Slavitt is great. He outlines (incidentally) what made Trump such a bad businessperson while showing how badly he’s managed the pandemic response. A good business leader sets a strategy, including investments, timelines, milestones, and contingencies. What Trump did is throw the strategy out the window as soon as he got nervous. Just like a bad businessman.
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These notices are posted on end caps behind where you check out; I doubt many people even notice them.
I am torn between I’m good with, in effect, tipping workers in this terrible time and holy shit, Ocean State, how fucking sleazy.
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My issue is that one never knows for sure
if the associates are truly getting the 2%, or if the 2% service charge is used to offset the $2 raise? I’m sure there is someone holding the store accountable?
Also, some shoppers may be unemployed and watching their money. A couple dollars extra isn’t a lot for me, but it may mean everything to someone else. And having them advise the cashier that they decline the surcharge is kind of shitty.
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… and somehow we seem to have found ourselves in that world in which slothful stupidity, bumbling greed and incompetence; it turns out - could be even more dangerous than outright malice and evil could ever hope to be
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Fucking this 
It’s all just posturing. “Opening the economy” won’t get people to buy shit if they are too scared to leave their house. Maybe if Trump didn’t spend so much time with his thumb up his ass we’d be in better shape now.
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Infections fall in Somali community
Helsinki freesheet Helsingin Uutiset, reports that the head of Helsinki’s Department of Social Affairs and Health Juha Jolkkonen says that the level of coronavirus infections in the capital’s Somali community has peaked and are falling.
In April, officials said that in proportion to the number of residents in the capital, 1.8 percent of Somali speakers were infected, compared to 0.2 percent for the city as a whole.
At that time, it was pointed out that many Somali-background people work in jobs that can’t be done remotely, such as salespersons, cleaners, bus drivers and nurses. The higher infection rate was also attributed, in part, to poor communication on the part of city authorities.
Jolkkonen told the paper that communication had improved and city officials have worked in cooperation with Somali community organisations. Communication has also been upgraded for other immigrant language groups, he added.
Two weeks ago the city opened a coronavirus testing station at the Stoa cultural centre in the Itäkeskus district, an area with a proportionally large immigrant and immigrant-background population.
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I don’t know about the US, but Germany has the same type of cycle, which is thought to be caused by the reports being delayed over the weekend, due to the public health offices collecting the data, but also hospitals and coroners being low on staff over the weekend and only the most urgent work being done.
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China beginning to reopen:
…which does not justify the premature reopening efforts in the West. China is much further along in the response timeline than the West, and has been treating it with appropriate seriousness from very early on. America hasn’t even properly shut down yet.
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(^open the link into a incognito tab to get around the paywall)
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Fun fact: The private nursing home market was opened up by the Ontario government of Mike “the slasher” Harris. Today, he is the Chairman of the Board for Chartwell, Ontario’s largest private nursing home company. (I took a quick look to see who owns Chartwell, but nothing yet.)
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Meanwhile in Quebec…
Heartbreaking story short - nursing homes rely on temp workers for orderlies, temp workers end up working at several nursing homes to make enough money to live, many temp workers are refugees living in crowded apartments and getting sick. Gah.
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That is interesting, right? See: nicotine is an ACE2 inhibitor.
However, NB: this doesn’t mean lower chance of dying for smokers who do contract Covid-19.
ETA: also, we need more studies… sighs See above WDKS about this virus.
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I’ll take “extremely bad looks” for $100, Alex.
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WDKS needs to be the go-to response to almost all the pre-prints and hypotheses out there right now. Good science takes time, damn it, and bad science makes science look bad, which we really, really cannot afford in the current climate. Just fucking encourages the nuddniks to carry on about how “the eggheads are wrong again! You can’t trust them for anything! Let’s all go drink bleach!”
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https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/t1776881.shtml
If China covered up the real situation, then why did the US Consulate General in Wuhan pull out of its staff before others did? If the US side sensed no danger, then what’s the rush in pulling out? A recent report by the US CDC made it clear that limited testing ability contributed to problems like silent transmission, which caused an accelerated spread of the virus in the US in February and March. Is this also China’s fault?
If COVID-19 pandemic is comparable to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 attack, then the enemy the US faces this time is the novel coronavirus. The novel coronavirus is the common enemy of all mankind. In the face of this war between human and virus, China and the US should be comrades in arms rather than enemies.
Again, people’s lives come before selfish political interests. We urge the US side to stop scapegoating China and deflecting attention. Instead, it should get its own house in order and give the American people a clear explanation.
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