Wuhan Coronavirus: Megathread - Got too big

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Aqua Panda said:
All I can say without power leveling is somewhere in Virginia. I'm hopeful the story is going to pick up traction in the next few days. I know a few residents have been talking to the local news stations.

I know it's nuts. I keep saying in this thread that there is a threshold out there for these shutdowns. Most of civil society breaks down once people can't reliably feed/cloth themselves and keep a roof over their head. Most of your average joe smocho doesn't have much in savings or an emergency budget.
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By now, every governor in the nation knows how many cases are in his/her state, where they are located, and how many have died. Some governors - a few - never put their states on house arrest. The other governors did.

Logically, once you identify hot spots you close them off, with buffer zones. Let everyone else go back to work/school/their lives. Just common sense. Yet the governors who have states under house arrest aren't doing this. The house arrests have ceased to be health-related. They are now political, have been for a few weeks now.

Some states are loosening things up, some. Others, like Oregon, are extending house arrest until July. This tells me they do not care one bit about the people of their states. These governors are just extending their own power trips. They choose not to exercise common sense for the benefit of those struggling. Guess it makes them happy to see homeless families and hungry children due to their tyrannical lust for power.

The harsher the quarantine, the harder the pushback. Pushbacks are ongoing and will increase. Surprised they haven't turned violent yet. Should violence occur, the respective governor(s) will complain about the resort to violence. Push Americans hard enough and they will fight. Such things need not happen. Just takes a little common sense on the part of these governors.

These governors have taken almost criminal advantage of the consent of the governed. Rationally, any quarantine is made for the smallest physical area possible, and no stricter than it absolutely has to be. Unless someone tells me otherwise, haven't seen that in the states under house arrest. And I still fail to see how not allowing people to buy garden seeds,seedlings, and supplies from stores at the start of the planting season stops the ChiCom Flu. Also fail to see how denying Americans their First Amendment rights stops this flu. All such actions not only damage any trust people have in their government, but also results in their no longer consenting to be governed in such a manner and by those in government. Think the little Hitler in Michigan will be re-elected? Think the little Hitler in Oregon will be re-elected? Sure doubt it. The pain of deprivation can remain for a very long time after things improve.

At the risk of sounding like broken record, this ChiCom Flu has damaged America economically and socially. The economic damage, given time, can be repaired. The social damage will take much longer to repair. In some cases the self-inflicted damage to society cannot be repaired at all.
 
I have seen the difference between when a government acts quickly (now) and when they don't (2012) in the face of an economic breakdown and I can say without the shadow of a doubt it is meaured by bodycount. Before knowing where it was I started getting up to date on burgerland programs.

Let me be clear. This is the point at which shit breaks down. So long as they have a roof over their head and food on their plate people can endure a lot. If one of those elements falls they can get violent. If it fails to their families. They can do anything. If it happens simultaneously to a large mass of people, the resulting images get stuck on the memories of the locals for years to come. I know they got stuck in mine.

But there is one good thing that comes from those images. We learned what to do when it happened again. And now we can pass that knowledge to you. First off. Let's get to the root of the problem, and for that I only have 1 word. Virginia. It should suffice for now.

With the lockdown in place people can't work. People without work can't afford a house. Can the lockdown lift? I don't know. That depends on the governor. The fact people are already going to the media simplifies this question by making it irrelevant. If the governor listens to the people, the issue is simpler. If he doesn't, and it's a Rajoi situation, at least you tried before treating him like the enemy. Even if it lifts though. Corona's still got the borders fucked and the economy will suffer anyway. If you're already at this point, it won't fix overnight.

So. Things to do. Ensure a roof and ensure a plate. Also ensure schools if that breaks down too but that takes longer. Second step was going to the media to aid movilization. Done. First was getting in contact with the authorities so they either aid or showcase the fact that they're the enemy. Here's the direction for that: https://www.virginia.gov/contact/ but you also gotta try to avoid flooding with unnecessary shit.

Step three is knowing the law so as to help mobilize under it. You don't wanna go against the law anticorruption's shit at getting actual corrupt individuals caged but god they are great at dismantling initiatives that get a single fucking filling wrong on their paperwork. This is where I break down the most. If other kiwis can aid it'd be most kind. It's 23:50 here and I can barely stay awake much less swim through the mess of modern western bureaucracy. Here's the start: https://career.virginia.edu/nonprofits-ngo

Next up. NGOs. Contact NGOs who opperate on the regions. Warn them before the plummet. Try to ensure they will prepare. Then, try to get the locals to help those NGOs or do their own initiatives (I won't touch on local initiatives without the prior point.) Looking up the obvious first result is https://wck.org/ they helped in spain and seem to be USA based. Again I will call on other kiwis to find more.

The locals is the important part though. Here in spain there's 2 vital factors aiding with NGO operation right now. The first is aid by police and armymen. That depends on the authorities. If you can get it it's fucking amazing. If not... well. It'll hurt but you need to go on. The locals are vital though. Their donations to local kitchens can mean the difference between famine and survival. So you must mobilize them. Social media is vital for this. Not public facing facebook shit. The wazzap groups, discord, THAT is where the real power is. Twitter only virtue signals. Real virtue can only be found in private. For this you gotta know where the local kitchens are. And I don't. Again, kiwis please help.

Finally. There's one more factor. Trump. Virginia might suck or it might not. But Trump isn't stupid and he wants to gain points with the ellectorate. Try to get the feds involved. Feed them every ounce of intel you have on the state fucking up. Make it so if the local gov screws it there is no way people all over the fucking country don't know it. It's a dangerous game because it polarizes people. But it means they'll have to think twice before letting people die. And Trump is likely to mobilize resources when they refuse to do so. Here's the federal programs I've found: https://www.usa.gov/housing-help-audiences https://www.fns.usda.gov/tefap/emergency-food-assistance-program https://www.fns.usda.gov/disaster/disaster-assistance

Tomorrow I'll search for more. The most vital point is to keep the people mobilized and the initiatives rolling as job is starting to be created.

And that's the final point. All of what I mentioned before. All of the above. Is WORTHLESS in the long run. Only job regeneration can fix this. You need to start fomenting local businesses and produce. Get people to recognize what products they buy are helping them survive, and which of them will only help the chinks survive. Again I'll link what I found: https://www.scc.virginia.gov/pages/New-Business-Resources http://bos.virginia.gov/starting.shtml mobilize. Don't wait for the idiots in charge. If they listened you would not be falling to begin with. Root action is the only way to survive when this kind of crisis arrives.

Edit:

moocow said:
lol when have you ever known NGO's to help American citizens? Especially if they're majority white?
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Memed aside. There already are NGOs operating in the USA. I link one of them above. And at least some of them aren't discriminatory. Right now. We have to find and identify those. And mobilize people towards them. Because once there's mass home evictions shit hits the fan on a scale I don't think you're ready for. And with the sexist/racist ones syphoning funds the good ones will need a lot of help to be seen.
 
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MrBlueSocks said:
It's my belief that all the smug twat Marketing/PR/Advertising types are too caught up sniffing their own farts about the propaganda they are producing . There's still so much messaging hammering home the: Stay at home, NHS heroes, British pluck, Troubled times ... blah blah blah. Not just government adverts, but most other corporate ads have worked in a Covid angle. "In these troubled uncertain times, we're helping you..."
These people aren't engineers, they aren't thinking remotely logically. Their industry is about emotions and feeling for which way the opinion is blowing. It's like a clique of bitchy teenaged girls or redditors have got hold of the reins of society.

And I hate the media so fucking much.
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The media is doing terribly out of this, hopefully it precipitates the downfall of the current big news outlets. I saw the headline on the guardian front page this morning 'Fearful Britons remain strongly opposed to lifting coronavirus lockdown'. For one thing they seem to have tapped into the complete opposite of the general mood. Secondly, why do they think some Britons are fearful? Could it have something to do with the weeks of blanket coverage telling them they should be fearful? It's the classic 'live coverage of media scrum' scenario.

They assume people are too stupid to interpret factual reporting or straightforward analysis so everything is presented as 'this is what this means, here is what you should think about it'. But actually the public is intelligent enough to recognise and reject this type of 'reporting' which is why distrust of media is at an all-time high.

These messages of Blitz spirit, stay at home protect our heroes etc. are still being pushed full steam ahead by politicians, brands and media companies. I think they are so used to the mindset of campaigning that they see any change of direction as a U-turn or admission of failure that will leave them vulnerable. They've chosen their narrative and aren't going to change it, facts be damned! Again, most of the public are way ahead of them on this. A normal person looks at current evidence and say OK, we made a mistake and overreacted to the threat, but better this way round than the other. Now to breathe a sigh of relief and get on with it, take down the nightingale hospitals and start reopening businesses before they go bust.

Unbelievably, this is not what is happening. If you just listen to the messaging you would imagine you had slipped into a parallel universe where the worst predictions had come true and more. Second peak? Compulsory vaccinations? 'New normal'? What the fuck are they talking about? The thing is dying out and we should be celebrating. Some poor souls actually believe this stuff and are literally having breakdowns thinking that leaving the house means granny's death will be on their hands.

While the media randomly chooses talking points to become their outrage of the day (PPE! Covidiots!! Why has X had a test and not Y?!), they completely sideline more pertinent ones. What about the alarming increases in deaths by other causes because you've made people too terrified to get medical help when they're having a stroke? Small and medium sized businesses are the ones which won't be able to recover from this. They are typically responsible for a large chunk of tax revenue, increasing living standards of local areas and the connection between the working class and the elite. Taking them out changes the composition of the economy and society. Is that not worth considering or do we need more articles about numbers of plastic aprons?

The most cynical thing the media has done is try to divide people by clumsily bolting virus reactions onto established political identities. Want to end the lockdown? You must be either a capitalist intent on upping your kill count or a pitiful prole too stupid to know any better- i.e. Brexiters.
Staying at home and asking for tighter restrictions? Well done, you're sparing the lives of our precious immigrants who make up the entire NHS. Fuck you Donald Trump!

So now any mention of government response to the virus has been tainted with other unrelated issues. They have created a political wedge around a fucking virus. Expressing an opinion about it is as charged as saying which political party you vote for. The role of the media is promoting open discussion by sharing the latest evidence and analysis, instead they have done the opposite.
 
JosephStalin said:
Some states are loosening things up, some. Others, like Oregon, are extending house arrest until July. This tells me they do not care one bit about the people of their states. These governors are just extending their own power trips. They choose not to exercise common sense for the benefit of those struggling. Guess it makes them happy to see homeless families and hungry children due to their tyrannical lust for power.
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In slight defense of Oregon, what happened isn't that the stay-at-home restrictions were absolutely extended to July. What was extended was the governor's ability to maintain restrictions when it was going to expire in a couple of days.
 
JosephStalin said:
Jesus Fucking Christ. This twat can't let go of her power trip. Wait until the pushbacks in her state turn violent. Some of these little Hitlers simply aren't getting the message.
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That will be the post-hoc justification for their power trips and crackdowns. "We had to extend the quarantine and start arresting anyone who resisted, because people were objecting to us extending the quarantine and arresting anyone who resisted!"

"Look, we HAD to suspend the constitution, didn't you see those men with scary 'assault-style' guns marching because we were trampling on their rights?"

"Yeah, we suspended the elections that would replace me, but what did you want us to do? They were going to stop us."
 
Toshiba said:
The media is doing terribly out of this, hopefully it precipitates the downfall of the current big news outlets. I saw the headline on the guardian front page this morning 'Fearful Britons remain strongly opposed to lifting coronavirus lockdown'. For one thing they seem to have tapped into the complete opposite of the general mood. Secondly, why do they think some Britons are fearful? Could it have something to do with the weeks of blanket coverage telling them they should be fearful? It's the classic 'live coverage of media scrum' scenario.

They assume people are too stupid to interpret factual reporting or straightforward analysis so everything is presented as 'this is what this means, here is what you should think about it'. But actually the public is intelligent enough to recognise and reject this type of 'reporting' which is why distrust of media is at an all-time high.

These messages of Blitz spirit, stay at home protect our heroes etc. are still being pushed full steam ahead by politicians, brands and media companies. I think they are so used to the mindset of campaigning that they see any change of direction as a U-turn or admission of failure that will leave them vulnerable. They've chosen their narrative and aren't going to change it, facts be damned! Again, most of the public are way ahead of them on this. A normal person looks at current evidence and say OK, we made a mistake and overreacted to the threat, but better this way round than the other. Now to breathe a sigh of relief and get on with it, take down the nightingale hospitals and start reopening businesses before they go bust.

Unbelievably, this is not what is happening. If you just listen to the messaging you would imagine you had slipped into a parallel universe where the worst predictions had come true and more. Second peak? Compulsory vaccinations? 'New normal'? What the fuck are they talking about? The thing is dying out and we should be celebrating. Some poor souls actually believe this stuff and are literally having breakdowns thinking that leaving the house means granny's death will be on their hands.

While the media randomly chooses talking points to become their outrage of the day (PPE! Covidiots!! Why has X had a test and not Y?!), they completely sideline more pertinent ones. What about the alarming increases in deaths by other causes because you've made people too terrified to get medical help when they're having a stroke? Small and medium sized businesses are the ones which won't be able to recover from this. They are typically responsible for a large chunk of tax revenue, increasing living standards of local areas and the connection between the working class and the elite. Taking them out changes the composition of the economy and society. Is that not worth considering or do we need more articles about numbers of plastic aprons?

The most cynical thing the media has done is try to divide people by clumsily bolting virus reactions onto established political identities. Want to end the lockdown? You must be either a capitalist intent on upping your kill count or a pitiful prole too stupid to know any better- i.e. Brexiters.
Staying at home and asking for tighter restrictions? Well done, you're sparing the lives of our precious immigrants who make up the entire NHS. Fuck you Donald Trump!

So now any mention of government response to the virus has been tainted with other unrelated issues. They have created a political wedge around a fucking virus. Expressing an opinion about it is as charged as saying which political party you vote for. The role of the media is promoting open discussion by sharing the latest evidence and analysis, instead they have done the opposite.
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Nice, you've just covered everything that's been annoying me, but more articulately. We are seeing extra deaths currently as you said. And these will continue to happen for some time to come even after lockdown ends, due to cancelled procedures etc. If a person really did only care about saving lives, then this alone should be enough to return to normality, even if you didn't consider the economy or basic liberty.

The two points I consider slightly differently are:
1) I'm not sure that they (media & gov) are frightened of admitting a mistake so that's why they refuse to U-Turn. As I was try to write earlier, I think that these people have got a fundamentally different approach to thinking. In that they're mostly not thinking, they're just regurgitating the consensus of their peer group, and this has got it's own momentum. So presumably they'll shift en-masse when the more dominant monkeys in that group change their opinion, like any other fashion trend. You wake up one day and apparently some women have penises. Everybody knows that.
2) A lot of these players don't give a shit about Small and Medium businesses. Or actively dislike them. The Guardian considers small business owners to be poujadist reactionaries. Big orgs can be, and have been pressured into right-think on all the modern issues. Some SMEs still don't have full-time diversity officers! And (whisper it) voted for Brexit! Big corporations are just happy to see competition destroyed, leaves space for them to expand into.

I've think we've mentioned before, some organisations are going to come out of this very well, certainly in relative terms. Some serious money will be made, old structures destroyed, new opportunies to be grabbed.
Maybe the weird disconnect we are seeing now is a result of this power play?
 
JosephStalin said:
How are people "unpersoning" you? Unfriending on Facebook? Not answering emails? These are the people you don't to be connected with anyway. Just less of them, their bullshit, and their problems to deal with. Fuck them. Hey, you're good here. 👍
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All of the above, but you’re spot on...it’s been enlightening more than anything else. I’ve always been...opinionated, so to have people who are used to that see the virus information as the straw that breaks the camel’s back so to speak is interesting. Oh well, fuck em like you said.

Went to the grocery store earlier. The second entrance that had been closed off is now open again. Masks were about 50/50. No shortages of anything, including toilet paper. It seems safe to say that most people have crossed the line or are crossing the line back into normalcy.

On the topic of media, I finally saw a commercial that had the premise of getting back to real normal, not some “new normal“ bs. It was talking about how soon we’ll be going back into the office and generally living our lives. It’ll be interesting to see how the narrative shifts amongst the lockdowns forever crowd as even the media starts to shift towards getting back to normal.
 
Something I keep seeing on the conspiracy-themed parts of the internet is that TPTB released the Corona Chan in order to kill a bunch of people/microchip everyone/crash the economy. I don't doubt some of that might be possible, but no one ever seems to have an answer to why they might do this. Conversations go like -

Why release a virus?
To kill people and make the survivors scared.
Why?
To make them get vaccines against the on-purpose virus.
Why would that be bad, immunity vs virus?
Because it would be mandatory!
Why is that bad again?
Because! Then they would have scared people into getting it! It would be forced!
What if the people weighed the pros and cons of getting the vaccine and decided of their own free will that its a good idea?
Nooooo! They would be scared sheep then! Rich people are bad! REEEEE!

Is this normal?
 
deeplyhigh said:
All of the above, but you’re spot on...it’s been enlightening more than anything else. I’ve always been...opinionated, so to have people who are used to that see the virus information as the straw that breaks the camel’s back so to speak is interesting. Oh well, fuck em like you said.

Went to the grocery store earlier. The second entrance that had been closed off is now open again. Masks were about 50/50. No shortages of anything, including toilet paper. It seems safe to say that most people have crossed the line or are crossing the line back into normalcy.

On the topic of media, I finally saw a commercial that had the premise of getting back to real normal, not some “new normal“ bs. It was talking about how soon we’ll be going back into the office and generally living our lives. It’ll be interesting to see how the narrative shifts amongst the lockdowns forever crowd as even the media starts to shift towards getting back to normal.
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Yeah, I've had a lot of the same issues while discussing this with people. There is just no having a rational conversation with some people about this right now, so I am just not bothering any more. It's just a whole lot of appealing to emotion and no real substance when talking to certain people.

As for people starting to talk about things returning to normal, I've noticed a slight shift in that from people who were previously in the "lock us up forever and ever!" camp, with some people mentioning they're having some anxiety about their jobs and finances, where previously any negative sides to the lockdowns were waved away, and people seem more willing to admit they're sick of being at home and that playing Animal Crossing 24/7 isn't a fulfilling lifestyle.
 
Thomas Talus said:
In slight defense of Oregon, what happened isn't that the stay-at-home restrictions were absolutely extended to July. What was extended was the governor's ability to maintain restrictions when it was going to expire in a couple of days.
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Why the Fuck would the Oregon Legislature go along with that?
 
RodgerDodger said:
Why the Fuck would the Oregon Legislature go along with that?
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The explanation is that it allows the Governor to pull and use funds that she otherwise couldn't. The same way Trump used declared an emergency in order to get funds for the wall.
 
deeplyhigh said:
All of the above, but you’re spot on...it’s been enlightening more than anything else. I’ve always been...opinionated, so to have people who are used to that see the virus information as the straw that breaks the camel’s back so to speak is interesting. Oh well, fuck em like you said.

Went to the grocery store earlier. The second entrance that had been closed off is now open again. Masks were about 50/50. No shortages of anything, including toilet paper. It seems safe to say that most people have crossed the line or are crossing the line back into normalcy.

On the topic of media, I finally saw a commercial that had the premise of getting back to real normal, not some “new normal“ bs. It was talking about how soon we’ll be going back into the office and generally living our lives. It’ll be interesting to see how the narrative shifts amongst the lockdowns forever crowd as even the media starts to shift towards getting back to normal.
Click to expand...

I work for a grocery store. My employees and peers have had to deal with the public through the whole thing, masks or no. I think most of us by now have sorta taken a "Jesus take the wheel" attitude toward the whole thing. If we're going to catch it, we're going to catch it; there's only so much you can realistically do when you deal with hundreds of people, co-workers and customers alike. You don't gotta be stupid about it, obviously, but you can't be around a bunch of people for hours on end without having a certain measure of risk involved.

What I have noticed, though, is that people out there are slowly reaching the same point. Last week, we had people buying cases of beer, big packs of hot dogs and hamburgers, presumably for parties. They seem to be reaching this level of...apathy, I guess, about the whole thing. I think people are progressively seeing it as a risk they're willing to deal with in order to go on living their lives. It makes me wonder how long it'll take before the number of people with that attitude start to become too significant to shame into silence.
 
>insect identification final exam for class moved online
>all the answers were the filename of the corresponding images, no right click + view image block

Blessed be Corona-chan.
 
People are at their breaking point here in NY. Even the people on UI or benefits. Nowhere's open at normal hours, banks have remained effectively shut, schedules on everything's been ratcheted back, and you basically can't find anywhere open after 6PM except for the likes of 7-11. People are fucking pissed. No one knows what to do, but everyone knows who to blame.
 
I can't imagine said:
What I have noticed, though, is that people out there are slowly reaching the same point. Last week, we had people buying cases of beer, big packs of hot dogs and hamburgers, presumably for parties. They seem to be reaching this level of...apathy, I guess, about the whole thing. I think people are progressively seeing it as a risk they're willing to deal with in order to go on living their lives. It makes me wonder how long it'll take before the number of people with that attitude start to become too significant to shame into silence.
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This makes a lot of sense. My friends, who run a luxury catering business say they're booked solid for small events for the next few weeks. One of the caterers, who is married to a Covid nurse, has done a total 180 in the last week from "We're going to be in lockdown till at least Christmas!!!!" to, "Business is so great and we're planning a vacation in July!" The other catering girl is frustrated by the flip-floppy-beach closures, and was tearfully like, "I can't understand all this. Let's just give the politicians whatever it is they want so we can go back to normal before we all miss our summer tans!"

I think the average person's brain cells are burning out from the stress and they're starting to default to new narratives more inline with the fact that we don't all seem to be dying after all.
 
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I can't imagine said:
I work for a grocery store. My employees and peers have had to deal with the public through the whole thing, masks or no. I think most of us by now have sorta taken a "Jesus take the wheel" attitude toward the whole thing. If we're going to catch it, we're going to catch it; there's only so much you can realistically do when you deal with hundreds of people, co-workers and customers alike. You don't gotta be stupid about it, obviously, but you can't be around a bunch of people for hours on end without having a certain measure of risk involved.

What I have noticed, though, is that people out there are slowly reaching the same point. Last week, we had people buying cases of beer, big packs of hot dogs and hamburgers, presumably for parties. They seem to be reaching this level of...apathy, I guess, about the whole thing. I think people are progressively seeing it as a risk they're willing to deal with in order to go on living their lives. It makes me wonder how long it'll take before the number of people with that attitude start to become too significant to shame into silence.
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The bf went to a different grocery store today and his cashier wasn’t wearing a mask, so he asked if the store offers them to employees or not. The cashier said the store does, but she didn’t want to wear one.

When over 99% of the deaths in my state are either in long-term care facilities or people with “significant underlying conditions” according to the Department of Health, people are bound to figure out they aren’t really at much risk at all and decide the tiny risk is worth getting back to regular life. BTW, bless one local reporter for refusing to let the health officials get away with not releasing those specifics; he asks every day he’s in the press pool how many of the daily deaths occurred in nursing homes because the health commissioner conveniently ”forgets“ to offer that info. He’s been taking quite a bit of heat from a vocal part of the public and other reporters for actually doing his job.
 
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