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America is giving up on the pandemic?

theatlantic.com

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Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#71

Post by double0jimb0 »

ianai wrote: post #35
lostapathy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a lot of it, for better or worse. I feel like a lot of people are afraid to talk about anything but the protests lately, lest they be branded as not supporting the protests.

What’s crazy though is for the first time in my life I actually fear for the future existence of the US. I watched 9/11 in real time and that didn’t feel as much of a threat to our existence as this does. There’s an actual civil war movement among the extremists now. I don’t think that existed during the civil rights movement days, even. Nor even the Vietnam fallout.

Yea, you are going to have to provide some references for that one.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#72

Post by pstuart »

redisman wrote: post #30
rohitb91 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that public assembly is essential regardless of what is going on. But why were the people protesting the lock downs and business shutdowns and the limiting of freedoms the yahoos and crazy murderers? Why did nurses block them from protesting but not one would block someone now?

What ever the answer is (and I don’t think there’s a non-partisan one), we’re screwed. Hopefully we’ll get new data on masks giving us a 80/20 solution since I don’t think either side of the political divide is going to buy the stay-at-home order much longer. “How come they can break it but we can’t?”

We are screwed. Partisanship has been extended to such a degree that it guarantees that "both sides" remain opposed.

Science should not be a partisan topic. Mistakes get made, but those should be learning opportunities rather than a chance to discredit your "opponent".

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#73

Post by redisman »

LockAndLol wrote: post #25

So is Europe. Apparently fueled by the protests in the US there have been demonstrations in Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, Madrid, Barcelona and other cities. Not only are they protesting against racism but it seems like there are quite a few also protesting against the lockdown measures. Once the weather gets better again you can bet that all along the European coasts hoardes or people will be ignoring the laxer provisio…

What I can’t even begin to understand is why would there not be a second wave? Nothing biological has changed. Prevention measures have been mostly a temporary lockdown which obviously has a extremely high cost in money and goodwill.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#74

Post by TeaDrunk »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #43

I support the protests, and believe they can be done safely, but we can't forget about the virus. A quick googling gives me numbers between 300 and 1000 people dying of police violence per year. Call it 1k-2k per year. If we eliminate 50-100 years of that, we match what coronavirus has done in a couple months. However, places are starting to relax the shelter-in-place rules already, so people going out now isn't comp…

I don't know, numerically, if the large protests ongoing now are hugely more contributory to existing open protests. For one, the large protests currently are highly masked, while the open protests were highly unmasked (plus they put pressure on states to relax containment standards without any plan for contact tracing or similar).

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#75

Post by alexilliamson »

ianai wrote: post #35
lostapathy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a lot of it, for better or worse. I feel like a lot of people are afraid to talk about anything but the protests lately, lest they be branded as not supporting the protests.

What’s crazy though is for the first time in my life I actually fear for the future existence of the US. I watched 9/11 in real time and that didn’t feel as much of a threat to our existence as this does. There’s an actual civil war movement among the extremists now. I don’t think that existed during the civil rights movement days, even. Nor even the Vietnam fallout.

White supremacists have wanted civil war since... the actual civil war? I'm not sure there has ever been a point when civil war was not on the table among extremists. Do you have particular current examples that are especially disconcerting?

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#76

Post by thethethethe »

rohitb91 wrote: post #18
Barrin92 wrote: post #4

The concerns are right but public assembly is critical in a democracy, and cannot be put on hold indefinitely. It's probably the most fundamental right in any civil society and with all these takes I have seen on twitter about COVID and the protests, a lot of people seem to seriously unerestimate the value that free assembly has. Covid as bad as it is will be an issue of the near future, civil rights gains or losses…

I agree that public assembly is essential regardless of what is going on. But why were the people protesting the lock downs and business shutdowns and the limiting of freedoms the yahoos and crazy murderers? Why did nurses block them from protesting but not one would block someone now?

> why were the people protesting the lock downs and business shutdowns and the limiting of freedoms the yahoos and crazy murderers?

People denounced those protesters because they were protesting because many of them thought the virus was a hoax or because they couldn’t get a hair cut or buy lawn fertilizer.

The current protests are addressing systemic racism black people have faced in America for hundreds of years and the terrifying, autocratic police response to the initial unrest. Once more unrest was met with brutal state violence, more people showed up because they don’t want this country to devolve into an uncontrollable autocracy.

I think it’s pretty clear what the difference is here

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#77

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

charliemil4 wrote: post #31
war1025 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Covid as bad as it is will be an issue of the near future, civil rights gains or losses will have an impact in decades to come. There is a lot of truth in this. In any war there is a level of acceptable losses. For most of the spring, the modern culture wars were on hold and there were no hills worth taking. Now there is something going on that has the potential for long term consequences, so the level of acceptabl…

That’s also a case for reopening - or better never closing the economy - an abrupt stop and socializing losses will leave scars for decades.

Maybe people are just sick of being told they have to put the economy above all else. Can't have single payer healthcare because economy, can't have more days off because economy, can't have a higher minimum wage because economy, etc.

Ask me to take a risk because it is good for the economy and I'll tell you to fuck off. Ask me to take a risk to help reform violent police forces that oppress minorities and I'm more willing to do it.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#78

Post by mdturnerphys »

ac29 wrote: post #22

Daily new deaths have been steadily falling even as states continue to ease or eliminate restrictions [0]: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ This article seems to completely ignore that, instead focusing on positive test results, even though the vast majority of infections are mild or even completely asymptomatic. If anything, America is giving up on the breathless projections of mass die off that…

That drop in daily new cases is due to a drop in NYC and neighboring areas. When you remove that area the daily cases shows an upward trend.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#80

Post by [deleted] »

gdubs wrote: post #27
rohitb91 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that public assembly is essential regardless of what is going on. But why were the people protesting the lock downs and business shutdowns and the limiting of freedoms the yahoos and crazy murderers? Why did nurses block them from protesting but not one would block someone now?

There was a lot of science denialism in those protests, conspiracy theories, and (based anecdotally on photos which are the best we have to go on) mask usage seemed a lot lower.

[deleted]
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