Coronavirus Pandemic

[gilesgoat]

https://www.click2houston.com/news/nati ... re-months/

Los Angeles County is telling people they may need to stay home for 3 more months

And sometime makes me think "if we think this is all so bad, imagine spending like .. 5 years in a prison cell" ... complain there "oh I can't jogging" or "oh I can't walk my dog" ...

Think at those ended up in some places like in "Banged up Abroad" ... ...

[edit] - ok there's a psychological difference here, between a sentence of 'x time' vs a 'we don't know anything yet when all this could get better/end'.

[KlaxonCow]

No, no. When folks moan, with their "moral outrage", that prison sentences aren't long enough and all that crap, we should entirely take this experience on board to appreciate that folks are already going stir crazy after only a month and they're not even under true "house arrest", when you can leave your home for legitimate reasons.

It was something that Winston Churchill once said. That you can measure a society's true level of "civilisation" by looking at how it treats its prisoners. I'd also extend that to include how it treats its poor and unemployed, how it treats the disabled and so forth too.

Look to how a supposed "civilisation" treats those it considers "lesser" - criminal, sick, poor or, specifically in this crisis, the old - because that tells you whether they really are a civilised decent people or not.

[gilesgoat]

No, no. When folks moan, with their "moral outrage", that prison sentences aren't long enough and all that crap, we should entirely take this experience on board to appreciate that folks are already going stir crazy after only a month and they're not even under true "house arrest", when you can leave your home for legitimate reasons.

It was something that Winston Churchill once said. That you can measure a society's true level of "civilisation" by looking at how it treats its prisoners. I'd also extend that to include how it treats its poor and unemployed, how it treats the disabled and so forth too.

Look to how a supposed "civilisation" treats those it considers "lesser" - criminal, sick, poor or, specifically in this crisis, the old - because that tells you whether they really are a civilised decent people or not.

Well .. again .. "nothing to do with prison" BUT "I am not sure which one is really worse" .. in 1995 I had to do compulsory military service in Italy that at the time was still compulsory, 1 year.

Three months in "Caserma Duca degli Abruzzi" in La Spezia, a city, actually A MILITARY BUILDING about 400 miles away from my town in a place I never seen in my life, I say "the building" because going out of it was extremely regulated and only for some hours a week assuming you were not into some training / duty.

Now if you think all those movies a la' "Full metal jacket" with the sarge shouting you shit all time and making you do things .. "that would have been heaven in comparision to what was there" ..

ONE thing was true, we DID had the sarge shouting shit and you and treating like a piece less than shit but instead of doing something .. ANYTHING .. we were making stand in the middle of a cement square for HOURS like statues without moving while someone was literally "shouting numbers" like "ALM 1732 .. ALM 1567 .. ALM 865" .. if it happened to be yours you finally were "assigned to something" and from that on you were "officially and legally" a recruit.

"ALM" stands for "Aspirante Leva Marina" .. which means something like "a recruit waiting to be assigned" you'll learn soon that the military have some "weird terminology for everything" you call it "thootbrush" they maybe call it "personal dental highyene small brush model 1.33" ... and if you say it wrong you'll get punished ! You don't need to know a thing about how to win a war but it's VERY IMPORTANT you know how to name things properly !

But until you get that it was being move from that *(&£"&(*"&%*(£% square from one "Waiting room" to another .. we spend nearly 2 WEEKS sometime even 6 HOURS A DAY waiting .. be that sun or cold or whatever without the possibility to go to the loo or such, or move, you STAND as they told you to do ..

Occasionally, twice a day ( lunch / dinner ) , there was a small break for lunch/dinner .. .. which the first time I ever seen their "food court" .. was something out of a "this can't be real it's a joke/movie" .. it was far too real .. sufficient I say "cattle probably is treated better and have better food".

To sleep .. the sleeping quarters .. were NOT like in the movies "where everything is in impeccable order" .. again "close to hell" is the closest description I could give, I am sure there is "much order in prisons" where cells are smaller (? I suppose ) and you don't have 50 people per room "not sleeping and doing all crap all time" where you are SUPPOSED to sleep at some point.

No the "oh dear I lost the soap would you pick it up" that was NOT a thing but the "give me ALL your money/valuables/shit/things you are eating/cigarettes/whatever I want of I'll beat you up until you are on the floor" that WAS an any day reality and "staying alive UNbeated" was a skill to learn pretty fast.

Beliveme I HAVE SEEN some people going "totally bananas" in the real sense, things "to be sent to a psychiatric ward" or a hospital - quite some did - because they eneded up beaten up badly in about 2 weeks time since start ..

Spare you fuckload of story I would skip to 4 months on board "closed in a metallic box with no windows under artificial lights 24/24 working nearly 20/24" at least that was "at most" for 20 days in a row at the time .. still .. 20 days in such conditions are .. "interesting" ..

Still for who was working in the kitchen - me - there's still TONS of work even when the boat is at the port, you always have to cook for 4 different shifts and at very least 50 people .. 140 when in full motion .. .. and the whole kitchen stuff were .. 4 people .. plus sometime 1 or 2 'helpers' ..

Add as a "bonus" when the sea was bad and "everything waves and moves" .. "how to work 20 hours with the worst flu of your life feeling you are about to puke every 5 mins" ..

It's hot, it's moving, it's stinking, it's really hard, it's ()*$("(*($)£"*()$)£" people wanting ()*$(*$()£"()$ all time breaking ()*$£"()*£" your balls all time .. "stress levels I don't know what you are talking about, we are all mad here".

Switch to last 5 months to "Maridist Venice", tourist don't know how many military installations there are in Venice, there are many ,quite hidden from tourist views .. very long stories made short "they were all mad in there" our "kitchen chief" was convinced, for real, to have PARANORMAL POWERS .. ..

I am NOT making this up ...

Again LOT of work, cooking for over 250 people, but at least the kitchen was bigger and we were IIRC about 10 ? 14 ? working in there .. we were ALL mad ..

Anyway .. "at home doing what you want/can do at home when you want to do it ?" ... A BREEZE

"You don't really know what else is out there you never tried"

[Harlequin]

https://www.erinbromage.com/post/the-risks-know-them-avoid-them

Interesting. Especially "Social distancing guidelines don't hold in indoor spaces where you spend a lot of time, as people on the opposite side of the room were infected." That suggests that long train journeys with only a few people per carriage (with some talking) are a significant hazard. And, while I thought the idea of leaving middle seats empty on aircraft was far less than sufficient, the same would appear to apply for entire aeroplane cabins!

It does also suggest, though, that cinemas (unfortunately not live theatres) with properly distanced seating should be relatively safe, as long as anyone talking (let alone coughing or sneezing) is rapidly sent to the Special Hell.

[Misfit]

... as long as anyone talking (let alone coughing or sneezing) is rapidly sent to the Special Hell.

We don't need a pandemic for this to be made a law in cinemas.

Went to see the re-release of Alien for its 40th Anniversary recently (you know that quiet tense, build tension kind of film) and the people in the allocated seats next to us had brought supper. That's bad, but when they pulled out nice crisp apples for pudding let's just say I wasn't congratulating them on their healthy choice...

[PFVA]

https://www.click2houston.com/news/nati ... re-months/

Los Angeles County is telling people they may need to stay home for 3 more months

And sometime makes me think "if we think this is all so bad, imagine spending like .. 5 years in a prison cell" ... complain there "oh I can't jogging" or "oh I can't walk my dog" ...

Think at those ended up in some places like in "Banged up Abroad" ... ...

[edit] - ok there's a psychological difference here, between a sentence of 'x time' vs a 'we don't know anything yet when all this could get better/end'.

Even though LA Co. is the one doing worse in California that's not literal. The order will stay in place meanwhile they will re-open things gradually. If they don't have that order everybody will be able to open everything at the same time. This way they can decide what re-opens and when which is basically what is being done in the European Union and i believe it will be done in the UK.

"With all certainty," the local order will be extended another three months, Dr. Barbara Ferrer, the health director of Los Angeles County, said at a Board of Supervisors virtual meeting. Restrictions on businesses and public places will continue to be lifted, while the order remains, Ferrer explained.

and

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told CNN that Ferrer wasn't saying Los Angeles will stay as-is into August.

"I think quite simply she's saying we're not going to fully reopen Los Angeles -- or anywhere in America -- without any protections or health orders in the next three months," he told CNN's Jake Tapper.

On a different issue but related to the confinement, here in Portugal our Residential Homes for the elderly have been placed on alert for suicide. Apparently there is enough cases of suicide and attempts to among the elderly particularly in homes to justify the measure. The latest was an 84 year old woman who jumped out of the window of her room in the facility. Closing elderly people in their rooms, not allowing visits from family for almost 8 weeks now may not be the best thing to do. Death for other reasons than Covid is rising too, stress and lack of exercise can lead to other problems. In terms of residential care they are changing monday, and allowing people to be visited by family, with some restrictions and precautions abut the visits will be allowed.


292 cases in my municipality and from the 219 new cases in the country the large majority continues to be in Lisbon and its metropolitain area.

[gilesgoat]

.. suddenly .. all this feels/reminds me of 12 Monkeys .. the film ...

[gilesgoat]

... joy ... now WHO says "The virus may never go away" ...

[F-ZeroOne]

"I reject your reality and substitute my own!":

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52656959

Analysis of the US response; theres actually a little reason for optimism in there if you look hard enough:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52579200

Giles beat me to it, WHO on how we might well need to learn to live with this:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52643682

Edit: Antibody test approved in UK:

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52656808

[Harlequin]

... joy ... now WHO says "The virus may never go away" ...

Perhaps not. We may, however, develop treatments to greatly reduce the damage it causes and, perhaps less than a year from now, a vaccine to reduce the likelihood of future epidemics. Then it might really be comparable to influenza.

"I reject your reality and substitute my own!":
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52656959

I looked that line up and found the following:

This sort of character is a relative of the Cloudcuckoolander but with much more sinister overtones. They seem to live in a world of their own, they may live by the mantra of Screw the Rules when the "rules" are hard facts. They will stubbornly insist "their" reality is the true reality in the face of evidence to the contrary, much to the frustration of others and sometimes danger to companions, underlings, peers or themselves, especially when the fact they are rejecting is a consequence of their own actions. If anything manages to pierce their iron-bound conviction, a breakdown, villainous or otherwise, is likely to ensue.

You appear to have chosen an apposite paraphrase.

[F-ZeroOne]

May or may not have been deliberate.

My source for it was Adam Savage from "Mythbusters", its one of his more famous quotes from the show.

[tufty]

So, over here there's a while load of righteous handwringing going on about the fact that Sanofi, a company at least partially based in france, has s stated that any covid vaccine it might make will be prioritised for the US before anyone else.

I don't remember the same sort of response when they were explaining to us why it was bad that African countries were deciding to make their own bootleg AIDS medicines, due to the exorbitant cost of "on brand" medicines. "How can biochemisty companies be expected to innovate if they can't profit from that innovation?" was the question being asked, in fact.

Funny how responses change when it's not a lot of brown people a long way away who are dying, but rather your own electors, isn't it?

[gilesgoat]

** has s stated that any covid vaccine it might make will be prioritised for the US before anyone else.
**

Is this that famous human feeling that you call friendship ?

Spare me this STAR TREK CRAP ! THIS IS REAL LIFE !!

Well .. as Mr Toupee says .. "America First" .. I was listening to Alex Jones this afternoon, he was having some guest from some other company I can't remember "Yippe/yibbi" something like that that quote went like this :

".. because it's absolutely, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely, undenaiably clear that Donald Trump been ORDAINED BY GOD to be our president ! "

( Which made me think "maybe he's right, are we now experiencing the WRATH of God and we all been punished for our sins ? " *** BEWARE SOME PEOPLE BELIEVE THIS TOO !! )

How dare you tufty NOT to give PRIORITY to a nation that has a president ORDAINED BY GOD and ALSO HAS THE HOLY SPIRIT with him and acts IN THE NAME OF JESUS !

Has to be put "emphasis" on Jesus because always according to Alex Jones and his followers ( and probably many others ) you will note that in USA there's a lot of mention about God and Jesus BUT NOT "the Catholic Church" as it was, in fact now "Catholicism seems to be a synonimous of evil/padeophilia/corruption" .. really .. it's .. really odd how things turned ..

In fact there seems to be quite a portion of people dislking the current pope ( Francis ) and in general "The Catholic Church of Rome" so I am guessing "by association" Italians must be all evil then

Anyway listening to Alex Jones was like listening to a bulletin - and quite clear - about "time to take arms in hands and start a revolution in USA" ..

Funny to think "it may be true" that USA won't be destroyed hit by any other foreing country .. but ultimately will destroy itself with its own hands ??

That would be .. "mega ironic" but also "quite correct"

"Created and destroyed by its own people" ..

[KlaxonCow]

If Trump is ordained by God then I defer to the wisdom of the late Christopher Hitchens.

He's clearly a tyrannical madman with the most crazy and evil "plan" ever, so fuck him.

[rowan]

Trump <snip>'s clearly a tyrannical madman with the most crazy and evil "plan" ever, so fuck him.

More than Bolsonaro?