Formerly DT: COVID-19 - Featuring Lots of Politics, now CR because political talk not going away

[JimmyJames 12271]

11 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

You know the virus can’t see the State line right? 

You the sheriff of Rio County, right? Un jefe muy respetado. Step over this line.

Sam obliges--

CHUCHO - Ay, que milagro! You're not the Sheriff of nothing anymore- just some tejano with a lot 
of questions I don't have to answer. Bird flying south-you think he sees that line? Rattlesnake, 
javelina--whatever you got--halfway across that line they don't start thinking different. So why
should a man?

SAM
		
Your government always been pretty happy to have that line. The question's just been where to drawit

CHUCHO

My government can go fuck itself, and so can yours. I'm talking about people here--men.

[Deej 77812]

3 minutes ago, Dr. Beeper said:

I’d pay $1,000 to have some secret audio where you break it to your mom that your favorite message board’s participants constantly refer to her being a whore. The confusion would be epic. 

I'd pay a $1000 to have some secret audio where his mom breaks it to him that it's not a joke. 

[Trey3216 15452]

3 minutes ago, Deej said:

I'd pay a $1000 to have some secret audio where his mom breaks it to him that it's not a joke. 

I thought $1000 was the gangbang rate 

[RayDog 682]

53 minutes ago, MNLonghornFUKM said:

Any cliff notes?

It struck me that all the experts writing papers and opinion pieces saying it could not have come from the lab were all involved with the gain of function experiments at the lab. They were also partly funded by the NIH who only ended the project on April 24th of this year. Fauci was a proponent of the experiments and is in CYA mode too. 

The opinion pieces say their computer models would not have generated this particular spike protein. But they ignore the facts that the spike protein could have been taken from another virus or be due to a mutation that occurred in animals within the lab. There is not enough public information available yet to eliminate the other possibilities. 

Me: Note that there was a paper from India that claimed that spike proteins and other new pieces of RNA code are found in other viruses. That paper was withdrawn under pressure since they concluded it was manmade, but a natural origin is still possible.

Scientists do need to determine the origin of the virus and I feel that the Wuhan virology lab should not be eliminated as a possibility yet.

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

6 hours ago, clapclapclap said:

I always expect these posts to immediately be followed by, "Hello, Americans, this is Paul Harvey, stand by for news!"

 

6 hours ago, Royalfan5 said:

When I am on the AM ag radios, I do try to drop a "Good Day" as a signoff from time to time. 

I like the updates. They remind me of the radio station my grandmother listened to out of Coffeyville. Come to think of it, I think they had Paul Harvey. She was a fan.

Anyway, the drive through the Kansas Flint Hills up to Nebraska was always a pretty one. You have to leave the interstate to really see the midwest and its beauty. Although, hog farms do have an odor all their own.

 

Sorry, back to nonpolitical COVID talk.

[Zepol87 9341]

I think the updates are cool as hell also. I know nothing of that business and it fascinates the hell out of me. 

[TwiceHorn 32075]

2 hours ago, XYZ said:

But what conflict is there? Travis County is under a stay-at-home order. The Governor didn’t order anything that conflicts with the county order. Or did he?

He ordered something more relaxed than many counties.  A less-than-stay-at-home order, if you will.

If you can comply with one set of rules while violating the other, there is a conflict.

Edited May 2, 2020 by TwiceHorn

[Pato del Muerto 53463]

50 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

You know the virus can’t see the State line right? 

We know. That’s why you parameciums made your way to Austin for baseball and football last year. 

[atomheartbevo 90641]

There was a discussion a few days ago.  So it's not simply a case of you saying you are selling a lot of food, you better have the receipts to back it up.

https://www.kxan.com/news/texas/texas-bars-serving-food-can-only-reopen-if-alcohol-accounts-for-less-than-51-of-total-revenue/

"But, Governor Greg Abbott’s phased plan only allows certain establishments to reopen, based partly on revenue. 

Chris Porter with the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission explained which businesses can now reopen, in addition nto restaurants.

“That includes among those restaurants, TABC-licensed businesses who sell alcohol, who for whom alcohol makes up less than 51% of their gross revenue,” Porter said.

Broken Spoke owner James White has been preparing to reopen his iconic Texas honky-tonk since the day businesses closed across the state.

“I’ve been out roughly about $200,000 and it’s just time to open. And I’m gonna do it to the safe way, though,” White said.

He had been taking precautions this week to open the doors of the Broken Spoke Friday, explaining the establishment is more than just a bar.

“We serve a lot of food at the broken spoke. My first day I opened up in 1964. I served 300 barbecue plates from our kitchen,” White said.

But, on Thursday, the TABC let him know the establishment could not reopen just yet, because its alcohol sales exceeded the 51% mark.

The Texas Bar and Nightclub Association said it is asking the Governor’s office to consider including establishments like the Broken Spoke in the current phase of reopening.

“Our 51% licenses that had a kitchen, that was a health department approved, and were you know, were open before the stay-at-home order to sell food. I don’t see a reason why they shouldn’t have been included in today’s you know, May 1, phase one opening,” TBNA president Michael Klein explained.

Klein explained the bars are not able to benefit from the alcohol to-go sales, either. That is also limited to restaurants.

Porter explained the TABC is only in charge of enforcing the rules, not making them. A change to the 51% rule would need to come from the Governor.

Porter said the businesses who do not follow the rules could face losing their alcohol license. 

However, he said the establishments TABC has contacted recently with any issues have all complied, so far."

[Deej 77812]

29 minutes ago, Trey3216 said:

I thought $1000 was the gangbang rate 

I thought is was $10?

[RayDog 682]

I have been posting on Philippine DOH posts at the risk of getting deported as I do not support the enhanced quarantine happening here when 10-20 people have been dying each day nationwide. For comparison in 2017 41,000 Filipinos died of cholera and 24,000 died of TB with hardly any action by the government.

Because ~85% of Filipinos are under 50 and less than 5% 65 or older the IFR here should be very low. Note that Italy has 5x the number of 65 and older people. I expect the IFR will be less than 0.1% here. At that low a level epidemic response recommendations do not include quarantines. In particular the risk here is that deaths due to malnutrition could easily outnumber deaths do to the disease at that rate. If 30% of the population gets infected this year at a 01% fatality rate that would mean 33,000 deaths due to Covid. But, if the quarantine continues much longer far more people will die of starvation. It may already be too late as the food supply chain has been disrupted. This country is on a path to kill some of its younger population to save some of its elderly.

There are many other countries with try pyramidal population demographics and local health issues that are similar to the Philippines. For those countries I feel that it is better to let it run through the younger population and isolate the elderly and others at high risk.  Unfortunately I can't be too openly outspoken without risking getting arrested.

[4th_and_18 709]

It struck me that all the experts writing papers and opinion pieces saying it could not have come from the lab were all involved with the gain of function experiments at the lab. They were also partly funded by the NIH who only ended the project on April 24th of this year. Fauci was a proponent of the experiments and is in CYA mode too. 
The opinion pieces say their computer models would not have generated this particular spike protein. But they ignore the facts that the spike protein could have been taken from another virus or be due to a mutation that occurred in animals within the lab. There is not enough public information available yet to eliminate the other possibilities. 
Me: Note that there was a paper from India that claimed that spike proteins and other new pieces of RNA code are found in other viruses. That paper was withdrawn under pressure since they concluded it was manmade, but a natural origin is still possible.
Scientists do need to determine the origin of the virus and I feel that the Wuhan virology lab should not be eliminated as a possibility yet.

So NIH ended funding on 4/24 and dept of Ed sent out notices of inquiries to higher ed on 4/24 asking about associations with Wuhan lab and Chinese research?

Interdasting

[atomheartbevo 90641]

https://www.kxan.com/investigations/austin-purchases-20000-covid-19-test-kits-as-enrollment-ramps-up/

Quote

As the state of Texas gradually begins to reopen, public health authorities in Austin say testing will be an important factor in people returning to work and getting back to their normal lives.

But the limited availability of COVID-19 test kits has proven to be a challenge for many local governments and jurisdictions, including Austin.

Austin Public Health tells KXAN one step has been the purchase of 20,000 COVID tests from the American Institute of Toxicology. That includes swabs and test processing.

The city says the tests were $60.00 each for a total cost of $1.2 million.

“We have had great support from labs in Texas to find sources for the swabs for us to purchase with a fast turn-around time,” said a city spokesperson.

This is on top of the 1,000 tests Austin received at no cost from the federal government stockpile back in March.

Austin says it has a team dedicated to purchasing kits and that it currently has enough to meet the demands of patients scheduled for a test.

But the city wants to ramp up testing to 2,000 per week, and Austin-Travis County Health Authority Dr. Mark Escott said this week that testing capacity recommendations call for 2-thousand per day.

“We’re planning to get to that level as quickly as we can but there are many more pieces that need to come together besides just getting more swabs,” said Austin Public Health officials in a statement this week.

 

[DDD Dad 14647]

I’d pay $1,000 to have some secret audio where you break it to your mom that your favorite message board’s participants constantly refer to her being a whore. The confusion would be epic. 

She’d be laughing all the way to the bank. That’s what she told me anyway.

[MNLonghornFUKM 8979]

I thought is was $10?

When there’s 100 of us involved, yea

[Pato del Muerto 53463]

37 minutes ago, Deej said:

I thought is was $10?

It’s 5x that in Philadelphia 

[Bevo 13870]

1 hour ago, RayDog said:

It struck me that all the experts writing papers and opinion pieces saying it could not have come from the lab were all involved with the gain of function experiments at the lab. They were also partly funded by the NIH who only ended the project on April 24th of this year. Fauci was a proponent of the experiments and is in CYA mode too. 

The opinion pieces say their computer models would not have generated this particular spike protein. But they ignore the facts that the spike protein could have been taken from another virus or be due to a mutation that occurred in animals within the lab. There is not enough public information available yet to eliminate the other possibilities. 

Me: Note that there was a paper from India that claimed that spike proteins and other new pieces of RNA code are found in other viruses. That paper was withdrawn under pressure since they concluded it was manmade, but a natural origin is still possible.

Scientists do need to determine the origin of the virus and I feel that the Wuhan virology lab should not be eliminated as a possibility yet.

That paper from India was not peer reviewed and was written by people who don't know shit. They did a Blast search using a short segment of DNA. Doing such will show lots of homology between organisms, but it doesn't mean anything.

[UDontKnow 10571]

4 hours ago, MNLonghornFUKM said:

4 hours ago, clapclapclap said:

NM governor circles the wagons to keep the natives out of Gallup this weekend (poll numbers bad?):  

https://www.krqe.com/health/coronavirus-new-mexico/governor-michelle-lujan-grisham-authorizes-gallup-lockdown/

 

 

While most of the state starts to see a loosening up of the shutdown, the Governor has put Gallup on a lock down. At noon, New Mexico State Police set up checkpoints blocking off the city to keep the outsiders out, as the Coronavirus continues to skyrocket on the nearby Navajo Nation.

This lockdown means entrances and exits in and out of Gallup are blocked off. Unless you have a Gallup address, you’re not getting in.

“People traveling through the state of New Mexico on I-40, they’re not going to be allowed into the city,” says Lt. Mark Soriano of NMSP.

The Department of Transportation set up 11-checkpoints and road blocks at all points of entry into Gallup. Each entry will have NMSP and the Army National Guard there to direct people.

Just yesterday, the mayor of Gallup sent a letter to the Governor asking for the lock down under the Riot Control Act. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham quickly responded and agreed.

This means all essential businesses must close from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. and no one is allowed into the city. NMSP says travelers heading through New Mexico cannot stop in Gallup for gas, food, or a hotel room.

Senator George Munoz says this is something that needed to happen weeks ago as McKinley County’s number of confirmed cases kept growing.

“What we don’t want you doing is buying two 55′ TVs and then going back to the reservation with four people in your vehicle,” says Sen. George Munoz (D) Gallup.

Right now, McKinley County has more than a thousand confirmed cases with more than 500 of them on the Navajo Nation.

NMSP say if you are trying to get into Gallup, you need to show proof that you are a resident. This lock down ends on Monday at noon.

 https://kvia.com/news/new-mexico/2020/05/01/new-mexico-governor-orders-lockdown-of-hardest-hit-virus-city-in-the-state/

 

 

“...I recognize this request is unusual and constitutes a drastic measure, and the emergency powers set out under the Riot Control Act should be invoked sparingly,” said Gallup Mayor Louis Bonaguidi. “However, the Covid-19 outbreak in the city of Gallup is a crisis of the highest order. Immediate action is necessary.”

Violations are punishable as misdemeanors on a first offense and as a felony on the second offense.

Gallup is a hub for basic household supplies and liquor sales for people living in remote stretches of the Navajo Nation and indigenous Zuni Pueblo. The Navajo Nation has imposed evening and weekend curfews on the reservation spanning portions of New Mexico, Arizona and Utah.

McKinley County has at least 1,027 confirmed cases of COVID-19, accounting for more than 30% of cases in New Mexico. It has far more infections than counties with major population centers such as Albuquerque, Rio Rancho or Las Cruces.

The infection trend has shown no sign of flattening, according to state health officials.

Read more  

That’s insane... i-40 is the definition of poverty all the way through NM. Will those who get killed for having to drive off the beaten path for gas be counted as covid deaths?

Maybe. Maybe not. But if you've ever spent time in New Mexico and understand the Native American mentality and dynamic in that state, you'd realize measures this drastic are absolutely necessary and probably should have happened earlier. Lujan-Grisham is a former state secretary of health and she's doing the right thing. Without sounding too political, what people need to know is that due to the poor state of the Native American population and frankly, their refusal-to-listen-to-the-white-man mentality, infection is spreading like wildfire. I have colleagues back in Albuquerque and they tell me that the rising death tolls in Bernalillo County are attributed to patients being transferred from Northern Navajo Medical Center (an Indian Health Services facility) in Gallup (the city that is being locked down) because that medical facility is overwhelmed and not equipped to handle this pandemic. A lot of the healthcare force in Albuquerque is frustrated with the situation because the Native American community has been difficult to interact with as they use their "sovereign nation status" as an excuse to come up with their own laws and policy which are detrimental to their own people (e.g. refusing to ban smoking in casinos where their own people work).

[utee94 16080]

2 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

You know the virus can’t see the State line right? 

Sure, but we're already quite accustomed to your bleeding Louisiana cooze seeping across our state lines.  We just direct it to College Station, where it belongs.

[MNLonghornFUKM 8979]

Maybe. Maybe not. But if you've ever spent time in New Mexico and understand the Native American mentality and dynamic in that state, you'd realize measures this drastic are absolutely necessary and probably should have happened earlier. Lujan-Grisham is a former state secretary of health and she's doing the right thing. Without sounding too political, what people need to know is that due to the poor state of the Native American population and frankly, their refusal-to-listen-to-the-white-man mentality, infection is spreading like wildfire. I have colleagues back in Albuquerque and they tell me that the rising death tolls in Bernalillo County are attributed to patients being transferred from Northern Navajo Medical Center (an Indian Health Services facility) in Gallup (the city that is being locked down) because that medical facility is overwhelmed and not equipped to handle this pandemic. A lot of the healthcare force in Albuquerque is frustrated with the situation because the Native American community has been difficult to interact with as they use their "sovereign nation status" as an excuse to come up with their own laws and policy which are detrimental to their own people (e.g. refusing to ban smoking in casinos where their own people work).

Severely messed up. I’ve been in NM a few times, most recently last summer so I remember looking at the tough parts just off of i25 coming from Colorado. Pretty eerie. Hope this calms shit down

[SimonBolivar 11064]

1 hour ago, Deej said:

I thought is was $10?

No she has to pay us considerably more than $10 now.

[ShowmeyourTDs 1160]

31 minutes ago, SimonBolivar said:

No she has to pay us considerably more than $10 now.

[B00M 6731]

Fuck this thread. Can someone create a Travis county/Austin only thread for useful information?

 

[Born to Run 6601]

Perhaps a stupid question, but are we sure that Texas is deficient in testing?

That was obviously the case a month ago when it was very difficult to get tested, but I haven’t heard any recent reports of Texas citizens with COVID-19 symptoms who are unable to get tested.

Also, we don’t have a large number of people dying from mysterious unknown causes. Our hospitals are relatively empty.

Is it possible instead that we simply don’t have a lot of sick people and our testing is completely appropriate for the current health of our population?

It was nearly impossible to get my son tested just last week so we could end quarantine and see him again. Fuck you. It took me 2 solid days to find someone to test him and really only because they had plenty of tests at one location and wanted my out of pocket cash.
Unless you need to go to the ER it's difficult to get tested and unreliable at that. We fucking suck in our response

[MNLonghornFUKM 8979]

did he have it?

[hornian 5292]

On 1/22/2020 at 10:01 PM, Helobious said:

I always felt like the next plague would have to be a virus that kinda sneaks up on everyone out of nowhere. This one has gotten too much pub already, everyone knows about it. It’s a poor global pandemic candidate.

Went back to page 1 for a stroll down memory lane. This post aged well. 

[bluto 4996]

Went back to page 1 for a stroll down memory lane. This post aged well. 

Covid19 seems like it sucks?
Why we’ll stomp a mud hole in covid19?

[Iceman 2978]

8 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

You know the virus can’t see the State line right? 

It also can't respect that small businesses are closed, but WalMarts are open...

How crazy is that?

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19305]

It’s 5x that in Philadelphia 

This is a Rouchefoucauld. The thinnest water-resistant watch in the world. Singularly unique, sculptured in design, hand-crafted in Switzerland, and water resistant to three atmospheres. This is the sports watch of the '80s. Six thousand, nine hundred and fifty five dollars retail!

[Planet Houston 4950]

9 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

[Guest Lobo]

9 minutes ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

7 hours ago, Pato del Muerto said:

It’s 5x that in Philadelphia 

This is a Rouchefoucauld. The thinnest water-resistant watch in the world. Singularly unique, sculptured in design, hand-crafted in Switzerland, and water resistant to three atmospheres. This is the sports watch of the '80s. Six thousand, nine hundred and fifty five dollars retail!

I love that a handle "Penelope Witherspoon" combined Philadelphia and the Aykroyd line from "Trading Places" all in one post.  And I just watched that movie last night to finish off a rough week.  Well played.  

Also, 2 of the 3 biggest hospital groups in Austin continue to not even be able to provide testing to their own staff, let alone the general public without a several days delay.  I don't think everybody in the state needs to be tested.  But this is alarming news to hear from the C-level leadership of both hospital groups the same weekend as the "re-opening" of the state occurs.  

[Schulz2.0 29280]

China covertly stockpiled as much PPE as they could get their hands on prior to notifying the world about how bad the coronavirus was.

https://globalnews.ca/news/6858818/coronavirus-china-united-front-canada-protective-equipment-shortage/

[Bevo 13870]

20 minutes ago, Lobo said:

I love that a handle "Penelope Witherspoon" combined Philadelphia and the Aykroyd line from "Trading Places" all in one post.  And I just watched that movie last night to finish off a rough week.  Well played.  

Also, 2 of the 3 biggest hospital groups in Austin continue to not even be able to provide testing to their own staff, let alone the general public without a several days delay.  I don't think everybody in the state needs to be tested.  But this is alarming news to hear from the C-level leadership of both hospital groups the same weekend as the "re-opening" of the state occurs.  

I haven't been paying attention, but if one of them is Ascension then.... Ascension is the second largest hospital group in the US with 150,000 employees and 151 hospitals spread across 20 states.

[Guest Lobo]

3 minutes ago, Bevo said:

I haven't been paying attention, but if one of them is Ascension then.... Ascension is the second largest hospital group in the US with 150,000 employees and 151 hospitals spread across 20 states.

That's true.  I still think of them as Seton Texas for myriad reasons.  Anyway, their hospital group here in Austin, that particular group of hospitals and employees is having a rough time getting all the tests and processing they need for both in-house folks and public-at-large or so it has been explained to me.  

[Loco 3754]

I know every one likes stuff in sound bites.  But this long form article is worth a read IMO.

https://www.wired.com/story/inside-the-early-days-of-chinas-coronavirus-coverup/

[TwiceHorn 32075]

2 hours ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

10 hours ago, Pato del Muerto said:

It’s 5x that in Philadelphia 

This is a Rouchefoucauld. The thinnest water-resistant watch in the world. Singularly unique, sculptured in design, hand-crafted in Switzerland, and water resistant to three atmospheres. This is the sports watch of the '80s. Six thousand, nine hundred and fifty five dollars retail!

Username checks out.

[XYZ 2154]

11 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

He ordered something more relaxed than many counties.  A less-than-stay-at-home order, if you will.

If you can comply with one set of rules while violating the other, there is a conflict.

Thanks for the clarification. I was not aware that there was a new order from the Governor issued on 4/27. I thought the previous order expired on 4/30 and that was it. Could these government fucksticks make things any more confusing? Actually, let’s not answer that question.

[po elvis 2137]

11 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

"We serve a lot of food at the broken spoke. My first day I opened up in 1964. I served 300 barbecue plates from our kitchen,” White said.

But, on Thursday, the TABC let him know the establishment could not reopen just yet, because its alcohol sales exceeded the 51% mark.

lol. when your argument is that 56 years ago on your grand opening you sold/gave away 300 bbq plates, you probably don't have much of an argument.

[utee94 16080]

So did anyone dine-in at a restaurant last night?  I'm curious to hear how it went. 

[Dahobbs 18311]

20 hours ago, BabaYaga said:

This is your problem right here, dude.....you have no fucking idea what you are talking about.  In no way, shape, or form was I "discounting" NY.  I was illustrating a correlation to infection rates and underlying conditions, which we know well and good about.  The earlier issues was about other health related issues going unchecked and untreated in light of hospitals being locked down and the histrionics of people straying out of their houses.  Staying in line withe larger point that using aggregate death totals is simplistic nonsense when we don't know if we are killing more people than helping them by a de facto denial of medical access.

Actually, I had no idea what you were talking about since you didnt express yourself clearly.

If your point was merely that other causes of fatalities may be increasing because of limited access to medical care, then why bring up the percentage of covid-19 deaths with pre-existing conditions at all?  It is a complete non-sequitur unless you're arguing either that covid-19 didnt contribute to the reported deaths or you're arguing that we shouldnt be as concerned about the deaths because those people were just exceptionally vulnerable. The former is completely unsupported and the latter is why I provided population wide context.

As to your new argument, 1) we know that New York's average weekly Corona virus deaths in April were at least 2x what it sees normally for all causes and 1.5x the largest weekly death total from the last 7 years. And 2) we know that the reported Corona virus deaths make up the bulk of excess deaths in New York, at least through early April (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/28/us/coronavirus-death-toll-total.html). So, even if every other excess death in New York was caused from something other than covid-19, it would still be a fraction of covid-19 deaths. That suggests to me that covid-19 is the more serious issue at the moment.

But I do agree that we need to do better to ensure everyone gets regular medical treatment during the pandemic. Hell, that was a large part of the justification for the shutdowns. If shutdown causes the very problem it is intended to solve then we obviously need to rethink our approach. 

 

 

[Surly Bevo 25731]

21 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

Ah,  that column header is misleading. It isn't about complete data. Mouse-over the "Percent Complete" column on the view (as opposed to the raw data download) and you'll see this:

So, what that column is telling you is whether the number of reported flu and pneumonia deaths is less than, meets, or exceeds the expected totals for week. It isn't telling you that the data collection is complete.  All it is saying for recent weeks you pulled is that it sees >100% of expected flu and pneumonia deaths. 

Also, the disclaimer when you start the application says:

You can download raw data going back to 2012 (which is what I did).  You'll see the numbers are as I said. In April, NY saw more weekly deaths than it has seen in any week going back to 2012 (and I think realistically going back to 2001, but I don't have the raw data on that). And the difference isn't slight. Again, the absolute largest number of reported weekly deaths in that data pre-covid  was 2,493. The state averaged nearly twice that number in April from Covid deaths alone (4,200 per week). 

Well man, that's some shitty labeling....never moused over. Just dumped it into a spreadsheet.

[ChickenSandwich 9957]

3 hours ago, Schulz2.0 said:

China covertly stockpiled as much PPE as they could get their hands on prior to notifying the world about how bad the coronavirus was.

https://globalnews.ca/news/6858818/coronavirus-china-united-front-canada-protective-equipment-shortage/

China’s PPE import operation was portrayed by its state media as a warlike effort. And it was a dramatic success. 

According to a U.S. congressional report released in April, from Jan. 24 to Feb. 29, China ramped up its production of masks and slapped export restrictions on China-based foreign companies such as Canadian mask maker Medicom and U.S. mask maker 3M.
 

At the same time, China imported 2.02 billion safety masks, according to Beijing’s March 2020 customs records.

 

Fuck China

[blacklab 12064]

@Anastasis

If you want to white knight some Filipino women go do it somewhere else.

[Anastasis 23717]

Look more like "girls" than "women" to me, but fair enough. I'll leave the creeper alone. 

[Armybrat 41394]

13 hours ago, UDontKnow said:

Maybe. Maybe not. But if you've ever spent time in New Mexico and understand the Native American mentality and dynamic in that state, you'd realize measures this drastic are absolutely necessary and probably should have happened earlier. Lujan-Grisham is a former state secretary of health and she's doing the right thing. Without sounding too political, what people need to know is that due to the poor state of the Native American population and frankly, their refusal-to-listen-to-the-white-man mentality, infection is spreading like wildfire. I have colleagues back in Albuquerque and they tell me that the rising death tolls in Bernalillo County are attributed to patients being transferred from Northern Navajo Medical Center (an Indian Health Services facility) in Gallup (the city that is being locked down) because that medical facility is overwhelmed and not equipped to handle this pandemic. A lot of the healthcare force in Albuquerque is frustrated with the situation because the Native American community has been difficult to interact with as they use their "sovereign nation status" as an excuse to come up with their own laws and policy which are detrimental to their own people (e.g. refusing to ban smoking in casinos where their own people work).

One would think they’d remember what happened when Whitey introduced them to smallpox a few centuries ago.

Edited May 2, 2020 by Armybrat

[DDD Dad 14647]

1 hour ago, blacklab said:

@Anastasis

If you want to white knight some Filipino women go do it somewhere else.

Ironic avatar is ironic.

[Johnny Sack 8397]

On 5/1/2020 at 12:16 PM, Lobo said:

Yep, suicide rates go up during financial/medical crisis.  And go down during war.  Birth rates also follow a curious trend during those two types of macro events.

I'm listening to members of the Texas Congressional Delegation right now (so bi-partisan, no politics).  WHAT THE FUCK IS THE FUCKING HOLDUP WITH TESTING? 

We oscillate between 47-49 in terms of per capita testing.  How is this continuing to be fucking possible after 7 weeks of lockdown/4 months of forward knowledge? 

 

Because we don’t have many people with symptoms compared to other states. So less people go in for testing.  There are tests everywhere if you want one.  Are testers supposed to go house to house and knock on doors?

Given our death rates, I’d say the main reason we aren’t testing is because so few people in Texas have it. 
 

heat.  Humidity.  Big and spread out.  

[Guest Lobo]

Just now, Johnny Sack said:

Because we don’t have many people with symptoms compared to other states. So less people go in for testing.  There are tests everywhere if you want one.  Are testers supposed to go house to house and knock on doors?

Given our death rates, I’d say the main reason we aren’t testing is because so few people in Texas have it. 
 

heat.  Humidity.  Big and spread out.  

Ah yes, that famous February heat in Texas.  Plus, we all know that mortality rates aren't based on maths, but rather on a lack of a denominator.  

[MNLonghornFUKM 8979]

Because we don’t have many people with symptoms compared to other states. So less people go in for testing.  There are tests everywhere if you want one.  Are testers supposed to go house to house and knock on doors?
Given our death rates, I’d say the main reason we aren’t testing is because so few people in Texas have it. 
 
heat.  Humidity.  Big and spread out.  

Yea dunno. Texas has the second most people (by large margin) and is 47th in tests per capacity but 4th in total tests.

[Johnny Sack 8397]

22 hours ago, dcar00 said:

you are forgetting the "I'm sure they never really shut down out there because it is west texas rube-land" play.  we went through the first 15 scripted plays and are starting over from play #1

I’ve been in south Texas for over a month.  I can tell you right now the little town nearby has stricter requirements than Houston.  You want groceries over the last few weeks you aren’t getting them unless you wear a mask or face cover.