BF2S Forums Pandemic thread

Interesting take. I've actually seen quite a vast amount of films and series fromt arthouse to major motion pictures and all sorts of regional productions. In various languages too. I can recommend you to explore brazilian cinema, or the excellent classics made by Kurosawa, some fantastic soviet era stuff like Klimov's come and see as I'm sure you'll know. Or maybe something lesser known you can probably enjoy - try the 2001 movie Samsara in the vein of our discussion about religion and religious experience in the other thread. Interesting themes in there.

Anyhow really the difference I think is that I can sit and watch a somewhat mediocre movie or a high budget flashy production and still find enjoyment in there. And still recognise that there may be talent too. Villeneuve is absolutely fantastic in his sets & atmosphere and the scripts were pretty good too. Stuff doesn't always need to be deep, intellectualised, or fringe high art stuff attempting to push the envelope (which often is incredibly hit or miss anyway). And yet predictably you revert to lamenting pop culture and attacking others for having an underdeveloped taste because they dare find enjoyment in it. It must be hard being so extremely narrow in your definition of what is art that can be acceptably appreciated or consumed.

Tiled into the platform in the NYC subway.

Chasing Covid

Visiting fam.

How the American diet worsens COVID-19

"It's clear that COVID-19 is connected to food," Nancy Roman, CEO of Michelle Obama's nonprofit Partnership for a Healthier America

Last edited by Superior Mind (2020-09-23 23:32:03)

It’s not a good article whatsoever. I shared it only because this is literally the first time I’ve seen anything in the media describing this simple reality.

considering most western european countries got their daily death figures down to single-digits or low-teens over summer, yes, it was under control.

we are having a 'second wave', for a confluence of reasons. there has been a huge pressure to get children and university students back to school (meaning classrooms and campuses) for the start of a new year. ditto office workers to return to offices. there has been an inevitable rise in new cases as a result, and many campuses are now quarantining and going into lockdown on week 2.

several countries didn't use their summer downtime well enough to develop adequate track+tracing systems. italy is not having a second wave because they have a fine-tuned system that responds well to local outbreaks. they are dealing with it dynamically. in the UK our track+trace stuff was contracted out to a bunch of cronies and friends-of-friends, and it has been a systematic failure. thus predictable new infections caused by the return to cities and offices is not being met with a robust and countervailing response.

against all this, there's still a small but vocal non-mainstream of epidemiologists who are promoting 'herd immunity' (as in sweden, and which is now being adopted as a de facto measure in the netherlands, where all schoolchidlren are being forced to return). this now tallies quite well with many conservative governments who don't want to meet the second wave with a second round of huge economic rescue packages. 'maybe it's time to try this herd immunity thing', the chancellors are quietly thinking.

it's a very uneven picture and 'western europe' is not systematically failing. in addition, we did more or less have a few months of regular summer. bars, restaurants, shops, etc all open without skyrocketing infections and mass death. america has ploughed straight through summer without any respite, and your death toll has grown by 10,000s in the same time period. for most of july/august the UK was posting new case numbers in the low 100s nationally.

yeah take care KJ!

I hope you are okay Ken.

So Britain is doing worse than Bangladesh, if there is a future it would be fun to study the correlation between the pandemic severity, dumbness of the leaders, dumbness of the population, proportion of arts graduates etc.

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

Coworker was exposed through a family member. Coworker's test result just came back positive. I find out my test results tonight.

Had to shut the office down and request all employees get tested.

Coworker's family member who they live with was symptomatic, but coworker did not disclose it until after the family member tested positive. Coworker was still coming to work despite knowing their family member may have covid-19.

Stay safe everyone

Hope you're alright m8, did the test come back ok?

Countries with strong senses of community and group responsibility managed to get the whole thing under control. Countries with strong ideas about personal freedom and liberty didn't. This whole thing genuinely calls into question if our concept of individualism might need reworking.

I would hazard that Asian countries already accustomed to doing things like wearing masks to prevent the spread of viruses had an easier time getting into wearing masks as one of the responses to COVID-19 (to name an example from many steps).

For sure not the only aspect in play. The US is suffering a perfect storm of silliness already discussed for 200+ pages here and now 200,000+ people are dead because of it in less than a year. It didn't have to be this way. When epidemiologists modeled national performances to a coronavirus outbreak years ago, the US was one of the top performers. It's probably not their fault they didn't envision the political realities of the country today.

Similarly in Brazil where the clowning at the top has been met with consternation from various governors. 140k+. If Brazil took the lead (per capita reported is roughly equivalent now), I imagine President Trump would take it as a boasting point. "We're getting our numbers down!"

As easy as it would be to blame Trump for how a lot of people turned face mask as a matter of personal freedom/masculinity, I think the anti-mask movement would be just as strong among that group had Clinton taken power. Possibly even stronger due to a "Hillary Karen will not make me put on a mask" thing.

I don't know why people thing it is bitch move to wear a face mask during a pandemic. I love being able to dress in "Do Not Disturb Mode" everyday.