CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk

[BrickHorn 18218]

42 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

Can't wait for the Trumpkin anti vaxxers to start schilling for the Russian vaccine after Trump tells us it's "perfectly safe."

They won’t wear cotton masks because carbon monoxide (yeah, monoxide - they’re that dumb), but these stupid fuckers will gleefully inject themselves full of an untested substance sent by a tyrant known to poison his enemies with polonium. 

The Second Dark Age is here, y’all. 

[jimmyjazz 45899]

25 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

They won’t wear cotton masks because carbon monoxide (yeah, monoxide - they’re that dumb), but these stupid fuckers will gleefully inject themselves full of an untested substance sent by a tyrant known to poison his enemies with polonium. 

I saw a news clip the other day of an ER doc from the UK who ran 22 miles in a mask with an oximeter.  He never dropped below the high 90's (and maybe not below 99%, I can't remember what he said).  But yeah, we're gonna die from all that CO we exhale.  The number of fucking imbeciles in this country never fails to impress me.

[TXSG8R 3362]

5 hours ago, Tom said:

 

To each their own.  I started with a neck gaiter back in March but found that much material hugging my face and neck too hot in Texas.  It seemed like it was the hardest to breathe in.

Agreed, I currently use a mask, this is prep for the winter.  I guess worst case I can just keep using a mask and just pull the gaiter over it.  

[Queen Bitch 1692]

35 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

They won’t wear cotton masks because carbon monoxide (yeah, monoxide - they’re that dumb), but these stupid fuckers will gleefully inject themselves full of an untested substance sent by a tyrant known to poison his enemies with polonium. 

The Second Dark Age is here, y’all. 

Anything to own the libs!!

[Guest Lobo]

I get that selfishly stupid people won’t wear masks themselves.  But I don’t get them lashing out in public at other people in public who are wearing masks.  
 

if you saw someone in public before COVID-19 sneezing out into the open with no attempt to cover their mouth, you’d think “that person is either stupid or selfish or probably both.”, right?    But If that same person ran around the store yelling at other people for not sneezing and threading to fight them until they sneezed, you’d want that person committed or arrested, right? 

[Brisketexan 105095]

1 hour ago, Aqua Buddha said:

Can't wait for the Trumpkin anti vaxxers to start schilling for the Russian vaccine after Trump tells us it's "perfectly safe."

 

1 hour ago, Nope said:

Y’all know Trump is going to buy Putin’s entire stock, right?

”Your scientists do great work, you don’t want to keep any for yourself?”

”No no, people here very strong and don’t like medicine. You take all and be American hero.”

These are both 100% going to happen.

Because half of this country has no independent critical thinking.  Their entire decisionmaking process is "I agree with whatever Trump says, moment to moment."  That's it.

[Sawbonz 27547]

2 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Trump should prove his loyalty to Putin by volunteering to take the Russian vaccine. 

Why get a vaccine for a virus that’s a hoax? (Or if literally everyone you may come in contact with gets a mandatory test)

[Cairn Horn88 8262]

41 minutes ago, Lobo said:

I get that selfishly stupid people won’t wear masks themselves.  But I don’t get them lashing out in public at other people in public who are wearing masks.  
 

if you saw someone in public before COVID-19 sneezing out into the open with no attempt to cover their mouth, you’d think “that person is either stupid or selfish or probably both.”, right?    But If that same person ran around the store yelling at other people for not sneezing and threading to fight them until they sneezed, you’d want that person committed or arrested, right? 

“I get that selfishly stupid people won’t wear masks themselves.  But I don’t get them lashing out in public at other people in public who are wearing masks.” 

The clown NOT wearing the mask is essentially being told how stupid they are by the person wearing a mask, and the clown resents that.

 

[BrickHorn 18218]

2 minutes ago, Cairn Horn88 said:

“I get that selfishly stupid people won’t wear masks themselves.  But I don’t get them lashing out in public at other people in public who are wearing masks.” 

The clown NOT wearing the mask is essentially being told how stupid they are by the person wearing a mask, and the clown resents that.

Also, it’s a tribal identity thing. Think of it as virtue signaling for dumbasses. In the eyes of a moron, wearing a mask establishes you as one of Them. They aren’t angry at your mask specifically. They are angry at what they interpret the mask to signify: that you are an Other, an Enemy who stands against all the dumb, self-destructive shit their tribe of dolts has adopted as their creed.

[Michael Knight 12977]

[babysdaddy 2721]

6 hours ago, Anastasis said:

We should all want to see Russia roll that shit out as widely as possible. The tech they are using is in concept very similar to the Oxford approach, an adenovirus vector that was originally developed for Ebola.  There are some key differences, but very similar in concept. Let the fucking Russians take the first crack at the first real world safety study. If they start growing vodka paws out of their forehead it will be an important safety signal that we can use.  In reality, I think that we are all on the same timeline, these are just using semantics to spike the football on the west and claim that they were first to space.   

very similar? or exactly similar after they stole the data?

[Bama Chick 28596]

No no no.

I fucking love college football but to compare a complete unnecessary game to the fight to defeat Hitler and fascism is NOT it.

[Biff Tannen 45673]

3 hours ago, Nope said:

Y’all know Trump is going to buy Putin’s entire stock, right?

”Your scientists do great work, you don’t want to keep any for yourself?”

”No no, people here very strong and don’t like medicine. You take all and be American hero.”

This was my first thought.  "Yes yes, Donald.  You take and give to all Americans.  It definitely works.  No chance of biological warfare whatsoever."

[The Royal We 3072]

We had a Meet the Teacher event at my kid's school yesterday.  It's a charter school and they have really spent a lot of time and effort to be very thoughtful and thorough on their processes and procedures in an impossible situation.  All of the correspondence sent out to parents about the event said in bold letters - MASKS MANDATORY FOR STUDENTS AND PARENTS, it said it on the outside  door to the building, it said it at the entrance to the main office where they were doing temperature checks before anyone could come in, etc.  We go through with no problems, masks on all 3 of my kids and I turn around and see this f'n asshole about to walk up to the office with no mask.  His wife and kids all have them on, but this tough guy has no mask and no one says a word to him.  It's hard for me to describe the rage this caused me to feel rise up when I saw him. 

How big of a selfish douchcanoe do you have to be to take that situation to make a statement!?  I felt terrible for all of the administrators and teachers that watched in silence as this guy strolls in - he may as well have flipped up the double bird to everyone that had worked so hard to try to make a very difficult situation possible.  I really try my hardest not to wish ill on people, but I can't say I could contain myself yesterday.

This is why we can't have nice things.  I'm sure this same guy is one of the ones moaning the loudest as the college football season goes down the tubes.   

[DigglerontheHoof 21186]

I can't believe Holtz can still (kinda) form complete sentences. 

[Guest Lobo]

The not wearing a mask in public is just the latest incarnation of the "runner-up/participant" trophy in the game of life for all these people.  It's admission by omission.  The latest reminder that life and this country has passed them by.  Other people in masks are a constant, hard reminder to them that they have no station in society, that they could die tomorrow...and America would be better off.  To them, right now...it's a "My Freedoms" stance...but in the end, we all know (and he does as well), that the world is changing and we just don't need stupid people like we used to.  

[Bevo14 8304]

1 hour ago, DigglerontheHoof said:

I can't believe Holtz can still (kinda) form complete sentences. 

[Neonmoon 38129]

Texas passes Massachusetts in total deaths and claims the #4 position. I think we will eventually overtake NJ but so will CA, so we should finish 3rd. I don’t foresee anyone taking NY
 

NY - 32,854

NJ - 15,966

CA - 10,594

TX - 8,865

MA - 8,751

FL - 8,558

 

 

[jimmyjazz 45899]

Well, the bronze medal is still a big honor.

[Firemans4Horn 18046]

NSIAP. What a sobering read. 
 

 

[elfenix 34230]

5 hours ago, The Royal We said:

We had a Meet the Teacher event at my kid's school yesterday.  It's a charter school and they have really spent a lot of time and effort to be very thoughtful and thorough on their processes and procedures in an impossible situation.  All of the correspondence sent out to parents about the event said in bold letters - MASKS MANDATORY FOR STUDENTS AND PARENTS, it said it on the outside  door to the building, it said it at the entrance to the main office where they were doing temperature checks before anyone could come in, etc.  We go through with no problems, masks on all 3 of my kids and I turn around and see this f'n asshole about to walk up to the office with no mask.  His wife and kids all have them on, but this tough guy has no mask and no one says a word to him.  It's hard for me to describe the rage this caused me to feel rise up when I saw him. 

How big of a selfish douchcanoe do you have to be to take that situation to make a statement!?  I felt terrible for all of the administrators and teachers that watched in silence as this guy strolls in - he may as well have flipped up the double bird to everyone that had worked so hard to try to make a very difficult situation possible.  I really try my hardest not to wish ill on people, but I can't say I could contain myself yesterday.

This is why we can't have nice things.  I'm sure this same guy is one of the ones moaning the loudest as the college football season goes down the tubes.   

you should be allowed to hit these people with sticks.

[DDD Dad 14332]

I can't believe Holtz can still (kinda) form complete sentences. 

/csb Met Lou Holtz back in the day at an Orange Bowl pig roast my dad hosted for the team (he-my dad-played for them back in the ‘50’s).

[DDD Dad 14332]

30 new deaths in Dallas and 24% positivity rate.

Cool cool cool.

Also one of the deaths was in his/her 30’s with no underlying conditions.

Let’s play football!

[Captainant 27655]

Florida sheriff bans deputies and visitors from wearing masks

"We can debate and argue all day of why and why not. The fact is, the amount of professionals that give the reason why we should, I can find the exact same amount of professionals that say why we shouldn’t"

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

Maybe he should talk to this Texas sheriff:

An inmate at the Brazos County Detention Center died Tuesday morning in a local hospital after battling COVID-19, Brazos County Sheriff Chris Kirk said.

Kirk told county commissioners on Tuesday morning a sheriff’s deputy and a second detention center inmate are hospitalized for complications related to COVID-19. Kirk said in an interview the two had been hospitalized recently.

[Neonmoon 38129]

4 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Florida sheriff bans deputies and visitors from wearing masks

"We can debate and argue all day of why and why not. The fact is, the amount of professionals that give the reason why we should, I can find the exact same amount of professionals that say why we shouldn’t"

I don’t believe you gif 

[Grade of D as in David 13253]

18 hours ago, Bama Chick said:

No no no.

I fucking love college football but to compare a complete unnecessary game to the fight to defeat Hitler and fascism is NOT it.

 

That spittle spraying motherfucker would be a super spreader for any disease and needs to wear a mask even after Covid

[babysdaddy 2721]

11 hours ago, DDD Dad said:

30 new deaths in Dallas and 24% positivity rate.

Cool cool cool.

Also one of the deaths was in his/her 30’s with no underlying conditions.

Let’s play football!

felt like a bit of a data dump.  under 300 cases so that's good.  Look at the graph jenkins puts out showing actual date of death.  

anywho, can we play golf?

[Pig Bellmont 8712]

 

[Michael Knight 12977]

[jimmyjazz 45899]

V-shaped recovery, POTUS is kicking ass!

[DDD Dad 14332]

felt like a bit of a data dump.  under 300 cases so that's good.  Look at the graph jenkins puts out showing actual date of death.  
anywho, can we play golf?

Yessir. PM me and let’s grab Longhornanth.

[bolverk 29664]

Ohio State Football Is Canceled. Will Trump Take the Hit?
The Big Ten Conference’s decision to cancel its football season reverberated across Ohio, where the Buckeyes’ football program looms large. Some voters blamed President Trump’s handling of the virus.

CENTER OF THE WORLD, Ohio — As he stood outside the Dollar General store, loading groceries into his pickup, Dennis Kuchta pondered what it will mean not to have an Ohio State football season this fall.

“The bars here will all take a real hit when there aren’t games on Saturdays,” said the 69-year-old retiree, whose son-in-law played on the offensive line for the Buckeyes. “It’s a huge loss, and I don’t think people realize that yet.”

The Big Ten Conference’s decision to cancel its football season reverberated this week across Ohio, where the Buckeyes’ football program looms larger than that of any of the state’s major league sports franchises. A pillar of autumn Saturdays will be missing, and Mr. Kuchta and others in this football-mad corner of the state were looking for someone to blame.

“Trump just blew it,” Mr. Kuchta said,  alluding to President Trump’s mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic. “He just didn’t handle it. He could have shut things down for five or six weeks and figured out what he was doing, but he never had a plan.”

For Mr. Trump, the cancellation of big-time college football in the Midwest and the West — the Pac-12 Conference also canceled its season Tuesday — serves as yet another unmistakable sign of how fundamentally the pandemic has transformed American life and cast a spotlight on his administration’s handling of the crisis. Critics point to South Korea, where fans have been attending professional baseball games for weeks, and to parts of Europe, where some soccer and tennis matches are open to spectators.

And like the closings of schools, bars, restaurants and churches, the loss of tailgating, jammed stadiums and marching bands felt as if yet another piece of fabric was being torn from American life.

In a hotly contested election year, the loss of college football seems almost certain to seep into politics as well. No conference covers as many presidential battleground states as does the Big Ten, the Midwestern behemoth with schools in seven states that are being fought for by both Joe Biden and Mr. Trump.

In crucial battleground states like Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where college football serves as an autumn religion not just on campus but in the rural areas where Mr. Trump’s support runs deepest, losing football may be a political stain that the president is unable to blame on his enemies in the Democratic Party or on the media.

Spoiler

 

“As great as politics is — it’s a sport that so many people enjoy watching — it’s not as important as college football in Ohio, in Georgia, in Alabama,” said Paul Finebaum, who hosts a nationally syndicated college football radio show for ESPN. “And without it, people will be lost and people will be angry. There are layers of blame to go around, and in the end, this transcends sports.”

Mr. Finebaum predicted that the loss of the college football season would damage Mr. Trump even among his most faithful supporters.

“I’ve always tried desperately to keep politics out of our program, and this summer I’ve failed miserably,” he said. “We don’t have a day that doesn’t pass where someone doesn’t call up and blame the president. Even from the South, I’ve heard more anger directed at the president than I thought.”

The ties between college football and Mr. Trump have long been deeper than the ones he has with other major sports, excluding golf. He famously served the Clemson Tigers football team a $5,500 fast-food feast to celebrate its national championship, and has attended multiple college football championship games.

The feeling has been mutual. Some college football luminaries have expressed their support for the president, and Hall of Fame coaches including Lou Holtz and Bobby Bowden campaigned for Mr. Trump in 2016.

As word of decisions to cancel the fall football season began to leak this week, Mr. Trump and his top Republican allies began a pressure campaign aimed at keeping the sport in business. Both Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence tweeted admonitions that college games should be played, using the #wewanttoplay hashtag employed in recent days by a loose confederation of players.

“Hopefully we can watch colleges play football. We want to get football in colleges,” Mr. Trump said during his Tuesday afternoon White House news conference, hours after the Big Ten announced its decision not to play. “College football, get out there and play football. People want to see it.”

Other Republican candidates are pushing a similar message. Tommy Tuberville, the former head coach at Auburn University who won the Alabama Republican Senate nomination with vigorous backing from Mr. Trump, released a video on Monday calling for university presidents to relent and allow the season to begin.

“College football is the lifeblood of the South, and allowing teams to play this season will bring a much needed sense of calm to these strange times,” Mr. Tuberville said. “I support the players who want to take the field this season and I hope you will join me. Let them play.”

Mr. Holtz, a former coach at Notre Dame and other colleges, who grew up in northeast Ohio and played football at Kent State University, said during an appearance on Fox News that football players should assume pandemic risks as if they were fighting in a war.

“When they stormed Normandy, they knew there were going to be casualties — there were going to be risks,” Mr. Holtz said. “Young people, they think it’s like cancer. They think they’re going to die.”

For years, the college football season has been an enticing advertising canvas for both parties, recently dominated by Republicans. In the 2018 midterms, Republican candidates spent $6.5 million on ads during college football games, while Democrats spent about $4.1 million, according to Advertising Analytics.

Mr. Trump, who is enthralled with advertising during live sporting events in part because of their high ratings, spent roughly $1.3 million on ads during college football games in his 2016 campaign.

The overall audience of college football skews Republican. A study from Columbia University in 2012 found that college football fans skewed as heavily Republican as NASCAR fans.

It’s far from clear how much support, if any, Mr. Trump might lose because of the absence of college football.

Chris Spielman, an All-American linebacker at Ohio State who is now a television analyst for N.F.L. games on Fox, said fandom in Ohio cuts far across party lines.

“There are people on both sides of it,” he said. “There are Democrats who want football and there are Republicans saying we better shut it down even more.”

But Danny O’Connor, the Franklin County recorder who in 2018 campaigned for Congress in the Columbus suburbs wearing an Ohio State polo shirt, saw things differently. He predicted before the season’s cancellation that Ohio State’s Buckeyes would finish the year undefeated.

Losing the season means that Mr. Biden will carry the state “because that will be one person’s fault: Donald Trump,” Mr. O’Connor said. Mr. Trump won Ohio by 9 percentage points in 2016.

Patrick Murray, a Monmouth University pollster who has surveyed several presidential battleground states this year, said losing the football season could play a role in pushing Republican voters away from Mr. Trump this fall. He cited in particular the sliver of voters who had not yet made up their minds, and who were growing increasingly unwilling to accept all the disruptions caused by the failure to contain the coronavirus.

“It’s just one of those markers that reminds people of how much has been disrupted in their life,” Mr. Murray said.

Representative Anthony Gonzalez, an Ohio Republican who was a first-round N.F.L. draft pick after playing wide receiver at Ohio State, said college football players were likely to be safer from the coronavirus under the watch of their coaches than they would be at their homes away from campuses.

He predicted Ohio State fans in his northern Ohio district would blame university administrators and not Mr. Trump for losing the season. By calling for the season to take place, Mr. Trump is channeling not just his political base but a vast majority of voters, Mr. Gonzalez said.

“I can say, in my district, I think overwhelmingly people would support the statements that he made, and even people who aren’t supporters of his,” Mr. Gonzalez said. “If we polled it, I think probably 75 to 80 percent of people would agree with that sentiment that they should play. I feel pretty strongly about that.”

Yet Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat who has two master’s degrees from Ohio State, disagreed, saying that Mr. Trump will not be able to explain to voters why he’s not responsible.

“Everything that happens in this pandemic is on his watch,” Mr. Brown said Tuesday. “The unemployment’s on his watch, the canceled seasons are on his watch. I mean, all of this is on Trump’s watch, and he has so bungled this and he could point fingers and blame some elite somebody somewhere, but it’s on him.”

 

 

[bolverk 29664]

The NYTimes has conducted an analysis of CDC data and they estimate that between March 1 and July 25, the US experienced 200,000 excess deaths. This would've put the Covid death count at 60,000 higher than it was near the end of July. In other words, there's likely been a significant undercount (no surprise).

Lots of charts and more analysis below that shouldn't be behind paywall since it's Covid-related.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/12/us/covid-deaths-us.html

[NWBuck 8552]

10 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Ohio State Football Is Canceled. Will Trump Take the Hit?
The Big Ten Conference’s decision to cancel its football season reverberated across Ohio, where the Buckeyes’ football program looms large. Some voters blamed President Trump’s handling of the virus.

  Hide contents

 

 

This is certainly interesting. But I can tell you that OSU message boards seem to have more folks who are blaming "liberal college administrators and snowflake scaredy cat lawyers for making a terrible decision just to hurt the President's re-election" 

[4th&Five 41525]

 

[TheStoicPaisano 9922]

3 hours ago, bolverk said:

Ohio State Football Is Canceled. Will Trump Take the Hit?
The Big Ten Conference’s decision to cancel its football season reverberated across Ohio, where the Buckeyes’ football program looms large. Some voters blamed President Trump’s handling of the virus.

CENTER OF THE WORLD, Ohio — As he stood outside the Dollar General store, loading groceries into his pickup, Dennis Kuchta pondered what it will mean not to have an Ohio State football season this fall.

“The bars here will all take a real hit when there aren’t games on Saturdays,” said the 69-year-old retiree, whose son-in-law played on the offensive line for the Buckeyes. “It’s a huge loss, and I don’t think people realize that yet.”

The Big Ten Conference’s decision to cancel its football season reverberated this week across Ohio, where the Buckeyes’ football program looms larger than that of any of the state’s major league sports franchises. A pillar of autumn Saturdays will be missing, and Mr. Kuchta and others in this football-mad corner of the state were looking for someone to blame.

“Trump just blew it,” Mr. Kuchta said,  alluding to President Trump’s mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic. “He just didn’t handle it. He could have shut things down for five or six weeks and figured out what he was doing, but he never had a plan.”

  Reveal hidden contents

 

“As great as politics is — it’s a sport that so many people enjoy watching — it’s not as important as college football in Ohio, in Georgia, in Alabama,” said Paul Finebaum, who hosts a nationally syndicated college football radio show for ESPN. “And without it, people will be lost and people will be angry. There are layers of blame to go around, and in the end, this transcends sports.”

Mr. Finebaum predicted that the loss of the college football season would damage Mr. Trump even among his most faithful supporters.

“I’ve always tried desperately to keep politics out of our program, and this summer I’ve failed miserably,” he said. “We don’t have a day that doesn’t pass where someone doesn’t call up and blame the president. Even from the South, I’ve heard more anger directed at the president than I thought.”

The ties between college football and Mr. Trump have long been deeper than the ones he has with other major sports, excluding golf. He famously served the Clemson Tigers football team a $5,500 fast-food feast to celebrate its national championship, and has attended multiple college football championship games.

The feeling has been mutual. Some college football luminaries have expressed their support for the president, and Hall of Fame coaches including Lou Holtz and Bobby Bowden campaigned for Mr. Trump in 2016.

As word of decisions to cancel the fall football season began to leak this week, Mr. Trump and his top Republican allies began a pressure campaign aimed at keeping the sport in business. Both Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence tweeted admonitions that college games should be played, using the #wewanttoplay hashtag employed in recent days by a loose confederation of players.

“Hopefully we can watch colleges play football. We want to get football in colleges,” Mr. Trump said during his Tuesday afternoon White House news conference, hours after the Big Ten announced its decision not to play. “College football, get out there and play football. People want to see it.”

Other Republican candidates are pushing a similar message. Tommy Tuberville, the former head coach at Auburn University who won the Alabama Republican Senate nomination with vigorous backing from Mr. Trump, released a video on Monday calling for university presidents to relent and allow the season to begin.

“College football is the lifeblood of the South, and allowing teams to play this season will bring a much needed sense of calm to these strange times,” Mr. Tuberville said. “I support the players who want to take the field this season and I hope you will join me. Let them play.”

Mr. Holtz, a former coach at Notre Dame and other colleges, who grew up in northeast Ohio and played football at Kent State University, said during an appearance on Fox News that football players should assume pandemic risks as if they were fighting in a war.

“When they stormed Normandy, they knew there were going to be casualties — there were going to be risks,” Mr. Holtz said. “Young people, they think it’s like cancer. They think they’re going to die.”

For years, the college football season has been an enticing advertising canvas for both parties, recently dominated by Republicans. In the 2018 midterms, Republican candidates spent $6.5 million on ads during college football games, while Democrats spent about $4.1 million, according to Advertising Analytics.

Mr. Trump, who is enthralled with advertising during live sporting events in part because of their high ratings, spent roughly $1.3 million on ads during college football games in his 2016 campaign.

The overall audience of college football skews Republican. A study from Columbia University in 2012 found that college football fans skewed as heavily Republican as NASCAR fans.

It’s far from clear how much support, if any, Mr. Trump might lose because of the absence of college football.

Chris Spielman, an All-American linebacker at Ohio State who is now a television analyst for N.F.L. games on Fox, said fandom in Ohio cuts far across party lines.

“There are people on both sides of it,” he said. “There are Democrats who want football and there are Republicans saying we better shut it down even more.”

But Danny O’Connor, the Franklin County recorder who in 2018 campaigned for Congress in the Columbus suburbs wearing an Ohio State polo shirt, saw things differently. He predicted before the season’s cancellation that Ohio State’s Buckeyes would finish the year undefeated.

Losing the season means that Mr. Biden will carry the state “because that will be one person’s fault: Donald Trump,” Mr. O’Connor said. Mr. Trump won Ohio by 9 percentage points in 2016.

Patrick Murray, a Monmouth University pollster who has surveyed several presidential battleground states this year, said losing the football season could play a role in pushing Republican voters away from Mr. Trump this fall. He cited in particular the sliver of voters who had not yet made up their minds, and who were growing increasingly unwilling to accept all the disruptions caused by the failure to contain the coronavirus.

“It’s just one of those markers that reminds people of how much has been disrupted in their life,” Mr. Murray said.

Representative Anthony Gonzalez, an Ohio Republican who was a first-round N.F.L. draft pick after playing wide receiver at Ohio State, said college football players were likely to be safer from the coronavirus under the watch of their coaches than they would be at their homes away from campuses.

He predicted Ohio State fans in his northern Ohio district would blame university administrators and not Mr. Trump for losing the season. By calling for the season to take place, Mr. Trump is channeling not just his political base but a vast majority of voters, Mr. Gonzalez said.

“I can say, in my district, I think overwhelmingly people would support the statements that he made, and even people who aren’t supporters of his,” Mr. Gonzalez said. “If we polled it, I think probably 75 to 80 percent of people would agree with that sentiment that they should play. I feel pretty strongly about that.”

Yet Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat who has two master’s degrees from Ohio State, disagreed, saying that Mr. Trump will not be able to explain to voters why he’s not responsible.

“Everything that happens in this pandemic is on his watch,” Mr. Brown said Tuesday. “The unemployment’s on his watch, the canceled seasons are on his watch. I mean, all of this is on Trump’s watch, and he has so bungled this and he could point fingers and blame some elite somebody somewhere, but it’s on him.”

 

 

Anecdotal, but this gives me cautious hope as an ex-Ohioan. Center of the World is in no man’s land and poor white trash AF. Nothing there but the Dollar General and a couple rundown cafés. And Mike Tyson’s abandoned mansion 15 mins away.

[bolverk 29664]

22 minutes ago, TheStoicPaisano said:

Anecdotal, but this gives me cautious hope as an ex-Ohioan. Center of the World is in no man’s land and poor white trash AF. Nothing there but the Dollar General and a couple rundown cafés. And Mike Tyson’s abandoned mansion 15 mins away.

Ha! I thought that was just an artistic/sarcastic flourish by the author.

Edited to add: The Center of the World

Edited August 13, 2020 by bolverk
Rotate view to see what's across the street.

[PsychMike 1550]

28 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Ha! I thought that was just an artistic/sarcastic flourish by the author.

Edited to add: The Center of the World

Holy shit, it's Lady Liberty! And there's no tourist crowd! Honey, clear your schedule, we are going to the Center of the World. 

[The Royal We 3072]

Sorry if I missed the discussion on this somewhere else, but what is going on with the decreasing number of tests completed?  I know the reporting structure was changed/yanked away from the CDC, but if they were trying to make things look rosier than they are, 20%+ positivity rate ain't it.

wtf?

[kevwun 15774]

Unless there is an actual shortage of tests, there is no explanation that doesn't involve trying to manipulate the numbers.  I mentioned it in the DT thread, but we are almost back down to the same number of tests per day that we were doing in May.  The daily new cases are still well above what they were in May.  The positivity rate is increasing, so the spread of the virus isn't dropping to May levels.   I think Abbott and Co have gotten Trump's hint about having fewer cases if you perform fewer tests. 

Edited August 13, 2020 by kevwun

[The Royal We 3072]

I just wonder if they are actually doing fewer tests or if they are fudging the numbers - the Covid Tracking Project said in their update yesterday that they are getting lower testing numbers from the "local reporting and data from counties."  It seems like it would be a very difficult thing to suppress on a county to county basis - I can't see Harris county lowering their testing data because Dotard wants them to...

[WhatTheBuck 28776]

3 hours ago, NWBuck said:

This is certainly interesting. But I can tell you that OSU message boards seem to have more folks who are blaming "liberal college administrators and snowflake scaredy cat lawyers for making a terrible decision just to hurt the President's re-election" 

It's going to take the other P5 conferences canceling their seasons before a lot of Buckeye fans will consider that it was a necessary move. Former athletes on the local radio who get paid to cover college football aren't helping things as they argue for why the season should be played. I don't trust their objectivity. 

This whole thing is such a huge mess and I don't feel like I have the time and inclination to share all my thoughts in a coherent manner. I haven't brought up Trump's culpability in the cancelation of the B1G season with any of my Trump-supporting friends or family yet. A blowup may be coming if I'm presented with the right provocation.

But it's tough because it's like pointing out how Dubya ignored the warnings prior to 9/11. We can't prove that the 9/11 attacks wouldn't have happened if Al Gore was President but we know he would've taken the threat of Islamic terrorism seriously and heeded the warning of his intelligence services who signaled that an attack was imminent. It's not reasonable to think Gore could've possibly handled the terrorism threat, or the response, more poorly than Bush did. But it's only speculative and that won't get through to his defenders. 

Similariy, there's no reasonable way to argue that any other administration, Republican or Democrat, could've handled the threat of, and response to, a global pandemic more poorly than Trump did. Quoting from that recent article in The Atlantic (if you don't have it bookmarked already then just ask and I'll provide the link):

Under President Donald Trump, the U.S. has withdrawn from several international partnerships and antagonized its allies. It has a seat on the WHO’s executive board, but left that position empty for more than two years, only filling it this May, when the pandemic was in full swing. Since 2017, Trump has pulled more than 30 staffers out of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s office in China, who could have warned about the spreading coronavirus. Last July, he defunded an American epidemiologist embedded within China’s CDC. America First was America oblivious.

Even after warnings reached the U.S., they fell on the wrong ears. Since before his election, Trump has cavalierly dismissed expertise and evidence. He filled his administration with inexperienced newcomers, while depicting career civil servants as part of a “deep state.” In 2018, he dismantled an office that had been assembled specifically to prepare for nascent pandemics. American intelligence agencies warned about the coronavirus threat in January, but Trump habitually disregards intelligence briefings. The secretary of health and human services, Alex Azar, offered similar counsel, and was twice ignored.

Hillary wouldn't have done any of that. If she were President then she would've taken the threat seriously, acted on the prepared plan and followed the rehearsals, and made some little boneheaded mistake that we'd all be overreacting to while a lot fewer people died. Even any of the other anti-regulation, anti-government Republican candidates surely would've done a better job than Trump did. But we can't prove any of that to the cultists. 

Coherent enough so far? I didn't plan on that exposition. But there it is. Anyway, some other thoughts:

The Ohio State University is a school. Athletics are offered as a part of the educational experience. This is a matter for the schools, not the NCAA. (Also, the NCAA is made up by the schools and the schools will always have a governing body to oversee athletics so you'll never get rid of the NCAA except in name only.)

Yes, the players are probably safer in the system right now. That goes out the window when they start traveling and playing full contact games. 

It's not just about the players, it's about their potential to help spread the virus throughout the population. 

No one at the New York Times is qualified to talk about college football. 

I'm sure I've forgotten several points I wanted to make that I was shouting at the radio earlier. 

[Anastasis 23469]

If you want a test you can get a test.  I think that the decline in tests being performed is likely a result of the decreasing demand for tests. Positivity doesn't really mean anything one way or the other unless all the other factors, specifically number of tests and any channeling towards testing, are controlled. 

[WhatTheBuck 28776]

23 minutes ago, kevwun said:

Unless there is an actual shortage of tests, there is no explanation that doesn't involve trying to manipulate the numbers.  I mentioned it in the DT thread, but we are almost back down to the same number of tests per day that we were doing in May.  The daily new cases are still well above what they were in May.  The positivity rate is increasing, so the spread of the virus isn't dropping to May levels.   I think Abbott and Co have gotten Trump's hint about having fewer cases if you perform fewer tests. 

Trump said at his Tulsa rally that he told his people to slow the testing down. I never doubted that. 

[WhatTheBuck 28776]

2 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

If you want a test you can get a test.  I think that the decline in tests being performed is likely a result of the decreasing demand for tests. Positivity doesn't really mean anything one way or the other unless all the other factors, specifically number of tests and any channeling towards testing, are controlled. 

Decreasing demand for tests? Lol. You're a cultist. 

[kevwun 15774]

Given the half-assed tracing we are doing, maybe that really is it.

[Anastasis 23469]

4 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Decreasing demand for tests? Lol. You're a cultist. 

Well yeah, I think that there is a trend towards decreased demand for the PCR tests.  Given the turn around times they are basically worthless.  You can get a PCR test if you want one. Clearly fewer people are receiving the tests. That indicates to me decreased demand.

What we need in terms of testing is wide deployment of an accurate rapid point of care test. It's amazing to me at this point in the pandemic we do not have that.  We dump trillions into the stonk market, when what we need is cheap rapid point of care testing.

Oh, and go fuck yourself. 

Edited August 13, 2020 by Anastasis

[Anastasis 23469]

https://www.krgv.com/news/decrease-in-demand-for-coronavirus-testing-in-the-valley/

When COVID started hitting the Rio Grande Valley, UTRGV was the first to open a public testing site.

Four weeks ago, the number of test samples UTRGV collected at its sites peaked around 400 to 500 a day.

The dean of the UTRGV School of Medicine, Dr. John Krouse, said demand for other things is down too. Phone calls are down from 3,000 a day to 1,000.

UTRGV also runs a large lab to test its own samples and those of other healthcare providers.

Demand for those lab tests is also about half of what it was before, at about 800 samples tested each day.

[Anastasis 23469]

And here is one from El Paso. The mayor is worried that their testing capacity is going unused, and test sites will be closed as a result. 

https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/2020/08/11/coronavirus-el-paso-mayor-dee-margo-concern-covid-19-texas-testing-resources/3323019001/