How COVID-19 is affecting society

[Tracer]

Dumped Milk, Smashed Eggs, Plowed Vegetables: Food Waste of the Pandemic (Published 2020)

With restaurants, hotels and schools closed, many of the nation’s largest farms are destroying millions of pounds of fresh goods that they can no longer sell.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Beebo Brink]

As deaths here and abroad continue to increase, any honest view of our current circumstances must surely be ambivalent – acknowledging that lockdown is necessary, and it is a miracle that the health service has not already buckled, but also that it is exacting a toll that for many people is already unbearable.

I have to acknowledge my own ambivalence about this trade-off, despite the personal cost of any other "solution". Perhaps there is no good answer, no Door #3 that somehow gets us out of this without body blows to society.

In a brutal way, past pandemics were more straightforward -- everyone died at home. There wasn't a medical infrastructure to protect, so the survivors buried their dead and moved on. There wasn't any expectation that your old frail grandparents or your cripplied sister would survive; compromised people died young.

 

[Cristiano]

We’re looking like ‘Flori-duh’ again, Gov. DeSantis. Any idea how that happened?

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

 

[Rose Karuna]

We’re looking like ‘Flori-duh’ again, Gov. DeSantis. Any idea how that happened?

This makes me see red. The Trump administration knew about COVID-19 way back in January (possibly sooner) when the intelligence community reported that China was quarantining people and putting up hospitals in less than a week. Our leaders should have taken action then. At the very least they should have been stock piling medical supplies and getting the military ready to set up temporary hospitals. Trump took a gamble with thousands of American's lives and decided to ignore the whole thing and then try to throw blame onto Obama and on anyone else he can point his finger at. He is despicable.

Florida has DeSantis (only marginally better than Voldemort), who is showing no leadership at all. People are dying in prisons and in nursing homes here and he's not only ignoring it, he's hiding it.

When are the other half of the American people going to realize that these people who they are electing are liars, NOT LEADERS and have only their own and their cronies self interest at heart.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

When are the other half of the American people going to realize that these people who they are electing are liars, NOT LEADERS and have only their own and their cronies self interest at heart.

Hey don't worry! She's gonna sell the stocks and keep the money, that'll make it okay! Sen. Kelly Loeffler On Liquidating Her Stock Portfolio, Coronavirus Relief | 90.1 FM WABE

 

[Sovereignty]

Here is a good speech from Cuomo, today's briefing.

 

[danielravennest]

Trump retweets call to fire Anthony Fauci after the coronavirus expert says quicker response ‘could have saved lives’

If Fauci is fired, he'll be immediately hired by a university school of public health or top medical school, and continue giving interviews. His approval rating is about twice Trump's, so that would be inevitable.

My pick would be my alma mater's Mailman School of Public Health. Not only is Columbia University a bastion of liberalism, it's located in Manhattan, Trump's former residence and epicenter of the disease in the US. It is also convenient to all the media outlets in New York, and where fellow alumnus Barack Obama (class of '83) went to school.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

For millions, lockdown is not novels and quality family time but food parcels and hardship | John Harris

We need to tell the stories of low-paid and casual workers who are suffering in this coronavirus crisis, says Guardian columnist John Harris

www.theguardian.com

Yeah - I know we're lucky here - my housemate and my spouse both work from home, and for the one, well, he's an author, and people are reading more.

But a lot of our friends are not so lucky. One works for a resort just over the border in 'Bama, and he's been furloughed, and well, a lot of our friends work the con circuit like I do. I'm not making any money, and won't be until next year at the earliest, unless someone decides they want to buy something from my online store.

And even then, depending on how long this lasts; will my [wool] supplier still even be in business? Will people have money to afford going to cons and buying high ticket items, like the ones I mostly make?

Yeah, we're lucky, but I know most of us are not.

 

[Sredni Eel]

Trump is lower than a snake full of buck shot. He just aired a campaign video during the latest briefing.

Still not one word of sympathy to the sick, dying, or families of the dead. Fucker.

 

[Pamela]

I can’t find the nyt editorial that supposedly made Tump berserk. There are so many. Anyone?

 

[Free]

Loss of a minor celebrity in the New England area (though he died in Florida):

Bernie Rubin, founder of Bernie and Phyls, dies of coronavirus-related illness - Boston News, Weather, Sports | WHDH 7News

Bernie Rubin, the founder of Bernie & Phyl’s chain of furniture stores, died of coronavirus-related complications, family members said Monday.Rubin, 82, started a furniture store<a class="excerpt-read-more"...

whdh.com

 

[Zaida Gearbox]

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

I can’t find the nyt editorial that supposedly made Tump berserk. There are so many. Anyone?

What? Is it a day that ends with Y?

 

[Pamela]

What? Is it a day that ends with Y?

All day in twitter and TV, what a bombshell, Trump hysterical, etc but not title or bylines.

ETA Found it, from Sunday, read it then, yes damning.

 

[Pamela]

Wow, Trump just announced his authority is “total” . Repeated: Total. Regarding the fact that this asshole refused to shut down the nation, said it was up to the governors, but now he intends to close it, to hell with governors.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Wow, Trump just announced his authority is “total” . Repeated: Total. Regarding the fact that this asshole refused to shut down the nation, said it was up to the governors, but now he intends to close it, to hell with governors.

I’m sure Susan Collins will he very concerned but ultimately Trump learned his lesson.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

“Leader of the free world”

That’s one title/expression I hope will finally disappear.

Or, if it is to persist, that we get quality leadership that can live up to the moniker.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

As I understand Christian doctrine, the first two panels are consistent with Christianity.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.

The third panel smells of straw. Death is a blessing in Evangelical settings for “The Lord is calling me home.”

The final panel is Islamic:

And you shall not follow blindly any information of which you have no direct knowledge. (Using your faculties of perception and conception) you must verify it for yourself. In the Court of your Lord, you will be held accountable for your hearing, sight, and the faculty of reasoning. (And so, the insane and the disabled will have their incapacities taken into account in a court of law.)

Ayah al-Isra` (Children of Israel, The Israelites) 17:36

A more pithy version:

You shall not accept any information, unless you verify it for yourself. I have given you the hearing, the eyesight, and the brain, and you are responsible for using them.