We're All Gonna Die

[Geowhizzer]

i get the reference and i want to slit my wrists

[General_Failure]

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1284145844871200768

Can't read the article, but if I zoom in I think I'm in one of the dark areas.

[Diomedes]

Johns Hopkins count pushing 140k dead in United States

[PhillyPhreak54]

And yet the government is sprinting away from acting or even hardly acknowledging it. Unless Bimbo Barbie is on the podium lying about how great their response is.

[Geowhizzer]

Or worse:  Activtely fighting against our interests in dealing with this disease.

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1284596072330002434

The Trump administration is trying to block billions of dollars for states to conduct testing and contact tracing in the upcoming coronavirus relief bill, people involved in the talks said Saturday.

The administration is also trying to block billions of dollars that GOP senators want to allocate for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and billions more for the Pentagon and State Department to address the pandemic at home and abroad, the people said.

[Diomedes]

well this is pretty terrifying

https://www.jpost.com/health-science/israeli-doctor-reinfected-with-coronavirus-3-months-after-recovering-635550

Have heard mumblings of anti-body effectiveness being short lived.  Not happy to read about these cases.

[General_Failure]

Going grocery shopping with these people has turned me into a huge icehole. Before all this, I was polite to a fault and did my best to stay out of everyone else's way. Forget all that, I have no patience for people anymore. I've got things to do and I'm tired of old people breathing near me.

You and your old friend Gertrude sitting in the middle of the aisle catching up? Beep beep, I've got a cart full of dog food and I'm not stopping. Trying to come into the aisle that's marked one way from the wrong way because you're not taking anything seriously? Don't care, fargin' move. I slalomed through the aisles, you can too. You're behind me in line with just a couple of things? Sucks to be you, put you mask on idiot. There's one item left on the shelf and we both want it? I will fight you and your ugly child.

[PhillyPhreak54]

The Covid done broke GF!

[PhillyPhreak54]

Florida alone was seeing more new infections a week than China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia, and the European Union combined.

After Dr. Nancy Messonnier, a top CDC official, told reporters in February that the coronavirus would spread in the U.S., Trump threatened to fire her. (Messonnier briefly became a hate figure on conservative talk shows, owing in part to the odd coincidence that her brother is former deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein.) Messonnier retained her job but stopped speaking publicly. Dr. Rick Bright was not so lucky and was forced out of his role running the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, which works on vaccines.
A quarter to a third of the public already does not intend to take a vaccine when it becomes available.

Some of these episodes played out clumsily. When CDC director Robert Redfield predicted a second wave of coronavirus infections in the fall, Trump marched him before the cameras. Redfield stood at the pressroom podium, Trump glowering nearby, trying to quibble with the headline his interview had produced. Dr. Deborah Birx has navigated the chasm between the evidence and her boss's public line. "Doctor, wouldn't you say there's a good chance that COVID will not come back?" Trump asked her at one briefing. "We don't know," Birx began, before Trump interjected, "And if it comes back, it's in a very small, confined area that we put out."

It was as if Trump thought he could bend reality to his will by forcing his advisers to endorse it. "I disagree with @CDCgov on their very tough & expensive guidelines for opening schools," he tweeted in July. "I will be meeting with them!" It doesn't take a great deal of imagination to predict that such a "meeting" would be unlikely to involve Trump prevailing upon the CDC to alter its guidelines through sheer force of reason and data. The only outcome of such a public threat is the undermining of his own government's credibility.

Republicans goaded Trump to ramp up his attacks. "Dr. Fauci remains steadfast in his bureaucracy. Dr. Fauci's a conformist," announced Rush Limbaugh. "Here's the difference between a health-professional bureaucrat-expert and Donald Trump." This line reflects the view of science closest to Trump's own perspective. He does not dismiss science wholesale as a field of study; he is not the medieval Church persecuting Galileo. Rather, he understands science as a kind of revelation accessible to a lucky genetic elite (naturally including himself, as evidenced by the genius MIT-professor uncle he often cites).

"I really get it," he boasted during one visit to the CDC. "Every one of these doctors said, 'How do you know so much about this?' Maybe I have a natural ability." That conviction is what gave Trump the confidence to deliver his on-camera brainstorming session, in which he suggested his science experts research the injection of light or disinfectant into the human body

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/07/republican-response-coronavirus.html

[Diomedes]

Maryland has been far better than most.  In the last week, our case numbers are jumping.  We're back to late May numbers, and rising.

At this point, I'm a hard no on my kids returning to school.  That's saying something, too, because it extends my less-than successful relegation to Mr. Mom/Daddy Teacher status, and I hate it.  I want to go dig some ditches.

[Diomedes]

Baltimore City schools announced today: no in-school classes until at least mid October.  School year begins with at-home classes.  Howard and Harford Counties already made similar announcements.

My kids attend Catholic school---don't get me started on how and why, suffice it to say I have precious few options in Baltimore City, and I'm not the only person involved in the decision--and they've been talking like they plan to have kids in classrooms.

Not my kids.

[General_Failure]

Are they really gonna try to "just a couple more weeks guys" the school year again?

[PhillyPhreak54]

Fauci is throwing out the first pitch for Nats vs Yanks

Betcha that grinds Cheeto Dick's gears

[Rome]

Our useless governor isn't shutting down the state because not all areas in Florida have been affected yet. 

Oh and it's "not advisable" either. 

We are literally doomed.

Note the date...

[Geowhizzer]

My superintendent this afternoon officially proposed to move our start date back 2-3 weeks.  The calendar committee is meeting tonight.

It'll be interesting to see if the school board (usually very timid against state officials) actually follows the recommendation.