BF2S Forums Pandemic thread

the ‘debate’ pretty nearly summarises the public attitude to covid.

you have those like jay, the rogans, who are absolutely against any further lockdown measures. but they are fine. their biggest worry is not being able to go to the comedy club for a month or continue with a podcast. they are derisive of experts and science because it doesn’t tell them what they want to hear. at the same time, they’re full of folksy wisdom about ‘immune system’, ‘taking a risk’, etc. it’s funny that joe is so anti-scientific consensus but then owns a fucking supplement company that’s meant to boost your brain or something. ok bro.

bill burr is obviously an average schmoe and he knows it. the insane thing is that anyone even has to say ‘i listen to the experts’. like that’s some controversial stance. bill runs circles around rogan’s hypocrisy and double standards.

i think every guy comic is dogged by a sort of reddit-bro loser frat fanbase who love latching on to the one time they made fun of feminism or whatever.

i like bill.  he seems very avuncular. he knows he has a temper and emotional problems. he's a family man now. he's trying his best. it's good entertainment.

I feel like a previous generation of this example was in people unironically adopting the "philosophy" of George Carlin. It even took on a life of its own, generating a stream of horrible, falsely attributed stuff that the comedian had to blanket-debunk. Looking up the quote:

Here's a rule of thumb, folks: Nothing you see on the Internet is mine unless it comes from one of my albums, books, HBO specials, or appeared on my web site", and "It bothers me that some people might believe that I would be capable of writing some of this stuff.

boris does not stand a chance against a QC in PMQ's.

hairdressers are closed.

It's like he styles it with a mixture of elephant sneezes and static electricity while looking at his reflection through a chain of three mirrors. It's very specifically bad.

The federal government is stuck with 63 million doses of hydroxychloroquine now that the US Food and Drug Administration has revoked permission for the drug to be distributed to treat coronavirus patients.

The government started stockpiling donated hydroxychloroquine in late March, after President Trump touted it as "very encouraging" and "very powerful" and a "game-changer."
But Monday, the FDA revoked its emergency use authorization to use the drug to treat Covid-19, saying there was "no reason to believe" the drug was effective against the virus, and that it increased the risk of side effects, including heart problems.

That leaves the Strategic National Stockpile with 63 million doses of hydroxychloroquine, plus another 2 million doses of chloroquine, a related drug donated by Bayer, according to Carol Danko, a spokesperson for the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Who knew indulging the ego of a mad man would be so expensive?

uziq wrote:

SuperJail Warden wrote:

uziq wrote:

boris does not stand a chance against a QC in PMQ's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNlZhb1w2-A

5.2 million children in poverty in the U.K.?

America:

it's a national disgrace with the size of our economy. that's the result of a decade of austerity for you.

Like I said, rookie numbers.

About 15 million children in the United States – 21% of all children – live in families with incomes below the federal poverty threshold, a measurement that has been shown to underestimate the  needs of families. Research shows that, on average, families need an income of about twice that level to cover basic expenses. Using this standard, 43% of children live in low-income families.

http://www.nccp.org/topics/childpoverty … 0expenses.

As far as I can tell this was using 2019 information when we had "record low unemployment" instead of the COVID depression. 15 million to 30 million poor children in the best of times. True American exceptionalism.

School systems struggle with the politics of reopening

Governors promise to put kids back in class in a matter of weeks, but school officials are largely stuck navigating the messy details.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/1 … rus-327020

Interesting article explaining what I have been saying regarding schools reopening in the fall. American schools don't have the money to staff up, and buy PPE while also trying to make up for the loss in state revenue. Schools also have no clue how to navigate the legal issues regarding keeping people safe. A lot of staff might not even want to return.

I had a department meeting on Zoom the other day. The director of the department as well as the head of the union both explained that in their meetings with the superintendent and board, it is obvious no one knows what to do.

If the federal government wants a smooth reopening in the fall then they need to start organizing funding, and putting together plans now. But the president seems more interested in downplaying the effects of the virus meanwhile ICUs in half of the states are becoming overburdened.

so after months of delay and wasted time, the track+trace app being developed for the UK and NHS has been axed.

which effectively means that, after months of economic self-wounding and huge sacrifices (except, of course, for the PMs advisor, who took several day-trips), the lockdown has not bought us any time. we should have been using the cessation in everyday life to develop robust testing and tracking measures. instead we threw a bunch of government contracts at new-fangled tech which came to naught. a huge white elephant.

and guess what?

Just a reminder that the #NHS #trackingapp that's bitten the dust was being developed by a firm called Faculty, which was a VoteLeave AI firm and is run by a mate of #DominicCummings. The same firm is hoovering up Whitehall contracts.

https://twitter.com/DavidHeadViews/stat … 20354?s=20

In other news despite sweden's more lax approach to covid-19 their economy is still set to contract almost 10% in Q2, about the same rate as every country in the eurozone. Yet people were still allowed to do pretty much everything they usually could.

This implies 2 things:

1. Government policy has had little effect on the average Swede's attitude with regard to the pandemic. People stopped going out, stopped spending money, stopped cramming themselves into bars. A self-imposed lockdown of sorts has taken hold. Meanwhile it is also one of the countries worst hit by the pandemic. So government policy has achieved none of the intended effects while only exacerbating the amount of death. Ouch.

2. Esp. in the eurozone it proves national governments are unable to stem or steer the effects of global economic events. There's a simultaneous supply and demand shock in the market in goods and services due to the global character of the pandemic. An interconnected economy reacts accordingly. It is hard to imagine there's any government out there that would remain unaffected if it went against the grain.

Last edited by Larssen (2020-06-19 12:49:13)

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/19/art- … -the-deal/
https://www.propublica.org/article/the- … da-bottles

lol. christ.

Last edited by uziq (2020-06-19 14:45:22)

you must be overlooking the part where sweden’s death rate has been worse than all of its neighbours who entered lockdown. there’s more at stake than economic harm here, jay.