Coronavirus, The plague has arrived

[Lois]

  Wow. Better avoid Houston... Who knew?

  The good side of this is Houston Fans can now get all the Season Tickets they want, since those older folks with morbidity stuff have passed on... so begin planning your social distanced Tail Gate Parties now.

  Nice to see a pic of a Stadium with actual people in the seats, not those phony painted on "people" most NFL Stadiums have been using the past few years.

You sound happy about these deaths.  I think you are the one with morbidity stuff.

[ObiDongKenobi]

Many auto insurance companies are refunding up to 25% of premiums that were due in March and April due to the sudden drop in driving.

WTF, the USA has motor insurance companies with a heart?  Here in the UK they are regarded as licensed thieves.

[Jed_]

  Wow. Better avoid Houston... Who knew?

  The good side of this is Houston Fans can now get all the Season Tickets they want, since those older folks with morbidity stuff have passed on... so begin planning your social distanced Tail Gate Parties now.

  Nice to see a pic of a Stadium with actual people in the seats, not those phony painted on "people" most NFL Stadiums have been using the past few years.

You sound happy about these deaths.  I think you are the one with morbidity stuff.

That is a severely damaged person.

[staci]

  Wow. Better avoid Houston... Who knew?

  The good side of this is Houston Fans can now get all the Season Tickets they want, since those older folks with morbidity stuff have passed on... so begin planning your social distanced Tail Gate Parties now.

  Nice to see a pic of a Stadium with actual people in the seats, not those phony painted on "people" most NFL Stadiums have been using the past few years.


Or, supposed photos of a presidential swearing in ceremony.

[Jed_]

We blew past the number of U.S. dead in the Vietnam War.  Only the Civil War and WWII had more dead.

I have colleagues in Sweden.  Usually a reasonable and smart country, they tried an anti-lockdown approach and are paying a high price now.  Fortunately for my colleagues, our company has a stay at home policy for those that can.  Every country that failed to lock down quickly is paying that price.  Every country that tried or tries to open too early will get a second round of infections and death.

Countries that locked down and did well include New Zealand, Taiwan, Germany and South Korea.  There are probably others, just can’t think of them.

It’s a failure of leadership.  And in the U.S with its current leadership, you deny what is happening, make incredibly stupid choices and comments, and blame everyone else for your failures.

Here are the numbers:

World population is 7.8 billion
U.S. population is 331 million (or 4% of the world)

World infection rate 3.2 million (although under reporting is rampant)
U.S. infections are 1.1 million (or 33%, which is up from 30% just a few days ago)

World dead 228,000
U.S. dead 61,570 (or 27%)

Way to go Trump for your ‘leadership’.  We were the most powerful country in the world with the best resources to combat a pandemic, yet the numbers show just how badly we are fucking this up.

Let’s revisit the numbers 11 days later:

World infections 4,116767
U.S. infections 1,364,517 or holding steady at 33% while only 4% of the world’s population.

World dead 282,872
U.S. dead 80,574 or 28%

Remember a couple weeks ago the WH said we could reach 74,000 dead by August?  Not even mid-May and we’re looking at that in the rear view mirror.

[_priapism]

 Wow. Better avoid Houston... Who knew?

  The good side of this is Houston Fans can now get all the Season Tickets they want, since those older folks with morbidity stuff have passed on... so begin planning your social distanced Tail Gate Parties now.

  Nice to see a pic of a Stadium with actual people in the seats, not those phony painted on "people" most NFL Stadiums have been using the past few years.

You sound happy about these deaths.  I think you are the one with morbidity stuff.

Especially minority deaths.  He gets a hard on every time he reads about one.

[Jed_]

Stimulus appeared in my account this morning, that took a while.

Meanwhile my Peruvian is buying an exercise machine, at least not a particularly expensive one.  I was commenting that it’s probably a popular item with gyms closed and everyone staying home and getting fat.  ‘The beaches will open soon!  Omg, I gotta lose weight!’

Chicken za’atar tonight with pinenut couscous and tomato/romaine/kale salad with a lemon tahini dressing.  There’s a little gumbo of mostly vegetables left to have some soup too.

And that’s why we’re fat.

[watcher1]

Meanwhile my Peruvian is buying an exercise machine, at least not a particularly expensive one. 

And all along, I thought you were her exercise machine.

[ChirpingGirl]

AKA we're not buying Chinese made junk and throwing our money away on shit we don't need.

New threat to the economy: Americans are saving like it's the 1980s.


https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/12/investing/jobs-coronavirus-consumer-spending-debt/index.html

[watcher1]

And the average price for basic food items increased this month to the highest it ever had in 50 years, only tempered by the low cost of gasoline.

[_priapism]

AKA we're not buying Chinese made junk and throwing our money away on shit we don't need.

New threat to the economy: Americans are saving like it's the 1980s.


https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/12/investing/jobs-coronavirus-consumer-spending-debt/index.html

That it what has Trump and his corporate cronies in a knot.  What if people just get off their treadmills and start living within their means?  Tear up our credit cards and only buy what we can afford?

[Hard_as_ironman]

AKA we're not buying Chinese made junk and throwing our money away on shit we don't need.

New threat to the economy: Americans are saving like it's the 1980s.


https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/12/investing/jobs-coronavirus-consumer-spending-debt/index.html

That it what has Trump and his corporate cronies in a knot.  What if people just get off their treadmills and start living within their means?  Tear up our credit cards and only buy what we can afford?

Dave Ramsey.  That's what he talks about.  Budget and save.  If you can get past his religious rants he has a very good method for money.

[ChirpingGirl]

AKA we're not buying Chinese made junk and throwing our money away on shit we don't need.

New threat to the economy: Americans are saving like it's the 1980s.


https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/12/investing/jobs-coronavirus-consumer-spending-debt/index.html

That it what has Trump and his corporate cronies in a knot.  What if people just get off their treadmills and start living within their means?  Tear up our credit cards and only buy what we can afford?

Thanks to our billionaire balloon governor and this virus that, apparently, is never going away my income has cratered and I now get minimum wage. I can't afford to use my credit cards or throw money away on things we don't need.

I'm so fuckin' sorry I can't afford to spend anything on something imported from the country that started this from corporations that use slave labor there and get bailouts from here.

[ChirpingGirl]

Downstate Madison County reopens businesses, defying Gov. Pritzker's stay-at-home order; Adams County looks to follow.

https://abc7chicago.com/business/downstate-county-reopens-businesses-despite-order/6178590/

[Jed_]

AKA we're not buying Chinese made junk and throwing our money away on shit we don't need.

New threat to the economy: Americans are saving like it's the 1980s.


https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/12/investing/jobs-coronavirus-consumer-spending-debt/index.html

That is what has Trump and his corporate cronies in a knot.  What if people just get off their treadmills and start living within their means?  Tear up our credit cards and only buy what we can afford?

The stimulus we got is going entirely towards paying down debt.  We bought a few things on line recently, but those items all fell well within our means pre-stimulus (meaning that while they may have deducted from what we could have used to pay off debt, they did not increase our debt).

Bought some kitchen items and a few cookbooks, and the above mentioned exercise machine (since menopause means she’s not riding me these days).  I got a French theme going in my kitchen, so added to that.  I also found 3 Peruvian cookbooks with great recipes and pictures, just love her culture and food.

I wonder if at some point the greedy corporate types will ever figure out that if they pauperize everyone, no one will be able to buy their products?  Nope, they’re not that smart.

[msslave]

A crack in the door here in Minnesota.  Our Governor announced a gradual reopening plan.  Businesses may reopen as long as they limit customers to half the number in the store as before (does any business know what that number). Other safety measures such as masks and sanitizing surfaces, etc. are to be put in place.

Still closed are:    Bars, restaurants, theaters, hair salons and other businesses where people must be in close contact. That may change June 1st.

https://www.startribune.com/walz-trades-stay-at-home-for-stay-safe-mn/570431912/

Meanwhile, next door in Wisconsin, the State Supreme Court tossed out that state's Governor's stay at home plan. Decision came down yesterday on a 4 to 3 vote. Last night several bars were already opening. Wisconsin is known as a hard drinking state.  I don't like driving at night over there and even in the daytime, traffic is iffy.

https://www.startribune.com/wisconsin-supreme-court-blocks-evers-stay-home-extension/570448252/

Now I'll be watching and waiting to see the effect these two decisions will have on the count of newly infected people and the death toll.

[_priapism]

Meanwhile, next door in Wisconsin, the State Supreme Court tossed out that state's Governor's stay at home plan. Decision came down yesterday on a 4 to 3 vote.

Same state Supreme Court that struck down voting by mail, denied rescheduling the primary, and ordered people to go stand in line during the pandemic to vote.

[ObiDongKenobi]

Last Sunday the UK government sent out a very confusing message about the relaxation of our lockdown conditions - Stay Alert.

It has taken me four days to figure it out
 
* 4 year olds can go to school, but university students who have paid for the tuition they haven’t had and the accommodation they aren’t living in, can’t go to university.

* A teacher can go to school with many 4 year olds that they are not related to, but can’t see one 4 year old that they are related to.

* You can sit in a park, but not until Wednesday.  The virus needs two days notice.

* You can meet one person from another household for a chat or to sunbathe, but not two people so if you know two people from another household you have to pick your favourite. Hopefully, you’re also their favourite person from your household or this could be awkward. But possibly you’re not. But as I can’t go closer than 2m to the one you choose anyway you wouldn’t think having the other one sat next to them would matter - unless two people would restrict your eyeline too much and prevent you from being alert.

* You can work all day with your colleagues, but you can’t sit in their garden for a chat after work.

* You can now do unlimited exercise when quite frankly just doing an hour a day feels like you are some kind of fitness guru. I can think of lots of things that I would like to be unlimited but exercise definitely isn’t one of them.

* You can drive to other destinations, although which destinations is unclear.

* The buses are still running past your house, but you shouldn’t get on one. We should just let empty buses drive around so bus drivers aren’t doing nothing.

* It will soon be time to quarantine people coming into the country by air... but not yet. It’s too soon. And not ever if you’re coming from France because... well, I don’t know why, actually. Because the French version of coronavirus wouldn’t come to the UK maybe.

* Our youngest children go back to school first because... they are notoriously good at not touching things they shouldn’t, maintain personal space at all times and never randomly lick you.

* We are somewhere in between 3.5 and 4.5 on a five point scale where 5 is all of the virus and 1 is none of the virus but 2,3 and 4 can be anything you’d like it to be really. Some of the virus? A bit of the virus? Just enough virus to see off those over 70s who were told to self isolate but now we’ve realised that they’ve done that a bit too well despite us offloading coronavirus patients into care homes and now we are claiming that was never said in the first place, even though it’s in writing in the stay at home guidance.

* The slogan isn’t stay at home any more, so we don’t have to stay at home. Except we do. Unless we can’t. In which case we should go out. But there will be fines if we break the rules. So don’t do that.

Don’t forget...

Stay Alert... which Robert Jenrick has explained actually means stay home as much as possible. Obviously.

Control the virus. Well, I can’t even control my dogs and I can actually see them. Plus I know a bit about dogs and very little about controlling viruses.

Save lives. Always preferable to not saving lives, I’d say, so I’ll try my best with that one, although hopefully I don’t need telling to do that. I know I’m bragging now but not NOT saving lives is something I do every day.

So there you are. ?

[joan1984]

  The very same State Supreme Court who is following their Oath, and the Law.
Rule of Law is important, even during a crisis. The US Constitution is to be honored, regardless of any crisis, is what the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled.

  A given period was allowed by State Law for Emergency orders by Governor. The Legislature declined an extension of that Emergency Period. It's the LAW.

  The same oath the Governor Swore To Uphold, yes?

  The Emergency was, some places still may be, a imminent danger to exceed State/Local Hospitals capacity to treat patients. Not any obligation to stop the effects of the Corona Virus, only the danger of the Corona Virus impact on the State and Local Hospitals. Emergency over... so it the ability to give Emergency Orders and expect such to be adhered to without question by U.S. Citizens.

  Stuff Happens... Deal with it!

Meanwhile, next door in Wisconsin, the State Supreme Court tossed out that state's Governor's stay at home plan. Decision came down yesterday on a 4 to 3 vote.

Same state Supreme Court that struck down voting by mail, denied rescheduling the primary, and ordered people to go stand in line during the pandemic to vote.

[Shiela_M]

Meanwhile, next door in Wisconsin, the State Supreme Court tossed out that state's Governor's stay at home plan. Decision came down yesterday on a 4 to 3 vote.

Same state Supreme Court that struck down voting by mail, denied rescheduling the primary, and ordered people to go stand in line during the pandemic to vote.

They are still wondering about all those absentee ballots that showed up a week after the vote.  Counties have enacted their own stay at home order.  Bars and restaurants opened for about 5 hours before getting shut down again.