COVID-19 Megathread 5: The Trumps catch COVID-19

[LabourJersey]

U. of Cambridge scraps face-to-face lectures for entire 2020-21 academic year.

Talk about unnecessary.

I don't understand such a gesture either, especially since the past few months have revealed the flaws to an entirely online approach. Many colleges and universities will not be able to survive if they stay online for the next academic year. Students are not willing to fork over thousands of dollars in tuition for such classes. But at the same time, it's going to be hard to implement social distancing safeguards for such campuses. There has to be a solution that addresses both issues.

Cambridge is one of the few universities that has the name brand to not worry terribly about students transferring in the wake of online classes. I think a lot of private universities in the US (especially ones not in the top 20 or so schools) may struggle in the next year if they were to go to all-online, or be forced too

[LabourJersey]

https://twitter.com/IanSams/status/1263465850813677571

Wow. The 27% of Republicans is especially surprising.

If this poll is even partially true than Trump is in a very, very, very weak position.

[LabourJersey]

This is a very revealing survey about where public opinion stands. According to this Morning Consult poll which was released earlier today (https://morningconsult.com/2020/07/22/face-mask-polling/), 72% of registered voters support making masks mandatory; moreover, they support mask orders that include penalties (i.e. fines) against those who violate the orders. Also, 28 states + D.C., more then half the country, have now made masks mandatory in public, and I expect for some other states to follow. It's clear that the anti-maskers have lost on this issue, and that those holding civil liberties concerns about mask wearing are in the definite minority.

I've noted previously how mask wearing rates have gone up dramatically at my job since Polis issued his statewide mask mandate last week. This persisted on Monday, with about 90% of all individuals wearing masks. El Paso County is now in jeopardy, along with fourteen other Colorado counties (including Pueblo County), of losing its variances if the current case growth trajectory does not decline over the next few weeks. It will take some time for Polis' order to have an effect upon the numbers, so given the situation in which we were headed, any further delay on that front would have been costly.

It's been clear for a while that the anti-mask people are a minority. They're just a very, very loud minority.