Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let there be snark.

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

I really should read my own blog.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

American history and black history cannot be separated.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / Willful Stupidity Open Thread: (No) ‘Safety Theater’

Willful Stupidity Open Thread: (No) ‘Safety Theater’

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Okay, willful may be a little extreme, in RonJon’s case. But the jagoffs who voted for him can’t all be as genuinely head-trauma-equivalent dumb as he is… can they?

IGM, FY. GOP: Death. Cult.

Slate pitcher!

Reader Interactions

80Comments

  1. 1.

    Mike in NC

    Earlier tonight MSNBC noted that around 500 Trump insurrectionists are expected to be prosecuted for the 1/6 attack on Congress. Hang ’em high!

  3. 3.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    I will point out it that I had to be pretty aggressive to get my vaccine appointment. While I am sure it it fits in to some parties narratives, the yearly flue vaccines we get aren’t this difficult to get. Not to mention, we want dumb people and those who don’t have the fucking internet to be able to get it.  So how many are anti-vaccers and and how many “I want one, but fuck this confusing shit” ?

  5. 5.

    Kent

    Wisconsin has a hell of a lot to answer for.

    This did this all on their own. It wasn’t gerrymandering that gave us Johnson. Usually it takes some deep southern fried cooking and voter suppression to generate this level of abject stupidity.

  6. 6.

    Sister Golden Bear

    Just found out yet another trans woman was murdered last night — at least the 16th trans/gender non-comforming person killed so far this year* — not far from where I live. Stabbed in the neck and multiple times in the chest.

    She was only 23. Rest in Power, Natalia Smüt (her stage name, I don’t know her muggle name).

    I didn’t know her personally, but she was a friend of several my friends. She was also a drag performer (yes, there’s trans people who also perform drag), and performed in some of the same shows I’ve done (although I don’t think I ever shared a stage with her).

    While statistically I’m quite safe (being white, middle class, etc. etc.) it still strikes close to home.

    Trans people develop rhino hide just to live in this world, and there’s a certain compartmentalization that I’ve needed to be able to talk about/fight all the anti-trans shit that’s been happening without it taking over my brain. But something about this particular murder is piercing through both. Not doing well tonight.

    *I say “at least” because too often these deaths go unreported — or misreported, where the victims are deadnamed and misgendered after death by the authorities, and sometime family, in one final insult. Usually almost all are trans woman, the vast majority trans women of color, in particular Black trans women, as was Natalia.

  11. 11.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Gonna repeat something I keep quoting on Twitter from an epidemiologist.

    The only way to control covid is to have the number of cases close to zero.

    Otherwise, you have a shit ton of cases or are about to have a shit ton of cases.

    I will add that at present, the US is in the “about to have” state. It’s possible that vaccination will get ahead of those who want to doff their masks, but that quote accurately describes how the virus’s exponential increase works.

  13. 13.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Here’s some good news.

    The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines should be effective against the known variants. The experiments are in vitro, but they are the kind that should be transferable to real life.

  20. 20.

    patrick II

    Speaking of stupidity, today was the one-year anniversary of Trump suggesting that injection bleach might cure COVID. Tonight Rachel showed a video of that moment, and it is painful to watch.

  22. 22.

    Soprano2

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: When the supply is good enough allow walk-ins, don’t make people have to get online and spend a bunch of time making appointments. Easier in some places than others, I know. I heard today that several Kansas pharmacies refused their weekly shipments of vaccine because of low demand. Time for walk-in appointments at those places.

  23. 23.

    Matt McIrvin

    Few people in my neighborhood wear masks when they’re walking around outside. I don’t particularly mind, for all the reasons given here: they’re unlikely to be near anyone and outdoor transmission is hard. There’s a zone downtown where there are signs telling people to mask up, and by and large they do.

    But if people start ordering me to take my mask off as some sort of political signal, I will be mad, because it turns out these things are great for allowing me to walk around outside in April without being murdered by the tree pollen. It’s not even really about COVID.

  25. 25.

    Mousebumples

    Max Kennerly (@MaxKennerly) tweeted at 6:49 PM on Thu, Apr 22, 2021:

    Fine, time for new public health messaging:

    COVID breaks your dick and balls and gives you low T.

    You need good endothelial function for an erection and you have ACE2 in your testis. COVID goes for those first. 6x higher ED. Hypogonadism.

    Get a prick for your dick. https://t.co/08HneU1tWP

    (https://twitter.com/MaxKennerly/status/1385380164016787456?s=03)

    Thoughts on if this messaging campaign would work?

  28. 28.

    guachi

    I don’t wear a mask when I’m exercising outside. Most of my other times outside are walking to and from my car and I have a mask on then because it’s just easier.

  29. 29.

    VOR

    @CaseyL: Scott Walker and Ron Johnson are not outliers in Wisconsin. The state legislature has been under Republican control for some time. The Supreme Court is also partisan. They gerrymandered it pretty badly after 2010. You get outside Madison and Milwaukee and the rest of the state is TFG-land.

    We had a natural experiment after the Great Recession. Wisconsin elected Scott Walker. Minnesota elected Mark Dayton. IIRC Minnesota outperformed Wisconsin in the recovery.

  30. 30.

    Redshift

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Not to mention, we want dumb people and those who don’t have the fucking internet to be able to get it. 

    I don’t know about other states, but Virginia has been running vaccine sign-up ads with an 800 number, and big bold text saying it’s free. So not being comfortable in the internet is no longer the barrier it once was.

  32. 32.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @VOR:

    Wisconsin elected Scott Walker. Minnesota elected Mark Dayton. IIRC Minnesota outperformed Wisconsin in the recovery.

    As Harry S Truman said: “If you want to live like a  Republican, vote for a Democrat”.

  33. 33.

    NotMax

    @BillinGlendaleCA

    While this is from about a year ago, thought you might find it of interest in case you hadn’t run across it before.

    Could be an interesting experiment coupled with your infrared doohickeys.

  36. 36.

    Ken

    @Cheryl Rofer: Cases go down, things open up, cases go up.

    It’s exactly those predator-prey population curves you learn about in high school biology, with careless humans as the prey.

    I’ve just realized, I appreciated intellectually that we humans were animals, but something about the last year has brought it home emotionally.

  37. 37.

    Ruckus

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    The concept isn’t simple enough for a lot of people to understand. It seems like it should be understandable but some people need to have everything explained to them numerous times so that it starts to filter into their tiny, not functional minds using small words and zero scientific/medical jargon. One would think that people with this limited amount of functional brain power would need guidance to eat and get dressed every day. Which they actually do….

  39. 39.

    dopey-o

    I have a couple of bright red masks with yellow Chinese characters on them. I tell anti-maskers that they say “COVID brings death to America.”

    I tell them a friend picked them up in Wuhan, where people say that Covid was developed as a bio-weapon to destabilize America and India. Killing Indians and Americans will allow China to dominate.

    I don’t know if the Q-diots will buy into the patriotic, mask-wearin’ vax-takin’ BS, but nothing else is working……

  41. 41.

    Matt McIrvin

    I don’t know why but I’m constantly surprised at how many Americans don’t seem to grasp the idea of collective action at all– that there might be some good actions that cannot only be treated as atomistic behavior in protection of the self, but only work if everyone, or a large number of people, cooperate. They understand collective action less than the average kindergartener ought to be able to–and I think it’s because they’ve been deliberately trained to reject it.

    Granted, with the vaccines it’s a bit complicated by the fact that the early scientific evidence (as in the field trials required for approval) didn’t say anything one way or the other about the vaccines’ ability to inhibit virus transmission, as opposed to illness, so the authorities couldn’t say “get the vaccine to bring the viral reproduction rate down”. But you know they were hoping for that all along, and now there’s good evidence that they do bring down the reproduction rate. So it does matter to your health whether your neighbor has one.

  42. 42.

    Omnes Omnibus

    I have said this before, but I will say it again.  WI is a purple state because it has very liberal and very conservative voters and very few squishy centrists.  If the right gets the upper hand, it gets a chance to do a lot of damage.  Which it has.  OTOH, if you look at WI’s other senator and what has been happening since 2018, it looks like things are starting to swing back.

  43. 43.

    Bill Arnold

    Focus needs to be on minimizing sharing of unfiltered (recent) exhalations, which means indoors.
    There’s no evidence (that I’m aware of) that wearing masks outside is helpful, except perhaps in packed grounds and near-still air, and even there there isn’t solid evidence though speculation is reasonable.
    There’s approximately zero solid evidence of SARS-CoV-2 fomite transmission last I looked (like a week ago)[1][2], and hundreds of case studies of clear airborne (including small droplets) transmission, so touching masks isn’t really an issue either, excepting perhaps during/after close work with infected people like in hospitals.
    Have there been any outdoor (not mixed indoor/outdoor, aka indoor) superspreader events? Not aware of any.
    I also haven’t seen documentation for a superspreader event where the index patient was wearing a mask. (Anyone?)

    [1] one case where a contaminated elevator button was presumed, but not proven. Perhaps contaminated frozen meat in China, not proven.
    [2] Hand washing is a hill to die on for public health people (and critical for controlling some diseases), but Science Brief: SARS-CoV-2 and Surface (Fomite) Transmission for Indoor Community Environments (CDC, Updated Apr. 5, 2021)

    There have been few reports of COVID-19 cases potentially attributed to fomite transmission. Infections can often be attributed to multiple transmission pathways. Fomite transmission is difficult to prove definitively, in part because respiratory transmission from asymptomatic people cannot be ruled out

  45. 45.

    Jude

    @Omnes Omnibus: WI disgusts me and I’m a part of my (rural) county’s Dem party. We can’t be arsed to stand up for anything we want so we end up being pushed around by troglodytes, aka Grothman, Johnson, Voss.

    That said, I am NOT wearing a mask in the open air-especially after 2x vaccination. The science doesn’t support it.

  46. 46.

    Bill Arnold

    @Matt McIrvin:
    I’ve always (well, past couple of decades at least) worn a paper mask when mowing the lawn or working with/around stirred up dust.
    The N95s are better for this; better fit, better filtration.
    Another aspect that’s been fascinating is the absolute crushing of influenza by the anti-COVID precautions. We now know how to stop an influenza pandemic even without a vaccine. With some statistical work that included the history of precautions per country/other jurisdictions, we could get a clear idea of what measures were most effective against influenza. I hope some researchers do this.

  47. 47.

    Ken

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Guessed right, do I win a cash prize?

    Yes, but it’s split among the other 100,000 people who also guessed right, so your share is slightly under a farthing.

    Come to think, did I hear recently of a state pick-3 lottery where the winning numbers were something like 1-2-3, and several thousand people split the prize?  (Googling sounds)  Possibly this one.

  48. 48.

    CaseyL

    @James E Powell:  Ohio went for Biden, and has Senator Brown, but all of the state-level top elected officials are GOP, and they have a huge majority in the state lege.  It’ll be interesting to see happens with redistricting in 2022, with the process no longer controlled entirely by the majority Party.

  52. 52.

    AnotherBruce

    @opiejeanne: Kinda scary. I’m working for a vac site in Washington. It’s really hard work, but rewarding. I’m a traffic control guy. And I love it. It’s fun to kid around with the drive up customers. And it brings out the feeling that the vaccines can also unite folks.

  54. 54.

    Another Scott

    @Bill Arnold: Yes, indoors with unmasked people is dangerous.  I’m a week into Pfizer #1 but imagine I’m going to continue wearing a mask whenever others are around – indoors and out – even 2 weeks after #2.  When I’m out walking Ellie, there have been several times when kids on bikes or skateboards sneak up on us, or come uncomfortably close, etc.  Plus, the pollen has been pretty thick around here in NoVA…

    Even with the vaccine, I won’t be comfortable until there is a decent treatment and we’re still not there yet.  There’s still a lot we don’t know about this disease (something I found recently said immunity is only expected to last 3-9 months based on the behavior of other coronaviruses).

    YMMV.

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  56. 56.

    gene108

    I wonder how many people are not getting vaccinated, because of a fear of needles?

    It’d be interesting, if this got studied because I am worried.

  57. 57.

    Another Scott

    @gene108: I’ve got a gut feeling that getting 50% fully vaccinated is going to be pretty easy.  The other 50% may be a long, drawn-out process.  The GQP has politicized everything and have 40+% under their spell…

    So, I expect things to slow down a lot once we get to ~ 300M shots, probably before June 1.

    :-(

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  59. 59.

    Hamlet

    @CaseyL:

    The thing that blows my mind-  about 7% of Wisconsin’s electorate voted for both Tammy Baldwin and Scott Walker.  What mental gymnastics do you have to be doing to want to send Tammy Baldwin to Washington but still want to keep Scott Walker as governor?

  61. 61.

    Fair Economist

    @Bill Arnold: IMO the reason to mandate masks outside is that otherwise people will get to their destination without masks and then there’s a problem.

  63. 63.

    gene108

    @Matt McIrvin:

    less than the average kindergartener

    Speaking of kindergarten and anti-mask folks, I wonder if any of them were ever taught to cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze?

    That’s kindergarten level stuff, because by the time I was in first grade, it seemed we’d all been taught to cover our mouths, when we cough or sneeze to not spread germs to others.

    Good lord did I overestimate how well people are raised, because masks are just covering your mouth (and nose) when coughing or sneezing to a higher level.

    I am staggered by the number of people who cannot make the correlation. I must assume many do not cover their mouths when coughing or sneezing.

  65. 65.

    mrmoshpotato

    @gene108:

    Speaking of kindergarten and anti-mask folks, I wonder if any of them were ever taught to cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze? 

    Whole buncha Idaho trash need to be slapped.

  67. 67.

    Gretchen

    @Fair Economist: most people out walking their dogs don’t have a destination.  I walk awhile and then turn around and walk back home.  None of the dog walkers in my neighborhood wear masks outside, but all give a wide berth to anyone who approaches.  I’m comfortable with that.  On the other hand, everyone at the little shopping center is scrupulous about wearing a mask.

  68. 68.

    Chris T.

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Now I have another analog besides my chemical reaction models, which is not an example most people can relate to.

    Well, maybe… I don’t think predator/prey models are something most people can relate to either.

  70. 70.

    eclare

    @Ken:  I still remember hearing some oceanographer type person say “when you enter the ocean, you enter the food chain.”

  72. 72.

    Sloane Ranger

    @Fair Economist: Here in my little corner of the UK, most people don’t wear masks outside but the vast majority now wear them inside or wear a medical exemption card on a lanyard.

    I have to say it hasn’t always been that way. In fact indoor mask wearing seems to have actually increased since the vaccine rollout began.

  73. 73.

    John S.

    @gene108

    I wonder how many people are not getting vaccinated, because of a fear of needles?

    I hate needles, but I still got vaccinated. I wasn’t going to allow my fear to overcome reason. That’s a choice every human being has to make on a regular basis.

  74. 74.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Another Scott: 

    (something I found recently said immunity is only expected to last 3-9 months based on the behavior of other coronaviruses).

    Could be wrong but I think that was about immunity gained by getting infected, not by getting vaccinated. The vaccines evoke a much stronger immune response, and necessarily nobody knows yet how long it lasts, but it seems to last at least as long as has been studied so far. Some scientists seem to think it will last years, with the main unknown being whether new variants arise that evade it.

  75. 75.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    I don’t know why people can’t understand this. It keeps happening. Cases go down, things open up, cases go up.

    The governor of Massachusetts seems incapable of grasping this, so I have little hope for random Joe on the street.

  76. 76.

    Falling Diphthong

    Men are ALSO about 10 points more conservative than women in voter ID, an ID which scales closely to thinking it’s all a hoax, but sure, men just don’t understand computers. That must be it.

  77. 77.

    Falling Diphthong

    @Gretchen: This right here–dog walkers, and exercise walkers, are not going to get to the store, realize “oh darn I don’t have a mask–well, I’ll just go in and shop anyhow.” We get to a fork in the path in the woods, no one else around, and ponder whether we want to go farther or start back for home/the car. I’d really like to dial down the paternalistic “Well if we don’t require X in this area where X doesn’t actually help, no one will do X ever in any context.”

    I’m reminded of Josh Barro’s observation that the pandemic would be over when we go back to ignoring CDC recommendations, like the one about always using a barrier for oral sex. It’s safer! It’s the official recommendation!

  78. 78.

    JML

    @Hamlet: there are people who vote now not based on any concept of what the candidate’s policies and beliefs actually are but because they want to “balance” things and like being able to say they don’t just vote for one party, in part because they’ve been told (by an idiotic media) being an “independent” makes them morally superior.

    But the biggest thing is the power of incumbency. It’s still a huge advantage and it plays for both parties. If you’re looking to explain the cognitive dissonance for why someone could fill in the oval for Tammy Baldwin and Scott Walker…that’s the best bet.

    (this is how TFG ended up coming close to being reelected even after wrecking the country)

  79. 79.

    J R in WV

    @Jude: ​
     

    That said, I am NOT wearing a mask in the open air-especially after 2x vaccination. The science doesn’t support it.

    Way to set a good example, “Democrat” in name only! Despicable…

  80. 80.

    briber

    @CaseyL: ​Here’s my take on the phenomenon of electoral politics in Wisconsin.
    Politics in the US has divided on an urban/rural axis with liberal/Democrat constituencies laying in urban centers and conservative/Republican constituencies laying in rural areas.
    Wisconsin doesn’t have any big cities. It has a parasitic relationship with cities just across the border in the neighboring states of Minnesota and Illinois.
    The Twin Cities and Chicago both add to the economic base of Wisconsin but the residents of those metro areas don’t get to participate in the statewide elections that are held in Wisconsin. Instead, only the largely rural residents that live within the boundaries of the state may vote.
    Compare this with Michigan which has its Detroit or to Pennsylvania which has its Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Wisconsin only has Milwaukee and Madison as liberal urban enclaves.
    Additionally, given that Wisconsin doesn’t have a state income tax while both Illinois and Minnesota do, there is a strong tendency for Wisconsin to poach workers in the neighboring cities on the prospect of tax avoidance alone. That effect leaves Minnesota and Illinois slightly more liberal and Wisconsin slightly more conservative after the fact.
    Thought experiment:
    Move the Wisconsin/Illinois border 75 miles to the south so that Chicago became the largest city in Wisconsin. The result would be a reliably blue Wisconsin and a consistently red Illinois.
    Unfortunately, we can’t as a nation mandate an equal distribution of urban areas within each state to counterbalance the political allegiances of its rural population.

      The structure of the Senate is anti-democratic by design. As populations concentrate in cities that are located for geographic and economic reasons, the institution of the Senate becomes more anti-democratic in its practice.​

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