How COVID-19 is affecting society

[Jolene Benoir]

Been to plenty of protests since 2016. Probably stood in the exact same spot where she's standing. I have lots of practice making signs. We organize parties around making them.

I kind of believe in walking the talk.

She probably wasn't even from Pennsylvania. Just saying.

 

[Romana]

OMFG.

Barr calls stay-at-home orders 'disturbingly close to house arrest'

This piece of shit. He wants us to die in the name of money. I argue that we need to take it case by case, these garbage people argue that we ALL need to open up or face legal charges.

I hope that states stand up against him and say, "Go ahead and charge us, let it work it's way through the legal system"

When the next Democratic president wants to try to fix health care, if the Republicans have the nerve to push the "death panels" line again, we'll bring plenty of receipts.

 

[Kara Spengler]

She probably wasn't even from Pennsylvania. Just saying.

One of my signs is "occupydc stands with occupy*" ... otherwise I would have gone through a LOT of variations of that.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

 

[Beebo Brink]

We need a cosmic karma emoji.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

The problem is, as I'm sure you realize, the choice called "have the economy prosper at the expense of some lives" doesn't really exist, except in the fevered minds of the cult members.

Texas lt. governor on reopening state: ‘There are more important things than living’

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) called for the reopening of his state and the country late Monday, saying there are “more important things than living.”Patrick said on Fox News’…

thehill.com

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

And that, folks, is how you spell "karma".

 

[Jolene Benoir]

Texas lt. governor on reopening state: ‘There are more important things than living’

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) called for the reopening of his state and the country late Monday, saying there are “more important things than living.”Patrick said on Fox News’…

thehill.com

More important things than living? Is he volunteering to take one for the team or is he asking everyone else to do that? Certainly he would consider himself far too important for that. In his world the value of our lives is ranked, no doubt, by the value of our bank account.

He's the dude who said in March that grandparents would be willing to risk themselves to keep the economy afloat.

 

[Eunoli]

We need a cosmic karma emoji.

And a heavy sigh emoji.

 

[Jopsy Pendragon]

We need a cosmic karma emoji.

And an alternate hug emoji that respects social distancing. :}

 

[Jopsy Pendragon]

Texas lt. governor on reopening state: ‘There are more important things than living’

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) called for the reopening of his state and the country late Monday, saying there are “more important things than living.”Patrick said on Fox News’…

thehill.com

Typical of the "pro-life" hypocrites.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The anti-quarantine protests seem spontaneous. But behind the scenes, a powerful network is helping.

A network of right-leaning individuals and groups, aided by nimble online outfits, has helped incubate the fervor erupting in state capitals across the country. The activism is often organic and the frustration deeply felt, but it is also being amplified, and in some cases coordinated, by longtime conservative activists, whose robust operations were initially set up with help from Republican megadonors.

Inside the conservative network backing the anti-quarantine protests - The Washington Post

Inside the conservative network backing the anti-quarantine protests A network of right-leaning individuals and groups, aided by nimble online outfits, has helped incubate the fervor erupting in state...

www.evernote.com

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Top economist: US coronavirus response is like 'third world' country

Joseph Stiglitz attacks Donald Trump, saying US on course for second Great Depression

www.theguardian.com

Stiglitz said that as a result of Trump’s mismanagement, the White House office responsible for pandemics had been closed, funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had been cut, and the US had gone into the crisis without enough testing kits, masks and protective gear. Encouraged by Trump, some parts of the US were determined to reopen in a way that would facilitate the transmission of the disease and lead to a fresh outbreak, he added.

“In those circumstances it won’t be the government enforcing the lockdown, it will be fear. The concern is that people are not going to be spending on anything other than food and that’s the definition of a Great Depression.

“We were unprepared but, even given the degree of unpreparedness, Trump’s decision to make this about politics rather than about science has meant we have responded far more poorly.”

For what it's worth, I'd been planning on some quite large items of household expenditure -- a new bed and mattress, maybe a new sofa, redecorating the living room -- which I'm now postponing not only until I feel confident about going to furniture stores and having decorators in but also until I feel sufficiently comfortable spending that kind of money, rather than keeping it in reserve in case of some new shock or emergency, and I'm someone who has the money to hand and whose income hasn't been particularly affected by the crisis.

Someone who might have been considering making similar purchases on credit, or who might have planned to pay cash but has had to use her savings to support herself during the lockdown, will, I think, be even less willing to spend money on major non-essential purchases for a while.

Similarly, I would imagine a lot of people are going to think twice before spending money in a coffee shop, not only because they're worried about social distancing and the danger of infection but also because, when times are hard, it's difficult to justify spending as much on a cup of coffee at somewhere like Starbucks as you'd spend on a whole bag of decent coffee to make and drink at home.

We're never going to get back to normal, in the sense of life BC (before Covid-19), since the changes caused by the pandemic are so vast and with such incalculable consequences, but I expect that establishing any sort of new normal is going to take a couple of years at least.

 

[Beebo Brink]

One of the hallmarks of conservatism is resistance to change, as well as an inflexibility of character/personality that makes adjustment to change very difficult.

Our society has just begun to react to a major transformative event, of such sweeping scope that it's going to destabilize everything we've taken for granted over the past decades. It's inevitable that humans are going to react quite irrationally for years to come. So many people find themselves in a no-win situation of losing jobs and income no matter what we do as a country. There is no painless away out of this.

Corporate conservatives are not going to weather this very well either. The status quo -- in which they are so heavily invested both financially and emotionally -- is shattering. They are already desperately trying to deny reality, just as they've done with climate change, but the effects of coronavirus will not be so easily ignored.

This not a one-and-done event. It's going to be a bumpy ride for the rest of our lives.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I read an article about why Innula is so protective of the NHS. I think it mentioned her by name. Just kidding, but this article does help me understand things better.

Britain's health service is part of its national psyche. It's also on life support

"There is this huge level of deep-rooted affection for the institution and pride in it and what we're seeing now is that affection being manifested," Dan Wellings, senior fellow at the King's Fund, a healthcare think tank, told CNN.

It's amazing that Boris Johnson was on the verge of throwing it under the bus. Old story:
The government’s herd immunity plan is callous and dangerous

Now the slogan is "Stay home. Protect the NHS. Save lives."

You may find this interesting -- I don't agree with all of it but it does go some way to explaining why Brits tend to regard our NHS very differently from the way people in the US tend to view healthcare

No matter how this coronavirus crisis ends, it will be bad for conservatism | Zoe Williams

The NHS was a socialist ideal – and now it’s made a paradigm shift in the political debate, says Guardian columnist Zoe Williams

www.theguardian.com

We know that seismic, destructive events change assumptions, because we have the NHS as proof of it. Out of the second world war came the umbrella principle: if money was no object when it came to killing people, it should be no object when it comes to keeping them alive. From this sprang the greatest public housing project ever undertaken in this country, the extension of universal free education and, most importantly, the moral imperative that medicine should be free at the point of need.

All these projects were undertaken at a time of epic national debt and genuine fiscal insecurity. The message was not so much “money is no object” as “money has no meaning”. Perhaps the NHS has emerged as the most important because it was the one that lasted, or perhaps it lasted because it was the most important. Either way, a principle was established: socialism in health, if nowhere else.

While I'd question whether a National Health Service is a particularly socialist idea (Saudi Arabia isn't a particularly socialist place, and neither is South Korea), I think it's true to say many places, and particularly the UK, regard health care as something it's the government's job to provide, just as it's the government's job to maintain our armed forces rather than rely on mercenaries.

 

[Fionalein]

We need a cosmic karma emoji.

Is that the new woke way of not admitting you experience Schadenfreude over the self removal of a stupid person from the gene pool?

 

[Kalel]

first time national spelling bee has been canceled since World war 2

National Spelling Bee canceled for first time since 1945

There will be no fidgeting at the National Spelling Bee microphone, no banter with pronouncer Jacques Bailly, no pointed questions about definitions or languages of origin, no dreaded bell that signals a misspelled word.

apnews.com

 

[Beebo Brink]

We're never going to get back to normal, in the sense of life BC (before Covid-19), since the changes caused by the pandemic are so vast and with such incalculable consequences, but I expect that establishing any sort of new normal is going to take a couple of years at least.

Just over the past day I've read about the collapse of retail marketing stores. Major brands of department stores were already in trouble and the lockdown has tipped them over the edge. Lord & Taylor, Nieman Marcus, Macy's -- they simply don't have the cash reserves to sit this out.

Airlines are also badly hit, with Boeing a residual casualty since no one is going to order new planes if the current planes aren't in service. And what we're learning as a society -- most especially in business class -- is that airflight is an optional expense. The lockdown has been a major shove toward virtual meetings and remote work in my industry. Clients who clung to old methods and patterns have been dragged into the modern world and that experience can't be undone. As they look for ways to cut costs in the lean times ahead, travel is now expendable.

These are just the most obvious consequences. Many more are going to emerge over time.

 

[Fionalein]

Top economist: US coronavirus response is like 'third world' country

Joseph Stiglitz attacks Donald Trump, saying US on course for second Great Depression

www.theguardian.com

And that is surprising for a third world country in what particular way? Because sorry to tell you the sad truth... in most aspects they are one.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

And that is surprising for a third world country in what particular way? Because sorry to tell you the sad truth... in most aspects they are one.

From the New Yorker of April 4

As of Saturday morning, Georgia had almost six thousand confirmed cases of the virus, which had killed a hundred and ninety-eight people in the state*. More people—thirty—had died in Dougherty County, the state’s twenty-seventh most populous county, than anywhere else in Georgia. While Dougherty is served by a well-regarded hospital, nine Georgia counties, most of them also in the southern part of the state, not only lack hospitals but have no practicing physicians at all, according to Monty Veazey, the president of the Georgia Alliance of Community Hospitals. Eighteen have no family-practice doctors. Thirty-two have no internal-medicine doctors. Seventy-six counties have no ob-gyn. A number of these counties have long sent their neediest patients to Phoebe Putney, and they will continue to do so.

Tripp Morgan, a forty-seven-year-old vascular surgeon who grew up outside of Albany and still lives there, worked at Phoebe Putney until moving to a private practice last year. In addition to his medical practice, he co-owns a brewery and a C.B.D. processing facility, where he proofed a formula for emergency hand sanitizer; he then used the brewery’s fermenters to produce some forty thousand gallons of it. “The thing people don’t understand about South Georgia is it’s so rural,” Morgan told me. “There’s a Third World country up underneath a First World country.” He compared what was happening to the area now, and what was about to happen, to the arrival of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. “We have an older population, and a lot of them live together in smaller areas,” he said. “We’re down here in the ‘bacon belt,’ with high levels of cardiovascular disease.” Georgia is one of fourteen states that has not expanded Medicaid to poor residents under the Affordable Care Act, and the state spends less than twenty-five dollars per person on public health annually. (By comparison, New York spends eighty-four dollars per person annually on public health.) Morgan added, “When it eventually burns out in Albany, you’ll see it bloom in the surrounding areas, some of which have far fewer resources.”

*Today's figures:
Total confirmed cases for Georgia: 19,189
Total deaths: 810

For Doughety County:
Confirmed cases: 1,456 (1,599/100,000 people)
Deaths: 103 (113/100,000 people)