9 votes

Daily coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - April 22

This thread is posted daily, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!

9 comments

  1. [4]
    patience_limited
    Link
    I attended an online volunteer organizing meeting for the Biden campaign last night. [Disclaimer: While I'm not full of enthusiasm for Average Joe, it's imperative to boot the murderous Insane...

    I attended an online volunteer organizing meeting for the Biden campaign last night. [Disclaimer: While I'm not full of enthusiasm for Average Joe, it's imperative to boot the murderous Insane Clown Party to reduce death and suffering from COVID-19 in the U.S. We work with the tools we have.]

    There are a lot of things giving me pause about this:

    1. They're still organizing calls and texts for states that haven't completed their primary elections yet. Apparently, Joe Biden's not permitted to start his national campaign until he's formally confirmed as the Democratic Party's nominee.

    2. Barely any mention of COVID-19-adaptive organizing strategy. The online campaign documentation still reflects organizing for in-person events.

    3. Use of personal phone numbers for call-banking. There's no central call-routing or other masking in use.

    4. No coordination among various different tools to ensure that potential voters aren't contacted repeatedly on the same messages.

    5. A phone app for volunteers that's every bit as sketchy as anything else that wants access to all your contacts and shares with Facebook and Twitter. I asked about whether you can restrict these accesses, and what was being done to assure everyone's privacy. The response was a blatant brush-off. I don't expect low-level organizers to answer in detail, but it felt like no one wanted to think about this. That rubs me completely the wrong way - I'm a big believer in beginning as you want to end, and avoiding seemingly expedient solutions that enable long-term disasters.

    Not strictly COVID-19 related, but that's my input for the day.

    10 votes
    1. [3]
      skybrian
      Link Parent
      Good to know. It seems like someone needs to get in touch with the techies, assuming they have some. Maybe they don't yet?

      Good to know. It seems like someone needs to get in touch with the techies, assuming they have some. Maybe they don't yet?

      1 vote
      1. [2]
        patience_limited
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        Understand I'm gleaning this from the one-hour intro training and a little phone-banking since. They're using Slack for campaign worker communications, and I'm guessing there's a grown-up,...

        Understand I'm gleaning this from the one-hour intro training and a little phone-banking since. They're using Slack for campaign worker communications, and I'm guessing there's a grown-up, sophisticated cadre of the data geeks that propelled Obama's campaign somewhere in the wings.

        Nonetheless, the current stated focus is on propelling Biden voters to obtain/return absentee ballots or go to the polls (safely! - they got that messaging correct) for the remaining primaries, and also fundraising/gathering data on registered Democrats.

        One question asked was, "How do we persuade Sanders voters to get involved?", and the response was interesting. The organizer explicitly stated that Biden should be presented not as a transformational candidate like Sanders, but as a bridge to an ongoing leftwards transformation of the Democratic Party. I think there's more truth than fiction here, given the massive government interventions needed to sustain people through the COVID-19 crisis.

        4 votes
        1. bleem
          Link Parent
          what happened to the billion from bloomberg and all his assets? I personally got 4 full page color 'propaganda' in the span is 3 days during the super tuesday rounds.

          what happened to the billion from bloomberg and all his assets? I personally got 4 full page color 'propaganda' in the span is 3 days during the super tuesday rounds.

          2 votes
  2. [3]
    Comment deleted by author
    Link
    1. [2]
      cfabbro
      Link Parent
      If it's anything like here in Canada, it will take some time before people start wearing the masks, since unfortunately it's not super easy acquiring them these days. Here in Ontario we even had a...

      If it's anything like here in Canada, it will take some time before people start wearing the masks, since unfortunately it's not super easy acquiring them these days. Here in Ontario we even had a shipment of 500k masks held up by the US earlier this month. :/

      2 votes
      1. skybrian
        Link Parent
        We never considered buying a mask since there are directions online to make one out of an old T-shirt and my wife has a sewing machine. There are no-sew directions out there too. It's something of...

        We never considered buying a mask since there are directions online to make one out of an old T-shirt and my wife has a sewing machine. There are no-sew directions out there too. It's something of a hobby trend, like baking bread.

        4 votes
  3. [2]
    Comment deleted by author
    Link
    1. skybrian
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Yeah, it's pairing off. (A one-to-one mapping, pretty close to a mathematical definition of equality.) Is that a rule where you are?

      Yeah, it's pairing off. (A one-to-one mapping, pretty close to a mathematical definition of equality.) Is that a rule where you are?

      2 votes
  4. rogue_cricket
    Link
    Today makes four days in a row with no new announced cases here in NB, Canada. We're about two weeks past the initial peak; other places in Canada still seem to be on their way up. I was worried...

    Today makes four days in a row with no new announced cases here in NB, Canada. We're about two weeks past the initial peak; other places in Canada still seem to be on their way up. I was worried about Easter weekend, but I think the average incubation period is five days so people seem to have got the message about staying in.

    I hope we can start relaxing things sensibly come May 1st (which is when we are set to re-evaluate). I would like to see some more small businesses able to open with limited capacity, then another re-evaluation mid-May. Keep the border restrictions for sure, though, and with so few active cases we might be able to do an OK job of enforcing isolation periods and contact tracing for travelers.

    One thing I'm bummed about is that the city's 2nd-largest market (which was my favourite) ended up closing permanently and it did it in a really shitty way. Apparently the owner of the space told the vendors to come get their stuff out of the building and said it was because the building would obviously not be able to operate for a while due to the pandemic. Two days later they announced a full permanent closure on Facebook, and then the next day the Facebook account was also gone. The owner was always kind of skeezy, but that sucks.

    4 votes
  5. moocow1452
    Link
    So, a whole bunch of the food that we we gifted when our grandmother passed and Mom caught her Covid is starting to go. Mom's already in the thick of it, and I fear the idea of throwing away good...

    So, a whole bunch of the food that we we gifted when our grandmother passed and Mom caught her Covid is starting to go. Mom's already in the thick of it, and I fear the idea of throwing away good food will do more to her psyche then a virus ever could. Neither myself nor my brother don't have any symptoms yet, and while we have social distancing practices within the house, I'm starting to wonder whether some onset of general malaise I had earlier was the extent of the virus' effect on me, or if I'm still in the line of fire.

    4 votes