outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

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

Much of that article seems well-grounded, as when he speaks in generalities, or about past pandemics or immediate necessities; he's ok when he makes short flights from these to nearby speculations. But when he turns full-bore futurist it falls flat, as with:

There will be celebrations as the pandemic recedes, but there may be no clear point when the threat of infection is over. Many people may migrate to online environments like those in Second Life, a virtual world where people meet, trade and interact in bodies and worlds of their choosing. Other adaptations may be uncomfortable for moralists. Online pornography will likely boom, and much internet dating may consist of erotic exchanges that never end in a meeting of bodies. Augmented reality technology may be used to simulate fleshly encounters and virtual sex could soon be normalised. Whether this is a move towards the good life may not be the most useful question to ask.

Fortunately, very little of the article suffers from this desire to be clairvoyant.

narrator: people kept fucking

Many people may migrate to online environments like those in Second Life, a virtual world where people meet, trade and interact in bodies and worlds of their choosing.

i always lol whenever contemporary people think that Second Life is still the best example of this kind of thing. it's very telling that the last time they checked in on this whole thing was 10 years ago

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ is posting testing rates now for nations where the info is available. Not just raw volume of tests, but per million people.

so while Americans are feeling confident that we're testing enough people now since we've tested 1.5 million and are the world leaders in that category, when it comes to tests conducted per million people, we're in 40th place.

Some of those nations aren't real good examples because nations with few known cases/tests might cause an outlying result, but...there are some fairly big nations out performing us here. Not to mention - symptomatic people nationally are still complaining that they can't get tested.

Take this for instance:

NOrway is testing 19,528 people per million. Switzerland is testing 17,729 people per million. Australia is testing 11,203 people per million. Germany is testing 10,962 per million. Italy is testing 10,870 per mill. South Korea is testing 8,875 per mill. Canada is testing 8,021 per million citizens. Spain at 7,593.

The US is testing 4,648 per million.

My diabetic uncle has fever, dry cough and lost his sense of taste and smell and hasn't been tested. His doctor told him to stay home and call 911 if his fever spikes. It's possible there's not much point in testing if it's clear someone has it but it does make me think that the worldometer numbers are drastically below the number of people who have it and are symptomatic, even leaving aside the hordes of us who probably already have it and aren't being affected.