outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

tbf having a troll for POTUS is a novel situation

A staffer for New Mexico governor condemns the "death cult" that is not accepting the dangers of COVID-19.

The NM GOP condemns the staffer, demands an apology.

Spokesman for the governor notes, "Umm..the tweet says nothing about the GOP. You see yourselves as a death cult?"

— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) April 17, 2020

lmao

lol

oof, that's a hearty, painful lol. i needed that

on a certain level I'm relieved that trump is doing stuff like tweeting 'liberate michigan' instead of projecting the tiniest bit of competence. president pence would probably have a 60% approval rating right now. (otoh the liberate michigan tweet is gonna kill some people.)

The pivot from "It's nothing" to "I always said this was serious and it's completely under control" to "I don't have any responsibility, I've been perfect" to "it's the Governors who suck" to "my authority is total" to "okay Governors better step up" to "citizens of states should just overthrow their Governors because FREEDOM". Is... just...

I'm dizzy and not just from vodka

it's working, because we're talking about trump rather than the fact that 2000 americans are gonna die of this today

I hear you, mookieproof, but I'm not sure ignoring him helps people either.

I mean, he is, in large part, the fucking problem. To stop talking about his rhetorical postures would only help the sick people if we also did something else, which is... what?

And given the extent to which his bullshit is, in fact, killing people? I kinda think him and his bullshit are relevant to the topic. It's a balance, surely?

it seems like a bad idea to encourage supporters to gather en masse right now in critical swing states but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ what do i kno

for weeks these governors have been forced to kiss his ass in order to get supplies, I have zero problam w/ any of them landing some punches now

and as YMP says, ignoring him doesn't help either, so at least put forward the counter-narrative

"Liberate (insert state with Dem governor here) and save your great 2nd Amendment" is fucking treasonous, and should not be ignored.

Perhaps we can get in touch with those mysterious Chinese scientists to engineer a pathogen that makes magaheads only infect and/or shoot themselves and/or one another?

The Screwtheflyover Solution

god that's bad sorry

Trump uses the gun issue as the strongest dog whistle he can use to call out his supporters. It's like his security blanket. You know he's going to use it early and often, especially when he's feeling like he's in a weak position.

yeah that sucks xp

little too much overlap with the politics threads here but the sooner we can get "death cult" trending the better IMO

"Liberate (insert state with Dem governor here) and save your great 2nd Amendment" is fucking treasonous, and should not be ignored.

it is, but it will be. after the GOP proved once and for all that they'd protect him no matter what, during the ancient time of the impeachment of late January 2020, everyone said "now he will really be unbound". i guess no one could predict it would happen like this, but now he really can just order his followers to rebel against their governors (democratic, in swing states, of course) with guns in tow, and there's not much that anyone can do. it's not really a far jump from right to shooting someone on 5th avenue. he was right about that.

The controversial Stanford COVID-19 study referenced upthread results were finally published:

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Santa-Clara-antibody-test-coronavirus-results-case-15208216.php

Researchers estimate that if 2.5 to 4.2 percent of the county has already been infected, the true number of total cases in early April — both active and recovered — ranges between 48,000 and 81,000. The county had reported just under 1,000 cases at the time the study was conducted, which would mean cases are being underreported by a factor of 50 to 85.

My in-laws live in that particular county and I'm convinced that my immediate family all came down with some nasty virus with COVID-19 symptoms in January and it hung around into February in some cases.

I should also mention that particular county has been the hardest hit by COVID-19 with 69 deaths/1.9M pop = ~36 deaths per million.
The county I live in is tracking at ~22/M.

hardest hit LOCALLY*, these numbers are miniscule compared to other parts of the country, such as Bronx/Queens.

today a patient told me that the virus came from a lab in China and they’re about to attack us with a second virus and we should nuke China now like we should’ve nuked them before since they attacked us in WWII

yeah don't worry about her. my mom believes some crazy shit but not too many people listen to her other than my dad

Karl, you need no reminders about how many people live in a bizarro world, but it is disconcerting for most of us to find one in the wild, confidently spouting their craziness, based in some alternate reality where alien lizards dressed a humans run the world.

it's sad because my mom also believes in reptilians

now he really can just order his followers to rebel against their governors (democratic, in swing states, of course) with guns in tow, and there's not much that anyone can do.

We may find out where Biden's "He has blood on his hands" tipping point is. Or if it exists.

i modified a helpful infographic to incorporate a very strong point of view that was missing

https://i.imgur.com/ES3Khj8.jpg

Great! I'm convinced you could come up with something that Trump would tweet out.

trump was even earlier! i mean, he was the very first person, and the last, to know what a big deal this would be, and also how overblown it is, but also how he fucking NAILED that response!

This describes well why I've done almost 100% of my shopping the past month at the small independent rather than the big chain store (normally it's like 80/20).

http://www.cnn.com/2020/04/17/business/small-grocery-stores-rural-america-coronavirus/index.html

But long-term, yes, small independents are probably going to be hurt badly.

I wish I had the option, but i'm 'vulnerable.' The smaller ones around me are generally failing to stay on the delivery grid.

we are so so close to the culmination of the human lawmaking project, a state in which it is literally impossible not to be committing a crime at all times https://t.co/kQcqAEvJNr

— flglmn (@flglmn) April 17, 2020

Fed purchases of assets in week starting March 23 2020 were simply staggering. Matching entire BofE and ECB programs in a matter of days. https://t.co/v7G0FiAaGc pic.twitter.com/0SJ6w6hQKf

— Adam Tooze (@adam_tooze) April 18, 2020

This is interesting how New Zealand may yet mis-manage their response to covid:

https://duncanlaw.wordpress.com/2020/04/17/new-zealand-should-start-testing-health-and-aged-care-workers-for-sars-cov-2

so deaths in NYC were declining earlier this week, and then spiked over the past two days, with over a thousand dead in one day; was that due to a change in classifications and attribution of deaths to the virus, or were there really more numbers in aggregate?

just asking the question here first, as this is sort of like central command for all the covid19 threads:

can i start a thread about people dedicated to people protesting the stay-at-home orders? there are endless stories of people doing it already, we've got a president who urges people to do it (in the name of gun rights!), there's a growing sense of "identity" among the people who feel the urge to do it, and also it's going to kill a lot of people, if it hasn't already. is this the thread? is there another thread? can ilx stand another covid19 thread? can ilx remain united when there's not a dedicated place for powerful thoughts such as

Stephen Moore says the right-wing activists protesting stay-at-home orders are — I’m not joking — “modern-day Rosa Parks” https://t.co/m8eXpLQ2R0 pic.twitter.com/3CldS6H0Vb

— Amanda Terkel (@aterkel) April 18, 2020

go for it, it seems like Our Capitalist Masters astroturfing yet again but I dunno

I don’t think those people deserve a dedicated thread

At all

Karl just use the "Freemen" thread

"I'm a sovereign human being, I stand under common law only" - Thread of Freemen

had to fucking use the example below to try and get things through to a dunderhead who actually told me it was ridiculous that we are shutting down because more people die from heart disease (good to know heart disease is a communicable disease now!). Please, if you're a math person, poke holes in this if I made mistakes, cos....these idiots will seize on any misstep.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I go to the bar. Since each patient infects an average of a little over 2 other people, let's assume I infect two people at the bar. Watch how the number of cases grow if EACH PERSON who gets infected also infects two new people.

1x 2 = 2 (plus you, = 3 cases)
2 x2 = 4 new infections (plus 3 original infections = 7 cases)
4x2 = 8 new infections (plus 7 original = 15 cases)
8x2 = 16 new infections (plus 15 original = 31 cases)
16x2 = 32 new (plus 31 original = 63 cases)
32x2=64 new (plus 63 original = 127 cases)
64x2=128 new (plus 127 original = 255 cases)
128x2=256 new (plus 255 original = 511 cases)
256x2=512 new (plus 511 original = 1023 cases)
512x2=1024 new (plus 1023 original = 2047 cases)
1024x2=2048 new (plus 2047 original = 4095 cases)
2048x2=4096 new (plus 4095 original = 8191 cases)
4096x2=8192 new (plus 8191 original = 16383 cases)
8192 x 2 = 16384 (plus 16383 original = 32767 cases)

This shows how very quickly, the infections can spread from just one person to over 30,000 people if there is no social distancing. That is exponential growth. Each person might infect two others. Then those two people infect two others...each. and you add that to the existing cases.

If I stayed home, I'm the only person infected. Since I didn't, 32767 people have it, including me.

If 1% die of it, 327 people have died. even if only 0.1% die, 32 people have died instead of 1.

People keep losing sight of where *all* the issues are because infection/death numbers and your own health related to covid are only part of it. In some places if you die at home of anything right now, your family may have to live with the body for days until someone can deal with it.

yeah, that's the infuriating part. this isn't an equation with just one piece.

xp neanderthal, i think an easier thing to do is just point them toward the good ol' "rice doubling on the chessboard" story, which is often used to illustrate the power of exponential growth

There was once a king in India who was a big chess enthusiast and had the habit of challenging wise visitors to a game of chess. One day a traveling sage was challenged by the king. The sage having played this game all his life all the time with people all over the world gladly accepted the Kings challenge. To motivate his opponent the king offered any reward that the sage could name. The sage modestly asked just for a few grains of rice in the following manner: the king was to put a single grain of rice on the first chess square and double it on every consequent one. The king accepted the sage’s request.

Having lost the game and being a man of his word the king ordered a bag of rice to be brought to the chess board. Then he started placing rice grains according to the arrangement: 1 grain on the first square, 2 on the second, 4 on the third, 8 on the fourth and so on.

Following the exponential growth of the rice payment, the king quickly realized that he was unable to fulfill his promise because on the twentieth square the king would have had to put 1,000,000 grains of rice. On the fortieth square, the king would have had to put 1,000,000,000 grains of rice. And, finally, on the sixty-fourth square, the king would have had to put more than 18,000,000,000,000,000,000 grains of rice which is equal to about 210 billion tons and is allegedly sufficient to cover the whole territory of India with a meter thick layer of rice.

It was at that point that the sage told the king that he doesn’t have to pay the debt immediately but can do so over time. And so the sage became the wealthiest person in the world.

unfortunately, the other person isn't going to get it or change their mind on anything, no matter how you try to illustrate exponential growth

don't know much about history
don't know much biology
don't know much immunology
don't know bout epidemiology

but I know more than doctors do
COVID-19 is just the flu
I am such a smart guy, yay for me

lol u probably right Karl.

i stopped trying cos it was getting my BP up

Used to use a variation as intro to two or three different math units (patterning, usually): you get a job for a month somewhere, and you're given a choice between $10,000 a day or 2 cents on the first day, 4 cents on the second, etc. (The idea of starting with 2 cents instead of 1 had to do with the powers of 2.) You'd do a survey ahead of time, and all but one or two kids of course opted for the $10,000--and the one or two who didn't weren't answering that way because of any mathematical reasoning, they were just smart enough to know it was too obvious a trap.

yeah, i'm actually the very least qualified person on earth to be offering that advice (to just give up, it's pointless), because i've spent my entire life NOT giving up on that, and yes, the more you put into the venture, the harder you fall, every single time

xp

a friend of mine used that example the other day. it was pretty effective.

the person I argued with just told me that millions dying was worth the herd immunity we'd get from all being exposed so I promptly ate my keyboard