How COVID-19 is affecting society

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Geometric progression is hard to grasp.

It's also very, very scary.

*gets out a chess board* Who wants to play a simple doubling game for pennies?!

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

Jesus...

WATCH: Teen who licked public toilet seats now says he’s been hospitalized with coronavirus

Last week told you about the idiotic #CoronavirusChallenge, where teenagers run around licking toilet seats. This challenge actually beats out the #TidePodChallenge for being the stupidest idea out there.

www.lifezette.com

Maybe he should have eaten a Tide Pod after licking that toilet seat. It might have killed that shit!

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Maybe he should have eaten a Tide Pod after licking that toilet seat. It might have killed that shit!

God damn it, I laughed.

 

[Cristiano]

Fox Business And Trish Regan Part Ways, Weeks After Anchor's 'Coronavirus Impeachment Scam' Rant - TVLine

Two weeks after putting Trish Regan Primetime on hiatus, Fox Business Network has parted ways with the anchor, who earlier this month delivered a controversial…

tvline.com

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

I'm pretty tired of these stories...

Grocery Store Throws Out $35K Worth of Food After Woman Purposely Coughs on It

A woman played a “twisted prank” at a Pennsylvania grocery store Wednesday by purposefully coughing on about $35,000 worth of food, which had to be thrown out, the supermarket said.

www.nbcnewyork.com

I hope she is forced to reimburse the store every last fucking penny for that. And then some. Fucking cunt!

 

[Clara D.]

I hope she is forced to reimburse the store every last fucking penny for that. And then some. Fucking cunt!

And I hope Pennsylvania has a dollar amount of damage that bumps her up to a felony.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

How'd you like to be Thomas Massie about now? The Senate votes unanimously on the bill (unheard of) but rather than allow a House voice vote while Reps shelter at home, he forces EVERYONE to fly back to DC and go through the motions. WaPo: "During his seven years in Congress, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has established a reputation as a uniquely irascible congressional gadfly — one who is frequently at odds with his own party’s leadership, rarely votes for major bills negotiated with Democrats, and, to make an ideological point, is willing to use the House rule book to inconvenience his colleagues. "

Voted the most likely to get beaten up in the Congressional bathroom.

There seems to be an extra "M" in his last name.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

'Stranded at sea': cruise ships around the world are adrift as ports turn them away

A Guardian analysis finds that at least 10 ships remain at sea – and four passengers have died while being stranded

www.theguardian.com

The fast-moving nature of the virus has added to the confusion – when many passengers left for vacations in early March there were no cases of Covid-19 in South America, so they thought it would be safe to travel.

But Ross Klein, a professor at St John’s College in Newfoundland who has written four books on the cruise industry, said companies should have acted weeks earlier to cancel trips and refund customers. He noted that cases of cruise ships being turned away from ports as a result of coronavirus fears began as early as January and escalated in February, with passengers being quarantined on the Emerald Princess in Japan on 3 February.

“There is a level of greed on the part of these companies,” he said. “They want to make every penny – and they make money when people are on the ships.”

Cruise ships are drawing increasing government scrutiny for not doing enough to protect their passengers during this pandemic. In Florida, the attorney general’s office is investigating potentially misleading sales practices, after the Miami New Times obtained leaked emails showing representatives for Norwegian Cruise Lines may have downplayed the coronavirus in sales pitches to passengers, even as the pandemic was disrupting trips. “The Coronavirus can only survive in cold temperatures, so the Caribbean is a fantastic choice for your next cruise,” said one sales script obtained by the paper.

 

[Brenda Archer]

The Four Possible Timelines for Life Returning to Normal: The coronavirus outbreak may last for a year or two, but some elements of pre-pandemic life will likely be won back in the meantime.

When Will Coronavirus Social Distancing Be Over? - The Atlantic

Family The Four Possible Timelines for Life Returning to Normal The coronavirus outbreak may last for a year or two, but some elements of pre-pandemic life will likely be won back in the meantime. Joe...

www.evernote.com

These two quotes are about the unknown factor on my mind: immunity.

Once enough people reach Teflon status—though we don’t yet know if recovering from the disease confers any immunity at all, let alone lifelong immunity—normalcy will be restored.

...

Also in a month or two, public-health authorities and researchers will likely have a better sense of whether those who recover from an infection are immune to future infections, and if so, for how long.

We don’t know if long-term or lifetime immunity develops, or whether or not there is more than one strain to which immunity would have to develop, or how fast each strain is mutating - affecting immunity, rate of spread and the mortality of the resulting disease. Also, some fraction of the survivors will have disabling lifelong lung damage.

It’s such a raft of unknowns at this point, though the researchers must certainly be doing what they can. But the press keeps trying to say: wait long enough, and things will be normal. There’s no reason to assume that yet. In the U.S., that means we should seriously talk about upgrading the safety net, including universal healthcare and permanent improvements to unemployment/UBI/SSDI/I don’t care what they call it. All the old assumptions about forcing people to work for healthcare are breaking as people lose their insurance to unemployment.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

These two quotes are about the unknown factor on my mind: immunity.



We don’t know if long-term or lifetime immunity develops, or whether or not there is more than one strain to which immunity would have to develop, or how fast each strain is mutating - affecting immunity, rate of spread and the mortality of the resulting disease. Also, some fraction of the survivors will have disabling lifelong lung damage.

It’s such a raft of unknowns at this point, though the researchers must certainly be doing what they can. But the press keeps trying to say: wait long enough, and things will be normal. There’s no reason to assume that yet. In the U.S., that means we should seriously talk about upgrading the safety net, including universal healthcare and permanent improvements to unemployment/UBI/SSDI/I don’t care what they call it. All the old assumptions about forcing people to work for healthcare are breaking as people lose their insurance to unemployment.

In contrast, the British Government is paying 80% of employees' regular wages up to £2,500 a month for the next three months if they're furloughed, and will, in early June, make a taxable grant to the self-employed (like me) of 80% of three months' profit, subject to a similar cap, calculated as an average of our last three years' tax returns.

This is in addition to suspending repossessions, banks and other mortgage lenders having to offer repayment holidays, and so on.

ETA: They're also making Universal Credit (unemployment benefit) much easier to claim, with civil servants told that, at present, their only priority is register the new claims and get them paid -- checks and, if necessary, fraud investigations can take place later, once the crisis is over.

 

[Beebo Brink]

Ask an Expert on the Fall of Rome: Are We F-cked?

I’d called Wyman — a European historian focused on the end of the Roman Empire and the world it left behind — to discuss his piece in Mother Jones on how societies hold together or fall apart. But like every conversation seems to these days,it quickly turned to plagues and pandemics. Wyman brought up the mid-1300s bubonic plague that basically cut Europe’s population in half. Here’s what, in Wyman’s telling, Europe looked like on the eve of the Black Death.

At the end of a long period of economic expansion and population growth, wages were low and serfs were struggling to get by. Inequality had soared as a small cadre of wealthy elite spent heavily on luxuries. The climate, after a long and stable period, was entering a volatile shift. Oh, yeah, and in the decade before the pandemic, a group of historically massive companies had overexposed themselves and gone bankrupt, triggering an economic crisis.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The rise of the bio-surveillance state

A grim choice faces 21st-century societies: panopticons or pandemics?

www.newstatesman.com

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The economy v our lives? It's a false choice – and a deeply stupid one

Calls to reopen America have disturbing intellectual roots. And the millions of deaths that could ensue would fuel a depression beyond our imagination

www.theguardian.com

 

[Brenda Archer]

In contrast, the British Government is paying 80% of employees' regular wages up to £2,500 a month for the next three months if they're furloughed, and will, in early June, make a taxable grant to the self-employed (like me) of 80% of three months' profit, subject to a similar cap, calculated as an average of our last three years' tax returns.

This is in addition to suspending repossessions, banks and other mortgage lenders having to offer repayment holidays, and so on.

ETA: They're also making Universal Credit (unemployment benefit) much easier to claim, with civil servants told that, at present, their only priority is register the new claims and get them paid -- checks and, if necessary, fraud investigations can take place later, once the crisis is over.

This is so much better it’s breathtaking.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

This is so much better it’s breathtaking.

Even more breathtaking, to my mind, because it's not some crazy scheme dreamed up by Jeremy Corbyn or Bernie Sanders but the actual policy of a centre-right conservative/populist government led by Boris bloody Johnson.

 

[eku zhong]

 

[Pamela]

This is by far the most comprehensive info I have seen anywhere!

 

[Sredni Eel]