# The Year 2020 **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 3, 2020, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-year-2020/914128 "2020-07-03T02:11:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2020, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-year-2020/914128/41 "2020-07-04T19:30:00Z")
Kobe died, too. That was pretty bad. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2020, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-year-2020/914128/42 "2020-07-04T19:43:19Z")
> [@Kamino\_Neko](#): > > The big upside to this year, of course, is it will end the trend of every year being declared ‘the worst year ever’ for at least a decade. There’s no way 2021 is going to beat 2020 Please, please, please don’t say things like that. I know the planet’s not going to take it as a dare. But part of me’s imagining the thawing Arctic and covid looking at each other and saying ‘hold our beer’ – ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2020, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-year-2020/914128/43 "2020-07-04T20:57:53Z")
Somewhere there’s a panicked astronomer bursting into his director’s office saying, “Sir, I don’t know if this is the best time to bring this up but…”\* (\* I’d credit this but I don’t recall which doper said it first.) ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2020, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-year-2020/914128/44 "2020-07-06T07:14:05Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Kobe died, too. That was pretty bad. And that one spartacus dude. Wrenched from us in his prime. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2020, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-year-2020/914128/45 "2020-07-06T07:23:43Z")
China now has bubonic plague. > **[Bubonic Plague Found in a Herder in Inner Mongolia, China Says (Published 2020)](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/world/asia/china-bubonic-plague-inner-mongolia.html?smtyp=cur&smid=fb-nytimes&fbclid=IwAR31PmtsxNkrKQ2FiP2dz5vHM7rZDGKluRZ3D2qe1-5g_cgoTBFhCIzLfzc)** > > A city put control measures in place after one confirmed case of the disease, which caused the Black Death in the Middle Ages. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2020, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-year-2020/914128/46 "2020-07-06T07:45:43Z")
Eh, a solitary case of plague is nothing. We get it here as well [Maps and Statistics | Plague | CDC](https://www.cdc.gov/plague/maps/index.html) . I’d be willing to wager $20 that I could take a stroll down to my local waterfront park tomorrow and if I trapped enough ground squirrels, combed enough fleas and made enough cultures I could isolate sylvatic plague. That shit is endemic in the western US. Thankfully it rarely jumps to humans and can be treated with antibiotics when it does. Not a biggie. Siberian zombie fires exacerbated by global warming? Worse. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/05/28/zombie-fires-burning-arctic-siberia/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/05/28/zombie-fires-burning-arctic-siberia/) ---
**Author:** ![pullin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2020, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-year-2020/914128/47 "2020-07-06T10:08:50Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > Somewhere there’s a panicked astronomer bursting into his director’s office saying, “Sir, I don’t know if this is the best time to bring this up but…”\* You mean that massive star that just… disappeared? [The Atlantic](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/07/disappearing-star-supernova-galaxy/613699/) covered that a few days ago. Surely we’ve moved onto something worse, eh? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2020, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-year-2020/914128/48 "2020-07-06T11:46:58Z")
Aside from COVID-19 and now the bubonic plague, maybe China can bring us something new for 2021: > **[China researchers discover new swine flu with 'pandemic potential' | CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/30/asia/china-swine-flu-pandemic-intl-hnk-scli-scn/index.html)** > > Chinese researchers have discovered a new type of virus in pigs that can infect humans and is capable of causing a pandemic, according to a new study on Monday. The disease, which researchers called the G4 virus, is genetically descended from the... ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2020, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-year-2020/914128/49 "2020-07-06T14:53:03Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Aside from COVID-19 and now the bubonic plague, maybe China can bring us something new for 2021 Repeating Tamerlane’s point: no, China isn’t “bringing us” the bubonic plague. The USA has had bubonic plague for a very long time now, and averages about seven cases a year. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2020, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-year-2020/914128/50 "2020-07-06T16:20:50Z")
My point was really about the potential for yet another new virus to cause yet another global pandemic. Point taken about bubonic plague; is it any better if I withdraw “and now bubonic plague” and substitute “and SARS CoV-1 in 2002-2004”? ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2020, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-year-2020/914128/51 "2020-07-06T18:03:18Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > is it any better if I withdraw “and now bubonic plague” It’s better if you don’t try to blame a planet-wide problem on a specific country. Multiple countries, including the USA, have not been handling pandemic issues well. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2020, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-year-2020/914128/52 "2020-07-06T19:10:05Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Aside from COVID-19 and now the bubonic plague, maybe China can bring us something new for 2021: The bubonic plague issue already being addressed, I’ll just point out that ALL influenza viruses have “pandemic potential”, not just swine flu and not just the viruses in China. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2020, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-year-2020/914128/53 "2020-07-06T20:38:58Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Siberian zombie fires exacerbated by global warming? “Siberian zombie fires”?!? I don’t even like to watch schlock-y movies like Sharknado. I definitely am tired in living in some kind of demented low-budget disaster flick. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2020, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-year-2020/914128/54 "2020-07-06T21:12:54Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > It’s better if you don’t try to blame a planet-wide problem on a specific country. > > Multiple countries, including the USA, have not been handling pandemic issues well. > [@Broomstick](#): > > he bubonic plague issue already being addressed, I’ll just point out that ALL influenza viruses have “pandemic potential”, not just swine flu and not just the viruses in China. Not going to go down a rat-hole on this one, but allow me to clarify. The OP was lamenting what a horrible year this was and I just added that (though it’s very unlikely to develop into anything major) there is indeed another potential pandemic brewing. I don’t concur with the apparent PC hypersensitivity of identifying a ground-zero point of geographical as well as biological origin if such can be established, though some consider it politically sensitive. The location of Patient Zero often cannot be geographically pinpointed, but in the case of COVID-19 it’s been pretty definitively traced to Wuhan AFAIK, but most importantly, this pandemic whose costs to the world in terms of lives lost and trashed businesses and economies is incalculable appears to have been exacerbated by secrecy, coverups, inadequate responsiveness, and even denials on the part of an authoritarian Chinese government, under which regime many other such plagues have been released upon the world. The worst pandemic in recorded history, the “Spanish” flu of 1918, conversely has never had an established origin, although we know it’s the ancestor of the modern H1N1 and its variants. One can even try to make the case that it was first identified in the US, but pinning it down geographically is almost impossible because of the confounding factors that it appeared more or less simultaneously in widely disparate parts of the world, and moreover, that it mutated quickly into a more virulent and deadly strain during this process. But it’s certainly been established that a great many (certainly not all) of the influenza variants (H2N2, H3N2, H5N1) originally of avian origin did in fact originate in Asia. Where and how they originated and how they were managed or mismanaged is an important part of the historical record and not to be ignored or taken lightly. In that vein, the statement that the USA has “not been handling pandemic issues well” has got to be the understatement of the year; to wit: [https://imgur.com/a/rghxZ2A](https://imgur.com/a/rghxZ2A) The Orange Ignoramus has apparently been dissuaded by his staff from giving any further COVID updates after the “injecting Clorox” and “shining UV light up your ass” incidents. I’m sorry if anyone found the reference to China offensive, but I don’t think I said anything that wasn’t factual, and facts are critically important in a crisis. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2020, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-year-2020/914128/55 "2020-07-06T23:10:52Z")
It’s not that I found the reference to China offensive, it’s that I think we’re putting on blinders if we only look at China as possible origin of new pathogens. There are some factors that make China more likely to generate pandemics than some other places (such as population density and some agricultural practices) but we’re fooling ourselves if we think “plagues” can’t arise from other places. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2020, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-year-2020/914128/56 "2020-07-08T19:35:59Z")
Why not make it a hornet’s nest, to go with the times? Big, Asian (!), Murder Hornets at that… Except if by _wasp’s_ you meant White, Anglo Saxon & Protestant, such a nest would indeed be the most dangerous nest of all and would surely sting back, in which case I take everything I said back. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2020, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-year-2020/914128/57 "2020-07-14T05:32:54Z")
I think Ben Folds summed it up best in this [YouTube](https://youtu.be/TFwbBQ8x1eU) video ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2020, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-year-2020/914128/58 "2020-07-14T18:05:19Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > Honestly, I’ve come to believe it’s all about COVID. It’s so serious and so widespread in its implications that it taints everything else. If it weren’t for COVID, I don’t think all of the other bad things would feel nearly as overwhelming right now for most. It’s like those fancy filters. You have all of 2020 and its horribleness arranged as a still life you photograph, and then you add a blood-red filter over the whole pictures and that’s COVID. And now Grant Imahara is dead and I just want to take 2020 out back of the barn and shoot it, because _ **enough already** _. And I miss coloring text or changing the font size. Is that even possible in this interface? ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2020, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-year-2020/914128/59 "2020-07-14T18:38:14Z")
> [@Morgyn](#): > > And I miss coloring text or changing the font size. Is that even possible in this interface?- You can change font size by using small tags and big tags before and after the word. The brackets are \< \> before and \ after with the word “small” or “big” inside the brackets. Same goes for ~~strikethrough~~ with an “s” inside the brackets. I think color is out. But lookit at all the emojis?? ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2020, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-year-2020/914128/60 "2020-07-14T21:15:40Z")
The year 2020, it continues: # Squirrel in Colorado tests positive for the bubonic plague By Caitlin O’Kane July 14, 2020 / 2:04 PM / CBS News “A squirrel has tested positive for the bubonic plague in the Town of Morrison in Colorado, Jefferson County Public Health officials announced in [a statement](https://www.jeffco.us/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=1275) over the weekend.” > **[Squirrel in Colorado tests positive for the bubonic plague](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bubonic-plague-colorado-squirrels-test-positive/)** > > The news comes about one week after officials in China announced​ a suspected bubonic plague case. ETA: NM, I guess, but I’m leaving the post here. Upon scanning this thread I see that it is a held belief by some that a squirrel with bubonic plague is yawnworthy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-year-2020/914128.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-year-2020/914128.md?page=4)