’t poisonous

    They are vulnerable to freeze-kill in winter, and so you do have to handle the pruned frost-damaged branches.  But despite not using gloves for that task, I’ve never suffered any signs of poisoning, and neither has anyone else I know of doing oleander pruning.  Apparently, you pretty much have to actually nibble and chomp down on it to get poisoned.

  24. 24.

    debbie

    They’ve tried closing bars around here. Rescinded. Then the state liquor board banned sales after 10:00pm. There are violations every night. And this is before the OSU students have a chance to hit the bars.

  28. 28.

    Jack Canuck

    @Mary G: And that’s the on-the-spot fine that the cops can issue! They were pretty flexible at first, giving people chances, offering them masks to wear, etc, but time’s been up for that treatment for a while. There’s no excuse at this point for not knowing what’s expected and required. Real medical exemptions apply, of course.

    If someone’s a repeat offender, they could get dragged into court and face around $10,000. Not sure if that’s happened/happening to anyone yet, though there have been reports of some people getting repeatedly caught and fined.

  29. 29.

    Brachiator

    The new doctor on President Trump’s coronavirus task force is a critic of lockdowns who has pushed for kids to go back to schools and for the return of college sports. Dr. Scott Atlas has no expertise in public health or infectious disease mitigation.

    Atlas has been working his way around right wing circles for a while. He was a guest early in the pandemic on one of the most popular conservative talk radio shows in the Los Angeles market and convinced the hosts that a lockdown was totally unnecessary. And now he is a Trump appointee to the task force. Sad.

  31. 31.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Over the wkend 2 friends and the daughter and fiance of some other friends have come down with the Covid,

  32. 32.

    JPL

    @cmorenc: It’s poisonous for children and pets.   When I’m adding plants to the yard, I check to make sure they are not harmful to pets.

  33. 33.

    Mary G

    College is going great!

    BREAKING: UNC reports another cluster at Hinton James Residence Hall via Alert Carolina. This is the fourth cluster reported in the past three days. This is a developing story.— The Daily Tar Heel (@dailytarheel) August 16, 2020

  36. 36.

    WereBear

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I check my Twitter first thing, because it’s a great nutshell of what’s been going on :)

    I have my Way of Cats account, my author account, and an anonymous account where I am rowdy and political and explore interests that are not about books and cats :)

  41. 41.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Spanky:I have a long delayed funeral coming up in 2 weeks:
    Visitation
    Service
    Grave side ceremony
    After Food gathering

    I will go to the grave side ceremony and skip the indoor stuff.

  44. 44.

    Amir Khalid

    In other news, the border between Malaysia and Singapore was opened today. You can now drive between the two countries again, although Singaporean vehicles will still be required to have their tanks at least 3/4 full to drive into Johor Baru.

  45. 45.

    Ken

    @Amir Khalid: Is the gasoline requirement related to the virus, or because Singaporeans have a history of crossing the border to buy (cheaper, presumably) gas?

  46. 46.

    Robert Sneddon

    Scotland — the numbers today, remembering that some reports from health centre offices closed over the weekend may be delayed, are still zero deaths from confirmed cases and 26 new confirmed cases. Half of those new cases are in the Grampian area where the total count from the Aberdeen cluster is now over 200.

    Some schoolkids have been tested and confirmed positive in Glasgow where schools are now open but the suspected cluster there seems to involve a social grouping from before the schools re-opened (it could be a sports team or similar). A food processing plant (what else?) in the Perth area has had four positive cases and is now closed.

     

     

    The Scottish government is ramping up testing capability, from 40,000 to 65,000 tests a day. Saying that a lot of that capacity is unused on a day-to-day basis. The Scottish Tories, beset by internal divisions are pushing for an immediate inquiry into the discharge of elderly COVID-19 sufferers from hospitals into care homes back in March. The First Minister is not having it, saying that the government needs to remain focussed on the pandemic but promising an inquiry once things are more settled and all the evidence is in. Some people made serious errors of judgement back then and it does need to be gone over carefully but the Scottish Tories are desperate for a political “win” and this is something they can use. Polling numbers for next year’s Holyrood elections are dire for the Tories and the knives are out.

  47. 47.

    Amir Khalid

    @Ken:

    The latter. The requirement was instituted by the Singaporean Government decades ago, when Malaysian fuel prices — in particular for petrol — were heavily subsidised. It was originally set at half a tank, but that turned out to be insufficient.

  48. 48.

    mrmoshpotato

    Dr. Scott Atlas has no expertise in public health or infectious disease mitigation.

    Well of course he doesn’t!  That’d be too sensible for this bastard administration.

  49. 49.

    Sloane Ranger

    @Robert Sneddon: The Scottish Tories new leader, what’s his name, scored an own goal by deciding to ref a football match rather than attend a VJ Day commemoration in his constituency.

  50. 50.

    mrmoshpotato

    to protest against the mandatory use of face masks and other restrictions imposed by the government to contain the #coronavirus pandemic

    ?‍♂️ Selfish, shithead, dumb motherfuckers.

  51. 51.

    mrmoshpotato

    @WereBear:

    It’s like trying to sort out the closet with the help of a dozen two-year-olds. 

    Starting off the week right – hating on on two-year-olds.

  52. 52.

    cmorenc

    @JPL:

    @cmorenc: It’s poisonous for children and pets.   When I’m adding plants to the yard, I check to make sure they are not harmful to pets.

    My point was that as prolific as oleanders are in landscaping of NC coastal areas, they don’t seem attractive whatever as potential edibles to dogs, cats, or other pets.  My next-door permanent-resident neighbors on Sunset Beach Island are over-the-top cat people with 25 cats living at their house, half of which are pure outdoor cats, and their yard is prolifically landscaped with oleanders, and not a single cat over the 25 years they’ve been my next-door neighbors has suffered from oleander poisoning.  Nor have any of the many dogs owned by fellow house-owners along my street.

    I’m not hereby denying that oleanders are deadly lethal poisoning if eaten by pets or people – just that fortunately, the plant doesn’t seem to be attractively tempting – the caveat might be children of the toddler-age-range where kids typically may put anything within arm’s reach into their mouth.  I will carefully watch my toddler-age grandchildren when they are anywhere near the oleanders.

  53. 53.

    artem1s

    remembering when there were mass riots in Athens (Ohio) on the night of the time change because last call came an hour earlier than the normal 1 AM. I’m betting trying to close the bars in Athens (GA) early isn’t going to go the way they hoped. That cat is obviously already out of the bag.

    White people matter! – “I don’t get the true college experience of being shitfaced drunk every night! Let’s burn down main street!”

  54. 54.

    Bill Arnold

    Re Nerium oleander, for what it’s worth, phoenix biotech can’t be bothered with an https web site.
    http://www.phoenixbiotechnology.com/
    Their front page was substantially rewritten recently. Late 2019 it was quite different.
    https://web.archive.org/web/20190815000000*/http://www.phoenixbiotechnology.com/
    Smells a bit like grift, but I’ll poke a bit more. Since it was so blatant, the pushers might be believers. There are claims of human trials but they may have been for previous cancer-treatment claims.

  55. 55.

    Sloane Ranger

    UK-wide data for today. There were 713 new cases, broken down as follows, ignoring Scotland as that’s been covered. England 634; Wales 14; Northern Ireland 39. That’s good as I was expecting a spike as cases from the weekend were processed. It will be interesting to see if there is a spike tomorrow.

    Using the new criteria of only counting deaths within 28 days of a positive test, apparently agreed by all Home Governments, there were 3 deaths, all in England.

  56. 56.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    “Put your masks on!” repeats the DJ, shouting vainly into his microphone, but dancers below, dripping in sweat, don’t seem to care.

    Um… “dripping in sweat” means “it don’t matter none, the masks (probably) wouldn’t help.” A wet mask that touches your face can let the virus in via the water in the mask – it’s likely more dangerous than being maskless (though I’m not sure it matters if you’re around people dancing hard enough to be dripping in sweat). It’s a good idea to carry a spare mask in a plastic zip-lock bag, and if you sweat *a lot*, remember not to wear your mask when you’re alone, if reasonably possible.

    So,: its better for me to get into my car (alone), and put my mask somewhere safe, than to keep wearing it, to reduce how much sweat soaks into it. Keep in mind, I used to say I sweat like a pig, until a pig walking by said “HEY! DUDE! NO! That’s slander!” Most people shouldn’t remove their mask – Joe Biden was mocked for hanging one off one ear, but that’s actually a *great* idea – you aren’t forgetting about your mask, and aren’t touching anything but the ear straps.

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