COVID-19 Megathread 4: Grandma Got Run Over by the Dow Jones

[Badger]

So since this is a thread for essentially all things coronavirus related, another chapter in my business is ongoing quest to seek Financial relief. So my law partner , God bless him, first called our bank at 9 this morning as scheduled. He got an automated message to call back at 2. He did so and then got an automated message to call back at 2:30.

Upon doing so he got an automated message saying to call back later. He called every two to three minutes for over 45 minutes before they even put him on hold. Let me reiterate that in his words. What type of f****** timeline do we live in where one celebrates the accomplishment of being put on hold?

And then, then, after waiting on hold for an hour, he gets another automated message saying we are experiencing difficulties processing your call, please try back again later.

And hangs up on him. The fact that he did not throw his phone against the wall proves he's a much better man than I.

At least he was able to get immediately back on hold when he called back a minute later oh, so hooray for small victories. He's planning on ordering pizza and staying by the phone so that we don't have to wait until Monday which could put us further back in the line of applicants. What a trooper.

This is what small businesses across this country are dealing with. And we've been proactive as hell in jumping on relief applications. God help anyone that's been tied up doing actual, you know, work to earn money rather than my partner spending a significant part of his work day the last couple weeks, along with my office manager, filling out forms and reading online is to Avenues we can pursue.

[Badger]

So since this is a thread for essentially all things coronavirus related, another chapter in my business is ongoing quest to seek Financial relief. So my law partner , God bless him, first called our bank at 9 this morning as scheduled. He got an automated message to call back at 2. He did so and then got an automated message to call back at 2:30.

Upon doing so he got an automated message saying to call back later. He called every two to three minutes for over 45 minutes before they even put him on hold. Let me reiterate that in his words. What type of f****** timeline do we live in where one celebrates the accomplishment of being put on hold?

And then, then, after waiting on hold for an hour, he gets another automated message saying we are experiencing difficulties processing your call, please try back again later.

And hangs up on him. The fact that he did not throw his phone against the wall proves he's a much better man than I.

At least he was able to get immediately back on hold when he called back a minute later oh, so hooray for small victories. He's planning on ordering pizza and staying by the phone so that we don't have to wait until Monday which could put us further back in the line of applicants. What a trooper.

This is what small businesses across this country are dealing with. And we've been proactive as hell in jumping on relief applications. God help anyone that's been tied up doing actual, you know, work to earn money rather than my partner spending a significant part of his work day the last couple weeks, along with my office manager, filling out forms and reading online is to Avenues we can pursue.

EDIT: and now they hung up on him again. It sounds like they do so every hour on the hour. He is in my office manager currently trading instant messages to decide if we want to continue Holding On the Line tonight, or start again 8 a.m. tomorrow. What a klusterfuk. That said, I won't blame this on the Trump Administration. I'm sure if Obama or Hillary were president and the same sort of massive rush for benefits by so many people occurring all at once do to the coronavirus, phone lines would be jammed then too. But Lord it sucks.

[Badger]

Here is some important context, isn't it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert



2016 USDA map. According to the Medley Food Desert Project,[6] nearly 24 million Americans live in food deserts. Food deserts are heavily concentrated in southern states, which correlates with concentration of poverty. The map presents percentages of people without cars living in areas with no supermarket within a mile.

You can complain that there are so much poor people in US/these states (it's a tragedy) and that the [southern] states didn't fix that, but you can't complain that these people didn't stop "travel more than 2 miles". They doesn't have that privilege.

By the way -- this criticism of my post is also misleading.

The data looks like it correlates, but actually doesn't.

One of the biggest food deserts is West Virginia/Eastern Kentucky -- but you see strong social distancing practices being put forward in those areas. West Virginia issued a statewide lockdown on March 24. Kentucky Gov. signed a similar order on March 25.

Therefore "Food Deserts" are no excuse.

But the Appalachian food desert is one of the few exceptions on that map, isn't it? There are a couple others such as the county just north of Vegas, plus what I believe is Native American territory in Northeast Arizona. Otherwise there is a tangible, albeit imperfect, correlation between the two maps.

I'm not saying food deserts are "an excuse" either, but it's certainly a consideration that can't be lightly dismissed.

[Badger]

https://twitter.com/ilyseh/status/1246055366716198914

Fake news! Cut taxes! Repeal Roe versus Wade!!! GAAAARGH!!D

[Badger]

Am I the only one who was genuinely horrified by that press conference? JFC.

No, you are among the 55 ish percent of the population who do not find this normal or acceptable behavior

[Badger]

So since this is a thread for essentially all things coronavirus related, another chapter in my business is ongoing quest to seek Financial relief. So my law partner , God bless him, first called our bank at 9 this morning as scheduled. He got an automated message to call back at 2. He did so and then got an automated message to call back at 2:30.

Upon doing so he got an automated message saying to call back later. He called every two to three minutes for over 45 minutes before they even put him on hold. Let me reiterate that in his words. What type of f****** timeline do we live in where one celebrates the accomplishment of being put on hold?

And then, then, after waiting on hold for an hour, he gets another automated message saying we are experiencing difficulties processing your call, please try back again later.

And hangs up on him. The fact that he did not throw his phone against the wall proves he's a much better man than I.

At least he was able to get immediately back on hold when he called back a minute later oh, so hooray for small victories. He's planning on ordering pizza and staying by the phone so that we don't have to wait until Monday which could put us further back in the line of applicants. What a trooper.

This is what small businesses across this country are dealing with. And we've been proactive as hell in jumping on relief applications. God help anyone that's been tied up doing actual, you know, work to earn money rather than my partner spending a significant part of his work day the last couple weeks, along with my office manager, filling out forms and reading online is to Avenues we can pursue.

Update. I took over after my partner threw in the towel, justifiably after the hours of garbage went through. Sat on hold for 20 minutes, got cut off at 6. Called back, no further calls outside of their 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. business hours. Pandemic? What pandemic?

[Badger]

So since this is a thread for essentially all things coronavirus related, another chapter in my business is ongoing quest to seek Financial relief. So my law partner , God bless him, first called our bank at 9 this morning as scheduled. He got an automated message to call back at 2. He did so and then got an automated message to call back at 2:30.

Upon doing so he got an automated message saying to call back later. He called every two to three minutes for over 45 minutes before they even put him on hold. Let me reiterate that in his words. What type of f****** timeline do we live in where one celebrates the accomplishment of being put on hold?

And then, then, after waiting on hold for an hour, he gets another automated message saying we are experiencing difficulties processing your call, please try back again later.

And hangs up on him. The fact that he did not throw his phone against the wall proves he's a much better man than I.

At least he was able to get immediately back on hold when he called back a minute later oh, so hooray for small victories. He's planning on ordering pizza and staying by the phone so that we don't have to wait until Monday which could put us further back in the line of applicants. What a trooper.

This is what small businesses across this country are dealing with. And we've been proactive as hell in jumping on relief applications. God help anyone that's been tied up doing actual, you know, work to earn money rather than my partner spending a significant part of his work day the last couple weeks, along with my office manager, filling out forms and reading online is to Avenues we can pursue.

Update. I took over after my partner threw in the towel, justifiably after the hours of garbage went through. Sat on hold for 20 minutes, got cut off at 6. Called back, no further calls outside of their 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. business hours. Pandemic? What pandemic?

Further update. We actually had to do an end-run around the 888 number and, as a desperation move, call our local branch manager. It worked! Our application was entered!

Now we need to wait up to a week before it is actually processed.

[Badger]

When are we going to be willing to have a conversation about whether we have massively overreacted without people saying that anyone who doesn't repeat the #StayAtHomeFor18Months #FlattenTheCurve mantra is wanting people to die?

https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status/1246491967841882112

Maybe when we have evidence (not self-reported speculation) from actual scientists along the lines of what is listed in the tweet. The 50x number you're quoting is drawn out of thin air. Your confirmation bias is showing.

Mina is also saying that's the upper bound of what he would consider an unsurprising result — if you scroll up two tweets he says it could be 2 million, 4 million, somewhere in that range. Travis is cherry-picking the highest figure he threw out and treating it like he's making a much more specific claim than he is.

I recognize that it's a high estimate, and I don't agree that it's less deadly than influenza.  My argument for weeks has been that it's slightly more deadly than the flu (probably 0.25-0.5% vs. 0.1%), but that it's not deadly enough to justify drastic changes to daily life, except perhaps for the most vulnerable.

Current death rate in the United States is pushing 3%. Far far far deadlier than the common flu. Please do not wrap yourself up in disinformation, or at least at the minimum do not spread it to others. Practice social distancing, not factual distancing.

[Badger]

Newsweek just released an article titled FDR, REAGAN AND OBAMA WON RE-ELECTION WITH MORE THAN 7% UNEMPLOYMENT. AMID CORONAVIRUS, COULD TRUMP?



but what they forgot to point out is that every one of those presidents entered office when things were already going bad but by time the election came around the economy improved enough for all 3 of them to be reelected

Trump on the other hand entered office when things were going good but now the economy has fallen off a cliff and many have now died because of his lackluster response to the virus at the start

So good luck trying to sell a record like that to voters in November because at the rate things are currently going Trump is going to need all the luck he can get lol  

A couple of stray observations:

1. Trump's entire selling point was bringing jobs back. 15% unemployment kind of undermines that, regardless of its cause. Very bad for Trump.

2. The complete binary ideological sorting of our country means Trump voters are predisposed to crediting him for positive economic numbers and blaming forces outside his control for negative economic numbers. Good for Trump.

3. When you're out of work, you don't really care why. You're mad and you want change. Bad for Trump.

4. How you view the state of the economy when Trump took office is also determined by how you've been sorted. Trump voters thought Obama made a mess of things in his second term, while Hillary voters thought things were great. Good for Trump.

I think the sum total still comes out very poorly for Trump's re-election prospects, but so many things could happen in the next seven months. Trump gets constant, non-stop press coverage, Biden can't even hold rallies. And the halt to the primary season completely knocks Biden out of the 24-hour news cycle. That alone gives Trump a huge edge.

I take your point that negative partisanship will likely give Trump a higher floor -- but being on the news 24/7 for catastrophically failing to contain a virus is not going to help Trump with Democrats or independents.

This. To any extent that Obama Trump voters in places like Northeast Ohio and West Pennsylvania warrant actually, as 538 hypothesized, just Obama Republicans / conservatives, he's going to have a hell of a time keeping those voters in his foal. Obviously though he still has a very high floor just like blue cat said which will save him from a Hooveresque or even Carter level of drubbing.

[Badger]

Roommate has tested positive. 

Not really much more to say on that other than hoping that there's some avenue to make those with whom she came into contact on her way from Philly to Montana aware of it. 

That sucks.

Hope you're doing okay?

[Badger]

Roommate has tested positive. 

Not really much more to say on that other than hoping that there's some avenue to make those with whom she came into contact on her way from Philly to Montana aware of it. 

That sucks.

Hope you're doing okay?

Pretty uncomfortable, sore, and sweating like crazy, but I'll get through it -- thank you, Badger.

 

Have you lost any sense of smell or taste? I lost both around day 6

How are you doing today, my man?

[Badger]

Florida and DeSantis have been raked over the coals on here and in much of the media.

At what point do facts enter the conversation?  We've been hearing for a month now that Florida is about to explode and DeSantis committed mass murder by not closing beaches (lol).  Florida has less deaths than Illinois despite having millions more residents, and at the same time has tested about 20K more and has a similar number of infected.  Somehow JB has been praised on here for his strong response.

Anyone willing to admit they were just making stuff up when the said beaches were going to cause mass death?

Combining logic, common sense, science and history to make informed predictions about the future is not "making stuff up".

If you did any of that, you wouldn't have been saying all the dumb things you said.

Great. Now finish him off with "I know you are but what am I".

[Badger]

Florida and DeSantis have been raked over the coals on here and in much of the media.

At what point do facts enter the conversation?  We've been hearing for a month now that Florida is about to explode and DeSantis committed mass murder by not closing beaches (lol).  Florida has less deaths than Illinois despite having millions more residents, and at the same time has tested about 20K more and has a similar number of infected.  Somehow JB has been praised on here for his strong response.

Anyone willing to admit they were just making stuff up when the said beaches were going to cause mass death?

Combining logic, common sense, science and history to make informed predictions about the future is not "making stuff up".

If you did any of that, you wouldn't have been saying all the dumb things you said.

Great. Now finish him off with "I know you are but what am I".

Contribute, or zip it.

"Zip it?" I am undone by the orotory of this modern day Cato!. Alas!!

[Badger]

On the subject of garlic: fresh garlic, which I like to cook with, has been impossible to find for the past several weeks.  What I've heard is that most of it for sale in the US comes from China, as opposed to years ago when most of it came from the area around Gilroy, California.  I've been using a jar of minced garlic instead.

I never thought about that aspect. Interesting.

I heard a story on NPR about a month or more ago that the civic outbreak in China was severely shortening the supply of garlic since most that we consume is indeed produced there.

[Badger]

LMAO!!!!!

Imagine declaring that Dr. Fauci might not be an expert, but posting it in a tone that bssically demands that everybody take you seriously.

Worse yet, he directly implies that, instead, we should take the counter-vailing view from TRUMP as "expert", or in any way relatex to "experts". LOL

Fuzzy, you silly old fool. Don't you think there's just a TINY bit of difference in relying on expertise between the sociological impications of war versus the far more quantifiable analysis of infectious disease spread? Why should we not take Dr. Fauci at his word based on 40 years of experience as opposed to one of the two dumbest people in Florida plus his sycophants?

[Badger]

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1247509431367208962

"I'd give him at least a C for his efforts containing the virus!:)"

[Badger]

Trump has direct money interests in promoting Hydroxychloroquine.   Surprising no one.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-stake-company-hydroxychloroquine_n_5e8c41d7c5b6e1d10a696280

President Donald Trump reportedly owns a stake in a company that produces hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malaria drug he has repeatedly touted as a coronavirus treatment even though his experts say there’s no strong evidence it works.

Trump “has a small personal financial interest” in Sanofi, the French drugmaker that makes Plaquenil, the brand-name version of hydroxychloroquine, The New York Times reported Monday.

Can anyone discern how supposedly small this small personal financial interest is? I can't read the Times article due to the pay wall. The link Huntington Post article says that the three Trump family trusts each have Holdings in a mutual fund, the largest investor in which is Sanofi. That leaves a lot of interpretation.

But even if the investment is in fact very small, first, Trump has shown that he will do anything to squeeze and milk the office of the presidency to get even a few hundred thousand dollars more into his business organization. This is exhibit 2719 as to why Trump absolutely needed to, and still should but of course never will, the best of self of his interest in create blind trusts for Asset Management while he was president.

It's all a graft, and if you still support him, you're culpable.

[Badger]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/07/politics/trump-sidelines-pentagon-watchdog-coronavirus-funds/index.html

Trump grifting further now, disgusting.

" fake news! Trump is doing a great job handling the crisis! Cares about America first! Democrats are just politicizing this! MAGA!! "

/40-45% of Americans--somehow.

[Badger]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/07/politics/trump-sidelines-pentagon-watchdog-coronavirus-funds/index.html

Trump grifting further now, disgusting.

And Repiblicans on Capitol Hill are doing.... nothing.

Or did I forget Little Marco moving from "concerned" to "alarmed"?

Susan Collins is reportedly upgraded from "bothered" to "furoughed brows"!

[Badger]

U.S Deaths today are at 1,821

Holy crap...

http://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america

This is within the range predicted. It's expected to be pretty bad for the next 21 days. How bad depends on what we do personally with our interactions, how hospitals can treat the infected, and what kind of peak or plateau we have.

That shaded Broad range of potential death rates based on uncertainties is... Disconcerting, to say the least.

[Badger]

I live in an area of north Georgia that went 80+% for Trump in 2016.

People here still aren’t social distancing in large numbers. I still hear people using the “flu kills more people” argument. Or claiming that it’s just being overblown by the media. Or that it’s a liberal conspiracy to cause a recession because that’s the only way they think they can beat Trump.

Fortunately, my area is not heavily populated. Otherwise the idiocy would result in many more cases than we currently have.

I just don’t see how people can be so stupid.

Living through this, there is a clear divide in intelligence between those living in places where I live and those living in places that vote Democratic.

Maybe this is semantics, or maybe it's important. Never confuse intelligence with ignorance based on willing misinformation. People are in and of themselves intelligent, managing business, raising kids, Etc. But their only source of information is Fox, right-wing radio, and Facebook / Twitter memes shared by other like-minded individuals.

I guess what I'm saying is it's important to understand how intelligent people can be so willingly ignorant because they seal themselves in a bubble after convincing themselves that "the liberal mainstream media lies!", that they'll willingly hook themselves into that bubble to "get the real story". At that point, their ability to Foster and independent thought based on alternative sources of information is basically closed off entirely. And this is basically what's happened to our country for the last 35 years.

[Badger]

Just now I tuned into a Trump press conference for the first and last time.  Some dipsh**t reporter was asking him if he had any plans to pardon the Tiger King.

13,000 Americans dead so far.

Worse yet, Trump said he'd actually consider it.

At best, if he was joking about it was grossly inappropriate and ill-timed, further underscoring he really really doesn't get how serious this is outside of how it makes him look.

At worst, he's a complete loon. Most likely? Somewhere between the two.

[Badger]

The American Academy of Family Physicians estimates that as many as 58k family physicians might be out of business or forced into retirement as a result of COVID-19 closures.

I'm admittedly not going to take the time to read this article because it's pretty dense, but offhand I'm rather surprised considering one would think Physicians are the one area of business that would be booming now ( assuming they can stay healthy and not catch coronavirus in the process)

[Badger]

Also just in general, drug therapies are not political. There are no Republican drugs or Democratic drugs. You people, and the president, need to get a grip.

I agree, although one might make a case for Fox News being a Republican drug.

[Badger]

Federal Support Ends For Coronavirus Testing Sites As Pandemic Peak Nears

Some local officials are disappointed the federal government will end funding for coronavirus testing sites this Friday. In a few places those sites will close as a result. This as criticism continues that not enough testing is available.

In the Philadelphia suburbs, Montgomery County has a drive-through site that has tested 250 people a day since March 21.

"It has been a very successful site. We are hoping by the time it closes Friday afternoon that we will have tested a little over 5,000 individuals," says Dr. Valerie Arkoosh, who chairs the commission in the county of more than 825,000 people.

Dear God in heaven....

" I give Trump at least a c on handling the crisis! "