—–ATTENTION—–
If you or a loved one has been refused entry to a private business for not wearing a mask and you would like to explore legal options to protect your constitutional rights, our law firm is happy to explain just how fucking stupid you are.
— Contingency Fee (@ContingencyFee) May 18, 2020
But seriously, only call – do not show up for an in-person consultation you plague rat.
— Contingency Fee (@ContingencyFee) May 18, 2020
NEW: cellphone data suggests anti-lockdown protesters have been dispersing to all corners of their respective states, and beyond https://t.co/jmPsM0nt4I
— Jason Wilson (@jason_a_w) May 18, 2020
Drawn to each other like flies to… other flies:
… The data, provided to the Guardian by the progressive campaign group the Committee to Protect Medicare, raises the prospect that the protests will play a role in spreading the coronavirus epidemic to areas which have, so far, experienced relatively few infections.
The anonymized location data was captured from opt-in cellphone apps, and data scientists at the firm VoteMap used it to determine the movements of devices present at protests in late April and early May in five states: Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Colorado and Florida.
They then created visualizations that tracked the movements of those devices up to 48 hours after the conclusion of protests. The visualizations only show movements within states, due to the queries analysts made in creating them. But the data scientist Jeremy Fair, executive-vice president of VoteMap, says that many of the devices that are seen to reach state borders are seen to continue across them in the underlying raw data…
In North Carolina in late April, one of the leaders of the state’s anti-lockdown protests tested positive for Covid-19 but said she would attend future rallies…
I linked this story last night (early this morning), but ICYMI:
Religious gatherings, nursing homes, meat packing plants, choirs, ski resorts, ships. COVID-19 spreads in clusters, and @kakape powerfully explores the role these play in population spread–and how targeting them might help get us out of this mess. https://t.co/nqokYjvKHS pic.twitter.com/A1XYL0BaiU
— Jon Cohen (@sciencecohen) May 19, 2020
Chinese farmers offered cash to quit wild animal trade https://t.co/szsChYBFUO
— SCMP News (@SCMPNews) May 18, 2020
I hadn’t realized how extensive the ‘wildlife’ farming operations were. As with the ‘exotic animal’ tiger-breeding business in America, obviously there’s a market, but it’s probably not essential, if the farmers can be otherwise compensated:
… The central province of Hunan said on Friday that people who bred wild animals for food and who voluntarily closed their farms would be compensated and encouraged to raise other animals.
It was the first province to introduce such a policy, and under the scheme farmers will be paid 120 yuan (US$17) for each kilogram of snakes or 75 yuan for bamboo rats they handed over.
Each porcupine or civet, a catlike species previously linked to the sever acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) epidemic in the early 2000s, will bring a payout of about 600 yuan (US$84).
Hunan also announced extra subsidies and employment training programmes to help wild animal farmers…
In Ganzhou, a city in the eastern province of Jiangxi, the city government has encouraged wild animal farmers to switch by offering loans and cheaper rents for farmland.
In the town of Dongyuan, in the southern province of Guangdong, the government has pledged to spend 2 million yuan (US$280,000) subsidising bamboo rat and snake farmers who have to give up their trade…
According to a 2017 report by the Chinese Academy of Engineering, China’s wildlife trade is worth 520 billion yuan (US$74 billion) and employs more than 14 million people.
In some of the poorest parts of China, such as Guizhou and Guangxi, wildlife farming is an important source of income, especially for those in poverty.
China has not publicised the progress or actions it has taken to enforce a national ban on the trade and consumption of wild animals since it was imposed in February…
Our Ongoing Pandemic: Some (More) Longer ReadsPost + Comments (94)