Monday, April 27, 2020

Day 42 of Lockdown

Michael Lumish

If we do not begin to open-up soon we will see increased rates of suicide, homicide, drug addiction, homelessness, job loss, poverty, divorce, bankruptcy, and a generation of children growing up to distrust others.

In the meantime, I am not saying don't self-quarantine. Laurie and I are doing a great job of self-quarantining.

I think that you should self-quarantine to your Turkish Delight. I think that you should build a bomb-shelter in your backyard and hide in it until this thing blows over. We could pretend it's the 1950s when people built bomb-shelters in the event of a nuclear war.

In any case, some minor functionaries in San Francisco are probably going to extend the lockdown past May 3. And as SF goes, so goes the rest of the Bay Area.

Meanwhile, Laurie is sharpening her axes.

21 comments:

  1. Remember the movie 'The Shining "?

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  2. This is NOT your great grandfather's pandemic. It's also not the long awaited Zombie Apocalypse. Worst Holographic Universe evah!!!!!

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  3. Sans the virus, I would be in Vegas today celebrating my long assumed dead sister's 80th birthday with my remaining brothers. Happy Birthday anyway sis. Hope you are all well my fellow posters!

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  4. OT

    Trump's got balls.

    Now, how do you abbreviate 'on topic'?

    I think Biden's gotta pick Stacy Abrams to keep that thing going where you get to call all dissenters racists. You know, like when Obama was POTUS. What did you think it was about the content of his character? Please!

    As far as I'm concerned in SF they are all minor functionaries. They only think they are running the universe.
    Even I am getting sick and tired of staying home and doing nothing. And that's saying a lot!

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  5. Some answers: Or, a history of the fix we're in.

    https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/lee-smith-china-coronavirus-2

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  6. I still hanker for the good old bomb shelter days. One with several chambers and all the mod cons such as filtered air conditioni imprennable barriers guardian robots like those in fifties Sci fi flicks...

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  7. Seriously, 2020......murder hornets??!!!!

    WTF is wrong with you?

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  8. A point to note is that quarantines are not about isolating the sick from the healthy. If they were, then anyone with stage IV cancer would be quarantined. Quarantines are about isolating the contagious from the vulnerable.

    In prior epidemics, someone could be ruled as definitely not contagious by simply not being sick. Unfortunately, that does not work for SARS-CoV2 because someone can be contagious for up to two weeks prior to becoming sick. Therefore, each person has a certain probability of being infected and contagious. With the information w have, we can choose to either risk a false positive assertion about any individual and enforce quarantine on the non-contagious or risk a false negative assertion and decline to quarantine the contagious. We have seen the consequences of the latter.

    There is a way out of this situation, better information. Specifically, we can test everyone at set intervals so that we can substantially reduce the frequency of false negative-assertions. Such assertions would not be eliminated because someone can become infected and contagious in between testing intervals, but they would still be reduced. The Niskanen Center reported a last month (https://www.niskanencenter.org/tired-of-the-covid-lockdown-here-is-a-responsible-reopening-strategy/) on how expanded testing can responsibly reopen the country. A separate article (https://www.niskanencenter.org/a-massive-surge-in-testing-is-the-only-way-to-safely-restore-our-liberty-and-economy/) summarizes and provides a link to a study about how to get to 20 million SARS-CoV2 tests per day by August. If you want to push for a productive way out of the current situation, that's a good start.

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  9. For some ideas of conditions for reopening, consider Cuomo's conditions for allowing individual regions of New York to emerge from their stay-at-home order: https://twitter.com/NYGovCuomo/status/1257342748891459584/photo/1 and https://patch.com/new-york/new-york-city/ny-regions-can-start-reopen-may-15-governor-says .

    Do you have any objections to any of those conditions? Do you have any evidence that those conditions are all met in your area but the authorities are nonetheless maintaining the stay-at-home order?

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  10. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  11. Not pretending to have answers. As with the matter of origin in China, some food for thought regarding the approach to best resist the virus, from a pretty smart guy:

    https://unherd.com/thepost/nobel-prize-winning-scientist-the-covid-19-epidemic-was-never-exponential/

    Findings in NY that most new hospitalizations are people who had been staying home, throws no light on the subject. Maybe being outside is better or no worse.

    Only when this is done will the effectiveness of the approach used be determined. And if it was overkill compared to the damage to the economy and other matters of public health. To say it was not based on the experts, however, is completely false. Sad, too, to ignore the positive efforts to confront this unprecedented situation.

    Those that point fingers, and cast blame, and claim superior wisdom over the rest, should perhaps look first at their own words and deeds. Wishful thinking that this is even possible, especially if it is a policy norm.

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    1. All this people staying at home nonsense means is that they went into quarantine too late! Their houses didn't infect them. Houses don't get COVID-19. People do, i.e., their cohabitants who had been out in the world, on the subway, in the office, at a bar or restaurant, did. They brought it home where there was repeated exposure. My wife and I haven't gone anywhere since March. So far we haven't infected each other, because neither of us has it.

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    2. Jeff got part of it. If people got infected before the lockdown, they can easily spread it among those they live with. With people sharply reducing their outside of home exposure, that would reduce the number of infections contracted outside of the home setting.

      If the stay-at-home orders are having an effect, the number of people who became infected previously but have uninfected family members at home will dwindle, and in time the number of cases contracted at home will dwindle.

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  12. My daughter and her husband were tested for the virus the other day when they did a Telehealth call concerned about what they felt was strep throat. They were prescribed antibiotics and told to attend at the testing center. Both were negative; it was indeed just strep throat. They were told the results would take 3 or 4 days but took only one day. Good to see Ontario has got its act together on testing finally.

    This Telehealth stuff is awful. I've done 2 of them during all this. My Dr talks soft and I wear hearing aids but that still didnt prevent 3 screw ups with my meds. which then took another Telehealth call and a week to straighten out.

    They've finally reopened hardware stores and garden centres here today but they have the grocery store rules which mean huge long lines. I suspect my little bit of planting I usually do won't happen because I cannot abide lines and unless I am totally desperate, avoid. All the grocery stores here close at 8pm and if I go at 7:10 or so there are usually no lines or just a few in line.

    I suspect "normal," is nothing we will ever see again.

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    1. If I hear the phrase "new normal" one more time I'm gonna scream!

      I'm glad your daughter and son in law are okay.

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    2. Thanks, Jeff. Yeah, new normal means "I surrender." Glad to see many Americans are rejecting surrender beyond cautious safety. I know I don't wanna have to line up 20 deep to buy groceries or anything else when winter hits. Yet there are those who would like to see "social distancing," last for years; maybe forever.

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  13. Palestinians do not
    honor or respect human rights

    by Mitchell Bard, 2020 March 26:

    www.algemeiner.com/2020/03/26/palestinians-dont-honor-or-respect-human-rights/

    ===================================
    Telling the Truth about
    Palestinian Child Soldiers

    by McKenna Bates, 2020 March 8:

    www.algemeiner.com/2020/03/08/telling-the-truth-about-palestinian-child-soldiers/

    ===================================
    Saudi Arabia and Iran Both
    Persecute Religious and Ethnic Minorities

    by James M. Dorsey, 2020 March 31:

    www.algemeiner.com/2020/03/31/saudi-arabia-and-iran-both-persecute-religious-and-ethnic-minorities/

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  14. Cuomo calls it European virus. Pathetic.

    Perhaps a means to divert from his nursing home malfeasance, where they could call this the Cuomo virus.

    Two days ago:

    "Of the nation's more than 26,000 coronavirus deaths in nursing homes and long-term care facilities, a fifth of them - about 5,300 - are in New York, according to a count by The Associated Press, and the toll has been increasing by an average of 20 to 25 deaths a day for the past few weeks."

    https://abc7ny.com/nursing-home-deaths-cuomo-criticized-in-new-york/6168676/

    After all, if we're renaming things.

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    Replies
    1. Cuomo also said America was never really great. (No wonder the Left loves him.) The MSM would like you to forget that, therefore it is never mentioned.
      Hard to believe that a whole generation and more have been brainwashed into thinking that all things sex and race are always the most important matters for consideration before anything else is ever considered. It very well could be the sound a civilization makes when it's in collapse.

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  15. Day 44?

    A man was killed by a shark this morning just off the coast where I live. Within sight.

    I had a few things to say but it is too soon.

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