Corona(virus)? ITS NOT EVEN BEER DAMMIT!!!

[nicole]

Would you feel the same way if you lived in New Zealand?

No, not remotely.

[Aresen]

For all the ways anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bigotry have been horrifying post-911, I shudder to imagine how much worse it would be if, instead of POTUS G.W. Bush responding with his "We're not at war with Islam or Muslims; only with a tiny number of terrorists committing evil in their name" speech, we instead had a POTUS Trump responding with another of his spittle-emitting bigoted rants.

The possibility of another major terrorist attack has been one of my biggest nightmares of the Trump presidency. I don't want to think of the powers that a panicked Congress might give him and how he would use them.

[Jennifer]

For all the ways anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bigotry have been horrifying post-911, I shudder to imagine how much worse it would be if, instead of POTUS G.W. Bush responding with his "We're not at war with Islam or Muslims; only with a tiny number of terrorists committing evil in their name" speech, we instead had a POTUS Trump responding with another of his spittle-emitting bigoted rants.

The possibility of another major terrorist attack has been one of my biggest nightmares of the Trump presidency. I don't want to think of the powers that a panicked Congress might give him and how he would use them.

"Fortunately," most of the terrorist attacks since Trump's election have been from his own support base -- bigots shooting up churches and the like -- so Trump has felt no need to even try stamping that out. This, after all, is a man who publicly announced that many of the literal Nazis marching in Charlottesville were "very fine people."

[Jadagul]

Would you feel the same way if you lived in New Zealand?

No, not remotely.

Yeah, so there's at least one more win condition. Vaccine, herd immunity, or suppression.

I expect the first to come well before the third here, sadly.

(Honestly, there's one more off-ramp. If it becomes clear that neither a vaccine nor suppression is coming, I might decide it's worth giving up myself. But that's at least a year down the line to make that decision.)

[Number 6]

What do you mean by giving up yourself?

[Jadagul]

I have kept myself to a pretty strict lockdown. I've been out shopping like four times since mid-March, taken a couple masked walks in the park with friends, and I have a couple people in my social bubble I see closely.

My current plan is to keep that up until either vaccination or suppression. But if it becomes clear that neither of those things is ever going to happen---which would be something I wouldn't conclude for probably another year, at least---I would become a lot more willing to get a lot sloppier and hang out with people in person, definitely in small gatherings. Permanent isolation is really unappealing.

[D.A. Ridgely]

I have kept myself to a pretty strict lockdown. I've been out shopping like four times since mid-March, taken a couple masked walks in the park with friends, and I have a couple people in my social bubble I see closely.

My current plan is to keep that up until either vaccination or suppression. But if it becomes clear that neither of those things is ever going to happen---which would be something I wouldn't conclude for probably another year, at least---I would become a lot more willing to get a lot sloppier and hang out with people in person, definitely in small gatherings. Permanent isolation is really unappealing.

Look at it this way, it'll be easier not to have a lot of friends in D.C.

BTW, have you moved and where did you land?

[Jadagul]

Not having a lot of friends is hard!

(I am a little concerned that it'll be hard to meet people for at least my first year there, but hey, I do have like a dozen or two friends out there already.)

Moving at the end of July. Think the plan is to wildly overspend for the first year, live close to work, spend the year figuring out what I want to do next year.

[D.A. Ridgely]

Hey, listen, if you're going to wildly overspend, our house is available! Only $4500 plus utilities a month and it's a one mile walk to two different Orange Line stations! I tell you, it's a bargain at that price!

[Jadagul]

Looking to overspend more in the $3k range, but thanks.

[Ellie]

Just get some roommates! Bonus, then you won't be lonely!

[Jennifer]

The five largest hospitals in Mississippi are out of ICU beds.

https://www.nola.com/news/coronavirus/a ... pEkpEnwVYM

The 12 biggest hospitals in the Houston area are telling ambulances not to bother bringing more people to them.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/all-t ... 5hzNIhVkA4

Florida keeps setting new records for in-state deaths (meanwhile, Walt Disney World is back open for business).

https://www.chron.com/news/article/Flor ... a2ATyWOOrY

[thoreau]

General Sherman's ghost is smiling.
EDIT: Yeah, that was shitty. Sorry.

[Eric the .5b]

General Sherman's ghost is smiling.

Not cool.

[Mo]

One advantage of having things better under control is that you can loosen some of the stricter rules a bit. The U.K. distancing recommendations on distance are now 1 meter instead of 2 meters. That makes things like school much easier to pull off.

[Jennifer]

Good but depressing article pointing out that thanks to America's idiotic covid-19 policies, literally the majority of the planet has closed its doors to Americans. If you'd like to leave the US for business or vacation, these are your current options:

1. Albania | 15. Lebanon
2. Antigua and Barbuda | 16. Maldives
3. Aruba | 17. Mexico
4. The Bahamas | 18. North Macedonia
5. Barbados | 19. St. Lucia
6. Belize | 20. St. Maarten
7. Bermuda | 21. St. Vincent &
8. Croatia | 22. Serbia
9. Dominican Republic | 23. Tanzania
10. Ecuador* | 24. Turkey
11. French Polynesia | 25. Turks &
12. Ireland* | 26. Ukraine
13. Jamaica | 27. UAE*
14. Kosovo | 28. UK*
29. South Korea*

*14 day quarantine required, not included in map. Someone wrote that Korea is accepting Americans with a quarantine also, but that's not in the source article. I have (now) included it here.

That’s the near future of the United States. An epidemic that spreads largely unchecked until next year. A population too unprotected and ignorant to be allowed anywhere else. A world that largely suppresses the virus — from Mongolia to Ghana to Trinidad & Tobago — but which has to keep America in isolation.

In the end, Trump did what he said. He built a wall around America and made the world pay for it. He just never told Americans that they’d be stuck inside.

Mo, you're damned lucky your bosses sent you out of the US when they did. IIRC, you got offered the Singapore gig after the pandemic started? Had you been in the US at the time, you likely wouldn't be allowed to take it because Singapore wouldn't let you in.

I'm sure the "Hillary would've been worse" crowd will figure out a way to spin this, though.

[Pham Nuwen]

I was told that the left kept the border open to long and Trump closed it anyway. This doesn't hurt the maga peeps at all in terms of belief.

[D.A. Ridgely]

I was told that the left kept the border open to long and Trump closed it anyway. This doesn't hurt the maga peeps at all in terms of belief.

They weren't the sort to travel abroad, anyway.

[Jennifer]

It’s not that other nations don’t want to welcome Americans, they just can’t. The point of a passport is that a sovereign power vouches for its bearer, but America can’t vouch for the health of their citizens at all. America’s public health regime is far less trustworthy than Liberia’s (which is actually quite good). Its sovereign is mad.

At the same time, you can’t trust Americans. Americans have poor hygiene (low masking rate) and at least 40% of the population can’t be trusted to even believe that COVID-19 exists, let alone to take it seriously. They’re likely to refuse testing, not report symptoms, break quarantine, and generally NOT follow rules. Americans have a toxic combination of ignorance and arrogance that makes them unwelcome travelers.

They have a lot of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with them. Some of them, I assume, are good people, but it doesn’t matter. It’s a plague passport. Return to sender.

[Jake]

I was told that the left kept the border open to long and Trump closed it anyway. This doesn't hurt the maga peeps at all in terms of belief.

They weren't the sort to travel abroad, anyway.

America has Yellowstone, air shows, and Hometown Buffet. Why would we ever go anywhere else?

[Jennifer]

Oh, shit.

My patient caught Covid-19 twice. So long to herd immunity hopes.

..."Covid-19 may also be much worse the second time around. During his first infection, my patient experienced a mild cough and sore throat. His second infection, in contrast, was marked by a high fever, shortness of breath, and hypoxia, resulting in multiple trips to the hospital.

"Recent reports and conversations with physician colleagues suggest my patient is not alone. Two patients in New Jersey, for instance, appear to have contracted Covid-19 a second time almost two months after fully recovering from their first infection. Daniel Griffin, a physician and researcher at Columbia in New York, recently described a case of presumed reinfection on the This Week in Virology podcast.

"It is possible, but unlikely, that my patient had a single infection that lasted three months. Some Covid-19 patients (now dubbed “long haulers”) do appear to suffer persistent infections and symptoms.

"My patient, however, cleared his infection — he had two negative PCR tests after his first infection — and felt healthy for nearly six weeks...."

[Eric the .5b]

Might just be different strains. Which isn't that comforting, but it's not like you can't get the flu twice in one season when there are multiple strains around.

[Jennifer]

Either way, isn't this the type of thing which suggests it would be MUCH harder, if not impossible, to develop an effective vaccine?

[Jadagul]

Depends on a lot of things.

This is relatively persuasive to the idea that you can get symptomatically sick and not get medium-term immunity. But it matters a great deal how common that is; if one person in a hundred, or in twenty, is vulnerable to reinfection, that's unfortunate but basically normal. If 50% of people lose immunity after a month, that's really bad, but that seems unlikely to me; we haven't seen _many_ reinfections.

Another question of course is whether the vaccine can consistently develop good immune responses.

If you can get immunity that lasts, say, six months for 80% of people, that might be enough, as long as people re-up their shots on a regular basis.

[Eric the .5b]

Either way, isn't this the type of thing which suggests it would be MUCH harder, if not impossible, to develop an effective vaccine?

Why?

Flu vaccines are for specific strains. Doesn't mean they're not effective.