How COVID-19 is affecting society

[Essence Lumin]

A little personal story that isn't of much consequence...Me and my love were going to a show Sunday - Punk Rock Bowling in Las Vegas featuring Devo. Then they wouldn't let us in because we didn't have a covid wristband. We should have read the website a bit more carefully. We had our vaccine cards but they weren't accepted by them since they said there were too many fakes. They wanted "digital proof". She is in a wheelchair so I wheel her a 1/2 mile away to try and get these wristbands. They wanted us to display our medical charts we have on the mychart app. My love got hers up but I couldn't find my login and password. For some reason I didn't have it saved in my password manager. So... they offer free covid testing with a swab and I do that. Then it takes a 1/2 hour to get the results. In the meantime, I fool around with my phone long enough to figure out how to reset my mychart password. They accepted my mychart report. We managed to get to the main event but missed a couple of hours we would have liked to see. Later I got a text that I'm negative (from the test I no longer needed) which is a plus. It would be pretty simple to fake a display on my phone of receiving vaccines but anyway... What a headache. Devo was great so it was worth it.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The California region where Covid ‘just isn’t slowing down’

The state has the country’s lowest case rate. But the picture is different in the vaccine-resistant Central Valley and rural north

www.theguardian.com

Evernote link

 

[WolfEyes]

3rd degree 'oh snap' burns across 90% of their entire identity....

Hmm. Must have run out of characters for "opportunity for improvement".

 

[Romana]

Hmm. Must have run out of characters for "opportunity for improvement".

I doubt if it'll have any impact anyway, Monty there is obviously an anti -vax bot (I had a look at its Twitter feed). Not programmed very well either.

 

[WolfEyes]

'I hope our ancestors can see what we are doing': New fellowship supports Indigenous leaders, artists (msn.com)

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Wayne Couzens ‘used police ID and handcuffs to kidnap Sarah Everard’

Sentencing hearing told that Met officer ‘hunted for a female to rape’, as footage shows him staging a false arrest of his victim

www.theguardian.com

Evernote link

This is unspeakable.

Nevertheless, it's not uncommon.

At least 15 serving or former police have killed women in UK since 2009 – report

Majority of the women killed by former officers had been their partners, according to the Femicide Census

www.theguardian.com

Evernote link

 

[Free]

Network of Right-Wing Health Care Providers Is Making Millions Off Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin, Hacked Data Reveals

Hacked data also reveals that 72,000 people paid at least $6.7 million for Covid-19 consultations promoted by America’s Frontline Doctors and Simone Gold.

theintercept.com

A network of health care providers pocketed millions of dollars selling hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, and online consultations, according to hacked data provided to The Intercept. The data show that vast sums of money are being extracted from people concerned about or suffering from Covid-19 but resistant to vaccinations or other recommendations of public health authorities.

America’s Frontline Doctors, a right-wing group founded last year to promote pro-Trump doctors during the coronavirus pandemic, is working in tandem with a small network of health care companies to sow distrust in the Covid-19 vaccine, dupe tens of thousands of people into seeking ineffective treatments for the disease, and then sell consultations and millions of dollars’ worth of those medications. The data indicate patients spent at least $15 million — and potentially much more — on consultations and medications combined.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

 

[Beebo Brink]

The workers who keep global supply chains moving are warning of a 'system collapse'

Seafarers, truck drivers and airline workers have endured quarantines, travel restrictions and complex Covid-19 vaccination and testing requirements to keep stretched supply chains moving during the pandemic.

www.cnn.com

 

[Innula Zenovka]

‘I’ll never go back’: Uganda’s schools at risk as teachers find new work during Covid

Many private schools may not reopen after staff laid off during lockdown say they will not return to the profession

www.theguardian.com

The last message Mary Namitala received from the private school in which she taught was in March last year, the day all schools in Uganda were ordered close due to Covid-19. The message read: “No more payments until when schools open.”

“My husband and I decided to leave our rented house in town and shifted to the village, to our unfinished house. We could not afford to continue paying rent,” says Namitala, from her home in Bombo in central Uganda, about 20 miles north of the capital Kampala.

She had no choice but to find other sources of income.

“I have transitioned from teaching into farming and there’s a ready market for our produce,” she says, pointing to rows of tomato plants in her garden, and the chickens she is breeding. She has even rented an extra plot of land to grow more crops.

“I will not leave my business, which I started, to devote all my time to teach again,” she says, adding that other former colleagues have done the same.

 

[Beebo Brink]

More on the effects of disrupted supply chains, along with that perennial favorite of underpaying employees. All of which shows that modern industrialized nations are closer to a house of cards than anyone likes to admit.

West Virginia factory is center stage in supply chain crisis, showing economy’s strains
Shifting landscape of parts shortages, price spikes challenges key auto parts maker

A few months ago, the plant exhausted its supply of 30-pound fishing line, which Sogefi uses to hold together the accordion-pleated paper inside each filter. Gregory tried everywhere he could think of to find more of the shimmering filament, including retail outlets.
“We cleared out Cabela, Bass Pro — even Amazon,” he said.

The inability to obtain enough of the right parts at the right time means production runs are shorter. Instead of the usual 8,000-yard spools of industrial fishing line that Sogefi normally uses, the retail version came in smaller 400-yard versions. Instead of one spool lasting an entire shift, they must be replaced every 15 or 20 minutes.

Workers must stop the line more often to swap out the tooling used to make one part for the equipment needed to make something different. Production of diesel oil filters stopped one day when the plant ran out of the plastic caps that cover one end.

Dontcha just love to hear employers complaining that people won't work for slave wages? Especially when frequent work stoppages come out of the pay of those same low-paid workers, making their job even harder.

As the pandemic upheaval has continued, Sogefi has grown more involved in its suppliers’ affairs, including their sourcing decisions and hiring. That’s ironic, given Sogefi’s own difficulties filling open positions. A recent job fair in Kentucky drew only two applicants, said Jeremy Dalton, the plant’s human resources manager. Before the pandemic, a job posting on Indeed.com might draw 100 resumes. Today, it’s lucky to get five.

Thomas worries that extra federal unemployment benefits are discouraging people from returning to factory jobs. By his calculation, Sogefi would have needed to pay an hourly wage of $23.50 to rival what some West Virginians could earn without working last year when Washington was providing an extra $600 in weekly jobless aid on top of state benefits. At the height of the pandemic, he increased hourly pay by $5 to reward workers who stayed on the line.

Now, along with paid family and medical leave, the current $300 per week extra in federal jobless aid makes his $12.75 starting wage, set to rise to $15 on July 2, unattractive.

“These two things will destroy manufacturing in the United States,” he said.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

 

[Essence Lumin]

Anti-Maskers Roasted For Taping Dirty Socks To Their Faces To Own The Libs

"Breathing in foot stink to own, uh, Walmart."

god.dailydot.com

 

[Essence Lumin]

I have no context for this one, just the picture.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Calgary ICU nurse who faced abuse on front lines of pandemic dies of apparent drug overdose

In the days and months prior to her death, Season Foremsky detailed the trauma and abuse health care professionals face in hospitals as the COVID-19 pandemic stretches on

www.theglobeandmail.com

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Check out this authoritarian autocrat:

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Wayne Couzens ‘used police ID and handcuffs to kidnap Sarah Everard’

Sentencing hearing told that Met officer ‘hunted for a female to rape’, as footage shows him staging a false arrest of his victim

www.theguardian.com

Evernote link

This is unspeakable.

Nevertheless, it's not uncommon.

At least 15 serving or former police have killed women in UK since 2009 – report

Majority of the women killed by former officers had been their partners, according to the Femicide Census

www.theguardian.com

Evernote link

Quite rightly, to my mind, he was given a whole life sentence (no possibility of parole, which is reserved for the most serious crimes and is very rarely used).

Sarah Everard murder: Wayne Couzens given whole-life sentence

Sentencing Wayne Couzens to a whole-life term, the judge said he had eroded confidence in the police.

www.bbc.co.uk

In this country it is expected that the police will act in the public interest; indeed, the authority of the police is to a truly significant extent dependent on the public’s consent, and the power of officers to detain, arrest and otherwise control important aspects of our lives is only effective because of the critical trust that we repose in the constabulary, that they will act lawfully and in the best interests of society. If that is undermined, one of the enduring safeguards of law and order in this country is inevitably jeopardised. In my judgment, the misuse of a police officer’s role such as occurred in this case in order to kidnap, rape and murder a lone victim is of equal seriousness as a murder carried out for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause. All of these situations attack different aspects of the fundamental underpinnings of our democratic way of life.

Wayne Couzens: Sentencing Remarks

Wayne Couzens Sentencing Remarks Fulford LJ 30 September 2021 Central Criminal Court

www.judiciary.uk

ETA

Sarah Everard: Gross misconduct probe into Couzens WhatsApp group

Sarah Everard's killer is believed to have been in a chat with officers sharing "discriminatory" content.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Rose Karuna]

'I hope our ancestors can see what we are doing': New fellowship supports Indigenous leaders, artists (msn.com)

Regarding introducing native plants back into the area. This is awesome. Our Seminole reservation in Florida does something similar. I have learned so much about native plants from them, which I have absolutely incorporated into my garden. Many of the seeds I was able to buy directly from someone on the reservation. They also are sharing preparation and recipes of the native food. If you take a buggy ride out into the everglades with them, they will show you native medicinal plants and plants that are used as native foods.

 

[Romana]

I have no context for this one, just the picture.

Context : https://www.yesweekly.com/news/trump-supporter-in-penis-mask-charged-with-assault/article_e9fc6adc-ff81-11ea-bcc4-03aeb9e99588.html

 

[WolfEyes]

Dammit! Just when I had been able to stop laughing.