Note that the WH is blasting the mayor of Phoenix for asking for help because “everything is under control.” And if she keeps making a big deal out of the piling up of dead bodies, how can they insist that it is? Also, she is a woman. I have to wonder if the Texas mayors who are not being blasted are men. Don’t know this, but I have my suspicions…
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Remember, just because you have a consistent pattern something something correlation something.
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We really need at least one conservative ex-military spokesman with a high level of hero worship from the Trumpsters, or a celebrity who commands that level of respect (Clint Eastwood’s too old at this point) who can get out the message of how important it is to wear a mask and limit contact with others. Forget the politics, just make it clear that masks are necessary, so the intellectually challenged can follow suit, while allowing them to think it’s their own idea.
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Probably confirming what we already suspected:
I hope their speculation that repeat infections are more severe is wrong.
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https://www.livescience.com/amp/uv-light-kill-coronavirus.html
Does UV light kill the new coronavirus?
First Published 5 hours ago
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Interesting that they consider it feasible for porous materials such as N95 masks. I thought that required gaseous H2O2 or similar. Guess I can stop worrying that that flashing cardboard egg cartons at 5x the required dosage might be insufficient.
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This is all over the extended family’s FB, according to the husband (yes, I am married to a FB user, it is his worst habit).
We’ve been privately agreeing that some people we know won’t take the pandemic seriously until someone they know dies - and not just an elderly relative. Apparently, just seeing a real FB person from their state, who probably got the virus in a place they almost went to, has changed a few minds. This gives me some hope.
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There has to be a second shutdown. It will have to be longer as more severe. The Republicans have given up on November; their goal now is to make sure that so much irreversible damage is done that when the Democrats take over they will inherit a smoldering dumpster, which they and our worthless press will then blame the Democrats for not instantly fixing.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-second-shutdown
Article:
A Second Shutdown
July 12, 2020 11:01 a.m.
I had been working last night on a lengthy post, covering a range of topics, but with emphasis on the fact that we may be going back to a second shutdown because of how catastrophically we bungled the epidemic in this country. If this happens it will mean all the struggle and sacrifice of the Spring, along with at least a trillion dollars of crisis spending, will have been wasted.
Along those lines I’m looking now at a press release for a Meet the Press interview this morning with Admiral Brett Giroir, a key Trump administration pandemic official. Asked about calls for another shutdown Giroir says: “I don’t think we need to shut down, at least in most places around the country.”
This is obviously meant to push back on the idea. But it is quite revealing that one of the few Trump administration officials the White House still allows to go on TV is himself conceding that it may be necessary in significant portions of the country.
Here’s the full exchange …
CHUCK TODD:
Is there any — he’s [Dr. Michael Osterholm] basically advocating in order to get control of this we got to shut down right; we didn’t shut down correctly the first time. Do you concur with that opinion that we didn’t get this right the first time?
ADM. BRETT GIROIR:
I think Mike’s a really smart guy and I listen to a lot of things he says, I read this newsletter, we’re going to have him very involved. But I don’t think we need to shut down, at least in most places around the country. Our models really show that if you close down bars, where there’s a lot of transmission, if you decrease restaurant capacity to about 50 percent, that you really strictly physically distance, and really, everybody, if you’re out in public, we have to have about 95 percent mask-wearing or face coverings. If we do just those simple things, we can bring that our R-value, that transmissibility value down to below one, which means it goes away. So I think we need to be very selective. Sure, if we shut everything down again, that would do it, but we don’t need to. And remember there’s a tremendous health cost to shutting down, mental, emotional, substance use. But also no cancer screenings, no vaccines, all those other things. So let’s do what we know really works. Like I said, avoid bars, because they really do spread. Restaurant capacity down 50 percent, hand hygiene, and please wear a mask in public. That is really really really important. We’ve got to have 90 or 95 percent adherence to that, and we could, we could achieve the same results.
There’s a lot of truth in what Giroir says. We’re learning more and more about what really drives COVID spread. The problem is that once you have exponential growth in a region you often need to take short-term, drastic action to get the situation under control. Then you can do what he says and be okay: Tight limits on in-door congregation, universal masking, social distancing, much tighter filtration in in-door air ventilation, hand hygiene. The problem is that what can keep spread in check can’t necessarily get it under control when it’s in growing exponentially – or at least not nearly quick enough.
This is the tragedy of our catastrophically bungled national response. We were supposed to use the lockdown, achieved at such immense sacrifice, to make all this possible. We didn’t. Not in most of the country.
I’m sorry, Josh wants to concede this, but I think this is utter bullshit:
Our models really show that if you close down bars, where there’s a lot of transmission, if you decrease restaurant capacity to about 50 percent, that you really strictly physically distance, and really, everybody, if you’re out in public, we have to have about 95 percent mask-wearing or face coverings. If we do just those simple things, we can bring that our R-value, that transmissibility value down to below one, which means it goes away.
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The comments about members of the medical community who believe virus conspiracy theories scared me more than the events in this tragic case. If a nurse would do this to her own child…what can relatives of patients with the virus do to help their loved ones? They’re not allowed into hospitals to keep an eye on their caregivers.
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Well, there is precedent. Dengue fever is much worse the second time around. But it could also be a weakened system following infection, a la measles, or just bad luck. I hate to sound like a broken record, but for now, the answer is pretty much always gonna be WDKS, and until that changes it’s all just speculation. One thing we do know is covid sucks.
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Sadly, there is no level of education that prevents falling for hoaxes, esp ones that make you feel like you possess “special knowledge” that makes you superior to the “sheeple.” The are RN’s and MD’s (and any other letter cominations you can think of) who embrace antivaxxer, homeopathic, flat earth, creationist, etc etc etc hoaxes. It is frustrating and infuriating, but also true.
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Oh man, this topic really got away from me…I haven’t read the last 1,649 replies!
Hi everybody, what have I missed 
?
I went to the end and started reading backwards a little…
Just in case this might help you, or anyone else here:
The New York Times has a thing they call “Bonus Subscriptions” whereby a paying subscriber with digital access can give two other people digital access at no additional cost. So if you know someone who has a subscription, you might try asking them if they’re able/willing to add you to it.
One of my siblings added me to theirs. It works just the same as if I had a regular paid subscription myself: I have an account in my own name, using my own email address, with my own password, and I have access to everything there. When I look at my account and billing info, it just says You’ve received access to The New York Times from [my sibling].
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I browse on Brave, where I just refresh the article, then quickly hit the X before the page gets blocked.
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JFC
Local news here in the Conch is 8-10 cases of Dengue on the island I live on!
Add that to the threat of tourists that are flooding the islands, maskless, heedless of mitigation efforts to control corona virus, who outnumber locals 3:1. I can’t even go outside!
we’re so fucked!
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Blocking their cookies is a great way to bypass their paywall as well. (Also works great with WaPo.)
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