And I’m envious.
The funny thing is that if a governor had staked out a hard line at the beginning: masks or fine, police are charged with aggressive enforcement, all the current “masks are in the constitution!” ninnies would have probably happily hopped on board, since fundamentally they love the idea of any kind of aggressive law enforcement (i.e. shoot looters!)
From our local school district:
Thank you for your patience as we work through the many changes in the education environment. Earlier this week, Governor Ducey made an Executive Order delaying in-person learning until August 17th. However, based on the continued increase in COVID-19 cases in Arizona, this date may be aspirational, and the in-person classroom date may move again. Due to this uncertainty, and the importance of creating a stable educational environment for our families and staff, Tucson Unified has determined we will begin all students via Remote Learning on Monday, August 10, 2020 and then transition those interested in an on-campus learning experience when it is deemed safe.
So far as I can tell, this is one of the ballsiest statements from a local authority I’ve seen: basically “The governor is full of shit and we’re going to make our own decisions.”
Mutation rates are already optimised, since there are many constraints. Fitness, or in case of a virus, infectiosity, is but one of them, and a very high level one. Some start on the biochemical level of structural stability of the respective molecules, in this case, e.g., on the RNA level. Some bases are usually “wobbly” and can switch between states without changing anything in structure and functions, but the less genetic info you got, the more difficult it is to have a mutation which is not selected against.
I don’t know enough about the genetic code of viruses in general, and SARS-CoV-2 in particular, to make any well-founded claims here. But I am really quite sure that discussing mutations and “optimisations” of this virus is not very relevant in our fight against the pandemic.
There might be someone around who has current topical knowledge, and I bet you a bottle of whisky (or sanitizer, if you prefer) that they would agree. 
If you click through she actually goes out of her way to dodge the loaded question and not say that people should go to the pubs, only that people should frequent local business if they can do it safely. Not a bad answer. ITV is mischaracterising her response.
It certainly affects the quest for a vaccine. However, that is probably not very relevant to the discussions here, on this forum.
Even that only moderately, as far as I understand. Depending on what the vaccine presents the immune system with to react to. As I said, constraints. The virus cannot simply change some of its surface proteins by mutation because context and function matter.
In general, you are absolutely right. But Corona viruses are not like influenza-type viruses in that regard. (As far as I understand, and as far as we know. Bit of a bigger, that last one, since WDKS.)
They are optimized, but for an entirely different host species and conditions which do not change so rapidly.
Some of the approaches to a vaccine are apparently as novel as the virus, and sme do depend on structures which are subject to mutation, for example this:
Only one of those common mutations affects the “spike protein,” which enables the virus to infect cells in the throat and lungs. Efforts to produce antibodies that block the spike protein are central to many efforts to develop a vaccine.
Though they do continue:
Since the spike protein has changed little so far, some scientists believe that’s a sign that it can’t alter itself very much and remain infectious.
The optimisation is on a lower level. This virus has not (again: to the best of my knowledge!) enough room to mutate, biochemically as well as from it’s general structure and function.
That’s my point, basically. Forgive me the analogy, anyone who knows shit about immunology will roll their eyes now:
in this case, if you got a working key to enter, and start changing it, it MIGHT still work better. But in far more cases it won’t fit the lock, and you destroy the key altogether. Also, if you change some bits which are (pun intended) not part of the bit, but mainly maintain structural integrity not your key, you still can’t enter the bedroom and fuck around.
My standard example in plants is RuBisCo. Has been used for phylogenetic analysis early on, but we learned that it is not suitable because functional and structural constraints are too high. Not enough room to wiggle.
Onebox-free article about foreigners getting stick in Sweden for wearing masks:
The supermarket was almost empty, but Eva noticed a man looking at her and standing close to her on a few occasions. When she went to pay for her food, she said he stood just a few centimetres behind her, not holding any items and ignoring the ‘Keep your distance’ markers on the floor.
“I asked him to move behind the safe line, but he refused and starts laughing and calling me an idiot. At that moment his wife comes, grabs the man by the arm to put him behind the line, but he refuses and pushes his wife. She did manage to move him closer to the line. I told him that I’m not putting my groceries out of my basket until he keeps the distance, he laughs,” she said.
Eva took out her phone and started recording a video seen by The Local, in which she asks the man in Swedish to keep his distance, pointing at the markings, and he says “I am keeping distance” while remaining in front of the line. She says the man then called her an “idiot”, a “clown”, and then started commenting on the fact she came from another country, while staff at the supermarket did not intervene.
“I told him I’m Swedish too, then he laughs and keeps insulting me, then I have had enough and I said that Sweden is the country full of idiots because they refuse to keep distance. The guy at the checkout shouts at me, not at the man, and I say I’m not coming back [to the shop] if that’s the way they treat people that try to keep distance. The guy at the till shouts and says ‘you are not welcome here’.”
What the fuck?
The degree with which a virus spins off new, mutated versions of itself varies by virus. Influenza is infamous for constantly shifting and drifting causing us to have to come up with a new vaccine annually. As I understand it, coronaviridae are relatively stable and less prone to wild mutations, but this beast breaks a lot of rules so I would not bet too much on that being the case here. Once again, the answer is “insufficient data, check back later.”
While the number of mask-wearers in Norway was quite low, and mainly consisted of people who had been diagnosed positive, I never heard of anyone getting attacked for wearing one. Perhaps in Sweden mask-wearing is being viewed by some as a negative comment on the official government policy.
@AkilahObviously
](https://twitter.com/AkilahObviously)
It should be legal to spray water on the faces of people not wearing masks like how you train dogs to get off your furniture.
4:28 PM · Jul 1, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
And some folks still wonder why we’re keeping the border closed.
Eschaton
Friday, July 03, 2020
Or Die With It
WASHINGTON — After several months of mixed messages on the coronavirus pandemic, the White House is settling on a new one: Learn to live with it.
Translation: A lot of you will die (needlessly) and that’s fine with us.
