I don’t know how anyone can not condemn deblasios lack of leadership. Bozo’s own people think he has sucked this up, and his little display ofnriding the subway to go to a show a week and half ago is mind boggling His refusal to close schools, his ass-wipe Superintendent Of schools insisting his staff continue to work, cutting subway service so cars are overpacked, etc all reek of incompetence.

I cant stand people blindly talking about free education without considering the implications. We live in the most upwardly mobile educational system win the world, with constant opportunity to retrain, go back to school, and go to school part time and create opportunities for advancement later in life.

Ever live in a country where the government pays for college? It’s not so wonderful, unless you are chosen to attend. The govt pays, so the govt decides who gets an education. Best case scenario, it is truly merit based and, by the time you’re 13 your test results putnyou on a college track. God forbid you screw up your life as a teenager—there’s not so many second chances. Going back to school as an adult is a rarity. Worst case scenario-the govt starts deciding to fund students based on quotas and demographics, not merit. Or you’re told what your aptitude is or what the governments needs are, and what they will pay you to study.

No thanks

There’s no way these numbers are real. In early January, my FedEx terminal told me tons of Chinese medical students and other students were sending back every mask they could buy because there was some disease killing people. That doesn’t happen over what was then probably fewer than 1000 reported deaths, especially given the clampdown in info there. No way.

Honestly, everyone needs to stop trying to make political hay off of the blame game. There’s plenty to go around, not just the feds. NYs own disaster management people projected the state needed almost 20000 ventilators in case of an epidemic or pandemic. The purchase was lined up and a deal for 16,000 was arranged four years ago. The funds were allocated. Purchase was nixed for budget reasons and then never reallocated.
Everyone puts off things. Lots of blame to spread around.

Again, why on earth would you believe that number? Why?

Let me preface this by saying I don’t condone these protests.

That said, your life is clearly not falling apart. For many, it is—in very real and permanent ways and that is why they are protesting In my case, almost all of my customers are shut down—many will never reopen. I’m running out of product and I can’t restock because my supplier is shut down They May never reopen. My distributor is closed—they will never be the same. And for every one of these business there’s 5-5000 employees who can’t pay their bills while their mortgage companies, landlords, wireless and internet providers all expect to be paid. I pay royalties to two of the largest corporations in the world. They are both in trouble and looking for every source of revenue they can. I’m probably done. 14 yrs of a reasonably successful business gone. The small business programs and the payroll protection programs are a joke, with large corporations pillaging them and banks, i suspect, favoring existing loan holders they don’t want to default. My family is still ok, but this is beyond belief. And, waiting in the wings are Chinese corporations waiting to buy up any desperate US corporations that are in trouble.

Thanks. Like I said, my family is fine. Others I know are not so lucky. The impact of this is frighteningly real and some people’s life’s will never be the same.

Just watched this with my kids last month. My daughter insisted on watching a musical. I told her not only could we watch a musical, but it has the greatest car chase in history (screw Bullit). All 3 of kids loved it. “I hate Illinois Nazis”

I’m pretty sure all of these scenarios are illegal and unconstitutional.

I don’t own any rental property, but am constantly amazed at how people, including politicians, think rental properties are a public utility and exist for the benefit of residents, not the owners. I have friends that own apartments and it’s a nightmare. An absolute nightmare. Obviously, there should be regulation and there are always bad landlords, but almost without fail, laws are completely pro-tenant.

My concern is that things are going to get so severe that people are going to be forced to resume their daily lives while taking precautions, and we are going to have to suffer through the fatalities. Pretty grim unless a treatment is discovered.

It’s hard to explain to someone who has not been to one of these markets, but you can not fathom how bad these markets are. You may have seen them on tv, but even then they are incredibly white-washed. As bad as factory farming is, it so much worse in these markets. Cages of stacked animals, sick from capture and transport, stacked on top of each other with puke, shit, and piss dripping onto each other. Live Sea turtles on blocks of ice, having their bodies cut in pieces to order over the span of a day. These places are beyond sadistic and unhygienic.

This has been used for about a month or so in MA on a fairly large scale. It’s meeting a fair amount of resistance from health care workers.

And yet they are both incredibly political. Newsom is outrageous by declaring CA a nation-state and making secret deals with a Chinese owned company. And Cuomo has attacked the feds for mistakes he made and has yet to pay for his people knowingly moving infected patients into nursing homes. Sadly, there are no innocents right now. Everyone is trying to make political hay out of this situation and there are more than enough mistakes on both sides of the aisle

Hey, I don’t care about that. It’s the incredibly secretive nature of the deal and the refusal to answer the press’ questions. Even worse are his constant implication that CA is a “nation-state” with its own sovereignty. Pretty outrageous

Yep. Could we have done better? Probably. But for anyone to call what’s happened in this country negligent or anything else is insane. This is pretty much new territory for the modern world. No one is escaping unscathed.

And if Canada is really going to let its citizens serve as lab rats for a rushed Chinese vaccine, that’s insane. (And by the way, US citizens usually go to Canada for cheaper elective procedures, with hospitals using them to raise cash, and Canadians usually come to the US for time sensitive life-saving procedures and testing. And I used to live in Montreal)

Never lived in China, eh? Dont underestimate the surveillance and control of information. True story—when we used to want work or upgrades to our apartment there, which had been previously declined, my wife and I would complain in private to each other and threaten to leave the residence. Viola—the fix or upgrade would be made. We would just look at each other and say, “Do they think we are stupid”. I would be followed around, and people in our neighborhood would quietly tell me they were being questioned about everything I did. Fear, intimidation and monitoring. And now, don’t forget, they’ve implemented a social credit and AI monitoring system that is truly scary. And they are exporting it all over the world, retaining access and control over the data.

So yeah, don’t trust the figures

Without being political, I thought this was an interesting perspective. It does make you wonder about the role of non-stop information and news and how it may influence our tolerance for suffering. It’s pretty horrifying 1-4 million dead and none of us really think about it when we think about 1969.

https://nypost.com/2020/05/16/why-life-went-on-as-normal-during-the-killer-pandemic-of-1969/

Yep, and everyone of this facts was acknowledged in the article. Stop looking for a fight. And it was far worse in the rest of the world

Why are you guys so freaking threatened? I wouldn’t suggest it is. That said, there are parallels. And it’s interesting to see the difference in attitutdes, even between flu outbreaks in 1969 and 2009.

You guys are amazing. It’s now guilt by association. You can’t even find something interesting without being considered guilty of something. There’s now something wrong with suggesting that the incredible amounts of information people are presented with today might affect their responses. Unreal.

Rat her out anonymously

Season should be called. Even if I wasnt a B’s fan, they should be given the cup as provided for in the rules. Whatever happens at this point has nothing to do with the season. Teams that were playing great hockey will be cooled off. Teams that were in the toilet will get hot. It’s been two months—this is just about money.

What county are you in? The number of PA counties with fewer than 10 deaths (often 0 -2) is surprising. Personally I’d wear a mask, but your arrogance is unbelievable. Maybe they’re just more accurately appraising the situation. Maybe they’re wrong. Everyone is trying to do what they think is best. Even the people screwing up

The only completely erroneous total out there is China’s. I’d even take their recent numbers with a very large grain of salt

??? Article doesn’t want say anything about masks, but focuses on airborne aerosol distance travel and ventilation.

We didn’t fail miserably. Could we have done better? Probably. Our per capita death rate is lower than so many other countries. To expect significantly better in the face of a pandemic isn’t entirely realistic.

And he’s not wrong about deblasio’s refusal to shut schools down and taking subway cars out of use, and the nursing home policy in NY and NJ. Together they count for large percentage of the National figures. I’m not really sure what anyone was thinking about the nursing homes. Unfathomable.

That’s very rational and probably true, but don’t underestimate the insane levels of nationalism, racism, and resentment over the last 400 years that exists there. You wouldn’t believe the crap I used to hear when I lived there. There’s no doubt in my mind the virus existed in a lab and was being studied for military purposes.

And be clear, China is making trillions off of this. From PPE to scooping up every European and US company that is being destroyed and facing bankruptcy they are scooping up everything they feel is worthwhile including US oil rights.

So, yeah probably you’re right. But they are benefitting. And dont forget. They lose 300 million people it’s not a dent on in their population. We lose 300 million we are done.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/first-drug-proves-able-improve-122515195.html

Wow. It’s been a few hrs since this broke and no mention. Truly good news.

Edit : Must be the moderation lag—just saw mention of this above.

Pretty funny now that the shoe is on the other foot. I seem to remember Cuomo screaming bloody murder when Rhode Island was doing this to NY residents at the beginning of this crisis.

There was nothing political in my comment at all. And your latching on to the word “funny” is just another one of your belligerent attempts to politicize everything in this thread and mock anyone who doesn’t agree with you. I don’t find anything amusing about this situation, and I find nothing wrong with trying to quarantine visitors from high infection states. I did find his whining at the start of the crisis, when RI attempted to do the same, as pathetic and selfish.

Everyone keeps pointing to the states with current spikes as having irresponsible mask usage. Apparently people in states that were initially hard hit are equally short-sighted. My son had a baseball tournament in CT. He played three teams from the NYC area. Not a single mask on a single kid, even in dugouts. Not an single coach wearing one. Maybe the occasional parent. Our team was marginally better. Was a little surprised.

This ass and his completely over-the-top and confrontational stance has pretty much guaranteed that there would be backlash against mask usage. He shut down parts of the state that had very few cases and almost no deaths and refused to let them open. As late as May, the number of counties that were still shut down and had 0-3 deaths is amazing. And the number of my customers that have gone out of business is frightening.

It is a double edged sword. If you’re too restrictive, esp just to prove a point, people balk at mask usage. Don’t antagonize them. Show them it’s in their interest and recommending and asking would probably get better results.

If that’s the case, that’s totally reasonable. That’s not how it’s being described in most of the press

Everyone keeps acting like the lack of masks and distancing is a southern and western thing. I’m at another baseball tournament in CT. There are about 24 teams here at any given time.l, most from NY, MA, CT, NJ. Fairly tight quarter. My son is one of two kids I’ve seen with a mask. About 10% of the crowd has masks. And the ones without masks are beyond inconsiderate. It’s really one big fu. People don’t get that if this blows up a second time, states are really going to over-react in response.

Why are you so hell-bent on making this about politics and regional factors? Sadly, it’s just human nature and people everywhere desperately hoping it’s over or are just not being to comprehend how this works or the degree to which it’s contagious

How do you downvote this? Aside from his tone, what’s he’s saying is factual. Too many states and municipalities act like your money is their money. And now the exodus going on in NY and IL is insane. And the extent to which these states are still going after tax money from people who have left is really unethical. These governments know their budgets are not sustainable and they will need to change dramatically. Add in the loss of tax revenue from the virus, and the situation is disasterous.

Why do people think like this. Several completely different approaches, similar curve, but different time frames. Every state could be doing better, no doubt. But there is an element of this disease having a natural course. That doesn’t mean you don’t try to limit it as much as possible through testing, masks and quarantine, it just means no one approach is foolproof. In fact, what happened in NY and NJ nursing homes was kind of a discrace. There are lots of disgraces and lots of mistakes being made everywhere

And yes, Sturgis is scary as shit.

No one is joking. What was done in the nursing homes in NY was completely avoidable and defied logic. That. is where a very high percentage of the deaths occurred. Lots of mistakes everywhere.

Point is, the curves aren’t that different and for anyone to say one state is doing a better job than another doesn’t reflect this.

Not even close—more travelers, more international travelers, more travelers from China early on.

Maybe. I’m exaggerating but I don’t think it’s comparable.

It’s so refreshing to come across people that are reasonable. Can’t ignore the virus, but you can’t completely stop life. We are likely going to be doing a screwed up dance with this disease for a generation or so, and have to find ways to continue living.

No offense to Canadians—they’ve clearly done what needs to be done—. Apparently except for the situation in Quebec, if one is to believe the incredible rude comments above on the situation in Quebec.

The reality, though, is that you can’t even begin to compare them to the US. Whats the population there now? Maybe slightly greater than NY state? Spread out over the largest country in the world. Lots of built in breakers. More easily managed. Less international travel. The list of differences is endless. These comparisons are pointless.

Not sure how accurate this study will prove to be It’s a projection based off the state estimates of attendance, which somehow shows little deviation from other years despite the epidemic. And last week I was reading about an estimated number of cases in Sturgis and tracked down secondary infections among returning attendees and contacts along their routes home, totaling about 300 this far. Only time will tell, but I’m skeptical.

But yes, you wouldn’t catch me dead there and it’s pretty irresponsible.

They’re making billions, if not trillions. They’re selling tests that provide dubious results, often ineffective masks and ppe, are buying distressed high tech and strategic businesses all over Europe and the US, US mineral and oil claims, etc.

And everyone keeps turning a blind eye as if it’s impolite to point this out.

Hey now, some of us are perfectly capable of doing both. They aren’t mutually incompatible.

Not picking sides here, but if you think science is unbiased, you’re incredible naive. Almost every study or research project has to be cleared for funding, be it private, govt grants, or another source. Lots of studies get squashed because people sitting on boards and committees are afraid the results may be problematic, either for political, social, or economic reasons. And then don’t forget how often “science” gets it wrong because of either experimenter bias or malfeasance, poor statistical design, or erroneous conclusions and hypothesizing. It’s good to question anything that becomes blindly accepted

That said, this is serious and, while I don’t think our entire society should come to a screeching halt, I wish people would just shut up and wear masks. It’s not that burdensome.

You really shouldn’t over-simplify things. Most landlords aren’t necessarily wealthy, many are leveraged, and they’re are plenty of tenants taking advantage of the situation. Nothing is black or white. There’s a lot of tenants hurting and there’s a lot of landlords hurting.

Seriously, wth is wrong with you. There are plenty of people who I despise and I would never wish death on. Basic lack of humanity.

It’s really discouraging that many of the US companies that ramped up production can’t find their ways into distribution channels that government agencies utilize. We are sending billions in taxpayer money overseas instead of creating jobs here. Here’s one that has taken to selling direct to consumers

https://shop.demetech.us/collections/n95-respirator-masks

This has been really interesting to me. My son is playing hockey, and almost all of the team-associated transmissions among younger kids has been identified as happening in locker rooms and outside team related events. Still scary as heck, but until it appears to be a problem, I’m willing to let him play.

No locker rooms in MA. Show up dressed, put skates, wear masks on ice. Checking and brief contact ok. Tying up the puck on the board gets a whistle after 2-3 seconds

They shut rinks here for two weeks—the state, which is exceptionally cautious, decided most incidents were off ice related. Do I think it’s perfectly safe? No. Dangerous? I think that after the 50,000 youth hockey players in our state have played about 12-15 games with two practices a week, gone to skills classes etc, that there should be more than a couple hundred cases if it was rink related. They’ve limited observers, have contact tracing and have done air flow and exchange studies on most rinks also. You have to try to balance the risk with the damage of not playing. Do I tell my son that he never plays High School hockey again, even though right now the chances of transmission seem low? For now, nope.

Let’s get this straight—skating OUTDOORS now gets you a ticket. The cops are just doing their job, but if your health dept is so fing power hungry that they have to control an activity like that, in the face of all common sense, then that “law” needed to be broken. Absurd.

There’s no way to respond to this without being political.

Keep in mind that people are dying at high rates regardless of the political or health care system they live under. The soclialized health care systems of Europe aren’t doing much better, Russia now claims 4x as many people have died there (i suspect that’s still a huge face-saving underestimation), no one knows for sure what’s happening in most other countries (Iran, India Indonesia, etc. In fact, The NY Times is now finally acknowledging the China’s numbers are complete fabrication.

But yes, we should have done better at every level. And now we are watching the states screw up vaccine distribution in ways no one could dream.

Yep. I hurt my two elbows about two months ago. I don’t search for anything related online, i don't research anything on a browser don’t discuss it via email. and yet Facebook barrages me with ads for elbow pain. There is no privacy and the intrusions by tech companies is a absolute disgrace that neither party dares confront or limit.

The lack of attention the US press is giving to what you guys are dealing with in regards to China is shocking. Their attempts to undermine any meaningful investigation and control foreign press is a huge threat to Australia, Canada, and the US. The economic retribution is positively belligerent. I wish the US was stepping up and making up for the loss in your exports.

Let me preface this comment by saying I’m personally not sure how I feel about this issue.

But let’s be frank—that’s a stinking load and completely disingenuous. When you say to people, you can get a vaccine OR not be able to make a living and feed your family or perform other basic functions in society, you’re not giving people a choice. Let’s be honest.

Not really true. There’s a number of reasons that get you exemptions from many of these scenarios, including religious ones. And some of these situations are clearly not ones in which people’s livelihoods are involved and do not affect our right to travel within our own nation.

I’m generally pro vaccine and think that anyone who doesn’t give their kid a small pox or mmr vaccine is grossly irresponsible. I do think people have a right to be tentative in this situation, given the new techniques and the situation. To deprive people of other rights should they not be vaccinated and then Pretend it is their choice is kind of bs.

Let’s be clear—I’m playing devils advocate to some degree. It’s just this idea that it will be a choice is truly disingenuous.

First of all, there are millions of kids in colleges and public schools without immunizations. Schools unfortunately back off once someone raises religious or medical concerns. Happens all the time, which is why it’s a problem with measles.

And you don’t have a problem with required vaccines for air travel?—then where do you draw the line. It will extend to trains, commuter trains, buses, etc. It will impinge on individual’s abilities to work.

And maybe you don’t have a right to attend a football game, but do you have a right to enter public buildings? What about govt owned conventions centers, town halls, hospitals? What if you work for a federal or state agency? A lot people will not have a choice and will be coerced into taking the vaccine, so don’t pretend it’s really a choice.

Hate to break it to you, but even the Washington Post is on board with this account now (at least some staff). There is plenty of evidence we trusted them to do the research and be transparent about it. Why, I can’t imagine.

Josh Rogin from the WP:

https://mobile.twitter.com/joshrogin/status/1417609272427483145

We gave them $, now the NIH and CDC claim it doesn’t meet their definition of gain of function research, but it is what it is. Why the hell are we giving them money for ANY research? Do we really believe results would be shared, especially if they are noteworthy or monetizable ? Do we really believe they wouldn’t be used for bio-weapons, do we really believe they could be trusted with this sort of research?

Some actual journalism from a WP columnist. It’s refreshing and makes you feel like journalism might not be dead

https://mobile.twitter.com/joshrogin

Do some reading. Research is already suggesting that the Lambda variant is largely unaffected by the vaccines and that it has multiple mutations in its spike structure that circumvent the vaccines. Disturbing.

The vaccines are miraculous, but not wanting to be forced to take a vaccine that will likely be ineffective against the next wave isnunderstandable

And yes, I am vaccinated. I just really think the govt had no business forcing people to subject themselves to a medical treatment. It’s a really really bad precedent and a slippery slope.

Seriously, why do you give any credence to these numbers? Countries either don’t, can’t, or refuse to accurately report. Some Indian officials estimate as many as 4 million fatalies have occurred (falls into the “can’t” category). There is no way in hell China is disclosing, and Indonesia likely has no idea what is going on outside a few major cities. Iran acknowledges it is in trouble, but the official numbers don’t match up. This is meaningless, beyond the overall tragedy.

Edit: when I say these numbers, I’m referring to those reported by other nations, not the flu comparisons

Z

I seriously wish people would stop regurgitating this absurd “factoid”. No one has any reason to believe numbers from any country other than those in Western Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Taiwan or S Korea. None. Countries either distort them, brazenly lie for propaganda reasons or are completely overwhelmed and unable to report. There are multiple experts who believe up to 4 million deaths occurred in India, which frankly makes sense given the population size

These numbers are not a reflection of where they are coming from. Almost all schools are requiring testing upon returning to campus. It is very simply a matter of social contact and transmission. These kind of numbers are proving typical.

Perfect example. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/20/world/asia/india-covid-pandemic-excess-deaths.html

And if you think Indonesia, Vietnam, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, all of Africa, including Egypt, have any idea, you’re dreaming. Stop blindly accepting “news” being spoon-fed to you. Even most of these countries will discreetly admit their numbers are off-base and lower than actual.

https://www.ncr-iran.org/en/ncri-statements/iran-the-staggering-coronavirus-fatalities-surpasses-382600/

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/20/it-cannot-be-contained-indonesia-covid-deaths-go-unreported

What are you confused by? I’m saying you’re way too accepting of a statistic that is, in all likelihood, grossly inaccurate and statistically invalid. And you’ve repeatedly made this claim. And now you’ve thrown it out there again, immediately after blindly spewing that previously debunked Rolling Stone claim. It is your bias that is showing, not mine.

And those links, if you read the articles, strongly suggest that the official figures from these specific countries are much lower than actual totals. Again, either willfully or through lack of resources, these countries are under-reporting fatalities.

And, if I correctly read the numbers from the study Oaken posted, this is borne out. If a country is accurately reporting covid fatalities, they should have close to a 1.00 ratio between excess covid deaths and reported deaths. When covid deaths are under-reported, the ratio increases. Even though this is pre-delta, the high ratio countries pretty much line up with the list I stated. Post delta, I would guess that even more countries have higher ratios. Given that, it is really disingenuous to repeatedly claim the US has more fatalities than any other country. If you can’t trust the data, you can’t trust the conclusion.

This is one of the most ridiculous comments made in this entire thread. There is this political need to portray a certain demographic as responsible for lower-than-hoped for vaccination and mask usage rates. The press pushes this ad nauseum, even though the data and experience show it’s not the case. Rates for both of these issues are dramatically lower in minority groups due to either cultural or economic reasons. This is not a blame game, but to repeatedly blame one group and not realize the issue cuts across demographics is a red-herring that distracts from real solutions.

It’s not so new, it’s just that there’s been very little reporting on it or the other very promising antivirals being developed by Eli Lilly, Pfizer and others. I really believe that people are afraid their promise will stop people from getting vaccinated.

This is a meaningless statistic and fear-mongering. As the vaccinated start to outnumber the unvaccinated, it only stands to reason it will increase. The only number that matters is % of either group to be hospitalized or die.

Still depressing though

And Hasidic Jews, and Amish