outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

Just to be contrarian, it seems like plain fact that the "natural" level of spread is going to be different in differently structured places, and that given that we are not going to maintain this level of lockdown for six months I don't think there's any reason to think it's optimal to have the entire country on the exact same level of lockdown.

Is the big dummy sort of having to work now?

Does he still get hours of “executive time”?

xpost Yeah, really, it's best to think of each state as its own country. There is no one size fits all solution, different states (and their cities) will have different problems, to different degrees, at different times, calling for different solutions.

And maybe eventually enforced borders between them

In many cases, fingers crossed!

Sitting down to breakfast and perusing the weekly local papers that have accumulated. This one's from Feb 19th.
https://ibb.co/qJcWNJz

I like looking at the thread bump:

this seems scary: https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/19/asia/china-coronavirus-spike-intl-hnk/index.html

― JoeStork, Monday, 20 January 2020 21:03 (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

We all gonna die and no one gives a fuck?

― nostormo, Friday, 24 January 2020 20:32 (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

the population of the wuhan metropolitan area is like 20million and we're talking about only a few hundred cases currently, seemingly all or mainly from tainted meat consumption. i'm not worried

― bidenfan69420 (jim in vancouver), Friday, 24 January 2020 20:34 (two months ago)

Savage.

Gothamist:

When asked about Trump's remarks, Cuomo was disdainful and dismissive, telling reporters, "I didn’t speak to him about any quarantine... I haven’t had those conversations. I don’t even know what that means.​"

Another reporter asked if a "tri-state quarantine" was "a sound policy from your perspective or would you advise against it," Cuomo repeated, "I don’t even know what that means."

"I don’t know how that could be legally enforceable and, from a medical point of view, I don’t know what you would be accomplishing, but I can tell you I don’t even like the sound of it," he said. "Not even understanding what it is, I don’t like the sound of it.​"

Cuomo wasn't meant to like the sound of it. That was more Trump talking to his rural base who hate NY and the east coast, assuring them that he'd build them another wall to keep those China-virus-infected bastards away from The Real America (tm).

great interview with fauci, addressing many of the questions and worries expressed all over this thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A3jiM2FNR8

thx for that

imagine if the press conferences were just a version of that, every day, with reporters asking the questions

RI and Kansas now have stay-at-home orders. Kansas!

That was more Trump talking to his rural base who hate NY and the east coast, assuring them that he'd build them another wall to keep those China-virus-infected bastards away from The Real America (tm)

Very true--and high on the list of incomprehensible things about that love affair is the awkward fact he's a New Yorker himself.

I believe that status has been revoked

we hated him first and he knows it

This is politics. He has no legal right. https://t.co/SLSCgt7FBs

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) March 28, 2020

Article 4 of the Articles of Confederation; U.S. v. Wheeler, Crandall v. Nevada, etc.

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) March 28, 2020

http://www.cnn.com/2020/03/28/weather/tornadoes-severe-storms-forecast-saturday/index.html

How do you deal with a tornado during this? Seriously.

Shelter in basement.

And I'm surprised Trump didn't threaten to quarantine California. We hate him too, and have a high rate of covid.

Nobody is saying that. (clearly)

Nobody is saying that. (clearly)

Nobody is saying that. (clearly)

Which how did that happen?

Soon enough this will be the case in the US too. National guard is already staging in cities like #Baltimore (2nd time in 5 years) & it's not just to deliver ppl food. #NotDying4WallStreet #MartialLaw https://t.co/7jrbTyuCEu

— Morgan Artyukhina (@LavenderNRed) March 29, 2020

USA
123,351-Total Cases
19,225-New Cases
2,211-Total Deaths
515-Day New Deaths https://t.co/Y0zt3Z19Cw

— illuminate (@myworldmysun) March 29, 2020

Martial law and deployment of National Guard are not the same thing xpost

like there is a huge difference between bringing in the National Guard to assist local government and actually declaring martial law and making the military the local government and temporary suspending civil rights, habeas corpus, court martialing citizens, etc.

it may be a thin line to some, but it's a form of hell many of us haven't experienced and I hope not to.

even right now, our mandatory "lockdown" here in Orange County isn't the type where cops are going to pull you over, ask you while you're out, and cite you (though I know that some places do have stringent measures like this in place).

Drove through DC a couple days ago; the streets around the Tidal Basin / cherry blossoms were blocked by... National Guard personnel, who were generally cheerful and everyone was keeping distances and being polite. I didn't get a Gilead vibe from it at all, but then I am local and have seen quite a bit of this sort of thing. Not on this scale, perhaps, but I came away from the experience with respect for my townspeople, not OMG ORWELLIAN DYSTOPIA.

I posted that reaction, but I was mostly thinking about this as a situation to watch over the next 2/3 months, i.e. if enough ppl are strapped for cash and can't get food and there is no assistance. What is happening in Sicily needs more reporting too.

My sister tells me that in the UK they are making all of their data publicly available and transparent, including predicting likelihood of riots, if I understood her correctly. (Right now the likelihood is apparently low, fwiw.)

This is heartbreaking.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/world/asia/coronavirus-india-migrants.html

xxpost there are going to need to be more relief bills, potentially. the last one was a good opportunity to stop and breathe, but it's not going to be enough and will lead to situations like you describe if they don't provide more relief as we near the end of summer.

I posted that reaction, but I was mostly thinking about this as a situation to watch over the next 2/3 months, i.e. if enough ppl are strapped for cash and can't get food and there is no assistance. What is happening in Sicily needs more reporting too.

The virus first struck in the most affluent part of Italy, I remember saying at the time to just wait till it reaches the South.

Time is an illusion right now but if you're keeping track FEMA, the federal *emergency management* agency, has only been coordinating the federal response to a *pandemic* for *eight* days despite knowing about this for over three months.

That's... quite a choice.

— Dr. Samantha Montano (@SamLMontano) March 28, 2020

Tamil Nadu man breaks quarantine, runs naked, bites woman to death

Obvious zombie joke aside, I feel the mental health repercussions of lockdown will be with us for some time. I already feel a little batty, having encountered practically no good news for weeks...

reporting live from an inpatient behavioral health unit, and yes, this is going to be a pretty significant mental health issue

omg. are you alright?

in case you forgot, gbx is a licensed psychiatrist (MD)

actually didn't know! that' a relief lol

gbx is fine it's the rest of us you should be worried about

lol sorry to have caused a scare, totally unintentionally bad wording on my part

a friend of a friend of a friend just died by suicide, grim out there.

I’m very sorry to hear this, not sure what else to say. It’s dark right now.

😷😷😷

20 flights arrived yesterday into London from NY.

▪️There was no social distancing on the plane
▪️No checks when they arrived.
▪️these passengers dispersed, many to the Tube.

Meanwhile police drones threaten sole walkers in the Peak District.

Utter nonsense.

— Bernie'sTweets (@berniespofforth) March 29, 2020

This is excellent:

Portugal is regularizing undocumented migrants to protect them – and the wider population – from the virus. Pay heed. https://t.co/xKwh11vsRP

— manu saadia 🖖 (@trekonomics) March 29, 2020

now that we're hitting the other side of the curve on the first wave, i'm starting to actually think about all of the things i deferred worrying about until we passed the spike

so we have an epidemic which is only being controlled by intensive quarantine. all of the normal functions of civil society have been put on indefinite hold. we're all cooped up here, our chief means of communication being incredibly unhealthy and toxic forms of media. we're all of us going crazy, some of us faster than others, and we're all pretty well aware that we are. staggeringly huge numbers of people have lost their jobs. we haven't come close to feeling the full economic impact of this. nobody has any idea about how we're going to pay for the costs of all this.

nobody has any idea what happens from here. i can think of a lot of possibilities, none of them particularly good. i've chosen not to dwell on those possibilities because we've had more important concerns, but i feel like we're reaching the point where those concerns are becoming more pressing?

ok, not to go big, but how do nation-states get to the other side of this without at some point going through the collapse of market capitalism and a lot of the "democratic institutions" that haven't already collapsed?