Timex
2073
It’s not a lack of intelligence, but it’s a lack of critical thinking.
Soviet style propaganda is designed specifically to destroy the notion of objective truth, which then destroys the ability to really question anything.
The state just tells you what they want, and since everything is just opinion, it’s just as good as stuff that’s actually true.
The soviets worked for decades perfecting this kind of crap. What’s absurd is that many of the right wing used to talk about how the soviets lied about everything… Because they did.
But what I’m realizing is that most of those people didn’t really fully understand what the suckers were doing. They were basically just railing against them because the soviets were “the other team”, not because they actually understood why the Soviets were bad.
So the Russians were able to capitalize on this by simply becoming THEIR team. And that’s what the GOP is now.
What needs to be stated in addition to your point, is that in a society where everyone wears a surgical masks, you lower the risk of any one sick person depositing droplets for people to touch or inhale if close enough. It’s presumption of everyone being contagious.
It worked in Asia. Outside of China, without the insane level of isolation. (But still quite a bit.)
I dunno, I think the gas mask is a good solution for Gaetz. It prevents him from touching his face, and prevents us from seeing it.
I think this is all true and well put. However, in the US you run up against the problem that (at least to my understanding) there aren’t enough face masks for everyone. In that situation I can understand why they would put out guidelines to say that the masks should be reserved for health care personnel. They will be the people most at risk, and they are the people that are most effective against the disease and that we can least afford to have out of commission.
Timex
2077
Bright side to the coronavirus, no live audience at the next debate!
Nesrie
2078
Did it. Did it really work there? Where exactly did this illness spread from again? Do we have some long-term empirical data that says that China, Japan or Korea have fewer illnesses due to mask and mask usage alone?
Italy with another huge spike today, now registers 877 dead and 10149 infected (as of midnight, 11/3 - 2020). That’s a truly frightening mortality rate for a “first world” country. One must assume that there is a huge number of infected people who are flying under the radar (which I suspected anyway, considering how massive the spread of infection from Italy to the rest of Europe has been), but either way these are truly frightening numbers.
Incidentally, since people often return to the flu - the next time someone talks about how it’s “just another flu”, inform them that Italy suffered pandemic flu as late as 2018 - the worst they’d had since 2005. Almost 4 million Italians were registered to have had the flu during that period. The number of registered deaths from flu was less than a hundred - the worst flu pandemic I could find in that country since 2018 had 224 deaths. Just to put in context the scale of the disaster Italy (and the rest of the world) is facing. If this spreads as badly as past pandemics in Italy, even at the lower 2,3% mortality we now see in China, that is still ~80,000 people dead.
Italy is freaking out for a reason.
Menzo
2080
So a payroll tax deduction is a terrible idea, but what is the right thing the Feds could do here.
Should we just pay everyone in America $1000/month for a few months instead?
Obviously long term one big answer is a better healthcare system, but what could Congress do tomorrow to help?
Mr.GRIM
2081
That seems quite helpful
In Canada we are going to get a form of paid medical leave. I’m sure good ol Trump can figure out something.
Yeah, everything I’ve read says masks slow the rate of transmission. Obviously, masks should be used in conjunction with hand washing, not sticking your fingers in your eyes, etc.
I’m certainly not rushing out to get a pack of surgical masks, but if the infection rate goes up around here I might go find that pack of N95 masks I got when I was doing a bunch of sanding.
KevinC
2083
Oh my god. Those poor residents, I feel sick.
Even if it’s contained, the stress alone is going to do bad things to those people.
Interesting read on the BBC. They deconstruct the White House’s response to the virus, the contradictions of Trump and contrast the health system in the US and Europe. Nothing we haven’t heard before, of course. But always interesting to read another perspective on Trump’s antics.
Nesrie
2086
There is pretty much zero chance a GOP led government is going to try either of these two options.
They’re going to claim people will abuse the system in some ridiculous way and then sit back, wring their hands together, furrow their brows, and wonder why some people keep going to work sick or keep their businesses open as if they don’t understand that these same people have bills, bosses that will fire them, taxes to pay and etc.
Have you met many college students? It’s hard enough to keep them off their phones in an actual lecture hall*. Online class is going to mean 6 hours of TikTok, not 6 hours of paying attention to the virtual lecture(s).
Let’s not even get into the general shittiness of broadband infrastructure in the uniquely exceptional United States of America.
*Source: every day of my professional life
Nesrie
2088
It’s been a few years since I was in college but it hasn’t been THAT long. Why does anyone care if the students are paying attention to the lecture? If they don’t learn, then they typically fail. I don’t see how they can do the tests, assignments or reports if they don’t do the reading or listen to the lectures. My experience is those who were not in class wound up doing a heck of a lot of work they didn’t need to do, because they weren’t there when the professor told you to or to not do certain things like read this chapter or… even take the test, or some did nothing at all, and you didn’t see them around your senior year.
You can’t force adults to pay attention, but sometimes consequences get them to change their behavior.
I think what most people in the US and Europe don’t realize yet, is that if this is as bad as Asian countries have reacted, whether kids miss a month or even a year of school is the least of our worries. Maybe it isn’t as bad as this, but all actions in Asia and data in Italy show this is a 1000 year catastrophe.
OMG you can’t do tests online heh. So much cheating.
Oghier
2091
It wasn’t just the man. His wife also went out to a bunch of places, including a nail salon, a coffee shop and two grocery stores. The younger daughter went to a house party with students from three different high schools.
I can only assume they bought into the “it’s just the flu” business. Oh, and this is all within two miles of my home.
