Boston public schools are now closed; set to reopen April 27th. (Yes, April 27th.)
rei
3597
Can we crowd fund a GoldenPalace.com type of streaker to infect POTUS?
Guap
3599
Thanks for the laugh, I needed it. It’s getting a bit panicy out there with empty store shelves on the East coast.
That would be a good thing, if it were happening any time soon.
It is not happening any time soon.
That’s right, Donnie fucked up again and let fly with a bunch of garbled gobbledygook. Who could have imagined?
What Trump said:
"Google is going to develop a website — it’s going to be very quickly done, unlike websites of the past — to determine if a test is warranted and to facilitate testing at a nearby convenient location… We have many, many locations behind us, by the way. We cover this country and large parts of the world, by the way. We’re not gonna be talking about the world right now, but we cover very, very strongly our country. Stores in virtually every location. Google has 1,700 engineers working on this right now. They have made tremendous progress.”
What’s actually happening:
A small offshoot of Alphabet is building a small website that will offer drive-through testing to people in the Bay Area only. Originally this website was going to be available to health care workers only, but Donnie’s fuckup is forcing them to make it available to the public when it goes live (which it isn’t yet.) It will only direct you to drive-through testing in the Bay Area. Maybe it will be expanded later, but there’s currently no structure in place to do that. And there are not 1,700 engineers working on it: instead “that appears to be related to a call for volunteers Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai put out in a company-wide memo earlier this week.”
Expect the markets to go back to crashing on Monday.
Tman
3602
It’s hard to imagine this quarantine doing any good with all the lines at Costco and supermarkets.
Went to lunch today at a Thai place we love and it was nearly empty. Spotless as well. I felt 10x more safe than anywhere but home.
We heard from friends that all these stores are packed with lines long and deep.
I don’t think most people realize what social distancing means. You actually think they’ll stay at home or find excuses to go out constantly?
Hal9000
3603
I am not overly worried about my own health, but it changes my plans significantly as far as work and vacation—canceling all of it is a hassle, and I had medical things to attend to in the US that are required before I can change countries. So no vacation, no requisite medical stuff, which means no changing jobs.
The man who got it was young (20s), which surprised me—other factors may have been the heat and humidity, but his international airevac insurance took him away intubated. I have the same insurance, so that’s good at least.
And thanks, @nKoan. :+)
@playingwithknives someone must know that suspense is exciting. :P
Soma
3604
He came back to NZ from US on the 6th. Banning visitors from US will be just as costly as banning those from China, so it is an open question how the NZ government will react to Trump’s shitshow.
Damn, and I even said nice things about the SOB.
My wife is a primary school teacher and she is quite happy for the school to remain open. Schools are safe environments, regularly cleaned, with lots of sanitiser available and the ability to make sure the kids keep to a routine and are aware of the precautions.
Teachers can keep an eye on them and obviously take action as needed.
It’s not that clear that kids out of school would do any better spread wise.
Yes, spectacular actions are seen as doing something. But no need to trot out theories about ulterior motives. It’s clear the government is playing a balance between society and individuals (and I’m no fan of the Tories by any means), but it’s a bit early and a giant leap to say that their choice amounts to killing off the vulnerable.
Perhaps. But the problem with that is this: because kids don’t typically manifest severe illness, it could conceivably spread through the school within a short period of time, also spreading to their families. By the time the first person wound up in an icu, and traced it back to the school, you could be looking at a major local outbreak. Remember, even with adults, they are contagious before they show symptoms, so teachers “taking action as needed” doesn’t sound especially helpful.
It is clear in a few countries. You can talk about tradeoffs, but to say it isn’t medically recommended or successful ignores a lot of the evidence out there.
Indeed. But it’s not a clear cut argument. And, like I said, there are arguments in favour of a controlled environment and reinforcement by the teachers. We shall see.
The UK is absolutely going to close schools. The argument being that, at this point in time, the good doesn’t outweigh the bad yet. It’s a fine balance. It could be the wrong move for sure. That’s above my pay grade.
But from the perspective of the teachers themselves, my wife and her colleagues think it’s a good thing for the students right now.
Then they are basically saying that there aren’t enough people dying yet (the bad). I don’t know, preventing lots of life by keeping from arriving at that point in the first place seems like plenty of “good” to me.
but thinking the worst of a group of rapacious disaster capitalists who killed 130,000 through austerity isnt really a giant leap though. Especially when William Rees Mogg wrote the book on it.
Anyway, surely the argument is “why are 170 countries doing the complete opposite” rather than cut and pasting what our government is nudging at us?
My sleepy brain saw your post like this the first time, and I enjoyed your witty analogy. Then I read it again.
Matt_W
3614
I’ve been waiting for this shoe to drop all week. I’ve a feeling my May tickets to NZ won’t be very useful.
