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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?

#11

Post by jbay808 »

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…

Assembly is valuable, but there's a certain misery that comes with self-isolating for two weeks living on canned beans, having many businesses shut down, and working so hard at this to protect the lives of your elderly parents or your asthmatic sibling...

... And then watching 10,000 people pack together downtown exercising their right to free assembly, and likely undoing all those months of progress.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#12

Post by lykr0n »

> Businesses are opening

Yeah. We never were going to be able to keep everything closed for much longer. There is a very anti-handout ideology here, and the amount of political will for more bailouts was dwindling.

> Protests...

Sorry about this one. There are more important issues that need solving right now, and momentum and timing are very important. Right now we're in a perfect storm where a large amount of people can protests. Day after day after day.

The only way we could have kept the pandemic at bay if it was the only thing in the news and on everyone's mind. And more important things came along.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#13

Post by cblades »

mberning wrote: post #5
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…

Unless you assemble because you want to work. Then the media will paint you in the worst light possible an act like you are actively murdering grandma.

Assemble carrying weapons and with half the crowd claiming that the entire disease is fake, though?

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#14

Post by Animats »

San Mateo County health officer: "The third modification of the shelter in place order is being made on 6/1/20. These modifications are being made in attempt to strike a balance. They are an attempt to find a way to increase the immunity of the population (in public health terms, this is called “herd immunity”) slowly and methodically, while minimizing premature death, with equity in mind, while not overloading the healthcare system, and minimizing economic damage. Many of these considerations work in opposite directions."[1]

The current US death rate is about 1,000 per day, and that probably won't go down much until there's a vaccine or until 70% of the US population has had the disease. This is a "bury the dead and go on" situation. The US hasn't faced one of those since WWII.

Meanwhile, don't bunch up, get good masks, and wear them. The mask supply situation has improved, although too many of them are junk. The US could probably beat this thing with enough N95 respirators.

[1] https://www.smchealth.org/health-officer-statements-and-orde...

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#15

Post by war1025 »

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…

> 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 acceptable losses has gone up.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#16

Post by SPQT »

Not a surprise, COVID19 is pretty soft compared to the historic pandemics. I'm actually suprised that this continued for so long, I gave the lockdowns 4 week, but I guess the media propaganda blessed it with longer life.

Just to clarify about Covid: -The highest deathrate from it is around 1%, CDC reports 0.30 lately. -Hits predominantly the old parts of the population -The death comes in a normal way - pneumonia -> death, nothing like the bubonic plague or ebola symtoms

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#17

Post by mberning »

goatinaboat wrote: post #9
mberning wrote: post #2

Why shouldn’t they? People were browbeaten for having the audacity to want to return to work. Now politicians are out marching shoulder to shoulder with thousands of other people. We also were told that Georgia was going to be a disaster for reopening too soon and that has not come to pass. It’s good to know that “believe science” and “stay home stay safe” are completely negotiable based on what is politically expedi…

The “open letter” signed by 1200 experts stating that protesting was no risk, except for protests against the lockdown itself, was also mind boggling in its audacity.

Right. As if the virus has its own agency and cares why you are gathering.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#18

Post by rohitb91 »

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?

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#19

Post by nkozyra »

war1025 wrote: post #3

A thing I've noticed is that they stopped mentioning the daily numbers on the radio (NPR, more specifically Iowa Public Radio). It's sort of like the media has extracted all the juice they can from the pandemic and now we're just left with the pulpy mess that no one really wants to deal with.

Airtime is finite - editorially, it's unsurprising the story took a backseat. NYC curbed infection rate, there may be seasonality, numbers in general are going down in this country.

If we see another phase it will be A1 material again.

Re: America is giving up on the pandemic?

#20

Post by lostapathy »

ianai wrote: post #8
war1025 wrote: post #3

A thing I've noticed is that they stopped mentioning the daily numbers on the radio (NPR, more specifically Iowa Public Radio). It's sort of like the media has extracted all the juice they can from the pandemic and now we're just left with the pulpy mess that no one really wants to deal with.

I fear it might be more pernicious than that. There’s reason to believe states are misreporting their numbers to hide what’s going on with it. But I think the media senses the protests and racism issues have to take up all the available oxygen, “or else”.

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.
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