#I think most Americans didn’t know about masking to prevent the spread of disease then though

[disasterhimbo]

This post is great, genuinely. People should want to mask for the sole purpose of protecting elderly, disabled, and immunocompromised people.

But it leaves out a very important reason which unfortunately matters more to most people I think, and that is: YOU are vulnerable to covid. Even if you don’t die, long covid is common, it’s miserable, and there are no approved treatments for it. Even if you don’t get long covid symptoms, there is almost certainly some form of long-term damage to your organs you just haven’t noticed.

If you enjoy being able to do things (or need to be able to do things to survive under the capitalist system we live in), if you enjoy not being in constant pain, hell, even if you just like not getting sick as often: wear a respirator in public.

Unpopular opinion: we should all wear masks as much as possible. Forever.

Immuno compromised people were in danger long before 2019. How many people could we have saved, just by masking?

Seriously. Disabled people deserve to live without fear.

We never know if we're carrying a disease or not, since most symptoms only show up after we're contagious.

Very useful in a world with cameras everywhere.

Even if your masking is not perfect, it is still better than nothing. Every step, even the smallest ones, is another layer of protection for immuno compromised people.

Wouldn't it feel good to save a life by doing something so simple?

Thank you and goodnight!

Edit: this is about all mask preventable disease, not just covid.

[whitehotharlots]

People don’t trust liars

I don’t like The Joe Rogan Experience. Not for political reasons. I just don’t think he’s very funny, and the times I’ve tried to listen to the show I found it boring, even when the guests were otherwise interesting.

In spite of my indifference, I’ve never understood the amount of vitriol that Rogan inspires. Again, I can’t claim an intimate familiarity with his beliefs, but while his politics seem somewhat inconsistent (something that’s true of the vast majority of Americans), on the whole he seems more progressive and leftish than most of the mainstream media. Why is this man a uniquely dangerous fascist, when the much more conservative and malignant beliefs of other info-tainment personalities go without much comment?

Turn on any news network for an hour and you’ll be subjected to a whole helluva lot of misinformation. This is such an obvious truth I don’t even know if I should bother googling for examples. Remember when Joy Reid brought on a “body language expert” to explain that Bernie Sanders was a lying Jew? When the media was lockstep in explaining that Iraq probably did 9/11 and even if they didn’t they’re still very dangerous and our troops will be greeted as liberators? When they said that Russia somehow stole the 2016 election and is also responsible for the collapse of our infrastructure? 

At the very least, the outrage against Rogan is selective enough to warrant examination. A person won’t get deplatformed for, say, supporting a war that kills a million muslims, arguing that the poor deserve to starve, consigning two generations of black men to the most aggressive and punitive legal system in world, or decrying the inefficiencies of single payer healthcare. You can hold all of these positions and not only receive airtime but still be considered a woke icon. But expressing skepticism toward a vaccine? That’s nazism, right there. We need everyone else to pull their work off this one platform to show how serious we are about fighting Bad Thoughts.

Ultimately, only the empowered favor censorship**.  They do so for one of two reasons: either they are lying and don’t want to get caught, or they realize they’re doing unpopular stuff and so they seek to disallow any scrutiny of their actions and beliefs. And, well... ugg...

See, the reason Covid vaccines are such a flashpoint right now is because the elite consensus does not hold up to scrutiny. If it did, there’d be no rush to silence critics. Vaccine mandates become a much more difficult sell when people are informed that the vaccines do not prevent the transmission of the disease. They greatly reduce the symptoms. They might lead to some reduction in transmission. But they do not prevent transmission. This is a scientifically undisputed fact. 

And yet, you can still go on TV and claim that the vaccines prevent transmission. That’s good misinformation, and so it’s not only allowed but encouraged. 

You see the problem here, right? Just from a public trust perspective?

I’ve mentioned this before, but the fact that official narratives regarding Covid have changed so many times should be manifest evidence of the idiocy of attempts to formally police “disinformation” in regards to public health. One of the most prominent examples is also the most illustrative: at the start of the pandemic, Anthony Fauci said we shouldn’t bother with masks because they don’t stop the spread. And, honestly, this shouldn’t have been a big deal--it was early on, we were still figuring stuff out. Expert consensus can change, and experts can actually improve their sense of authority by being open and honest in admitting how and why mistakes were made. 

But, jesus, just look at the explanation Fauci gave when explaining how his own misinformation was good:

"Well, the reason for that is that we were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply. And we wanted to make sure that the people namely, the health care workers, who were brave enough to put themselves in a harm way, to take care of people who you know were infected with the coronavirus and the danger of them getting infected."

Charitably, we can say that this was a noble lie, like what Awkwafina did to her grandma in that movie I rented but didn’t watch. A Slate piece titled “The Noble Lies of COVID-19” demonstrates that Fauci was actually lying about this lie, that he also gave private advice against masking, but he did so nobly. He was right to lie, and then right to lie about the lie, because he knows what’s best.

So, okay, we admit that lying took place. Experts wanted to avoid panic buying, so they did a little fib. But... the fucking glibness of this man, the inability to countenance the fact that admitting to lying on national TV might harm his credibility... this is the state of the American intelligentsia in the twenty-first century: we’re gonna lie to you, and you’re still gonna listen to you us, we are allowed to lie because we know what’s best and you’re too stupid to be trusted with the truth.

Those who can remember way back to spring of 2020 might recall that panic buying occurred even in spite of this very noble fiction. If you’re a real Corona-Head, you might even be aware that our public health response to the pandemic has been a disaster on all fronts, that the United States has one of the highest COVID death rates in the world, that our leaders utilized the pandemic as an opportunity to more than double the wealth of the billionaire class, and that trust in public institutions has never been lower. This begs an obvious question: why? We very nobly gave our public health officials glowing praise and carte blanche to say whatever jumped into their heads. C-could people somehow be disinclined toward trusting experts who gleefully admit to lying to them? No, no that couldn’t be it. Instead, the problem must be misinformation (the bad kind, the kind we don’t do). The problem is that there exist venues in which non-official narratives may be given voice.

Prior to last year, the (much more correct) assessment of Joe Rogan was that he was an empty vessel, a curious and gentle meathead who allows his eclectic parade of guests to speak at length about whatever topics they please. Joe just nods along, and says stuff like “that’s wild.” He rarely pushes back. He lends an ear and encourages his listeners to do the same.

This assessment is still in place, and still mostly true. Only it’s now cast in a much more terrifying light. This very process--simply letting people speak without recrimination, regardless of whether or not their beliefs have been sanctioned by corporate media--is now understood as the means and ends of fascism. All of our nation’s troubles, past and present, are attributable to the existence of so-called “discussions.” So long as we allow the existence of communication that is not subject to formal HR review, social justice shall never be achieved. 

Media elites have grown accustomed to never, ever being challenged. Even when they are wrong. Even when they admit to lying. And especially when they advocate for policies that fail. The rest of the pundit class doesn’t hate Joe Rogan because he’s conservative, because he’s not really conservative. Nor do they hate him because he lies, because they lie all the time. They despise what he represents. The notion of having to explain themselves is such a massive indignity that they reject it out of hand. The thought that expert opinion could ever be debated, in any context, represents such a profound threat to their self-conceptualization that they have honestly come to believe it is a form of fascism. 

** If you want to go down the pedantry hole and tell me that actually a boycott isn’t censorship since only the government can do a censorship and so when I get my coworker fired for giving Black Panther a low imdb score I’m not a censor... you can eat my shit. I don’t like you. I don’t care what you think. Your children are ashamed of you.

[snarksandkisses]

What I think about COVID-19 this morning - Malia Jones, PhD, MPH

What I think about COVID-19 this morning

March 5, 2020

 Maybe I'm the closest thing you personally know to an infectious disease epidemiologist. Maybe not--I'm not an expert on this virus by any stretch, but I have general knowledge and training from studying epidemics that is applicable, so here are my thoughts. 

 First and foremost: we are going to see a tremendous increase in the number of US cases of COVID-19 in the next week. This is not because of some new pattern in the spread of the disease, but rather due to a major change in the requirements to be tested. Until yesterday, if you had flulike illness but had not recently traveled to China, Italy, South Korea, or Iran, you could not be tested. This is just the way healthcare works, you get tested if you meet the case definition and the case definition included travel.

 As of yesterday, you can be tested if you are sick and have a doctor's order to be tested. So expect things to feel a lot more panicky all of a sudden. We will see hundreds or thousands of new cases as a result of testing increases.

 Second: is that panic legitimate? Sort of. This is not the zombie apocalypse. The death rate of 30 deaths per 1000 cases is probably a wild overestimate. (The denominator is almost certainly wrong because it is confirmed cases--and we only confirm cases when we test for them). That said, even at 3 per 1000 cases, this would be a big deal. A very big deal. By way of comparison, the death rate for influenza is between 1 and 2 in 1000 cases. So, yeah. Roughly 0x to 30x worse than a huge global flu pandemic? That's a problem.

 Unlike flu, COVID-19 is not *particularly* dangerous for children, so that’s some happy news. It is dangerous for older adults and those with lung conditions, so we need to be extra careful to protect those populations from exposure. 

Also, for millions of Americans, getting any serious illness requiring a hospitalization is a major problem because they can't pay for it. And our health care system is probably going to struggle to keep up with it all. And with China basically closed, our global economy is going to take a huge hit and we'll feel the shockwaves for years. Those are real concerns.

 What can we do? Our focus should be on *slowing down the spread* of this disease so that we have time to get caught up. Here is my advice:

 1. Wash. Your. Hands. Wash them so much.

The current best guess is that coronavirus is transmitted via close contact and surface contamination. A very small study came out yesterday suggesting that the virus causing COVID-19 is *mostly* transmitted via contact with contaminated surfaces.

I have started washing my hands each time I enter a new building and after being in shared spaces (classrooms especially), in addition to the standard practice of washing after using the bathroom and before eating. Soap and water. Hand sanitizer also kills this virus, as does rubbing alcohol (the main ingredient in hand sanitizer).

 There is no need to be obsessive about this. Just wash your hands. A little bit more effort here goes a long way. 

 2. Don’t pick your nose. Or put your fingers in your mouth, on your lips, or in your eyes. Surface contact works like this: you touch something dirty. Maybe it's an elevator button. Virus sticks to your hands. Then you rub your eye. Then you touch your sandwich, and put the sandwich in your mouth. Now there is virus in your eyes and mouth. See?

 You may be thinking, but I don’t pick my nose because I am an adult! An observational study found that people sitting at a desk working touched their eyes, nose, or lips between 3 and 50 times per hour. Perfectly normal grown-ups, not lowlifes like my friends.

 2a. There was one note that came out suggesting that face masks actually promote surface contamination because you're always adjusting them--i.e., touching your face. I don’t know if that’s true. But face masks should not be worn by the public right now, unless you are the person who is sick and you're on your way to or actually at the doctor's office. The mask’s function is to prevent spit from flying out of your mouth and landing on things when you cough or sneeze. It flies out of your mouth and is caught in the mask instead. If you are the person who is sick and not on the way to the doctor, go home. Let the people who really need them have the masks. Like doctors.

 [ETA on 3/6/2020 honestly people I am getting so much push back on the mask recommendation!! The world is running low on masks. If everyone wants a mask so they can feel ok about keeping their Daytona Beach Spring Break plans and then hospitals in India can't buy them anymore, shame on us.]

 Coronavirus does not appear to be airborne in the sense that doesn't remain floating around freely in the air for a long time, like measles does. You are probably not going to breathe it in, unless someone is coughing in front of you. If someone is coughing in your face, feel free to tell them to get their ass home and move 6 feet away from them. (Yeah I know, if you have a toddler, you're screwed.)

 3. Sanitize the objects you and lots of other people touch, especially people outside your family--like door handles, shared keyboards at schools (brrr), salad bar tongs, etc. Best guesses are that the virus can live on surfaces for 2-48 hours, maybe even longer, depending on the surface, temperature, and humidity.

 Many common household cleaning products will kill this virus. However, white vinegar solution does not. You can make your own inexpensive antimicrobial spray by mixing 1 part household bleach to 99 parts cold tap water. Spray this on surfaces and leave for 10-30 minutes. Note: this is bleach. It will ruin your sofa.

 4. "Social distancing." You're going to get so sick of this phrase. This means keeping people apart from one another (preferably 6 feet apart, and sanitizing shared objects). This public health strategy is our next line of defense, and its implementation is what will lead to flights and events cancelled, borders closed, and schools closed.

 For now, you could limit face-to-face meetings, especially large ones. Zoom is an excellent videoconferencing option. If you spend time in shared spaces, see #1. Ask your child's school about their hygiene plan, if they haven't already told you what it is. If I were in charge of a school setting, I'd be hand sanitizing the s*** out of the kids' hands, including in and out of each space, and taking temperatures at the door. I am planning to email our school nurse right after this to ask if they need my volunteer help cleaning surfaces.

 If you can telecommute, do that a little more. If you are someone's boss and they could do their job remotely, encourage them to do that. 

 Avoid large gatherings of people if at all possible, especially if they are in an area with cases OR places that lots of people travel to. If you attend group events and start to feel even a little bit sick within 2 to 14 days, you need to self isolate immediately. Like for a tiny tickle in your throat.

 5. All your travel plans are about to get screwed up. If you are considering booking flights right now, get refundable tickets. ETA: most trip insurance will not cover cancellations due to a pandemic. Look for "cancel for any reason" trip insurance. 

 Considerations for risks related to that trip you’re planning: how bad would it be if you got stuck where you are going for 3 to 6 weeks? How bad would it be to be isolated at home for 2-3 weeks upon your return? Do you have direct contact with people who are over 70 and/or have lung conditions? If those seem really bad to you, rethink your trip, especially if it is to a location where there are confirmed cases. 

 6. If you are sick, stay home. Please! For the love of all that is holy. Stay at home. Your contributions to the world are really just not that important.

 7. There is a good chance some communities will see school cancelled and asked to limit non-essential movement. If someone in your family gets sick your family will almost certainly be isolated for 2-3 weeks (asked to stay at home). You could start stocking up with essentials for that scenario, but don't run out and buy a years' worth of toilet paper. Again, not the apocalypse. 2 weeks' worth of essential items. Refill any prescriptions, check your supply of coffee, kitty litter, and jigsaw puzzles.

 8. I do want to remind everyone that when public health works, the result is the least newsworthy thing ever: nothing happens. If this all fizzles out and you start feeling like ‘Wah, all that fuss for nothing??’ Then send a thank-you note to your local department of public health for a job well done. Fingers crossed for that outcome.

 9. Look, I think there are some positives here. All this handwashing could stop flu season in its tracks! We have an opportunity to reduce our global carbon footprint by telecommuting more, flying less, and understanding where our stuff comes from. We can use this to think about the problems with our healthcare system. We can use this to reflect on our positions of privilege and implicit biases. We can start greeting each other using jazz hands. I'm genuinely excited about those opportunities.

 There is a lot we don't yet know about this virus. It didn't even exist 90 days ago. So stay tuned, it is an evolving situation. The WHO website has a decent FAQ. Free to email or text with questions, and you can forward this to others if you think it's useful.

 May the force be with you. 

 Malia Jones, PhD, MPH

maliajones@gmail.com

 I’m an Assistant Scientist in Health Geography at the Applied Population Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I study social contact of humans, and spatial patterns of infectious disease, among other things. 

   P.S. The number one question I am getting is, did you really write this? Yes. I wrote this. 

 I didn't write it for professional purposes, so I didn't put my work email on it. It was really just meant to be an email to my friends and family in advance of what I expect to be an escalation in the panic level. But it was apparently welcome information and went viral on FB. I've decided not to edit out the swears, even though I wrote this with a much smaller audience in mind. 

 Thanks for checking your facts! Go science! 

[mittensmorgul]

Last night as I was enjoying my daily existential crisis because this is 2020 and that’s just part of the terrain now, I lay in bed unable to sleep. Because that’s also a standard feature of 2020. Normally I try to distract myself thinking about fanfic plots, or reading something fluffy enough to counter the raging cesspool that is reality right now, but last night was different. Probably inspired by abject frustration at *waves hands at everything in general*, I imagined a very satisfying interview scenario. Maybe this will prove satisfying to others, at least in a “here’s five minutes of catharsis but nothing actually substantive” sort of way that’s been my primary coping mechanism as our nation falls unchecked into open fascism...

I present, my dream interview with Tonald Drump, Commander in Cheeto.

(under a cut in case anyone’s coping strategy isn’t compatible with my coping strategy. this is basically just a bunch of stuff i often find myself rage-yelling randomly all the time now)

Me: Thank you for agreeing to answer questions honestly and sincerely tonight.

Dumptruck: *blathering about how great he is for even deigning to meet with random blue-haired chick* *additional commentary on my appearance and not being “his type” or something he thinks will weaken me... pffft*

Me: Can you give us some details about your health care plan? You’ve been saying for years now that it will be the greatest plan, but haven’t put forth even a proposal on it. How can it be so great if you won’t even share the details of it with us?

Turducken: *is already repeating superlative adjectives because he only knows like six* *says nothing of substance before changing the subject to the care he received as if that were a standard available to everyone*

Me: You have to admit that your treatment for Covid-19 was not what the vast majority of Americans have access to, so it’s not fair to hold that up as a standard. Let’s pivot to the fact that your administration has chosen to do nothing to prevent the spread of covid, refusing to even institute a national mask mandate that could begin curbing the spread of the disease immediately.

Dumpsterfire: *interrupts to blather about how masks don’t work because Fauci said so in March* *repeats every lie he’s been telling since February about covid* *insists again that everything is great and we’re rounding a corner and it will all go away*

Me: You do understand that repeating lies does not make them any less false, right? It’s a simple concept, but please tell me that you do understand you can’t alter reality by insistently making stuff up?

Thunk: *insists he’s telling the truth and science is lying and reality is exactly how he describes it*

Me: *smiling sweetly* Again, repeating lies, denying reality in favor of your invented musings is called “magical thinking,” and most people outgrow the belief that their imaginings can alter reality by the time they enter elementary school. So I will ask again, do you understand that the lies you tell and your fantasy projections are incompatible with reality, and that repeating them again and again doesn’t change that fact? Or are you incapable of grappling with reality as it exists and expect it to bend to your will? Because, with all due respect, that’s not how any of this works.

Dunkaroo: *blathering and gibbering and not even bothering to look for an excuse to leave before bolting for the door, but he discovers that he is actually locked into the interview room with me and cannot escape*

Me: While I have you here, one more question. Why do you feel that the entire American populace needs to be placated the same way you and your vast ego need? Why do you think we’re all as incapable of confronting reality as you are? Using the excuse that you didn’t want the public to “panic” or “be afraid” of the truth about covid? Because being well informed and armed with An Actual Plan to combat the disease could’ve been presented as doing our patriotic duty. It could’ve been an opportunity to unite and uplift the nation as it has been in so many other countries. Yet instead you chose to divide, pillage, incite fear and confusion during a global pandemic that has become a national crisis and mass casualty event only eclipsed in the number of Americans dead by WWII and the Civil War. And there’s no end in sight, thanks to the incompetent bungling of your entirely corrupt administration. How do you defend yourself against the reality of your role in this abject national shame? Are you afraid and merely projecting your inability to deal with this childish fear onto the people you’ve sworn to lead and defend? Do you feel your ultimate failure of leadership and morality, or are you the soulless sociopath you appear to be on the surface? Or does any of this even matter to you as long as your fascist agenda succeeds? How much more do you intend to undermine and violate the U.S. Constitution you have sworn to uphold? What additional acts of treason do you plan to perpetrate before we finally eject you from the office you have demonstrated you are entirely incapable of serving?

---

At this point in the fantasy, I am standing over him as he cowers and cries on the floor. It’s very satisfying, if entirely unrealistic. I don’t even care. It made me feel better... at least enough to get a decent night’s sleep. 

[bellboy905]

Trump now fancies himself a “wartime president.” How is his war going? By the end of March, the coronavirus had killed more Americans than the 9/11 attacks. By the first weekend in April, the virus had killed more Americans than any single battle of the Civil War... On the present trajectory, it will kill, by late April, more Americans than Vietnam. Having earlier promised that casualties could be held near zero, Trump now claims he will have done a “very good job” if the toll is held below 200,000 dead.

[...]

That the pandemic occurred is not Trump’s fault. The utter unpreparedness of the United States for a pandemic is Trump’s fault. The loss of stockpiled respirators to breakage because the federal government let maintenance contracts lapse in 2018 is Trump’s fault. The failure to store sufficient protective medical gear in the national arsenal is Trump’s fault. That states are bidding against other states for equipment... is Trump’s fault. Air travelers summoned home and forced to stand for hours in dense airport crowds alongside infected people? That was Trump’s fault too. Ten weeks of insisting that the coronavirus is a harmless flu that would miraculously go away on its own? Trump’s fault again. 

[...]

For three years, Trump has blathered and bluffed and bullied his way through an office for which he is utterly inadequate. But sooner or later, every president must face a supreme test... that cannot be evaded by blather and bluff and bullying. That test has overwhelmed Trump... He is failing. He will continue to fail. And Americans are paying for his failures.

The coronavirus emerged in China in late December. The Trump administration received its first formal notification of the outbreak on January 3. The first... person known to have succumbed to COVID-19... in the United States died on February 29. The 100th died on March 17. By March 20, New York City alone had confirmed 5,600 cases. Not until March 21, the day the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services placed its first large-scale order for N95 masks, did the White House begin marshaling a national supply chain to meet the threat in earnest. 

[...]

Those were the weeks when testing hardly happened, because there were no kits. Those were the weeks when tracing hardly happened, because there was little testing. Those were the weeks when isolation did not happen, because the president and his administration insisted that the virus was under control. Those were the weeks when supplies were not ordered, because nobody in the White House was home to order them. Those lost weeks placed the United States on the path to the worst outbreak of the coronavirus in the developed world.

[...]

Through the early weeks of the pandemic, when so much death and suffering could still have been prevented or mitigated, Trump... made two big wagers. He bet that the virus could somehow be prevented from entering the United States by travel restrictions. And he bet that, to the extent that the virus had already entered the United States, it would burn off as the weather warmed. Those two assumptions led him to conclude that not much else needed to be done. 

[...]

On January 18, Trump (on a golf excursion in Palm Beach, Florida) cut off his health secretary’s telephoned warning of gathering danger to launch into a lecture about vaping... Two days later, the first documented U.S. case was confirmed... Yet even at that late hour, Trump continued to think of the coronavirus as something external to the United States... In a January 22 interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box, he promised:

We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.

Trump would later complain that he had been deceived by the Chinese. “I wish they could have told us earlier about what was going on inside,” he said on March 21. “We didn’t know about it until it started coming out publicly.”

If Trump truly was so trustingly ignorant as late as January 22, the fault was again his own. The Trump administration had cut U.S. public-health staff operating inside China... from 47 in January 2017 to 14 by 2019, an important reason it found itself dependent on less-accurate information from the World Health Organization. In July 2019, the Trump administration defunded the position that embedded an epidemiologist inside China’s own disease-control administration, again obstructing the flow of information to the United States.

[...]

On January 31, the Trump administration at last did something: it announced restrictions on air travel to and from China by non-U.S. persons. This... has become Trump’s most commonly proffered defense of his actions. “We’ve done an incredible job because we closed early,” Trump said on February 27. “We closed those borders very early, against the advice of a lot of professionals, and we turned out to be right. I took a lot of heat for that,” he repeated on March 4. 

[...]

Because Trump puts so much emphasis on this point, it’s important to stress that none of this is true. Trump did not close the borders early. In fact, he did not truly close them at all... The ban applied only to foreign nationals who had been in China during the previous 14 days, and included 11 categories of exceptions. Since the restrictions took effect, nearly 40,000 passengers have entered the United States from China, subjected to inconsistent screenings.

[...]

A few days after the restrictions went into effect... Trump’s impeachment trial ended with his acquittal in the Senate. The president, though, turned his energy not to... the virus, but to the demands of his own ego. The president’s top priority through February... was to exact retribution from truth-tellers in the impeachment fight... Late on the evening of April 3, Trump fired... Michael Atkinson, the official who had forwarded the Ukraine whistleblower complaint to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, as the law required. 

[...]

Intentionally or not, Trump’s campaign of payback against his perceived enemies in the impeachment battle sent a warning to public-health officials: keep your mouth shut. If anybody missed the message, the firing of Captain Brett Crozier... for speaking honestly about the danger facing his sailors was a reminder... The president’s lies must not be contradicted. And because the president’s lies change constantly, it’s impossible to predict what might contradict him.

[...]

Throughout the crisis, the top priority of the president, and of everyone who works for the president, has been the protection of his ego. Americans have become sadly used to Trump’s blustery self-praise and his insatiable appetite for flattery. During the pandemic, this psychological deformity mutated into a deadly strategic vulnerability for the United States.

For three-quarters of his presidency, Trump has taken credit for the economic expansion that began under... Barack Obama in 2010. That expansion accelerated in 2014, just in time to deliver real prosperity over the past three years. The harm done by Trump’s own initiatives, and especially his trade wars, was masked by that continued growth. The economy Trump inherited became his all-purpose answer to his critics. Did he break laws, corrupt the Treasury, appoint cronies, and tell lies? So what? Unemployment was down, the stock market up.

Suddenly, in 2020, the rooster that had taken credit for the sunrise faced the reality of sunset. He could not bear it.

Underneath all the denial and self-congratulation, Trump seems to have glimpsed the truth. The clearest statement of that knowledge was expressed on February 28... at a rally in South Carolina... Somebody in his orbit seemed to already be projecting 35,000 to 40,000 deaths from the coronavirus... and his answer to that estimate was, “So far, we have lost nobody.” He conceded, “That doesn’t mean we won’t.” But he returned to his happy talk. “We are totally prepared.” And as always, it was the media's fault. “You hear 35 and 40,000 people and we’ve lost nobody and you wonder, the press is in hysteria mode.”

By February 28, it was too late to exclude the coronavirus from the United States. It was too late to test and trace, to isolate the first cases and halt their further spread... It was too late to refill the stockpiles that the Republican Congresses of the Tea Party years had refused to replenish, despite frantic pleas from the Obama administration. It was too late to produce sufficient ventilators in sufficient time.

But... it was still not too late to arrange an orderly distribution of medical supplies to the states, not too late to coordinate with U.S. allies, not too late to close the Florida beaches before spring break, not too late to bring passengers home from cruise lines, not too late to ensure that state unemployment-insurance offices were staffed and ready, not too late for local governments to get funds to food banks, not too late to begin social distancing fast and early. Stay-at-home orders could have been put into effect on March 1, not in late March and early April.

So much time had been wasted by the end of February. So many opportunities had been squandered. But even then, the shock could have been limited. Instead, Trump and his inner circle plunged deeper into two weeks of lies and denial, both about the disease and about the economy... As late as March 9, Trump was still arguing that the coronavirus would be no worse than the seasonal flu... But the facade of denial was already cracking... The overwhelmed president responded by doing what comes most naturally to him at moments of trouble: he shifted the blame to others.

The lack of testing equipment? On March 13, Trump passed that buck to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Obama administration. The White House had dissolved the directorate of the National Security Council responsible for planning for and responding to pandemics? Not me, Trump said... Maybe somebody else in the administration did it, but... “I don’t know anything about it.” Were ventilators desperately scarce? Obtaining medical equipment was the governors’ job... Did Trump delay action until it was far too late? That was the fault of the Chinese government for withholding information... On March 27, Trump attributed his own broken promises about ventilator production to General Motors... Masks, gowns, and gloves were running short only because hospital staff were stealing them, Trump suggested on March 29... Were New Yorkers dying? On April 2, Trump fired off a peevish letter to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer: 

If you spent less time on your ridiculous impeachment hoax, which went haplessly on forever and ended up going nowhere (except increasing my poll numbers), and instead focused on helping the people of New York, then New York would not have been so completely unprepared for the “invisible enemy.”

Trump’s instinct to dodge and blame had devastating consequences for Americans. Every governor and mayor who needed the federal government to take action, every science and medical adviser who hoped to prevent Trump from doing something stupid or crazy, had to reckon with Trump’s psychic needs as their single biggest problem.

[...]

The federal response has been dogged by suspicions of favoritism for political and personal allies of Trump. The District of Columbia has seen its requests denied, while Florida gets everything it asks for. The weeks of... denial and delay have triggered a desperate scramble among states. The Trump administration is allocating some supplies through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but has made the deliberate choice to allow large volumes of crucial supplies to continue to be distributed by commercial firms to their clients... In his panic, Trump is sacrificing U.S. alliances abroad, attempting to recoup his own failure by turning predator. German and French officials accuse the Trump administration of diverting supplies they had purchased to the United States. On April 3, the North American company 3M publicly rebuked the Trump administration for its attempt to embargo medical exports to Canada, where 3M has operated seven facilities for 70 years. Around the world, allies are registering that in an emergency, when it matters most, the United States has utterly failed to lead.

[...]

As the pandemic kills, as the economic depression tightens its grip, Donald Trump has consistently put his own needs first... He has never tried to be president of the whole United States, but at most 46 percent of it, to the extent that serving even the 46 percent has been consistent with his supreme concerns: stealing, loafing, and whining. Now he is not even serving the 46 percent. The people most victimized by his lies and fantasies are the people who trusted him... who harmed themselves to prove their loyalty to Trump. 

[...]

In the past, Americans could at least expect public spirit and civic concern from their presidents. Trump has mouthed the slogan “America first,” but he has never acted on it. It has always been “Trump first.” His business first. His excuses first. His pathetic vanity first.

[...]

He has taken so much that does not belong to him, that was unethical and even illegal for him to take. But responsibility? No, he will not take that. Yet responsibility falls upon Trump, whether he takes it or not. No matter how much he deflects and insults and snivels and whines, this American catastrophe is on his hands and on his head.

[shirlleycoyle]

If Swine Flu Happens During COVID-19, Are We Screwed?

It feels like 2020 can't get any worse, but it always does. Genetic testing of pigs in China from 2011 to 2018 leads us to consider a truly dire possibility: What if we weren't just dealing with one historic and deadly pandemic, but two? Could it even happen?

There’s an outbreak of H1N1, or the “swine flu", running through China’s pig farms right now. According to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, recent genetic testing of pigs in Chinese farms show genes “similar to [swine flu ‘09] virus,” and has “all the essential hallmarks of a candidate pandemic virus.”

So, how worried should one be about a second pandemic-within-a-pandemic?

As it so happens, the flu is more infectious than even COVID-19, but the world is also better prepared to battle it. It’s been doing so for more than 100 years, after the 1918 pandemic ravaged a world that hadn't yet discovered flu viruses. And the world, if not the U.S., is already at heightened alert for infectious disease. It’d be hard, but not impossible, for two pandemics to run through the world’s population at the same time.

Early warning signals are working

Despite what you may have heard, COVID-19 is not the flu. And the fact that we even know about the possibility of a swine flu outbreak is because experts know all about influenza and take it incredibly seriously. That we are discussing a possible pathogen as it is being reported in academic journals is a good sign. In many ways, health experts are playing catch-up when it comes to Covid-19.

“So what we're seeing a little bit is what public health is constantly doing,” Theresa MacPhail,a medical anthropologist andAssistant Professor at Stevens Institute of Technology, told Motherboard over the phone. MacPhail was in Hong Kong in 2009 during a previous outbreak of H1N1 and worked with the CDC to contain it.

The World Health Organization runs the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System. (GISRS) Established in 1952, GISRS constantly monitors influenza hotspots and coordinates with healthcare providers and world governments to keep things in check.

“In China, [government officials] regularly sample birds on duck and chicken farms and pigs on pig farms and all the workers who work there for this reason: to see what strains are in circulation to see if there are any potential problems," MacPhail said. "So that's what you're seeing is this particular strain has been in circulation for a while.”

According to MacPhail, there’s good cause to worry, but not to panic, yet. China’s experts sounding the alarm this early is a sign that the system is working as intended. She also said these kinds of alerts and alarms happen all the time. “Most of the time that stuff is ignored by the public,” she said. “You don't know that this is normal.”

Katherine Mason, a medical anthropologist and an assistant professor at Brown University, said that the world is prepared for the flu in a way it wasn’t for the coronavirus. “Everyone always thought the next pandemic was going to be an influenza pandemic,” she told VICE on the phone. “Every year you get news of some new strain of flu … [scientists] have spent a lot of time and resources trying to be able to anticipate the flu, which is partly why Covid-19 caught people off guard.”

Nidia Trovao, a virologist at the National Institute of Health, said she’s watching the new H1N1 strain but isn’t particularly worried about it. “I think the probability of having two pandemics simultaneously is really really low,” she told VICE over the phone. She said that the virus has made the jump from human to pig, but only in the workers in close proximity to the swine. It has yet to move from human to human. “The big evolutionary hurdle is for the virus to gain the capacity for human to human transmission.”

Flu is watched so closely because, in the past, it’s been devastating. The 1918 flu pandemic was a predecessor of H1N1. While it’s often called “the Spanish Flu,” epidemiologists traced its origins to pig farms in Kansas, where it spread through U.S. Army bases and into the wider world. Epidemiologist and historians estimate that the flu killed more than 50 million people worldwide. It was devastating, but scientists learned a lot about how to fight a global influenza pandemic.

The concept of social distancing and wearing masks to prevent the spread of infection were lessons learned during the 1918 pandemic. One of the reasons that the flu spread so fast was because of the close quarters assigned to troops in the U.S. military. Much of the world’s modern health system and America’s modern mliitary’s sanitation practices are direct results of what we learned during the 1918 pandemic.

“This is actually a system that's working that's been in place for a long time,” MacPhail said. “And scientists are relatively on top of it.”

Health measures are already in place

According to MacPhail, the world is better positioned to deal with a flu outbreak than any other infectious disease, even Covid-19. “In some ways, this is the best possible time that's ever been for a new dangerous flu, and this one isn't even that dangerous. It looks like the cases in people are pretty mild,” she said.

She acknowledged that the flu mutates all the time. What seems mild one day may yet turn deadly. But the world is already at least familiar with the measures it needs to take to avoid mass infection. They look a lot like what the world (except much of America) is already doing: masks, shutdowns, social distancing.

“But, say we do have something terrible,” MacPhail said. “We’re already wearing masks…we’re more prepared than we’ve ever been for something like this.”

The GISRS meets twice a year in Geneva to create the seasonal flu vaccines. “This works by having more than 100 laboratires around the world that get samples from these patients with influenza-like illness, then they test for flu using different methods,” Trovao said. “The good thing here is that countries in the Southern hemisphere are currently facing their flu season so we can learn a lot from their experience. We’re seeing lower levels than we usually observe this time of the year. Of more than 2,000 sample tests, only 37 were positive for flu. Those are good results.”

But Trovao those good results should be interpreted with caution. “The pandemic crisis forced us into isolation which will naturally curb transmission,” she said. She also noted that there have been some reports of people getting both the flu and Covid-19 at the same time. “Clinicians should be alert that the positive test for either virus does not rule out the possibility for the other.”

Flu is more transmissible and it evolves more quickly, but the period between contracting the virus and showing symptoms is much lower than Covid-19. We also have vaccines for the flu and systems in place to develop new ones quickly when a new strain appears. According to MacPhail, a new flu vaccine takes roughly 9 months after experts identify a strain. More than 130 separate Covid-19 vaccines are in development currently. The world is spending billions to rush one to market and best estimates say it won’t be available until early next year.

“We were not prepared for Coronavirus in the same way,” MacPhail said. “We weren't really surveying Coronavirus the way that we do flu and we don't have the vaccine technology in place already for something like Coronavirus. So that's what we're seeing right now and why this is so bad.”

H1N1 isn’t the only influenza strain on the watchlist. Experts are constantly tracking outbreaks across the globe. “Every day there’s something,” MacPhail said. “Normal people don’t know that there’s a botulism outbreak in cheese in Ireland right now.”

There’s also an ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, cases of bubonic plague in Mongolia, and yellow fever in Ethiopia.

The point is: the world is filled with disease. A new one popping up isn't cause for panic, especially when it's being so closely watched, but it is an opportunity to be vigilant.

But what if it's bad?

These assurances are good reminders of the world’s robust public health system, but they’re cold comfort in the U.S. where COVID-19 infections and deaths rise daily.

In America, and to a lesser extent elsewhere, COVID-19 isn’t just a public health issue, it’s a fiercely political one. State and local officials push back against CDC recommendations, citing economic concerns. Anti-maskers make public scenes that are quickly posted online and go viral. In my own neighborhood message board here in South Carolina, anti-maskers are boasting that they won’t wear a mask under any circumstances. A U.S. passport, once the key to unlocking a world of travel, is now a scarlet letter. So many countries are turning Americans away that it’s easier to list the countries Americans can still travel to than those that block them.

MacPhail initially didn’t think COVID-19 would be that bad, but told VICE after it became a pandemic that she’d been wrong. According to MacPhail, she failed to predict that the U.S. Government would do such a horrible job containing it.

It’s possible, and even likely, that a new round of restrictions based on a new outbreak wouldn’t be enough to convince people to change their opinions on masks and social distancing. They might even double down, at least at first.

Mason said she worries that fighting a second pandemic would be hard, in part, because the flu and COVID-19 have such similar symptoms. “If Covid continues to rage the way it has been here in the states, it’s gonna be very difficult to separate out the appearance of a new flu strain. That’s what I’m worried about.”

Winter is coming, and winter always brings the flu and other respiratory diseases. “I have two kids,” Mason said. “My kids, in the winter, pretty much always have a virus for like four or five months. So it’s going to be hard to differentiate a new one from the one we already have. That’s number one. Number two is the capacity to deal with it which is non existent in the United States at the moment. If the flu started going around, I would be surprised if it made things better rather than worse.”

According to Trovao, the scientific community is already worrying about the flu season. “By itself it already causes high morbidity and mortality,” she said. “I think this is the year where we encourage people even more strongly to get the flu shot, because it lessens the burden on the healthcare system so those beds and capabilities can be directed towards the pandemic.”

“What we are doing to curtail Covid-19, might also curtail the spread of other viruses and reduce transmission of both viruses,” Trovao said. “That’s where we need to focus—keeping people wearing masks and continuing to physically distance and getting the vaccine that we produce every year.”

Anyone can catch COVID-19, but the rates of infection and death are highest among the people at the margins of American society—the elderly and members of racial and ethnic minority groups in particular. This may make it easy for the powerful and privileged to ignore it, and even demand that others risk their lives to provide them with goods and services. A flu with a higher death rate than even Covid-19 (which doctors now believe may cause extensive and life-altering complications even after recovery) would not be so easily mentally sidelined even with the buffers of wealth, power, and even youth.

"I just keep thinking, ‘Thank god [the death rate is] only between one and two percent,’” McPhail said. “But that’s shitty, because that allows us to ignore it for longer. I guarantee you, if a bunch of 20 and 30 year olds were dying right now we would be taking this much more seriously. And if it was killing kids, we’d be on top of this.” (Younger people and children do catch Covid-19 and die, but at rates much lower than older people with underlying conditions.)

“The flu strikes children pretty hard usually,” Mason said. She stressed that every flu strain is different, and affects different groups in different ways. “But if it follows the same pattern as most flu outbreaks, we would be seeing a lot more children dying.”

In particular, Mason pointed to people's reluctance to get flu shots as a reason for its annual death toll. Concerningly, anti-vaccine conspiracies have already begun to circulate regarding a possible Covid-19 vaccine.

“Covid is worse, don’t get me wrong, but the flu is still a big killer every year,” she said. “Part of the reason is people don’t get flu shots even though we have them because they don’t take the flu seriously enough. The flu just spreads like wildfire. If we think Covid spreads easily, if we’re hit with a really serious and deadly flu pandemic it’s going to be even worse.”

According to McPhail, a deadly flu pandemic on top of COVID-19 would be nothing short of a national "reckoning."

“Coronavirus is playing into our worse national traits whereas flu would make us have a reckoning,” MacPhail said. “This is why, traditionally, we’ve been more afraid of the flu. Because it kills indiscriminately across age groups.”

Mason pointed out that even if there’s not a strain of H1N1, seasonal flu on top of the Covid-19 pandemic in the winter, when people get more respiratory diseases, is still concerning.. “[Winter] is going to be really bad. I’m very very concerned about it. If we throw the flu on top of it, even just seasonal flu… nature doesn’t care whether you’ve had enough. It’s gonna do what it’s gonna do. It can get a lot worse.”

Which is why, thankfully, the world's health experts and governments do all they can to contain swine flu. The 2009 H1N1 epidemic began in Central Mexico and spread out of control before global health measures, including a vaccine, brought it under control. The newest outbreak is in China, a country taking active measures to contain and control the virus’s spread.

The pandemics of 1918 and 2020 have taught us a valuable lesson, though: the world's virus response is only as strong as its weakest link, and now as in the past, that weak link is the U.S.

If Swine Flu Happens During COVID-19, Are We Screwed? syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[icannotreadcursive]

Avengers PSAs: On the COVID-19 Pandemic 1: Stay Home

Steve stood in the compound kitchen, looking casually polished in jeans and an army T-shirt that actually fit.

“Hi,” he said to the camera. “Most of you know me as Captain America, but right now I just want to talk to all of you as Steve Rogers about something that's very important for all Americans. The U.S. and the world are currently facing what may be the most devastating threat we've seen since the World Wars: the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

“Already, this pandemic has shut down businesses, schools, and entire cities—even countries—around the world, and killed thousands.

“It's scary.

“But we can all help protect ourselves and our neighbors, stop the spread of the virus, and save lives.

“We can do this by practicing social distancing and staying home.  Do not leave your homes unless you have to—don't go out to eat, don't go shopping, don't go to the movies. Come one!” He gestured and grinned. “It's the twenty-first century! You have the internet! Anything you could ever want right there to download, stream, or order for delivery.

“If you do have to go out, keep the trip short, keep your distance from other people, wear a mask, don't touch your face, and wash or sanitize your hands thoroughly and often.

“The point of this is to limit our contact with one another so we can't pass the virus to each other.  That's the best way for us to control this crisis. When I was growing up, I was really sickly, I had asthma, I was at high risk for pretty much every disease, and we didn't have drugs to treat or vaccines to prevent most things back then—just like we don't have a vaccine for COVID-19 yet, and we're still trying to figure out what drugs work on it. So whenever an illness went around New York when I was a kid, I stayed home, and my friends and family stayed away.  Bucky might visit, but he'd wear a mask, and he wouldn't touch me. If he even thought he might be sick, he wouldn't come at all.

“This situation with COVID-19 is the same way. Most of us won't get seriously sick even if we do catch it—we'll be miserable for a while, but we'll be okay—but there are a lot of people in your community, no matter where you are, who are like me. Old soldiers, kids with asthma, anyone with a weakened immune system or respiratory problems. This disease can kill them, and odds are frighteningly high that it will.

“So we all have to stay home to keep them safe. Even if you don't think you're sick, remember you can be contagious for two weeks before showing symptoms of COVID-19 and some people never develop symptoms at all.

“Don't put the lives of your friends and neighbors at risk. Stay home.

“I and all the other Avengers are self-isolating here at our facility in upstate New York; we'll all be putting up these video PSAs about how you can stay safe, do your part to save the world from this pandemic, and not go too stir-crazy.

“Thank you.”

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #265

“all is fair in love and war, i’m still rotten to the core.”

What's the latest youtube channel you've discovered and binge-watched? Ha, a WoW channel that basically gives advice and tutorials on stuff. She doesn't have many videos, but she's pretty successful already and chill as hell. Kraken Latte. Does it snow where you live? Occasionally. Very rarely does the snow stick, though, because the ground will be too warm. Do you think your hair looks better long or short? Short. Do you look best with or without bangs? Bitch I loved my emo bangs fuck off. Well, they weren't technically bangs, my hair was just parted far to the left. Do you enjoy editing photos on your phone? Well, my phone doesn't have GREAT camera quality, but I usually do some subtle edits if I take a pic on it. What's your favorite thing to do on your phone? Play Pokemon GO REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Which season do you wish would last longer? Shit man, fall. At least here, the phase of colorful leaves is VERY short. Goes from green to totally bare in what feels like just a couple weeks. How many outdoor birthday parties have you had? Hell if I know. How much taller or shorter are you than your mom? We're the same height. Who is your favorite sibling? Lol wow that's mean. Do you have neat handwriting? Yeah. Do you like sushi? I've actually never tried it, but I'm quite certain I wouldn't like it. Have you ever tried seaweed? Actually yes, I believe in the 4th grade? We had I think authentic Japanese (or Chinese, idr) food, and I recall there being seaweed. I didn't like it. The only thing I liked was the white rice, I think. Do you have an actual pig-shaped piggy bank? No, but I think I may have as a kiddo. Did you dream of becoming famous as a kid? No. Have you ever been to a gynecologist? I actually haven't because I've always said I wasn't sexually active (back then it wasn't a conscious lie, I just genuinely didn't realize what we were doing was just shallow sex). I'm absolutely terrified to go anyway because I'm just very very very private about this sort of thing and honestly think I'll have a panic attack when I do have to for the first time anyway. Name three games that you are good at. Shadow of the Colossus, Silent Hill, World of Warcraft. What was your favorite board game as a kid? Ha ha, somehow, it was this shopping game called "Mall Madness." Veeeery unfitting of who I was and what I enjoyed as a kid. Do you get on Facebook every day? Pretty much. Did you watch the Kids Choice Awards when you were a kid? No. What was your favorite girl group when you were growing up? Spice Girls, I think. Do you have memories that still make you cry? Yes. Have you made your own mask to help prevent the spread of the virus? No, considering I don't leave the damn house like ever. Do you know anyone who has the virus? Yes. Not personally, but distantly. Are you proud to be an American? (if applicable) Sometimes. What countries have you visited? I haven't left America. Have you ever had a controlling boyfriend/girlfriend? No. How many true heartbreaks have you had in your lifetime? Romantically, I only consider one to be a *real* heartbreak. Have you ever cut yourself? Yeah. Do you feel like everything is falling apart around you? BOY DO I!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Was your first kiss romantic? Yes. Do you miss any of your exes right now? My PTSD has been awful awful AWFUL the past few days, so yes. A lot. Have you ever overdosed on anything? Yes. What would you say if you found out your last ex was in a relationship? I'd be happy for her of course, but I'd also be very confused. She's made it clear she doesn't believe a relationship is the best idea for her right now. Who was your date to prom? Jason took me to his senior prom, and I took him to mine. Do you still talk to your first love? No, I haven't spoken to him in over three years now. Wow. Whose wedding did you go to first? I don't remember. I'm sure it wasn't the first, but ONE of the earliest that I do remember was when my friend Summer's mom got remarried. He sadly passed away a long while ago though. Are you ashamed of anyone you've dated in the past? Tyler, yes. It was so pointless and a "let's see how this goes" versus a "I really like this guy and really want this relationship" thing. I honestly think I only said yes to dating because I didn't want to hurt his feelings and I was lonely. What about anyone you've been friends with? There were certainly times it felt very weird calling Colleen my best friend with how bitchy she could be. Especially when you consider how non-confrontational I am, while she charged like a goddamn bull into arguments. Have you ever made out with someone in a pool? Uhhh I think that one night when I lived at the apartment and it was just us out there late at night. He and I went back inside before Jacob and Amanda TO hardcore make out because we both way too obviously wanted it so I wouldn't be remotely surprised if we snuck in some action at the pool oof. Who’s the last person that slept over your house? Sara. Do you still talk to the last person you kissed? Yes. Have you ever kissed someone with a tongue ring? No, I was the person with the tongue ring. I actually took it out a little while back because I was tired of accidentally chomping down on it when eating and chipping teeth. I'd already told myself if I did it one more time I would, and especially right now, we can't afford to keep filling cavities that have come from it. I don't at all regret getting it and it'll always be one of the cutest piercings I think I've ever had, but it was just time for it to come out. Is it hard for you to get over a lover? I THINK I'VE MADE THAT!!!!!!!!!!! O BVIO US S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Have you ever tried making someone jealous? Not to my recollection. Did your last relationship end because of you or the other person? Both of us really, but she initiated the breakup, you could say. Who is the last person you flirted with? Sara. Who's the most racist person you know? Jesus Christ, I live in the South. I know dozens of racists. I guess the worst is uhhh OH the aforementioned Colleen, holy fucking shit. I highly highly highly doubt that has changed at all since we last associated with each other. If you could be a film character, who would you be? Let me be Alice Liddell. Crunchy peanut butter or smooth? Smooth is the only way to go with pb. Would you rather always be in a crowd, or be the only person on earth? "Always be in a crowd. It wouldn’t be fun, but I think it’d be better than being that alone." <<<< This. I legitimately think I'd wind up killing myself in the other case. Would you rather be rich, or famous? Why? "Rich, because...what’s the point of being famous if you’re not rich? Just everyone knowing all of your business?" <<<< Also this. Do you squeeze the toothpaste from the top or the bottom? "I start off from the top until it gets used enough that I have to squeeze up from the bottom." <<<< Lemme just steal all this person's answers lmao. How many children do you want? Girls or boys? None, but if I was to have kids, I'd definitely want a girl. Is there a story behind your name? What is it? No. What was one of the most fun things you and your college roommate did together? I didn't have a college roommate. Well wait no, during my first college attempt is when I lived w/ Jason, Jacob, and Amanda. I'd honestly prefer to not think too hard back on it to answer this. Does anyone know your bank pin number other than you? Who? I don't even have a bank account. Have you ever had a boyfriend/girlfriend who was depressed? Yeah, multiple. Would you be embarrassed to buy pads/tampons/condoms? Which one more? Pads or tampons, nah. I'd feel awkward buying condoms though. Are your parents gullible? Dad probably is; he has very little common sense. I got it from him lmao. Mom, heeeeell no. Do you still own a VCR? No. What color is the computer/laptop you’re on? Did you buy it yourself? It's black. No. Does the smell of cigarettes, weed and beer repulse you? All three do. Was the last person you kissed younger or older than you? Younger. Have you ever purchased Girl Scout cookies? Yeah. How often do you drink Monster? Never, because I don't like it. Have you ever made totally pointless videos with your friends? HAHA I was a cringy teen once, my friends. Do you like sitting on the inside or outside of a restaurant booth? Inside. I feel safer. Do you own a nightgown? No, I haven't worn those since I was a kid. Have you ever worn fishnets? Fishnet gloves. I WISH I could pull off fishnet pants. Would you rather go out to eat or be eaten out? In times like THESE???????? Bitch I wanna go eat out at a yummy restaurant. Do you always wear your seat belt? ABSOLUTELY. I get so stressed out when I see people not wearing one. Have you ever liked someone much older than you? Not much older. Have you ever been in a play? Just school ones as a kid. Is there ice cream in your freezer? No, but there's popsicles from when I couldn't get my tongue ring out and it was massively swollen and in terrible pain. Thank God I finally got it out. Have you ever liked the lyrics of a band but hated the music? Probably. Does your bathroom have a window? Yeah, but it's very small and up kinda high. Do you go somewhere to get your eyebrows done? I used to, but I don't anymore. I just leave them be. Do you believe prayer really works? Nope. Have you been on a date in the park? No. Are there any diseases/health problems that run in your family? A whole. Fucking. Lot. To just name a few, depression, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, diabetes... Do you have asthma? No. Last person to take off your pants, besides you? Jason. Least favorite alcoholic drink? Mother of God, this white wine I tried at Colleen's forever ago. It was fucking repulsive. How did you meet the last male you texted? I mean I literally came from his balls so like Have you ever had an embarrassing email address? Ha ha yeah, the one I've always had. It's not very adult-ish or "serious"-sounding, but I don't want to change it now. Do you put shampoo in your left or right hand? Left. I squeeze with my right. Do you have a bull ring through your nose? No, I don't feel that would look good on me. Do you and your dad get along? Yes. When was the last time you did clay work/pottery? My last year of art in high school. I made an anatomical heart for Jason. I wonder a lot if he still has it after how much work I put into it. Do you like art, hate it or just not mind it? I adore art. The world would be so much more boring without it. If you had to choose would you prefer dull pain for 12hours or sharp for 2? Ew, dull. Two hours with sharp pain sounds awful. Do you know the words to the national anthem of your country? Yeah. Would you rather be a Model, Famous Scientist, Singer or Chef? Scientist, probably. I'd love to be a biologist anyway, and that's a type of scientist. Would you rather be a pilot, crime scene investigator or estate agent? Ohhh, crime scene investigator. Does making others happy really make you feel happy? Yes! Did you ever swear at a teacher in school? Why? No. Have you ever pricked your finger on Holly or another ‘sharp’ plant? Yeah. Have you ever written your own short story? Yes. What about a novel? Or perhaps you started and couldn’t finish? "I started writing several novels, but abandoned them all." <<<< Same yo. Either of the above, if this was the case, place short synopsis here: The first one was about a very close meerkat family, divided into elemental "breeds," and the prince falling in love with another of his kind. His father had a stray brother who constantly aimed to destroy the family, but he was converted towards the end. That's all I can really remember about that one. There were others like two species of animals I made also falling in love, despite being predators and prey of each other, and fulfilling some sorta prophecy with their offspring. The other two I recall- yo fuck it I keep remember more and more okay I wrote a LOT. Do you prefer SciFi/Fantasy/Action/Horror or Rom/Com/RealLife? I'm guessing you mean in books, given the last three questions? I have a strong preference for fantasy. What do you have a lot of faith in [note: can be anything]? Hell if I know. Would you rather have a big house, a lot of kids or a high flying job? High flying job, easily. I don't want kids, nor do I need a large house, especially considering I hate cleaning even this tiny one. Have you ever been to a creepy/haunted/abandoned place? Yeah. What did it look like and what were the circumstances? It was this really old, mostly dilapidated shack full of cool stuff. It was by the field near our old house. Me, my sister, and our friend hung out there and explored all the time until this freaky woman showed out and told us we shouldn't be there. Do you know a Jack? What’s he like? Yeah. I don't him that well though, so idk. How about a Lisa? What’s she like? Yeah, she's one of my WoW friends that I've become really close with. She is an absolute sweetheart, but talks about herself way, way too excessively to the point it's hard to have a conversation sometimes. I know she doesn't realize it, though. When you have children, would you like twins? I say enough that I don't even want kids, SO FUCK NO. Do you know any twins? If so, what are they called? Yes. Tyler and Taylor. I know others, but idr their names. What personality trait does nearly everyone in your family seem to have? We're stubborn as all fuck hell. Do you have any nicknames that aren’t derived from your actual name? Yeah, some online ones and then my mom has called me "Twinkie" since I was a baby. Do you have any allergies? Yeah, of pollen and silver. What is the longest your hair has ever been? To or maybe even past the small of my back. Have you ever been on a blind date? No, not my jam. What is the oldest piece of clothing you still wear and how old is it? I really don't kn- oh yes I do. I have these oooold old thin and sewn-back-up-fifty-times Batman pj pants from when Jason and I were together, so maybe like... seven years? Thanks PTSD, I'm attached to them because Batman was his thing. How often do you eat out at a fancy restaurant? Just about never. Nutella or peanut butter? UGGGGGHHHHH I've been on a nutella thing lately. Have you ever hosted a wild party? Definitely not. Name/author of the last book you read cover to cover. Do you recommend it? Wings of Fire: The Lost Heir by Tui Sutherland. Yes, it was very good. How many of your Facebook friends do you actually hang with? Besides my immediate family, like... none anymore. Have you ever donated blood? Yes. From 1-10, how much do you like decorating for holidays? This is hard to gauge. I've never seriously done it myself, and I don't really have the motivation to do it just to take it all down a month or so later. I love it in concept, but yeah. Favorite animated Disney character? Probably Kiara from TLK2. Have you ever cooked a big family meal by yourself? Ha, no. Favorite winter activity? TAKING PICTURES IN THE SNOOOOOOOOW. Do you consider rapping singing? I mean I guess? Does your home have a fireplace? No. Do you listen to any religious music? No. Do you drink soda? If so, which one is your favorite? Ugh... soda is my weakness. I'd probably lose weight easier if I just stopped drinking it. Mountain Dew Voltage is my favorite, and I've also been on a serious strawberry Sunkist thing lately. How easily do you cry? I cry very, very easily. Can you handle spicy foods? What is your spice limit? Oh yeah. The only way I know how to gauge this one is that I enjoy the "hot" sauce at BWW lol. I've actually kinda cut back on HOW much I enjoy it, though; like I'm more into enjoying my food thoroughly lately than the adrenaline of spicy food. What day of the week is laundry day for you? I personally don't do the laundry because Mom prefers to just do ours together, so. It varies, I think. Have you ever played spin the bottle? No. Do you have any stickers on your laptop computer? If so, what are they of? Not on mine, but the one I currently have to use has tooons. I don't feel like looking at the lid trying to list what they are tho. How often do you say "y'all?" It's pretty much in my normal vernacular due to where I live. Do you believe in evolution? Yes. I have questions and curiosities about it, but when you consider how truly short it has been since considerable natural selection has been observed, why couldn't it exist on a bigger scale? Do you live in an apartment or a house? I live in a house. How long have you been at your current job? I'm unemployed. Have you ever ended a romantic relationship? Yes. Phrase you say the most? Probably "oof" lmao. Have you ever kissed anyone of the same gender? If so, did you like it? Yes and yes. Have you ever given anyone CPR? No. Have you ever learned to do anything from a how-to video on YouTube? Yes, mainly just editing stuff. Have you ever auditioned for a reality competition show? No. Have you ever been in the audience for the taping of a TV show? No. I've been at hockey games with Dad, but I don't consider those "TV shows." Have you ever given money to a street performer? I've never even seen one. Do you own any homemade clothing? Not that I know of. Have you ever bought anything from a flea market? Yeah, decorations 'n trinkets and stuff. I love flea markets. Have you ever quit a job? Yes. Are your birth parents together? No. Do you or have you ever worn glasses? I've worn glasses for years now. Have you ever been broken up with? AKA died in spirit? :^) Have you ever been the victim of a nasty prank? Not to my recolleciton. Favorite fandom? Y'all been known, the Markiplier fandom is a goddamn family. Can you surf? No. What motivates you to do well in life? The knowledge that I've most likely only got one life to make something of. How lucky do you consider yourself? I mean, ALL things considered, I'd say I'm at just below the baseline, maybe? I mean I could be homeless or dying of malaria or something. Have you ever been summoned for jury duty? No. Favorite summer activity? Swimming! Have you ever lived on a farm? No. I wanted to for years as a little kid, though. How often do you get mad at yourself? I've lately been in an almost constant state of anger regarding myself, honestly. Have you ever gotten any stitches? Yes. Favorite YouTube channel? The Marker Plier guy. Do you have a pool at your house? No. Last thing that made you laugh? Something on Game Grumps. Earbud or earmuff headphones? Earbuds. Earmuffs hurt my head and ears. Have you ever been a bridesmaid or a groomsman? Yes. Have you ever gotten a New Year’s kiss exactly at midnight? I don't think so. Have you ever voted for a reality competition show? The only time I did that I remember is when Landau Eugene Murphy Jr. won America's Got Talent. I adored him and voted like mad. Does anyone in your family currently serve in your country’s military? Ummm maybe distantly? I don't know anyone off the top of my head. Are you comfortable with watching rated R movies? Well yeah.

[short-wooloo]

From the reviews section of ff.net A Thing Of Vikings chapter 87:

Every single “trump supporter” in these comments has immediately, without any consideration for any of the points made in this or the previous chapter, proved them entirely correct. I’m reading at least two death threats, multiple condemnations that are straight up lying about things Trump’s done and have misstated facts about the COVID-19 outbreak, etc. The Trump stuff is all politics, but essentially; He didn’t drag the economy up, somehow. Those are remnants of Obama’s economic policy combined with a small global uptick. Economic policy takes years to go into effect, so we won’t know how successful his policies were until at least another half a year or more. And we won’t even know that because COVID-19 exists. So far, though, doesn’t look like he’s done much. He’s completely decimated the robustness of the economy; fallback systems that were formerly in place for all sorts of emergencies, economic, health, and otherwise, including the CDC(which he cut the budget of), pretty much every single department with a relation to population and earth/climate studies(which, contrary to Trumpist belief, doesn’t just have to do with climate change but also with things like *how we can avoid viruses jumping between species like coronavirus did* and *how we can get maximum yield out of our agriculture*, and more), dismantled or attempted to dismantle or is in the process of dismantling pretty much the entirety of the US healthcare support system(slashing federal contributions to medical think tanks and regulatory organizations, scaling down operations of said facilities, cutting government spending on hospitals and hospital plans), etc. All of the above, whatever your opinions on their budgetary necessity, have for a fact caused one thing. You know what that is? The current COVID-19 crisis. Medical supplies; gone. Many hospitals; now underfunded. Medical plans for most people; kaput. Unemployment support for every class of unemployment, including temporary or transitional unemployment; nada. CDC; has been instructed to NOT do anything, it seems. Since, y’know...they haven’t done anything this entire crisis. Trump’s two biggest flaws, regardless of politics, are his impulsiveness and his ego - ie, his need to take credit for anything good that happens, essentially. That means disassembling the CDC so his task force can do everything and he can say, “Look! I did that!”. That means holding press conferences where he answers all the questions, instead of Dr. Fauci, or any other medical experts, or even Pence, who’s actually being the more reasonable one and letting medical experts do their work. That means going on Twitter, while hundreds of thousands have died, and peddling theories about the Democrats making up statistics about the COVID-19 outbreak, which directly contradicts the statistics provided by the very experts he appointed and approved. At the very least, Mr. Trump has been a font of misinformation that is stemming efforts to fight the disease. More realistically? His inaction is the reason the outbreak has spread so far in the US. His inaction is the reason why hospitals don’t have funding or supplies(enacting the DPA without using it? ️). His inaction is the reason there isn’t any cooperation on a state to state level to fight the outbreak; each state is going at it alone. His inaction has killed upwards of 20 thousand people, at this point; and it is slated to kill 60 thousand plus more, with how things are going. Not only that; the sheer misinformation here about the outbreak is stunning. The Chinese federal government actually took pretty direct action as soon as they heard about it; issue being, it was the inherent corruption of their own government that prevented the federal government from hearing about the outbreak. Records show the city government had blocked any efforts to try and communicate the severity of the outbreak - and even news the outbreak existed - from the federal government. The instant the federal government heard, they sent investigation teams and started making moves to shut things down - most likely a PR move for the most part, to get their own butts out of the fire, but ultimately still the most effective move they could have made at the time. They lie about stats, true, but their methods of controlling the outbreak are effective. The reason why it spread so fast is not just because of global inaction - it’s because China is China, and the disease is exceptionally infectious. If I remember correctly, it’s twice as infectious as the flu; kills on an order of magnitude more people; has an extremely long period of time in which patients are both infectious and asymptomatic; can jump between species, as already shown; has at least three strains jumping around; is completely new to modern medical science; and is a coronavirus, a class of virus that has very few actual treatments as of the modern age. SARS and MERS, the other two most similar coronaviruses, had basically no reaction in terms of medical development; they were too “small” and localized. Not enough time, or sample.a, to even effectively develop treatments. All these things combined caused the current crisis. It’s one of if not the most infectious disease we’ve seen in centuries, perhaps millennia, or perhaps even ever. And that makes it a lot more dangerous than a disease that kills 100% of those it infects, or anything that lethal. As for these responses and this story; Are you all really right-leaning Americans? Does freedom of fucking speech ring a bell? AToV is allowed to say whatever they want; as a more right leaning moderate, I agree with some of the things said(everything about Trump’s response to COVID-19 reeks of politics and not science), and I disagree with some of the others. But I can certainly see the point being made, that y’all are fucking toxic - and you know who I’m talking about. Death threats are unacceptable. The responses aren’t that bad, for the most part - even many of those disagreeing - but the disagreements with death threats and those complaining about the mere expressing of opinions need to stop. Y’all complaining about double standards, but in your fucking retarded self-righteousness you are applying a double standard. So you’re apparently allowed to express your opinions, not to mention for some in a way that’s illegal and can be investigated by law enforcement, but AToV isn’t on their own fucking story? Get a fucking life. To the few who disagreed and responded civilly, without the “WaaAh you’re NOT allowed to express your opinions if they disagree with me! Shitty person!” Or “Go die for having an opinion!”, kudos to you. Although, please. Stop spreading misinformation about the virus. What we need right now is a coordinated federal and international response, not each state hammering in different ways at the same problem, and each country following suit. If one state fights it off, and a single person crosses over from another state - outbreak number 2 happens, and it never ends. Trump needs to at the very least stop talking about an economic reopening, because now that’s completely infeasible because he reacted too late, and start coordinating a unified federal response. Companies are sitting on their asses not doing anything; the DPA is here just for that. Private individuals with fucking 3D printers are contributing to this fight more than some corporations with professional factories and injection molds for masks/equipment.

[anthonybialy]

Kabuki Quarantine

The government needs to keep you from living to keep you alive. Sickness is nothing new. Histrionic overreach is their only specialty. Mid-level elected executives turned broad suffering into specific interdictions about unrelated matters. Hassling maskless restaurant patrons brings to mind pointlessly invasive September 11 measures that haven't made us safe since. Confiscating liberty can only get worse if there are no marginal benefits.

Panic always motivates rational responses, so be sure to get wound up about the news. Those interfering with your business for your own good always use a totally calm counterpoint, which is that opponents of being bothered by law are demons wearing human skins who want everyone to croak. The claim is even more risible when made by those who tried to make nursing homes fun by letting everyone share a lethal disease.

We can move without fear through the sky thanks to an unwieldy legalized harassment squad staffed with the nation's ruder high school dropouts and convicted felons. You feel safer in the clouds, right?

TSA set the precedent for bothering Americans as a reply to horror. Pat the heads of anyone claiming security theater has prevented any terror measures. Then pat the bathing suit area, because they tacitly admitted they like it. To be fair, people who are useless even by federal standards have stopped plenty of travelers from making flights. It's easier to harass the innocent than terrorists, if not quite practical.

If al-Qaeda wanted flyers to remove shoes, they won. Hopeful passengers are still wandering aimlessly around security checkpoints protected from hideous floors with nothing but socks almost 19 years after that vile dastard tried to light his footwear fuse. And the liquid bomb plot was in 2006 if you wonder why you can't bring a Dr Pepper aboard in 2020. Tales of carrying liquids on flights are legends at this point. Those out to attack surely haven't attempted to devise new methods to inflict atrocities. But being kept thirsty surely makes air travel safe.

Security professionals couldn't spend a few seconds talking to passengers. Those obsessed with tolerant equality to the point of risking everyone's lives are focused on implements instead of humans with nefarious intentions, which for the record is also why gun control doesn't work. It's simply uncanny how the same principles apply to different issues. Similarly, bandana fetishists refuse to acknowledge common sense can do more to defeat an epidemic than mandatory cotton facial application.

Concerned people have done more than any bossy order to stop the contagion. Common sense is the best protection, which is why fans of big government think we're stuck with getting infected forever. Those who totally trust their fellow humans think simple wisdom must be mandated. Overreaching has created economic and human depression, but it's crucial to build counterproductive dependence.

There's little hope of order when forces of chaos get to impose their wills. Governments are reactive by nature, as they have to see what damage they inflict before they announce how to fix it. Residents who had dwellings ransacked are trying to rebuild after a toddler tornado, with the difference being legal adults don't have the excuse of being two years into life and experiencing the energy jolt provided by consuming handfuls of Sour Patch Kids for the first time. Anyone tasked with cleaning up after the immature can only attempt to repair some of the damage's effects. I'm sorry about your coffee table.

Capricious restrictions in the face of contagious disease are the opposite of scientific. I hope the illness is prevented by superstition, as the only other method currently being deployed as a bulwark is sanctimony. Call your birthday party a rally against injustice to keep Democratic governors from ordering dispersal.

Faith will protect you, according to our present understanding of epidemiology. Chant about six feet while wearing a ceremonial mask to maintain health. The only way to stay safer is to attend a protest enchanted against infection. Your cause just has to reach a certain level of righteousness, like wanting to replace cops with social workers.

Capricious orders are the most caring, as they mean benevolent saviors sense troubles unenlightened commoners don't. Being told what to do only seems like a random burden to the benighted.

Those who don't grasp how good they have it with their lives limited think they're being held back by governors who don't understand politics. Surely, office-fillers grasp the subtle scientific complexities involved in spreading illness. Political science majors who became lawyers are renowned for knowing how experiments work.

If you're already feeling sick, knowing we could've been done with this stupid illness might not make you feel better. People could have coped as it passed and immunity built while washing our hands and sticking grandma in a John Travolta bubble. But then we wouldn't have shut down the fundamental aspects of society for months.

The era for speciousness will always feature claims of unilaterally shutting down interactions prevented life from turning into a zombie movie. Sagacious elected prophets kept you safe by ruining your life, and you won't even build statues. You're so ungrateful just because you noticed all this ruin didn't even help. The same people don't think more cops prevent crime from happening in the first place need you to stay in solitary confinement just until life has no more problems.

[calle8cat]

Welcome to the year 2020. Do you want the bad news or the good news first?

March 21st, 2020

First post. I’ve been wanting to write down everything I’ve been feeling and seeing and thinking. Finally getting around to it. It has to be good for something.

I’m going to format my posts with a health update, society update(global, national, and local) and journal my thoughts and feelings.

To catch you up, this is the worst year we’ve had as a planet in a long time. Australia caught on fire for a few months, but they finally put it out, thankfully. A war almost started somewhere. I forget with who. But that has all been dwarfed in recent weeks.

A strange respiratory flu virus usually contained to animals somehow transferred to humans in Wuhan, China. It’s a type of Coronavirus. It is a flu at least 4x more deadly than the seasonal flu. It lies undetected in contagious individuals for up to two weeks, possibly longer. It doesn’t even show symptoms for a vast majority of carriers. But for those it does infect and who do show symptoms(10-30% of the population), 20% need hospitalization, and 4-7% die from it. So if the world is 7.5 billion people, up to 90 million people could die from it if not properly contained. These are wild numbers but some countries are not, in fact, containing responsibly.

China went into lockdown, built emergency hospitals overnight, and probably suppressed their data so no one knew how bad it really was. So the rest of the world didn’t quarantine anyone coming in from China.

Some countries did, like Guatemala and Tasmania.

For the rest...Big mistake. It hit South Korea first, then Japan. The diamond princess was a cruise ship off the coast of Japan that had been quarantined poorly for a month. Tons of people got it there. But japan and South Korea took it seriously overall, and they have avoided a huge outbreak.

It hit Iran and Italy very badly too. Citizens of Iran just aren’t self quarantining to prevent the spread. Last I heard, one person every three minutes was being diagnosed with it there. Italy, sadly, didn’t, and still isn’t, taking it seriously either. They didn’t shut down their borders until much later. Their sick and dead in the northern region have overwhelmed the medical system. Thousands are dying. They’re dying in hospital hallways. Alone. Doctors and Nurses are dying from it. Five so far. Most of the medical staff in hospitals seem to get it and work through it to help the rest of us.

The worst responses so far out of the wealthiest countries have for sure been The United States and The United Kingdom.

I can’t do much to comment on the UK, as reports from the US are much worse and local, so I see them more. But I do know people are only working if their bosses make them, so some are forced to, and risk exposure or spread in public. I also know the UK has offered to pay citizens 80% of their missed wages. That’s good.

What’s not good is the US’ response. A joke. Our abysmal president downplayed it for months. He even called it a lie. His constituents hushed the drama so they could sell stock before the market crashed. He defunded the pandemic response and preparedness team and ignored their warnings last years. So far, no real lockdown from the government either. Certain states have called for non essential business to close down. Luckily I live in one and luckily my employer has complied. I’m so thankful.

Tons of businesses are unable to stay afloat. Millions of Americans have already lost their jobs. We are in a recession. We will enter a depression.

Another issue for our country is the complete lack of preparedness, funding, and supplies. We have so few test kits that some places like LA have given up on testing. We went from 1 case to 200 to “not going to count anymore” in less than a week. The beds we have to support people stricken by this disease are far too few. Not enough gloves, ventilators, masks, or healthcare professionals. We’ll get to Italy’s state soon.

I don’t want to be involved. I’ve been self containing as much as possible for weeks. Now I’m in total lockdown at my family home. The government is saying 14 days of quarantine. Most of us know it’ll be 2-3 months.

What will happen to our society though? How will the unfortunate (read: 90% of Americans) be able to survive without income? Can and will my republican government support them with food banks and soup kitchens? I fear not, as we have an emotionally and logically inept president. He is no leader, he’s hardly even human. He’s evil, which I’ll define as cruel, abusive, and totally lacking of empathy.

I once read The Secret Life of Bees. One character ha something wrong with her, where she feels all the negativity from the world so can’t watch the news or it breaks her. I relate to that. Far too empathetic for my own good. I’m feeling emotionally broken lately. I fear for social unrest. I fear for violence. I fear for suffering. For others mostly. Myself, yes. But really, for us all. I’m aware of how powerful that much evil is and worried about what’s to come.

I’m currently sick with god knows what. Possibly it. I went to the hospital once after fever and vomiting and chest pain but they laughed in my face. Gave me tamiflu and sent me on my way. I got it again two weeks later. The cough never left. My chest hurts. But I’m lucky and can medicate at home. This may be the year that I die. Who knows with this wild disease. But I’m not going to stop living.

Ok, that’s enough Debbie downer content. Next post: the positivity of it all.

[garudabluffs]

Is the Pandemic Over? Public Health Advocates Decry Biden’s Claim as Thousands Still Dying from COVID  September 20, 2022

President Biden declared that “the pandemic is over” during an interview on “60 Minutes” Sunday, despite data collected by Johns Hopkins showing COVID-19 killed 13,000 people across the U.S. over the past month as 2.2 million new infections were reported. “I think it’s very premature to say that we see the end is in sight with this pandemic,” says Steven Thrasher, author of “The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide.” He adds that the sentiment from the nation’s leader is dangerous because it discourages people from wearing masks and seeking booster vaccinations, which are still vital to prevent the virus’s spread.

Yale epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves tweeted, “Sorry folks. Mr. Biden is dead-wrong. 500 people dying per day. 2nd leading cause of death in US. We’re top in mortality among G7. Life expectancy down. He thinks this is good politics. It may be but it’s predicated on accepting the suffering of millions of Americans,” Dr. Gonsalves said.

STEVEN THRASHER: “I was really disappointed and disheartened to hear what the president said, declaring that the pandemic was over. Clearly, the pandemic is not over. Between 400 to 500 people have been dying every day in the United States. We’re just observing 9/11 a week ago. More people were killed in the last week from COVID-19 than were on 9/11.”

“So, it was narrow-sighted for the president to say that the pandemic was now over, and inaccurate, and really insulting to the millions of people who are sick and dying.But kind of at a technical level, the thing that I found most surprising is this administration has overly relied upon vaccines as the way to address the pandemic. And vaccines are fantastic. They’ve saved millions of lives. But they have to be used in concert with other things, that the administration has pretty much given up on entirely. And so, it was really surprising, given that we now have this bivalent booster available, that could really match the current circulating strain of COVID-19, and there could be nothing worse to be done to dissuade people from getting that vaccine than to say that the pandemic is over and you don’t need to worry about anything anymore.”

“So, people can wear masks, and people should wear masks. And there’s nothing that’s more difficult in getting people to do it than if the president of the United States says that there’s no need to do so anymore. I really dislike that he sort of said it passively, as if, you know, people just aren’t wearing masks, as if he’s not a leader who could be wearing masks. He’s walking around the Detroit Auto Show without a mask himself. And his administration has tried to do certain things that have been stymied by the courts. Their original order to have people wear masks on public transportation was challenged and struck down by one federal judge, but they didn’t ask for an emergency injunction. They have not fought to keep those things in place. They have not modeled that kind of behavior themselves.And even under all of this, many of us, myself included, are in institutions and spaces where we’re trying to get people to wear masks, we’re trying to have mask mandates on our campuses or at academic conferences or events that we’re part of. And it makes it almost impossible to do so, to convince organizers that we should take the step, if the president of the United States himself is saying that we don’t need these masks and that they can’t do anything to help.” + “We need to, as aggressively as possible, try to use masks in situations where we can.”

“You know, there was a huge rate of incarceration under President Obama, under President Trump and now under President Biden. And when you look at the border, I think The New York Times just reported last night or this morning that we had the first year where 2 million people have been detained for immigration and border enforcement, and jails and prisons around incarcerating people who are legally seeking asylum and trying to get out of dangerous situations, and then putting them into conditions in which viruses move very freely and then are then going to move through their communities, that’s one of the engines that is really driving this pandemic.”

“And so, yes, you know, we want children to be together as safely as possible. That’s why we need to mask and ventilate and get vaccination as often as possible. But there are ways that children need to be protected from the death of a loved one and the death of themselves. COVID has been, you know, a very big killer of children, among the things that actually kill children. And so, we can’t just talk about lockdowns or think about the harm that comes from lockdowns, but also admit that this is a virus that could potentially have lifelong effects for children, and we need to have a sense of humility as we study that, and decrease transmission as much as possible. And we also need to make sure that they, their teachers, their janitors, their parents and grandparents are safe, because you need to be able to raise them. And all of the people in the children’s lives need to have enough food and housing security to be able to raise them in a way that’s going to allow them to flourish. We can’t just focus only on school — we can’t just focus on the potential of school closures. And we must look at everything it takes to keep children safe around this virus and in the totality of their lives.”

LISTEN READ MORE Transcript https://www.democracynow.org/2022/9/20/steven_trasher_pandemic_is_not_over

There Is Nothing Normal about One Million People Dead from COVID   February 10, 2022 

“Is it rational to ignore high community viral loads in American society and to not do more to lower them so that fewer people are exposed, become sick, transmit onward and possibly die?”

 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/there-is-nothing-normal-about-one-million-people-dead-from-covid1/

Biden declares the end of the pandemic, confusing many Americans                                                      September 20, 2022

Confusion abounds after a "60 Minutes" episode aired this Sunday in which President Biden declared that the pandemic was over, adding that COVID was still a problem. Many are now asking what this means moving forward. The statement comes as figures show that the latest booster is not being picked up as much as had been hoped, particularly among young people.

Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, joins Here & Now's Robin Young to talk all things COVID and boosters.

LISTEN 4:39  https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2022/09/20/biden-end-of-the-pandemic

[multipleservicelisting]

Pfizer Will Ship Fewer Vaccine Vials to Account for ‘Extra’ Doses

In December, pharmacists made the happy discovery that they could squeeze an extra vaccine dose out of Pfizer vials that were supposed to contain only five.

Now, it appears, the bill is due. Pfizer plans to count the surprise sixth dose toward its previous commitment of 200 million doses of Covid vaccine by the end of July and therefore will be providing fewer vials than once expected for the United States.

And yet, pharmacists at some vaccination sites say they are still struggling to reliably extract the extra doses, which require the use of a specialty syringe.

“Now there’s more pressure to make sure that you get that sixth dose out,” said Michael Ganio, the senior director for pharmacy practice and quality at the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.

For weeks, Pfizer executives pushed officials at the Food and Drug Administration to change the wording of the vaccine’s so-called emergency use authorization so that it formally acknowledged that the vials contained six doses, not five.

The distinction was critical: Pfizer’s contract with the federal government requires that it be paid by the dose.

At one point, Pfizer executives lashed out at the top federal vaccine regulator over the government’s reluctance to budge on the request, according to people familiar with the discussions who were not authorized to discuss them.

On Jan. 6, Pfizer got what it wanted. The F.D.A. changed the language in its fact sheet for doctors to confirm that the vials contain a sixth dose. The change mirrors similar labeling updates by the World Health Organization and the F.D.A.’s counterpart in the European Union.

Company officials, including the chief executive, Dr. Albert Bourla, have said that the sixth dose allows Pfizer to stretch its supply of scarce vaccine even further — it was one factor, for example, in the company’s new estimates that it will be able to manufacture two billion doses for the world this year, instead of the 1.3 billion it had originally planned.

A Pfizer spokeswoman, Amy Rose, said the company would “fulfill our supply commitments in line with our existing agreements — which are based on delivery of doses, not vials.”

When Pfizer first began shipping the vaccines in mid-December, it said that each vial contained enough liquid for five doses. But pharmacists in hospitals across the country soon noticed that the vials held enough for a sixth — and sometimes a seventh — dose. The discovery prompted a flurry of excitement and confusion, with some pharmacists throwing out the extra vaccine because they did not have permission to use it.

But they were soon advised by the F.D.A. that they could use those extra doses, which could be extracted with a so-called low dead volume syringe that is designed to cut down on wasted medication and vaccines.

Suddenly, it seemed as if the 100 million doses of vaccine that Pfizer has promised to the United States by the end of March would stretch to as much as 120 million — a welcome development given the scarcity of Covid-19 vaccines and the coronavirus pandemic’s mounting death toll.

But Pfizer insisted that those doses be counted toward its existing contract. It can now sell vials the United States had been expecting to other countries, or charge the United States for them in future deals. That could threaten the wave of good publicity that the company has enjoyed since developing a highly effective vaccine at record speed.

“Pfizer will make a lot of money from these vaccines, and the U.S. government assumed a lot of the upfront risk in this case, so I’m not sure why Pfizer didn’t just continue to fill their supply as planned, even if it meant oversupplying a little,” said Dr. Aaron S. Kesselheim, a professor of medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, who studies drug prices.

Covid-19 Vaccines ›

Answers to Your Vaccine Questions

If I live in the U.S., when can I get the vaccine?

While the exact order of vaccine recipients may vary by state, most will likely put medical workers and residents of long-term care facilities first. If you want to understand how this decision is getting made, this article will help.

When can I return to normal life after being vaccinated?

Life will return to normal only when society as a whole gains enough protection against the coronavirus. Once countries authorize a vaccine, they’ll only be able to vaccinate a few percent of their citizens at most in the first couple months. The unvaccinated majority will still remain vulnerable to getting infected. A growing number of coronavirus vaccines are showing robust protection against becoming sick. But it’s also possible for people to spread the virus without even knowing they’re infected because they experience only mild symptoms or none at all. Scientists don’t yet know if the vaccines also block the transmission of the coronavirus. So for the time being, even vaccinated people will need to wear masks, avoid indoor crowds, and so on. Once enough people get vaccinated, it will become very difficult for the coronavirus to find vulnerable people to infect. Depending on how quickly we as a society achieve that goal, life might start approaching something like normal by the fall 2021.

If I’ve been vaccinated, do I still need to wear a mask?

Yes, but not forever. The two vaccines that will potentially get authorized this month clearly protect people from getting sick with Covid-19. But the clinical trials that delivered these results were not designed to determine whether vaccinated people could still spread the coronavirus without developing symptoms. That remains a possibility. We know that people who are naturally infected by the coronavirus can spread it while they’re not experiencing any cough or other symptoms. Researchers will be intensely studying this question as the vaccines roll out. In the meantime, even vaccinated people will need to think of themselves as possible spreaders.

Will it hurt? What are the side effects?

The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine is delivered as a shot in the arm, like other typical vaccines. The injection won’t be any different from ones you’ve gotten before. Tens of thousands of people have already received the vaccines, and none of them have reported any serious health problems. But some of them have felt short-lived discomfort, including aches and flu-like symptoms that typically last a day. It’s possible that people may need to plan to take a day off work or school after the second shot. While these experiences aren’t pleasant, they are a good sign: they are the result of your own immune system encountering the vaccine and mounting a potent response that will provide long-lasting immunity.

Will mRNA vaccines change my genes?

No. The vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer use a genetic molecule to prime the immune system. That molecule, known as mRNA, is eventually destroyed by the body. The mRNA is packaged in an oily bubble that can fuse to a cell, allowing the molecule to slip in. The cell uses the mRNA to make proteins from the coronavirus, which can stimulate the immune system. At any moment, each of our cells may contain hundreds of thousands of mRNA molecules, which they produce in order to make proteins of their own. Once those proteins are made, our cells then shred the mRNA with special enzymes. The mRNA molecules our cells make can only survive a matter of minutes. The mRNA in vaccines is engineered to withstand the cell’s enzymes a bit longer, so that the cells can make extra virus proteins and prompt a stronger immune response. But the mRNA can only last for a few days at most before they are destroyed.

Pfizer’s accounting for the extra dose is already creating controversy in Europe, where some countries — like Belgium — say they have had to cancel vaccination appointments after discovering that Pfizer is sending them fewer vials. “It’s linked to the sixth dose,” Sabine Stordeur, an official overseeing vaccination efforts in Belgium, told the newspaper Le Soir. “It’s still a private company, so one shouldn’t be surprised.”

The U.S. negotiations come at a particularly harrowing time, as the Biden administration is said to be discussing the purchase of a third round of 100 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine later in the year. The country is racing to vaccinate as many people as possible before more contagious virus variants become widespread, potentially spurring a wave of new hospitalizations and deaths.

Pfizer’s efforts to capitalize on the discovery were for weeks camouflaged in a bureaucratic language dispute. Before Christmas, Pfizer approached F.D.A. officials requesting a formal change to its fact sheet so that it said each vial contained six doses of vaccine instead of five. But regulators instead suggested the phrase “up to six doses,” depending on what kinds of needles and syringes were used to extract the vaccine.

After the F.D.A. signed a new fact sheet with that more cautious language, Pfizer approached F.D.A. officials again, saying it was crucial to say “six doses.” The company suggested altering the language to indicate that low dead volume syringes should be used. At one point, Pfizer executives lashed out at Dr. Peter Marks, the top vaccine regulator at the F.D.A., according to two people who heard about the exchange but were not authorized to discuss it.

An F.D.A. spokeswoman disputed that characterization of the exchange and said it was “constructive.”

Ms. Rose, the Pfizer spokeswoman, said that “in a situation of limited vaccine supply amidst a public health crisis, our intent with this label change is to provide clarity to health care providers, minimize vaccine wastage, and enable the most efficient use of the vaccine.”

In late December, federal health officials sought to figure out whether there were enough of the specialized syringes to justify the shift. Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they were uncertain whether the supply was sufficient, according to a person familiar with the conversations.

But federal health officials who manage the government’s contracts for syringes told the F.D.A. that more than 70 percent of the sites were using the more efficient syringes and that more could be easily bought or manufactured, according to another person knowledgeable about the situation.

Still, Pfizer’s attempts to pressure the F.D.A. unsettled some health officials, especially since the company itself originally calculated that the vials contained five doses. If an extra dose could be extracted, that would mean the vaccine supply could be stretched, protecting more Americans from the virus. On the other hand, too few of the specialty syringes would mean the government could end up paying for wasted doses.

By early January, the debate was resolved after a “standard and usual legal review process,” an F.D.A. spokeswoman said. On Jan. 6, in an amendment to the emergency authorization, the F.D.A. formally changed the vaccine’s fact sheet to specify six doses.

“Low dead-volume syringes and/or needles can be used to extract six doses from a single vial,” the new U.S. fact sheet read. It also warned, “If standard syringes and needles are used, there may not be sufficient volume to extract a sixth dose from a single vial.”

Pfizer and the federal government have agreed to track which sites are receiving the syringes and other equipment needed to extract the additional dose, and that the company will not charge the United States for six doses per vial at sites that don’t have that equipment, according to a person familiar with the negotiations who was not authorized to speak because the talks are confidential.

Beginning as soon as next week, the number of Pfizer vaccines that the federal government allocates to each state could be based on the assumption that each vial contains six doses, according to a federal official not authorized to discuss the matter. The C.D.C. and the Department of Health and Human Services were discussing as recently as Friday afternoon when they might make the shift.

Pharmacists around the country are still reporting that they don’t have the right supplies to reliably extract extra doses, said Erin Fox, the senior pharmacy director for drug information and support services at the University of Utah.

She said Pfizer deserved credit for developing the vaccine, but “it isn’t fair to people that can’t access the right syringe and needle combination to be able to get that sixth dose out.”

The contracts for low dead volume syringes are managed by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency. A spokeswoman for the agency said the federal government had procured enough of the syringes for the Pfizer vaccine currently available and was working with the company to “track current inventory and future deliveries of these specific syringes for Pfizer and continually comparing them to projected delivery of doses from Pfizer.”

Dr. Fox said that McKesson, the distribution company that has contracted with the federal government to deliver vaccination supplies, is still sending kits that contain only enough supplies for five doses per vial.

A McKesson spokesman said the company began sending out kits that account for the sixth dose this week.

Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said on Thursday that the Biden administration might use the Defense Production Act to accelerate production of the specialized syringes in order to increase supply, suggesting that the federal government is uncertain whether it will have enough in the future.

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How the United States Beat the Variants, for Now On Dec. 29, a National Guardsman in Colorado became the first known case in the United States of a contagious new variant of the coronavirus. The news was unsettling. The variant, called B.1.1.7, had roiled Britain, was beginning to surge in Europe and threatened to do the same in the United States. And although scientists didn’t know it yet, other mutants were also cropping up around the country. They included variants that had devastated South Africa and Brazil and that seemed to be able to sidestep the immune system, as well as others homegrown in California, Oregon and New York. This mélange of variants could not have come at a worse time. The nation was at the start of a post-holiday surge of cases that would dwarf all previous waves. And the distribution of powerful vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech was botched by chaos and miscommunication. Scientists warned that the variants — and B.1.1.7 in particular — might lead to a fourth wave, and that the already strained health care system might buckle. That didn’t happen. B.1.1.7 did become the predominant version of the virus in the United States, now accounting for nearly three-quarters of all cases. But the surge experts had feared ended up a mere blip in most of the country. The nationwide total of daily new cases began falling in April and has now dropped more than 85 percent from the horrific highs of January. “It’s pretty humbling,” said Kristian Andersen, a virologist at Scripps Research in La Jolla, Calif. “We could actually do a lot better than I had expected.” Dr. Andersen and other virus watchers still see variants as a potential source of trouble in the months to come — particularly one that has battered Brazil and is growing rapidly in 17 U.S. states. But they are also taking stock of the past few months to better understand how the nation dodged the variant threat. Experts point to a combination of factors — masks, social distancing and other restrictions, and perhaps a seasonal wane of infections — that bought crucial time for tens of millions of Americans to get vaccinated. They also credit a good dose of serendipity, as B.1.1.7, unlike some of its competitors, is powerless against the vaccines. “I think we got lucky, to be honest,” said Nathan Grubaugh, an epidemiologist at Yale University. “We’re being rescued by the vaccine.” After B.1.1.7 emerged at the end of December, new variants with combinations of troubling mutations came to light. Scientists fretted about how the competition between the variants might play out. In January, researchers in California discovered a variant with 10 mutations that was growing more common there and had drifted into other states. Laboratory experiments suggested that the variant could dodge an antibody treatment that had worked well against previous forms of the virus, and that it was perhaps also more contagious. In the months that have followed, the United States has drastically improved its surveillance of how the variants mutate. Last week more than 28,800 virus genomes, almost 10 percent of all positive test cases, were uploaded to an international online database called GISAID. That clearer picture has enabled scientists to watch how the mutants compete. The California variant turned out to be a weak competitor, and its numbers dropped sharply in February and March. It is still prevalent in parts of Northern California, but it has virtually disappeared from southern parts of the state and never found a foothold elsewhere in the country. By April 24, it accounted for just 3.2 percent of all virus samples tested in the country, as B.1.1.7 soared to 66 percent. “B.1.1.7 went in for the knockout, and it’s like, ‘Bye bye, California variant,’” Dr. Andersen said. On the other side of the country, researchers reported in February that a variant called B.1.526 was spreading quickly in New York and appeared to be a formidable adversary for B.1.1.7. By February, each of those variants had grown to about 35 percent of the samples collected by Dr. Grubaugh’s lab in Connecticut. But B.1.1.7 came out on top. Updated  May 14, 2021, 1:05 p.m. ET In fact, B.1.1.7 seems to have the edge over nearly every variant identified so far. At a congressional hearing on Tuesday, Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said B.1.1.7 made up 72 percent of cases in the country. “We’re really seeing B.1.1.7 pushing out other variants decisively,” said Emma Hodcroft, an epidemiologist at the University of Bern. The variants identified in California and New York turned out to be only moderately more contagious than older versions of the virus, and much of their initial success may have been luck. The overall boom in cases last fall amplified what might otherwise have gone undetected. It’s unclear what gives B.1.1.7 an edge over the others. “Is it the greatest of all the variants? It’s just really hard to say right now,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization. “We need more research to figure out more about what all of these combinations of mutations are doing.” Some answers may come from California, where researchers are staging a head-to-head competition in a lab, injecting mice with a cocktail of B.1.1.7 and six other variants. “The idea is to see which one will win out,” said Dr. Charles Chiu, a virologist at the University of California, San Francisco, who was the first scientist to discover the California variant. In Michigan, one of the few states that saw the predicted surge in cases this spring, B.1.1.7 found a hook in younger people who were returning to schools and playing contact sports. “Because it’s more transmissible, the virus finds cracks in behavior that normally wouldn’t have been as much of a problem,” said Emily Martin, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan. But in the rest of the country, people naturally became more cautious when confronted with the horrifying toll of the virus after the holidays. B.1.1.7 is thought to be about 60 percent more contagious than previous forms of the virus, but its mode of spread is no different. Most states had at least partial restrictions on indoor dining and instituted mask mandates. “B.1.1.7 is more transmissible, but it can’t jump through a mask,” Dr. Hodcroft said. “So we can still stop its spread.” But other experts are still discomfited by how much the virus seems to have defied predictions. “I can’t necessarily ascribe it just to behavior,” said Sarah Cobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago. Respiratory viruses sometimes go through seasonal cycles, but it’s not clear why the coronavirus’s cycle would have caused it to decline in the middle of winter. “That makes me feel maybe even more ignorant,” she said. Also puzzling is why variants that pummeled other countries have not yet spread widely in the United States. B.1.351 rapidly dominated South Africa and some other African countries late last year. It was first reported in the United States on Jan. 28, but still accounts for only 1 percent of cases. That may be because it can’t get ahead of the fast-spreading B.1.1.7. “I think that is because it doesn’t really have much transmission advantage,” said William Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. P.1, a variant that is ravaging Brazil, got off to a slow start in the United States but is now estimated to make up more than 10 percent of the country’s cases. “I believe it is a matter of time before the P.1 variant becomes one of the most prevalent in the U.S.A.,” warned Dr. André Ricardo Ribas Freitas, a medical epidemiologist at Faculdade São Leopoldo Mandic in Brazil. Still, Nels Elde, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Utah, said the events of the past four months raised questions about whether it was worth fretting over different variants, rather than focusing on the behaviors that can rein in all of them. “We’re splitting hairs between a handful of mutations here and there, we’ve lost some perspective,” he said. “It’s catnip for a curious mind.” The United States also has an ample supply of powerful vaccines that make variants more an academic concern than a cause of worry for the average person. The vaccines may be slightly less effective against the variants identified in South Africa and Brazil, but they prevent severe disease from all known variants. It’s not impossible the situation could worsen. Only about 35 percent of people in the United States have been fully immunized, and the protection from the vaccines may wane by the winter. No one knows how variants emerging in other parts of the world, like one that has come to prominence in India and is circulating at low levels in the United States, will behave here. And yet more variants will inevitably arise in places where the virus is rampant, Dr. Cobey warned: “There’s a lot of evolution to happen yet.” Source link Orbem News #beat #States #United #Variants