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You are here: Home / Anderson On Health Insurance / What is Nebraska thinking?

What is Nebraska thinking?

by David Anderson|  September 11, 20209:06 am| 84 Comments

This post is in: Anderson On Health Insurance, COVID-19

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Nebraska’s governor is done with COVID.

 

COVID might not be done with Nebraska.

Nebraska has broad community spread.  The positivity rate is high and the new cases per million is very high.

There has been a big policy analysis debate within the COVID academic communities on the actual impact of regulations and state level restrictions.  Some of the evidence seems to show that they matter on a causal basis.  A lot of evidence says that state government restrictions are merely reflections of reality and lag actual responses.  This view says that people respond to local information signals and adjust their behaviors accordingly so a state mandate merely ratifies the already known information and response to that information.

We’ll find out in Nebraska.

Do people en masse go out to bars to watch the Monday Night Football game?

Is Frat Row at any of the colleges in Lincoln packed on a Thursday night with party-goers?

Does anyone wear a mask?

We’ll find out as the information sure seems to indicate that significant precautions and interaction minimization should be the continued actions people take.

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Reader Interactions

84Comments

  1. 1.

    Cheryl Rofer

    September 11, 2020 at 9:12 am

    So many natural experiments. Unfortunately, we won’t know the results we need to apply now until a lot more people become sick and die.

  2. 2.

    OzarkHillbilly

    September 11, 2020 at 9:22 am

    Nebraska’s governor is done with COVID.

    COVID might not be done with Nebraska.

    I have a blank box after each of these statements. Just out of curiosity, what’s in them? Graphs?

  3. 3.

    donnah

    September 11, 2020 at 9:24 am

    I’m scheduled to fly into Omaha in November to teach a workshop, and event I’ve done for years. The host is a good friend and she’s held several workshops at her shop over the summer without problems. I, on the other hand, have cancelled all of my workshops since March.

    So with this news I am rethinking my decision to go. Her shop is fairly remote and I wouldn’t be too concerned about the virus among students, but I have to fly and the airport and plane would still be hotspots. If Nebraska doesn’t have any restrictions, how will I be safe in travel?

    I’m waiting a few weeks before I cancel, but it’s not looking good.

  4. 4.

    Ken

    September 11, 2020 at 9:24 am

    Same as Ozark, blank boxes.  The first is a link to the AP News site, the second link is bad – balloon-juice plus http://www.covidexitstrategy.org.

  5. 5.

    Mezz

    September 11, 2020 at 9:25 am

    What (or where) is the source for that second image, with the trend lines, increases, etc. on the state level?

    I’m still trying to find (ok, haven’t been looking super closely) a good national site for information that a layperson like myself can understand.

    Appreciated –

  6. 6.

    OzarkHillbilly

    September 11, 2020 at 9:27 am

    @Ken:  I don’t even see links.

  7. 7.

    Haroldo

    September 11, 2020 at 9:27 am

    @Cheryl Rofer: 

    Agreed, wholeheartedly. Witness the continued decline of the formerly great state of Wisconsin. Here the Republican dominated state Supreme Court is preventing Dane County from enacting Covid-19 mitigating measures (when Dane County is experiencing a huge spike in cases, primarily from the U Wisc starting up. U Wisc has since gone back to primarily online instruction I think.) The measures the Supreme Court are stopping have to do with in-person instruction in the Dane County schools.

    https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/crime-and-courts/wisconsin-supreme-court-temporarily-suspends-dane-county-in-person-school-restrictions/article_7f2c06d7-cff7-5432-8bfe-6cb53667042b.html#tracking-source=home-breaking

  8. 8.

    Another Scott

    September 11, 2020 at 9:33 am

    (sigh). Grr…

    https://journalstar.com/sports/huskers/sipple/steven-m-sipple-former-husker-didnt-take-covid-19-very-seriously-until-it-nearly-killed/article_e0b7d2e4-b50e-50bb-b021-8fadef4afbe3.html

    Lightner didn’t have underlying health conditions. Yes, he’s a big dude — 6-foot-2 and 300 pounds. But he’s always been physically fit.

    He admits that before his illness, he didn’t take COVID-19 seriously enough. He knows plenty of people who think it’s all a government scam. He hopes those people notice his story and maybe put their guards up.

    “I hope this will change some minds, even if it’s out of respect for other people,” he says.

    At about noon Thursday, Lightner was getting ready for an afternoon workout. Mind you, his workouts nowadays aren’t nearly as intense as his hardcore sessions before his illness. Keep in mind, he’s a former collegiate lineman who during the months preceding Nebraska’s 1987 season was regarded as the program’s strongest-ever player, having recorded a 441-pound bench press and squatting 756 pounds.

    […]

    Yes, Lightner needs care. After all, he was on a ventilator and in an induced coma for 10 days of his hospital stay. For much of that stay, his family could only see him through a glass wall.

    “I don’t remember a whole lot,” he says. “I don’t really remember anything after I checked myself in, to be honest with you.”

    With travel restrictions to Japan recently lifted, Lightner plans to return to work next week. But he won’t be close to full speed.

    “I can walk without my crutches, but not real fast,” he says. “I kind of keep one with me just in case. But I’m getting better every day. I can walk a little farther. They say the first thing that gets you is your conditioning. You can’t go very far. It was really bad when I first got out of the hospital. Just standing up was hard.”

    Something that needs to be made clear is that Lightner did not bring the virus to Lincoln from Japan. He arrived in Lincoln on June 18 intending to return to Japan in a couple of weeks. But then Japan banned travel into the country. So he stayed in Lincoln — and acknowledges he let his guard down in July as it pertains to COVID-19. His positive test came July 25.

    “I got stuck here and was just kind of going about my business,” he says. “I went to a couple gatherings that I shouldn’t have, where I don’t believe anybody was wearing a mask, including myself. Within three or four days of those gatherings is when I got sick. I don’t know where else I would’ve gotten it.”

    Nobody could have predicted…

    Grr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  9. 9.

    Haroldo

    September 11, 2020 at 9:33 am

    @Mezz:

    I’m still trying to find (ok, haven’t been looking super closely) a good national site for information that a layperson like myself can understand.

    If you are handy with graphs, and don’t mind poking around data too much (dunno if this comports with ‘layperson’), this is an excellent site.  You basically hunt for the data/governmental entity that you want and build your own graph.

    http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/

  10. 10.

    germy

    September 11, 2020 at 9:34 am

    South Dakota governor uses coronavirus relief funds for $5 million tourism ad despite COVID surge https://t.co/uqmIb0e8JU— CBS News (@CBSNews) September 10, 2020

  11. 11.

    Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)

    September 11, 2020 at 9:40 am

    To paraphrase Trotsky, “You may not be interested in Covid-19, but Covid-19 is interested in you.”

  12. 12.

    mvr

    September 11, 2020 at 9:40 am

    There are something like a dozen covid clusters on campus. (https://news.unl.edu/newsrooms/today/article/covid-19-digest-cluster-count-holds-at-12-on-campus/) About half a dozen frats and sororities are now sanctioned for violating the rules.  There are 519 cases on campus. (https://covid19.unl.edu/unl-covid-19-dashboard ) Things were very good in Lincoln until the University opened up.  The university administration has raised our  transparency about rates from a pretty bad start – likely afters some prodding (I tried unsuccessfully to prod early on). But unless things have changed there is no random testing and there was no testing as students got back to campus.  That’s the bad news here.

    The better news is that Lincoln has a mask mandate that the governor has threatened to sue to repeal but he has not filed the suit and it has been six weeks at least.  Our rates were dropping and it seems the masks are responsible for that.  (Campus is at least serious about masks, though the ones they have provided are made for people with very small heads.)  Omaha has adopted one as well and there rates still seem to be dropping.  Theirs has a somewhat less firm legal status due to their health department having been founded after a state law authorized such departments, whereas ours predates that law.  (I don’t fully understand the legalities.) But the governor has yet to sue them either.

    The governor has mandated very little throughout any of this.  He doesn’t want to alienate his base which is Trump’s base. Not that it matters for governor, but I think he thinks he can be president some day.  He is a jerk.  Most of the population is in Lincoln and Omaha. That may mitigate the effects of the governor’s actions if the local authorities continue to try to be responsible.

    I don’t know how things will go on campus.  Somehow we are doing better than Iowa, but it doesn’t seem to be because our plan was better.  Less of a party school maybe?

    More links about NE here: https://covid19-nebraska.hub.arcgis.com/

  13. 13.

    swiftfox

    September 11, 2020 at 9:40 am

    @Mezz: CovidActNow.org

  14. 14.

    ThresherK

    September 11, 2020 at 9:42 am

    Ricketts sounds like a perfectly Dickensian name for this governor. Unless, of course, Cholera decides to primary him.

  15. 15.

    Amir Khalid

    September 11, 2020 at 9:42 am

    I’m vaguely reminded of something that was depicted in Downfall: Joseph Goebbel’s wife poisoning all their children so that the family wouldn’t have to live in post-Nazi Germany.

  16. 16.

    Falling Diphthong

    September 11, 2020 at 9:47 am

    A lot of evidence says that state government restrictions are merely reflections of reality and lag actual responses.

    Anecdatum 1: Near me in MA in the spring, stores required masks, then the town(s) required masks, then the state required masks. So yes, the state regulation was a lagging indicator.

    Anecdatum 2: Mask wearing on walks in the woods varies by town. As to whether everyone has masks on, or around neck to be pulled up when passing other hikers, or masks stay in their pockets and they step a good ways off the trail when passing other hikers. People adapt to the social norms common to that particular bit of woods.

  17. 17.

    Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)

    September 11, 2020 at 9:48 am

    @Amir Khalid: You too? I was also thinking about the scene where Eva Braun’s dance party in the bunker hallway is rudely disrupted by an air raid or Red Army artillery shaking the place.

  18. 18.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    September 11, 2020 at 9:48 am

    What’s the mystery? the governor is passing the buck to the counties like Trump passed the buck to the states.

  19. 19.

    NotMax

    September 11, 2020 at 9:51 am

    What can one add about Nebraska that Carhenge doesn’t convey?

    :)

  20. 20.

    PenAndKey

    September 11, 2020 at 9:51 am

    @Haroldo: The GOP has such a strong stranglehold of this state that I legitimately feel like we’re a failed democracy at this point. Between minority-rule gerrymandering and a state supreme court that acts like it gets it’s marching orders from FOX News, consistently and blatantly voting with no regard for the law actually says, I’m not sure how we dig ourselves out of this.

    My son is attending a county organized “virtual academy” that’s being held in conjunction with in-person attendance for people who “want” it (ie morons and poor people with no choice). I wouldn’t put it past this court to declare that the virtual academy option is illegal (which would be insane but par for the course from them) so this is definitely a court schedule I’ve been watching closely.

  21. 21.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    September 11, 2020 at 9:52 am

    @ThresherK: Any relationship to Daniel Ricketts, the inventor of the temporary insanity defense for murder?

  22. 22.

    satby

    September 11, 2020 at 9:55 am

    Sorry, but I don’t believe the stats coming out of states like Indiana. I would bet folding money that the R governor is having the numbers falsified. The health department for my county hasn’t enforced the mask mandate and non-compliance seems high.

  23. 23.

    Chyron HR

    September 11, 2020 at 10:01 am

    What is Nebraska thinking?

    “If Biden’s gonna win, let him rule over a ruin.”

  24. 24.

    spc123

    September 11, 2020 at 10:02 am

    @donnah: Omaha and Lincoln still have some mask requirements (local regs not overruled with this decision)

  25. 25.

    Haroldo

    September 11, 2020 at 10:05 am

    @PenAndKey:

    I’ve tons of friends and family in Wisconsin and I mourn for them (and you).  And I concur – I don’t know how Wisconsin is going to extract itself from the horribleness a goodly number of its citizens voted in (and to me, that’s the scary bit).

  26. 26.

    Chris Johnson

    September 11, 2020 at 10:06 am

    Anyone who is on the left, in Nebraska or out: you know they are trying to kill us all, don’t go along with it. It doesn’t even matter very much if they are trying to kill us all because they are actively working for Russia, or if they are just so insane after years of progressively being pilled and turning into QAnons that they believe that there is no coronavirus, that Donald Trump is saving us all from cannibal pedophiles, and that they can fly and breathe water, molten lava, and space dust.

    It doesn’t matter.

    Stay safe knowing this is a war, and get a little more ruthless about our enemies killing the very same Americans they have the best control over. I feel like that’s not a good strategy. I want them to be pursuing a desperately bad strategy. Those of us who survive can be better and more humane. Right now, it’s time for a lot of crazy people to die and kill those around them.

  27. 27.

    donnah

    September 11, 2020 at 10:14 am

    @spc123: Thanks! I’ll keep that in mind.

  28. 28.

    TaMara (HFG)

    September 11, 2020 at 10:17 am

    …and that is not news I wanted to wake up to. Stress level raised, nightmares engaged.

    I can barely get my parents to wear masks as it is and my niece is back in school – will this mean no masks there any longer??

    I hate these horrible, horrible republicans and wish on them the worst of covid symptoms and that they survive to deal with them for the remainder of their dark, dark lives.

  29. 29.

    Omnes Omnibus

    September 11, 2020 at 10:21 am

    @Haroldo: Have you seen the election results in the state since 2016?  Did you see what voters did in April?

  30. 30.

    Anonymous At Work

    September 11, 2020 at 10:26 am

    What are they thinking?  That’s easy: we gotta own the libs.

  31. 31.

    Haroldo

    September 11, 2020 at 10:29 am

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I did, indeed. And that is cause for guarded optimism.  I think, though, the deck is really stacked against sanity in WI.  And that stacked deck is, as mentioned before, a highly reactionary Supreme Court (cf today’s absentee ballot ruling) and a very gerrymandered state legislature.

    I will be happy as Larry to be proved wrong.

  32. 32.

    OzarkHillbilly

    September 11, 2020 at 10:29 am

    I need this swan in the aisles of our local wal mart.

  33. 33.

    MisterForkbeard

    September 11, 2020 at 10:29 am

    I’m going with “it’s a hail mary”. They’re hoping that they can get the state going and have it rebound a little economically and there won’t be enough time before the election to see a high rise in deaths.

    Then Trump can crow about it and how he was right all along, etc. If a bunch of people die, well… a bunch of people have already died.

  34. 34.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    September 11, 2020 at 10:30 am

    @Chris Johnson:

    Right now, it’s time for a lot of crazy people to die and kill those around them.

    A.  I can’t endorse that.  I don’t want those folks to die.  I want them to extract themselves from the conservative media bubble and start living in the real world.

    B. You know only 1% of people die, right?  Widespread infection leads to widespread disability (due to the illness doing permanent damage) and some death.  Health insurance costs are going to increase for all of us due to this thing.  No one should be rooting for that.

  35. 35.

    Barbara

    September 11, 2020 at 10:39 am

    @germy: I’ve been to South Dakota. I’m not going back.

  36. 36.

    Shantanu Saha

    September 11, 2020 at 10:45 am

    Ricketts is probably worried about being primaried from the right by Jonathan Scurvy.

  37. 37.

    Ohio Mom

    September 11, 2020 at 10:50 am

    Mezz @5:

    My go-to site is covidactnow.org

    You can type in your county and get current numbers, as well as graphs for the year, showing such data as new cases, transmission rates, testing rates, etc.

    Or you can type in your state and see all the counties at once. There is an easy-to-follow color code.

    The site does not list death data. But what I want to know is, how fast is it spreading right now — dare I run unecessary errands today?

    My main takeaway has been, my area is stuck at a plateau of slow-moving infection. I guess that is better than it could be.

  38. 38.

    raven

    September 11, 2020 at 10:51 am

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Since “rooting” doesn’t mean shit what’s the difference?

  39. 39.

    L85NJGT

    September 11, 2020 at 10:51 am

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    No. It’s the clan that owns the Chicago Cubs.

  40. 40.

    hells littlest angel

    September 11, 2020 at 10:53 am

    The states are the laboratories of democracy. And also of depraved mad scientists*.

     

     

    *Who do not necessarily have degrees in science, you elitists.

  41. 41.

    hells littlest angel

    September 11, 2020 at 10:57 am

    @Shantanu Saha: Don’t forget up-and-coming Republican rock star Beriberi Brown.

  42. 42.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 11, 2020 at 10:57 am

    @L85NJGT: with money made from Ameritrade, since sold to Charles Schwab. The Ricketts parents are big trump donors, as are the three sons, including the chair of the Cubs. The only daughter, Laura, is an LGBTQ activist and Dem donor and fund-raiser

  43. 43.

    RaflW

    September 11, 2020 at 10:58 am

    I am still hoping to drive back out to CO in a couple of weeks. But that is best done traversing a big chunk of Nebraska (and staying overnight in Lincoln each way). I hate these fucking Republican morons.

    Yeah, my trip is nonessential. And for other reasons I may cancel anyway (dad-in-law is still not doing very well). But as a person who travels with high levels of caution and preparation, I can make the trip. But the added stress of knowing that Nebraskans are led by permissive idiots who don’t care who gets sick? Damn them.

  44. 44.

    RaflW

    September 11, 2020 at 11:03 am

    @germy: “Come to Sturgis! Bring home more than memories.”

  45. 45.

    davecb

    September 11, 2020 at 11:06 am

    @Cheryl Rofer: Is anybody collecting those kinds of “natural experiments”, I wonder? I’d love to see analyses that aren’t full of Not Invented Here.

  46. 46.

    brendancalling

    September 11, 2020 at 11:08 am

    Maybe we need to build a wall after all? Like, around states like Nebraska?

  47. 47.

    kindness

    September 11, 2020 at 11:17 am

    When politicians treat their constituents as a Petri dish, only bad things will happen.

    I don’t understand the mind set of Red America. It boggles my mind. Truly. Why they believe that we on the progressive/liberal side are Ogres only out to take their guns and marry off their daughters to minorities isn’t explainable by just Fox News.

  48. 48.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    September 11, 2020 at 11:24 am

    @kindness: They are the modern version of the “Know Nothings”.

  49. 49.

    Mathguy

    September 11, 2020 at 11:26 am

    F*ck Pete Ricketts with a red hot poker. I live in this state filled with idiots, and King Idiot Lex Luthor cosplayer Ricketts is just embarrassing. Appropriate that his name is a nasty condition.

  50. 50.

    Nicole

    September 11, 2020 at 11:26 am

    @kindness:

    I don’t understand the mind set of Red America. It boggles my mind. Truly. Why they believe that we on the progressive/liberal side are Ogres only out to take their guns and marry off their daughters to minorities isn’t explainable by just Fox News.

    I think it’s so many things.  I think it’s that Americans (mostly white ones, anyway) aren’t accustomed to being told, “No.”  I think it’s fear, and fear mixed in with toxic masculinity.  And I think 30 years of FOX News pushing Democrats as the “other” that must be hated, filling the vacancy left by the Soviets, producers a knee-jerk reaction against anything perceived as liberal.

    And I think it’s laziness.  It’s work, wearing a mask and social distancing. Not a lot of work, but boring, tedious work.  And for all that Biden and every other politician sings the praises of the blue collar American who likes to roll up their sleeves and get to work, I feel like that’s a myth we’ve sold ourselves.

    And it’s a lot of work to safeguard a state during a pandemic and I think a lot of these red state politicians REALLY don’t like having to do a lot of work, let alone boring, tedious work.

  51. 51.

    Doug R

    September 11, 2020 at 11:26 am

    @donnah: Cancel now, quoting the story. If they figure out a “safe way” to get you there, stand your ground.

  52. 52.

    Mathguy

    September 11, 2020 at 11:35 am

    @kindness: Not everybody here is stupid as the Coronavirus Party adherents. Omaha and Lincoln are still under indoor mask orders. People are compliant with it-I see very few covidiots when I venture out.

    I’d also add that the epidemiologists at UNMC have been openly calling out Ricketts for his stupidity.

  53. 53.

    artem1s

    September 11, 2020 at 11:35 am

    this idiocy is another example of how the GOP’s decision to use racism to take over state and federal governments.  If we had an actual executive in the WH there would be federal policy that would prevent some wingnut governor or legislature from claiming states rights and popular sovereignty on public health issues.  When the GOP finally dies this nonsense of states rights being used to avoid meeting minimum standard has to be eradicated from our community understanding of how government is supposed to work.  If the GOP hadn’t been so hell bent on holding power by disenfranchising minorities we wouldn’t have to be undoing the damage of 50 years of the fetishistic worship of the Confederacy and Jim Crow.  And this sovereignty and state’s rights nonsense that has bled over into gun laws, reproductive rights, environmental legislation, mining and logging rights, water management, privatization of public works and a hundred other areas that don’t have anything to do with the imaginary lines that are drawn around 50 different geographic areas.  The GOP figured out a way to ignore and undo progressive, democratic legislation that doesn’t support their notion of white supremacy and excellency. And they won’t stop using it until it’s no longer available to them.  IMO Louie Gohmert and his idiot pals are public enemy number one.  Even if Donnie leaves tomorrow the rot will continue.

  54. 54.

    Baud

    September 11, 2020 at 11:36 am

    @Nicole:

    A lot of it IMHO is that they’ve never seen much social pushback.  It wasn’t that long ago that all the savvy people were putting the blame squarely on Democrats for not earning their vote.

  55. 55.

    Jay Noble

    September 11, 2020 at 11:38 am

    In short, it’s about Football. Those meanies in the Big 10 won’t let us play. Hardly a peep out of them about the others sports that got cancelled. Game day in Lincoln is a huge payday all across the state. Bars show the game. People have watch parties. People who aren’t interested in the game go shopping. Gas gets pumped and snacks bought.

    And yet, while Ricketts is being an ass I have friends who are pretty darn conservative just screaming bloody murder – because they have kids or loved ones who are vulnerable. We got Ricketts for the same reason we got Trump – businessman to run the state like a business. Unfortunately, he is actually competant and evil.

    Oh We just got via petition Casino Gambling on the ballot but not Medical Marijuana. One of the strikes against marijuana was that it still restricted at the Federal level.

  56. 56.

    Mathguy

    September 11, 2020 at 11:41 am

    @Jay Noble: The Nebraska SC ruling was typical Republican dumbfuckery, taking their cues from Roberts et al. They said it wasn’t a single issue ballot measure, so it would confuse the poor stupid voters.

  57. 57.

    WaterGirl

    September 11, 2020 at 11:43 am

    @donnah: I agree with Doug R.  Cancel now.

    A one-time anything is not worth the risk.  So many people who “recover” never actually recover completely and are unable to return to their previous lives.  We simply do not know the long-term effects.

  58. 58.

    chopper

    September 11, 2020 at 11:43 am

    @Shantanu Saha:

    man, that would be beriberi funny to see.

  59. 59.

    Jay Noble

    September 11, 2020 at 11:49 am

    @Nicole: We had Limbaugh ages before FOX and that Savage ahole. Daytime AM Radio of the 80’s segued right into FOX.

  60. 60.

    RaflW

    September 11, 2020 at 11:49 am

    @Ohio Mom: This is great.

    But also, holy crap. If I make the drive, I’ll be passing through several of the worst counties in CO en route, in the NE quadrant along I-76. IOW probably closer to Nebraska in ‘thought leadership’ than lie-brul Denver & teh gay Governor.

  61. 61.

    sherparick

    September 11, 2020 at 11:51 am

    @Cheryl Rofer: We will see in about 2 weeks.  Ricketts is the son of Joe Ricketts, a RW Billionaire & racist, so the apple did not fall far from the tree.  By the way, this means they can fill up Nebraska’s football stadium I guess.  From the Italian COVID outbreak large sporting events appear to be the super spreader of super spreading events.

  62. 62.

    sherparick

    September 11, 2020 at 11:53 am

    @Jay Noble: I believe “incompetent” is what you meant to say.  This is bad Government as well as malevolent policy.  As people start getting sick, more & more people will just stay home so business will still be awful, but now they will be paying workers & rent.

  63. 63.

    Just One More Canuck

    September 11, 2020 at 11:58 am

    @Shantanu Saha:

     

    @hells littlest angel: or Eddie Explosive-Diarrhea

  64. 64.

    RaflW

    September 11, 2020 at 11:59 am

    This is more a contributor than central to it, but I also think that the GOP has felt it has been ‘successful’ at holding climate change policy responses at bay for 30 years by just denying it, then saying it is too expensive, that it’s an effort by liberal scientists to line their own pockets/have too much social control, etc.

    Because climate change is a slow-roll disaster (or has been up to recently), the feedback loop has meant they could just merrily play along. Covid don’t work like that.

    David Frum had a related variation on this theme in a tweet thread the other day, saying that Trump has blustered past every scandal, bankruptcy, or bad deal that has tried to take him out in the past. But those were all human events. As Boris Rasputin alludes, Covid doesn’t care about bluster. Covid cares about replicating itself. Period.

  65. 65.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    September 11, 2020 at 12:00 pm

    @Mezz: Does this one work for you?:

    New York Times Nebraska COVID-19 page

  66. 66.

    RaflW

    September 11, 2020 at 12:11 pm

    @artem1s: It is fascinating — and by that, I mean infuriating — to see the MN GOP going after our governor month after month (including using a novel tactic to fire cabinet members as punishment) for his use of emergency powers to manage the pandemic here.

    If we had a coordinated federal response like you describe, no doubt the GOP would be doing nationally what they’re doing here. They don’t give a shit about protecting people. They only care about the ‘wrong’ people using the constitutionally allocated levers of power effectively.

    These same f–kers are perfectly happy to see Trump stomp all over rules and norms about sending his forces to Portland to cause mayhem.

  67. 67.

    Bill Arnold

    September 11, 2020 at 12:14 pm

    A lot of evidence says that state government restrictions are merely reflections of reality and lag actual responses.

    This is directly contradicted by the NY experience with masks. There were no local mask mandates that I know of, and on April 17 Cuomo issued a mandatory face coverings (indoors, public places) order, and mask discipline went from about 50 observed locally the couple of days prior to the mandate to 100 percent the first day of the mandate.
    I believe other jurisdictions have seen a similar effect. Note that Cuomo’s mandate was before the anti-masker influence operations[1] fully started their evil, so it was greenfield with no memes fighting against it.
    [1] I do not for sure know the identity of the actors, or their motivations, though Russia has clearly been amplifying this shit.

  68. 68.

    Bill Arnold

    September 11, 2020 at 12:33 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Unfortunately, we won’t know the results we need to apply now until a lot more people become sick and die.

    The ethics are roughly comparable to the Nazi medical experiments or the actions of Japan’s Unit 731[1], but at much larger scale. The science has been clear for at roughy 6 months[2] that minimiizing sharing of unfiltered air is the most important measure, yet

    [1] PM Abe in aircraft number 731[3]: “Prime Minister Abe waves
    [2] CDC recognized airborne spread by asymptomatics early April 2020 and science was there earlier just less solid.
    [3] via web.archive.org since aljazeera is broken. It is possible that the Japanese right tried to memory hole this embarrassing pic, or maybe just corporate rot

  69. 69.

    mvr

    September 11, 2020 at 12:35 pm

    @Mathguy: I’d also add that the epidemiologists at UNMC have been openly calling out Ricketts for his stupidity.

    Can you tell me where to look for that?  I see Ali Khan being pretty diplomatic on Twitter even if the upshot of what he says would be anti-Ricketts. What should I look for?

  70. 70.

    mvr

    September 11, 2020 at 12:41 pm

    @RaflW: Three weeks ago I would have said Lincoln was pretty safe. Omaha’s rates are dropping and Lincoln’s two week rate is approaching Omaha’s with less than half the population.  Several of the counties that used to be bad seem to have settled down. At this point York might be a better bet than Lincoln. You can see comparison of counties at https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/ece0db09da4d4ca68252c3967aa1e9dd though you want to know the population of the county as well and the positivity rate.

  71. 71.

    Bill Arnold

    September 11, 2020 at 12:46 pm

    @Doug R:

    Cancel now, quoting the story. If they figure out a “safe way” to get you there, stand your ground.

    Yes, avoid SARS-CoV-2 infection, everyone.
    New paper just to reinforce that:
    Neuroinvasion of SARS-CoV-2 in human and mouse brain (September 8, 2020, “not certified by peer review”)

    Finally, in brain autopsy from patients who died of COVID-19, we detect SARS-CoV-2 in the cortical neurons, and note pathologic features associated with infection with minimal immune cell infiltrates. These results provide evidence for the neuroinvasive capacity of SARS-CoV2, and an unexpected consequence of direct infection of neurons by SARS-CoV-2.
    …
    Upon histologic examination, we found multiple microscopic ischemic infarcts in the subcortical white matter, ranging from acute to subacute, and with focal hemorrhagic conversion (Figure 5C, Figure S9A). These varying stages of infarction indicated a temporal sequence of continued ischemic events. Most infarcts showed signs of tissue damage and localized cell death, and positive viral staining was present predominately around the edges of the infarct and to a lesser degree within the center. At the hyperacute stage of infarction, viral proteins were present in endothelium. These infarcts are present predominately in subcortical white matter, not within the cortex.

  72. 72.

    KNay

    September 11, 2020 at 12:48 pm

    @donnah: We’re getting a real case of the stupids around here.  Thus far, in part because we had a mask mandate and I believe because of the local medical community, mask wear has been good in Omaha.  No so much outside of the city.  Given the <sarcasm>great success our Iowa neighbors are having controlling the virus</sarcasm> its only a matter of weeks before our infection and death rates begin to climb.

  73. 73.

    Bill Arnold

    September 11, 2020 at 12:52 pm

    @RaflW:

    Covid doesn’t care about bluster. Covid cares about replicating itself. Period.

    COVID does better with bluster, at least the sort of bluster that involves deep/sharp exhalations without a mask to filter them.
    Mostly we’re just highly mobile patches of epithelial cells, but COVID-enablers like unmasked blusterers help it spread.

  74. 74.

    WaterGirl

    September 11, 2020 at 1:10 pm

    @Bill Arnold: I wish someone could interpret some of that for me. It obviously doesn’t sound good, but I’m sure I am not understanding some of the implications of what I read.

  75. 75.

    RaflW

    September 11, 2020 at 1:25 pm

    @mvr: I appreciate that. I’m not that concerned about the overnights. I wear a well-fitting N95, use online checkin and phone-app room ‘key’, one elevator ride up to the room, one down the next day, and gone. I’ve stayed in York several times over the years.

    It really is more just ‘is the stress of the trip worth it’, and the nagging feeling that I could get decked by some shit-for-brains in the parking lot of a Sapp Bros for wearing a mask sense of dread that I’m working thru. Today, I feel like cancelling.

    The upside is, I don’t really have to do anything for 12 days since I’m driving and the hotel is a 24h deadline (at which point I can also just cancel the hotel, and rebook if i decide to go a few days later)

    eta: Looking again at that site OhioMom pointed to, wow the cases per 1000 doubled in the time between our fist and second trips thru Nebraska in July. Ugh.

  76. 76.

    Chris Johnson

    September 11, 2020 at 1:28 pm

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I hear ya, and what with the talk of Unit 731 it’s worth extending what I said.

    I’m saying, those that are fighting us, they’re going to be destroyed by their own folly. LET THEM. Stay away. Start to just shut down and leave if you hear such talk. I know it will increase health care costs. I think ‘health insurance’ is doomed anyway so that does not scare me, and if you had a way to get through and convince these people? DO it. But you don’t, I don’t.

    Maybe the only thing that will help is, ‘uhhh… where are them liberals at? That we used to make fun of? Why are they lookin’ at us funny, why do they run away now like we’re zombies, dead men walkin’?’

    I need to underscore, embrace anybody who seems to be breaking ranks. Anybody who is wavering, anybody who’s worried or who is trying to not get sick, those we reach out to.

    I’m writing off the people, some of whom have been personal friends and/or family, who are adamant about going down with this ship. You don’t get to encourage COVID superspreader events and hotspots and be treated like you’re just good men of a rival opinion. Let them be Herman Cain. This has consequences. If you’re going to act all Trumpy, this is not the time to try and convince you that you are effectively a Russian bioweapon.

    This is the time to treat you as one.

    They might as well be the walking dead.

  77. 77.

    burnspbesq

    September 11, 2020 at 1:55 pm

    Twenty-five thousand people from all over the state (and probably beyond) are expected to attend UT’s football game tomorrow.

    No matter what you believe about the stupidity of the typical Texan, it’s much worse.

  78. 78.

    Frank Wilhoit

    September 11, 2020 at 1:56 pm

    @sherparick:  I spent three years at UN-L in Lincoln, but so long ago that everything is probably very different now. But one thing I am sure has not changed. The football stadium seats 73,000 and every year they sell 76,000 season tickets. I have seen people sitting on the top parapet of that stadium, with nothing behind them but a hundred-foot drop — and it’s not as if there wasn’t any alcohol being consumed, either.

    One more Nebraska football story, while I’m here. I don’t know whether the name Tom Osborne still means anything to anybody. He was the Husker coach for many years starting ~1980. His media persona was dominated by his vociferous evangelical Xtianity: prayer meetings with the team, etc.

    In his second season, the team dropped the first two games, and the Board of Regents took up the notion of firing him. I had a spy (the head of my academic department) in the Board of Regents meetings. He reported the conversation as being (as usual) desultory and wandering, with one Regent characterizing his view on the unfitness of Mr. Osborne as thus: “He’s just too NICE, the goddamn Christian sonofabitch!”

  79. 79.

    Bill Arnold

    September 11, 2020 at 2:21 pm

    @WaterGirl:
    What it means is that SARS-CoV-2 definitely at least sometimes infects the brain, that normal immune mechanisms don’t help much (neurons are permanent so they get special treatment), and that it sometimes appears to cause lesions, probably small infarcts(dead regions) caused by small blockages of blood flow due to small clots, mostly in white matter but some in cortex.
    I’m not trained in this area (and am still digesting that paper) so a MD or brain researcher could chime in. There have been papers about SARS-CoV-2 infecting the brain since roughly Feb 2020; this is not entirely new but is interesting new work and another reason to go through efforts to avoid getting infected before being vaccinated whenever that happens.

  80. 80.

    polyorchnid octopunch

    September 11, 2020 at 2:30 pm

    @WaterGirl: It fucks with your noodle, and just like all the other kinds of noodle-fuckery we’re aware of, said fuckery is permanent.

  81. 81.

    WaterGirl

    September 11, 2020 at 2:31 pm

    @Bill Arnold: @polyorchnid octopunch:

    Thank you both!

  82. 82.

    patrick II

    September 11, 2020 at 2:37 pm

    @RaflW:

    I’ll be passing through several of the worst counties in CO en route

    1. Don’t stop.
    2. Put HEPA air filters on your car.
    You should be fine.

  83. 83.

    Zanamu

    September 11, 2020 at 3:52 pm

    @Shantanu Saha: Ricketts is term-limited – there is some curiosity about whether he will move out of state to better enjoy dad’s $$$$$$$, or if he will try to primary a member of our congressional delegation – He resides in Omaha, so that’s Bacon, or Deb Fischer or Ben Sasse. Of course, Bacon’s position is tenuous this election cycle, which would make Ricketts’ task easier in two years. Make no mistake – most of Nebraska is solid Trumpistan, made easier by a bit of gerrymandering in the 1st & 2nd districts. Regardless, most of our elected republicans are terrible people and have little incentive for doing anything that would alleviate our high child poverty rate, our prison overcrowding (exc build more prisons), or anything else that would make life easier for anyone who is not in their club. At least Ricketts’ time as governor is finite, but he won’t be replaced by anyone better.

  84. 84.

    Zanamu

    September 11, 2020 at 3:55 pm

    @Jay Noble: True – downtown Lincoln earns $1 million per year just on football parking. Unlike most universities, UNL’s football program underwrites other university facilities & programs as well. It’s definitely economics: the NU system is the state’s largest employer as well, and those job cuts are going to hurt,

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