#(That sucked the last time and that was *with* the enforcing isolation of 10 days)

[kyuohki]

Dear people who make the cold meds,

Would you kindly stop putting that nasty-sweet coating on them?

Signed,

Person who gags from the taste every time they get sick

[corona-extra-newsletter]

3/18/20 corona extra: cracking open cold covid facts

Announcements & Thank Yous

Thank you to everyone who’s messaged me or sent asks! Specific thanks go to:

@ruffboijuliaburnsides​ for their help with Kansas

@marywhal​ for information about Canada and Gritty tips

My husband for the memes

My dad for informing me how the UK works

Twitter users @molly0xFFF and @goblinartificer for their continued help with the Wordpress site

@pullingawaythespooks​ for Oregon info

@elprupneerg​ for Wisconsin info

@theeyesinthenight​ for Pennsylvania info

@adventurecalls​ for Minnesota info

@heartyargybargy​ for UK info

If you have reliable information from a good source that I don’t seem to have, please shoot me a message/ask/pigeon!

Places now included in the newsletter are: Germany, France, Cuba, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, Idaho, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Maine, and West Virginia (with that, all 50 US states are included. Whew.) Please send an ask or a message if you would like a place included!

I have started a website for the newsletter! Find it at coronaextranewsletter.com. If you know me from fandom, please be chill about my meatspace identity. Please.

Just The Numbers

Total cases: 191,127 (+15,123)

Total deaths: 7,807 (+786)

Mortality rate: 4.08%

WHO numbers look a little wonky today because the timing changed on when things are reported/collected. They should be back to normal tomorrow!

Western Pacific: 91,845 cases (+312), 3,357 deaths (+23)

Europe: 74,760 cases (+10,911), 3,352 deaths (+604)

SE Asia: 538 cases (+30), 9 deaths (+1)

Eastern Mediterranean: 18,060 cases (+1552), 1,010deaths (+140)

Americans: 4,979 cases (+2,243), 68 deaths (+18)

Africa: 233 cases (+42), 4 deaths (+0)

160 countries/territories reporting cases, 1 new including:

Montenegro (2)

Italy is reporting 31,506 cases (+3526) and  2,503 deaths (+345)

Spain is reporting 11,178 cases (+1987) and 491 deaths (+182)

Iran is reporting 16,169 cases (+1178) and 988 deaths (+135)

International/General News

Eurovision is canceled. Lovers of sparkles and cheesy ballads weep in the streets.

I’m blasting ABBA in mourning and encourage you to join me

Many places are closing liquor stores, bars, and restaurants. This is very concerning for people who are dependent on alcohol as they are at high risk for withdrawal. Public health measures to mitigate this are necessary

The US-Canada border is now closed. Holy shit. Essential business is still allowed but still. Holy shit.

Cuba is working with China to test interferon-alpha as a potential therapy for the virus. Watch this space for further news.

I’m less optimistic about this one than the favipiravir I mentioned yesterday because interferons are a way less directed therapy but the trials will tell the story!

Vaccine trials continue in Seattle, United States. Authorities of the state of Washington are asking for healthy volunteers to join the trial.

Antibody trials are underway in the Netherlands.

The United States has a major shortage of testing supplies, still.

US immigration enforcement are a bunch of bastards. Still.

Italy has promoted a bunch of senior medical students to start practicing in the outpatient setting so more seasoned doctors can work in the hospitals.

As a senior medical student, this frightens me personally.

Virology Corner

Today’s question is: Why 6 feet of separation? How does that help? How is COVID-19 spread?

Let’s start with how COVID-19 is spread. It’s a respiratory virus, so it is spread by respiratory droplets, aka the garbage you breathe/cough/sneeze out.

A good hard sneeze won’t launch your eyeballs out, but it will launch nasty shit up to 6 feet away from you at a shocking speed. (This is why you should Dracula when you sneeze.)

6 feet is a great rule of thumb to keep people out of each other’s sneeze radius, so they can’t get in contact with each other’s respiratory droplets.

Regional News (if you want somewhere added just let me know. Don’t be shy!! I highly recommend you just skip to your area if you don’t wanna be overwhelmed.)

Australia: last updated 3/18 at 6:30 am

454 cases (+79)

189 cases acquired overseas (US, Iran, Italy, UK)

Community spread not confirmed

5 deaths (+0)

43 recoveries (+27)

States affected include: ACT (2, +0), New South Wales (210, +40), Queensland (78, +10), South Australia (32, +3), Tasmania (7, +0), Victoria (94, +23), and Western Australia (31, +3)

Passengers repatriated from the Diamond Princess are included in their respective states

COVID-19 information line: 1800 020 080

Canada: last updated 3/17 at 8 pm

Total cases: 569 confirmed (+145), 26 presumed (+10)

Symptoms began for these cases between 1/15 and 3/15

12% of cases have required hospitalization (-1%)

74% of cases are in travellers, and a further 11% (+5%) in their close contacts

8 deaths (+3)

Deaths are being reported in: Ontario (1)

Recoveries are being reported in: Ontario (5)

Affected provinces include: Alberta (97, +23), BC (186, +83), Manitoba (15, +8), New Brunswick (8, +1), Newfoundland and Labrador (1, +0), Nova Scotia (7, +2) Ontario (189, +12), PEI (1, +0), Québec (50, +9), and Saskatchewan (8, +1).

Totals here include confirmed and presumptive positives

9 cases in repatriated travellers (+1)

Restrictions/Closures:

No formal restrictions/closures at the federal level

Recommendation to cancel or postpone gatherings of >50 people

Recommendation to avoid non-essential travel, particularly cruise ships

All international travelers must self-isolate for 14 days upon arrival

Wash your damn hands

Federal information line: 1-833-784-4397

Alberta: last updated 3/17 late evening

97 (+23) cases

Community spread confirmed in Calgary

Affected zones include: Calgary (70, +18), Edmonton (20, +2), Central (3, +1), South (1, +0), and North (3, +2)

No deaths reported as of 3/17 in the late evening

Restrictions/closures

K-12 schools and in-person post-secondary classes/training are closed

Licensed childcare facilities, out-of-school care programs, and preschools are closed indefinitely

State of Emergency declared 3/17

Sit-down restaurants are operating at lower capacity

All events over 50 people are prohibited

Rec centers, bingo halls, casinos, theaters, other entertainment/public spaces are closed

Hotline: 811 is fully dedicated to covid-19 in Alberta

British Columbia: last updated 3/17 at 3 pm

Dedicated phone line: 1 888 COVID19

Self-assessment questionnaire: http://covid-19.bccdc.ca/

Use this if you think you need to be tested!

186 cases (+83), 5 recoveries (+0), and 6 critical cases

7 deaths (+3)

Public health units reporting deaths include: Fraser (1) Vancouver Coastal (2)

Ages of decedents include 80s (1)

Affected public health units include: Fraser (47), Interior (7), Island (12), Northern (4) and Vancouver Coastal (116)

S/o to BC for tabulating numbers by public health units <3

We once again hit the Rhode Island Problem aka I don’t know how many of these things there are and there’s always more than I think

Clusters of infection have been reported at Lynn Valley Care Centre, Hollyburn House Retirement Residence, and Lions Gate Hospital (admin staff).

2 deaths reported on 3/17 at Lynn Valley

An exposure occurred at the Pacific Dental Conference 2020 (Vancouver Convention Centre, 3/6 and 3/7)

All present on those dates are in self-isolation until 3/22

Poor teeth man :(

Restrictions/Closures

All hospitals have postponed elective surgeries and are on Outbreak Response Phase 2

Lions Gate Hospital is going to open a dedicated COVID 19 unit and is in Outbreak Response Phase 3 (emergency patients only)

Long term care facilities have restricted visitors to end of life only

Public gatherings & buildings with >50 people are prohibited

All casinos are closed

Establishments with a liquor primary license (bars, nightclubs, pubs) are closed until further notice

Basically if it’s fun it’s closed

Manitoba: last updated 3/17 PM

HealthLinks Line: 204-788-8200 or 1-888-315-9257 (toll free)

15 cases, 7 new

Affected regions include: Interlake-Eastern (1, +0) and Winnipeg (12, +5)

Newly affected regions include: Southern Health (2)

Ages of cases include: <19 (0), 20s (0), 30s (3), 40s (3), 50s (3), 60s (3), 70s (2), 80s (1), 90s+ (0)

8 dedicated testing centers are now open effective today, 3/18

Check the Manitoba website at https://www.gov.mb.ca/covid19/index.html for locations and hours

Closures/Restrictions

Hospital and long term care visitors restricted to only exception circumstances (incl. end of life care)

Licensed child-care centers are closed effective 3/20

Casinos are closed effective 3/17

Health care workers and first responders who need child care due to school closures are advised to call  204-945-0776 or 1-888-213-4754

New Brunswick: last updated 3/18 9:45 am

8 cases, 0 new, 0 deaths

Affected areas include: Zone 1 (2), Zone 2 (1), and Zone 3 (5)

This is the only place I’ve seen thus far that has ZONES and it’s kind of fantastic. More places should have ZONES.

Affected ages include: <19 (1), 20s (2), 30s (0), 40s (0), 50s (3), 60s (0), 70s (0), 80s (0), 90s+ (0)

Closures/Restrictions

Schools are closed starting 3/16 for two weeks

Non essential businesses and public places are closed starting 3/17 until further notice

Hotline: 811 Telecare

Thank you NB for not actually making me watch daily hourlong news conferences to figure out what’s going on

Newfoundland & Labrador: last updated 3/18

3 cases, 2 new

Sorry that’s all the info I have ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I’m working on finding more but the NL website sucks

Nova Scotia: last updated 3/17

7 cases, 0 new

Affected areas include: Halifax Regional Municipality (2)

Closures/Restrictions

Gatherings over 150 people are disallowed

Casinos are closed starting 3/16; VLTs are not allowed in bars

Childcare facilities are closed starting 3/17 through 4/3

Public schools are closed until 4/6

Long-term care facilities are closed to visitors until further notice

All incoming international travelers are required to isolate for 14 days upon arrival

Hospitals are limiting visitors but limitations vary by centre

Ontario: last updated 3/18 at 10:30 AM

189 cases (+12)

5 recovered & 1 death are included in this number

Affected public health units include: Durham (1, +0), Halton (1, +0), Hamilton (14, +5), Middlesex London (4, +2), Niagara (1, +0), Ottawa (3, +0), Peel (4, +0), Sudbury (1, +0), Toronto (11, +0), Wellington Dufferin Guelph (1, +0), York (7, +1)

Only cases from 3/16 on are counted under here based on how the site works

No hospitalizations since 3/16

Deaths are being reported in: Simcoe Muskoka (1, +1)

Ages of patients beginning 3/17 evening: <19, 20s, 30s, 40s (2, +2), 50s, 60s (1, +1), 70s (1, +1), 80s, 90s+

Newly affected public health units include: KFL&A (3) and  Simcoe Muskoka (1)

Closings/Restrictions

All schools, restaurants, libraries, childcare facilities, theaters, public venues, and recreational spaces are closed until 3/31

Events over 50 people (incl. parades and worship services) are prohibited until 3/31

Telehealth Ontario: 1-866-797-0000

P.E.I.: last updated 3/17 AM

1 case, in Queens County, connected to a cruise, no new cases

Closures/restrictions

Libraries and community events are closed/canceled

Child care facilities are closed for two weeks starting 3/17

Public schools are closed until April 6

General queries: call 1-800-958-6400

Business-related queries: call 1-866-222-1751

Québec: last updated 3/17 at 1 pm

74 cases, 24 new, no deaths

Affected regions include: Capitale Nationale (3, +1), Mauricie - Centre du Québec (3, +0), Estrie (9, +6), Montréal (22, +4), Chaudière-Appalaches (4, +0), Lanaudière (6, +3), Laurentides (7, +4), Montérégie (13, +3), and undetermined/outside Québec (7, +3).

State of health emergency as of 3/13

Closures/restrictions

Indoor gatherings of >250 people prohibited, many public buildings closed until further notice

Daycare/childcare facilities and all schools closed until 3/27

Elections scheduled for 3/15 have been rescheduled to after late April

Non-essential visits to hospitals and long-term care institutions are prohibited

Saskatchewan: last updated 3/17

8 cases (+2), no deaths

Ages affected: 20s (1), 30s (1), 40s (2), 50s (1), 60s (3)

Areas affected: Regina (5), northern SK (1), Saskatoon (2)

Saskatoon is an amazing name, thank you for this gift Canada

Hospitalizations: 1

Restrictions/Closures

School K-12 is suspended indefinitely effective 3/20

Gatherings >250 people are prohibited, except for distributed places (malls, universities, etc)

Public gatherings >50 people with attendees who have traveled internationally in the last 14 days are canceled/prohibited

Hospital and long term care visitors are only allowed in end of life care

Saskatchewan has a bad website. I had to read all their press releases for this data. Please, Saskatchewan, we can’t keep doing this.

Cuba: last updated 3/17

5 cases, 1 new

No community spread

Affected provinces include: Sancti Spiritus and Villa Clara

I do speak Spanish but the Cuban government is notoriously bad at internet so this data is from the WHO and news sources. If you know where I can get better data, please let me know.

Cuban doctors fucking rule. They are some of the best trained, most selfless physicians the world has.

France: last updated 3/17 at 3 pm

National hotline: 0 800 130 000

I actually speak French and for once that’s useful. Yay. *twirly finger*

Suck on that, google translate.

I am going to spend like, an hour tonight updating the relevant Wikipedia articles, pray for me

7,730 cases, 175 deaths

7,652 in France and 78 in overseas territories

Affected regions in France include: Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (710), Bourgogne-Franche-Comté (549), Bretagne (247), Centre-Val de Loire (103), Corse (145), Grand Est (1,820), Hauts-de-France (612), Ile-de-France (2,177), Normandie (174), Nouvelle-Aquitaine (200), Occitanie (311), Pays de la Loire (126), Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (478)

French regions have more hyphens than my last name

I’ve left these names in their French language forms, if it would be helpful to translate (e.g. Bretagne to Brittany, Corse to Corsica) I can do that, just let me know.

Affected overseas territories include: Guadeloupe (27), Saint-Barthélémy (3), Saint-Martin (3), Guyane (11), Martinique (19), Mayotte (3), La Réunion (12)

I’ve split out France vs overseas territories for both readability and geographic sense. More granular data will happen over the next few days as I get a handle on the situation there.

Don’t get me started on neocolonialism. We’d be here all day and then there wouldn’t be a newsletter.

Germany: last updated 3/18 at 10:30 am

Cases: 8,198 (+1,042), 12 deaths

Mortality rate: 0.2%

9.9 cases/100,000 population

Affected states are as follows: Baden-Württemberg (1609, +130), Bavaria (1,243, +134), Berlin (391, +46), Brandenburg (92, +19), Bremen (69, nice, +12), Hamburg (358, +48), Hesse (432, +59), Mecklenburg-West Pomerania (56, +11), Lower Saxony (478, +153), North Rhine-Westphalia (2,372, +267), Rhineland-Palatinate (474, +32), Saarland (88, +13), Saxony (198, +16), Saxony-Anhalt (105, +47), Schleswig-Holstein (159, +32), Thuringia (74, +23)

Wikipedia tells me this is all of them, I think

There are so many Saxonies

Deaths are reported in the following states: Baden-Württemberg (2), Bavaria (4), and North Rhine-Westphalia (6).

Heinsberg district in North Rhine-Westphalia is designated as an area particularly affected by the German government

Restrictions/Closures

Most schools and daycares are closed effective 3/16, this is a state by state basis and I don’t know where to find details. If you know, please message me so I can add it!

Borders with Austria, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, and Switzerland are closed as of 3/16.

Entry for all non-EU citizens is restricted to exceptional circumstances until 4/16

Citizens from the EU, UK, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, and Norway are allowed to travel through Germany as of 3/18

And we’re back to the languages Emily doesn’t speak. S/o to Google Translate and also to Germany for translating some of their stuff

Stats are provided by the Robert Koch institute (named for the cool epidemiologist who showed how to prove that a particular thing causes a particular disease, not the shitty evil American capitalists)

This isn’t particularly important I just wanted to share how much I love Robert Koch and his Principles

Greece: last updated 3/18 at 6 pm

418 total cases (+31), 5 deaths (+0)

14 recoveries, 79 hospitalizations, 13 critical cases

Community spread is confirmed

Restrictions/Closures:

All arrivals to the country are required to isolate for 14 days

Beginning 3/19 at 6 am, the country is closed to non-Greek and EU nationals unless exceptional circumstances warrant

Parliament has suspended all committee meetings and restricted each party to one MP in attendance at a time, and will vote on one bill a week

Businesses are closed starting Wednesday 3/18, with the exception of gas stations, pharmacies, and groceries

Supermarkets are restricting the number of patrons to allow 1 person per 10 square meters

Migrant camps on various islands are on total lockdown for 2 weeks

Religion is canceled until 3/30

An MEP got raked over the coals for panic-buying. Please don’t be a dick and panic-buy. Thank you.

Note: I (still) do not speak Greek, and I therefore am struggling to find official data from somewhere more granular than the WHO. I’m sourcing most of this from the WHO and from Ekathimerini, but if you know where I can find better/more up to date info, please let me know. Thank you!

Ireland: last updated 3/17

292 total cases, 69 new (nice), 2 deaths (0 new)

Community transmission is confirmed

The following regional breakdown is available of the new cases: 48 eastern, 5 north/west, 3 west, and 13 southern

Restrictions/Closures

All pubs & bars are closed until March 29. House parties are discouraged.

Schools, colleges, and childcare facilities are closed until March 29

Indoor gatherings of >100 people and outdoor gatherings >500 people are prohibited

State run cultural institutions are closed until further notice

The Netherlands: last updated 3/18 at 2:15 PM

2051 confirmed cases, 58 deaths

346 new cases, 15 new deaths

408 hospitalizations (+94)

Average age of decedents is 79, with a range from 63 to 95

The report of a decedent aged 59 years was in error, this is now corrected

Provinces affected include: Drenthe (22, +5), Flevoland (30, +6), Friesland (18, +4), Gelderland (210, +37), Groningen (15, +5), Limburg (258, +61), North Brabant (728, +94), North Holland (167, +15), Overijssel (58, +13), Utrecht (174, +1), South Holland (232, +57), and Zeeland (26, +6).

There are 84 non-residents/unknown location patients

Flevoland is now known as Flavorland in my house. Does Guy Fieri live there? Uncertain.

I’m mad at the Netherlands for not reporting province numbers anymore and making me do a lot of math for like 2 hours

Restrictions/Closures

Schools, restaurants/bars, sports and fitness clubs, sex clubs, saunas, and childcare facilities are closed until April 6

New Zealand: last updated 3/18

20 cases, 7 new

Locations include: Auckland (10), Canterbury (1), Dunedin (3), Invercargill (1), and Waikato (2)

Ages include: <19 (1), 20s (1), 30s (3), 40s (7), 50s (1), 60s (5), 70s (2), 80s (0), 90s+ (0)

Exposures are reported on the following flights and in the following locations within 14 days:

NZ029 3/6, Houston to Auckland

NZ283 3/7, Singapore to Auckland

NZ675 3/8, Auckland to Dunedin

QR160 3/10 Denmark to Doha

QR920 3/10 Doha to Auckland

JQ225 3/10 Auckland to Christchurch

NZ007 3/13 San Francisco to Auckland

NZ828 3/14 Brisbane to Wellington

AA83 3/14 Los Angeles to Auckland

NZ828 3/14 Auckland to Wellington

Logan Park HS in Dunedin

Testing capacity: 770/day, expected to be 1500/day by the end of the week

Anyone coming into the country from anywhere except a small list of other Pacific islands is directed to self-quarantine for 14 days. This started on 3/16 at 0100 and is expected to continue for at least the next few weeks.

New Zealanders currently overseas should register with SafeTravel (https://register.safetravel.govt.nz/login)

Flu vaccines are being released starting 3/18, with extra vaccines being produced this year. The flu shot does not protect against COVID-19 but it does prevent against the flu, which needs to not be bad at the same time please.

Healthline number: 0800 611 116

Norway: last updated 3/18 at 10 pm local time

I still don’t speak Norwegian so if I screwed up lemme know

1585 cases, 6 deaths (+3)

85 hospitalized (+18), 18 critical (+3)

116 new cases during the 24h of March 17

Breakdown of cases by area: Agder (67, +0), Innlandet (97, +9), Møre og Romsdal (20, +0), Nordland (12, +1), Oslo (348, +19), Rogaland (161, +11), Troms og Finnmark (28, +4), Trøndelag (70, +9), Vestfold og Telemark (63, +4), Vestland (147, +6), and Viken (410, +52)

Ages are as follows: <19 (54), 20s (162), 30s (241), 40s (345), 50s (386), 60s (150), 70s (54), 80s (22), 90s+ (9)

Restrictions/closures

The whole country is under shelter in place type restrictions for two weeks. Hang in there, y’all.

Switzerland:  last updated 3/18 at 3 pm local time

3,028 cases (+378), 19 deaths (+5)

Restrictions/closures:

Whole country is on lockdown as of 3/16: no entry or exit until further notice (maximum of 6 months)

schools are closed until 4/19

all events are canceled

all personal service establishments are closed

Hospitals are deferring elective procedures.

United Kingdom in general: last updated 3/18 at 9 am

#milkshakeboris2k20

2,626 total cases (+34.7%), 676 are new today

103 total deaths (+48)

Nigel Farage (barf) wrote a really shitty editorial and I hope he gets milkshaked again.

Fucker.

He has a real punchable face, too bad human arms are shorter than 6 feet.

England: last updated 3/18 at 9 am

2,182 total cases, 625 new

Affected UTLAs with at least 10 cases are as follows: Barnet (27, +3), Bexley (17, +3), Birmingham (25, +5), Brent (45, +21), Bromley (32, +9), Buckingham (27, +4), Cambridge (14, +2), Camden (30, +10), Cornwall and Isles of Scilly (10, +0), Cumbria (34, +12), Devon (25, +1), Ealing (42, +21), Enfield (27, +17), Essex (27, +6), Gloucestershire (12, +1), Greenwich (19, +0), Hackney and City of London (29, +7), Hammersmith and Fulham (25, +2), Hampshire (77, +8), Haringey (29, +12), Harrow (40, +25), Hertfordshire (50, +14), Hillingdon (21, +5), Hounslow (24, +9), Islington (29, +18), Kensington (55, +6), Kent (21, +3), Lambeth (61, +18), Lancashire (15, +0), Leeds (12, +1), Lewisham (22, +4), Liverpool (12, +1), Manchester (18, +4), Merton (34, +21), Newham (23, +6), Northamptonshire (15, +3), Nottingham (14, +2), Nottinghamshire (28, +15), Oldham (12, +2), Oxfordshire (34, +9), Slough (13, +1), Southwark (70, +18), Staffordshire (14, +4), Stockport (10, +0), Surrey (39, +9), Sutton (12, +2), Tameside (12, +2), Tower Hamlets (25, +2), Trafford (14, +2), Walsall (14, +1), Wandsworth (59, +38), West Sussex (10, +0), Westminster (68, +10), and Wolverhampton (22, +4)

Newly affected areas or those that broke 10 cases today include: Barking and Dagenham (14), Brighton and Hove (11), Bristol (12), Croydon (32), Derby (11), Derbyshire (27), Dudley (10), East Riding of Yorkshire (10), Leicestershire (14), Newcastle (13), North Yorkshire (11), Sheffield (36), Suffolk (10), Waltham Forest (14), Warwickshire (10), Windsor and Maidenhead (10), and Wokingham (10)

I had to download an Excel spreadsheet situation for this, hopefully it is being updated the way I think it is. Let me know if these numbers are totally off.

Also, tomorrow I am planning to consolidate things into counties so it’s less wall of text.

I have been informed that Nottingham is the city and Nottinghamshire is the zone. Like, The Shire.

I have also been informed that Slough is pronounced like it rhymes with “plow”. My question of “are y’all okay” stands.

Deaths are not being reported by area yet. I’m working on this.

Scotland: last updated 3/18 at 2 pm

227 cases, 32 new

3 deaths, 1 new

Affected health boards are as follows: Ayrshire and Arran (9, +3), Borders (7, +0), Dumfries and Galloway (4, +3), Fife (8, +1), Forth Valley (15, +3), Grampian (24, +2), Greater Glasgow and Clyde (57, +8), Highland (5, +0), Lanarkshire (25, +4), Lothian (33, +3), Shetland (16, +1), and Tayside (24, +4)

Maybe this is all of them? Time will tell.

If anyone knows whether negative numbers are patients dying, being moved, or recovering, please let me know.

Wales: last updated 3/18 at 11 am

149 cases, 13 new

2 deaths, 0 new

Areas reporting deaths are: Swansea (1)

Because every area of Wales is now affected, the Welsh NHS will begin to report cases differently starting 3/19

Northern Ireland: last updated 3/18 at 2 pm

68 cases, 6 new

Health dept is not providing more detail than this at this time as far as I can tell

Apparently enough people have complained and they’re going to provide more information “later this week”

Watch this space!

US in general: updated 3/18 at 4 pm

7,038 total cases, 2,812 new (+66.5%)

97 deaths, 22 new (1.38% mortality rate)

54 jurisdictions are reporting cases: 50 states, DC, Puerto Rico, Guam, and US Virgin Islands

Shelter in place orders and curfews are coming into effect in lots of places

Alabama: updated 3/18 at 4:10 pm

51 cases, 12 new

0 deaths

Affected counties include: Baldwin (1, +0), Elmore (4, +2), Lee (8, +5), Jefferson (25, +4), Limestone (1, +0),  Madison (1, +0), Montgomery (2, +0), Shelby (4, +0), St. Clair (1, +0), and Tuscaloosa (3, +0).

Newly affected counties include: Calhoun (1)

State hotline: 1-888-264-2256

Alaska: updated 3/17 at 7 pm

6 cases, 3 new

No community spread

Affected regions include: Anchorage (2), Interior (3), Southeast (1)

Arkansas: updated 3/18

33 cases (+11), 0 deaths

Affected counties include: Cleburne, Cleveland, Desha, Garland, Jefferson, Lincoln, Pulaski, and Saline

Exact numbers by county are not available from the state department of health

Newly affected counties include: Bradley, Faulkner, Washington

Y’all have a county called YELL, that’s the best county name I’ve seen yet

State hotline: 1-800-803-7847

Arizona: updated 3/17 at 11:36 AM

27 cases, 7 new, no deaths

Affected counties include: Graham (1, +0), Maricopa (11, +2), Navajo (2, +1), Pima (5, +1), and Pinal (8, +3)

Community spread is confirmed in: Maricopa, Pima, and Pinal counties

Closures/Restrictions:

“Strong recommendation” that restaurants in areas of community spread close their dine-in services

Recommendation to cancel/postpone gatherings >10 people

Schools are closed through 3/27

State hotline (rolled into poison control): 844-542-8201

California: last updated 3/17 at 6 pm (state website; county websites are updated more recently)

Total cases not including the ones at Miramar (discussed below): 598 (+126), with 13 total deaths (+2)

The following counties report deaths: Los Angeles (1, +0), Placer (1, +0), Riverside (3, +0), Sacramento (2, +0), San Benito (1, +1), San Joaquin (2, +2) San Mateo (1, +0), Santa Clara (6, +2)

The following counties report recoveries: Humboldt (1), San Benito (2)

The following counties report numbers of hospitalizations: Los Angeles (2), San Diego (10, +1), Santa Clara (56, +0), Tulare (1, +0), Yolo (2, +1)

Affected counties include: Alameda (31, +4), Amador (1, +0), Calaveras (2, +0), Contra Costa (41, +2), Fresno (3, +1), Humboldt (1, +0), Imperial (2, +0), Los Angeles (190, +46), Madera (1, +0), Marin (15, +6), Monterey (2, +0), Nevada (1, +0), Orange (42, +13), Placer (9, +1), Riverside (16, +1), Sacramento (40, +0) San Benito (5, +2), San Bernardino (5, +2), San Diego (75, +24), San Francisco (51, +8), San Joaquin (14, +1), San Luis Obispo (7, +4), San Mateo (80, +16), Santa Barbara (3, +1), Santa Clara (175, +20), Santa Cruz (13, +0), Shasta (1, +0), Solano (8, +0), Sonoma (8, +2), Stanislaus (5, +2), Tulare (5, +2), Ventura (13, +3), and Yolo (5, +1)

Note regarding San Diego: The five federally quarantined people are not included in the county statistics. Cases of non-residents diagnosed in San Diego are included.

Unaffected counties include: Alpine, Butte, Colusa, Del Norte, El Dorado, Glenn, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Lake, Lassen, Mariposa, Merced, Modoc, Mono, Napa, Plumas, Sierra, Siskiyou, Sutter, Tehama, Trinity, Tuolumne, and Yuba

Thank you in particular to Merced County for putting out a press release every single day to say that you still have no cases

Counties with confirmed community transmission include: Los Angeles, Marin, Orange, Riverside, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Joaquin, Santa Clara, Sonoma, and Yolo

Newly affected counties include: Mendocino (1)

New community transmission in: Tulare

Closures/Restrictions by County

Alameda: Shelter in Place until 4/7

Alpine: County activities are canceled, schools closed, no non-essential services

Contra Costa: Shelter in Place until 4/7

Del Norte: Schools closed through 4/20

El Dorado: Schools closed through 3/20

Los Angeles: gatherings >50 people prohibited

Marin: Shelter in Place until 4/7

Mendocino: Shelter in place until 4/7

Mono: Schools closed through 3/30, Alterra Mountain closed, libraries closed through 3/31

Monterey: Shelter in Place beginning 3/18 until 4/8

Napa: Shelter in Place until 4/7

Nevada: Schools are closed until 4/13, libraries closed until 4/12

Orange: Shelter in Place until 3/31

Riverside: Schools & daycares are closed, gatherings >10 people prohibited

Sacramento: Shelter in Place until further notice

San Benito: Shelter in Place until 4/7

San Bernardino: County operated attractions are closed

San Diego: gatherings >50 people prohibited, restaurants are carry-out and drive through only, all schools are closed, and entertainment establishments are closed

San Francisco: Shelter in Place until 4/7

San Luis Obispo: Alcohol sales on site are banned through 3/18

San Mateo: Shelter in Place until 4/7

Santa Barbara: Dining is takeout/drive through only

Santa Clara: Shelter in Place until 4/7

Santa Cruz: Shelter in Place until 4/7

Siskiyou: gatherings >50 prohibited, hospital/LTAC visitors prohibited

Solano: Shelter in place until further notice

Stanislaus: Gatherings of >1000 people are prohibited indoor and outdoor from 3/16 to 3/31

Sutter: Shelter in place

Tuolumne: Schools are closed through 4/13

Ventura: All schools and public libraries are closed starting 3/16 until further notice, nonessential businesses closed until 4/1, and those 75 and older should shelter in place

Yolo: Shelter in place until 4/7

Yuba: Shelter in place

Counties with no closures/restrictions beyond those mandated by the state: Alpine, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, Colusa, Fresno, Glenn, Humboldt, Imperial, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Lake, Lassen, Madera, Merced, Modoc, Placer, Plumas, San Joaquin, Shasta, Sierra, Solano, Tehama, Trinity, and Tulare

Drive through testing is available in Marin County

Colorado - last updated 3/18 at 4:00 pm

183 cases (+33)

2 deaths (+0)

26 hospitalizations (+6)

Counties reporting deaths include: El Paso (1) and Larimer (1)

Affected counties include: Adams (10, +2), Arapahoe (22, +4), Boulder (7, -1), Clear Creek (2, +0), Denver (43, +5), Douglas (11, +0), Eagle (39, +5), El Paso (8, +2), Garfield (2, +0), Gunnison (11, +0), Jefferson (25, +8), Larimer (4, +3), Mesa (1, +0), Pitkin (11, +0), Pueblo (1, +0), Routt (2, +0), Summit (4, +1), and Weld (9, +0)

3 cases are designated “unknown”

Out of state visitors are now included in the tally of the county where they were diagnosed/are being treated

Confirmed community spread

Newly affected counties include: Grand (1)

Drive through testing is available in: Denver and Lowry

Residents of Gunnison, Eagle, Summit, Pitkin are recommended to minimize social contact due to potential exposures

Anyone who visited the Colorado Springs Bridge center in late Feb-early Mar may have been exposed, call the DPH for more information

Closures/restrictions

Public places are closed, restaurants are takeout only until 4/16

Gambling is canceled

Schools are iffy, check your local district news

Connecticut - last update 3/18 at 4:30 pm

96 cases, 28 new

The following counties are affected: Fairfield (69, +21), Hartford (11, +4), Litchfield (5, +0), New Haven (10, +2)

Apparently there’s at least 5 counties

nice

Newly affected counties include: Middlesex (1)

Restrictions/Closures

No gatherings >50 people until further notice

Nursing home visits restricted

Schools closed through 3/30 and 180 day school year is waived

Restaurants are carryout/drive through only through 4/30

All “places of public amusement” closed through 4/30

Gambling is canceled until the end of April

Malls are closed 3/19-4/30

AccessHealth Connecticut has announced a new special enrollment period for health insurance. If you are uninsured in CT, you can get insured now. Visit the state health department at portal.ct.gov/coronavirus for more information.

State has put in place increased telehealth provisions

Delaware: last update 3/18 at 3:50 pm

26 cases (+10), 0 deaths

Affected counties include: Kent (3, +3), New Castle (20, +3) and Sussex (3, +2).

Kent reported first cases 3/18

Restrictions/closures:

Events over >100 people are encouraged to cancel/reschedule

Schools closed through 3/27

District of Columbia: last update 3/18 at 7 pm

39 cases (+8), no deaths

Public transit fees are decreasing and being waived in some areas

DC Circulator is closed on the National Mall route effective 3/19

Restrictions/Closures

Food service/drinking establishments are restricted to <250 people, <6 people/table, no standing or bar seating, and tables separated by 6 feet

Nightclubs etc are closed

Most government stuff is telework so if you want to report a Ponzi scheme you have to email them or call them

Florida - last updated 3/18 at 6:02 PM

328 (+112) cases and 8 deaths (+1)

Community transmission remains unconfirmed but highly likely

Affected counties  include: Alachua (7, +1), Brevard (2, +1) Broward (80, +25), Charlotte (1, +0), Citrus (3, +1), Clay (4, +0), Collier (13, +6), Duval (14, +4), Escambia (1, +0), Hillsborough (14, +5), Lake (2, +1), Lee (11, +4), Manatee (8, +1), Miami-Dade (77, +34), Nassau (1, +0) Okaloosa (4, +2), Orange (11, +5), Osceola (8, +1), Palm Beach (21, +8), Pasco (3, +1), Pinellas (12, +8), Polk (2, +1), Santa Rosa (1, +0), Sarasota (4, +0) Seminole (7, +3), St. Johns (4, +1) Volusia (9, +0)

Newly affected counties include: Gadsden (1), Leon (1), Sumter (1), and Walton

State hotline/call center:  1 (866) 779-6121

Closures/ Restrictions:

Schools are closed until 4/15 at the earliest, distance learning begins 3/30

Georgia: last updated 3/18 at 11:38 AM

197 cases (+51), 1 death (+0)

Affected counties include: Barrow (1, +0), Bartow (19, +9), Charlton (1, +0), Cherokee (9, +2), Clayton (6, +2), Clarke (5, +2), Cobb (28, +3), Columbia (1, +0), Coweta (3, +0), Dekalb (18, +3), Dougherty (7, +0), Fayette (8, +3), Floyd (6, +0), Forsyth (2, +1), Fulton (49, +16), Gordon (3, +1), Gwinnett (7, +0), Hall (3, +2), Henry (2, +0), Lowndes (5, +1), Lee (2, +0), Newton (3, +2), Paulding (3, +2), Polk (1, +0), Richmond (1, +0), and Troup (2, +0)

Newly affected counties include: Houston (1) and Whitfield (1)

Closures/Restrictions

USG universities are closed through 3/29 and will be online after that for the semester

Athens-Clarke County has instituted a shelter in place policy until 4/7 and no gatherings over 10 people are to be held in the county until 4/7

Hotline for the state: 844-442-2681

Hawaii: last updated 3/18 at 12 PM

Total cases: 16

Total deaths: 0

Affected counties: Hawaii (1), Honolulu (10), Kauai (2), Maui (3)

State hotline is Aloha United Way: 211

Dear Hawaii, I was going to be mad at you for your website being hard to navigate but then you automatically alphabetized things and I forgave you. Love, Emily

Idaho: last updated 3/18 at 8:30 am

Total cases: 11

Total deaths: 0

Affected counties: Ada (3), Blaine (5), Madison (1), Teton (1), and Twin Falls (1)

Illinois: last updated 3/18

288 confirmed cases (+128), 1 death (+0)

Confirmed community spread

Affected counties include Champaign (1, +0), Clinton (3, +1), Cook (178, +71), Cumberland (1, +0), DuPage (45, +19), Kane (4, +1), Lake (18, +11), McHenry (4, +2), Peoria (3, +2), Sangamon (3, +0), St. Clair (3, +1), Whiteside (1, +0), Will (3, +1), Winnebago (1, +0), and Woodford (1, +0)

Deaths are reported in the following counties: Cook (1)

Newly affected counties include: Kendall (2), Madison (1)

Closings/Restrictions

Bars and restaurants are closed (except for carryout and drive through) until 3/30

All gatherings >50 people prohibited

Gyms/fitness centers/clubs/theaters are closed

DMV is closed (yay)

Schools are closed through 3/31 statewide

Indiana: last updated 3/17

C’mon Indiana. C’mon. You were doing so well yesterday with your readable website.

It’s 9:15 PM your time. Update your ding dang website.

39 cases (+9), 2 deaths (+0)

Affected counties include: Adams (1, +0), Bartholomew (1, +0), Boone (1, +0), Floyd (1, +0), Franklin (2, +0), Hamilton (2, +0), Hendricks (4, +1), Howard (2, +0), Johnson (3, +0), Lake (3, +1), La Porte (1, +0), Marion (11, +2), Noble (1, +0), St. Joseph (1, +0), and Wells (1, +0)

Deaths are being reported in the following counties: Johnson (1) and Marion (1)

Newly affected counties include: Clark (1), Fayette (1), Jennings (1) and Madison (1)

Iowa: last updated 3/18 at 5:39 pm

38 cases (+9)

Affected counties include: Adair (1, +0) Allamakee (2, +0), Black Hawk (1, +0), Carroll (1, +0), Dallas (5, +2), Harrison (1, +0), Johnson (21, +3), Polk (3, +2), and Pottawattamie (1, +0)

Newly affected counties include: Washington (1) and Winneshiek (1)

Community spread confirmed

Closures/restrictions

Schools closed for 4 weeks starting 3/16

Public places closed, restaurants carryout only until further notice

Kansas: last updated 3/18 at 10 am

21 confirmed cases (+5), 1 death

Affected counties include: Butler (1, +0), Douglas (1, +0), Franklin (1, +0), Johnson (11, +1), and Wyandotte (5, +2)

Newly affected counties include: Leavenworth (2)

Deaths are being reported in the following counties: Wyandotte (1)

Community spread confirmed

Closures/Restrictions

Schools closed statewide for the rest of the school year

KU and Washburn are fully online for the rest of the academic year

Gatherings >50 people prohibited

Public places must maintain a 6ft bubble

Travelers to affected areas (basically everywhere) must self-quarantine for 14 days upon arrival

Phone line:  1-866-534-3463

Kentucky: last updated 3/18 at 4 pm

35 cases (+8), 1 death (+0)

Counties reporting deaths: Bourbon (1)

Counties reporting recoveries: Harrison (1)

Affected counties include: Bourbon (2, +1), Clark (2, +1), Fayette (6, +0), Harrison (7, +1), Jefferson (11, +2), Lyon (1, +0) Montgomery (2, +1), and Nelson (1, +0).

Newly affected counties include: Franklin (1), Kenton (1), and Warren (1).

Closures/Restrictions

Restaurants and bars closed to in-person service

State Capitol closed to non-essential personnel

Entertainment/nonessential services are closed

Schools are closed statewide

Phone line: (800) 722-5725 (rolled in with poison control)

Louisiana: last updated 3/18 at 5:30 pm

280 cases reported, 84 new

7 deaths, 3 new

Parishes affected:  Ascension (1, +0), Bossier (2, +1), Caddo (6, +2), East Baton Rouge (3, +2),  Jefferson (45, +10), Lafourche (3, +1), Orleans (196, +60), St. Bernard (3, +1), St. Charles (3, +0), St. John the Baptist (2, +1), St. Tammany (10, +4), Terrebonne (3, +0), and Washington (1, +0)

2 cases are unassigned to a parish

Parishes reporting deaths: Jefferson (1, +1) and Orleans (6, +2)

Maine: last updated 3/18 at 12:50 pm

42 cases, 0 deaths

Recoveries are being reported by the following counties: Androscoggin (1)

Affected counties include: Androscoggin (3), Cumberland (24), Kennebec (1), Lincoln (3), Oxford (1), Penobscot (1), and York (2)

7 cases are unassigned to a county

Affected ages include: <19 (2), 20s (2), 30s (4), 40s (7), 50s (9), 60s (8), 70s (7), and 80+ (3)

Closures/ Restrictions

Bars and restaurants carryout only until 3/31

Gatherings >10 people prohibited

Nonessential businesses recommended to close until 3/31

Schools are recommended to become remote as soon as is feasible

State hotline: 1-866-811-5695

Maryland: last updated 3/18 at 10 am

85 cases (+28), 0 deaths

Counties affected: Anne Arundel (4, +1), Baltimore (10, +4), Baltimore City (4, +3), Carroll (1, +0), Charles (2, +1), Frederick (1, +0), Harford (3, +1), Howard (8, +5), Montgomery (31, +7), Prince George’s (20, +6), Talbot (1, +0)

Community spread confirmed

Exposure risk advisory for Lorien Elkridge

Closures/restrictions

Casinos, racetracks and other gambling situations are closed

Gatherings >250 people prohibited

All schools closed through 3/27

Senior centers closed until further notice

Elections postponed - vote by mail implemented for urgent elections

Massachusetts: last updated 3/18 at 4 pm

256 cases (+38)

Affected counties include: Barnstable (2, +0), Berkshire (17, +3), Bristol (5, +0), Essex (14, +6), Hampden (2, +1), Middlesex (100, +11), Norfolk (45, +2), Plymouth (5, +0) Suffolk (51, +9), and Worcester (10, +2)

4 cases of undetermined location

Newly affected counties include: Franklin (1)

27 hospitalizations (+6)

Michigan: last updated 3/18 at 2 pm

80 cases (+15), 34 hospitalizations (+9), 0 deaths

Affected counties include: Bay (1, +0), Charlevoix (1, +0), Ingham (2, +0), Jackson (1, +0), Kent (5, +0), Leelanau (1, +0), Macomb (10, +2), Monroe (1, +0), Montcalm (1, +0), Oakland (23, +7), Otsego (1, +0), Ottawa (1, +0), St. Clair (2, +0), Washtenaw (7, +0), and Wayne (23, +7)

Wayne County includes Detroit (13 cases, +5)

Two employees of the corrections department have tested positive

Jackson County Probation Office and Detroit Detention Center have both been exposed, contact the health department if you have been exposed

Closures/Restrictions

Bars and restaurants are carryout/drive through only

Public spaces (casinos, theaters, etc) closed

Public offices open by appt only

Guns are canceled unless you’re doing hunting

Yurts are canceled until 5/15

(so are other small cabin/camping type things)

Minnesota: last updated 3/18 at 12:00

77 cases (+17)

Affected counties include: Anoka (2), Benton (1), Blue Earth (1), Carver (2), Dakota (7), Hennepin (30), Olmstead (6), Ramsey (6-20), Renville (1-2), Stearns (3-5), Waseca (1-2), Washington (1-2), and Wright (1-2)

We’re still working with some ranges because not all counties provide counts and there’s conflicting news reports. I will continue to try to sort this out.

Community spread confirmed in Hennepin County & the greater metropolitan area of Minneapolis-St.Paul

Newly affected counties include: Martin, Nicollet, and Scott

Closures/Restrictions

Anoka County has closed all public-facing county services until 3/30

Dakota County has closed all public-facing county services until 4/1

Hennepin County has closed all public-facing county services until 4/6

Schools are closed statewide through 3/27

Metro Transit (Twin Cities) has suspended service 11pm to 4am

Drive through testing in Carver county is temporarily halted due to nationwide shortages, but the Mayo Clinic is planning to open a bunch of testing facilities

Mississippi: last updated 3/18

34 cases, 13 new, 0 deaths

Affected counties include: Copiah (2, +0), Forrest (3, +0), Hancock (2, +1), Harrison (4, +3), Hinds (6, +0), Jackson (1, +0), Leflore (4, +0), and Pearl River (4, +2)

Newly affected counties include: Bolivar (2), Coahoma (2), DeSoto (1), Madison (1), and Perry (1)

State hotline: 877-978-6453

Missouri last updated 3/18 at 7 pm

24 (+11) cases, 1 death

Counties reporting deaths include: Boone (1)

*** NOT UPDATED BY STATE HEALTH DPT SINCE 3/17*** Affected counties include: Boone (1), Cass (2), Cole (1), Greene (4), Henry (1), Jackson (1), St. Louis City (1), St. Louis County (4)

Hotline: 877-435-8411

Montana: last updated 3/18 at 8:15 am

10 cases (+2)

Affected counties are not being reported at this time by the state. Montana has a million counties and due to the Netherlands Spreadsheet Incident of My Entire Afternoon, I didn’t have the time to figure this one out. TBH I’m hoping the state health department does it for me because it’s their job.

Closures/Restrictions

Public schools closed until 3/30

Many counties have closed courts & public-facing services

State of Emergency

Nebraska: last updated 3/17

Community transmission confirmed: many locations in Douglas County are potential places where transmission has occurred; if you live or have traveled to Douglas County (Omaha), please check the Douglas County COVID-19 monitoring site at: https://www.douglascountyhealth.com/latest-news.

There were also two exposures in Knox County on March 5, at basketball games at Lincoln Southwest HS and North Star HS.

27 cases (+6), no deaths

Affected counties include: Cass (1, +0), Douglas (21, +3) and Knox (2, +1)

Newly affected counties include: Sarpy (1) and Lincoln (1)

Hotline (bling): (402) 552-6645

Nevada

55 cases

Community spread confirmed

Restrictions/closures

Gatherings >10 people recommended to cancel

Governor asks Nevada citizens to stay home for 30 days and nonessential businesses to close

Gambling is canceled, sorry Vegas

Weed is now delivery only, but at least there’s weed delivery now?

Nevada wins worst website for a state health department in America and that’s a really fucking low bar

New Hampshire: last updated 3/18 at 9 AM

39 cases (+13), 0 deaths

Affected counties include: Carroll (4, +3), Grafton (7, +0), Hillsborough (8, +4), and Rockingham (17, +3)

Nashua (1, +0) and Manchester (4 new) are included in Hillsborough county totals

Newly affected counties include: Belknap (2), Merrimack (1)

Exposure reported at the Manchester DMV on 3/2, 3/3, 3/4, 3/5, and 3/10.

My desire to avoid the DMV at all costs continues to be vindicated

Governor Sunununununununu implemented takeout/delivery beer and wine

Hell yeah

Telehealth services expanded throughout the state

New Jersey : last updated 3/18 at 2 pm

427 cases (+160), 4 deaths (+2)

Deaths seem to have disappeared from the state website, if you have any information that may lead to the whereabouts of NJ mortality stats, contact your friendly internet Emily immediately.

These are the ones I could find from the news

Affected counties include: Bergen (114, +30), Burlington (10, +5), Camden (8, +5), Essex (45, +13), Hudson (34, +10), Hunterdon (6, +2), Mercer (15, +9), Middlesex (40, +18), Monmouth (32, +10), Morris (19, +12), Ocean (8, +5), Passaic (18, +8), Somerset (16, +8), and Union (26, +11)

Newly affected counties include: Atlantic (3) and Gloucester (2).

Closures/Restrictions:

No gatherings >50 people

Restaurants, bars, entertainment venues, and other public spaces are closed

Curfew in effect from 8 pm to 5 am, anyone out without a valid reason is committing a misdemeanor and is also a total dick, don’t expose people

This means you, assholes having a wedding with a million people.

New Mexico: last updated 3/18

Total cases: 28

Restrictions/Closures

Gatherings >10 people prohibited until 4/10

All nonessential businesses are to close their public-facing activities until 4/10

There’s a new law that says “stop hoarding you assholes”, technically in effect til 4/10 but really valid forever

New York: last updated 3/17 at 7:30 PM

2,382 cases (+1,008), 10 deaths

Affected counties include: Albany (36, +13), Allegany (2, +0), Broome (1, +0), Clinton (1, +0), Delaware (1, +0), Dutchess (20, +4), Erie (7, +0), Greene (2, +0), Herkimer (1, +0), Monroe (14, +4), Montgomery (2, +1), Nassau (183, +52), Onondaga (2, +0), Ontario (1, +0), Orange (32, +17), Putnam (2, +0),  Rensselaer (4, +3), Rockland (30, +8), Saratoga (14, +5), Schenectady (14, +9), Suffolk (116, +32), Sullivan (1, +0), Tioga (1, +0), Tompkins (3, +1), Ulster (9, +1), Westchester (538, +158), and Wyoming (1, +0)

NYC has 1871 cases (+1227) as of 3/18 at 6 pm

Areas/counties reporting deaths are: NYC (7) and Rockland (1)

I can’t find records of all of the deaths. If you have info about deaths occurring due to COVID19 in NY state, please let me know.

These numbers don’t add up with the NYC cases because NYC updates after NY State. Sorry.

Newly affected counties include: Chenango (1) and Hamilton (1)

Drive through testing in New Rochelle, all boroughs of NYC, Long Island, and Rockland County

Closures/Restrictions

Bars, restaurants, entertainment venues closed

No gatherings >50 people

Public schools closed until 4/1

Village elections delayed until 4/28

Stop price gouging, assholes

Uber, Lyft, taxis all banned until further notice

NYC turned some hotels into temp hospitals, in an effort to create 1300 new hospital beds

The Navy is sending the USNS Comfort to New York Harbor to provide additional hospital beds.

New legal protections and stuff from the state came down today

Job protection and pay are guaranteed for those quarantined

Permanent comprehensive sick leave policy

If you are a retired doctor or nurse, New York needs you. Like, real bad. Contact the state or local health dept to see how you can help.

No evictions until this outbreak is over

North Carolina: last updated 3/18 at 10:44 AM

63 cases (+23), 0 deaths

Affected counties include: Brunswick (1, +0), Cabarrus (1, +0), Chatham (3, +2), Craven (1, +0), Durham (12, +11), Forsyth (2, +0), Harnett (4, +1),  Iredell (1, +0), Johnston (2, +0), Mecklenburg (11, +4), Onslow (1, +0), Sampson (1, +0),  Wake (17, +2), Watauga (1, +0), Wayne (1, +0), and  Wilson (1, +0).

Newly affected counties include: Guilford (1), Lincoln (1)

Advisory for an exposure at Raleigh convention center on March 8

Please call Wake County if you were there, they are tracking exposures

Closures/Restrictions

Schools are closed statewide until 3/30

Events >100 people canceled

Restaurants and bars are closed

North Dakota

7 cases, 0 deaths, 0 hospitalizations

Affected counties include: Burleigh (2), Cass (1), Morton (2), and Ward (2)

Ohio: last updated 3/18 at 2 pm

88 confirmed cases (+21)

26 hospitalizations (+8)

Affected counties include: Belmont (2, +0), Butler (8, +2), Coshocton (2, +0), Cuyahoga (38, +7), Franklin (7, +3), Geauga (1, +0), Lake (2, +1), Lorain (6, +2), Lucas (1, +0),  Mahoning (3, +2), Medina (4, +1), Stark (3, +0), Summit (4, +0), Trumbull (2, +0), Tuscarawas (1, +0)

Newly affected counties include: Ashland (1), Darke (1), Delaware (1), Huron (1)

Darke County is so goth

Closures/Restrictions

Bars/restaurants are closed

Gatherings >50 people canceled

Nonessential businesses are closed

Oklahoma: last updated 3/18 at 7 AM

29 cases, 0 deaths

Affected counties include: Cleveland (4), Jackson (1), Kay (2), Oklahoma (14), Payne (1), Tulsa (4), Pawnee (1)

2 cases were identified in Canadian nationals

...Unless Oklahoma has a county called “Canadian”. That wouldn’t be the weirdest name of an American county in all honesty

Oregon: last updated 3/18 at 8 AM

75 cases (+10), 3 deaths (+2)

Counties reporting deaths: Lane (1), Multnomah (1), and Washington (1)

Hospitalization data is no longer being provided by the state health department.

The following counties are affected: Benton (3, +1), Clackamas (6, +0), Deschutes (6, +0), Douglas (1, +0), Jackson (2, +0), Klamath (1, +0), Linn (15, +0), Marion (8, +4), Multnomah (3, +0), Polk (1, +0), Umatilla (2, +0), Washington (23, +2), and Yamhill (2, +1)

Newly affected counties include: Lane (2)

Courts are effectively closed down (Level 3 restriction)

Pennsylvania: last updated 3/18 at 3 pm

133 total cases (+37), 1 death (+1)

Counties reporting deaths include: Northampton (1)

Counties affected include: Allegheny (11, +4), Beaver (2, +1), Bucks (9, +1), Chester (9, +5), Cumberland (10, +0), Delaware (14, +5),  Lehigh (1, +0), Luzerne (1, +0), Monroe (7, -1), Montgomery (42, +10), Northampton (1, +0), Philadelphia (17, +7), Pike (2, +1), Washington (2, +0), Wayne (1, +0)

Newly affected counties include: Berks (1), Lackawanna (1), and York (2)

Closures/restrictions:

Restaurants and bars are closed statewide except takeout/delivery

Nonessential businesses are closed statewide

All liquor stores are closed statewide. This is going to end badly.

GRITTY HAS DONE DARK MAGICKS TO ACQUIRE TOILET PAPER https://twitter.com/GrittyNHL/status/1239998209755357185?s=20

Rhode Island: last updated 3/18

33 confirmed cases (+12), no deaths

Chanston High School West had an exposure; 1700 people are currently quarantined after this exposure

RIDOH is not providing more information than this, if you have more details please send me a tip

South Carolina: last updated 3/18 at 4 pm

60 cases (+13), 1 death (+0)

Affected counties include: Anderson (2, +0), Beaufort (6, +2), Calhoun (1, +0), Charleston (4, +1), Fairfield (1, 0), Greenville (3, +1), Horry (5, +1), Kershaw (25, +3), Lancaster (2, +0), Lexington (4, +1), Richland (4, +3), Spartanburg (1, +0), and York (1, +0)

Deaths are reported in the following counties: Lexington (1)

Newly affected counties include: Lee (1)

South Dakota: last updated 3/18

11 confirmed cases (+0),  1 death (+0)

Affected counties include: Beadle (1, +0), Bon Homme (1, +0), Charles Mix (1, +0), Davison (1, +0), McCook (1, +0), Minnehaha (5, +0), and Pennington (1, +0)

Closures/Restrictions:

Schools closed week of 3/16

Tennessee: last updated 3/18 at 2 pm

98 (+25) cases, no deaths

Affected counties include: Campbell (1, +0), Davidson (58, +16), Hamilton (1, +0), Jefferson (1, +0), Knox (2, +0), Rutherford (1, +0), Sevier (1, +0), Shelby (4, +2), Sullivan (1, +0), and Williamson (24, +3)

Newly affected counties include: Sumner (2)

Closures/Restrictions

Schools closed through 3/31

Expanded unemployment relief as of 3/17

Texas: last updated 3/18 at 12 PM

83 (+19) total cases, 2 death (+1)

Affected counties include: Bell (1, +0), Bexar (4, +1), Brazoria (2, +0), Collin (6, +0), Dallas (15, +6), Denton (4, +3), El Paso (3, +0), Fort Bend (9, +0), Galveston (2, +1), Gregg (1, +0), Harris (10, +0), Hays (1, +0), Lavaca (1, +0), Matagorda (1, +0), Montgomery (3, +0), Smith (5, +2), Tarrant (5, +2), Travis (4, +1), and Webb (1, +0)

Newly affected counties include: Bowie (1), Brazos (1), Medina (1), Rusk (1)

Should have gone to space, Major Tom

Too soon, probably :(

1 case is pending county assignment

Restrictions/Closures:

San Antonio has closed restaurants and bars

Utah: last updated 3/18 at 12:45 pm

63 cases (+12)

Affected health districts include:  Bear River (1, +0), Davis County (6, +2), Salt Lake County (24, +2), Southwest Utah (1, +0), Summit County (22, +7), Tooele (1, +0), Utah County (2, +1), Wasatch County (2, +0), and Weber-Morgan (4, +0)

Community spread confirmed in the following counties: Summit and Utah

Exposure at Wasatch High School identified

Schools, Mormonism, skiing, and restaurants are canceled until further notice

The zoo and a bunch of museums are canceled too :(

Now graduation is canceled for public schools & universities

Vermont: last updated 3/18 at 2 PM

19 cases total (+2)

Affected counties include: Bennington (3), Chittenden (4), Orange (1), Springfield (1), Washington (1), and Windsor (3)

County by county data was not updated on 3/17 or 3/18

Hospitalizations are reported in the following counties: Bennington (3), Chittenden (1), Springfield (1), Washington (1), Windsor (1)

Closures/restrictions:

No gatherings >50 people or >50% capacity, whichever is lower

Schools are closed starting 3/18

Bars/restaurants are closed until 4/6

Virginia: last updated 3/18

77 cases (+10)

Affected counties/cities include: Alexandria City (2, +0), Arlington (14, +1), Charlottesville City (1, +0), Chesterfield (5, +1), Fairfax (14, +2),  Goochland (1, +0), Hanover (1, +0), Harrisonburg City (1, +0), Henrico (2, +0), James City (13, +1), Loudoun (5, +0), Prince Edward (1, +0), Prince William (4, +0), Spotsylvania (1, +0), Stafford (2, +1), Virginia Beach City (4, +0), Williamsburg City (1, +0), and York (1, +0)

Newly affected areas include: Charles City (1) and Richmond City (3)

State of Emergency declared on 3/12

Washington State: Last updated 3/18 at 3:25

1187 total cases (+175), 66 deaths (+14)

Current mortality rate: 5.6%

Deaths have occurred in the following counties: Clark (3, +1), Grant (1, +0), King (56, +13), and Snohomish (6, +0).

Affected counties include: Chelan (2, +0), Clark (4, +0), Columbia (1, +0), Grant (8, +1), Grays Harbor (1, +0), Island (16, +2), Jefferson (4, +1), King (562, -7), Kitsap (9, +2), Kittitas (4, +1), Klickitat (1, +0), Lewis (1, +0), ,Lincoln (1, +0), Pierce (56, +11), Skagit (14, +5), Snohomish (310, +56), Spokane (4, +0), Thurston (6, +1), Whatcom (7, +1), and Yakima (7, +2).

167 cases are currently unassigned to a county

Newly affected counties include: Franklin (1) and Mason (1)

Closures/restrictions: widespread, will have county-by-county info soon.

Hotline: 1-800-525-0127

West Virginia: last updated 3/18

2 cases, 0 deaths

Affected counties include: Eastern Panhandle (1), Mercer (1)

Unclear if Eastern Panhandle is a county but it certainly tells me where the fuck it is in the state, which is about a million times more useful than the 8 bajillion counties named Jefferson or whatever

Closures/Restrictions

The DMV limited number of customers at a time, somehow making the concept of a DMV even more hellish

Gambling is canceled

Restaurants and bars are takeout only

Wisconsin: last updated 3/18 at 2 PM

106 total cases (+34), 0 deaths

Recovery is being reported by the following counties: Dane (1)

This is updated every Friday, next update expected 3/20

Affected counties include: Dane (23, +4), Fond du Lac (12, +1), Kenosha (4, +0), Milwaukee (47, +23), Outagamie (1, +0), Pierce (1, +0), Racine (1, +0), Sheboygan (4, +1), Waukesha (5, +1), Winnebago (3, +0), and Wood (1, +0)

Newly affected counties include: Brown (1) and Washington (2)

Community spread is confirmed in the following counties: Dane, Kenosha, and Milwaukee

Closures/restrictions

Schools closed starting 3/18 for minimum of two weeks

No gatherings >10 people until further notice

West Bend county has closed schools until 4/13

Washington County has closed schools until 4/13

UW-Milwaukee and Madison have gone to remote learning as much as possible

Wyoming: last updated 3/18

18 cases (+7)

Affected counties include: Fremont, Laramie, and Sheridan

Newly affected counties include: Park and Teton

Today’s Hot Tips Make sure you know what your local area classifies as an “essential” business. They vary from place to place.

Hand Washing Song of the Day

If you hate singing happy birthday while you wash your hands, try Waterloo on for size!

Sorry Mom, I’m sad about Eurovision being canceled. You can find a different song you don’t hate.

Sing the first verse and chorus to follow CDC handwashing guidelines! Use soap and water with bad 70s-esque dancing for maximum efficacy and embarrassment of anyone stuck at home/work with you.

Good News, Everyone!

PENGUIN ADVENTURES CONTINUE!!!

https://twitter.com/shedd_aquarium/status/1240355878131417090?s=21

South Korea reports the number of recoveries exceeds the number of new cases for the first time since the outbreak began. Fuck yes!!!

China announced no new local transmission cases today. YELL HEAH!

I’m not sure this is good per se but someone in Spain broke quarantine in a T-Rex outfit and that was pretty funny

Chill Cat Corner Kitten Academy Live Stream: infinite kittens: http://www.youtube.com/c/KittenAcademy/live

About this newsletter I’m Emily, I’m a 4th year med student w/ a degree in molecular biology. I started this because I’m an infectious disease and epidemiology nerd and also all my friends have questions & anxiety. Hi internet! The archive/proper website is located at coronaextranewsletter.wordpress.com. All this info is sourced from regional & national public health organizations, plus the WHO. It’s as up to date as humanly possible. I’ve been beaming information about this outbreak directly into my brain 24/7 but I still miss stuff. Please let me know if I miss something! Most public health departments stop updating their information around 4-5 PM local time on weekdays. That means that the earliest this will come out is around 6 PM Pacific time on weekdays going forward. On weekends things update more sporadically and earlier, so who knows what I’ll do then, but I’ll do my best. The excellent title is courtesy of @marywhal and the Wordpress site is courtesy of @molly0xFFF and @goblintinkerer, thank you all!

For More Information JHU COVID-19 data center: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 List of peer-reviewed publications: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/publications.html WHO FAQ: https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses CDC cases in the US: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-in-us.html, this also has links to each state’s health dept

[shellygurumi]

Some days, getting 500-1000 words out feels like pulling teeth.

Other days it’s so easy. Lately, it’s been feeling a lot harder, and that’s frustrating.

I think I’ve been too stressed with all the stuff going on and it’s bogging me down, creatively speaking. Still going to work most days and having friends and family who also have to go to work kinda sucks. 

My brother gets to work from home, and I’m thankful for that, but my sister in law was off from work for a bit, but is supposedly going back next week. She works in health care so she’s pretty vital, but also that puts her at risk, which sucks. 

My mom works part time at a home improvement store, which remains vital because if someone has, say, a pipe burst in their house or something that requires fixing immediately, you need to be able to get parts and shit. Except this is America and we live in a state with an idiot republican in charge and so no one is enforcing the whole stay-at-home thing. And idiots come into her store to return a couple of 10 cent screws because they have nothing better to do and refuse to self-isolate. 

And even if she and I DIDN’T go to work, I don’t know how long we could last financially? Without being paid regularly? Because who knows when our government is going to send out those pitiful stimulus checks. Or even IF they’re going to do it.

Uhg, everything is just... Like, NPR had a report saying that my state will probably end up with 87 deaths per day when we hit our peak. And my first response was “well at least 87 isn’t that high” DEATHS PER DAY. Because it wasn’t the 700+ in New York, my first thought was that 87 wasn’t very high. 

What the fuck.. I think I’m losing my mind.

And so yeah, I guess I’m struggling to write sweet, cute romance stuff lately. Even as a method of escape. It’s all so mentally and emotionally draining that I’m just tired.

[gnatalie-moat]

Social media has become a massive part of our culture and our lives. For many, it is a primary source of entertainment, connection, and creativity. It is used by millions every day, and I doubt you could find a single person in America that hasn’t heard of Facebook before. However, if you had asked around just twenty years ago, you would have gotten a very different response.

Social media has exploded in the past two decades. Youtube, MySpace, and Facebook were the bedrock of the new form of media, and they just exploded from there. Due to this rapid growth, we have generations that are split right down the middle. We have some that had nothing even remotely similar to social media, and we have some that have known about it for as long as they can remember. This opens up the door for many debates, and one has taken the spotlight above all.

Social media is targeted as the primary cause of adolescent’s and young adult’s declining mental health.

Recently social media has been singled out as the leading cause of mental health issues in teens and young adults. While there may be some correlation between social media and mental illness, it would be an incorrect assumption to place sole causation on social media.

In the past few years, many studies have been done that focus on the potential correlation between rapidly declining mental health and the use of social media. It has become the target to aim for, and most arguments state the same few theories. These theories most commonly include the big three:

“likes are addictive”

“comparing lives leads to self-hatred”

“social media replaces face-to-face interactions”

I can understand why people are making these accusations and assumptions, but I believe their idea as a whole is flawed. People find it easy to look at the last decade and pin this problem on one of the largest new things added to our lives. Social media is absolutely the easiest thing to blame; it seems to fit every stereotype we’ve ever had about kids getting their feelings hurt, so it makes it very easy to tick those boxes. This has made it extremely uncommon for anyone to try to find any alternatives.

I believe a large reason why we are seeing such a spike in the unquestioned blaming of social media is its sense of being a large, clear divider between generations. Many of the people doing the assuming in the first place are the parents of adolescents, or others in the same generation as those parents. They look down on the younger generations (Millenial and Gen Z) and they see things they don’t understand, things they didn’t have as children. They also see kids struggling with mental illnesses--something that was a somewhat taboo topic up until the last ten years or so.

No one ever wanted to hear about that when they were kids, so why is everyone talking about it all of a sudden?

Now that it has become a topic of discussion, it is more transparent, and faces a new kind of discrimination: such as men are treated as less for stuggling, and young kids are shown as fakes and “desperate for attention”.

As mental illness finds itself in our discussions, so do questions regarding it. We are currently dealing with this awkward divide in assumption and personal experience. Many people that belong to older generations can find this rise in mental illness difficult to grasp. You can’t see it, it can be difficult to diagnose, and even the medication is something that is disputed. This becomes the first part of the problem: a lack of understanding. Assumptions are made and then perpetuated as truth, which continues to mislead uninformed people. When the assumptions are spoken about more than the actual stories of those who have experience, the scales tip in the wrong direction.

But where do these assumptions come from?

As older generations learning the ways of all our current world technology, things can easily be confusing or frightening. Merritt Roe Smith, in an article called “Technological Determinism in American Culture”, discusses this idea of what is happening to America.

Technological determinism is the idea that technology now drives our culture. That we have lost the reins to the buggy and are now forced to just go where it takes us and admire the view on the way.

I believe this idea is also what has led to the blaming of social media. It is the easiest thing to look at and say, ‘Well, we created social media--it’s a part of our world now, and there’s nothing we can do about that. It’s obviously the cause for all these mental health issues, so now I guess we just need to take away the Internet from our kids to keep them safe. It’s the only choice we have.’ Strict parents often restrict the use of the Internet, do not allow their children to have social media accounts, or monitor them with random checks and enforced restriction policies. Parents think social media is driving the change they see in mental health, so the only method of attack they take is restrict, conceal, and refuse.

This is why this accusation is so harmful. In some cases, making false accusations would have no real consequences, so it’s fine to leave them thinking what they want. But in this sense, there are parents that are seeing these studies and taking them as fact. When a parent makes their own decision about why their child is struggling with a mental illness, they close a very important door. A parent needs to be able to hear and accept what their child is saying to them, or else they will never be able to help them in the way they actually need. A parent will often believe others over their child because they believe the child just doesn’t want to lose their “precious social media” and that they “know best for them”. When a parent believes opinions over their child’s, they can risk isolating them even more.

When one is struggling with mental illness, it can be extremely difficult to reach out for help. They may feel unsafe doing so, feel as though others will not believe them, or be embarrassed by it. One of the most important things you can do is be completely willing to listen--and accept--what they have to say. When you choose to believe a study over the child’s own feelings, you are confirming their fears that they are not being heard.

Many studies have followed the same setup: get a thousand people or so in a certain age group and monitor how many times they open social media. Then, watch how long they use it for, and at the end of it all, ask them how sad they are. There are many flaws with these kinds of studies. The main flaw, though, is the lack of interest in any other factors. Using this method, it would be easy to pin mental illnesses on just about anything. When you focus every study on just this one idea, you push away any other evidence you could find that proposes otherwise.

While it is possible that a certain aspect of the rise in social media can be linked with the rise in mental illness, it becomes dangerous when one declares that it is the only link. Social media may be the most “in your face” aspect of the Internet, but it is far from the most important. As Martin Heidegger once stated, “...the essence of technology is by no means anything technological.” When people attempt to pin down causation on the digital world, they are entirely disregarding this fact. The rise in devices, careers, expectations, independence, and connectivity has forced our most recent generations  to change and adapt in a way no generation before ours ever has. These generations find themselves having to stress over massive decisions at younger and younger ages. As a brief example, we can look at just how drastically our view on a college education has become.

In America, college is seen as vital to a successful life.

In Frank Newport’s article, he states “Seven in 10 American adults believe that a college education is very important, up significantly since the 1970s and 1980s. In 1978, when Gallup first asked the question as part of a Phi Delta Kappa survey, just 36% of Americans considered a college education to be very important.”. The pressure to know what you plan to do with the rest of your life by age seventeen looms at the back of most adolesent’s minds. It’s hard enough to understand yourself at that age, let alone what you want to do day in and day out for decades of your life. And if this pressure wasn’t bad enough, it comes with a ball and chain: the promise of thousands, maybe even tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of dollars of student debt. This pressure is enough to discourage any abled person, and a young kid struggling in their basics to algebra math class can see this future as a death sentence. And yet still, we trudge on, and continue to attend universities, And we do this for no other reason than we see it to be impossible to survive life without it.

When older generations look down on those younger than them, they can’t help but compare their lives. By this age, they had bought a house, By that age, they’d had three children. You’re having a hard time in school? Suck it up, I did it so you can too.

These generations are being raised with the idea that if they are not everything their parents were, they are a failure. And yet, they have been handed down a world of situations that make that impossible. It is hard enough to afford next week’s meal budget, let alone a house. The pressure of understanding what we want to do with our lives is crushing, but we find ourselves sitting in a college classroom anyways.

These constant beat downs on younger generation’s self esteem is a recipe for disaster. It murders motivation, squashes self-confidence, and roots fear into their lives. And yet, whenever these struggles are mentioned by those fighting them, the responses are the same. Grow up! Be an adult! This is life!

But you know what it all probably is?

Those damn phones.

Citations

Gallup, Inc. “Americans Still See College Education as Very Important.” Gallup.com, Gallup, 10 Oct. 2018, https://news.gallup.com/poll/166490/americans-college-education-important.aspx.

Smith, Merritt Roe. “Technological Determinism in American Culture.” Does Technology Drive History? The Dilema of Technological Determinism, The MIT Press, 1994, pp. 3–34.

Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, trans. William Lovett (New York, 1977), 4.

[asphaltapostle]

What I have long predicted is now coming to pass: Google believes it should assume control.

Out of all the technology companies that have made my knees knock and my voice hoarse and my [Tweets manic](https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&q="google" %40ficklecrux&src=typd) as a technoheretic in the past several years, Jumbo Google would easily take home the winning trophy for Dystopian of the Millennium. I have been rehearsing an especially dear pet prophecy of mine, unsolicited, to family, friends, and podcast guests since 2011 in which I end up arguing quite convincingly that Google is a dead ringer for the 16th-century Vatican: an inherently self-isolating organization with an absolute monopoly yielding gargantuan levels of essentially passive income from a service which nearly everybody transacts with, but only Google understands (and is therefore assumed to be its only possible provider,) which inevitably develops such a distance from the rest of the populace and their way of life (in tandem with total notoriety and celebrity among them all) not intentionally out of malice, but from the delusion of mythically-bestowed philanthropic duty that is borned of and compounded by this economic and cultural isolation in a perpetual accumulation of power and wealth that radicalizes the monopolizers — the majority already highly predisposed to zeal as they would’ve needed to be in order to find themselves in this singular, universally powerful position over every other class — and leaves their egocentric minds to wander exempt from all criticism save for that of fellow radicalized monopolizers, who together begin to feel more and more comfortable wondering aloud about themselves in increasingly fantastic presumptions: what if all of this was bestowed upon us because we are superior to them? What if it is our divine responsibility as superior beings to take charge and shepherd the common people as our sheep — for they cannot possibly know as well as we what is truly best for them?

You see it, right? And you can feel a very specific flavor of terror that is both awed by the scale of the circumstances created by so few human minds and sincerely amused by the absoluteness of your own inability to alter them in any way. Perhaps you even recognize this taste as one perfected by Christianity’s ancient advertising business, but Google knows so much about you that it’s rumored to’ve been selling user data to the Judeochristian God for some time now at a 10% discount, and so we extrapolate and anticipate, yes?

Of course, it’s admittedly satisfying for me to deliver you to this godfearing place in the most perverse look what I saw first that you didn’t see because you’re just not as bright but lucky for you, I’m so fucking generous with my wisdom sort of thinking around which the entire personas and livelihoods of fringe movement fanatics are built upon, but this is my one thing, okay? I’ve been waiting years for the right time to formally argue this theory in depth, and — thanks to this year’s public spotlight finally pivoting on the giants who’ve been silently swallowing their competition and relentlessly forcing their already ridiculous margins higher and higher in relative obscurity for decades, the time has come, indeed. The common people’s trust in Google had a godawful week.

Don’t Be Evil

On Monday, Gizmodo reported that twelve frustrated Google employees were quitting the company in protest of their work assisting the Department of Defense to “implement machine learning to classify images gathered by drones” for the detail fleeting Project Maven, despite some 4000 employee signatures on a letter addressed to CEO Sundar Pichai requesting (in full) that he “cancel this project immediately,” and “draft, publicize, and enforce a clear policy stating that neither Google nor its contractors will ever build warfare technology,” citing the infamous “Don’t Be Evil” motto, which Google then proceeded to remove from its code of conduct for the first time in 18 years the day after the New York Times article went to press, on April 5th.

On initial approach to the abstract of this story, from the ass to our thoughts arrives an easy narrative of a Silicon Valley mutiny comprised of twelve brave, conscientious souls who’ve been eaten up inside by their complicity in the filthy deals made by their power-obsessed CEO over scotch and cigars in a dark D.C. study — kept awake for months by the sound of his puffing cackles at satellite images of dead toddlers in a bombed-out street.

Ah ha, we say. That man is no good, and he just wouldn’t listen! They knew they didn’t have a choice… They only did what they had to do…

The reality of internal disagreements at Google, though, manages to be even more theatrical. The sheer volume of correspondence must surely be beyond anything capable of the enduser’s imagination, so let’s phone a friend: my favorite peek into the day-to-days of inter-Google existence is an old blog post by Benjamin Tilly on his first month at the company in which he was compelled almost immediately to describe in great detail how best to “deal with a lot of email in gmail” at peak efficiency using shortcuts and labels. “As you get email, you need to be aggressive about deciding what you need to see, versus what is context specific.”

Now we have a bit better idea of the aggressive emailing that was a sure constant on a normal workday at Google in 2010, so it must’ve been deafening after 8 years of Gmail development as 4000 employees no doubt vented, debated, and decided to organize last month, though without making much headway because the leadership’s response was apparently “complicated by the fact that Google claims it is only providing open-source software to Project Maven,” this new knowledge having significant effect on our mind’s image of Sundar Pichai’s activities in Washington: he is now swapping seats with a frustrated Colin Powell in order to install OpenOffice onto his desktop from a flash drive, and we recall that Google’s Googleplex headquarters resembles nowhere in modern life more than a brand new playground built in a design language borrowing heavily from Spy Kids. And though these Twelve disciples are unnamed for the moment, a few of them could immediately land book deals by going public, and every single one would always have by default not only the badge of “I landed a job at Google,” (which is really to say I have hit Life’s maximum level cap,) but “I worked at Google for a while, but ended up quitting to do something else,” which is guaranteed to make you the most interesting, intellectually superior person present in whatever crowd for the rest of your life. The ultra-cool Sarah Cooper quit Google to become a comedian and even got to talk to Kara Swisher! I won’t pretend to understand big tech’s diminutive bastardization of prestige, but “more than 90 academics” jumping to publish an open letter (adjacent to a huge DONATE: Support the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots button) in which they “write in solidarity with the 3100+ Google employees” who’s terrible boss decided to help some lackeys in the Pentagon set up their email and didn’t text back for a whole hour doesn’t sound 100% sincere. Notably, I don’t know how or why the fuck 90 people would go about collaborating on a single document, but if it really was managed, they definitely used Google Docs… At one point, it was fun to think about the history of the friendly side-scroller-playing garage ghouls and dorm dorks who gave cooky, wacko names to their dot com startups in parody and defiance of the lame-ass surname anagrams on the buildings of their established competitors, but those who’ve stuck around have only done so by becoming expert at SUCKING UP EVERYTHING around them, and it pisses me off every day how worried I am that my species will finally be done in by a company with a name like Yahoo! and be known only to a bunch of adolescent interdimensional silicon blobs 30 million years in the future as that bipedal race who remained dignified until the last 0.01% of their reign on Earth, when in way less than a single generation, they all just went FUCKING INSANE and blew themselves up because they suddenly hated all sense.

“Google” is perhaps the worst of these to have to shout in fear and/or anger in your last moments as it sounds in American English like you’ve startled your subject with a ticklish pinch followed so immediately by an esophagus-busting chokehold that the two events appear simultaneous, and in real English English, it almost always sounds like a parent speaking of a character on a pre-K children’s television programme whom they find quite foul and upsetting, but will manage to refrain from expressing so otherwise because they know that Teletubbies shit is the most quickly forgotten stage of television viewership. It’s fascinating how exclusive the word “Google” is to American English because in everything else it really is complete nonsense, but lets halt all etymological discussions right now because we’ve only now just finished with Monday.

The Soul Ledger

On Thursday, all of my Google experiences, suppositions, and soul-detaching screenshots were usurped when a thoroughly alarming internal company video called The Selfish Ledger was leaked to The Verge, which I watched once then and do not want to watch again for the sake of this piece, but I will. Though the big V has been disappointingly timid for years about editorializing — when tech journalism desperately needs some confident, informed opinion more than ever — Vlad Savov’s accompanying article should be read in its entirety, to which I can add my own terror where he perhaps could not. The production style is technically identical to that of the very popular thinkpiece-esque, motion-graphics-paired-with-obligatory-sharpie illustrated videos which you find playing at max volume on your mom’s iPad from where she’s fallen asleep on the couch at 9PM, but the repeating stock string soundtrack multiplies one’s discomfort as such that we would all end up in the fetal position without remembering the transition were it not for the appearance of trusty old Dank Jenkins, who’s face I thankfully associate heavily enough with his infamous down-and-out Tweet to be a welcome respite in attention before the very scary hypothesis for which it’s been buttering me up, as best summed by Vlad:

> The system would be able to “plug gaps in its knowledge and refine its model of human behavior” — not just your particular behavior or mine, but that of the entire human species. “By thinking of user data as multigenerational,” explains Foster, “it becomes possible for emerging users to benefit from the preceding generation’s behaviors and decisions.” Foster imagines mining the database of human behavior for patterns, “sequencing” it like the human genome, and making “increasingly accurate predictions about decisions and future behaviors.”

The next time the what if they do something scary question comes up in a casual conversation about Google, you’ll have something a lot more substantial than just speculation. Or will you? The Verge reached out for comment and got an awfully convenient response.

> This is a thought-experiment by the Design team from years ago that uses a technique known as ‘speculative design’ to explore uncomfortable ideas and concepts in order to provoke discussion and debate.

Wow! Leave it up to grand ole Googe to reveal the ultimate excuse for just about any suggestion or behavior, though it does seem almost deliberately uncomfortable, doesn’t it? No matter — whether or not this video was ever about a project or tangible product development, or simply to explore uncomfortable ideas because it is proof that the company has reached that critical Vatican stage — if you’ll remember — where they now feel comfortable exploring Very Bad, but Very easily made Real Ideas amongst themselves about what would happen if they allowed their system to nudge its users around a different, slightly less optimal route to the bar, let’s say — without their knowledge — in order for the system to collect traffic data for the sake of its own interests? Which would be, technically, in the interest of all Ledger users now and in the future, so why not?

> The ledger could be given a focus, shifting it from a system which not only tracks our behavior, but offers direction towards a desired result.”

This, my dear privacy-obsessed friends, is the real issue with data collection — its power over huge groups by way of their behavior and it is never going to be remedied in any significant way by ad-blockers or VPNs because the EndUser shall always out number you 50 to 1, even decades from now. EndUser does not understand — or, crucially, have any desire to understand anything technical about what leads to the PewDiePie videos playing on his filthy screen. Here’s a great opportunity to escape Silicon Valley’s technolibertarianism and resign your Darwinian empathy in favor of meaningful and truly-effective action: if you want to avoid a future Google Church (or Google Government, more worryingly,) you should invest your time, effort, and knowledge into electing officials more capable of understanding and regulating Big Tech.

Google Government

The internet as it stands is made possible by Google as the goto resource for online advertising. In 2016, “Google held 75.8 percent of the search ad market, bringing in $24.6 billion in revenue from search ads,” according to Recode. By 2019, “that’s expected to grow to $36.62 billion in revenue, or 80.2 percent of the market.” Google’s edge in user behavior and targeted advertising combined with their extensive resources available developers to integrate independent platforms with Google’s software services at various levels makes it very difficult for any advertising-funded individual or organization to compete online without dipping in to the Google universe. YouTube — a Google property since 2006 — has actively invested in and supported a new career path entirely within their own platform that is rapidly becoming popularly aspired-to by young children, while the reality of existence as a full-time YouTuber is far less glamorous than the immediately-visible surface would indicate, and the effort already expended by my generation in its pursuit has already made us insane.

So, what would the internet look like if Google didn’t exist? We know they’ve been working with the government now on various projects, but what if some terrible exposed transgression of theirs suddenly warranted an immediate shutdown and seizure of all Google properties? Well, we know from a post on Quora by Googler Ashish Kedia that even 5 years ago, the sudden absence of Google for “2–3 mins” set the internet into a bit of a panic, reducing overall traffic by 40%. In the time since, we’ve all grown exponentially more dependent on Google properties: billions of people rely on Google Maps for directions and, thousands of companies (including the Pentagon and other government institutions) rely on Gmail and GSuites for intercommunication, file sharing, task management, etc., and more and more academic institutions rely on Chromebook devices running connection-dependent operating systems. It’s not much of a stretch to argue that Google’s sudden disappearance would constitute a Civil Emergency in the United States, which will only become a stronger and more serious incentive for regulatory bodies to look the other way.

Though the tangible results of advertising have been quantified significantly in the past 20 years, one can’t help but wonder after watching YouTube ads for the new Mercedes-Benz S-Class on toy unboxing videos if the companies who spend big bucks on Google advertising understand where their money is going, but they know that if they don’t advertise there, their competitors will. This, of course, is a fundamental practice of a monopoly, and it’s yielded Google so much fucking money that they cannot possibly spend it fast enough, as evidenced by their investments in life extension — so that, perhaps, they will have more time on Earth to figure it out.

When you build a collection of the world’s smartest people in a self-sufficient environment that discourages exploration of other lifestyles and ideas, and you sustain the society with a gargantuan, relatively low-maintenance revenue stream, you create a culture which is not only well-primed for isolationism, but is also extremely inefficient. In fact, with its vast collection of abandoned products and properties, Google must surely be one of the most inefficient companies in history. Thinking back on recent software releases along with its recent entries into the hardware space, Google is also one of the worst competing tech companies. Very little aside from Gmail, Google Photos, Google Maps, and Chrome have found their place or garnered significant usership. Google Play Music is unintuitive and impossible, Google Allo and Google+ are all but forgotten addendums to other services, and Google Search — its core, original function — has been out of control for years, and all of them are designed blandly and excruciatingly tiring to look at.

Google Shun

If this all has stirred nothing more in you than a desire to eliminate Google from your own online life as much as possible, there are alternatives in almost every one of the sphere’s they dominate. As of late, DuckDuckGo has accumulated a fair amount of buzz and coverage as a private, more relevant alternative to Google’s plain old search engine. Though it is clever enough to list us as the first result for “extratone,” I’ve found it simply insufficient as a replacement in my own life because, essentially, it rarely delivers what I’m looking for. By contrast, Dropbox Paper is such an elegant cloud notetaking and word processing software that it makes Google Docs look simply idiotic (and warrants its own review very shortly.) For getting around, know that MapQuest is not only still around — it’s now a very competitive mobile navigation app.

I, myself, have allowed Google as complete of access to my information and behavior as possible because I believe “privacy” is a completely futile endeavor if one wishes to be a part of society, though I do often use alternatives to Google services simply because I fucking hate the way they look. If you want a more complete list of services and software that allow one to shun the Google God entirely, you’ll be forced to seek out less dignified sources like Lifehacker and Reddit and decide if the additional time you’ll spend using most of them to accomplish the same tasks is really worth your digital angst.

If Google were to be more explicit with its users and staff about its aspirations to take over control of our lives, there will be little to do but accept the future they intend to create because they’ve long been too powerful to control. In the meantime, I’d suggest you continue to use whatever software works best for you and refrain from wasting your time fretting on conspiratorial suppositions of what the tech industry may be doing to “invade your privacy,” because there is no longer any such thing, nor will there be ever again. However, I would also urge to you worship your own Gods, whomever they may be, for Google will never be worthy. I, for one, shall only pray to our Mother Sun.

#social #google #future #web #privacy

original post

[sol1056]

the problem with super-robots

In the Voltron reboot, I’ve been giving serious thought to the possibility that the writers may like their anime -- and remember the butchered American version of Voltron with some fondness -- but they don’t actually know the mecha tradition all that well. It shows up the most in their failure of imagination about the S1 finale and the truncated S3, where the Voltron writers compensate by adding tension via new plot points (alternate realities! clones!), rather than addressing the tension inherent in the genre.

This is the failure of imagination. A robeast? Form Voltron. A ship trapped on a dying planet? Form Voltron. Rescue Allura? Form Voltron. Destroy several battle cruisers lurking overhead? Form Voltron. The narrative continues to insist on this (and never refute it) when the rebels say they need Voltron, too.

This isn’t the first series to have to tackle this issue. It’s pretty common in the mecha tradition. If you don’t address it, as a writer you end up with a repetitive storyline where every week just happens to have a brand-new universe-ending threat that just happens to require the universe’s greatest weapon. Win that fight, and the following episode you get the same thing all over again.

So how do you fix this? You break the premise.

First, I’ll give you context of what I mean by ‘super-robot’ vs ‘robot’, and then I’ll walk you through what I’ve seen writers do to get around this ‘I’ve got a voltron-hammer so everything is a nail’ trap.

First, some context

Most mecha stories fall into one of two general categories: robots and super-robots. The first type gets its tension from being an arms race, because each side has to keep leveling up; I’d put Eureka Seven, Gurren Lagann, Code Geass, and the Gundam UC timeline in this category. A technological leap may let one side get ahead for a bit, but their opponents will find a way to catch up. Also, the kill rate tends to be quite low, because the playing field is relatively even.

(You could also class series like Macross or Sidonia no Kishi into the non-super category, since their mecha aren’t impervious and the death rate can be high, except only one side has mecha. Normally that’d mean ‘super-robot’, except the antagonists are so bloody overpowered that any win comes at a high cost. RahXephon might also fall into this, too.)

The super-robot tradition -- which Gundam stepped into with the Gundam Wing storyline -- is a little different. In the GW storyline, ‘gundam’ designated a super-robot that utterly outclassed its opponents. You can see this in the pilots’ kill-rates compared to the original Gundam series. 0079 was a soccer game (2-3 points, 10 points being superlative) to GW’s basketball game (78 points, 120 points, sky’s the limit). The bad guys’ mecha just lined up and got cut down like paper dolls.

Except then, everything becomes too easy. The sole battle-tension lies in whether the bad guys can just keep throwing cannon fodder at the super-robot until it (or its pilot) breaks down or is simply overwhelmed by sheer numbers. It also reduces the emphasis on human/pilot skill. You’ve got to be damn good to win with a factory-stock Kia against a Maserati in the straightaway, even if the Maserati’s got a mediocre driver. And if you’re the one in the Maserati, well, there’s no contest.

This is where Voltron sits; for most of S1/S2, the tension lay not in robeast strength so much as the pilots’ inexperience. Once the pilots leveled up -- and then the robeasts stopped coming -- most of the tension was gone. It was the Maserati laying waste to a Kia. No competition at all.

Keeping the tension

One: have the opponent level up; we’re finally seeing this with Lotor’s comet-ship (and I’ll leave a fuller explanation of my complaint for another day).

Two: remove the super-robot from the picture. Force a pilot into self-destructing (aka the Heero Yuy School of Conflict Resolution), overwhelm and capture, isolate and capture, or in Voltron’s case, just enforce the narrative’s rules to make combination impossible so you can’t achieve super-robot in the first place. And yes, I’m saying it was a real failure of tension to let the team re-achieve Voltron in S3, especially when the narrative glossed over the struggle.

And then there’s the third option, which is my favorite and where some of the best storylines imo lie: destroy the team from within. A group of pilots, met by chance or design, who together fly mecha that by simple stats should be unbeatable. Unified, they’re unstoppable; to create tension, the writers must destroy that unity.  

You do that by giving each pilot a competing agenda. It’s the reason they fight, and when this doesn’t align, the friction can create schisms. We get glimmers of this, as when Hunk prioritized the Balmera while Allura prioritized helping anyone in earshot with a distress beacon, or when Pidge focused on finding her brother over focusing on the team.

Shiro’s emphasis on ‘we decide together’ (as opposed to Keith’s or Allura’s ‘this is bigger than any of us’) falls apart once each person develops their own agenda. Allura and Coran seek allies but are easily distracted by hints of surviving Alteans; Pidge chases her family; Keith is too busy combing deep space for any sign of Shiro between suicide missions against any passerby Galra ships; Lance is focused on freeing planets; Hunk, well, not sure what he’d want. Freeing planets, too, I suppose; I can see him continuing to work as a team with Lance.

Then you break them apart. Dig into that friction, have each character stake their priorities, and one by one, each one falls away. Even alone, each lion is damn near a super-robot, anyway. Nothing the Galra have come up with can defeat even a single lion (other than overwhelming numbers, but even there ‘form voltron’ has always saved the day, so the narrative has carefully prevented the Galra from ever pressing an advantage for long).

Let the freed planets be thrilled with a single lion, and there’s no longer a pressing need for Voltron itself. There’s no real reason the team needs to swallow their conflicts in favor of a contrived working relationship.

[aside: I still roll my eyes that no one ever pointed out to the freed planets’ leaders that there’s only one Voltron, and it can’t be everywhere at once. Especially when one or two lions can do the job; using all of Voltron would be a hugely inefficient use of resources. It’s a remarkably selfish complaint on the part of a leader who was already entirely passive in his people’s freeing, and the failure of any of the protagonists to point this out means the narrative effectively validates that selfish complaint.]

After the break-up

So they scatter, and therein lies the fracturing that makes the story jump to a truly epic scale. You’ve got to follow these separate storylines, while compacting each because of time constraints (Coran&Allura, Pidge, Keith, Lance&Hunk, Lotor, Zarkon&Haggar, Sendak/Galra, Kollivan&BoM, various rebels). You can timeskip easily, and do catchups by showing alliances forming -- Pidge contacting Allura to say hello, reporting she’s working with this rebel group, and Allura says she last heard sign of Lance&Hunk in the something-or-other quadrant, and no word of Keith. That updates us and tells us it’s been three months. Then jump forward again, this time following the rebels with BoM, and drop hints that it’s been another month.

Have them come together in twos or threes, then break apart again because there’s no outside force pushing on them to reconcile. (Remember, the opponent’s only real threat is sheer numbers, and enough allies can undermine that, even if there’s only one lion leading the charge.)

We’d get the passage of time (even without clues like change in clothes or hair) with enough information to know where each is at. If we want a shock (”been trying to get ahold of you, they’ve captured Blue and are executing Lance in two days!”) then the noise of all those differing story lines can help mask the signal of what’s happening off-screen. Use that epic scale of so many different threads at once so the viewers feel just as overwhelmed as the pilots, and drive home the sense of being up against insurmountable odds.

Don’t forget the antagonists

And alongside all that, you continue to ramp up the tension by letting viewers see Lotor’s plans. Stop hiding the cool shit; the distraction trick of ‘wow Lotor came from nowhere’ is only going to work so far. Show what he’s up to; give him a role in the narrative beyond just opposition -- let the viewers understand his goals, possibly even realize he’s got some good points, even if his execution sucks. Let him smash through the individual lions; let him wound one, and capture another. Let him stand on the brink of complete victory, all the more bittersweet because we viewers would know that the team damn well handed most of that victory to him.

Bringing them back together

You position every arc so each character gets only enough victory to keep going, never enough to actually win. You ramp up the enemy’s previously overwhelming numbers into something truly vast, and you push each character into realizations that drive them back to unity. You make them realize they genuinely miss someone they’d once thought annoying. You tire them out with the fight, until they accept they can’t do this alone. You don’t simply let them reflect on that hubris -- you make them pay the price for the mistake. You force them to seek each other out, argue their differences, and resolve or get over them.

You don’t make it a single episode’s platitude, easily won. You make it a half-season (or more) of earning the truth, first-hand and at high cost. You’ve got to let the story test them, and hard, before they can accept the truth that they’re ‘stronger together’.

When the team finally reunites, that alone is a hard-won victory. They’ve defeated the greater opponent of their own flaws, and the stage will be set for their re-unification on a higher level.

In conclusion

So far, everything has (relatively speaking) come far too easy for Voltron. If the writers want to keep the story moving, the characters are way overdue for suffering some major, long-term consequences. They need to start earning those victories, instead of just yelling ‘form voltron’ and calling it a day.

[ficdirectory]

The Fosters: Our Thoughts on Episode 5x06 “Welcome to the Jungler”

Time for another recap of The Fosters.  We really liked the format of last week’s so @tarajean621 and I are sticking with recapping Jesus’s scenes, or those that have to do with him:

JESUS, STEF AND LENA - KITCHEN:

Stef: Did you know that dropping out of school is illegal?  

Lena: California is a compulsory education state.  You have to go to school until you’re 18.

Jesus: What?  So you’re gonna arrest me?

Stef: If I have to.

Tonia:  Oh, perfect.  I’m so glad we’re starting off this episode with yet another threat of institutionalization. <-- Sarcasm

Tara: Completely jarring.  Completely unrealistic.  Completely unnecessary.

Jesus: [Looking to Lena] Mama.  Seriously?

Lena: The only way you can drop out is if you pass a proficiency test.

Jesus:  Okay, fine.  Then I’ll just do that.  

Lena: Okay.  Then, you can take the test at school tomorrow.

Jesus: Great.  Can I go now? [Jesus leaves at Moms’ nod]

Tonia: This whole conversation is so strained, and Moms have Jesus practically backed up against the kitchen counter.  

Tara: So, we’re going from no school for months to a high-stakes proficiency test?  This is unfair even without factoring in the brain injury.

Lena:  Thank you.

Stef: Yeah.  I will be your bad cop any day, woman.  What if he passes the test?

Lena: He won’t.  He’s having problems with memory and comprehension.  The test is gonna show that and we can use it to make our case in getting him an educational aide.

Tonia:  Wow. Okay.  So according to some old college papers I found from an intro to SPED class where we learned about TBI, to be considered school-ready, Jesus would have to be able to attend to an academic task for 10-15 minutes.  This proficiency test?  3.5 hours long.  (With no accommodations, because Jesus has not even been evaluated yet.)

Basically, Moms are both abusing their power positions (Lena in education, and Stef in law enforcement) to manipulate Jesus into doing what they want him to do.

(Also, for reference?  We have seen Lena alter Jude’s proficiency test to get into Anchor Beach.  Knowing how far she was willing to go for Jude, when she had only just met him, it’s that much more painful knowing that Lena is willing to send Jesus into this test with no accommodations and zero time to study.)

She is trying to sabotage him here, and it sucks. 

Tara: They went right for the sabotage here, instead of having another conversation with Jesus.  They don’t want to deal with his feelings, they simply want him compliant. :( 

Also, just because Dr. Bayfield the orthopedic surgeon has a friend whose son has a 1:1 aide, this does not mean that Jesus definitely needs one.  At this point, he has not even been assessed yet.  Let the professionals decide this.

And it is all kinds of exploitative to use Jesus’s (at this point perceived) deficits against him to get the outcome you desire.  Moms want to intentionally overwhelm, overload and fatigue Jesus’s injured brain to strengthen their case for an aide. 

1) Jesus has not been in school for months.

2) He is given no time to study.

3) According to old-school SPED handout:

Regular classroom placement

- for students whose cognitive, physical and behavioral limitations have resolved, regular classroom placement can be an emotional support and represents a significant level of recovery.

-CAUTION: A return to regular classroom without any level of support should be done with caution and is not recommended as an initial placement.

^Essentially, this is what Moms are doing.

4) The goal of going back to school after a brain injury is initially less about proving knowledge and more about learning strategies and coping skills.  Academic success is not the point - not right away.

 Stef: A few days ago, you didn’t think he was ready to go back to school.

Lena: Well, a couple days ago, I hadn’t threatened to send him away.  I don’t think being trapped in the house is doing him or us any good.  

Stef: He can still refuse to go, you know?

Lena: Well if he DOES, I think you SHOULD arrest him!  I’m serious!  It’s time for a little tough love around here!

Tonia:  I’d settle for regular love around here, Lena.  Because instead of sitting down with Jesus again for another conversation and really hearing him out, you’re jumping to manipulation and threats of arrest???  

Also, this is a moment where having nondisabled writers on the show really comes through.  Why?  Because we know, based on what Lena says here that she is thinking about her previous threat to institutionalize Jesus, but we don’t see Jesus talking about or thinking through how Lena’s threat impacted him.  We get really obvious insight into Lena and her thought process as the parent, but almost none from Jesus, who the threat was directed at.

This is not something someone just gets over in a day.  Jesus will carry this with him for the rest of his life.  And I think it’s irresponsible (especially if you are going to include such egregious ableism as repeated mentions of shock treatment as a legitimate option and threatening your son with institutionalization for having a TBI) to not overtly convey the harm such words inflict on the people they are used against.

Tara: To continue with Tonia’s conversation about how we do not see how Lena’s words impact Jesus... I would argue that we are seeing the impact, to some extent.  What stood out to me in this episode was Jesus Being Good.  We saw no strong emotion from him at all, which is notable on this show.  To me, this could be misinformed writing - but it also could be a tried-and-true coping strategy of a person used to impermanence.  Making a conscious choice to be unaffected.  

Can we also talk about the fact that Lena seems to be ready for Jesus to go back to school because she is fed up with him?  :/

And regarding the whole arrest thing?   Jesus is more vulnerable interacting with law enforcement with intersecting identities as both an ethnic minority and disabled person.  Disabled people make up a third to half of all people killed by police.  The fact that Moms would so cavalierly discuss this seems super out-of-character.

JESUS AND GABE - YARD, WORKING ON THE TREE HOUSE:

Jesus: And now they won’t even let me see Emma!  Which is like, total bull!  Because besides this with you, and her, I have no life!  You know, I think what makes them so mad is that I’m not going back to school.  But I have a plan!  Why don’t we turn this into a business?  You know, making tree houses!

Tonia:  I’m glad Jesus has someone he can talk to about how he’s really feeling. With all the other kids at school and Moms at work, it’s easy to see why Jesus is feeling so isolated.  And with all this time to mull over what Moms said, it’s no wonder he’s coming up with alternate plans.

Also, Moms are so mad that Jesus isn’t going back to school, but, reminder that when Jesus was ready to talk about it, they kept ignoring him and putting it off.  They didn’t even bring it up with his doctor, which was their reason for putting off a discussion in the first place.

Gabe: Uh, I mean, shouldn’t you just finish high school?

Jesus: No, I can get my GED just like you did.

Gabe: Yeah, in prison.  Look, I wouldn’t do anything like I did.  I mean, I made a ton of mistakes when I was your age.  I think your moms are just trying to protect you, you know?

Tonia:  I actually really find myself relating with Gabe here.  I’ve been in that position where you care about a kid but you don’t want to say the wrong thing for fear of not being allowed in the kid’s life anymore.  That being said, Gabe, abuse does not equal protection.

Jesus: Do you think you made a mistake with Ana?  You know, like, not trying to be with her?

Gabe: Yeah.  Yeah, all the time.

Jesus: Do you ever think about about getting back together?

Gabe: [scoffs] She’s with Mike.

Jesus: Yeah, but they’re not, like, married.

Gabe: Here’s the thing.  Choices you make today can stay with you your whole life.  And as far as Ana goes do I wish it had been different?  Yeah, I do.  She was my first love.  Maybe the only one I’ll ever have.  But it’s too late.  And you don’t wanna end up carrying around all that regret.  Trust me.

Tonia:  The first person Jesus talked about in this conversation was Emma.  She is really on his mind here (and why wouldn’t she be, as one of the only consistent people in his life?)  Things undoubtedly feel really shaky with Moms right now and they have felt really shaky with Emma until recently.  Jesus is just trying to figure out what to do to keep the people around him there.  And not to leave, like they all seem to want to.

JESUS AND ANA - KITCHEN:

Jesus:  Ah, hey!

Ana: [covers her engagement ring]  Hi!

Jesus: What’s up?

Ana: Is, um, Mariana here?

Jesus: Oh.  Uh, actually no.  She’s...not home yet.  

Ana: [disappointed] Oh.  Okay.

Tonia:  It always strikes me as strange that Ana shows zero interest in talking to Jesus one-on-one.  (Same goes for Gabe and Mariana.)  It’s like, they will if they have to, but only if they have to.)  I can’t help but feel for Jesus here, especially as Ana doesn’t clarify she wants to talk to them both together, so it just comes off as her not wanting to talk to Jesus.  

It’s also more than a bit irksome that Ana has joined the ranks of people who are clearly uncomortable around Jesus.

Tara: To be fair, Jesus hasn’t been willing or able to build the kind of relationship Ana and Mariana have.  And some relationships are just awkward - not all bio parent/child reunions are perfect.

Jesus: Uh, can I ask you a question...about...Gabe?

Ana: Sure.

Jesus: Do you still, like, have feelings for him?

Ana: What do you mean?

Jesus: Well, I know you’re with Mike.  And he’s a great guy.  But IF you still think about Gabe.  Well, I mean, he...still thinks about you.

Ana: Uh...  How do you know that?

Jesus: He...told me.  He said that you were the only woman that he’s ever loved.

Tonia:  I’d imagine that every adopted kid plays the “what ifs” through in their heads.  And given that Jesus currently has “no life” other than helping Gabe and trying not to step a toe out of line so Moms won’t send him away or arrest him, it makes sense that he would gravitate toward playing matchmaker for Gabe and Ana.  He knows what it’s like not to be told the whole truth, too, so of course he wants the people around him to have all the information they need on a subject.  And I’d hazard to guess that, for Jesus, love is the most important subject there is.

[Mariana walks in from school, sees Ana]

Mariana: Oh!  What are you doing here?

Ana: I just was in the neighborhood and I thought I’d come by to say hi.

Mariana: [touched] Oh.  Well, hi.

Ana: Hi.

Tonia: Keep holding onto that engagement ring for all it’s worth, Ana.  A little awkward for the kids to see it now that Jesus has confessed Gabe’s undying love for you, isn’t it?

Also, it still touches Mariana (and Jesus) to have Ana stop by even if it is to just say hi.  Because it means they’re thought of.  And being thought of means they’re valued.  And that’s always going to matter to these two.

JESUS AND MARIANA - HER ROOM:

Jesus:  Hey.  Can I borrow your phone so I can text Emma?

Mariana: No!  I’m already in enough trouble because of you!

Tonia:  The implication here seems to be that Moms are checking Jesus’s phone to be sure he has no contact with Emma.  (As the last we saw him, after Lena yelled at him, he still had his phone.)

Also, Mariana’s “I’m already in enough trouble because of you” sounds a lot like “I’m already in enough trouble because you’re disabled.”  Because if Jesus had found out about the party pre-TBI and invited himself along, they’d both be in trouble, but Mariana wouldn’t be putting the blame back on him for having a seizure.

Tara: So, Mariana still has her phone after their night out?  But Jesus doesn’t have his or is on restriction?  

Mariana: Hey.  What do you think about Scariana Adams Fostgore?

Jesus: For what?

Mariana: My derby name.  

Jesus: Come on. Moms are not gonna let you do roller derby.  Not after what happened to me.  

Tonia:  Jesus speaks the truth.  I mean, we all remember Lena hyperly quizzing Tess and Dean about why they allowed Logan to play football with its high concussion risk.  Chances are very good that they are not going to sign off on Mariana being on the roller derby team.

[Brandon walks in]

Brandon: Hey, uh, so did you guys hear about Ana and my dad getting engaged?

[Jesus and Mariana make eye contact and stand in sync with each other]

Mariana: What?  Seriously? That’s so cool!  I mean...you’re cool with that, right?

Brandon:  Yeah, I-I-I guess.

Jesus: I wonder why Ana didn’t tell us?  She was here earlier. So, are you sure?

Brandon: It’s what AJ told me.  Oh hang on. [Brandon answers his phone, leaves the room.]

Tonia:  Once adopted siblings, soon to be step-siblings too?  Let’s play How Many Ways Can Three Siblings Be Related?

Tara: Yeah, this is odd.

Jesus: I wonder if Ana didn’t tell us because of what I told her?

Mariana: What did you say?

Jesus: That Gabe still loves her.

Mariana: He does?

Jesus: Yeah.  That’s what he said to me.  It’d be kinda cool if they got back together, right? 

Mariana: Not for Mike.

Jesus: Well, yeah, I know.  But I mean, they were each other’s first loves.

Mariana: Okay.  That doesn’t mean that they should be together now.  People rarely ever marry their first loves.

Tonia:  Mariana, your tone is really close to patronizing here.  Please stop.

Tara: It feels weird that Mariana is siding with Mike here.

Jesus: Some do.  As long as they don’t screw it up.

Mariana: Yeah, well, I want to have LOTS of loves before I get married.

Jesus: I don’t.

Tonia:  I kind of love how the traditional way this might play out is flipped.  Mariana wants to have lots of first loves and Jesus only wants one.  I can’t say I’d feel any differently if everything was changed - including me - and I had no control over any of it.  Especially since Jesus’s own relationship with his Moms is shaky enough that even they have threatened to send him away now that he has a TBI...

JESUS AND EMMA - SCHOOL HALLWAY THE NEXT DAY:

Jesus: Hey.

Emma: Hey.

Jesus: Look, I’m really sorry about last night.

Tonia:  So, I’m a bit slow on the pickup, but it took me until now (actually recapping) to connect that Jesus is on this train of thought with Emma and talking about “unless they screw it up” because he was afraid he had screwed it up by telling her he really didn’t want to see her anyway.  

Also, we do get the specific time reference here: Jesus’s fight with Emma happened last night.  That means Lena threatened to institutionalize him last night.  :(

Emma: Me, too.  I really want to be supportive...of everything.

Tonia:  This line had me waiting for “but I can’t.”  The “but I can’t never came and the “everything” seems to refer to Jesus’s TBI which is now, officially too much for everyone :(

Tara: Yes, look at her word choice here.  She wants to be supportive, but she’s not supportive currently.

Jesus [flirting]: You mean that?

Emma [smiling]: Yes.

[They kiss]

Emma [still smiling]: Do your moms know that you’re here? [whispers] Did you sneak out?

Tonia:  A few blessed seconds of cuteness and fun.  I’ll take it wherever it comes at this point.

Tara: I love these moments.

Jesus [laughs] No, I had to take a proficiency test.  So that I can legally drop out.  

Emma [clears her throat and looks away]: How’d...you do?

Jesus: Uh, good, I think.  

Tonia:  And just like that, the support’s gone. Did Emma think Jesus was apologizing because he came around to her way of thinking?  Is that why she said she wanted to be supportive?  Right about now it sounds like the conditional way everyone else is ‘supporting’ Jesus, which is heartbreaking.

Tara: This test is written as no big deal, but it is a huge deal.  182 questions (reading, writing and math) plus a writing task.  In 3.5 hours.  Unless you want to split up the reading and writing sections, and sit for another 3.5 hours.  We don’t know if Jesus chose to do this, but regardless, he seems to have a bounty of extra energy post-test.

Cognition takes work after a brain injury.  Attending to a task takes work.  Filtering can be almost impossible.  

I can tell you that for my first few weeks back at school (almost 2 months post-injury), I took one class.  An elective.  Choir.  Something completely non-academic.  And after that one 80-minute class period, I would be completely spent.  Exhausted.  Taking 4-hour-long naps.  

So, although Jesus looks none the worse for wear, the actual, real-life implications for taking a test like this the way he did are serious.  Asking him to take the test at this point was nothing less than abusive.  And doing so would have almost certainly hindered his recovery.

Jesus:  Um, but anyway.  I have something for you.  [Jesus takes out a small box.  Offers it to Emma.]

Emma: [laughs nervously and opens the box to find a wooden ring inside]

Jesus: I know it’s not fancy.  But I made it with Gabe.  

Emma [forces a smile] It’s beautiful.

Jesus [smiles genuinely]:  I wanted to give it to you as a promise ring.  You know, until I can get you something...nicer.  Emma, I don’t want to have any regrets in my life.  And I know that you...  You’re the one.  I want to spend the rest of my life with you.

Emma [is not smiling.  Keeps looking down and away.]

Tonia:  This is like, so devastating.  Because I’ve so been here.  So desperate to keep friends that I gave them things I put my whole heart into. 

It just sucks in this case even more so because the scene plays that Jesus (previously pretty dialed into people’s cues, even in earlier episodes this season) seems to be missing all of them here.  So the scene plays out and you are automatically led to feel sorry for Jesus.  In that he “just doesn’t get” that Emma isn’t on the same page with him.

When the reality is?  He likely can’t even face that possibility, because he needs this to work.  He just can’t face one more rejection.  So he’s pushing forward, and hoping that if Emma hears all of what he has to say, she’ll come around.

Tara:  He wants the certainty that at least one person loves him unconditionally.  That at least one person won’t leave.

Emma: Jesus, we’re only 16. 

Jesus: Well yeah, I’m not saying that we’ll get, like, married right now.

Emma: I’m gonna go to college.  Maybe far away.

Jesus: That’s fine.  I’ll go wherever you’re going.  I can do construction, literally, anywhere.

Emma: So much can change.

Jesus: Not if we don’t let it.

Emma: I want change.  I wanna grow and learn and--

Jesus: Well, good.  ‘Cause we could do all that together!

Emma [hesitantly]: Not if you drop out of school.  Education is extremely important to me.  And I [sighs] can’t really see myself marrying someone who’s willfully throwing that away. [Puts the ring box back in Jesus’s hand.]

Tonia:  Ugh, this is just painful.  Emma, break up with him already!  Not that I want you to, but it’s obvious you want to break up.  Don’t string him along.  Also what did Jesus say when you gave him the box back?  That’s a convenient place to end the scene, so you have the last word.

Tara: While I respect Emma’s values, I don’t agree with her saying that Jesus passing a proficiency test is the equivalent of throwing away his education.

JESUS AND LENA - KITCHEN:

Jesus:  Hey.  So, I’m not gonna drop out of school.

Lena: Hard test?

Jesus: Nah.  I mean...  Well, kinda, I guess.  But no, I ran into Emma, and she won’t marry me if I don’t finish school.  So, I’ll get assessed.  Get a babysitter.  Whatever it takes.

Tonia:  So, a lot of times, I look at things from a writer’s perspective.  From a storytelling perspective.  First of all, we have the writer’s lack of a disabled presence anywhere in that writer’s room.  Because seriously how many more times are we going to be subjected to Lena thinking that Jesus is just dumb as a box of rocks when really, he hasn’t even been assessed yet and went into that 3.5 hour test with zero prep and zero accommodations.

And secondly?  This just strikes me as lazy writing.  Not only have they managed to make the conflict between Moms and Jesus (a huge deal) a nonissue, this also, effectively, lets Moms off the hook for any of their gross behavior, (educational neglect, manipulation, and threatening Jesus.)

It has not escaped me either that the writers have skirted immediately addressing how Jesus feels about Lena’s threat of institutionalization from last episode, or the fact that she is still actively pursuing shock therapy for him.  That is just beyond irresponsible.  

Don’t allow yourself to forget that these things are happening.

Tara: The lack of a disabled voice in the writer’s room is glaring when Jesus’s response to a 3.5 hour test is that it was “kinda” hard.

And yes, totally agree with Tonia - so much of this episode is about what was not said, seen or addressed.

MARIANA AND BRANDON - KITCHEN LATE AT NIGHT:

Brandon: Has Ana told you guys about her and my dad yet?

Mariana: No.  I hope Jesus didn’t confuse her.  

Brandon: What do you mean?

Mariana: I guess Gabe told him that he still has feelings for Ana.  And then he told Ana.  I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.  She loves your dad and she obviously said yes.  You know Jesus.  Ever since his TBI, he’s confused.

Brandon: Yeah.

Tonia:  Seriously, can we stop with the continued implication that Jesus doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  Even if it is to reassure Brandon, there are other ways to do it that are not claiming Jesus misunderstood something he clearly understood perfectly.  And Brandon agreed with her!  Come on, siblings!  Knock it off.

Tara: ^Dismissive ableism.  Presuming incompetence.  These dangerous notions that dehumanize the disabled make abuse, neglect and institutionalization okay.  None of this is okay.  

Do not let the media be your only source of disability education.  Read and watch content made by disabled people.  We exist as more than plot devices or inspiration p*rn.  We are just as human as you are.  See us.

For more: Fosters Recaps

[wineanddinosaur]

As Harvest Begins, Organizations Are Mobilizing to Protect Vineyard Workers From Covid-19

Sadie Drury, general manager of North Slope Management in Walla Walla, Wash., was doing everything right. She implemented and enforced all the recommended safety protocols, and yet, two of her employees — who lived together in shared, family housing — contracted Covid-19. With social distancing and masks in place, none of her other employees tested positive, but one of the two who were infected devastatingly passed away. “That hit us really hard,” she says. “It was a longtime supervisor in our company who had worked with us since the late ‘90s.”

The Latinx community, which makes up the majority of the U.S. wine industry’s farmworkers, has proven to be especially vulnerable to Covid-19. In California, for example, Latinx persons account for 59 percent of positive Covid-19 cases and 47 percent of deaths, despite making up just 39 percent of the state’s population, according to the California Department of Public Health. This vulnerability is mostly attributed to the farmworker community’s low-income, socioeconomic realities; many workers live in multi-family housing and often carpool together in vans and other large transport vehicles. In Napa County alone, an outbreak of roughly 70 cases of Covid was reported in the county’s farmworker centers in July.

As the 2020 harvest kicks off, maintaining the health of farmworkers is a top priority for wineries and vineyard management companies. If outbreaks do occur among vineyard crews, the wine industry could find itself in the midst of a labor shortage during the busiest time of year, and some operations may even be forced to shut down for two weeks. But while companies can do their part by creating safer work environments — requiring masks, performing daily temperature checks, separating teams into small cohorts, and social distancing — there are no fail-safe measures.

There is, however, some help. For instance, the Napa Valley Farmworker Foundation and the Napa Valley Grapegrowers have joined forces with the St. Helena Hospital Foundation to fund and supply a mobile health unit capable of testing up to 100 workers a day at vineyard sites. These organizations and others — like ¡Salud!, a healthcare and outreach organization created by Oregon winemakers to address the needs of vineyard workers — are mobilizing to protect workers by offering education, resources, and health screenings that can, in turn, help pilot the industry through a harvest season like no other.

Credit: Viader Winery

Preventive Education Comes First

“Understanding how the virus transmits empowers people to make conscientious decisions both inside and outside of work,” says Molly Williams, industry and community relations director at the Napa Valley Grapegrowers and the Napa Valley Farmworker Foundation. The latter launched a Covid-19 task force and statewide education campaign, which includes resources like podcasts, videos, and posters.

Education is also an integral focus of programming for ¡Salud!. “There’s an element of education not always permeating into that community. We explain it in their own language and in the context of their own culture, which makes it more relatable and understandable,” says Stephanie Buchanan, ¡Salud!’s manager of philanthropy, who argues that education is just as important when a worker tests negative.

“We really drive home that you need to take precautions and how this impacts not just you, but your family as well,” she says. “People hear ‘negative’ and that’s what they focus in on.”

Drury, of North Slope Management, is in constant communication with her crew, regularly passes out printed flyers, and has created a group text thread for updates and reminders related to the virus. One of her employees, Francisco Hernandez, says one effective strategy has been for supervisors to communicate that a worker’s failure to follow health guidelines and social distancing rules can result in a loss of work, and thus income.

“It really sucks to work with the mask when it’s 80 to 90 degrees, but the attitude is that this is the only way we can move forward,” Hernandez says. “It’s not just for safety. What we’re implementing and the rules we follow, we’re keeping our jobs and feeding our families by doing that.”

Credit: Sarah Anne Risk Photo

Bringing Testing Into the Vineyard

While testing is seemingly the most effective strategy for keeping the virus out of the workplace, it’s not always readily accessible. Workers might not have the transportation resources to get tested or the proper identification, they may fear a language barrier, and be wary of how the test could affect their employment or immigration status. Major delays in result turnarounds nationwide further complicate things; test results in places like Napa County are sometimes taking more than 10 days.

One solution is to bring testing into the vineyards, like the mobile testing effort in Napa Valley that has conducted more than 1,600 tests since last month. Interested employers can reach out to the St. Helena Hospital Foundation to schedule testing. “From knowing the workers here, I feel like that would be a much better option for them,” says Hernandez.

Similarly, ¡Salud! launched an appointment-based mobile clinic that provides no-cost Covid screenings at vineyard locations. “We record things like height, weight, blood pressure, we do basic lab work like A1C, which can give us a sense of underlying conditions — diabetes being one of the major concerns of this population — and then we have an optional Covid screening,” says Buchanan, noting that 87 percent of farmworkers have opted into testing, with results delivered by phone 24 hours later.

Leveraging Local Support Services

By getting creative, seeking out, and utilizing local resources, wineries can ease the fears of their employees when it comes to testing and support them if they get sick. “For this population, a positive diagnosis means not being able to work for several weeks and especially right now, heading into harvest, this is when they make their money,” says Buchanan. “A positive diagnosis right now has a really big impact on that person’s financial outlook and on their family’s outlook.”

In order to eliminate the financial burden, Drury is working with a local nonprofit winery that raises funds for vineyard workers’ health care. This enables her company to pay workers to stay home if they are exhibiting symptoms, receive a positive diagnosis, or were in close contact with someone who tested positive. “We’ve figured out a way to pay our workers to encourage them to stay home and prevent people from not reporting symptoms,” she says.

When Hernandez was experiencing symptoms that he believed were allergies, he was able to go home for a few days while awaiting his test result. Ultimately, the test came back negative. “They were able to pay me for the days I took off, which was an assurance,” Hernandez says. “When you feel fine, you don’t really want to take time off, but when they have those policies in place, it makes it really nice to say, ‘I should follow the rules and I should go along with it.’”

Both ¡Salud! and the Napa Valley Farmworkers have sought out local resources that can provide isolated housing in the event of a positive test result, connect workers with medical care and a translator, deliver groceries, and provide assistance with child care. “Right now, there’s more and more coming to light about health care disparities and there are a lot of organizations out there,” says Buchanan. “It just takes being proactive.”

“We’re not just supporting the worker as a worker, “ echoes Williams, “but in a way that touches their whole life and supports their family as well.”

The article As Harvest Begins, Organizations Are Mobilizing to Protect Vineyard Workers From Covid-19 appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/organizations-protect-vineyard-workers-covid-19/

[johnboothus]

As Harvest Begins Organizations Are Mobilizing to Protect Vineyard Workers From Covid-19

Sadie Drury, general manager of North Slope Management in Walla Walla, Wash., was doing everything right. She implemented and enforced all the recommended safety protocols, and yet, two of her employees — who lived together in shared, family housing — contracted Covid-19. With social distancing and masks in place, none of her other employees tested positive, but one of the two who were infected devastatingly passed away. “That hit us really hard,” she says. “It was a longtime supervisor in our company who had worked with us since the late ‘90s.”

The Latinx community, which makes up the majority of the U.S. wine industry’s farmworkers, has proven to be especially vulnerable to Covid-19. In California, for example, Latinx persons account for 59 percent of positive Covid-19 cases and 47 percent of deaths, despite making up just 39 percent of the state’s population, according to the California Department of Public Health. This vulnerability is mostly attributed to the farmworker community’s low-income, socioeconomic realities; many workers live in multi-family housing and often carpool together in vans and other large transport vehicles. In Napa County alone, an outbreak of roughly 70 cases of Covid was reported in the county’s farmworker centers in July.

As the 2020 harvest kicks off, maintaining the health of farmworkers is a top priority for wineries and vineyard management companies. If outbreaks do occur among vineyard crews, the wine industry could find itself in the midst of a labor shortage during the busiest time of year, and some operations may even be forced to shut down for two weeks. But while companies can do their part by creating safer work environments — requiring masks, performing daily temperature checks, separating teams into small cohorts, and social distancing — there are no fail-safe measures.

There is, however, some help. For instance, the Napa Valley Farmworker Foundation and the Napa Valley Grapegrowers have joined forces with the St. Helena Hospital Foundation to fund and supply a mobile health unit capable of testing up to 100 workers a day at vineyard sites. These organizations and others — like ¡Salud!, a healthcare and outreach organization created by Oregon winemakers to address the needs of vineyard workers — are mobilizing to protect workers by offering education, resources, and health screenings that can, in turn, help pilot the industry through a harvest season like no other.

Credit: Viader Winery

Preventive Education Comes First

“Understanding how the virus transmits empowers people to make conscientious decisions both inside and outside of work,” says Molly Williams, industry and community relations director at the Napa Valley Grapegrowers and the Napa Valley Farmworker Foundation. The latter launched a Covid-19 task force and statewide education campaign, which includes resources like podcasts, videos, and posters.

Education is also an integral focus of programming for ¡Salud!. “There’s an element of education not always permeating into that community. We explain it in their own language and in the context of their own culture, which makes it more relatable and understandable,” says Stephanie Buchanan, ¡Salud!’s manager of philanthropy, who argues that education is just as important when a worker tests negative.

“We really drive home that you need to take precautions and how this impacts not just you, but your family as well,” she says. “People hear ‘negative’ and that’s what they focus in on.”

Drury, of North Slope Management, is in constant communication with her crew, regularly passes out printed flyers, and has created a group text thread for updates and reminders related to the virus. One of her employees, Francisco Hernandez, says one effective strategy has been for supervisors to communicate that a worker’s failure to follow health guidelines and social distancing rules can result in a loss of work, and thus income.

“It really sucks to work with the mask when it’s 80 to 90 degrees, but the attitude is that this is the only way we can move forward,” Hernandez says. “It’s not just for safety. What we’re implementing and the rules we follow, we’re keeping our jobs and feeding our families by doing that.”

Credit: Sarah Anne Risk Photo

Bringing Testing Into the Vineyard

While testing is seemingly the most effective strategy for keeping the virus out of the workplace, it’s not always readily accessible. Workers might not have the transportation resources to get tested or the proper identification, they may fear a language barrier, and be wary of how the test could affect their employment or immigration status. Major delays in result turnarounds nationwide further complicate things; test results in places like Napa County are sometimes taking more than 10 days.

One solution is to bring testing into the vineyards, like the mobile testing effort in Napa Valley that has conducted more than 1,600 tests since last month. Interested employers can reach out to the St. Helena Hospital Foundation to schedule testing. “From knowing the workers here, I feel like that would be a much better option for them,” says Hernandez.

Similarly, ¡Salud! launched an appointment-based mobile clinic that provides no-cost Covid screenings at vineyard locations. “We record things like height, weight, blood pressure, we do basic lab work like A1C, which can give us a sense of underlying conditions — diabetes being one of the major concerns of this population — and then we have an optional Covid screening,” says Buchanan, noting that 87 percent of farmworkers have opted into testing, with results delivered by phone 24 hours later.

Leveraging Local Support Services

By getting creative, seeking out, and utilizing local resources, wineries can ease the fears of their employees when it comes to testing and support them if they get sick. “For this population, a positive diagnosis means not being able to work for several weeks and especially right now, heading into harvest, this is when they make their money,” says Buchanan. “A positive diagnosis right now has a really big impact on that person’s financial outlook and on their family’s outlook.”

In order to eliminate the financial burden, Drury is working with a local nonprofit winery that raises funds for vineyard workers’ health care. This enables her company to pay workers to stay home if they are exhibiting symptoms, receive a positive diagnosis, or were in close contact with someone who tested positive. “We’ve figured out a way to pay our workers to encourage them to stay home and prevent people from not reporting symptoms,” she says.

When Hernandez was experiencing symptoms that he believed were allergies, he was able to go home for a few days while awaiting his test result. Ultimately, the test came back negative. “They were able to pay me for the days I took off, which was an assurance,” Hernandez says. “When you feel fine, you don’t really want to take time off, but when they have those policies in place, it makes it really nice to say, ‘I should follow the rules and I should go along with it.’”

Both ¡Salud! and the Napa Valley Farmworkers have sought out local resources that can provide isolated housing in the event of a positive test result, connect workers with medical care and a translator, deliver groceries, and provide assistance with child care. “Right now, there’s more and more coming to light about health care disparities and there are a lot of organizations out there,” says Buchanan. “It just takes being proactive.”

“We’re not just supporting the worker as a worker, “ echoes Williams, “but in a way that touches their whole life and supports their family as well.”

The article As Harvest Begins, Organizations Are Mobilizing to Protect Vineyard Workers From Covid-19 appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/organizations-protect-vineyard-workers-covid-19/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/as-harvest-begins-organizations-are-mobilizing-to-protect-vineyard-workers-from-covid-19

[isaiahrippinus]

As Harvest Begins, Organizations Are Mobilizing to Protect Vineyard Workers From Covid-19

Sadie Drury, general manager of North Slope Management in Walla Walla, Wash., was doing everything right. She implemented and enforced all the recommended safety protocols, and yet, two of her employees — who lived together in shared, family housing — contracted Covid-19. With social distancing and masks in place, none of her other employees tested positive, but one of the two who were infected devastatingly passed away. “That hit us really hard,” she says. “It was a longtime supervisor in our company who had worked with us since the late ‘90s.”

The Latinx community, which makes up the majority of the U.S. wine industry’s farmworkers, has proven to be especially vulnerable to Covid-19. In California, for example, Latinx persons account for 59 percent of positive Covid-19 cases and 47 percent of deaths, despite making up just 39 percent of the state’s population, according to the California Department of Public Health. This vulnerability is mostly attributed to the farmworker community’s low-income, socioeconomic realities; many workers live in multi-family housing and often carpool together in vans and other large transport vehicles. In Napa County alone, an outbreak of roughly 70 cases of Covid was reported in the county’s farmworker centers in July.

As the 2020 harvest kicks off, maintaining the health of farmworkers is a top priority for wineries and vineyard management companies. If outbreaks do occur among vineyard crews, the wine industry could find itself in the midst of a labor shortage during the busiest time of year, and some operations may even be forced to shut down for two weeks. But while companies can do their part by creating safer work environments — requiring masks, performing daily temperature checks, separating teams into small cohorts, and social distancing — there are no fail-safe measures.

There is, however, some help. For instance, the Napa Valley Farmworker Foundation and the Napa Valley Grapegrowers have joined forces with the St. Helena Hospital Foundation to fund and supply a mobile health unit capable of testing up to 100 workers a day at vineyard sites. These organizations and others — like ¡Salud!, a healthcare and outreach organization created by Oregon winemakers to address the needs of vineyard workers — are mobilizing to protect workers by offering education, resources, and health screenings that can, in turn, help pilot the industry through a harvest season like no other.

Credit: Viader Winery

Preventive Education Comes First

“Understanding how the virus transmits empowers people to make conscientious decisions both inside and outside of work,” says Molly Williams, industry and community relations director at the Napa Valley Grapegrowers and the Napa Valley Farmworker Foundation. The latter launched a Covid-19 task force and statewide education campaign, which includes resources like podcasts, videos, and posters.

Education is also an integral focus of programming for ¡Salud!. “There’s an element of education not always permeating into that community. We explain it in their own language and in the context of their own culture, which makes it more relatable and understandable,” says Stephanie Buchanan, ¡Salud!’s manager of philanthropy, who argues that education is just as important when a worker tests negative.

“We really drive home that you need to take precautions and how this impacts not just you, but your family as well,” she says. “People hear ‘negative’ and that’s what they focus in on.”

Drury, of North Slope Management, is in constant communication with her crew, regularly passes out printed flyers, and has created a group text thread for updates and reminders related to the virus. One of her employees, Francisco Hernandez, says one effective strategy has been for supervisors to communicate that a worker’s failure to follow health guidelines and social distancing rules can result in a loss of work, and thus income.

“It really sucks to work with the mask when it’s 80 to 90 degrees, but the attitude is that this is the only way we can move forward,” Hernandez says. “It’s not just for safety. What we’re implementing and the rules we follow, we’re keeping our jobs and feeding our families by doing that.”

Credit: Sarah Anne Risk Photo

Bringing Testing Into the Vineyard

While testing is seemingly the most effective strategy for keeping the virus out of the workplace, it’s not always readily accessible. Workers might not have the transportation resources to get tested or the proper identification, they may fear a language barrier, and be wary of how the test could affect their employment or immigration status. Major delays in result turnarounds nationwide further complicate things; test results in places like Napa County are sometimes taking more than 10 days.

One solution is to bring testing into the vineyards, like the mobile testing effort in Napa Valley that has conducted more than 1,600 tests since last month. Interested employers can reach out to the St. Helena Hospital Foundation to schedule testing. “From knowing the workers here, I feel like that would be a much better option for them,” says Hernandez.

Similarly, ¡Salud! launched an appointment-based mobile clinic that provides no-cost Covid screenings at vineyard locations. “We record things like height, weight, blood pressure, we do basic lab work like A1C, which can give us a sense of underlying conditions — diabetes being one of the major concerns of this population — and then we have an optional Covid screening,” says Buchanan, noting that 87 percent of farmworkers have opted into testing, with results delivered by phone 24 hours later.

Leveraging Local Support Services

By getting creative, seeking out, and utilizing local resources, wineries can ease the fears of their employees when it comes to testing and support them if they get sick. “For this population, a positive diagnosis means not being able to work for several weeks and especially right now, heading into harvest, this is when they make their money,” says Buchanan. “A positive diagnosis right now has a really big impact on that person’s financial outlook and on their family’s outlook.”

In order to eliminate the financial burden, Drury is working with a local nonprofit winery that raises funds for vineyard workers’ health care. This enables her company to pay workers to stay home if they are exhibiting symptoms, receive a positive diagnosis, or were in close contact with someone who tested positive. “We’ve figured out a way to pay our workers to encourage them to stay home and prevent people from not reporting symptoms,” she says.

When Hernandez was experiencing symptoms that he believed were allergies, he was able to go home for a few days while awaiting his test result. Ultimately, the test came back negative. “They were able to pay me for the days I took off, which was an assurance,” Hernandez says. “When you feel fine, you don’t really want to take time off, but when they have those policies in place, it makes it really nice to say, ‘I should follow the rules and I should go along with it.’”

Both ¡Salud! and the Napa Valley Farmworkers have sought out local resources that can provide isolated housing in the event of a positive test result, connect workers with medical care and a translator, deliver groceries, and provide assistance with child care. “Right now, there’s more and more coming to light about health care disparities and there are a lot of organizations out there,” says Buchanan. “It just takes being proactive.”

“We’re not just supporting the worker as a worker, “ echoes Williams, “but in a way that touches their whole life and supports their family as well.”

The article As Harvest Begins, Organizations Are Mobilizing to Protect Vineyard Workers From Covid-19 appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/organizations-protect-vineyard-workers-covid-19/ source https://vinology1.tumblr.com/post/627976694409691136

[moonwalkertrance]

New Mexico School Shooter Had Secret Life on Pro-Trump White-Supremacy Sites

For years before William Edward Atchison killed two students and himself, he lived a shadow life online—one full of crude alt-right memes and praise for school shooters.

In real life, William Edward Atchison—people called him Bill—lived in a little yellow house with his parents, about a mile away from the Giant gas station where he worked and from Aztec High School, where he shot and killed two students and then himself last Thursday.

At the murder scene, police found a thumb drive with a note that read, “If things go according to plan, today would be when I die. I go somewhere and gear up, then hold a class hostage and go apeshit, then blow my brains out.”

He wrote “work sucks, school sucks, life sucks. I just want out of this shit.”

“It’s a shame he wasn’t on our radar,” San Juan County Sheriff Ken Christesen told Fox News last week. “I don’t think he had anything so much as a traffic ticket.”

And yet online, the 21-year-old New Mexico resident lived a prolific life as a white supremacist, pro-Trump meme peddler who was most known for his obsession with school shooters. For a half-decade, Atchison spent most of his days online, repeatedly posting threats of violence and cries for help.

When users saw posts from Atchison, who went by dozens of names like “Adam Lanza” and “Future Mass Shooter” on both larger platforms like YouTube and racist communities like The Daily Stormer, they would often ask how his manifesto was going.

Despite local law enforcement’s claims that he wasn’t a known threat, and a visit from the FBI in 2016, Atchison spent most of the last half-decade glorifying school shooters on alt-right websites and posting plaintive appeals for help in fixing his life, according to hundreds of posts analyzed by The Daily Beast.

At EncyclopediaDramatica, a Wikipedia-style site for fringe internet users to describe memes and in-jokes in detail, he volunteered as a SysOp, the site’s word for an administrator. Atchison’s page, now replete with his screen name @satanicdruggie and his real identity, is filed under the “An Heroes” section, reserved for people who have killed themselves.

On the alt-right forums and hate groups he frequented, Atchison appears to have made many enemies. Despite later becoming a moderator of the site, one of Atchison’s most popular EncyclopediaDramatica accounts, AlGore, was banned from the site for two years when it was labeled as a “troll.”

And in the run-up to the 2016 election, EncyclopediaDramatica users excoriated Atchison for abusing his powers as a SysOp of the site. Users were upset he was appending too many pro-Columbine shooting memes and “shitty facebook commentaries” praising Donald Trump on the site’s home page.

In the thread, as it often did with discussions about Atchison’s last account @satanicdruggie, the conversation invariably turned back to his obsession with school shootings.

“Do you fantasize about shooting up the bullies at your school?” one user asked.

“Yah i remember him literally bragging about being *obsessed* with Columbine,” a user responded. “In 2016.”

“Have you completed your manifesto yet?” another asked.

Atchison even spread his affinity for school shootings and Nazi ideology in more sanitized parts of the web.

On Steam, an online video game store and community, Atchison used the reviews section to criticize Wolfenstein games, which are set in World War II-era Germany.

“I find this game highly offensive for featuring mass murder against your own race,” he wrote. In another review, he simply wrote, “RIP Hitler.”

In a review of Doom II, Atchison referred to the Columbine shooting as “LOLumbine.” His review for the game Hatred, a game which was initially pulled from Steam because the main character’s goal is to “slaughter innocents,” simply reads “ur going to ALL pay.”

And his recent posts reflected what seems to be a migration from trolling to honest espousal of an extreme right-wing political ideology.

In November, Atchison wrote on Steam, “How am I supposed to function in this world? Wherever I go, I see degeneracy. Pointless materialism, hedonism, sexual decay, dirty n**gers who do nothing but slowly break down this society etc. it’s fucking everywhere. No way to escape it, 99% of people are part of it and whatever I do I am confronted with the death of the West. Go to the store and buy groceries in peace? Nope, here’s a group of LGBT liberal filth in line with you. And there’s a n**ger family with 10 kids over there. And a Finn too, but he’s overweight as fuck and he’s buying alcohol and shit junk food. Fucking fantastic.

“I used to think that this was a phase and we’d get over it, but I have now come to realize that I was born into a literal dystopia.”

On Kiwi Farms, a forum that describes itself as a place for “gossip and exploitation of the mentally handicapped for amusement purposes,” Atchison frequently posted commemorations of mass shooters. Two days before his own school shooting, under his username “Fuck You,” Atchison posted an explicit sexual reply endorsing Lindsay Kantha Souvannarath, a failed mass shooter from Halifax, Nova Scotia. (Atchison used a photo of Kiwi Farms administrator Josh Moon as his profile picture for Steam.)

On YouTube, Atchison admitted he posted anonymously on pro-Trump, white-supremacist sites like 4chan’s /pol/ board or The Daily Stormer, but gave up when domain registrars kept shutting down The Daily Stormer’s domain names. He, along with most of The Daily Stormer’s community, said the sites were “shoa’d,” an anti-Semitic slur.

“[I’m] on different youtube channels, anonymous posts on the chans, or my work on ED,” he said. “Formerly DS before it got shoa’d and I’m too lazy to get TOR again.”

Atchison had also posted on Blockland.us, a forum for the Minecraft-like multiplayer video game, since 2014. His more than 40 usernames were meant to offend. Almost all were racist or violent by design. Several were modeled after school shooters, including Cho Seung-Hui, Omar Mateen, Adam Lanza, Elliot Rodger, and Anders Breivik. He also went by “School Shooter” and “Future Mass Shooter.”

Ryan Lenz, who monitors hate groups and extremism for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said Atchison’s pattern is typical of white extremists—even if his years-long archive of school-shooting proclamations might be unprecedented.

“Generally, mass shooters spend a period of time prior to their action steeped in studying previous shooters. They study the aftermath of these individuals. They have a great deal of esteem or respect for others who have done the same,” said Lenz.

“Add in the ideology, in this case these forums—it compounds the severity and the rate of radicalization.”

Lenz said the cocktail of violent rhetoric, mental illness, and economic despair is what leads to “mobilization,” the word experts use for the shift from radicalized online rhetoric to real-life behavior.

“What we’ve found with these ideologies is that they repeatedly lead to violence. There’s a dual line of radicalization happening,” said Lenz. “To steep yourself in Daily Stormer rhetoric and the sites like it is to put yourself in the headspace of where the violence is when not if.”

In his final days, Atchison used “Sam Hyde” as his display name, the name alt-right users on websites like 4chan and Twitter employ in an effort to dupe the media into sharing false information after mass shootings.

“The internet has changed a lot of things. Make it much easier for an alienated, isolated kid to find communities where they feel they belong,” said Lenz. “And it sometimes goes unchecked because of how the alt-right has presented itself: It’s just irony. It’s for the lulz.”

On EncyclopediaDramatica, Atchison also appears on the entry for Bob8466, or Carter Boyles of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a 15-year-old who shot and killed himself at his high school on Sept. 11, 2016. Atchison, who called himself a friend of Boyles on YouTube and the video game site Steam, wrote the Bob8466 EncyclopediaDramatica entry after the Iowa teen’s suicide.

“It is believed that [Boyles] was calmly talked down from going postal, instead unfortunately choosing to take his own life and becoming an [sic] hero to us all,” Atchison wrote under the username AlGore.

Like Atchison, Boyles was active on Steam and on YouTube, where he posted videos of simulated school shootings. In Boyle’s final video, a first-person walkthrough of the school where he shot himself, online acquaintances gathered to post comments in memoriam.

“Suicides are ignored,” Atchinson wrote, under the name Vance Stone. “Suicidal people who commit mass murder, however, get the entire world’s attention, garner thousands of fans / fangirls, become a household name and become celebrities.

“His action of suicide was tragic and it’s a shame he had to go out like that, because he was pretty damn cool when I chatted to him.”

Boyle wasn’t Atchison’s only school-shooter friend, according to “Smith,” a YouTuber from Texas who considered Atchison a friend. Smith’s channel, “Aesthetic Autism,” features mostly footage of war synced to music, and he recorded but has not released a podcast with the New Mexico murderer.

Smith told The Daily Beast that Ali Sonboly, the teenager who shot and killed nine people in a Munich McDonald’s last year, was also a member of the Steam group that he and Atchison started, called the Anti-Refugee Club. (Smith claims the group—which was taken down two months ago—wasn’t racist but “mostly satire.”)

“[Atchison] wasn’t alt-right. He wasn’t a neo-Nazi,” Smith said in a direct message. “Bill hated both sides... His emotions mixed with his politics.

“He was edgy, he was offensive, and he was shocking. He said a lot out of pure shock, but I didn’t think he’d be so moronic enough to do what he did,” Smith said.

That shocking content brought the FBI to Atchison’s door in 2016.

Acting on a tip that Atchison had posted a comment on a gaming forum asking users where he could get “a cheap assault rifle” for a mass shooting, the FBI interviewed him and his family, and ultimately determined that no crime had been committed and closed the investigation.

“He was cooperative,” Albuquerque FBI Special Agent Terry Wade said at a press conference last week. “He told us that he enjoyed trolling on the internet.

“The agents specifically asked him if he had plans about conducting attacks and expressed the seriousness that we take these type of things. He assured us that he had no such plans,” Wade said.

Atchison described the visit on his YouTube channel, writing in a comment, “I was part of the trolling and lulz... the feds investigated me cus some fag reported my profile to troll me... they said they didn’t think I was a serious threat and understood the satire…”

The Daily Beast reached out to Agent Wade about Atchison’s online behavior. Wade’s spokesperson referred a reporter to the San Juan County sheriff and said the FBI wouldn’t have further comment on the case at this time.

Brice Current, a captain at San Juan County Sheriff’s Office, said they were just beginning to process the crime scene and Atchison’s home, at which they confiscated his computer and Xbox 360. As for a motive, Current could only speculate.

“We don’t have a motive other than it was planned,” Current said. “He obviously did something in his life where he came up with this plan and idea and went through with it. Online gaming, or the people he associated with, or what. This was his plan and I don’t know, I don’t know. I really don’t think he had a motive other than to be famous in that world, whatever world that is.”

Despite building up a reputation for trolling on forums like EncyclopediaDramatica, Atchison took to other platforms like LiveJournal in a sincere search for someone who would hear his cries for help.

On the website Think Atheist, Atchison titled his sole post “Stuck in a Rural Redneck Town” in September 2014. “I don’t want to be lame or anything but I should probably come out about all this,” he wrote.

Under the name Demetrius Alcala, Atchison outlines his floundering career and social life in rural New Mexico. He applied to fast-food restaurants and dollar stores and was rejected. He hadn’t had friends since childhood, when two people took advantage of him after he loaned them video-game consoles that were sold or weren’t given back.

He had a 3.5 GPA, he said, but dropped out in 10th grade because of anxiety and the “backwards as hell” culture at school. He says he tried to go back but dropped out again, citing his abusive family.

He called his father a “fat lazy idiot who watches fox news all day” and his mother “a psycho hillbilly drunk from florida who’s really mentally ill.”

Two years before the FBI visited his home, and three years before he killed two people in a New Mexico high school, Atchison pleaded for advice on how to fix his life.

“Look, I’m sorry if I’m rude and hateful or anything, but I don’t know what to do. I’ve lived no life for nearly 19 years, most of which was in the miserable ass sun-belt. Did you know new mexico has the fourth highest suicide rate?” Atchison wrote.

“Should I escape this dump or deal with it? How can I become polite and make some friends out there in this world?”

Over 230 people viewed the post. No one responded.