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

[Brittain33]

Even though we are months removed, and the weather is now warm, in my head it still feels like it’s March. Anyone else?

Yeah people have wasted two months of their lives on this; fortunately, that’s starting to change now as lockdowns are being relaxed. 

The sad reality is that, for the vast majority of people, the percentage of their life that they miss out on due to fear of the coronavirus (including after lockdowns are formally over) will probably be greater than their percentage chance of dying, even if they contracted the coronavirus.

Don't you think it's a little early to be taking a victory lap here, given that we had hot spots because we weren't social distancing, and it will be a few weeks before we know if our eager friends at the Lake of the Ozarks are safe in what they're doing or are going to be spreading this like the cold?

[Brittain33]

Are we ready for thread 6?

[Brittain33]

The protestors are hypocritical and shouldn’t be doing this right now.

Maybe this is a stupid question, but why do we believe the protesters are people who support the shutdown any more than the white people who don't wear masks and go to bars? While "Democrats" support the shutdowns, I thought it was affluent people who can work from home who are the strongest advocates. I genuinely don't know what the sentiment is among African-Americans other than that they've suffered disproportionately from the disease and are often less likely to be able to isolate because of housing and their jobs.

[Brittain33]

This was the official visitor's slogan, until someone pointed out it would not look good in the German translation:

[Brittain33]

It appears that cases are increasing generally in places where the initial outbreak wasn't bad.

California had a death Feb. 6th and yet we're not clearly getting better yet.

California had deaths early but also shut down so quickly and effectively that the initial outbreak was not bad.

[Brittain33]

DeSantis screwed up. 2 out of 500 airport employees tested recently were positive. The airport has had 260 employees diagnosed with COVID since mid-March.

[Brittain33]

I feel so fortunate to live in Massachusetts.

[Brittain33]

Control and management over deliberate infection is an illusion. We don’t know how immunity works, we don’t know the long term effects of the illness, and we don’t know who will die or have lifelong scarring from being sick other than that mortality increases with age. We have to let go of the idea there’s a correct path to herd immunity that we can reason our way to. We just don’t have enough information or experience.

[Brittain33]

Texas could have reopened to a lesser degree with success. They didn’t need to open up so many locations for COVID to spread.

[Brittain33]

Florida is apparently reporting 8,942 new cases today.

https://twitter.com/jamiedupree/status/1276528521213607936

Clearly everything is just fine here, no need to be concerned.

FLORIDA IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS!

[Brittain33]

BBC: New swine flu strain with pandemic potential found in China.

I really hate this year.

Hopefully all the lockdowns and travel shutdowns we have in place for COVID will also keep this flu controlled.

[Brittain33]

What to make of this? To stem the worsening pandemic, the California Department of Public Health has temporarily banned singing and chanting in places of worship: https://krdo.com/news/national-world/2020/07/03/with-a-worsening-pandemic-california-bans-singing-in-places-of-worship/. Is this an overreach of government? Or is this an appropriate public health measure? What are we to say about it?

This would depend to me on what exactly the text of the regulation was.  If it is literally a ban on “singing and chanting un places of worship”, that would seem to me to be both a violation of free speech (as one could argue that singing and chanting constitute content rather time, place, or manner) and the free exercise clause (if it specifically targets places of worship).

Presumably houses of worship are being specified because all secular group singing has already been banned by limits on # of people who can gather and because people claim a special right for churches to ignore public health regulations, not because non-religious group singing is exempted from public health regulations.

[Brittain33]

Singing is a manner of speech, not a content restriction. The whole service can be sung or read, and different parts can be recited or sung based on the whims of the pastor. This is a content-neutral restriction on speech that serves a significant government interest — preventing the spread of a respiratory virus.

I disagree with this.  Singing is content.  Speech is more than just the words that are spoken.  The tone in which they are spoken is often crucial to their meaning.  We imbue emotional content onto all dimensions of musical expression beyond the literal meaning of the lyrics of a song.  And of course, even music without words has this emotional and sometimes intellectual meaning.

This is lovely and all but I don't think people should die or be incapacitated because some of their friends at church can't do a risk assessment and doesn't care if they kill people. A church can't invite all of its parishioners on a helmet-less motorcycle ride and ask for special exemptions.

[Brittain33]

I think what's probably happening is that the disease is taking off in the early states, only the sickest people got tested, so the median age of people who tested positive was super high. Since society was open when the first outbreaks started, the real infections were probably pretty much evenly distributed across the population. Now, the people getting infected are younger people who feel safe out and about, and since we now have vastly greater testing capabilities, we're picking all of them up; whereas, in NY in March young otherwise healthy people who got the virus would have largely been told to go home and only seek testing/medical care if they needed to go to the hospital.

I agree, I have at least 3 friends in their 40s who got sick in NYC and stayed home and managed it themselves because they knew there was no point in burdening a hospital or taking a scarce test.

[Brittain33]

Another 10,059 cases in Florida's daily update. 

Corona isn’t taking the weekend off.

[Brittain33]

So is anyone else already making big plans for when the pandemic ends?

No, because I don't know when that will be nor what the end will look like, and expect the end to be a long and uneven tapering off of risk. I'm not anticipating any serious travel or big celebrations until several months after a vaccine has been in use and proven to be effective and not too dangerous, and God only know what kinds of purchases or spending will be possible after such a long shutdown.

[Brittain33]

RIP Nick Cordero.

That woman at Target on the last page was EXTREMELY unhinged. Wow. I know many mentally ill people personally, and she's not what I'd call a "mild case".

It’s kind of terrible that Twitter is amplifying this story of someone who is clearly mentally ill.

[Brittain33]

Article

Banning religious singing while blessing marxist riots. It is my opinion that I hope Californians violently oppose this and the evil governor. Thus is beyond tyrannical.

Rioting (violence, destroying private property, looting) is illegal and always has been.
Peaceful protest is protected by the 1st Amendment and when people wear masks, hasn’t been shown to cause a public health risk. It’s a combination of being outside and people wearing masks that makes it safe.
Singing indoors with groups has been the source of multiple superspreader events leading to illness and deaths. This is a smart and sensible public health measure which will save lives. If you’re “pro-life”, you’ll stand with the government.

[Brittain33]

Article

Banning religious singing while blessing marxist riots. It is my opinion that I hope Californians violently oppose this and the evil governor. Thus is beyond tyrannical.

Rioting (violence, destroying private property, looting) is illegal and always has been.
Peaceful protest is protected by the 1st Amendment and when people wear masks, hasn’t been shown to cause a public health risk. It’s a combination of being outside and people wearing masks that makes it safe.
Singing indoors with groups has been the source of multiple superspreader events leading to illness and deaths. This is a smart and sensible public health measure which will save lives. If you’re “pro-life”, you’ll stand with the government.

Im not "pro-life" im "pro-freedom". Religious worship is more important to me than "peaceful" protests. Especially when enforcement is extremely discriminatory. The media literally called it terrorism to protest the lockdowns then immediately flipflopped if you were protesting for communist garbage. There is nothing sensible about this. This is a fricking authoritarian coup via the big corporations who control the media.

Can I ask you something, since I haven't really picked up on you before as a distinctive poster.

Are you being serious in any of this? I mean, seriously, when the state discourages singing in church because it's killed people, you don't understand why they do that? I'm trying to understand what motivates you here.

[Brittain33]

California is banning singing in church to save the health and lives of people in the church or who will come into contact with people in the church. This is after several superspreader events related to church singing indoors which has proven to be one of the most dangerous practices in COVID times.

People like blackraisin need to explain why they disregard these facts and make wild claims that this is a totalitarian move, as if anyone in state government *wants* to do this, when the rationale is right there.

More so, you need to explain why you are indifferent to the health and life of people who sing in church choirs, the people they come into contact with, and the people those people come into contact with, that you’d actively fight and argue and scream for the right of the coronavirus to rip through all of their lives.

[Brittain33]

Article

Banning religious singing while blessing marxist riots. It is my opinion that I hope Californians violently oppose this and the evil governor. Thus is beyond tyrannical.

Rioting (violence, destroying private property, looting) is illegal and always has been.
Peaceful protest is protected by the 1st Amendment and when people wear masks, hasn’t been shown to cause a public health risk. It’s a combination of being outside and people wearing masks that makes it safe.
Singing indoors with groups has been the source of multiple superspreader events leading to illness and deaths. This is a smart and sensible public health measure which will save lives. If you’re “pro-life”, you’ll stand with the government.

Im not "pro-life" im "pro-freedom". Religious worship is more important to me than "peaceful" protests. Especially when enforcement is extremely discriminatory. The media literally called it terrorism to protest the lockdowns then immediately flipflopped if you were protesting for communist garbage. There is nothing sensible about this. This is a fricking authoritarian coup via the big corporations who control the media.

Can I ask you something, since I haven't really picked up on you before as a distinctive poster.

Are you being serious in any of this? I mean, seriously, when the state discourages singing in church because it's killed people, you don't understand why they do that? I'm trying to understand what motivates you here.

California has banned singing and chanting in churches.

Whose church! The Lord's church!

But it OK to chant in the street as you block traffic and provide cover for rioters and looters and topples statues of Junipero Serra.

Jim, as on the threads about Trayvon Martin and George Floyd, you don’t appear to express any sadness or solemnity about people losing their lives. Are the lives of people who go to church and sing not sacred to you and to God? Shouldn’t we mourn their loss?

[Brittain33]

It's such a stupid argument when you look at the sheer number of healthcare workers who have died because of Covid-19 exposure, who were otherwise healthy.

Only 512 healthcare workers have died of COVID-19.

Only 512? That's a really large number of people to die on the job!

[Brittain33]

https://mobile.twitter.com/vijayshekhar/status/1281626446503399424

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he say there would be a vaccine "very soon" back in, like, February?

It's like repeatedly predicting a solar eclipse will happen soon.  Eventually it will be correct if you keep it up long enough.

The vaccine will be released with Phase One of the China trade agreement during Infrastructure Week.

[Brittain33]

It’s ok to acknowledge that some days have no good news and we don’t need to try to force an interpretation of data to wring good news out of bad. Yesterday was another wretched ratchet up in the disease’s predictable spread and anything else is noise.

[Brittain33]

Isn't it a bit odd that the first wave mostly affected states with corrupt governments like New York while the current wave is mostly Southern? (Louisiana pulls the double-whammy of being both corrupt and southern!)

I wouldn't consider Massachusetts corrupt.