Covid-19: Coronavirus July 2020

Introversion

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I think Trump believes that 'harmless' or 'not so bad' is 'not actually dead'.

I think it’s simpler: He Does Not Care If I Die. Not me specifically. Anyone not him, or maybe not also his daughter-wife. We don’t matter, and we especially don’t if we’re not voting for him.

This isn’t a simple misunderstanding. It’s a narcissist’s sociopathic disinterest in the truth.
 

Introversion

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This is tragic, infuriating, and perfectly predictable. :cry:

Florida Teen Dies From Virus After Mom Takes Her To Church ‘Covid Party’

Patheos said:
A Florida teen is dead from coronavirus related complications after her mother brought her to a church “COVID party.”

...

That’s right, the medical examiner’s report shows that Carsyn’s mother, Carole Brunton Davis, had taken her daughter to a church-sponsored event, a “COVID party,” on June 10 to intentionally expose her daughter to the deadly virus.

13 days later Carsyn was dead from coronavirus related complications.

Adding insult to injury, Carsyn was immunocompromised, having survived cancer at age 2, and having fought an autoimmune disorder for most of her life.

Yet her mother showed no concern for her child’s life. Indeed, the mother intentionally invited the virus into her child’s life by taking Carsyn to a church “COVID party” held at the First Assembly of God in Ft. Myers, and attended by over a 100 maskless teens.

After Carsyn became ill, her mother Carol continued to display a criminal lack of concern for her daughter’s health.

...
Her mom, who is not a doctor, then prescribed her daughter azithromycin, an anti-bacterial drug with no known benefits for fighting COVID-19, for several days. During that “treatment period,” Carsyn developed headaches, sinus pressure and a cough.

A few days later, without taking her to a doctor, her mother would later report that her daughter “looked gray” on June 19, so she put Carsyn on her grandfather’s oxygen machine.

When that still did nothing to combat the cough, the headaches, the sinus infection, the fever, her mother started giving her hydroxychloroquine — a dangerous drug that clinical studies have shown makes a person MORE likely to die of COVID, but was recklessly touted by President Trump for months as a supposed “cure.”
 

Roxxsmom

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These parents should be prosecuted for child endangerment, imo. But assuming they are capable of normal human emotions, there is no punishment the law can mete out that is worse than losing a child and knowing it was one's own idiocy that led to this loss.

This pandemic has certainly made it clear how widespread idiocy really is too. Even with it being required by law, a surprising number of people are still not wearing masks in the grocery store, or are wearing them incorrectly (noses out), or are surreptitiously removing them once inside. One lady was in the shampoo aisle, with her mask hanging from one ear, while she popped open caps of shampoo bottles and sniffed them!

Then there was the maskless mom with three maskless kids, all pushing those cute little toy shopping carts (and blocking aisles), as if these were normal times when a trip to the store was a leisurely outing and people weren't trying to get in and out of the store as quickly as possible.

It's hard to tell how many of the "covidiots" are political, versus selfish, versus ill informed (had to explain to someone on FB today that masks protect others from the wearer more than the wearer today), versus completely oblivious. I've noticed a few people like that: they go about their normal lives and activities as much as possible, posting pictures of their outings and get togethers on social media, as if nothing special were going on, even asking what plans people have for a holiday weekend. It's as if they lived in some kind of opaque bubble where news and events, or even the actions and conversational topics of others, simply don't register.
 
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Lyv

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This is from an article about how bad things are in Florida:

“When we take X-rays of kids, even if they don’t have symptoms, there are changes in the lungs,” Alonso said. “We have no idea what the long-term damage will look like.”

Further, one 2-year-old boy in the county has been diagnosed with multisystem inflammatory syndrome, a potentially fatal disease. Two 17-year-olds and a child under the age of 14 have died elsewhere in the state, health officials reported.


Data shows that the virus is continuing to attack children. An eye-popping 29 percent of the 1,083 children under the age of 18 who have been tested in the county learned they have the disease, the health department reported.




While the number of kids who have been tested is low, the increasing number of positive tests is cause for concern, Alonso said. “That’s a significant number of children who will have consquences down the pike,” she said.

So, of course, with that and no federal help, no vaccine, no effective treatment, not enough testing, not enough people complying with staying in, masks, and distancing:

Trump says he will "put pressure on governors" to reopen schools

“We hope that most schools are going to be open,” Trump said at a White House event on reopening schools safely.

“We don’t want people to make political statements or do it for political reasons. They think it’s going to be good for them politically, so they keep the schools closed,” he said. “No way.”


“We’re very much going to put pressure on governors and everybody else to open the schools, to get them open,” he continued. “And it’s very important. It’s very important for our country, it’s very important for the well being of the student and the parents. So we’re going to be putting a lot of pressure on open your schools in the fall.”

Yeah, let's endanger children, teachers, aides, administrative staff, and support staff for political gain and ego. Pressure the governors he abandoned and stole from.
 

lizmonster

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Yeah, let's endanger children, teachers, aides, administrative staff, and support staff for political gain and ego. Pressure the governors he abandoned and stole from.

We're fortunate that we have the resources to homeschool if necessary. I don't know what people will do if they can't.

The feds should be ensuring anyone who can work remotely is able to, and anyone who can't doesn't have to return to work until the crisis is done. Instead they are playing wish-it-away and not caring who they kill.
 

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I'd think it was quite obvious by now that mathematical models have nothing to do with modern US politics.

Some mathematical models take more time to develop in reality than on a computer. Just wait a few more weeks.

-cb
 

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Some mathematical models take more time to develop in reality than on a computer. Just wait a few more weeks.

-cb

So what's your assertion here? That people are eventually going to hold *rump responsible for the severity of this outbreak because math?

While statistical modeling is relevant in a lot of areas, I'm not sure of your purpose in bringing it up as a rebuttal to my stated opinion that politics are inherently emotional and not mathematical.

You think enough people will eventually figure out what *rump is, and turn on him? God I hope so. Not sure what vague academic appeals to authority have to do with it, though.
 

Lyv

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Every day, some fool tells me we have to try for "herd immunity" now. Which means clearly they don't understand the concept, and aren't following any news except right-wing echo chambers.

Coronavirus herd immunity may be 'unachievable' after study suggests antibodies disappear after weeks in some people

Population-wide immunity to the novel coronavirus could be "unachievable" with antibodies to the virus disappearing after just a few weeks in some patients, according to a major new Spanish study.

The Spanish government teamed up with some of the country's leading epidemiologists to discover what percentage of the population had developed antibodies that could provide immunity from the coronavirus.

The study found that just 5% of those tested across the country maintained antibodies to the virus, in findings published by the medical journal The Lancet.

The study also found that 14% of people who had tested positive for coronavirus antibodies in the first round of testing no longer tested positive in subsequent tests carried out weeks later.

"Immunity can be incomplete, it can be transitory, it can last for just a short time and then disappear," Raquel Yotti, the director of Spain's Carlos III Health Institute, which helped conduct the study, said.

And in the US, daily, aggressive, angry white people harass store and restaurant workers and rant at strangers for wearing masks.

Meanwhile:

Texas and Arizona ER doctors say they are losing hope as hospitals reach capacity


In Arizona, which saw its lowest-ever number of available ICU beds Tuesday, Dr. Murtaza Akhter told Lemon so many patients are coming in that he is already having to make tough decisions over resources.

"I'm trying not to be an alarmist. I'm an emergency physician -- we're prepped for this. Dr. Tran and I both trained very hard for this. But we can't just build beds overnight. We can't just hire staff overnight. And like I said, our numbers are only increasing," he said. "It's only going to get worse and that's the scary part."

With a rise in hospitalization rates across the US, doctors like Akhter are reporting waiting lists for ICU beds and having to decide who will be admitted for treatment and who will not.

COVID-19 patients in Tucson being transferred to Phoenix, out of state

When Wade McGee was diagnosed with COVID-19 at 3 a.m. Friday, there was nowhere in Tucson he could get treatment.

So the next morning the 63-year-old mining retiree and former paramedic was taken by ambulance from Northwest Medical Center, 6200 N. La Cholla Blvd., to a hospital in Phoenix.

McGee’s wife, Wendy McGee, is finding it hard to get information on her husband, who is not doing well.

She wishes he’d been able to get treatment here, but also said she’s glad he wasn’t transferred out of state — which is the fate some patients are facing as the health-care crisis worsens.

Well, at least both states have mask orders.

Er...

Growing number of Texas sheriffs refuse to enforce governor's mask requirement


In addition to not enforcing the order, the Upshur County Sheriff's Office and the Gillespie County Sheriff's Office said that they will not require deputies to wear face masks on duty. They cited the desire to protect the safety of officers and the need to effectively communicate as reasons for forgoing masks.

In a Facebook Live video, County Sheriff Jason Bridges said his deputies will also not be enforcing the order to wear masks or limit gatherings, claiming that he promised to defend the U.S. Constitution. He said that Abbott's recent initiatives are "borderline infringing on those Constitutional rights."

Phoenix, Scottsdale police did not issue citations for people without masks amid COVID-19 pandemic


A GOP sheriff vowed not to enforce Arizona’s coronavirus restrictions. Now he’s tested positive.

As the rest of Arizona followed a stay-at-home order imposed by the governor in May, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb proclaimed that the state’s attempt to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus was unconstitutional.

“The numbers don’t justify the actions anymore,” the defiant Republican sheriff told the Arizona Republic at the time, vowing not to arrest people or shut down businesses that violated the order. “Three hundred deaths is not a significant enough number to continue to ruin the economy.”

That was in June. Yeah, the numbers didn't justify doing the things that were helping prevent what's happening now. He's responsible for people suffering and dying. I checked his Twitter, and he's learned nothing and is not sorry for his (in)actions. He's a good death cultist.
 

Marian Perera

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...the need to effectively communicate as reasons for forgoing masks.

What kind of nonsense is this? I work in the blood bank of a trauma hospital and have to wear a mask. During my shift, I'm making calls to the wards and to other hospitals, as well as speaking to my coworkers, to the transfusion specialists, and to nurses in person. No one has ever said I didn't effectively communicate. We do feel that the mask makes you sound a little muffled, but the answer to that is to speak up, not to stop wearing the mask.
 

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Not sure why anyone is that shocked that they're pushing to reopen schools despite grave risk of death or lifelong damage. Sickened and appalled, but not shocked.

The debate on whether schoolchildren were worth saving versus some political discomfort - especially public school children - pretty much ended with Sandy Hook. Coronavirus is just another bullet (and defiant carriers who refuse masks or social distancing or science are the metaphoric guns) whose freedom to kill is more important than a child's freedom to survive...

Plus it punishes poor and minority children more than the wealthy, so it's got that appeal to the TeaOP base.
 

lizmonster

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It's not clear to me how much this push to reopen schools (K-12 at least) is angry flailing on the part of an administration that's irritated this virus is still out of control.

Despite the events of the last six months, there seem to be an overwhelming number of people in government who still think confident acts of brash normalcy will cow the virus into slinking away.
 

Lyv

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Not sure why anyone is that shocked that they're pushing to reopen schools despite grave risk of death or lifelong damage. Sickened and appalled, but not shocked.
I haven't seen any shock. I've said all along that nothing has surprised me, because he showed us who and what he was during the election. I think it's important to express the outrage so I do. It will never be shock from me.
 

Roxxsmom

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Not sure why anyone is that shocked that they're pushing to reopen schools despite grave risk of death or lifelong damage. Sickened and appalled, but not shocked.

The debate on whether schoolchildren were worth saving versus some political discomfort - especially public school children - pretty much ended with Sandy Hook. Coronavirus is just another bullet (and defiant carriers who refuse masks or social distancing or science are the metaphoric guns) whose freedom to kill is more important than a child's freedom to survive...

Plus it punishes poor and minority children more than the wealthy, so it's got that appeal to the TeaOP base.

This. America (collectively, as a country) doesn't really love its children all that much. We've made that abundantly clear over the years.

Having said this, there is concern in some quarters over the psychological effects of prolonged isolation on children and teens, who are missing out on both socialization and full access to an education.

And there is still this widespread, and incorrect, perception that young kids don't get the virus.

There is some evidence, based on countries that have reopened schools and not experienced a case increase, that they do not spread it as much as teens and adults, possibly because children who are symptomatic are less likely to be coughing and sneezing the virus out, though this is still being debated (the CDC still says no, children and adults have the same symptoms). The jury is still out, as they say.

Regardless, there will be risk to teachers and school staff if they reopen, and the adults can spread it to one another as well. A significant number of teachers (including a friend of mine, who is a cancer survivor) have risk factors for severe complications if they catch the virus. Are there going to be enough parents who will want to continue teaching their kids from home for these individuals to have work? How do we go about verifying whose risk factors are severe enough to warrant continuing to work from home when and if the schools do reopen? We really don't know at this point.

One thing we are not addressing at a societal level is how to keep at-risk people safe and employed as the economy "opens up." Close to half of the adult population in the US is at elevated risk by some estimates.

I think the political motivation for reopening schools isn't the welfare of the children involved, but a desire to get the kids' parents back to work so economic numbers improve by November (we know Trump and many conservatives don't seem to care if there are more deaths). As for the teachers? Well, in the popular lexicon, Teachers are either incompetent, lazy jerks who are to blame for all that ails our education system, or they are heroes who go above and beyond the call of duty and think nothing of risking their lives for their charges.

Both incompetent jerks and heroes are expendable.

Teachers are never just people who want, and deserve, to live. One thing we can all be fairly certain of--whoever ends up deciding when and whether to send kids back to school (and how to go about doing it as safely as possible) won't be the teachers (or other ordinary school workers).
 

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Lyv

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Oof, that doesn't bode well for potential vaccine development.
Yeah, that was my thought, too. I wanted to ask one of the scientists I know, but I don't even want to know today. It's that kind of day.

I posted a story from Florida about how even asymptomatic children with coronavirus are showing lung damage. There are so many indicators that even mild cases can leave patients with organ damage, and now they're looking at possible brain damage. I get that kids need socialization and there are effects from having them out of school, but so early to be moving forward. And Trump's even ranting against the CDC recommendations for safely opening schools. I know the GOP is too corrupt to join Democrats in invoking the 25th Amendment, but it's clear, imo, that he's not sane.
 

Roxxsmom

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Oof, that doesn't bode well for potential vaccine development.

Not necessarily. A vaccine isn't just an injection of killed virus these days, or even attenuated strains of the virus. Many of the vaccines being studies are concentrated proteins from different parts of the virus, and they are trying to determine which could engender the largest and most sustained immune response--one that is larger and more sustained than contracting a mild Covid-19 case. And vaccines often have substances that stimulate the immune system included, so the immune response is more vigorous than from getting the disease itself. I don't think we should give up hope yet.

Another thing to remember is that our adaptive immune system generally "remembers" foreign antigens (chemicals associated with the infectious agent) it has been exposed to, so even if antibody levels drop off more rapidly than with the average viral infection, there may well be populations of memory cells and plasma cells that will be prepared to "jump start" antibody production if one is re-exposed to the viral antigen again.

BUT, we shouldn't all assume we will have a vaccine soon, or that if we get one that it will be 100% effective or long lasting. They may need to be multiple boosters, and they may be very much like flu shots and fade with time (though not because covid-19 undergoes the same degree of antigenic drift as influenza, because so far it seems that it doesn't) and will work better for some people than for others, and they may reduce the severity of the illness rather than preventing it entirely.

Trump is correct in one sense. We do have to learn to "live with" the virus. But he is wrong in the actual application of this fact. Living with the virus does not mean ignoring it or pretending its bad effects will fade if we ignore it hard enough. It doesn't mean bullying people into taking risks and resuming normal activities too soon. Sweden's little experiment has shown that the "herd immunity" hypothesis has serious flaws, even if one is willing to toss a segment of the population (vulnerable people who can't self isolate) under the bus.

Masks, social distancing, working and learning from home and providing support for those who are most severely impacted are aspects of "living with" it, as are continuing to test and collect data that will teach us more about how this disease affects survivors, and we need to refine our knowledge of who is at greatest risk, and when and how we can resume specific activities with the least risk.

Originally posted by Lizmonster

It's not clear to me how much this push to reopen schools (K-12 at least) is angry flailing on the part of an administration that's irritated this virus is still out of control.

Despite the events of the last six months, there seem to be an overwhelming number of people in government who still think confident acts of brash normalcy will cow the virus into slinking away.

I think there's a certain amount of terror on the part of some Republicans, because they've mishandled this so badly. They figure their best hope of retaining control after the election is to push for at least partial economic recovery and hope for a miracle with regards to caseloads and deaths. Plus, they are under intense pressure from their big donors to get people back to work and back to being good little consumers of more than just online products and services. Plus, of course, they have probably figured out that people like themselves are less at risk for severe disease or for being triaged in overflowing hospital corridors if they do get sick. Has a single senator or representative died of Covid-19 yet?

I've noticed that some I know on social media have moved from complete denial of covid 19 to eagerly grasping at speculation that since the virus has clearly evolved greater contagiousness (the European strain that now predominates is more transmissible than the strain that first surfaced in China), then it might eventually follow the pattern of some viral diseases and become less virulent. For this to happen, of course, there would need to be random mutations in the viral proteins that allow more people to have milder cases of this virus and for them still to be able to spread it. The logic is that people who aren't as sick are more likely to be out and about spreading the virus than someone with a high fever and feels generally crappy.

What we don't have evidence of is that differences in symptoms we see so far derive from differences in viral strains versus patient resistance and (possibly) viral loads that led to infection (health care workers may get so very sick when they lack PPE, because they get blasted with millions of particles instead of just a few thousand). There's also the issue that people who don't show symptoms, or are only mildly ill, don't cough and sneeze as much, so maybe the virus won't spread as effectively if a less virulent strain does evolve. Again, this is not proven beyond reasonable doubt and is still debated. We don't know exactly the minimum number of viral particles must enter the body to engender disease. I've heard estimates ranging from a few thousand to a million or more.

There are tons of unknowns, and it's very speculative at this point. But of course conservative-leaning friends on social media are eagerly insisting that a leading infectious disease expert says the virus is evolving (funny how conservatives suddenly don't hate evolution) into a less dangerous strain when that person actually said it might possibly do this, given enough time, but there's no evidence yet that this is happening (though there is evidence it has evolved into being more contagious, so wear your masks).
 

Lyv

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Roxxsmom, thank you for all of that.

My friend in Sweden has been ill with coronavirus for months.

I was thinking about schools and it occurred to me that when schools open, some parents who've taught their kids to wear masks, practice distancing, good hand-washing, etc, are going to send their kids. Some will have to for practical reasons. Those kids are going to be in classrooms with children whose parents won't wear masks, practice distancing or hand hygiene. They're the people who harass store clerks and servers, cough in their faces, lick groceries to contaminate them, scream in the faces of people wearing masks. And their kids will have been taught to act just like them. Getting even the children of the first group to comply is going to be hard, but when you add in kids who are being taught to disrupt in service of Trump? Or does that sound far-fetched and paranoid? People used to tell me I was paranoid about a lot of things that have since come to pass. I'd love to finally be wrong about just how bad something is going to be.
 

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On schools and this bizarre idea children will be fine and aren't affected by the virus: after wrestling the virus pretty much under control in Australia, a school in Melbourne now has over a hundred cases, and that number is growing every day, so ... They're closing schools again now.

Personally, I'm so mad. The other states have now closed their borders to the state of Victoria (where Melbourne is), but not before a bunch of symptomatic people came to my city - where we'd eliminated the virus - to escape lockdown. They spent a week visiting markets and shopping centres here before testing positive. So now we have the virus again, and possible community transmission, which we didn't have before (our other cases were people returning from overseas). :rant:
 

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Just when people started to forget Tulsa...

Tulsa health official says Trump rally "likely contributed" to spike in coronavirus cases
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-rally-tulsa-spike-coronavirus-cases/

"In the past few days, we've seen almost 500 new cases, and we had several large events just over two weeks ago, so I guess we just connect the dots," Tulsa City-County Health Department Director Dr. Bruce Dart told reporters on Wednesday. According to the Associated Press, Tulsa County reported 261 confirmed new cases on Monday, and 206 cases on Tuesday.
At least eight Trump campaign advance staffers and two Secret Service agents who worked in Tulsa ahead of the rally have tested positive for the virus. Although attendees had their temperature checked and masks were provided, social distancing was largely not observed and wearing masks was not mandatory.

I wonder what other mass-spreading events the US of A had since Tulsa...

-cb
 
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MaeZe

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Couple weeks from the rally for cases to spike. Next comes the hospitals filling up. And probably another three weeks from now we'll see the deaths spiking in OK.

In the meantime it's probably only a week or so more before we start seeing the deaths increase elsewhere where the hospitals are already filling up. :cry:
 
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cbenoi1

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So what's your assertion here? That people are eventually going to hold *rump responsible for the severity of this outbreak because math?

For failing to follow science. New-York was a rehearsal. The main event is coming.

Remember three months ago when the models were all over the place? You should see how those models look now. It's not looking good ( link ). There is something interesting with statistical models: they get more precise as N grows. You can bet the GOP is staring at the same models as Fauci, Birks and Redfield, and think that if nothing is done soon they will be bleeding seats comes November. Political calculus. No emotions here.


You think enough people will eventually figure out what *rump is, and turn on him?

It's unavoidable, IMHO. It's basic political survival and *rump is in the way.

End of July.

-cb
 
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Roxxsmom

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I hope people grow brains between now and November. I'm actually seeing more posts now on social media from more moderate types--who were scared of Covid-19 in the beginning--that selectively link (and possibly misinterpret) everything from a scientific hypothesis that kids "might" not spread the virus as much as adults when they get sick, to the observation that it's possible covid-19 may eventually evolve to have less virulence, since it's already mutated to be more contagious, and it's possibly advantageous for this virus to make people less ill, so they walk around spreading it more.

They are also ignoring all the caveats and clarifications that there is no hard evidence, even if there is a way to reopen schools safely, most districts will have the money, personnel and resources to implement the correct protocol--especially with state budgets being cut. They desperately want their kids back in school and they long to be told they can stop wearing masks and that they can go ahead and have family get togethers, get tattoos, go to movies, and go to church, have choir practices etc.

Then there are the folks who are rabid Trumpians. They're the ones posting links to articles by hacks and quacks posing as "real" experts while ranting that "this" is why they aren't going to "take any more" without explaining how, exactly, they've been mistreated.
 
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On schools and this bizarre idea children will be fine and aren't affected by the virus: after wrestling the virus pretty much under control in Australia, a school in Melbourne now has over a hundred cases, and that number is growing every day, so ... They're closing schools again now.

I sadly suspect that if(/when?) schools are forced into opening here, and there is the inevitable spike among students and teachers/adult workers, there will be an extreme reluctance to actually shut down again, because it would mean admitting the Emperor had no clothes and no facts on which to base the reopening decree and nobody apparently has the guts to do that, especially not those in his own party (who push so hard for reopenings and normalization in the first place.) They still aren't even trying to fix the child care issue, which is part of why so many families want/need a place to send their kids during the day, even if that place is a school with major risk of viral infection. "Where else are they going to go?", these politicians will cry, disregarding their own complete lack of effort to fix the problem that's been years in the making and staring us directly in the face since the first shutdowns.

What's even sadder, I suspect that the cynics in the regime who believe Americans will just shrug and accept the deaths once something new grabs the headlines and the numbers become numbing may be right. Just look at what we've already forgotten and/or normalized. We seem to have been nationally programmed to have clickbait attention spans and memories, and darned if the regime isn't working that to their advantage. Throw another scandal or disaster on the fire, and the deaths - even dead children - become yesterday's news and last week's forgotten memory.

And, hey, look at that stock market or some other shiny!

I really, really want to be proven wrong...
 

cbenoi1

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Couple weeks from the rally for cases to spike. Next comes the hospitals filling up. And probably another three weeks from now we'll see the deaths spiking in OK.

You forgot one last step. The most vile of them all. All those people signed wavers and staffers were seen removing "DO NOT SIT HERE" stickers. So all those narcissist-in-chief cheerleaders cannot sue the Trump campaign but are themselves legally exposed by those they infected after the shit show. This little detail will come back to haunt them months after people have started to die.

-cb
 
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