The Countdown to the restart of the economy has begun.

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RayThom
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The Countdown to the restart of the economy has begun.

Post by RayThom »

A Carnival Cruise to nowhere.

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BoSoxGal
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Re: The Countdown to the restart of the economy has begun.

Post by BoSoxGal »

RayThom wrote:
Wed May 13, 2020 1:18 am
A Carnival Cruise to nowhere.

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Ironically the title of an excellent novel written by the wonderful Katherine Anne Porter, who was nearly killed by the Spanish flu and lost the love of her life to it.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
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Lord Jim
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Re: The Countdown to the restart of the economy has begun.

Post by Lord Jim »

Projected U.S. Coronavirus Deaths Jump as States Reopen

A respected model for projecting coronavirus deaths in the U.S. has raised its total by 10,000 over a tally released just two days ago as more states begin to reopen businesses shuttered in the last two months in an effort to stem the spread of the pandemic.

A model by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington now predicts that roughly 147,000 Americans could die from the virus by Aug. 4. The new figure is driven by an upward revision in estimated deaths from several individual states since the organization's May 10 forecast, in some cases because of the easing of social distancing restrictions.

North Carolina is projected to see roughly 4,400 deaths by August, an increase of more than 3,000 over the total predicted Sunday. Projected deaths tolls in New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Maryland also shot up considerably compared to the previous model.

The new forecast takes into account the effect of changing social distancing policies and the impact of testing and contact tracing, the researchers said.

"The hybrid model allows us to better track changes to social distancing mandates and other drivers such as testing, contact tracing, and temperature," Christopher Murray, the director of the institute, said. "As with all our forecasts, these will be routinely updated and new data added as it is available. As social distancing mandates are lifted, we will be better able to understand whether behaviors, such as mask-wearing, can counteract increased mobility and keep cases down to prevent a prolonged pandemic."

As of Tuesday evening, nearly 82,000 Americans have died of the virus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-ne ... tes-reopen

Now, before Darren chimes in about how Univ. of Washington estimates have been wrong in the past, let me point out that when they have been wrong, it has always been because the model UNDERESTIMATED the number of deaths. (Which is the reason that for a long time, the UW was the favorite one cited by the Trump regime.)
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Gob
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Re: The Countdown to the restart of the economy has begun.

Post by Gob »

“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

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Re: The Countdown to the restart of the economy has begun.

Post by Darren »

"Ohio officials revealed new evidence that this virus was already spreading in January, once again proving that any effort to push lockdowns this late in the game is moot.

Based on new antibody testing, Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Amy Acton announced Monday that her department has discovered six cases of the virus in five different counties that began in January. Based on calculations of symptoms and transmissions, they have estimated that the cases began on Jan. 7 and Jan. 26 in Miami County, Jan. 13 in Montgomery, Jan. 18 in Richland, Jan. 20 in Summit, and Jan. 27 in Warren.

Other states have already identified more cases from much earlier than previously thought, but Ohio’s case in January 7 would be the earliest known case in the country so far. It makes sense that now that antibody testing is becoming more widespread, we are discovering that many more people had this virus earlier and didn’t even realize it."
Thank you RBG wherever you are!

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Re: The Countdown to the restart of the economy has begun.

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

For those wondering where the (as usual) uncited information comes from, it is a Facebook post by the extreme right militia-loving bunch known as Horowitz Citizen Sanctuary #RiseUp #ReopenAmericaNow

"Just like you, we are fans of Daniel Horowitz and listeners of his Conservative Review Podcast. But more importantly, just like you, we are patriots who care about the future of our country and everything it stands for. We cannot watch our government head down a very sinister, hypocritical and dark path by manipulating this serious public health crisis to destroy our liberty, economy, and sovereignty"

Now you know this group is insane because of one word: "moot"

Because coronarvirus was already in Ohio, there was no point (it was useless and served no purpose) to have any shutdown at all. People should have gone about as normal, infecting each other just as they did in 1917/18 because it was too late already.

What stupidity.
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

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Re: The Countdown to the restart of the economy has begun.

Post by Darren »

The original source is an ABC outlet in Columbus, OH. If it was in Ohio early in the year, it was in larger cities last year. That explain why the models have been wrong. They've never taken into account how many people were exposed before the bogus model start.

"Acton said antibody testing revealed at least five COVID-19 cases in five counties have a date of symptom onset in January, the earliest of which dates back to January 7. Previous data showed an onset of symptoms in February. "

https://abc6onyourside.com/news/local/d ... to-january
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Re: The Countdown to the restart of the economy has begun.

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

Yes but you didn't quote the "original source" nor any other responsible media outlet. You cherry-picked a quote from a rabid Facebook conspiracy junk group of fascists because they added your favourite mantra - it was not necessary to go into lockdown.

Your intended definition is #2 below. You can pretend you mean #1 but the truth is obvious.

adjective: moot

1. subject to debate, dispute, or uncertainty.
2. having little or no practical relevance, typically because the subject is too uncertain to allow a decision.
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

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Scooter
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Re: The Countdown to the restart of the economy has begun.

Post by Scooter »

The GOP Has Become a Death Cult

A decade ago, in my first public writing since leaving Capitol Hill, I warned that the Republican Party, in its evolution towards an extremist conservative movement allied with extremist Christian fundamentalism, was becoming like “one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe.” After Donald Trump’s enthronement as the decider of our fate, I analyzed the GOP’s descent into a nihilism that belied every one of its supposed “values.” They value only absolute power or ruin.

It is now long past time to cast off highfalutin’ Latinisms and simply call the Republicans and their religious and secular conservative allies what they are, and in unadorned English: a death cult. As the country reels from the coronavirus pandemic, our national government might just as well be run by the infamous People’s Temple of Jonestown.

By now we are benumbed by the all-pervasive arguments over relaxing workplace shutdowns and stay-at-home orders due to coronavirus. In any sane society, the issue would be how to institute the most efficient measures to defeat the pandemic in the shortest time and with the lowest loss of life. Instead, Trump and his merry band of lunatics have hijacked the national debate into a faux-serious discussion of when, oh, please, how soon, can we “reopen the economy?” Naturally, the media gamely continue to play along with this calculated bit of dezinformatsiya.

This has led to extreme callousness, like that shown by Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick, who opined that grams and gramps should be eager to shuffle off this mortal coil for the sake of their grandchildren.

There is abundant empirical evidence against this notion: voters in Florida, known as “God’s waiting room” for its geriatric population, are notoriously averse to paying one cent in state income tax to fund education or child health, let alone lay down their lives. In any case, the 69-year-old Patrick, who claims he’s willing to die for his proposition, did not relinquish the burdens of his office to volunteer as an emergency room orderly.

There’s also Congressman Trey Hollingsworth of Indiana, who put a patriotic gloss on his Malthusianism, decreeing that “it is always the American government’s position to say, in the choice between the loss of our way of life as Americans and the loss of life, of American lives, we have to always choose the latter.”

Then, striking the pose of the Serious Adult in the Room correcting mischievous children, he intoned: “It is policymakers’ decision to put on our big boy and big girl pants and say it is the lesser of these two evils.” This encapsulates the stereotype of the economic conservative: Dickens’s Thomas Gradgrind, the rigid, condescending, and heartless pedagogue.

But some pronouncements from the Trump coalition offer more ethereal rationalizations than the mere pursuit of lucre. The news is replete with stories about evangelical ministers packing their megachurches like sardine cans in defiance of state orders for social distancing, as well as contempt for common sense.

We all know about that harebrained medicine man in Louisiana, Tony Spell, already arrested for violating the state’s prohibition of large gatherings, who continues his antics nonstop. Spell, who sounds as socially responsible as a blood tick, is proclaiming his parishioners ought to choose death: “Like any revolutionary, or like any zealot, or like any pure religious person, death looks to them like a welcome friend. True Christians do not mind dying. They fear living in fear.”

So much for fundamentalists’ vaunted “culture of life,” a slogan which the prestige media never presume to critique.

For a more socially upscale version of this sentiment, let us turn to First Things, a pretentious journal of alleged theology that dresses up its non-stop shilling for the GOP with high-toned words like “numinous” and references to the philosopher Erasmus.

Last month, its editor, R.R. Reno, wrote a piece called, “Say No to Death’s Dominion.” It is an extraordinary performance. Contrary to the title, he actually argues that death should be embraced. He does this by weaving an imbecilic theology that includes falsifying the history of the 1918 flu epidemic to make his basic point:

“In our simple-minded picture of things, we imagine a powerful fear of death arises because of the brutal deeds of cruel dictators and bloodthirsty executioners. But in truth, Satan prefers sentimental humanists. We resent the hard boot of oppression on our necks, and given a chance, most will resist. How much better, therefore, to spread fear of death under moralistic pretexts.”

Oh, I get it! So Mother Teresa and Dorothy Day were more depraved than Josef Stalin! Reno ends with this:

“Fear of death and causing death is pervasive—stoked by a materialistic view of survival at any price and unchecked by Christian leaders who in all likelihood secretly accept the materialist assumptions of our age. “

This insane rant against materialism would seem to contradict the crassly materialistic assumptions underlying economic conservatives’ advocacy for letting a deadly virus “wash over” the population, as Trump would say. But these views, at first sight blatantly opposed, can be reconciled.

And who better to reconcile God and Mammon than a grifter like Jerry Falwell, Jr., ringmaster of Liberty University and testifier to Donald Trump’s status as an emissary of the Almighty? Not only has Falwell continued the school year, virtually alone among American universities, and despite pleading from students and parents to close, he has now been sued for failing to refund fees for student activities that have been suspended.

Fundamentalist preachers’ love of money is no secret: it is only by packing churches that the collection plate will yield a bounteous harvest so that their missionary work can continue – perhaps logistically aided by the purchase of a $65-million Gulfstream executive jet. And why not? It would upstage Pat Robertson, who had a mere Learjet, and a rental at that.

Political observers often wonder about the bizarre conservative coalition of plutocrats and theocrats, believing it to be unstable. But the intersection of the heartless pecuniary motives of religious and economic conservatives is no coincidence. And beneath the Ebenezer Scrooge façade of economic conservatives is the same kind of perverted idealism that we see in Tony Spell or R.R. Reno.

The most cost-efficient industrial process is one that wastes the fewest resource inputs. Likewise, internal combustion engines have evolved to get better mileage even as they pollute less. And electric motors are even more fuel efficient and less polluting.

So how do we explain conservatives’ perverse hatred of the environment, even when there are no profits at stake, as well as their tenacious denial of climate change in the face of irrefutable data? Is it not much the same as the Bible thumper who bitterly condemns stewardship of the environment as Gaia worship?

There are other similarities. Since the 1970s oil shocks (and coincident with the rise of the New Right), an abiding feature on the American scene has been the survivalist, hoping for the national Götterdämmerung that will vindicate his having stockpiled 10,000 rounds of ammunition and a horde of Krugerrands. This dovetails with fundamentalists’ weird enthusiasm for the prospect of world annihilation that animates belief in the Rapture, the only difference being the technique by which the elect avoid the mass slaughter.

Firearms fetishism and a fascination with violence, war, and armed insurrection are also mainstays of right-wing ideology, hardly distinguishable from Jerry Falwell Sr.’s, proclamation that God is Pro-War. And how about the Ultimate Fighting Jesus? The NRA neatly intersects with “muscular Christianity,” revealing both ideological kinship and some very embarrassing gender insecurities that frequently irrupt in misogyny and homosexual panic.

There is no longer the slightest doubt in any sane person’s mind that not only are the GOP’s fundamentalist-extremist religious allies a death cult disguised as 501(c)3 tax-exempt charitable organizations. The whole extremely well-funded edifice of “economic conservatism” is equally a death cult, worshiping Mammon so fervently that it is eager to make human sacrifice upon its altar, just like the Mayans and Carthaginians.

"¡Viva la Muerte!"

“Long live death!”
That was the defiant cry of José Millán-Astray y Terreros, a general in Francisco Franco’s fascist army during the Spanish civil war. It could just as well suit Trump’s foot soldiers.
"If you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu."

-- Author unknown

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Econoline
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Re: The Countdown to the restart of the economy has begun.

Post by Econoline »

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Crackpot
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Re: The Countdown to the restart of the economy has begun.

Post by Crackpot »

That picture makes no sense at all since Lucy is always preventing Chuck from kicking the ball.
Okay... There's all kinds of things wrong with what you just said.

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Re: The Countdown to the restart of the economy has begun.

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

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For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

ex-khobar Andy
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Re: The Countdown to the restart of the economy has begun.

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

Wake me when we get to Phase 1 please, Meade.

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RayThom
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The Countdown to the restart of the economy has begun.

Post by RayThom »

Crackpot wrote:
Thu May 14, 2020 10:50 am
That picture makes no sense at all since Lucy is always preventing Chuck from kicking the ball.
I found this cartoon funny regardless of how it reads.

Proof once again that humor is subjective.
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Joe Guy
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Re: The Countdown to the restart of the economy has begun.

Post by Joe Guy »

Crackpot wrote:
Thu May 14, 2020 10:50 am
That picture makes no sense at all since Lucy is always preventing Chuck from kicking the ball.
I see it two different ways.

1) Covid Lucy moves the ball when Charlie tries to kick it - or
2) Covid Lucy doesn't move the ball because she wants the reopening to happen so she can infect everyone

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Re: The Countdown to the restart of the economy has begun.

Post by Bicycle Bill »

No relation to the Covid crisis, but this is the best take on the classic "Lucy holds the football while Charlie Brown runs up to kick it":
(..... from the cartoon strip "Lio", by Mark Tatulli)

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Re: The Countdown to the restart of the economy has begun.

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

Joe Guy wrote:
Thu May 14, 2020 6:48 pm
Crackpot wrote:
Thu May 14, 2020 10:50 am
That picture makes no sense at all since Lucy is always preventing Chuck from kicking the ball.
I see it two different ways.

1) Covid Lucy moves the ball when Charlie tries to kick it - or
2) Covid Lucy doesn't move the ball because she wants the reopening to happen so she can infect everyone
Yes, and furthermore, Charlie is extremely dubious about kicking the thing. He wants the economy to reopen (he wants to kick off) but experience says he will be tricked by the holder. Nevertheless, his desire to kick is matched by his fear of the consequences. What should he do? What should he do?

We all know he's going to (try to) kick it anyway. And I bet Covid-19 doesn't pull the ball away but lets him do it
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

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Re: The Countdown to the restart of the economy has begun.

Post by Darren »

I know you will be crying tears of joy over this. Remember, stay hydrated!

"The most comprehensive national study to date has found that convalescent plasma appears to be safe to use on COVID-19 patients, a promising development in the race to find a treatment for the deadly virus. But the study didn't determine whether the treatment works.

A team of more than 5,000 doctors from over 2,000 hospitals and laboratories have been testing the experimental therapy, which involves transfusing the antibody-rich blood serum of recovered COVID-19 patients into people who are battling the illness.

Of the 5,000 seriously ill patients who received blood plasma transfusions for the study, fewer than 1 percent experienced serious adverse events. The mortality rate seven days after treatment was 14.9 percent, but the researchers noted the infusion patients were already gravely ill and the rate "does not appear excessive."

“We're very encouraged that the treatment is safe,” Dr. Michael Joyner, a physiologist at the Mayo Clinic and the principal investigator of the study, told NBC News. “That was really the first hurdle for us. And showing that it's safe gives us confidence to move on and begin to try to understand the efficacy.”"
Thank you RBG wherever you are!

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BoSoxGal
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Re: The Countdown to the restart of the economy has begun.

Post by BoSoxGal »

:hug: Wonderful! Blessings to the Mayo researchers and study participants! :hug:
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

Darren
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Re: The Countdown to the restart of the economy has begun.

Post by Darren »

BoSoxGal wrote:
Fri May 15, 2020 9:18 pm
:hug: Wonderful! Blessings to the Mayo researchers and study participants! :hug:
A patient in PA got the treatment about a month ago and survived. The hospital is collaborating with the Mayo program. The Red Cross has been asking for donations from people with COVID-19 antibodies.
Thank you RBG wherever you are!

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