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Weekly coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - week of May 4
This thread is posted weekly, 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!
This post turned up in my Facebook feed: "The end of stay-at-home orders doesn't mean the pandemic is over. It means they currently have room for you in the ICU."
That's a sobering thought.
Today was the day the lockdown lifted in several countries in Europe, to varying extents. Here in Belgium, the day has been referred to as "Le déconfinement" (the end of lockdown), despite the ending being very gradual.
I went to get groceries today actually. My local shop had a MASSIVE queue, so I just biked to a more central supermarket. Brussels is more empty than before the lockdown, but a LOT less empty than a few days ago.
Also on a much more personal note, my now-ex girlfriend broke down on Saturday and got fed up with her mother forbidding her from seeing me, fleeing from her home and walking to mine, in the rain. I was asleep and hungover when she rang the bell, needless to say that was a surprise (shocker: you treat someone like a teenager by locking them up, they're going to behave like a teenager by sneaking out). Her mom is now forbidding her from returning home for the next 9 days, so… we're spending them together.
It took a little bit of planning on the first day to make sure it wouldn't be awkward. We're spending them as a couple, but with no expectations of staying together at the end of it; just making the best of the time we got. And before the end, we'll talk about where we go next. I'm actually curious how it'll evolve; personally, I cannot deal with her family anymore (they've been incredibly awful people with this and on another matter I won't talk about publicly), so I truly don't expect anything.
Still, my batteries have been … recharged. We're actually having a great time. I'm sleeping well once more, and life feels good right now. The lockdown's starting to be lifted, and I expect to remember May 2020 as "the light at the end of the tunnel".
Hm, now I'm thinking about ice skating again…
Life can throw you curveballs you didn't know were possible, it seems from your story. :D Because deciphering your comment was rewarding when it clicked that - indeed - you two are temporarily together again after breaking up I will try to remember to label your cmt as Exemplary or what it's called, the blue one. Oh and I don't know your personalities but maybe polyamory would be something for you two. Well, few of the times for people behaving like teenagers, but I presume you said that tongue-in-cheek. Have a good one, in any case!
Haha, thanks. We actually considered polyamory for a while (for months, in fact) and we're both up for it, but the only people we've shown interest in aren't interested back. It's left me scratching my head as to how polyamorous relationships even get formed (how do you even "ask someone out" in that way?)…
Mostly by visiting social spaces where it's expected that most/all people are also polyamorous. That way you don't have to filter through lots of awkward conversation that run aground on basic incompatibility.
To add to this (tagging @Adys so they see) , many apps allow you to advertise your poly status and find others who also advertise it. OkCupid for example.
Otherwise it's a short conversation I always have for anyone I'm interested in romantically or who shows interest in me.
Hm. It didn't even occur to me to look at dating apps for this; in retrospect, it makes sense.
Hit the nail on the head, how funny. Well in my view of it you don't need to actually form a polyamorous relationship (well yeah maybe if you transition from mono to poly you set guidelines and stuff). It's more like being someone who has fun rollerblading or feeling more like hand shakes and not hugs. You just feel that way!
And then the changes come slowly but can become remarkable. For example the general view in the society around me is if you fall in love with someone else than your boy-/girlfriend then you have a problem of unfaithfulness. But falling in love is totally not frowned upon while poly and you can just enjoy it. There's more layers and stuff to talk about with your several special someones but if you dont shy away from being truthful and respectful, you will learn how to act. Or how to ask someone out and feel the right time to tell them you're poly and whether they had experiences with it.
edit: Thanks to MimicSquid for nr. 2 and turning it blue, haha.
That's all, folks.
The New York Times got an internal CDC "Situation Update" presentation (PDF) which is projecting that the situation in the US is still continuing to get considerably worse. They're predicting that by June 1 the US will be seeing around 200,000 new cases per day (~8x the current rate) and about 3000 deaths per day.
The NYT's summary/comments about it are here.
There's so much inconsistency and chaos between states, and a black hole of federal leadership. One of the worst outcomes of this whole ordeal would be to have gone through all this isolation and economic turmoil, and still end up with hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions infected, and only fractionally better off than if we had done nothing at all.
Yeah, it looks bad but the economic turmoil would be bad regardless. People aren't going to travel or eat out when they're terrified. All the same stuff would happen, except later and therefore less effective if not government-mandated.
Frankly, what you're doing right now is literally the original flattening the curve thing. You're still going to end up badly hit by the disease, but at least you can hope to prevent the absolute nightmare that is a flooded healthcare system - anywhere but in NY anyway...
As I said the other day, your effort thus far hasn't paid off all that much, sadly - case numbers aren't really stabilizing.
An Associated Press analysis found that if you remove the New York metropolitan area from consideration, the rate of new infections and deaths in the US are both still increasing, not declining as it appears when that data is included. Many states are starting to ease their restrictions while the situation is actually still getting worse.
Axios and Ipsos have been doing a weekly survey in the US about coronavirus-related subjects, and this week, they found a really stark, partisan divide in what people think about the official death count: 63% of Democrats believe it's probably lower than reality, with only 7% thinking it's higher. However, 40% of Republicans believe the death count is being inflated, with people being most likely to think that if their primary source of news is Fox.
The way we disagree on facts in this country depresses me. How did we get here? I have multiple friends who believe doctors are being paid $39k by the government every time they report a death as COVID to inflate the numbers. When asked, they either have no source or their source is some video or blogpost of someone asserting it's true without any actual proof. As it turns out, the number came from the fact that medicare pays up to $39k/patient who goes on a ventilator.
Brazil has now 101 thousand cases and 7.000 deaths with a population of of 209 million.
My home state, Bahia, had 3566 cases and 128 deaths with a population of 15 million.
The isolation is supposed to be partially lifted in my city, but I don’t see much change on the street. And one baby died in a maternity ward so now they’re testing all babies there.
On a personal note, I’ve been feeling a need for intimacy but all my partners are justifiably concerned. Oh, well.
There's a new anti-vax conspiracy video making the rounds if you haven't heard about it yet. "PlanDemic"
I'll link it here for posterity but it's essentially a massive gish-gallop of unfounded and anti-vaccine claims. There's a good rebuttal here.
That's showing "Video unavailable". I wonder if YouTube has removed the video due to its content.
It's been removed and reuploaded via different channels multiple times at this point, which is good IMO (it being removed).
I searched, and found some other articles and videos about this "plandemic", like this one. I got only a few sentences in...
... and realised I was in for a crazy ride.
Sure enough...
... I was right.
I gave up shortly after that. But it was enough to give me an idea what this "plandemic" theory is about.
Yeah, it's pretty bad. I did try to warn you. :P
Here's the video description:
And here's a reupload. Dunno how long it'll be around but it's red meat for the Trump loving conspiracy crowd.
Oh hey! "bioengineered", "5G", "Chemtrails" AND "mainstream media" - that's my conspiracy Bingo card filled out.
My city, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, will start a lockdown May 09 in some neighborhoods. This lockdown may be extended for the entire city.
The mayor was visible shaken when he talked to the press.
I’m a little freaked out.
The New England Journal of Medicine published an editorial today about an observational study they just released that showed no substantial benefit to treatment with hydroxychloroquine, and doesn't rule out a detrimental effect. Overall, they're mostly concerned that there's so much rush towards these treatments with no solid evidence that they work (and might even make it worse): The Urgency of Care during the Covid-19 Pandemic — Learning as We Go
Coronavirus: Outcry as Spanish beach sprayed with bleach
Zahara de los Atunes, near Cadiz, used tractors to spray more than 2km (1.2 miles) of beach with a bleach solution a day before Spain allowed children out of lockdown for the first time.
Environmentalists say the move caused "brutal damage" to the local ecosystem.
The New Zealand Ministry of Health press conference is taking place now, 0 new cases, for a second day in a row.
Got my brain poked today, figured I should officially join the ranks of the infected. Got an inhaler as well, so hopefully that makes the coughing more productive as well. We're all sick, but no one is critical right now, so that's nice.
Edit: Tested 83% Oxygen twice after playing videogames with my brother for a few hours, changed devices, got 97, tested both at the same time, 95. Not sure if I was laying on my arm, tested first with the cheap one or if being a lump affected my O2. Little bit spooked, but I feel good now.
Do you mean you have the coronavirus, or is this a joke?
I tested for it, waiting for results.
Edit: I'm official!
Sorry to hear this. Please keep us updated.
McSweeney's takes the meme that's going around a little further: Sure, The Velociraptors Are Still On The Loose, But That's No Reason Not To Reopen Jurassic Park
Burn! That's some nasty biting satire. I like!
CEOs Were Asked to Remove Masks Before Meeting With Mike Pence in Iowa
You'd at least one of those five people would refuse such a stupid request. <sigh>
SF doctor, returning from helping in NY, shocked by full United flight
This Corona thing have really shown some interesting cultural difference between me and my friends from other places.
I think I mentioned it before - how a friend from the US who moved here got almost ostracized (online not socially) because his "normal and good response" to a pandemic was our "trying to create dissent and fear - behaving insane". While our "normal and good response" was to him and his family "dangerously flippant and ignorant". It took quite some talking to figure out why we where all angry at each other. It got sorted though :)
Friends who moved here from places like Somalia also have a rather unique take. Or rather a deep seated distrust of government actions. One friend is basically living in her own hermetically sealed biolab because even though she KNOWS it doesn't change certain parts, it makes her calmer to in hard for individual super-carefulness as a response to government statements. At the same time the older generations in her family seem hellbent on visiting sick relatives as that is a deep seated thing and would, as she explained it, "feel really like pissing on someones grave or something" if they didn't.
At the very same time the... ehm "I only tell it like it is, love me or hate me" crowd from here (the MAGA hat wearers equivalent here) are basically fuming. On the one hand they are angry af at people "spreading the disease by social carelessness" (usually, "mysteriously", to them only people of other ethnic origins or young people - at least not THEM :) ), and on the other furious at being told what to do. They seem to want soldiers in the streets ordering people around, as long as they are not the ones being ordered around.
I still seem stuck trying to explain to friends from the EU that our laws are very very strict concerning what the government can and can't do - which is why having a complete lockdown simply isn't possible and why relying on people to do the right thing themselves is necessary.
Oh but on the upside: the ideological privatization of parts of our shared society seem to finally have hit a snag. Our death tolls are high because Corona reached the homes for the elderly quickly since those homes where the first to go when we privatized the shit out of everything in the 90's. The people working there simply couldn't afford to stay at home sick, sick pay or not, as they often worked per hour and each lost hour was lost income. The owners of the homes cut corners at every intersection: from ignoring safety regulations to not handing out protective gear. Meaning that the disease have basically run wild in those homes and killing thousands.
I mean its not GOOD news, but... the effects in the long run means it forces the government to reconsider privatization by ideological motivations.... again: shitty thing happened - the effects may be good (you know what I mean)
One my my friends in my D&D group thought it had it last week, full on symptoms, everything. His test came back this week and says negative, but he said his doc is convinced is a false negative. He is awaiting an antibody test and it sounds like the worst has passed. He's been on the slow road of improvement for the past 4 days or so and still sounds beat.
SF’s new plan on Tenderloin homeless crisis confronts staggering number: 285% jump in tents
A decision to save Monterey county lab’s budget in 2018 is proving fateful during the pandemic
Monterey County Board of Supervisors was facing a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall and the proposed elimination of dozens of positions including major reductions to the county Public Health Clinical Laboratory and Communicable Disease Prevention and Control Program.
[...]
Fortunately, the warnings by Moreno, county Health Director Elsa Jimenez, and others were heeded. The county tapped certain reserve funds and ended up protecting the health budget and the laboratory in particular.
In an email to constituents from that time, County Supervisor Jane Parker called it “the most challenging budget that I have experienced in my nine years serving as your elected county supervisor.” She thanked those who spoke up to prevent “devastating cuts to essential health and human services program.”
Yuri Anderson, chief of staff to Supervisor Mary Adams, says she and her colleagues were recently reminded of the tough budget decisions of that year: “When all of this started with Covid-19, in our office, we said, ‘Where would we be if the lab wasn’t open right now?'”
Riverside County (California) officials vote to rescind all local coronavirus public health orders
[...]
Junípero Serra School to close, citing COVID-19 pandemic as final straw
138 employees at Central California meat plant test positive for coronavirus