I know I have not been talking about much but Covid, but I am really preoccupied with it. I just can not believe it is happening. I mean I know I talked about the incompetence and venality of the GOP for years, but I still thought/hoped there was a chance that when the shit hit the fan, there might be someone who would step in and take charge. I was wrong.
I turned on the tv a bit ago and TRMS was on, and after watching about 20 minutes, I had to quit because I just can not handle that we have let it get to this. Anyone in government at the federal level who is not running around with their hair on fire about this is insane. Literally everything else has to stop and we have to deal with this. And we’re not. And it’s just fucking stunning.
it’s just fucking numbing.
BruceFromOhio
Yeah, she can do that.
Adam Lang
What I don’t get is how badly we are doing compared to basically everyone else. I mean, I figured we would be in the worse half but I never expected us to be a quarter of the world’s deaths from this.
I didn’t think we were that much… less than everyone else.
JaySinWA
All right, what is TMRS?
Chetan Murthy
John, and on a related note, that we’re talking about pro sports (or even college sports) when we can’t get our preschools, elementary, middle, and high schools, in order. Priorities, fucked they are. I remember in high school learning about Thorstein Veblen, and his idea that as a society grows richer, activities that used to be leisure, become professionalized, become somebody’s job. And this is OK, because as a rich society, we can afford that sort of thing.
But when we cannot afford to safely operate the mechanisms for propagating our society into the future, it is *insane* to be wasting societal resources on professionalized leisure. It’s *insane*.
Chetan Murthy
@JaySinWA: TRMS == The Rachel Maddow Show
Yutsano
I go back to work on the 13th for two weeks. I’ll be catching up on training and such. Then when it comes to seeing actual humans I’ll be off again for an indeterminate time. All because of this disease. I’ll be missing helping people at the end of filing season (which really should be extended until October 15th) all because of this virus. It’s absolute insanity. All because of her e-mails and James Comey and Russian interference and misogyny and ack!
Chetan Murthy
From the previous thread, maybe this explains a little of why the federal government is so *fucked*. Snyder’s thesis is remarkably predictive of what we’ve seen, esp. this year, and esp. over the holiday weekend, from the Mango Menace..
This seemed incredibly prescient, esp. for something filmed in late 2017.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOjJtEkKMX4&feature=emb_logo
George
Long time lurker and very infrequent commenter here.
The truth is that “we” have not let it get to this. And in fact, I disagree with accepting any group blame via use of “we.”
Elements of America have allowed and encouraged certain things–Covid being one of them–to happen. And kids in cages. And betraying the Kurds. And cozying up to papa Putin. And so forth.
In any nation there are people who are not smart enough to understand that following their bigotries and biases will surely lead to ruin. In contemporary America, those people are the assorted lunatics of the right.
If “we” need to do anything, it is to ensure that those people go back to being marginalized and are never in a position of power or authority again.
JaySinWA
@Chetan Murthy: Thanks.
patrick II
@Adam Lang:
There is plenty of useful work to do, it is just different work than it was six months ago. Someone should be organizing and spending money on a vision of America that is different for the next couple of years. But our elite have become too use to monoply power and don”t have the imagination, will power or desire to reorganize our economy the way it needs to be in our new environment.
Geoboy
“History does not repeat, but sometimes it rhymes” Mark Twain.
Back in July 2001, George W. Bush received a briefing the title of which was “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the United States”. He dismissed the briefer by saying “You’ve covered your ass. Now get out.” Six weeks later, 3,000 Americans died horribly.
In January and February 2020, Donald Trump received numerous briefings about this new plague. He dismissed them all. Now five months later, 130,000 Americans have died horribly, and that number grows every day.
Interestingly, these are the two American presidents that were inflicted on us by the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote. Among the numerous other items on our “To do” list, we’ve got to get rid of the Electoral College before there’s three.
Redshift
Yes, that is what should be happening. But we have an executive branch that is not only wildly incompetent and working from entirely evil motivations, but also refuses to allow competent people to do their jobs if it involves contradicting Dear Leader in any way, or even attracting praise or attention, since he can’t bear to have anyone else get those instead of him
chrisanthemama
NotMax
Illegitimi non carborundum.
Noncarborundum
@Geoboy: Well, there were also Hayes and Harrison. But the two in recent memory, yes.
Aleta
Looks like until 60% or so of the population are vaccinated with an safe effective vaccine (who knows how long from now) we say goodbye to a lot of wonderful things and make a point of appreciating what and who we still have. And take care of our bodies and minds as much as possible, so we can vote and contribute to all the things that still matter.
Soprano2
The blunt truth is that if mostly white people were dying, they would be running around with their hair on fire trying to do something about it. Since until the last month it’s been mostly people of color and liberals in big cities and blue states who were sick and dying they didn’t care. I think that’s the truth. Trump only cared about COVID when the stock market was tanking. Once the Fed propped it up and they figured out who was dying, he didn’t care anymore. I think he believes it’s mostly killing people who don’t support him. He’s a monster.
feebog
I am resigned this won’t be over until January 20, 2021. It’s horrid and unnecessary and ugly. But let’s face the fact that a substantial plurality of Americans are either bat-shit crazy, politically ignorant or just plain too stupid to think for themselves. Another segment are so politically tuned out that they can’t be bothered to show up and cast a vote, even when their own interests are at stake. The only thing that keeps me sane is that the kids seem to get it and a sizable number are engaged and pissed off at the status quo.
Barb 2
The U.S. is here because this is where he wants to be.
All of his choices regarding Covid-19 are/were deliberate. No one can be that accurate by chance. He gets attention – for being a shit head. His niece says he hasn’t psychologically passed the age of 3.
Ms. Deranged in AZ
@Adam Lang: Boy howdy, we are exceptional, ain’t we?!?! Just not exactly in the way we thought.
I’m with you, John. I just can’t wrap my head around the fact that a large enough percentage of this country is stupid enough to be fooled by the Orange Turdblossom (or morally depraved enough to approve of him). And the GOP apparently loves power over country. My whole life I always had that “Stranger in a Strange Land” kind of feeling. But now, it’s inescapable.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Chetan Murthy:
Excellent piece. Thanks for the link.
Morzer
Not to make John’s day worse, but, this is the latest in GOP corruption from dear old West Virginny:
https://www.propublica.org/article/companies-owned-by-this-billionaire-governor-received-up-to-24-million-in-bailout-loans
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I saw a clip of DeSantis at The Villages, talking about how there’s no need to panic, we’ll be fine, and I kept waiting for the anchor to break back in and say “that was Florida governor in April….”, but it seems it was today.
Andrew Johnston
Speaking from the outside, what’s going on back home is absolutely surreal. I’m sitting a stone’s throw from the epicenter, and I can now move freely in and out of shopping centers, restaurants, and all manner of public accommodations without any worries. I’ll be going to a show at a bar next week, and maybe they’ll take names and contact info from people as they enter, but that’s about it. We talk about flash floods more than we talk about COVID these days.
Meanwhile, now that the pall of censorship has (for the moment) lifted, I’m trying to figure out why everything is going to shit in the US, and nobody can give me a good fucking answer. There are a lot of little explanations but even taken together they can’t fully explain how we lost months of progress in a couple weeks. The best explanation we’re ever going to get is “Trump sucks,” which is true, but all it does is make me realize that not only was this not among the various nightmare scenarios people dreamed up in 2016, it’s in many ways worse than what they did dream up.
Draco7
@Barb 2: I’m not sure if chaos is just a tool or the desired end state, but I am inclined to agree that the T admin’s actions are deliberately fostering that outcome. It is against the laws of chance to be that wrong that consistently – even a stopped clock, etc.. The almost universal approach is to point and mock, but it takes some ability to accomplish this. Trivializing Garbage Boy and his support team is enabling a strange form of complacence wrt these actions.
I’m starting to suspect that there is a gap in our imaginations – or at least mine – where whatever is actually going on is so unthinkable that we’re not thinking of it.
NotMax
@
Jim, Foolish Literalist
“If you gaze over that railing there’s no iceberg at all!”
//
Chetan Murthy
@Andrew Johnston:
Oh, that’s actually easy, I think. Along with the rest of the Western world, we locked-down in March. And made lots of progress toward suppressing the outbreak. Then two things happened (or failed to happen):
(1) we reopened too early nearly-everywhere (even in Northern California (and by the by, we didnt’ actually lockdown as hard as in other Western countries, not by a country mile)
(2) our governments (both federal and state) didn’t stand up adequate test/trace/quarantine regimes to suppress the outbreak.
So inevitably we got new outbreaks, and those did exactly what the original outbreaks did: blossom exponentially.
Why did #2 happen? Because our Federal government is run by monsters who don’t give a damn, and our state governments are hamstrung by selfish asshole Americans who scream when they’re asked to sacrifice even a tiny bit. And also because we’ve grown fat and complacent. But mostly because pandemic response is a federal function, not one that states really know how to do.
So in the end, it’s all pretty straightforward.
Chetan Murthy
@Andrew Johnston:
There’s a saying about “exponential growth”: a sizable percentage of the growth, or damage, happens in the last period (or doubling period, or whatever). So even though it looks like we lost it all over two weeks, in fact, in fact, we were losing it over the last month-or-so. Because you can look at those case curves, and they were slowly trending up. People just didn’t want to see it.
So maybe that’s another lesson: people simply don’t understand the power of exponential growth. That’s why it’s so important to have and trust experts. Which ….. as a country we did not.
Martin
John,
The free market is on it.
James E Powell
@Chetan Murthy:
(3) Our nation is filled with ignorant, hateful bigots who stubbornly refuse, often with threats of violence, to act for the good of the whole society. This is particularly so when they perceive the request to do so as coming from a Democrat.
frosty
@Andrew Johnston: Where is home? Not just for you, but for all commenters, it helps us to know what region you’re reporting from.
South Central Confederate PA for me.
Adam Lang
@Ms. Deranged in AZ: Boy. Howdy. Yes indeed.
Andrew Johnston
@frosty: Kansas, but I was talking the US in general. KS is getting it especially hard, though.
I’m in Anhui province at the moment.
senyordave
Some variation of this would not be a bad ad for Biden. Something along the lines of “we can make government work”, and start by having competent people running it, and appointing people who have actual expertise in their fields, and listening to them. And having cabinet secretaries who don’t have obvious confilcts of interest (Betsy DeVos).
If I was a Martian visiting this planet and went to several different countries I would guess that the US had intentionally decided to destroy their country by running it into the ground.
Adam Lang
@George: I wish I agreed with you. But let’s be honest: the VAST majority of the sensible folks in this country couldn’t be bothered to do anything about what was happening.
How many people volunteer for politics campaigns? Make the time to understand the issues? Volunteer to help out the poor, or even the local school that their kids will be/are/previously were attending?
I’ve probably only put in maybe 4000 hours in the last twenty years. And that, I would guess, puts me well into the top 5%.
The worst are full of passionate intensity. The best lack more conviction than it takes to tweet angrily. That’s a pretty bad condition, beast-slouching-wise.
Oh, and I’m in San Francisco (hence my blog). I moved here because the places I used to live scared me. And now here does too, what with the techbro infestation.
Ruckus
@Barb 2:
And all this time I was giving him 4 yrs old. Well I imagine she knows him just a bit better than I do. Poor woman, that’s a terrible thing for anyone to have to experience.
Andrew Johnston
@Chetan Murthy:
True enough, as far as it goes, but there were plenty of other countries that face-planted on this point, and…it’s hard to explain it without showing you what China is like now, and what it was like just a few weeks ago.
Less than a month ago, I couldn’t go anywhere – it was a struggle to get into the Entry and Exit office, which required the use of a code that foreigners can’t really get. Now, I can go everywhere (maybe not the subway, I haven’t checked) with no restrictions. Meanwhile, people who are bound and determined to get to the US are having to resort to chartering flights because commercial flights to the US only run about once a month, with so many stopovers that the trip takes days.
So yeah, when I can go out and get pizza and drinks and take the bus home without as much as a single temperature check, and I see video of people still locked down, my only thought is “…Still? Why? How?”
trollhattan
@Geoboy:
But they’re not “that woman” and no email servers are involved, so it all evens out.
frosty
@Andrew Johnston: Aha, got it. Epicenter as in China. As for your puzzlement about the US response, all I can say is we have to many “America Fuck Yeah!!” people. I don’t get it either.
Ruckus
@Draco7:
He’s consistent because he is at best, a small, racist child mentally. A small child with massive cases of narcissism, racism, hate and dementia. He’s trying to get even with everyone he doesn’t like, which is most people. It’s what happens when you give a spoiled brat the level of power he has. Fortunately he is limited in his use of the power by his mentality so while he can do a lot of damage, he’s unlikely to make it as bad as possible.
SiubhanDuinne
@Chetan Murthy:
Thanks for sharing that link. It’s too late right now* but over the next few days I’m going to listen to the Snyder talks in proper order. He’s an excellent, clear speaker.
*(It’s 2:40 a.m., FFS, and some asshole in the neighbourhood is setting off fireworks.)
otmar
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: as a distant observer to all this, the republican dominated retirement communities of Florida always looked like a prime covid killing field to me.
Let’s see what happens over the next weeks.
Jay
Shooting ranges for Pigs.
They arn’t shooting at the pavement, ( loses velocity) to bounce into the legs, they are shooting a eye level to cripple or kill people.
Deliberately.
Jay
The
Odie Hugh Manatee
I understand having the right to vote but there has to be some way to protect people from things like the republican party and their members. Stupid people are killing us because they only give a shit about themselves.
The more perfect union isn’t perfect… not even close.
Chetan Murthy
@Andrew Johnston:
I’m not an epidemiologist, but from what I understand:
(1) if you get the case counts low enough, then you can use test/trace/quarantine and that’s all that’s needed: so no temp checks, social distancing, etc.
(2) for some level of cases above that, you need some social distancing, more testing, etc, but you can still run most of society
(3) but above that level, you simply can’t run society normally, because you get community transmission.
And we’re in mode #3 *everywhere* in the US. *everywhere*. Even in China, from what I understand, there are outbreaks, and when one is detected, they lockdown again and suppress it. They have the ability to do so, b/c they stood up an adequate test/trace/quarantine system.
We simply have no federal government, when it comes to this epidemic. None at all. And in many states, neither do we really have state governments. And then (as James Powell noted) we have a sizable fraction of the population that refuses to cooperate with public health measures, becoming belligerent when asked, with yet more who simply don’t cooperate well b/c stupid or self-centered. And then even in places like California, even in San Francisco, people don’t do their part, and since there’s no enforcement (really, NO enforcement) people just get used to not actively working to prevent the spread of the bug.
I mean, I’ve read about, and talked with a friend in France. The lockdowns in Europe were MUCH more severe than in the US. As someone noted, you could still drive unhindered from LA to NYC, in the middle of lockdown. Some “lockdown”.
Back to your question. Far from “Still? Why? How?” … in fact, we’re only NOW entering the worst of it. The very worst. Whatever happened in March, that was as NOTHING compared to what is coming, because that time, it was restricted to only a few big Blue States. This time, it’s ALL OVER the country.
BTW, I wanted to say something else about the appearance that it all went to pot in two weeks: I remember that back several months ago, when it appeared we were in a “plateau” nationally, somebody separated “cases in New York Area” from “cases everywhere else” and pointed out that the first graph was declining nicely (not fast enough, but still, nicely) and the second graph was rising enough to offset it. In short, even months ago, cases were rising everywhere else in the country.
BeautifulPlumage
@Yutsano: Hi Yutsano
Sending a belated Hooray! for getting out!
Sorry about the changes at work; it’s hard when the good parts go away.
Debbie(Aussie)
I’m at a loss guys ☹️ I’m so sorry!
As has been stated many times, if Trump were an agent of Putin, what more could if he have done that would be to his masters benefit?
James E Powell
@feebog:
It won’t be over then, either. Assuming Biden wins, the next day the obstruction and sabotage will begin and God help us of McConnell holds the senate. Before the year is out, this will all be Biden’s fault.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jay:
This is sickening.
HumboldtBlue
@James E Powell:
Fuck indeed.
BeautifulPlumage
My covid-based behavior rant this week is one of my older sisters. She visited our other sister, who is definitely high risk, and wore a mask “except for the last 30 minutes”. She also wore a mask into a Costco, took it off to hang on one ear, then ignored another customer’s request to put it on. That customer notified staff and she yelled at the customer. At least she didn’t live-stream her antics, so that’s something to be grateful about.
opiejeanne
@Yutsano: Did you see the big spike in cases today? The Seattle Times reported 1087 new cases today, another source (Avi Schiffmannm) reported 1197 today. Three weeks ago we were 200 per day and dipping below that a couple of times. On July 1 we set a record of 716 new cases and 5 days later we’re up another 300+.
Inslee visited the Trip-Cities area and Spokane and the locals were not receptive to his message about staying safe and pretty much booed him off the stage. They don’t want to wear masks because they’re idiots. One woman who was interviewed explained, loudly, that she wasn’t wearing a mask because she’s a patriot.
I want to weep.
Jay
Kent
Correction: If the Bush Administration had had it’s shit together and foiled the 9-11 hijacking plot it wouldn’t have just saved 3000 lives at the WTC, it would have prevented two and maybe three subsequent wars costing hundreds of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars.
But yes, we can’t afford a third. We can’t even afford this one.
trollhattan
@opiejeanne:
Ugh. The Tri-Cities have their share of shitkickers but they also have a pretty damn high concentration of PhDs and engineers and nuclear physicists and such. Are they all silent on this?
Locally I’m seeing daily pickup adult soccer matches in parks, speaking of people without quarters for buying clues. Who are they spreading it to back home and at work?
Jay
Jay
Kent
Jesus…..I had to double check and sure enough those numbers are right. I’m with the family in the San Juans this week for a long-deserved respite. Everyone here is wearing masks everywhere in public. San Juan County has 20 reported cases total since February so this isn’t the hot spot at least.
Where are all these new cases coming from Yakima? East of the Cascades? I don’t know where to drill down to see the daily numbers on a county-by-county basis.
Oregon is also shooting up too, but starting from a much lower number.
TS (the original)
Victoria (Australia) has had an upswing in cases – now approaching 200/day (lots of testing) & 2 deaths. Yesterday the final state (NSW) decided the border would be closed & today the Premier (equivalent to your Governor) has put the city of Melbourne & one adjoining local government area back in lockdown. People are allowed out for 4 reasons
work – if they cannot work at home, essentials shopping, medical appointments, exercise (only within their local areas). This is for at least 6 weeks. Senior students & special needs children will be allowed back to school, working out what to do with everyone else.
Population of Melbourne is 5 million, rest of the state another 1.5 million. It is currently the only area of Australia with an outbreak.
abc.net.au/news/2020-07-07/victoria-reimposes-lockdowns-as-coronavirus-cases-rise/12429990
This will be a test to see if “doing it all again” can stop the outbreak. This was mostly home grown although some of it related to people in quarantine (mixing with those from the private security company is my understanding). One particular housing estate has been 100% locked down for at least 5 days while they sort out how to stop the spread & do the testing.
Kent
Except that even if we were at #1 it would be impossible to do here. Jurisdictions that have actually tried contact tracing here in the US have found it literally impossible because people are belligerent assholes who do not cooperate with contact tracers. They refuse to answer or lie or just hang up or slam the door. Authorities have actually had to subpoena the information to get it.
We are ruled by assholes because we are surrounded by assholes. There is no fix.
Well maybe the rest of us can hide out for 3-4 weeks while the MAGA-ot population self-immolates and then we can come back out. I would do that if it would work.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Kent:
I would, too, if that worked. Even knowing I’d lose my Limbaugh-loving brother and a couple of racist asshole uncles. They’ve long since reached the point of doing the planet more harm than good. At this point my complaint is that the virus is killing volunteers too slowly.
Chetan Murthy
@Kent: Yeah, it’ll require jail time for people who refuse to cooperate, no doubt. Heh, one thing that really gets me, is this: the big corps have your cell location data, they have your credit card data, and they’re using it to rob you blind. But the government? Can they even -buy- that data in order to save your life? Nosirree! Oh, I forgot, the po-po, they can buy your license plate data (from private corps that collect it) so they can find you and murder you, but again, the govt can’t buy that data to save your life!
Common clay of the new west!
CaseyL
“What the fuck is wrong with us???”
I’ve been thinking hard about this for quite some time, and I keep going in circles.
Sometimes I think the three decades after WWII, when the US was the biggest and richest and best, and actually used some of that stature to improve the lives of its citizens, were the anomaly; and the regressive, reactionary, insular, ignorant, violent, and selfish place we find ourselves in is the real default setting. (Not too different from the 19th Century, after all!)
Sometimes I think the fall from pre-eminent global economy to the current cannibalized version of capitalism (vulture capitalism, rentier capitalism, call it what you will) is a logical consequence of no longer being the sole manufacturing superpower. Other countries have not only caught up with, but far surpassed us in economic vigor and growth. We were “great” only when we had little to no competition.
When I’m in serious analytic mode, I don’t like saying “It’s all the GOP’s fault!” Because, while it is GOP policies that got us here, that doesn’t explain why voters keep allowing them to stay in power. Saying “Well, because they’re stupid bigots” is accurate but insufficient. WHY are they ignorant bigots? WHY did so many people decide that being forward-looking, civic-minded, rational, and non-bigoted was a bad thing to be?
And what I come with is very unsatisfying: societies are collective organisms. They have a lifespan. They flourish for a while, and then they stop flourishing, become senescent, and then collapse. Like a biological organism, the onset of age starts out subtly. Fewer people participate in civic life, say; until a critical mass is reached where not enough people are. Or education becomes less about becoming a fully realized, self-actualized individual and more about careerism, until another critical mass is reached and hardly anyone can think in gestalts anymore. Or certain groups of individuals become analogous to biological parasites, carcinomas, and viruses: become interested in nourishing only themselves, in creating an environment that benefits only themselves, and eat away at the collective – and at that critical mass, toxins contaminate the social mind and heart, sicken it, and eventually kill it.
The cancer cells that kill patients don’t know they’re cancer; aren’t conscious of being a destructive force. Cancer cells don’t meet in our organs to plot our demise: they just do what they do. Lead in the air didn’t “know” that it was poisoning our brains and bodies; that didn’t stop it from doing so.
And I think, in a weird way, that’s what’s happening to the US. I think the things that allow a society to flourish contain the seeds of what ultimate kills it. In the US, there was always MORE. More freedom, more money, more movement, more possessions, more advancement. MORE. And somewhere around the mid-to late-20th Century we – “we” as a society – realized that MORE was ending. There isn’t always MORE. In fact, in our drive to have MORE of EVERYTHING, we used up most of what there is. And our social construct can’t take that; we have no other common social construct to fall back on. We can’t reprogram ourselves, as a society. So we begin to fall apart, slowly at first, and then suddenly all at once.
Re-reading this comment – it made more sense in my head than it seems to in print. But I’ll post it anyway.
Brachiator
The holiday results are coming in for Los Angeles County. The yoots are joining in the pandemic fun. And again, it’s about community spread as much as it is about whether you open bars. From various briefings:
In recent weeks, infections and hospitalizations have spiked among young people in the 18 to 40 age group across Los Angeles County. All the data points to a dramatic spread of the coronavirus within in the community, and health officials are bracing for a spike in hospitalizations and fatalities in the coming weeks….
In the meantime, Los Angeles County reported another 48 deaths due to COVID-19 Monday, bringing the total number of deaths across the county to 3,534 cases as of Monday. County health officials also announced 1,584 new confirmed cases, bringing the county’s overall number to 116,570 since the beginning of the pandemic.
Over the past seven days, the rate of people testing positive for the illness was 10%, up from about 8.4% last week and above the county’s overall rate of 9% throughout the pandemic, according to the Department of Public Health.
Roughly 50% of all the new cases being confirmed in the county are among residents between the ages of 18-40. Back in April, residents in that age group represented about 10% of coronavirus patients in hospitals, but that figure is now up to about 25%, health officials said.Recognizing the just-completed Fourth of July weekend and the likelihood of people gathering together despite warnings to the contrary, public health director Barbara Ferrer said carelessness will only slow the process of reopening the economy….
“There’s a significant increase in the percent of cases among 18- to 40-year-old residents,” Ferrer said. “… Almost 50% of new cases occur among young people and then, those younger people are spreading the infection to others.”
She also pointed to a dramatic shift in hospitalized patients, a group that had originally been overwhelming aged 65 and older.”But there’s been quite a shift over the last few weeks, as hospitalizations for 18- to 40-year- olds and 41- to 64-year-olds have increased, and the percent of hospitalizations for the 65 or older group have now gone down,” she said.
Looking to explain the shift, she pointed to data collected by USC researchers showing that the percentage of people who stay home and leave only for essential reasons has dropped dramatically from 86% in April to about 58% now. That has also led to higher percentages of residents coming into contact with people outside their own households. And with more businesses reopened, Ferrer noted that 43% of residents have a job that requires close contact with other people on a daily basis.
“It’s clear that after months of quarantined, combined with the reopening of many sectors in the span of several weeks, we’ve had a lot of people disregard the very practices that allowed us to slow the spread,” Ferrer said. “And unfortunately, this cannot continue. Our inability to follow the most basic infection-control and distancing directives leads to serious illness and even the deaths of people we love and the deaths of those who are loved by others. And the evidence is overwhelmingly clear about the impact.
Kent
Fucking erase Verizon and AT&T’s bandwidth rights if they don’t cooperate and provide it for free. I’m done fucking around. The only reason they even have viable businesses is because the government protects their bandwidth monopolies.
Chetan Murthy
@Kent: sorry, I didn’t mean that the govt is -unable- to buy that data. I meant that (unlike in South Korea) they haven’t done so. I mean, in SK, a guy goes to a bunch of bars and dance clubs, turns up infected, and the contact-tracing teams are able to use this data to (1) find all the clubs he went to, and (2) find all the other people he overlapped in time with, and get them all contacted, in a couple of days. Thousands of people. A couple of days. Meanwhile, we’re … what? depending on people telling us the *truth*?
Mary G
Orange County is now the darkest color on the FTFNYT chart in all of Southern California. More cases every day. New record numbers in hospital and ICU again today. The curve was kinda sorta flat from March to mid-June, going up slowly, then bent sharply upward and is going to get to vertical if we don’t watch out. It’s very discouraging. I blame the MAGAts who came from all over to protest Memorial Day.
Amir Khalid
@Chetan Murthy:
I wonder if closing the borders between the 48 states could have been done in a timely and consistent fashion, given the political realities of the US.
Kent
No, that’s not it. The Netherlands was once a global superpower too yet they have descended into a nice comfortable civilized little place without self-immolating.
The element you are missing in your analysis is white fundamentalist evangelical Christianity. It is at the root of both of our twin original sins. The genocide of the native peoples and slavery. In fact white and “Christian” are more or less synonymous terms for most of our history. The fundie evangelical Christian groups are bleeding membership but just not fast enough. to keep us from getting Trump.
I have a shitload of MAGA relatives and most of them are caught up in evangelical Christian cults. Not all of them I also have a hard core business MAGA cousin who has no use for religion but plenty of use for guns. But mostly they are cultists who actually post more fundie pablum on their FB feeds than MAGA stuff. Especially on abortion. Often it all gets blended like memes of kids praying to the flag. Seriously….lovethispic.com/image/270481/children-praying-in-front-of-flag
Chetan Murthy
@Amir Khalid: As someone here noted months and months ago, CA did that for a fruit fly infestation — stopped cars from bringing fruit into the state. So yeah, I think it would have been possible, and still is, at least in CA. The problem is a lack of will, and a lack of federal cooperation.
At the time, I remember someone here pointing out that state governments typically have very, very broad powers to protect the public health. With pointers to examples.
Jay
Mary G
@Mary G: Age distribution of county COVID cases is odd – biggest numbers in age 25-34. Guess all us olds are staying home and youngs who think they’re invincible and have been going to bars and parties are paying for it. This is very different from the beginning of the pandemic.
Mary G
@Amir Khalid: No. No way. We are a young nation of people mostly descended from immigrants, and the right to pick up your stuff and move to a better place is in our DNA. Florida tried to close their state borders and it was a shitshow that they backed right off.
Brachiator
@CaseyL:
No, it’s fine. You make a lot of sense. Thing is, a society never knows when it’s dying, or when it might be displaced by a newcomer. The ancient Greeks never saw the Romans coming. The US probably matched Great Britain in terms of GDP in 1870, but the UK thought the empire would last forever and saw Russia and Germany as potential rivals.
Some conservatives blame liberals for weakening America and for losing Vietnam, and have been obsessed with reclaiming that glory ever since, and with throttling liberalism so that it can never make America doubt itself again. Of course, this will only end up destroying what is good and hopeful about the United States. But this is where we are.
Mary G
@Chetan Murthy: They only took the fruit away, they didn’t stop the people entering.
CaseyL
@Kent: Your point is very well-taken, and I appreciate your raising it. The question I have is why that evil persists: Why doesn’t it die out?
There are always going to be X percentage of people who fall for theological idiocies and racist bullshit. Just as there are X percentage of people who are (hardwired?) to prefer authoritarianism. In a healthy society, they would be pitied, ignored, or even outcasts.
In the US, they’re in the driver’s seat. The majority of the country disagrees with them, wants nothing to do with them, and yet they’re in power. Why?
Because from 2000 to the present day, not enough people bothered to vote; or bothered to vote for the viable candidate. (2008 being the exception; anomalous for a number of reasons.) Even as they saw the results of their non-participation turned out to be the ongoing destruction of whatever cause they claimed to hold dear, many of them persist in non-participation. Why? Say they’re stupid, or privileged, or even evil – the question again is, why? How did so many people become so solipsistically resistant to reality?
Xenos
@Kent: the Dutch have their own radical fundies and reactionaries to deal with. For some reason, they have not been a position to poison the political system.
rikyrah
Sab
@Chetan Murthy:Yes. When I moved to CA from OH in 1986 the moving company lost my lawnmower. OH had a tentmoth outbreak at the time. CA officials came around for years afterward looking for my lawnmower. None of us ever found it, but they did keep looking.
Chetan Murthy
@Mary G: Yes, and one presumes that they won’t stop people from entering now either — just delay them for 14 days quarantine at the border in mobile homes setup for the purpose.
John Revolta
@Mary G: I think this is why the death rates seem to be falling even as infections climb. For reasons not yet understood, older people are more likely to die from COVID, but it’s mostly younger people that are catching it now, while the older folks are staying at home.
TriassicSands
@Kent:
The last time I checked, the top six WA county infection rates were all Trump supporters in 2016. Yakima leads the way.
Never underestimate the stupidity of the American electorate.
Kent
Everyone has them. Down in Chile where my wife is from it is the Opus Dei. But only us and the UK seems hell bent on turning the country over to them.
OK….maybe Brazil and India too.
Kent
Yep. Unfortunately in Yakima County it is hitting the reservation and the Hispanic communities involved in fruit and meat processing the hardest. So it isn’t being driven by young people partying in bars like Texas and Florida.
I don’t know what’s going on in other counties. I know in Oregon the big hot spots in eastern Oregon were driven by fundie churches that refused to change behavior. But eastern OR only has maybe 1/20th the population of eastern WA.
CaseyL
@John Revolta:
So the nature of infection and contagion hasn’t changed, right? The difference is that it’s mostly young and young-ish people who are out and about without precautions.
(I’m an Old, and am certainly staying home 97% of the time! And am masked when I go out.)
John Revolta
@CaseyL: Well, this is my theory. Which is mine. You hear talk about the virus mutating, and it is, but not (as I understand things) in its fundamental properties as yet.
Calouste
@Kent: One of the differences is that the Netherlands has a lot of political parties. Currently there are 12 or so in parliament. So you can always vote for a party that fairly closely aligns with you. Yes, there is an evangelical fundy party, but they have 2% of the seats and no one pays attention to them. The racists have more seats, but they spend most of their time infighting, so also not much of a threat.
John Revolta
@Kent: only us and the UK seems hell bent on turning the country over to them.
Hmm, what do we have in common (aside from being divided by a common language)? Well, to start, there’s this fella named Murdock *spit*……….
Chetan Murthy
@John Revolta: And Putin perverted both our countries’ conservative parties.
CaseyL
@John Revolta: There was an article, IIRC, that said one of the mutations was that the bonds were longer, which made them better able to hook onto cells, which increased its infectiousness. That is, you can get infected even after exposure to just a few virus particles.
But that was a couple weeks ago; I haven’t heard anything more about it.
John Revolta
@Chetan Murthy: Y’ know, I can almost understand Putin. I mean, it’s his JOB to fuck with us. It always HAS been his job. He’s at least got the excuse that he’s trying to restore his fucking Empire, or something.
But Murdock. I hate that guy like poison. And he’s been at it as long as Putin, maybe longer. And in plain sight. And why? Just for the money? If that’s true, that makes it even worse.
rikyrah
@Mary G:
Florida really didn’t. It was a phucking stunt, because while he was talking that mess, he still left the beaches wide open.
John Revolta
@CaseyL: Yeah, there are a couple identifiable variations out there now but I don’t think any of them are considered more lethal particularly. Normally a thing like this would tend to mutate towards a less lethal strain but I don’t think that’s been seen yet either (IANAMicrobiologist).
CaseyL
@John Revolta: Murdoch might be a Putin asset. The connection is Wendy Deng. She was Murdoch’s wife, and when they broke up she got involved with Putin. She keeps popping up in odd places – with Ivanka Trump, BTW – there may be stuff going on we have no idea about.
Barry
@feebog: “I am resigned this won’t be over until January 20, 2021. ”
It’s worse. January 20, 2021 is when the USA can *start* to fix things. The GOP will trash the country right up until President Biden’s executive orders take effect.
@feebog:
John Revolta
@CaseyL: Shit, that’s right. I forgot about her! Verrryyyy innnterrestinngggg………………….hey, did you know that Robert Herring, the guy that runs OANN, happens to have a Russian wife that he married over there?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@CaseyL:
Adam’s said several times that Wendy Deng is a Chinese intelligence agent.
ColoradoGuy
I think one difference with the USA was the Reagan overturning of the Fairness Doctrine in broadcasting. In just about every other country I can think of, broadcasting is tightly regulated, and its deadly potential for a drift into corporate-sponsored fascism is recognized.
When AM Stereo died on the vine in the mid-Eighties (thanks to the FCC not doing its job), AM broadcasters faced a dying medium, with nothing to compete against higher-quality FM. Overturning the Fairness Doctrine suddenly released broadcasters from any responsibility towards community service, so they could broadcast pretty much anything they pleased, regardless of what the community thought. So the Hot Talk drive-time format was invented, and in that hothouse environment, the maximally offensive radio hosts thrived … thus, Rush Limbaugh and scores of wannabes, all competing on maximum outrage, and no pushback from the communities inflicted with this flood of hateful trash. Again, in nearly any other country, this kind of content on the airwaves would be flat-out illegal .. but here in the USA, it became a major profit center.
FoxNews was able to exploit the cable-TV exemption, since it technically didn’t go over the airwaves, thus didn’t fall under full FCC broadcast-content regulation. Again, content that would be illegal in most countries, since it was propaganda (very) thinly disguised as “entertainment”.
Marinate millions of people in Radio Rwanda for decades, and the GOP slowly but surely devolved into a full-blown religious cult, driven by nonstop far-right content on multiple platforms. The mainstream media scrupulously ignored the horrific things actually said on these outlets, with FoxNews actually representing the “moderate” side of the far-right propaganda machine.
A sizable proportion of the GOP, going back to Grover Norquist, also wanted to make the Federal government as weak as possible. It goes without saying a weakened USA would suit the Chinese and the Russians just fine, which raises serious questions just who has been funding the GOP the last several decades. The role of Rupert Murdoch in subverting Australia, the UK, and the USA has never been fully examined.
I don’t think any of this would have been possible without the extensive far-right media structure that has brainwashed about 20% of the adult population, and has done so going back to Newt Gingrich and earlier. The solution? Good question.
Amir Khalid
@John Revolta:
Actually, it is not Putin’s job to fuck with the USA. Putin’s job is to lead Russia and make it a better place for Russians. When Putin is fucking with other countries, he’s neglecting his actual job for the sake of amassing global power.
low-tech cyclist
Apparently my hair’s been on fire in the wrong way for some folks here. But if arsonists start fires and the fire department seems to be in no hurry to deal with them, I’m gonna be mad at the fire department too.
And that doesn’t mean I’m blaming the fire department for the fires, but I’ve got no leverage with the damned arsonists. However, I might be able to light a (metaphorical) fire under the fire department’s asses.
Take that for what you will.
low-tech cyclist
@ColoradoGuy:
Yeah, that was a big step on the way to where we are now.
People tended to look at the issue backwards – that if there were a diversity of opinions getting on the air without any regulation, then no regulation was necessary.
But the reason for regulation was that broadcast spectrum was, and is, a scarce resource. There’s not enough spectrum for everyone to have their own station, so the people with access to spectrum should have to represent everyone, not just the viewpoint of the station owners.
And while there may be more channels on cable than on broadcast TV/radio, it’s still a scarce resource. There are still far too few channels for everybody to have their own, so the underlying principle should still apply (even though it was never made to apply to cable) that the stations should have to represent everyone.
Some people would say at this point, “what about public access channels?” For one thing, there’s no legal requirement that they exist, and so I’ve never lived in a place that had a public access cable channel.
I think if they were mandated, it would still be a ghettoization, a shoving of all the voices that didn’t have a ton of money behind them into one little corner likely to be dominated by crazies, which I hear is how it often turns out. If so, that’s not exactly a solution.
What the solution is, I’m not sure I know. It’s probably way too heavy a lift to bring the Fairness Doctrine back now, let alone apply it to cable. I personally think the first step to any reform is to reduce the massive disparities of wealth in our society that enable certain voices to shout far louder than others.
Political power inevitably wants to follow economic power, and as it has in recent decades, economic might will eventually wear down any guardrails put up to keep that from happening. So really the place to start is to reduce the economic disparities.
bluefoot
@Soprano2:
Yep. This was a crisis until pretty much the day after the news came out that COVID-19 was disproportionately affecting POC. That’s when the push to reopen started, when the news media went silent about the lack of tests and adequate PPE. As long as white supremacy can be served, and white people can force non-white people to risk death to serve white people (haircuts, restaurants, food processing, etc) then it’s not a crisis. No matter how many people die and suffer horribly.
AxelFoley
@George:
Co-signed
AxelFoley
@Geoboy:
Co-signing this, too.
ET
I am sure regular line staff and front line supervisors do but given that it really isn’t a priority at the WH and that everything tRump and his cronies/enablers believe in is an anathema to dealing with this, most things likely either get to a level and stopped because an appointee is being an appointee, or staff are just too busy trying not to get COVID (because agency leaders want staff back) and keep things going until a new administration comes to town.
Employees trying to keep themselves alive is a real thing. USDA employees entered phase one back at the beginning of June. Phase 2 was only 2 weeks ago. They are approaching Phase 3. A majority of the EPA offices are opening. DoD is lifting travel restrictions. All that means travel to/from work. A lot of people rely on public transport and commuter buses.
misterpuff
So your getting the Administration’s message.
Skepticat
Do. Not. Even. Type. That. Out. Loud. He’ll be in “Here, hold my beer” territory before we can blink. Or die.
J R in WV
@George:
Well said, so accurate. “WE” are not responsible for this mess, the MAGA folks are, along with their right-wing politicians.
You seem like the sort of person we would appreciate seeing comment more often.
J R in WV
@Amir Khalid:
I would instinctively say not possible… but then I would recall the Grapes of Wrath story, and the ability of California to stop Okies from coming into their state during the dust-bowl droughts that struck the Midwest.
Why not put up “Border Patrol” style checkpoints on the state line, depending upon the volume of traffic maybe just a car with a couple of deputies on a farm road, wholesale stop on the Interstates?
I haven’t crossed a state line in many months now. I have been chained up like an animal by the federal Border Patrol for nothing, back in 2010 or so, give or take a year, so I’m torn about it all, really. But saving lives in a pandemic isn’t the same as chaining guys up because one of them had a joint.
ETA: It was worse than it sounds, as well, too long for a post like this!!!
J R in WV
@John Revolta:
And that’s good, because he is despicable poison. But his name is MURDOCH, not Murdock.
/pedant… but spelling it right is important, wouldn’t want to hang the wrong guy!!!