outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

i saw two city workers, today, hanging up a police line "DO NOT CROSS" over the gates to a basketball court. they were both like, right next to each other, no PPE at all, physically exerting themselves. and since they were workers, i kind of doubt they've been sheltering in place together, unless they're worker roommates.

Right now there are people literally risking their lives to sell us food, or deliver it to us or whatever, not to mention the people working in Amazon fulfillment centres and, on an entirely different level, hospitals and care homes. The level of risk might depend on age, exposure, underlying health etc, but it is complete bollocks to claim they aren't risking their lives. The virus just isn't predictable enough to make that claim.

Cleaners also.

otm -- young healthy healthcare workers are dying merely because they have greater level of exposure to the virus. It seems callous at best to say they "aren't at risk" -- the risk of death for this for a "young healthy" person who is constantly at risk of exposure is still way higher than for something like the flu, and will only grow as ventilators become wholly unavailable.

"they" = any essential worker forced to have a lot of contact with a lot of people right now, not just healthcare workers.

Yes, but what about cleaners in America? Don't lose track of the purpose of this thread.

Wait, so you’re saying that letting 250,000 people gather in close proximity before letting them go back home to every corner of the country, coming into contact with millions.....wasn’t the smartest idea?

huh pic.twitter.com/5ecvxZJ1hf

— Pointless Letters (@pointlesslettrs) April 3, 2020

Cheltenham festival going ahead will go down as a colossally reckless move when someone writes an epidemiological study of the UK response.

wow and they did it even after everyone saw that spanish flu philly parade graph

this too

Liverpool city council's new public health director says it was wrong to stage the Liverpool v Atletico Madrid match on 11 March: 54,000 people, with 3,000 from Madrid, as Covid 19 was already spreading in the UK. https://t.co/WQ6VyJ6PXs

— David Conn (@david_conn) April 2, 2020

I've been called back to work as a church singer to help with the funerals - because apparently it's pretty essential to avoid having to sing along with a cd - so I now have to get back on the subway. Happy days.

:(

That's ridiculous. What would happen if you declined?

If I in any way feel unwell, they want me to stay away. So I could just say that I didn't feel okay. The problem is that they've paid us singers for every funeral, even though they were done without music, but now they won't. They really are trying to make it as safe as possible, and I am honestly more concerned for the mourners, who might be elderly, and whom I might infect. But it can't be 100% safe. I'll be very careful to keep my s'es as dry as possible, though :)

Fred, no doubt you've read this but in case not

https://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2020/03/30/u-s-choir-ravaged-by-coronavirus-after-continuing-rehearsal/

I don't know if the event is entirely outside or how many people or what measures are being taken but if I were you I'd phone in the "feeling unwell"

Spain is to release everyone held in its seven immigration detention centres.

Grounds include health (difficulty in maintaining social distancing) and difficulty in deporting people due to the closure of borders (there's a 60-day time limit on detention). https://t.co/FbvWh5OSL1

— Luke Butterly (@lukejbutterly) April 3, 2020

Fred, no doubt you've read this but in case not

https://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2020/03/30/u-s-choir-ravaged-by-coronavirus-after-continuing-rehearsal/

I don't know if the event is entirely outside or how many people or what measures are being taken but if I were you I'd phone in the "feeling unwell"

― Yanni Xenakis (Hadrian VIII), 3. april 2020 20:52 (thirty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Right, but there's only going to be one prof singer per funeral, so that'll be me spitting on everyone else. Though in the small chapel, they are trying to place me so that I'll basically be singing into a wall...

dude, don't do it.

yeah that is not a good idea

Seriously man, this is one of those situations where it's best to err on the side of caution.

UK CV funerals are currently four guys in hazmat suits yeeting your coffin into a hole while your nearest and dearest watch via Zoom. I think they’ll manage with a CD.

Right, but it's not going to be a cd. It's going to be a singer, either me, or a colleague, or someone called in.

I am told that people have been singing along to records for (checks notes) like 100 years.

Helps if you have a hairbrush and you are a tweenager jumping on a bed, but I imagine the same skills can be applied to people standing in a church.

The whole thing is a clusterfuck. The minister was even talking about doing some kind of Easter service, not the usual one, but of course it could be adjusted, because it is so very important... At least that was dropped once anyone pointed out is was insane.

cop to a cough and let it go man. These are all very personal choices but there is much to lose and not much to gain with what you're describing.

if you jump out, they're almost certainly not going to find someone else and that will lead them to realize this won't work.

Anti-government extremist Ammon Bundy led a meeting last week where he agitated for Idahoans to physically defy the state’s stay-at-home order, which is meant to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bundy is perhaps best known for leading the armed, 10-day occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon in 2016. But these days he’s threatening to rise up against the public health measures to ward off COVID-19.

Bundy, who lives in Idaho, announced a “people’s meeting” on Facebook to respond to the state government’s COVID-19 “stay-home order,” which the governor signed on March 25. A few dozen people responded to the call the next day, crowding an otherwise empty building in Bundy’s hometown of Emmett, according to video of the gathering that an attendee subsequently posted on Facebook.

“The right to travel is not theirs to take,” Bundy announced to the crowd. “The right to assemble is not theirs to take. The right to worship how and when and where we want is not theirs to take.”

If a business owner decides to keep their business open in violation of the state order, Bundy said, he would organize a group to “surround them and protect them.”

In addition to legal and political advocacy, he said, “we will also, if necessary, provide a physical defense for you so that you can continue in your rights.”

At the end of the meeting, he had attendees sign their names to an agreement to “unite each other” in the common defense pledge. The Associated Press reported Bundy’s remarks Wednesday.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/ammon-bundy-pledges-physical-defense-for-those-who-defy-idahos-covid-19-order

oh please oh please oh please gather up at the bundy ranch, true believers

he's going to have to kill at least 20 people before he'll be prosecuted in this country

^successfully^ prosecuted

this idiot brought all his followers who live in remote compounds together to get diseases from each other

it's important to have these kinds of meetings face to face, in close proximity.

I am honestly more concerned for the mourners, who might be elderly, and whom I might infect.

That is 100% who you should be concerned about, no matter how you happen to feel right now (you know there are people carrying and spreading the disease with zero symptoms, right?) Ask yourself what the children of those mourners would want you to do.

the Bundy gang forgot snacks, you will remember

they should have a lot of dildos still, iirc

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/ammon-bundy-pledges-physical-defense-for-those-who-defy-idahos-covid-19-order

oh please oh please oh please gather up at the bundy ranch, true believers

― let me be your friend on the other end! (Karl Malone), Friday, April 3, 2020 1:54 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

ranch covidians

lol

that was my first good post for a couple of years. going to spark up a cohiba

President Fucko announced the new CDC recommendation to wear a mask in public by saying "It's voluntary... You don't have to do it..."

Once agin we are left wishing that stupidity only killed the stupid.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/ammon-bundy-pledges-physical-defense-for-those-who-defy-idahos-covid-19-order

oh please oh please oh please gather up at the bundy ranch, true believers

― let me be your friend on the other end! (Karl Malone), Friday, April 3, 2020 1:54 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

ranch covidians

― COVID and the Gang (jim in vancouver), Friday, April 3, 2020 5:16 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

put this in the fuckin louvre

jim in vancouver, that was exquisite. A+

awesome

flag post... for greatness

Amazing.

jim just leaked the title of the next Boards of Canada LP.

balaclava arrived a day early. yay masks.

this revolution will not be televised

https://i.ibb.co/mcqSFG4/rsz-1rsz-screencapture-facebook-slayerrob-posts-10157443615707981-2020-04-03-20-12-12.png

i disagree w/ the "risk of their lives" argument. they're taking precautions and most essential workers are not at-risk groups. most wfh are staying home to protect vulnerable people, not to protect their own lives.

most essential workers are not at-risk groups

This statement shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the facts. Everyone is at risk. What differs is degree of risk, not presence or absence of risk.

Very sad about this:

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/apr/04/medics-in-brazil-fear-official-coronavirus-tally-ignores-a-mountain-of-deaths

similarly: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-indonesia-funerals/exclusive-jump-in-jakarta-funerals-raises-fears-of-unreported-coronavirus-deaths-idUSKBN21L2XU

I don't think this is true:

"Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next."

https://amp.ft.com/content/10d8f5e8-74eb-11ea-95fe-fcd274e920ca?

But it is a good piece.

I found this one, by John Gray, interesting:

http://www.newstatesman.com/america/2020/04/why-crisis-turning-point-history