outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

In the United States, there is now an excellent chance that the retreat is permanent. Victory over Covid has not yet arrived, but it is growing close. After almost a year and a half of sickness, death, grieving and isolation, the progress is cause for genuine joy.

More than 60 percent of American adults have received at least one vaccine shot, and the share is growing by about two percentage points per week. Among unvaccinated people, a substantial number have already had Covid and therefore have some natural immunity. “The virus is running out of places to be communicable,” Andy Slavitt, one of President Biden’s top Covid advisers, told me.

The share of Covid tests coming back positive has fallen below 3 percent for the first time since widespread testing began, and the number of hospitalized patients has fallen to the lowest point in 11 months, Dr. Eric Topol of the Scripps Research Translational Institute noted. For the first time since March 5 of last year, San Francisco General Hospital yesterday had no Covid patients — “a truly momentous day,” Dr. Vivek Jain said.

There are still important caveats. Covid remains especially dangerous in communities with low vaccination rates, as Slavitt noted, including much of the Southeast; these communities may suffer through future outbreaks. And about 600 Americans continue to die from the disease every day.

But the sharp decline in cases over the past month virtually guarantees that deaths will fall over the next month. The pandemic appears to be in an exponential-decay phase, as this helpful Times essay by Zoë McLaren explains. “Every case of Covid-19 that is prevented cuts off transmission chains, which prevents many more cases down the line,” she writes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/21/briefing/covid-19-us-pandemic-vaccinations.html

Only one day of 30k+ cases last week. Was shocked.

Florida numbers still frustrate me despite the decided downward trend for positivity rates.

DeSantis basically rolling off restrictions as far back as last September and publicly undermining them definitely didn't help

and there it is, DeSantis is ending the enhanced Federal unemployment on June 27th, the motherfucking asshole. PUA, which my mother is getting, is staying in place, but this is gonna fuck so many friends of mine.

Conservatism is a fucking cancer.

fwiw there's actually kind of a labor shortage here, restaurants and factories are offering pretty big bonuses right now cuz they literally can't find workers. not saying the unemployment benefits have anything to do with this (unemployment in general is still fairly low isn't it?) but conservative media has definitely been successful convincing others that is the problem

The pandemic exposed the gruesomeness of restaurant employment.

here too, but I think abused service industry folk have had enough and are trying to find new careers - I have a lot of friends who have frequently told me how terrible Disney is as an employer (Universal is better but even there, I've heard things). I know when I waited tables, I got used to being screamed at on a daily basis and I couldn't take it anymore. conservatives have definitely succeeded with that messaging, and they're fucking assholes.

my mother for instance hasn't gone back to work cos it's hard for me to watch Dad and work at the same time and she can't see well at night. but we're working out options right now, maybe Instacart-y type stuff.

basically if you work in the average shitty restaurant, you'll probably be sexually harassed if you're a female by managers and co-workers, your job security is threatened on a daily basis, you get screamed at by co-workers and customers alike, asked to work back-breaking double shifts, and go home with sore-assed feet and limbs.

there are many good restaurants where people can make a good living and avoid that, but there's a glut of really shitty ones like the ones I describe that many friends and acquaintances of mine have worked at, and some of them are thinking "why am I doing this to myself"?

I got out after my last restaurant laid me off in 2003 for the reasons above.

My greatest hope in life is to be able to stop working for the rest of it

seriously. I have dreams of like being a roadie who doesn't do anything but acquire beer for the band for some death metal band

You see the exact same working conditions at nursing homes, which is why I never worked for one in my 20 years as a CNA.

as far as i know, every job where you work with more than 5 people and you have a boss is the worst, particularly if the end goal of the enterprise is to just to make someone else money

as far as i know, every job where you work with more than 5 people and you have a boss is the worst

the dream job is when everyone understands that the vast majority of work is essentially meaningless, but everyone understands that in a really positive and utopian way rather than an excuse to trash the joint

a nation of Bartleby's

Lots of jobs where you work with fewer than 5 people and have a boss are hobbies for Large Adult Sons and Daughters and are shit, also.

yeah not to get too dystopian but my experiences with the mythologized 'small businesses' were definitely as bad if not worse than my times at big organizations. they're just as corrupt and awful.

A 60 second breath test seems like a major breakthrough

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/singapore-provisionally-approves-60-second-covid-19-breathalyser-test-2021-05-24/

15 or so months into a pandemic this seems kind of incredible, even for this utter shit show of a government. Update the guidance for areas hardest hit by the Indian variant but don't actually bother telling anyone about it other than changing your website

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-57232728

yeah i was a bit wtf when i woke up this morning reading this.

I think my mind is now is a position of just accepting and having to deal with all this unsettling for another couple of years, perhaps a lot longer who knows. I'm not even sure I can get my head around returning to pubs and spending £££ each week on beer.

https://lessonsfromthecrisis.substack.com/p/what-on-earth-happened-with-covid

Good substack looking at the pandemic and how plenty of scientific consensus in the West was anti-mask

Zeynep Tufekci wrote a piece in the New York Times questioning the existing consensus and pointing out the obvious: of course masks work

this was the article I read last year that made me consider buying one for the first time.

and then suddenly, patriots across the country all felt a similar thought - "i betcha they don't!"

still feel like we missed a golden opportunity there to gather up all the most respected high-profile doctors and left wing politicians on one big stage to state emphatically that rat poison is bad, rat poison will kill you, do not under any circumstances ingest rat poison, please for the sake of everyone who loves you never ever ever take rat poison.

i am kind of an asshole.

fwiw i literally take rat poison (warfarin) to keep me alive, so

that is an awesome flex, something to casually mention anytime you're conversing with a rodent

FWIW, I definitely think masks work, but I don't think cloth masks on kids does much of anything and I think it's time to end that.

E.g. here:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.19.21257467v1

No correlation between COVID spread and school mask mandates

And just as it makes sense to me that masks work (when of proper material and properly fitted), it completely makes sense to me why they don't make much difference with respect to kids who (1) have trouble wearing them properly, as I have observed, and (2) don't spread COVID as efficiently anyway.

Just because your own kids got covid doesn’t mean everyone else’s have to too

Maybe that didn't post. I'll post it again.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.19.21257467v1

No correlation between COVID spread and school mask mandates

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Tuesday, May 25, 2021 8:10 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I mean honestly if you are terrified of your kids getting COVID, keep them home, but flimsy cloth masks with huge gaps around the nose aren't going to stop it.

while we're at it, maybe we can get rid of other superstitious practices too, like "deep cleaning" and quarantining library books

Yeah those are definitely both the same as wearing masks

im in favour of not eliminating deep cleaning

^^^^^^^

fuck deep cleaning

I mean honestly if you are terrified of your kids getting COVID, keep them home, but flimsy cloth masks with huge gaps around the nose aren't going to stop it.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Wednesday, 26 May 2021 bookmarkflaglink

Lol ok you do you. Some kids will find masks harder but we are mostly talking about what the advice was for adults.

Having said that the main takeaway from that piece is how governments and scientists often treat people like children in the lack of trust placed in people to wear masks properly and wash them regularly. Also some racism in thinking countries from the East don't know what they are doing but that's more par for the course.

while we're at it, maybe we can get rid of other superstitious practices too, like "deep cleaning" and quarantining library books

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Wednesday, May 26, 2021 2:39 AM (ten hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

The virus spreads via the air, not surfaces. But continue with your strawman argument it's illuminating

i think man alive was being serious there!

i.e. you agree

but go ahead with your sarcastic disdain, it’s the lingua franca around here!

kids wearing masks made out of cold cuts do not work either.

it's so hard to tell tone on this place anymore--i def think masks work on kids

but i really don't want to get into it--if you don't see that masks are part of the solution, i can't really help you!

every mask made of poorly fitting slices helps™️

to be clear, I was pro face masks in high density public places (maybe not in water parks) before we were 1.5 years into a global pandemic.

I've been to my partner's school and kids are pretty responsible about masking. They have to be nudged, yes, because they're children. But by and large they're not assholes about it, except the ones that are, because - children. Maybe it's the school teachers being dismissive or laissez-faire that's the problem, not the kids.

this was my understanding:

Surfaces - virus mainly spreads by air but the virus can still survive for short periods (day or two?) on surfaces so always best to wipe and be safe
Masks - usage is to prevent the wearer from spreading the virus, and not the other way around.

(I might have misunderstood what yall debating right now, so sorry in advance)