Quote :

"Looking forward to a society that doesn't pressure me into "saving" service industries. They serve me, I have no obligation to them. "

Wow that's a pretty garbage world view, even for tww

4/17/2020 9:10:43 AM

^^That's fine, if you don't enjoy going to restaurants, staying in hotels, vacationing, etc.

Most restaurants already operate on paper-thin margins.

[Edited on April 17, 2020 at 9:13 AM. Reason : ^]

4/17/2020 9:13:21 AM

Quote :

"Looking forward to a society that doesn't pressure me into "saving" service industries. They serve me, I have no obligation to them."

Pretty fucking gross. Complete lack of empathy even if you want to ignore the business itself and its value to the community and self which is dumb.

But he also started that garbage post with "looking forward to people dying" so

4/17/2020 10:24:56 AM

I don't view the service industry as people serving you. They are providing a meaningful service to people that is in demand. There is actually a pretty big difference.

There are also distinct differences between saving specific local restaurants/hotels/businesses, an industry as a whole, and ensuring the human beings who previously worked in the service industry before a global pandemic currently have a means for living in safe, healthy human conditions during this time. It is unclear, which of these distinct items was being criticized.

As a blanket statement without any specifics, that is a fairly callous worldview.

[Edited on April 17, 2020 at 10:48 AM. Reason : ]

4/17/2020 10:47:47 AM

It's almost like capitalism isn't the only answer...

4/17/2020 11:07:14 AM

^^^Yea and to the dying point

Quote :

"Looking forward to all the people who willfully ignore science dying when everything gets reopened too early."

Just like always, it will likely not be the people ignoring science who suffer the consequences it will be us and our family. It's crazy to look forward to death regardless but when you go to your parents funeral you probably won't be "lol that science denier died too lol"

4/17/2020 11:22:09 AM

https://twitter.com/scottwongdc/status/1251180220381618177?s=21

What’s going on here? The link from TheHill didn’t explain but this is almost double the previous daily high. Was there some backlog that was released into today’s number? Usually happens on Tuesdays not Fridays.

If this is the real number, even if it’s the peak, there is going to be a lot of bad numbers the next week.

4/17/2020 12:09:42 PM

Could have been that the reporting method changed and numbers were added. The same thing happened on April 14. Also I'm not seeing that number on the website I've been using. Is there a better one out there?

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

4/17/2020 12:18:55 PM

WSJ also had an article saying the same (but it’s behind paywall) and it’s sourced from Johns Hopkins. Still can’t get any more granularity on it though.

Judging by the sweaty panic emanating from POTUS’ twitter I wonder if something in the way we are reporting has changed?

4/17/2020 12:38:35 PM

Quote :

"Pretty fucking gross. Complete lack of empathy even if you want to ignore the business itself and its value to the community and self which is dumb. But he also started that garbage post with "looking forward to people dying" so"

Quote :

"I don't view the service industry as people serving you. They are providing a meaningful service to people that is in demand. There is actually a pretty big difference."

I left out some info that should clear this up. First, to CalledtoArms' point, yes they provide a service to a community based on a demand. Second, if the demand goes away, i shouldnt go out of my way to prop them up. Third, someone should. maybe a giant governing body that i give money to every fucking paycheck. I have very close friends in the service industry who i feel terrible for. I will happily help them, but i find it annoying that all the commercials im seeing are peer pressuring the viewer into going out and spending money on things they dont need, just to support an industry. Theyre saying "you pay their salaries, so we dont have to".

Quote :

"It's crazy to look forward to death regardless but when you go to your parents funeral you probably won't be "lol that science denier died too lol""

My parents are doing their best to stay safe and follow the rules to reduce the spread. If they get infected by some dick science denier, then fuck that person. I'm not happy that that anyone is dying. But i am unhappy that people see millions of sick people, and thousands dead, and still think that going to ruby tuesdays is more important. I'll rephrase my original comment - I look forward to a day when that way of thinking is dead. I'm ok with people like that not being alive anymore.

4/17/2020 1:35:26 PM

I have honestly run out of responses for people that seem to think bringing up automobile deaths is somehow a brilliant point. It's almost as bad as ppl still believing that the earth is flat.

4/17/2020 1:45:17 PM

^^that post is def clearer. I mostly take back my comment.

4/17/2020 1:50:54 PM

^ no need to take it back. definitely overall negative outlook. and i definitely have a low esteem for the human race currently. I just wanted to clarify WHY im such a piece of shit

4/17/2020 2:14:48 PM

Well getting mad at companies, especially big ones with immense resources, for making you feel guilty fits well within my personal moral code!

4/17/2020 2:33:50 PM

Except who are the big companies he's angry at? The people getting hurt the most are small restaurant owners.

and

Quote :

"Second, if the demand goes away, i shouldnt go out of my way to prop them up."

That only works if the demand goes away due to shitty service/food/whatever. The lack of demand here is artificial, brought on by things outside of the business owners' control.

4/17/2020 3:11:32 PM

^exactly. which would necessitate a safety net. which $350 billion was allocated for and dried up quickly

I'm saying the average joe, who is also getting fucked by this pandemic, shouldn't be on the hook to save businesses. or at least shouldnt feel pressured. that's all. i'd appreciate an ad that said "hey, we're all getting fucked...we'd love some help from those who can help". instead i hear "its up to you to save the businesses you love"

like whoa bro, i only *like* overpriced wings.

4/17/2020 3:46:34 PM

Well if you don't LOVE any business, that plea doesn't apply to you anyway so youre straight

4/17/2020 4:27:49 PM

Quote :

"I have honestly run out of responses for people that seem to think bringing up automobile deaths is somehow a brilliant point."

Like Dr. Phil, who also brought up swimming pool deaths (inflated by a factor of 100).

Fuck Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz for appearing on Fox and repeating Trumpet/Fox/conspiracy theorist talking points.

Utter pieces of shit.



P.S. Dr. Oz is worse: He said another 2-3% deaths from opening schools is price some would consider worth paying. I hope that bastard's license is taken away for that comment

4/19/2020 2:14:02 PM

saw this posted somewhere:

The user /u/Dr_Midnight uncovers a massive nationwide astroturfing operation to protest the quarantine
https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/g3sw2l/the_user_udr_midnight_uncovers_a_massive/

4/19/2020 3:04:39 PM

Astroturfing is a dumb term unless it involves putting fake grass on top of concrete

4/19/2020 4:12:27 PM

first time i have seen it used like that

4/19/2020 4:36:04 PM

^,^^ I think fake grass/grassroots is an appropriate analogy, and I saw it a lot during the Tea Party movement.

4/19/2020 6:47:47 PM

Call it FieldTurfing then. AstroTurf was just green carpet.

AstroTurfing would be these same protestors showing up with t shirts on saying TRUMP IS PAYING ME TO PROTEST

4/19/2020 6:53:49 PM

^As far as I can tell, this is not accurate. Do you have a cite? AstroTurf and FieldTurf are simply competing brands of artificial turf:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AstroTurf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FieldTurf


Simply by being a better known name, astroturfing seems like the more appropriate term.

4/19/2020 7:39:15 PM

yeah justinh524

4/19/2020 7:57:04 PM

Up until the late 90's all artificial grass surfaces were pretty much the same as the original AstroTurf (patented in the 60's) - essentially carpet made of green plastic that sat on a small layer of hard rubber. FieldTurf revolutionized the field by introducing a surface that actually simulated playing on a natural surface using a sand base and rubber pellets along with much longer and more lifelike grass blades. It was way better for sports and this led to the company that owned AstroTurf going bankrupt in 2004. The brand was sold and is now marketed as a FieldTurf competitor, but that's not classic AstroTurf.

Anyways, it's a terrible term to use in the way they are using. No one thinks fake grass is real grass. No one. Astroturfing isn't an appropriate response, it's dumb.

4/19/2020 8:03:35 PM

I think you're being overly pedantic. And if "No one thinks fake grass is real grass" is an argument against AstroTurf, why isn't it an argument against FieldTurf, too? Is FieldTurf so revolutionary that some people do think it's real grass?

Anyway, the term is not a reflection on what people think (and why should it be?); it's a reflection on what it actually is.

4/19/2020 8:20:46 PM

I think using either term to describe this situation is dumb as hell. I think FieldTurfing is slightly less dumb, but still dumb as hell.

Essentially anyone who uses AstroTurfing should be shot (and if I owned the copyright/trademark/whatever for AstroTurf I would sue every single person who published it in this context.)

4/19/2020 8:32:45 PM

Can you catch coronavirus from farts?
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/can-you-catch-coronavirus-from-farts/news-story/44b495c11d7b314e35f0c6e24a867270

Quote :

"People are also urged to flush the toilet with the lid closed, because of a “toilet plume phenomenon”, according to The Conversation. The action of flushing a toilet causes up to 145,000 aerosolised droplets to be disturbed and thrown around the room, and become suspended in the air for hours, according to the report. Closing the toilet lid is particularly recommended in public toilets."

4/20/2020 4:21:38 AM

Most public toilets don't have kids lids.

[Edited on April 20, 2020 at 11:28 AM. Reason : thanks phone!]

4/20/2020 11:26:42 AM

Canadian oil prices have gone negative.

4/20/2020 11:36:12 AM

^ somehow avgas hasn't gone down. It looks to have marginally changed on average, but not like car gas.

4/20/2020 11:58:16 AM

Lol, the virus (and an increasingly irresponsible supply side) has cratered oil so much that people are literally paying people to take oil contacts due tomorrow off their hands because there is. I capacity left to store it. Even May contracts have fallen near $20/barrel and will likely crash into the teens soon.

4/20/2020 2:15:47 PM

^ The commodity game and how the lowest-cost producers keep producing to put the higher-cost producers out of business, so when crisis passes they have more market share.

[Edited on April 20, 2020 at 3:12 PM. Reason : .]

4/20/2020 3:11:03 PM

Somebody pointed out that states could easily but a temporary tax on gas to helping make up the deficits without really hurting anyone since prices are getting so low

4/20/2020 3:13:42 PM

^ regressive tax

4/20/2020 4:00:39 PM

Corporate loan market doomed in a manner reminiscent of mortgage-backed securities 12 years ago.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-20/clo-reckoning-arrives-downgrade-wave-tests-700-billion-market

4/20/2020 4:16:11 PM

Alaskan North Slope, West Texas Intermediate, and North Sea oil have also gone negative. Went from $10/barrel to negative in less than an hour. Rumor is a fund that bought the dip in oil price heavy blew up.

4/20/2020 4:27:25 PM

I have no sympathies for any outside investor playing a futures market and getting burned.

4/20/2020 4:41:57 PM

Did anyone watch this one world thing? Haven’t heard much about it considering it was in all networks.

4/20/2020 8:36:24 PM

looking on the sunny side of things I love getting a free metallica concert every monday night!

4/20/2020 8:54:42 PM

Only if they're playing St. Anger all the way through every week, because it is the best Metallica album.

4/20/2020 9:00:40 PM

Kim Jong Un got the rona?

4/21/2020 1:08:53 AM

Prob got the “i am overweight smoker with cholesterol” ‘rona

4/21/2020 3:36:27 AM

Let's talk about what we know about reopening North Carolina, the wild west of PPE acquisition, what's going on with testing, and car inspections.

SOCIAL DISTANCING IS WORKING

We are winning the battle against peak infection. We can see that in the numbers. The statewide doubling time has gone from 2.5 days to 10 days. That means it’s slowing down.

Mecklenburg has not made quite as much progress. Our doubling time has gone from 2.85 days to 6 days - still slowing, but not as much as the rest of the state. That could be because of general density, or different levels of testing, or the presence of more specific hot spots like nursing homes, or some combination.

But let’s zoom out and look at the big picture for North Carolina.

It's been just over two full weeks since the stay at home order went into effect. That means we're just now getting the earliest possible snapshot of the results (given incubation time + time it takes to get tested + time it takes to be hospitalized).

And the early returns look pretty good.

You can see from the chart that hospitalizations are not growing as quickly as they were two weeks ago.

If we continue to see the rate of hospitalization slow down, then that means we are on course to get past the peak while minimizing the loss of life in our state. In short, if we keep this up then we won't max out our ICU capacity.

That's a remarkable accomplishment, especially given that our collective action as individuals was overwhelmingly responsible for making it happen. This is a citizen-led pandemic response, and it appears to be working.

That means we're now in a position to start having a realistic conversation about what reopening will look like.

WE ONLY WANT TO REOPEN ONCE

The early idea about when to reopen was that we first had to get past the peak and then watch the downward trend continue for about two weeks to make sure we had this under control. (And that's currently the formal guidance coming from the White House.)

But in North Carolina we've got at least three different models for the state projecting different peak times, with one model saying our state peaked a few days ago and the model that Mecklenburg is using saying our county will peak in early June.

The problem is that the more effective we are at flattening the curve, the more it will push the peak out.

That may be why Mecklenburg's County Manager said this week that it might be possible to at least partially reopen before we know we've passed the peak, as long as we've severely flattened the curve and met other conditions (i.e., increase in testing) that give us real confidence that we've got this under control.

But keep in mind that from the standpoint of the rest of the state, Mecklenburg poses the biggest risk. We have twice as many cases as any other county. Our reopening will receive more scrutiny than anyone else's.

When our state does start to reopen, you can expect it to come in phases, you can expect a major emphasis on wearing masks, and you can expect lots of folks getting their temperatures checked on a regular basis.

Why the caution? Because while different models show different peak times, all the models we're using agree on what happens if we let up before we have this under control: We get a viral surge that undoes all the sacrifice people have made.

Remember: The *nightmare scenario* from an economic standpoint is that we reopen before we're ready, infection spikes, and we have to reclose. We cannot let that happen. We only want to restart this economic engine once because every time you turn it off it does a ton of damage.

And the only way we can reopen and remain open is if flatten the curve AND get widespread testing. Which brings us to...

TESTING UPDATE

We're making some progress on this front. We've increased testing by over 80% in last two weeks.

But Sec. Cohen (NC DHHS) says we need to at least double our testing capacity from here. That's because once we reopen the odds of future localized outbreaks in North Carolina are 100%. When they happen, we're either going to have to reclose OR have access to widespread testing that allows us to quickly identify and contain the outbreak.

There's no third option. It's reclosures or much more testing.

Right now the biggest bottleneck for testing is the PPE that health care workers have to wear to administer the tests. Yes, we still don't have as many test kits as we'd like, but that's not the critical shortage right now. (And specifically, the most critical PPE shortage we have in North Carolina is surgical gowns.)

The big problem here is that we're still in a bidding war against other states. We've made over $150m worth of bids and only a fraction have been filled. This is now a national problem and it probably requires some federal coordination to solve. It's the wild west getting your hands on PPE right now and we need a smarter approach. This directly impacts our ability to scale up testing, which directly impacts our ability to reopen and remain open.

QUICK ITEMS

- Please don't worry about getting you car inspected right now. When we go back into session this month we're going to retroactively extend vehicle inspection deadlines.

- The unemployment system has made major staffing additions that are helping bring down wait times, but they're still swamped. If you are self-employed or a contractor, they will be ready to accept your application on April 25th. If you are self-employed or a contractor and have already filed and been denied, DES is saying that you will "most likely need to re-apply." 636,000 North Carolinians have filed for unemployment insurance in the last five weeks. As of today, $358 million in benefits has been sent to 211,000 claimants.

- We've had a major outbreak at Neuse Correctional Institution in Goldsboro. Out of 700 inmates, 259 have tested positive. 98% were asymptomatic. In North Carolina, prison officials have been allowing some nonviolent offenders - the vast majority of whom are either pregnant or over the age of 65 - to complete their sentence under community supervision.

- The state has launched two mental health hotlines. For the general population there's Hope4NC Hotline: 1-855-587-3463. For first responders and health care workers, there's Hope4Healers Hotline: (919) 226-2002.

- About 56% of child care providers are currently open. DHHS now has an emergency subsidy to cover the cost of childcare for parents who are classified as essential workers and have no other child-care options while also falling below 300% of the federal poverty line. Call (888) 600-1685.

- We're scheduled to go back into session on April 28th. It looks like we'll still be voting in the senate chamber although we'll no longer have to be at our assigned desks to vote - we'll just have to be physically in the chamber. But committee meetings are going to be held virtually. It's also looking we're going to have two sessions this year instead of one. The first will start on April 28th and will likely be very short. The next will be in late summer and will be longer.

More updates soon,

Sen. Jeff Jackson

4/21/2020 1:21:08 PM

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dCo0q9ZM62w&feature=youtu.be

LOLZ

4/21/2020 2:29:54 PM

is jeff jackson running for governor or something?

4/21/2020 2:44:59 PM

^^pixels

4/21/2020 3:24:21 PM

Quote :

""You can take off the mask Doug, the base mortality rate's like point 1 to point 3 according to USC." "Is it really? That's reassuring." "Everybody here's been vaccinated anyway." "USC in LA county public health has come out with a study. They found that there's 7,000 cases in California, but they really believe that there are anywhere between 221,000 to 442,000 people who were infected. "Really?" "Yeah." "So that makes it zero point 1 to zero point 3?" "Yup." "Is the study come out < inaudible > ?" "Yeah, just came in today." "So it suggests that the case fatality rate is about of a tenth of what it seems to be." "Puts it right in line with the flu." "Yeah exactly that's what it is, the flu." "So it's a hoax!" "I don't think it's a hoax." "Ha ha ha." "Ha ha ha ha.""

[Edited on April 21, 2020 at 4:16 PM. Reason : M]

4/21/2020 4:14:12 PM

Quote :

"is jeff jackson running for governor or something?"

He's literally just doing his job

4/21/2020 5:26:43 PM