How COVID-19 is affecting society

[Essence Lumin]

My local bagel shop has this sign. What? Oh.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

a joke immortalised in Hansard has it that as a barrister who has obsessively tracked and tried to explain the shifting sands of lockdown on Twitter, YouTube and in the media, I may now be the only person in the country “who can make sense of this variety of regulations.” When I was at law school, I never dreamed I would be having to explain to Piers Morgan on national television whether it was illegal to sit on a park bench.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Tory peer denied pandemic exists and blamed Chinese ‘fake videos’

Exclusive: Helena Morrissey condemned by health experts after tweeting ‘if people were dropping dead in the street we would notice’

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Here's a question I've found in Thinking Fast & Slow, by Daniel Kahneman, which really is fascinating. The figures are silly, but for the purposes of the thought experiment, it's clar enough:

Imagine that the United States is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed. Assume that the exact scientific estimates of the consequences of the programs are as follows:
Imagine that the United States is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed. Assume that the exact scientific estimates of the consequences of the programs are as follows:

• If program A is adopted, 200 people will be saved.
• If program B is adopted, there is a one-third probability that 600 people will be saved and a two-thirds probability that no people will be saved.

Quite why it has to be an Asian disease I don't know, but the book was published 10 years ago, when it was SARS we were worried about. Anyway, most people are likely to choose program A, preferring the certainty of saving some lives to the risk of the all or nothing gamble in program B.

Now, consider this

• If program A' is adopted, 400 people will die.
• If program B' is adopted, there is a one-third probability that nobody will die and a two-thirds probability that 600 people will die.

When the problem is presented that way, most people will choose program B' to program A', even though the two pairs are logically identical, but stated differently.

There are all sorts of explanations for this, to do with the feelings of regret we anticipate feeling if the bet goes wrong, and relief if the bet comes off, depending on whether the outcomes are presented in terms of the certainty of avoiding certain disaster, albeit at the cost of grave loss, or gambling on the possibility of avoiding a disaster altogether, but risking total loss if the bet fails.

So which do we go for?

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

Not sure if this belongs here or in the Florida thread, but WTF? DeathSantis wants to punish businesses for wanting to protect their employees' health and that of their sane customers?

What the hell is that two-legged festering pile of poo trying to prove?

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

And the "Dipshit of the Year" Award goes to...

Disney World guest says he spent too much to be arrested for refusing temperature check

Authorities confronted him outside The Boathouse restaurant after Sills skipped the temperature screening tent, refused to go back, and wouldn’t leave the property.

www.tampabay.com

 

[Romana]

And the "Dipshit of the Year" Award goes to...

Disney World guest says he spent too much to be arrested for refusing temperature check

Authorities confronted him outside The Boathouse restaurant after Sills skipped the temperature screening tent, refused to go back, and wouldn’t leave the property.

www.tampabay.com

This paragraph tells it all.

“I paid $15,000. You can’t trespass me for paying $15,000,” said Sills, a guest at Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa, after he was led away. He soon began cooperating with the sheriff’s deputies. “If I take $15,000 from you, I can’t kick you out. ... Bring me to jail for 15 grand, I’m fine ... In front of my kids, too, at Disney World.”

He wanted to make a scene. He probably expected them to cave, but this still serves his COVID denier agenda, maybe even more so. He'll probably sue and go on Fox or social media and sink his own case. Not that he'd win anyway, unless he drew a real Trumpist (or bribeable) judge.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

This paragraph tells it all.



He wanted to make a scene. He probably expected them to cave, but this still serves his COVID denier agenda, maybe even more so. He'll probably sue and go on Fox or social media and sink his own case. Not that he'd win anyway, unless he drew a real Trumpist (or bribeable) judge.

Except well, I'm sure there is a clause in his guest contract saying they can in fact do so.....

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Everyone in England to be offered twice-weekly Covid tests, PM to say

Boris Johnson to promise universal rollout of rapid testing scheme in bid to ease England out of lockdown

www.theguardian.com

Over the weekend, the government unveiled plans for nine pilot events, ranging from football matches and a snooker tournament to comedy and business gatherings, to try out the practicalities of Covid certificates, whether using paper or via an app.

Such documents would allow people entry to events if they had been vaccinated, or could show they had recently tested negative for Covid or had antibodies to the virus.

But the day after the pilot events were announced, five of the nine venues insisted they were not taking part in a Covid certification trial, with one saying it had received a “massive backlash” after the government announcement.

Liverpool city council, where four of the events are planned, said these would instead be general tests of how such venues could reopen, including social distancing, ventilation and test-on-entry systems, but were not designed to feed into a certificate trial.

Paul Blair, a co-owner of the Hot Water Comedy Club in the city, which is organising an event on 16 April, said the venue had received abuse on social media and emails accusing it of being part of a “medical apartheid”.

Johnson has suggested businesses would welcome the option to use Covid passport schemes, but he faces a battle to win parliamentary support for the idea. Last week more than 70 MPs, including 40 Conservatives, announced they would oppose the idea.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Boris Johnson confirms easing of England lockdown next week

PM says pubs, hairdressers, shops and gyms can open, but resumption of foreign travel next month remains in doubt

www.theguardian.com

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Uhhhhhh....okay there, "doctor".

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I remember the various vaccinations I had to have to attend school, and when I enrolled at university, and as far as I know that's still the case in the UK, only more so if anything.

Why's this such a shock to people?

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

I remember the various vaccinations I had to have to attend school, and when I enrolled at university, and as far as I know that's still the case in the UK, only more so if anything.

Why's this such a shock to people?

I remember the list of vaccinations I was going to be required to get when my military parent was getting transferred to Turkey. The transfer was changed at the last minute (sadly) but - yeah, international travel has already required "other vaccinations" for decades.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I remember the list of vaccinations I was going to be required to get when my military parent was getting transferred to Turkey. The transfer was changed at the last minute (sadly) but - yeah, international travel has already required "other vaccinations" for decades.

The smallpox vaccination was horrible. I had that when I was 14 or 15 I think, when I needed it for a family holiday that involved a side-trip to Morocco. I was really ill with it for about a week, and the site of the injection was inflamed and painful for considerably longer.

On the other hand, my sometime father-in-law had survived smallpox in India when he was 10 or 11, so I guess I got off lightly.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

The smallpox vaccination was horrible. I had that when I was 14 or 15 I think, when I needed it for a family holiday that involved a side-trip to Morocco. I was really ill with it for about a week, and the site of the injection was inflamed and painful for considerably longer.

On the other hand, my sometime father-in-law had survived smallpox in India when he was 10 or 11, so I guess I got off lightly.

I had to get it twice, iirc - once coming to the states from Stuttgart, where I was born, and then again coming back from or going back to Germany when I was somewhere between 4-9....

And we had to get all sorts of vaccines to go to public schools.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Uhhhhhh....okay there, "doctor".

Look who thinks it's Americans who are allowed to go be illegals anywhere else in the world.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

how would you feel if international travel also required other vaccinations?

Ell Oh Fucking Ell.

I needed the smallpox vaccination to travel to the USA when I was a kid.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

Uhhhhhh....okay there, "doctor".

 

[Free]

I remember the various vaccinations I had to have to attend school, and when I enrolled at university, and as far as I know that's still the case in the UK, only more so if anything.

Why's this such a shock to people insular twerps?

 

[Free]

Looks like God got a jab in.

Montana Governor Who Rescinded Mask Mandate Now Has COVID

The 59-year-old Republican got the first dose of the vaccine but fell ill before he was fully protected.

www.thedailybeast.com

Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, who rescinded the state’s mask mandate weeks after taking office, has tested positive for COVID-19. The 59-year-old Republican got the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine last Thursday, but since full protection doesn’t kick in until after the second dose, he would have still been vulnerable to infection. The Billings Gazette reports that he developed symptoms on Sunday after attending Easter services, tested positive on Monday, and will now quarantine for 10 days. It’s not clear how he contracted the virus or if he has infected others, but six members of the state legislature have also tested positive since January.