Author Topic: COVID-19  (Read 52756 times)

Offline JayUtah

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #45 on: May 14, 2020, 05:24:46 PM »
Yeah. You got your independence and look what you did with it! Loads of memes circulating around here about revoking your independence after Trump got elected.

So you know my avatar is me in a production of 1776.  One of the other actors in that play has now gone on to Broadway as a swing player in Hamilton.  He occasionally gets to play King George III.  That seems suddenly relevant.
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams

Offline gillianren

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #46 on: May 15, 2020, 11:51:26 AM »
Where I live the largest predator I'm likely to encounter is a fox, and I sure as hell don't need a firearm to see one off.

Even in places where I've regularly seen coyotes, you don't need a gun to scare them off.  They're smart enough to know that you might have a gun, and they're not willing to take the risk.  Maybe it's different in true wilderness, but not in suburban LA County!

Yesterday, Irene had an appointment with her audiologist.  (She's fine; she's got a check-up in six months, and her ears now drain the way they're supposed to.)  We'd gotten a call some time ago telling us about the social distancing requirements they were using at the office.  You call up to the office to let them know you're there.  The waiting room is closed.  In fact, they took our temperatures and asked us basic health questions before letting us in.  And, yes, someone who had presumably gotten the same phone call as we did ignored all that, and also wasn't wearing a mask.  I'd even made sized-to-fit masks for the kids, though we couldn't keep Irene's on because it turns out three-year-olds aren't interested in public safety.
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Offline Peter B

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #47 on: May 15, 2020, 10:19:35 PM »
A sad but interesting story about the effect of COVID-19 on a small town in (American) Georgia:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-16/coronavirus-second-wave-hits-rural-america/12251058

Quote
At the time of writing, Cuthbert and the surrounding Randolph County (total population: 6,700) reported 169 confirmed cases and 21 deaths.

That may seem like a drop in the bucket in a country with 84,000 deaths and counting.

But the speed with which the virus took over the town meant that for a few days in April, Randolph County had the highest per capita death rate in America.

Offline Peter B

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #48 on: May 15, 2020, 10:31:24 PM »
This page shows interesting statistics about the virus's effect in various countries around the world:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-13/coronavirus-numbers-worldwide-data-tracking-charts/12107500?nw=0

Usefully, it's updated daily.

The chart that I notice particularly is a little over half way down, labelled Deaths by Population (Log scale). It shows two very distinct groups of countries - one group where early lockdowns appear to have worked, and another group where either lockdowns haven't been used or were imposed slowly or late or weren't effective.

Another one near the bottom shows that Autocrats aren't necessarily better at dealing with coronavirus.

One of the things that frustrates me about so many of the conspiracy theorists over at UM is that they see the effects of and responses to the virus solely through the eyes of the USA or the UK, as though it's having no impact anywhere else (apart from the evil commies in China). What this page shows is that, like so many things in the world, things are complex and not binary.

Offline gillianren

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #49 on: May 16, 2020, 10:49:02 AM »
One of the last big events of the season here has already been canceled.  Seriously, if you can afford to buy from a small artist/artisan, please do--they need the money.  My friend the potter didn't get any of the small business grants, presumably because that money was busy going to large publicly traded companies instead of a mother and daughter business. 
"This sounds like a job for Bipolar Bear . . . but I just can't seem to get out of bed!"

"Conspiracy theories are an irresistible labour-saving device in the face of complexity."  --Henry Louis Gates

Offline JayUtah

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #50 on: May 16, 2020, 01:14:30 PM »
Our Governor recently downgraded our risk level to Low, allowing for more activity.  The only exemption is Salt Lake City, which is still at Medium.  Here's a helpful graphic.  This is a simplified view of the Salt Lake Valley (geologically) looking northward.



The developed area is, politically, Salt Lake County.  My house is pretty much where the little red star is, but I have business interests, offices, and locations in that whole developed area (as well as outside the picture to the north and south).  As you can see, it's a heavily populated county, with lots of commerce throughout.  The city is just the cluster of buildings near the red star.  And that's the only place the Governor has allowed to remain at a higher level of quarantining and protection.  The Mayor of Salt Lake County requested exemption, but the Governor denied her.  There are places in the "county" that are almost as densely occupied on any given day as the downtown area.  And people come in and out of the city on a daily basis.  Now all those people in the county who are more likely to communicate infection amongst themselves due to relaxed restrictions, are more likely to bring it into the city.

I can understand the logic behind not having a statewide order.  There are parts of Utah were you could literally set off a nuclear bomb and no one would notice.  But the difference in policy between the cities and the counties of our most populous areas simply makes no sense.  If the leader of a populous county says, "No, we would like to continue taking precautions," and your Governor says, "No, we're not going to let you do that," you wonder what the Governor is thinking.  He is not running for re-election.  His Lt. Governor, a closeted Trump toady, is running for that party.  And I'm friends with the Democratic candidate and his lovely wife.  He admires me for my cocktail-making skills, so maybe I can score a political appointment as Secretary of Alcoholic Beverage Control.  (Yes, in Utah that's a cabinet-level position.)

Gillianren, I'm relieved that your friend tested negative.  So far only two of my friends have had COVID-19, and they contracted it in New York.  Luckily they are young and very fit (professional ballet dancers) so they recovered without requiring hospitalization.  Sadly one of our business patriarchs was not so lucky.  I didn't know him personally, except maybe for a handshake at one point.  But he was well respected and beloved.  He was in the category of age and health that made him particularly susceptible.  Two years ago I had one of the milder viral xARS illnesses.  It was the sickest I can remember ever being, including pneumonia.  I have absolutely no desire to endure COVID-19.
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams

Offline gillianren

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #51 on: May 17, 2020, 11:36:27 AM »
This is the same friend who rates 10 on the pain scale as "the time my appendix burst," so I'm not sure how it would have rated on her scale--depends on the severity, I suppose.  But if she'd had a relatively mild case, I wonder if it would've only gone to reinforce our faire boss's conspiracism in that department.  He's of the "we should open the economy because we're grown-ups and can do all this without being told" strain, but the only reason he wears a mask around is that he knows what his daughter (who's in her 20s) would do to him if she found out he wasn't.  Naturally, he sees no contradiction there.  And he's immunocompromised and has bad lungs.  So.
"This sounds like a job for Bipolar Bear . . . but I just can't seem to get out of bed!"

"Conspiracy theories are an irresistible labour-saving device in the face of complexity."  --Henry Louis Gates

Offline Allan F

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #52 on: May 17, 2020, 11:43:16 AM »
Perhaps a coping strategy? He might feel the "I'm invulnerable"-attitude gives him a emotional relief from the subconscious fear he must have.
Well, it is like this: The truth doesn't need insults. Insults are the refuge of a darkened mind, a mind that refuses to open and see. Foul language can't outcompete knowledge. And knowledge is the result of education. Education is the result of the wish to know more, not less.

Offline gillianren

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #53 on: May 18, 2020, 11:14:41 AM »
Well, yesterday, he posted something about how all these people were related by marriage that was really, really not true (you can't be married to Adam Schiff's sister if Adam Schiff doesn't have a sister!), and he used the word "triggered" to describe the reactions of the five or ten people who corrected him and asked him to fact-check before posting, so yeah.  He's a really talented artisan, and I will never stop promoting his work, but ye Gods, his politics.
"This sounds like a job for Bipolar Bear . . . but I just can't seem to get out of bed!"

"Conspiracy theories are an irresistible labour-saving device in the face of complexity."  --Henry Louis Gates

Offline JayUtah

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #54 on: July 06, 2020, 11:51:34 PM »
So you know my avatar is me in a production of 1776.  One of the other actors in that play has now gone on to Broadway as a swing player in Hamilton.  He occasionally gets to play King George III.  That seems suddenly relevant.

If you're lucky enough to be watching Hamilton on Disney+, the person I'm referring to plays Samuel Seabury, the Anglican bishop.  His bit is right before the first appearance of King George III.
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams

Offline inconceivable

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #55 on: October 20, 2020, 09:28:56 PM »
I've heard this 5G thingy also.  They claim the cruise boats started getting sick because of the satellite 5G beam technology.  The nursing homes and hospitals were ramping up 5G for their new wireless healthcare monitoring and places around hubs were first infections.  But it was some Chinese 5G that was banned.  Some frequency with beam technology which concentrated the signal right at the user for the duration of the call was suspected as older mobile systems used a tower triangulation method.  US is building their own safer 5G and many countries have banned Chinese 5G.  But all countries are racing to install this 5G for the monetary gain it will bring.
Some have theorized that MERS was a result of this beam technology originally to locate terrorist by tracking their phones and became more affective than sending drone missile.
The signal threat in the past was coined the invisible threat as in the case of the Moscow signal.
In the 60's and 70' they noted that astronauts returning from the moon had elevated viruses in their bodies.  Mostly reactivated chicken pox or shingles viruses and it was concluded that cosmic radiation reactivated dormant viruses.
  Today astronauts stay mostly beneath the Van Allen Belts to reduce exposure to this radiation and complications with reactivated viruses.  Space medication is catching up with this issue as astronauts to the space station take many vaccinations prior to their arrival but are still not exposed to the full range of frequencies needed to go beyond.
To actually go to Mars they will need to create many more vaccinations and subject many more.   Different frequencies will have to be tested to evaluate what viruses reactivate.  Global exposure to these frequencies and the viruses, the vaccinations discovered and medical knowledge learned is the fast tract to space travel. a8Glf



Offline Zakalwe

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #56 on: October 21, 2020, 02:59:35 AM »
Cool story, bro.
"The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.' " - Isaac Asimov

Offline Allan F

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #57 on: October 21, 2020, 10:44:39 AM »
What a load of b......

Evidence for those virus-claims, please.
Well, it is like this: The truth doesn't need insults. Insults are the refuge of a darkened mind, a mind that refuses to open and see. Foul language can't outcompete knowledge. And knowledge is the result of education. Education is the result of the wish to know more, not less.

Offline Zakalwe

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #58 on: October 21, 2020, 01:05:15 PM »
What a load of b......

Evidence for those virus-claims, please.

There's absolutely zero point in engaging. Inconceivable is the very definition of a seagull poster...he just flaps in every now and then, defecates and then flaps out again. You'd have to wonder at the thought processes that's going on when someone that hasn't posted in nearly two years suddenly gets the idea to wander over to Apollohoax.net and make a random nonsense post.
https://www.apollohoax.net/forum/index.php?action=profile;area=showposts;u=224

I sometimes wonder if the account is owned by an orphaned bot that still is running on a device somewhere out there on the Internet that was once part of a long-defunct botnet.
"The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.' " - Isaac Asimov

Offline molesworth

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Re: COVID-19
« Reply #59 on: October 21, 2020, 02:21:34 PM »
A simple response to this kind of eejitry is to note that many of the countries which have been most successful in dealing with the pandemic also have widespread 5G networks.  South Korea is a prime example with probably the most extensive network in the world, and New Zealand is continuing its 5G roll-out while the virus is almost completely under control.

I'd be more worried about the decline of piracy being the root cause of global warming...
Days spent at sea are not deducted from one's allotted span - Phoenician proverb