At this time of great crisis the current President of the United States of America really needs to fuck off. And then keep fucking off some more. Someone needs to sit down with him with a big sheet of paper with the words “FUCK OFF YOU TOTAL MORON” written on it. And another sheet with a big arrow and “THERE’S THE FUCKING DOOR ===>”
Anyone else have any thoughts on his most recent press conference?
According to the stats that Snowboarder Bo has cited, we had 84 coronavirus deaths yesterday, the most for any day so far.
The number of deaths over the past 12 days: 4, 7, 3, 9, 10, 9, 22, 24, 40, 62, 47, 84.
On 3/10 at just past midnight, there had been 27 deaths total. This morning at just past midnight, just 12 days later, there have been 348.
I’m seeing a sequence of daily deaths that’s quadrupling every 5-6 days. This is seriously scary shit.
I escaped snowboundness yesterday and drove a windy Sierra Nevada highway to my small county seat east of Sacramento. Non-essential doorways were dark, “essentials” were open, traffic seemed almost normal, and shoppers mostly kept a distance. The mood felt cautious, not repressive. This may change in coming weeks.
The county just confirmed its first internal COVID case, a traveler from a SF Bay Area hotspot who has been isolated since arriving. This rural county’s population is skewed retirees and elderly, many of whom aren’t really socially active anyway, so we may have a lower or delayed incidence than urban areas. Volunteer pools have formed to deliver supplies to the housebound… but probably not down our rutted track. :mad:
And their staffs, and lobbyists, and on back to corporate boards, who will commandeer test kits because power. The whole DC Swamp is a giant petri dish, right? Don’t cough.
Superb! And so simple. Everything we do has consequences. Do less upstream, and the downstream suffering diminishes.
Two to three days is likely noise but Worldometer numbers for the US of daily deaths past 5 days:
23
42
57
49
46
Those are considered the most reliable numbers. They do seem way too good to be true. And would if true be reflective of what we did three weeks ago, not this week.
I don’t believe them.
Hawaii now has 56 cases, 41 of them here on Oahu.
In Southeast Asia, Vietnam has started turning away foreigners including those holding valid visas, and wearing a facemask is required by law. All bars in Thailand and Cambodia as well as in Ho Chi Minh City and Danang in Vietnam and Angeles City in the Philippines are closed for the foreseeable future. My buddy in northeastern Thailand tells me the bar closures are resulting in a mass exodus of bargirls and other bar workers from Bangkok back to upcountry. But ironically the April 13-15 Songkran holiday, the Thai New Year, has been canceled, and those days will just be normal, or as near normal as you can get, workdays. Songkran is the biggest holiday in the Thai calendar, so this is major.
Any foreigner entering Thailand now must show a medical certificate issued within the past 72 hours showing they have tested negative for Covid-19, plus a travel insurance policy with minimum coverage of US$100,000. This has resulted in some Western residents on visa runs and other brief trips to neighboring countries to be stuck across the border, because they don’t have any of that. One letter writer to the Bangkok Post complained he is stuck in Nepal, because you simply cannot buy such an insurance policy in that country. He said he tried explaining this to the Thai embassy in Kathmandu, and while they were sympathetic, they recommended he stay in Nepal for the foreseeable future.
It’s a good thing the wife has no immediate plans to visit her homeland, because Thai nationals wanting to reenter must now, before boarding their flight, show a form obtained from a Thai embassy or consulate affirming they are Thai citizens along with a fit-to-fly certificate.
Scroll down to the bottom of that page for the “latest updates.” The update for March 22, as I write this, says 9339 new cases and 117 new deaths today in the US.
One of the problems here is that it’s the weekend, and state and local health departments (and even the CDC) either don’t report at all on the weekends or do so erratically, so the source for Worldometer’s information ends up being tweets and newspaper articles rather than anything really official. Once the agencies get back to work tomorrow, let’s see how the weekend’s numbers are revised.
…New Zealand is now going into lockdown. We’ve been raised to “Alert Level 3” and will be going to Alert Level 4 in 48 hours. The government has given a masterclass in crisis management here: moving cautiously but deliberately, being open about the process, the New Zealand people have been carefully prepared for this lockdown and we are all ready for it.
Seriously: Jacinda Ardern and her government have had to deal with the Christchurch shootings, the Whakaari eruption, and now this. She will go down in history as one of the best leaders we’ve ever had. As the world slowly spirals out of control: I’m very glad to be living here.
I understood your point, it just seemed a good jumping off point for something I’ve been thinking about. Especially since my brother and I were discussing essential services yesterday and that conversation was inspired by our U-Line catalog.
Large swaths of our economy are still open and doing business as usual. The one I’m most aware of is the construction industry. My nephew drives a cement mixer and pours concrete. He’s got a full schedule every day this coming week and he says no one is stopping construction projects.
And, as I mentioned in my previous post, there is a robust supply chain behind all these construction projects. I’m familar with the response of several factories in the lighting industry and they are all running a full schedule. Some of them are having some of their office staff work from home - but, as Thelma Lou’s article shows, some of them aren’t. I feel that there is a cosmetic aspect to these “stay at home” policies. The businesses that are shutting down are the ones that are the most visible to the general public. In fairness, there is a lot more potential for widespread exposure in the retail-restaurant-entertainment business that have shut down than there is in the “behind the scenes” businesses. But the idea that the economy has completely shut down at this point is an illusion.
And, I’m starting to get stabby about these corporate bailouts. Because one downside of the recent economic downslide is that these corporations won’t have money to funnel into Donald Trump’s re-election campaign. This is more important to Republicans that making the average worker whole.
This is the entire point of giving Mnuchin that $500 million he can give away secretly and Democrats shouldn’t give an inch on this for anything.
And, for anyone that thinks the Democrats should cave in to corruption in the name of bipartisanship - just think for a few minutes about what the Republican response would’ve been if Obama had implemented the current restrictions.
Well. All Oahu has been issued a stay-at-home order starting 4:30pm Monday and lasting through April 30. Maui too, but from Wednesday to April 30. Details here.
It’s a good thing I recently bought a bunch of books.
Unfortunately much more believable.
Canada is out of the Olympics, calling for it to be postponed a year.
That’s the only smart thing to do.
My office is considered “essential services” - so I’ll be at work tomorrow, the kids however will both be off school and at home with Mum.
YES - Jacinda has done a pretty good job so far - I like the deliberation with which things have been done, and also that those who have been caught flouting self isolation have been deported / questioned.
I’m impressed by the number of tests that are being done, and that very genuine efforts are being made to find all cases -
So far, we only have two cases that can be tracked directly to international travel (and they’re still be investigated) so we may not yet have full community transmission.
338,724 confirmed infections
14,687 dead
99,003 recovered
In the US:
34,717 confirmed infections
452 dead
178 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
The US nearly doubled the number of new confirmed infections from the previous day.
The US recorded more than 3x as many deaths as the previous day.
I heard the three people on the international space station just ordered a large amount of popcorn.
Talk about sheltering in place.
In their case, it’s sheltering in space.
I think that statement should have been
I’m OK with that.
In this sort of emergency that’s entirely acceptable. If you can’t get what you need to survive from abroad and can make it at home then do so.
Not that you need my permission or anything. 
It won’t take that long.
I’ve stopped watching them because I find them more upsetting than the prospect of getting sick myself.