Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Jeff Buchanan]

Just made it through this interesting article from The Economist that isn't pay walled. I'll summarize:

The central point is that the time is now to organize programs to identify the viral threats (there about 700K of them) and cone that down to the ones'that have the highest likelihood to make the leap from animals to people, spread quickly like SARS-CoV-2 and produce a pandemic. Several pilot projects since SARS and H5N1 (Avian Flu) did that and made progress but it takes billions to keep these projects going and no one is stepping up to pay for them.

The obstacles to a global program to do this are significant but if humans are to be ready for the next potentially pandemic causing virus after SARS-CoV-2- and there will be one - now is the time. Lots of smaller scale projects are already underway in countries around the world mostly in Asia where the bad ones seem to emerge. Even though there is professional interchange among virologist by various media mechanisms, there's no central organization to collect and collate data and make recommendations that might be applicable on a global scale.

Not a technical article but it is detailed to the extent that I had little knowledge of how extensive the study of viruses is - a lot of it is driven by the potential monetary value of gene sequencing the viruses, most of the RNA types, and investigating potential anti-viral therapies and vaccines. Lots of jealousies that lead to copyrighting research as intellectual property in the case of research institutes, and proprietary in the case of drug companies. Cooperation in getting to an endpoint of global preparedness to thwart the next virus is hard.

Alternatives, to date, much less palatable, as in the potential for millions or even billions of deaths and economic collapse, have been ignored.

Oh, and reading between the lines ..... fuck China ...... again and many times more. Those fuckers knew about SARS-CoV-2 that matured in bats, jumped to Civits and then to humans in China, months, maybe as long as a year ago, before going public and withheld information that may have helped in containing it to where it started.

https://www.economist.com/science-an...article-link-1

[Ghengis Jon]

I don’t know if Trump cares if he gets reelected.

He doesn't, he probably prefers not to. Prepare for Trump TV, Lunatic Conspiracy Magazine, an endless offering of cheap "Presidential Series" plastic crap from China and North Korea, orange stuffed raccoons wearing a "MAGA" shirt, and a newly updated (and vastly expanded) section in DSM-5 on Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Om Friday night in Fort Lauderdale, a walking team of code enforcers, accompanied by the City Mayor, closed 7 of 18 places they toured and issued fines from $250 to $15000 (multiple incidents of non-compliance with Phase II reopening rules). They'll be closed for 24h and have to present the means by which they plan to correct deficiencies before a magistrate who will then decide if they have to pay the fine or a portion thereof and then clear them to re-open if satisfied with the corrective measures.

Bars were allowed to reopen were state wide (not including S. FL) 2 weeks ago. Desantis officially re-closed them state wide on Friday. Restaruants mostly look to be complying with seating distancing and control of who comes in and goes out. Good for them. Bars or restaurants that feature a bar weren't complying with distancing or limiting capacity.

The most egregious was a bar trying to act like a restaurant by serving fries - their business license was for a bar not a restaurant. Patrons were lined up at the bar ostensibly being served food. It's this kind of bull shit that's causing problems along with others. When the team told people to go home, the bar was closed, there was confrontation but ultimately compliance - no sense in arguing which setting is contributing the most to the new cases. I don't care. Just be responsible and it's pretty clear, if I go back to a number of posts I've made here and in other forums, I said most people will act responsibly during reopening. No they won't. Enforcement will work. Do it.

[CGVT]

My daughter is waiting tables at an O'Charley's here in Lower Alabama. They are doing a pretty good job of complying with limited capacity and distancing. She has to wear a mask, they are doing extra cleaning etc etc. A lot of it is just window dressing, though. It was really busy when she first started right after the reopening and was steady for a while, but as cases are rising, things are slowing down in the dining room and take out orders are increasing. I guess that means that people are concerned, but if the ratio of masks to no masks when I go to Home Depot or the grocery store is an indication, at least in my area, there are still a lot of people that don't believe it is a real threat.

On another note, a good friend of mine, a die hard Trumpster, "It's a huge over reaction", "making us wear masks in tyranny and they don't help anyway" guy came down with it this week. He had traveled to Rhode Island ( air travel, airports etc) to see his Coast Guard son over the past week. He started feeling bad Tues night, got tested Wed and was confirmed that day. So far he is doing pretty well over all. He has a fever of 102 give or take, is wiped out, and feels like warmed over shit, but it hasn't hit his lungs. He is about 55 and over weight. Hopefully he won't get worse.
His is now singing a different tune on Facebook. He is promoting mask wearing because as he said, "Believe me, you don't want to get this shit"

People just aren't careful until they get bit in the ass. Hopefully that will change.

[Jeff Buchanan]

.............. Hopefully that will change.

I'm about 70/30 it won't at least if GR is an indicator. Overall in the US it's off the charts high. Analysis I read contains two repeating themes: (1) The federal government blew it in the early days of the pandemic by not taking a leadership role in establishing uniform, national public health policy. (2) Since then, messaging from the federal, state and local level has been all over the place inconsistent.

One other less mentioned theme is uniform, national policies and federally managed supply chains for testing and tracking - key to effectively managing new outbreaks. IMO, this is a no-brainer fundamental problem for the US - you know all the reasons why but to recap, not enough supplies to test, competition for testing resources, not enough boots on the ground to follow-up and enforce quarantines and notify contacts, among others. Solutions going forward are going to be on a state level and I'm not particularly confident this is fixable.

Most experts seem to agree that changing behaviors is the only reasonable tool left to manage the impact of the virus. A lock down is no longer practical although it would probably be effective but at a high economic and social cost. Obstacles? Americans tend to resist being told what to do by officialdom as compared to other societies.

Changing behavior, according to psychologists, requires consistent policy and messaging..... it's like dealing with your kids. If you don't establish a clear set of rules in your household and hold kids accountable for them, bad behavior is the result. The US is full of misbehaving "children" right now.

Who's to blame? I don't particularly care, just like I didn't when the shit started hitting the fan in February and March. Now it's deja vu. What I do care about is local officials establishing unambiguous mitigation measures and mounting public service announcements to get the word out to residents. I also care about individuals complying with, not flaunting those rules and acting responsibly in going about their daily routines, on the job and off. Messaging from these officials needs to eliminate the politics and be clear and consistent from county to county, city to city. At the state and, especially the federal level, I have no confidence either of these things will happen.

On a positive note, new cases nationally are occurring in people under 40, deaths are not rising although these are a lagging measure - I think they will go up over the next month. Hospitals and providers are much better prepared to deal with seriously ill patients and survival rates for hospitalized C-19 cases is rising - that doesn't ameliorate the human or economic impact of the virus though. Depending on who your listening to, and I tend to listen to hospital administrators, while capacity is high in the hardest hit metro areas, the patient load is being managed. That's because hospitals are collaborating to make sure bed space is managed on a statewide basis.

On a personal level, I'm not as much concerned about the path forward as I am disappointed that this is going to be a lost year, maybe 2 involving all the things I enjoyed pre-COVID. But, what I'm stepping down to in terms of quality of life is nothing compared to what millions of Americans will be doing over the next year or two. I just need to keep this thought in my mind.

[Dr. Strangelove]

[AlabamAlum]

Non-faux Ivy school Princeton to remove Woodrow Wilson’s name from a building because he was a racist:

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/princeton-to-remove-president-woodrow-wilsons-name-from-public-policy-school

[AlabamAlum]

Apparently Wilson (born before the Civil War) supported segregation and other racist policies.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Apparently Wilson (born before the Civil War) supported segregation and other racist policies.

Wilson is in contention to be the most racist President we've ever had. Dude literally re-segregated the Federal government. He's quoted in Birth of a Nation. Even by the standards of his time he was extremely racist. Jonah Goldberg has diatribes against him all the time.

[AlabamAlum]

More racist than Trump, or any of the 12 slave owners? HOGWASH!

[Dr. Strangelove]

Trump has now deleted the video he shared of an elderly Trump supporter yelling "White Power!" at protesters in The Villages. The White House says Trump did not notice what the man said before sharing the video. Tim Scott, among others, said sharing the video was indefensible and the President ought to remove it.

[AlabamAlum]

He retweeted a guy yelling “white power”? Jesus. Trump is a idiotic caricature of a dumbass. When Biden gets elected, he needs to send DJT a thank you card and an FTD bouquet.

[Hannibal]

Erasing history and tearing down statues has nothing to do with reassessing our values.

Woodrow Wilson was one of America's shittiest Presidents for policy reasons.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Normally new cases slow down over the weekend but Arizona announces a new record high today: over 3800 cases. Around a 25% positive testing rate. Awful

The past three days in Florida have seen 8900 new cases, 9500, and 8500 respectively.

[*JD*]

Sacha Baron Cohen dresses up in disguise and sings a racist song to Trumpers and they lap it up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5ry...LizPVLNZf_Rrog