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Daily coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - April 24
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!
Yesterday the President of the United States of America said, while talking about how much he has personally helped doctors come up with ideas on how to fight Covid19, that people
shouldcould potentially inject isopropyl alcohol and bleach into their bodies.https://www.inquisitr.com/6014314/isopropyl-alcohol-drink-inject/
I realize that his credibility is fairly low, but this is in no way a good idea, and will most likely result in your own death, preceded by blinding agony.
Ah, I was just having a discussion yesterday with my coworker about the Las Vegas mayor's interview with Anderson Cooper and how bizarre it was. They were thankful the mayor didn't have more power, but they felt the mayor was worse than Trump. Had some fun this morning sending this to them.
Bizarre is absolutely the right word.
There seems to be some sort of logical dead end in her mind. She seems to understand how people can get infected and spread disease, but doesn't seem to be able to make any mental progress past taking the decision to re-open all these businesses and saying they should be responsibile for making those businesses operate safely. That seriously seems to be the absolute limit her thinking and planning.
"...It's the people working on the floor who are going to become infected and potentially die"
"Well you're talking disease, I'm talking life. I'm talking life and living."
"OK that makes no sense"
"Well maybe it doesn't to you but it does to us here in Las Vegas"
When I first saw this I thought "certainly not" ... I can hardly listen to the guy, but reading the transcript at least he seems to be musing on whether scientists are pursuing it rather than telling Americans it's a miracle cure.
Still, if people will chug fish tank cleaner... I mean, I don't necessarily think it's likely someone will go for it and hurt themselves, but I also can't be confident that nobody will. There are already folks who give themselves diluted bleach enemas, so who knows with some people. Maybe someone out there is just itching to stuff their mouth full of Lysol wipes.
Another thing that frustrates me about [the anti-science people] is how laypeople will often make it seem like experts are incompetent with simple-sounding suggestions or surface-level takes. To laypeople it seems like common sense, so if these experts aren't doing it then those experts must not be so smart, huh? ("Hey, why don't we just... disinfect the lungs?") When really it's that something that sounds simple is in fact very complicated or impossible to actually implement - the experts aren't stupid, it's that you, as a layperson, don't have even enough education on the matter to understand the full scope and complexity of the problem.
I'm not a scientist, don't get me wrong! In the realm of science I am one of those laypeople, so I try to keep my mouth shut. But I get the same kind of thing as a programmer (relevent xkcd).
I updated my unfair "should" to "could potentially".
Mom says her symptoms are getting better, and would rather not go to the hospital on Saturday, because she's seen the Ward and it's pretty rough. She's chewing out her doctors receptionist about how she wants one antibiotic because she's allergic to the other one, so she's staying lucid, and that's nice.
Michigan had it's executive order extended to the 15th, and opened up sale of lawn and garden materials, so hopefully the brave and stunning souls liberating their ability to yell at service workers can be a little bit sated now.
New Brunswick, Canada, announced a phased opening plan today. It seems sensible - it's based on "triggers". As of today we are out of "Full Restriction" and into "Phase 1":
The trigger to move on to the next phase is 4 weeks of no case acceleration, and that phase involves opening some retailers and restaurants in a restricted capacity. Social distancing is still in effect, and mask-wearing is still encouraged in public throughout all the phases. Also, many things are straight up going to remain closed until a vaccine is developed. Provincial border restrictions are going to be evaluated independent of these phases.
If we hit a "minor trigger" - which I believe is an acceleration of cases again and is based on the judgement of health officials - we go backwards one phase (which at this point would mean going back to full restrictions anyway). A "major trigger" is three unlinked or untraceable new cases within six days and sends us right back to full restrictions from any phase.