Wuhan Coronavirus: Megathread - Got too big

[CeleryStalks]

Michigan, USA

Field hospital in Detroit scaled back after drop in cases. Original plan was to open with 1,100 beds. Now they are only going to open with 250.

Detroit-area coronavirus field hospital scaling back beds

Suburban Collection Showcase in Novi is now slated to open later this month with 250 beds.

www.mlive.com

(archive)

Our shutdown extension is not popular, with even the left-wing paper (Detroit Free Press) running articles about people criticizing it. I'm going to shamelessly plagiarize Kiwi Lime Pie's summary from the shutdown thread.

Current Michigan Happenings

Stay home has been extended through April 30. Starting today (April 10):

• Visiting neighbors or family is prohibited (with exceptions to check on the elderly, infirm, or pets).
• Travel between two residences within the state is prohibited. For example, someone can't travel from their main home to a cottage.
• Large stores can only have 4 customers per 1000 square feet (93 m^2). Smaller stores are limited to 25% capacity based on the fire codes.
• Stores must have markings to help keep people 6 feet (2 m) apart in lines.
• Large stores must close off access to areas dedicated to carpeting, flooring, furniture, gardening centers, plant nurseries, or paint.

Source:

Whitmer extends Michigan's stay home order until May 1

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's "stay home" order, initially handed down March 23, was in effect only through April 13, prior to Thursday's extension.

www.freep.com

(Archive)

In clarifying the latest orders:

• Mowing one's own lawn is OK provided social distancing is practiced. Professional lawn care is only acceptable if it's necessary for safety & functioning of the home.
• Some cities have opted not to ticket those unable to have their lawns mowed during the duration of the stay home orders.

Source:

Yes, you can mow your lawn under Gov. Whitmer's executive order

You can continue your outdoor work, but you can't hire landscaping professionals unless deemed necessary for safety reasons.

www.freep.com

(Archive)

Meanwhile, people are already pointing out -- or frustrated with -- loopholes and inconsistencies what what's allowed versus what isn't and what's still considered essential or non-essential. Key examples cited include:

• State residents can't travel to a cottage elsewhere in the state, but people from out of state with a cottage in Michigan can still travel to theirs.
• Lottery tickets may still be sold whether online or in stores (presumably because they help finance schools) while a can of paint or bag of seeds can't be sold.

Source:

Whitmer's new stay home order blasted by critics for lack of consistency

At least two Capitol protests were announced and Republican lawmakers stepped up their warnings about the impact on Michigan's economy.

www.freep.com

(Archive)

Corona-Chan steps up her prison tour.

Coronavirus spreads to 4 more Michigan prisons as concerns mount

Two of the prisons that got their first cases this week had units for COVID-19 prisoners located just outside, raising fears of possible virus spread.

www.freep.com

(archive)

Spoiler: Michigan Recap

SHUTDOWNS
Shelter-in-place order and shutdown of everything non-essential from Tuesday March 24 to Monday April 13. Friday, May 1. (archive) (executive order saved on KF) Travel between primary homes and secondary homes is banned. Gardening sections of stores are closed. (archive - extension). Marijuana shops are open. Tobacco shops are closed (archive). K-12 schools suspended for remainder of year, but alternate learning plans will be implemented (archive) (archive).
The Big Three Auto manufacturers (Ford, GM, Chrysler) are closing all factories in the USA, putting well over 150,000 workers out of work. This figure does not include workers at supplier factories, which will also be obliged to close. (archive) (archive) (archive). They will be making a small number of parts for emergency vehicles, and GM will be helping Ventec, a company that makes ventilators (archive - ventilators). Ford will be helping 3M and GE Healthcare to make respirators and ventilators (archive).

ECONOMY AND MISCELLANY
Unemployment so high that claims must be made on certain days, based on claimant's last name (archive).
Big Brother is watching, and he approves. Massive phone-tracking project reveals Michigan travel down by 45%, compared to 40% nation-wide (website) (news article archive).

FREE STUFF!
Evictions suspended while the state of emergency lasts (archive)
Water will be turned back on for all households while the crisis lasts (archive)

FREEDOM!
Semi-trucks carrying essential supplies can ignore seasonal road weight limits (archive).
Distilleries can make hand sanitizer without a permit (archive).
Pharmacists may prescribe 60 days of emergency medication and may substitute drugs without physicians approval in event of shortages (archive). Various other medical restrictions loosened (archive).
Restaurants can sell food like grocery stores (archive).

HEALTH CARE
Detroit hospitals are at or near capacity and have reached the point of moving patients out to other hospitals (archive - March 30). (archive of Detroit triage plans)
Detroit-area nurse makes a video (archive)
Detroit hospital staff protest unsafe patient-to-nurse ratio. Asked to leave hospital. Still plan to come back to work. (Their video; news article archive)
Hydroxychloroquine banned by governor's order (archive). Nevermind LOL! Now she's asking the federal government for it and claiming the ban was a typo in the first place. (archive). Detroit-area hospitals are testing the drug's effectiveness as a preventative on first responders and health-care workers (archive).
Up-to-date count of available hospital beds, etc. in the State (the Detroit area is "Section 2, North and South". (government website)
Field hospital in Detroit scaled back after drop in cases. Original plan was to open with 1,100 beds. Now they are only going to open with 250, planned to open April 20. (archive - April 11)

LAW AND ORDER
All localities given more discretion to release prisoners early (archive). The State prison system is not currently releasing inmates early.
Lansing (the capitol) police are not physically responding to minor crimes such as larceny, property damage, and break-ins to unoccupied buildings, including garages. Other police are adopting similar policies (archive) (archive).
Detroit police claim crime is down. (archive).
Muskegon police report crime is up (archive).
Breaking the lockdown is a misdemeanor, punishable by $1500 fines and 90 days jail time. Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) has stated there will not be a "ramp up" of police enforcement (archive). The attorney general has left it to local law enforcement to close businesses, as her hands are full with price-gougers and con artists (archive).
The police cannot, at present, pull drivers over simply for being out during the shutdown (archive).

Can't remember where I read it now, but it would appear that yesterday's massive spike was due to a backlog of cases finally being processed. Also, the State is now listing recovered cases, but only updating them once a week.

DEATH TOLL
Detroit Metro (pop. 3,860,000 total; 1,796/sq. mi.; 694/sq km):*

18,917 confirmed / 1,117 dead
18,023 confirmed / 1,088 dead yesterday
(i.e. 89 new deaths, down 84 from previous day)
Normal Detroit Metro Death Rate: 104 per day.**

Other Michigan (6,120,000; 65/sq. mi.; 25/sq km):

5,076 confirmed / 215 dead
4,760 confirmed / 193 dead yesterday
(i.e. 22 new deaths, down 10 from previous day)
Normal not-Detroit Death Rate: 167 per day**

All Michigan (9,990,000; 103/sq. mi.; 40/sq km):

23,993 confirmed / 1,392 dead / 433 recovered
22,783 confirmed / 1,281 dead yesterday
(i.e. 111 new deaths, down 94 from previous day)
Normal Michigan Death Rate: 271 per day.**

Death toll doubled since: April 5.
We have been locked down since: March 24.

Detroit Metro Daily Deaths Last Seven Days:
67 / 92 / 97 / 93 / 94 / 173 / 89 = 705

State Government site, daily - today's archive;
State Gov site, total, includes breakdowns by sex, age, race and ethnicity - today's archive.
*Here defined as the City of Detroit, and Macomb, Oakland, and Wayne Counties, minus state prisoners, who are not counted towards any county's cases, but are kept in a category of their own.
** As of 2018.
Also one Ann Arbor man allegedly killed by his roommate in a Corona-related dispute (archive). The suspect has been released from custody while the investigation continues (archive).

 

[Rudy Russo]

China reports 46 new coronavirus cases
China's National Health Commission has reported 46 new coronavirus cases on the mainland, most of which involving travellers from overseas.

China reports 46 new coronavirus cases

China has reported a rise in new coronavirus cases, as authorities try to head off a second wave of infections, particularly from imported and asymptomatic cases, as curbs on cities and travel are lifted.

www.news.com.au

China reports 46 new coronavirus cases

archived 11 Apr 2020 14:59:28 UTC

archive.li

Well last week the dead number for china on the john hopkins site was at 3,330. Last night it was 3,339 and today its 3343.

 

[John Merston]

Say 'in a short time we'll turn everything back on, by Summer we'll have a vaccine, if you just stay inside for a couple of months everything will be fine' and people will steel themselves and muddle through for the most part.

Until Summer actually comes and there's still no vaccine.

 

[Gustav Schuchardt]

UK cases looked like they've peaked to me

ArcGIS Dashboards

www.arcgis.com

COVID-19 Dashboard

archived 11 Apr 2020 21:49:09 UTC

archive.vn

Another video from Dr. Campbell. Seems like he thinks new cases have peaked in the UK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH7Fd7aSulA
https://archive.vn/wip/KOxVG

Turkey announced a 48-hour curfew with a 2-hour notice, which triggered a stampede to stock up, which is classic example of unintended consequences.

Russians need passes to get around Moscow.

New Zealand might have managed to eradicate the virus.

Japan is behind on testing and it seems like they're not locked down. Not good.

He thinks NYC cases will level off but there might be other outbreaks. He thinks new cases are down, R0<1, deaths will lag by a week. Africa and India likely have increasing cases but the lack of testing makes it impossible to be sure.

 

[Allanon]

I think I've said before, but anyone who thinks the American population in general will stay inside when the summer weather starts hitting in earnest (sunny days, blue skies, warm temperature) is high on the methane bottled up from their collected farts in quarantine. People constantly come down with "Sun Flu" and endanger their jobs just because it's sunny and they want to be outside playing around instead of working. If it's a choice between that (when they went into quarantine early spring) and 'stay isolated indoors not even making any money', it's no question. People will just ignore the orders en masse in favor of barbecues, picnics, and pointlessly strolling outside worshiping the sun or...whatever it is sun freaks do in the summer.

On the off chance that the government kids itself into thinking they can extend the shut down to July 4th, expect neighborhoods to take it upon themselves to celebrate it on their own. Easter is the first holiday so far that's falling within the lockdown and people are already chafing. Skipping Independence Day just isn't going to happen.

Until Summer actually comes and there's still no vaccine.

As said above, there's no eventuality where people stay inside come Summer.

 

[EmuWarsVeteran]

The funny thing about the doomer stuff both in this thread and pushed by the MSM is that the more it gets pushed, the more rapidly public concern for the matter drops. You can only make people worry so much about something before nihilistic disregard or resignation kicks in. For the unstable members of society that means murder and/or suicide, but for the stable ones, it means going back to business as usual. If you want people to listen to the quarantines and behave, then you have to give them hope. Say 'in a short time we'll turn everything back on, by Summer we'll have a vaccine, if you just stay inside for a couple of months everything will be fine' and people will steel themselves and muddle through for the most part. Say 'A vaccine could be a year or two off, if ever, we'll never be immune to this and reinfections will just keep raging on, quarantines could last until late-fall at least, life may never be the same and we'll live with this forever' and people will just stop listening and go back to living, because 'hiding forever' isn't an option, so the people who don't choose 'die immediately' will choose the only other option: 'carry on and pretend it doesn't exist, because there's nothing else to do'.

It's just human nature. People adapt. It isn't possible to keep them in a constant state of fear; you can only scare them for a little while before their mind finally catches up and says 'but I'm not dead of coof yet, and I need to work or I'll die of starvation instead'.

So...really, if MSM and the others want the population to play nice and behave, thus 'taking the virus seriously', they should let Trump and others continue to give rosy predictions about how it's going to play out because everyone's doing their part, and how this will pass soon enough as long as they behave. Not freak out and say he's speaking 'false hope' because he suggests millions won't die and the economy won't be shut down much longer.

There's also the fact that news go DOOM whenever shit goes well so people know it. It's happened here in spain. In the early thread I mentioned how shit was better than ever because the news and oposition had gotten straight. As soon as we past the curve and shit started getting better I mention how we're "back to the usual level of vitriol", which is the opposition being fucktards and the journos screaming DOOOOOOOMMMMMM at everything. I even got multiple family members that in separate occations told me "the oposition's gone full idiot and the news are claiming it's the end of the world again so we're finally recovering", people know if the news try to scare them there's nothing to fear, plain and simple.

Yes definitely. There is viral lung attack, no doubt about that. How the two interact will be interesting to work out... the paper is very bioinformatics based - are we actually seeing this in patients?

Do you remember right at the start there was an image of blood vials and one was really dark? I wonder if they were actual samples or a stock photo?

Sorry to quote the dayly dot but couldn't find the original. They have the fucking tik tok it came from:

TikTok user pretending to be lab technician who has contracted coronavirus

A user on the popular mobile video platform TikTok appears to be impersonating a medical professional investigating the coronavirus outbreak in China.

www.dailydot.com

As you can see, in fact, it's obvious bullshit. Not the paper but the colors tik tok shit. As for the photos. Time for the original:

As you can see, it's stock photo bullshit. I haven't seen such change not informed of it, I have asked and no one seems to even know where the rumor started. The tonal change is slight, detectable in a lab, not so much by humans.

 

[Smug Chuckler]

I think I've said before, but anyone who thinks the American population in general will stay inside when the summer weather starts hitting in earnest (sunny days, blue skies, warm temperature) is high on the methane bottled up from their collected farts in quarantine. People constantly come down with "Sun Flu" and endanger their jobs just because it's sunny and they want to be outside playing around instead of working. If it's a choice between that (when they went into quarantine early spring) and 'stay isolated indoors not even making any money', it's no question. People will just ignore the orders en masse in favor of barbecues, picnics, and pointlessly strolling outside worshiping the sun or...whatever it is sun freaks do in the summer.

On the off chance that the government kids itself into thinking they can extend the shut down to July 4th, expect neighborhoods to take it upon themselves to celebrate it on their own. Easter is the first holiday so far that's falling within the lockdown and people are already chafing. Skipping Independence Day just isn't going to happen.



As said above, there's no eventuality where people stay inside come Summer.

You forgot Memorial Day.

 

[that jerk over there]

There will, somewhere, probably the Guardian, be an op ed about how we should embrace and celebrate volcanic doom to lower global temperatures

Oh? Then they'll love this for extra diversity points! In solidarity with Anak Krakatau, fucking Popocatépetl volcano (nicknamed "el Popo") has gone off.

https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion/volcan-popocatepetl-registra-explosion-arroja-fragmentos-incandescentes

(Archive)

https://twitter.com/CNPC_MX/status/1248814815272935427

(Archive)

Hey, everything's on lockdown, but at least we have fireworks! ETA:

 

[eternal dog mongler]

Aerosols? What aerosols?
It does illustrate the theory vs practice divide doesn’t it? Lavage those lungs, baby, or the boys in the lab have to redesign their PCR...

I've never even bothered since I know patients will hate it.

pt: "what are you holding there?"

me: "uhhh...fiberoptic bronchoscope."

pt: "no."

 

[JosephStalin]

We don't actually 'need' the quarantine at all. As has been pointed out before, the pandemic isn't unprecedented, the response is.

Here's the real problem, as I see it. These lockdowns started off as one-size-fits-all, but as a pattern of concentration of cases has developed no flexibility has been shown. Rationally, if you wanted to minimize the impact, at a time like this you'd isolate the areas with the most cases, and a buffer zone. Everyone else can go back to work, school, whatever, using caution and "social distancing". No. These lockdowns aren't being rationalized. They are now political, where some unelected bureaucrat and/or some half-wit mayor/governor will not modify what is actually a house arrest.

Americans will make an effort and sacrifice if they see a clear reason for it, can see some results from it, and know as things improve less effort and sacrifice will be needed. This is not happening here. All one seems to hear from the local powers that be is "stay locked down", seemingly forever. The people who put entire states under house arrest, and the bureaucrats who feed their bullshit to these people, never miss a paycheck. They simply don't care, masked by the mantra "We're all in this together". Uh, no. Hate to say this, but it is to the advantage of the powers that be to keep everyone under house arrest until they feel like ending it, in weeks, months, whatever. They LIKE fucking with us. Don't think so? If they didn't like fucking with us, these lockdowns would start being rationalized, people going to work, church, etc.

I hear, "100,000 people have died worldwide!" "10,000 have died in the USA this week! All of us must cower in our homes!" I call bullshit. 100,000 people is about two-thirds of the 150,000 people who die on Earth every day. 10,000 in one week is sad, but this week at least 12,500 people died of heart problems, another 12,500 of cancer, and maybe another 8-10,000 from auto accidents, falls, infections picked up in hospitals, suicides, homicides, diabetes, etc. Oh, and about 4,000 people also died of the "regular" flu.

Will there be a second wave? Could be. Does that justify cowering in our homes for additional months? No. PPE/mask production is ramping up quickly. Looks like overall plenty of hospital/ICU beds available. We need to rationalize these unwarranted house arrests and get the country going again, so we can better meet a second wave, third wave, whatever.

Would also say the powers that be are lucky Easter has come fairly early on in this thing. More people than might be imagined go to church, and to many Easter is a big deal. They are relatively patient now, but if Easter were next month think we'd see a lot of pushback. As it is, after 1 May I look for pushback to greatly increase. People need to get back to work. Things need to get done. People will no longer see the need to be on house arrest when the vast majority of cases are in a relative few areas.

It's been mentioned that some families soon may have no means at all to pay for anything. Stimulus payments will go fast. Not everyone out of work qualifies for unemployment. I wonder if anyone except President Trump cares about any of us. He's trying to work toward some sort of rationalization of these house arrests, but there's little he can fo at the Federal level. These house arrests happen at the state level. Bet there's at least one governor who jerks himself or herself off thinking about how much they are fucking with the people.

Just sucks to see politics trumping common sense everywhere you turn these days. Guess what, people. Living has a certain amount of risk to it. Nobody gets out of life alive. I remember when America didn't run scared, and Americans didn't live in abject fear. Makes you wonder if this America could have won World War II. Seriously, Great Depression and World War II Americans would be laughing their asses off at us.

 

[spiritofamermaid]

View attachment 1224233

So you have fuck-all to say about this for all of this time, and when you finally open your mouth it's because you want to give Iran money. You know, when this is all said and done we really need to sit down and figure out if there's even anyone left in the Congress and the Senate who isn't deepthroating hostile, foreign cock.

I would argue AOC because if she were, she'd be obvious about it.
The list of people that ARE is too long to note here though, especially as it's a bit off topic.

 

[Sweetpeaa]

I believe 60,000 Americans died from swine flu complications back in '09. Nothing was really done back then to separate people from spreading the virus. That is the number ''predicted'' if not a little higher without social distancing to happen again.

So which would you rather happen? natural course or some type of push back against the deaths. I know many people in this thread are irritated by the measures and want life to return to normal.

 

[Flaming Carrot]

Don't get me wrong, the concerns are valid and eventually we will need to figure this shit out and discuss it. I just think "I can't go hang out at the local Walmart for three hours or go to a basketball game" is a rather silly complaint in the face of all that's going on currently. Not to mention that it's only going to make this last longer. More people deciding fuck it and having a pick-up basketball game at the park anyway = more people getting infected = more strain on the medical systems and more consumption of very finite resources = it's going to take a lot longer for the eggheads to figure this shit out and come up with a viable treatment or solution = we'll see a hell of a lot more death and God forbid, it might be closer than you think.

But the majority of people aren't going to take it seriously until someone they know ends up on a ventilator or dies, and for their sake I hope that they don't have to learn this lesson like that. Crisis situations often require unpleasant changes to routine and lifestyle. It's going to require a lot of adjustment. One other thing to consider is that these restrictions are geared toward the lowest-common denominator. These are the people wandering around in pajamas at Walmart sneezing and coughing all over everything, the people who recruit the entire extended family and neighbors for a trip to the grocery store despite the ongoing pandemic. Realizing that most of our populace is sadly made up of these walking biological weapons, realistically we absolutely have to do something. The average person doesn't understand shit about contagion, cross-contamination, cytokine storms or any of that, and they don't give a fuck either. But until these orders have some teeth, a proposition I think the state governments are terrified of, these people aren't going to follow instructions anyway.

The problem is that governments are just issuing increasingly unhinged rules without any kind of oversight

The End Times on Twitter

“An ongoing thread cataloging excessively-harsh enforcement of lockdowns. 1.”

twitter.com

https://archive.is/uDNX6

The archive doesn't capture everything, but it gives you an idea. We're supposed to exercise, but if too many people go out and exercise, well then the government yells at us for crowding the parks. We've got cops yelling at people for sitting in the park and not walking in the park. We're supposed to stock up on food for two weeks., but then you get people on Twitter complaining about "Karens" hoarding food. Are we supposed to go to the store an buy items and risk spreading the disease, or are we supposed to buy things from Amazon which is putting the Amazon workers at risk for the disease.

The lockdowns were necessary because there were models showing that without the lockdowns the death rate would be horrific and we needed to flatten the curve. Now the death rates are lower than predicted even with the lockdowns, which is proof that the lockdowns are working and also that we need to make the lockdowns even harsher because no one is even following the rules of lockdown. When will we lift the lockdowns? Who knows? Who cares? Victory will be achiedved when there are no Coronovirus cases anywhere or when there's a vaccine, which may be here in 18 months or two years or never. You don't like the lockdowns? Surely you're not suggesting people go out and die for the Dow Jones, other than the ones that we're sending out to deliver our packages. Maybe you want someone's grandmother to die.

I'm all for discussing this, but the problem is that discussion is not forthcoming. Is anyone voting on these restrictions anywhere? Is anyone in power discussing whether a particular rule makes any sense? This was in the New York times recently -

Opinion | The United States Needs a ‘Smart Quarantine’ to Stop the Virus Spread Within Families

Evidence from around the world shows that stay-at-home orders take us only so far.

www.nytimes.com

https://archive.is/VB6K1

The army just closed up a field hospital in Seattle after three days without seeing any patients, but now we're discussing people removing people from their homes if they test positive for Coronavirus. The only thing more depressing than this is the comments from people suggesting this isn't harsh enough. I think the at this point the question is if there's any policy proposal that goes too far. Is there anything that would be completely unacceptable, and more importantly, would we get any say in it? If privacy is not an option anymore, then let's talk about it. If we need to monitor everyone's cellphone forever, let's at least put it to a vote. If I need my passport to go from Pennsylvania to New Jersey, then just tell me that. But we're not being treated like citizens of republic, we're being treated like disobedient children.

There is no plan beyond throwing millions of people out of work due to shuttering businesses and having people inform on each other for breaking whatever ridiculous rule our nation's governors have come up with on a particular day. Coronavirus is not killing the amount of people they said it would, and our rulers are too scared to back off on the lockdowns because then people might start getting upset that all the sacrifices were unnecessary. Here's what Andrew Cuomo said on Rudy Guliani's radio show a couple days ago -

New York Governor Cuomo tells Giuliani coronavirus modeling '100 percent wrong'

The exchange between the longtime New York pols was all 'mister' and 'thank you'

justthenews.com

https://archive.is/jcBPt

Cuomo's making noise about opening businesses and schools again too. Everyone knows they can't keep this going on forever. It's relying on the good will of the American public which is dwindling. Unless they give everyone a universal basic income starting yesterday or give some clear goals as to when we can all stop being under house arrest, expect riots and looting pretty goddamned soon.

 

[King Daddy Telomerase]

I got gas for .67/gallon today. This ugly friendless NEET is a-ok with hysteria lasting forever. Join me.

 

[PepsiVanilla]

Unless they give everyone a universal basic income starting yesterday or give some clear goals as to when we can all stop being under house arrest, expect riots and looting pretty goddamned soon.

I don't know if even a temporary UBI would help once food shortages start to emerge.

Also, just randomly came across this...

 

[Gustav Schuchardt]

I got gas for .67/gallon today. This ugly friendless NEET is a-ok with hysteria lasting forever. Join me.

In before some carless cunt blogger at the Guardian writes an article about how we need higher petrol taxes to deal with the problem of 'too cheap petrol fuelling climate change'.

 

[Rudy Russo]

That's some nice autism fam but your friends still violated both the public health order and basic common sense. Their shitty $45 dollar ticket or whatever is not getting overturned by the supreme court.

It was way too of me to hope that people would drop this kind of exceptional idpol shitlicking in the face of an actual threat.

I gotta agree. People are talking about quarantines lasting into September or into next year or whatever and you can hither and dither about whether they should last that long but I think it's ridiculous to think the general public would put up with it for that long. I think people are going to collectively stop having it by the beginning of June at the latest.

First real heat wave and it will get ugly. No going to parks, waterparks, pools, hydrant parties, cops messing with people in their own yards in some places. Stuck in your house, maybe no job, some without ac, nothing better to do. Yeah, ugly.

 

[Green Man]

The problem is that governments are just issuing increasingly unhinged rules without any kind of oversight

I absolutely agree with you on that, there needs to be a great deal of oversight on this thing. Maybe even a committee in every state scrutinizing every detail of individual state's responses. The question is, who will staff that committee? Who's to say if the people watching the watchers even have the best interests of the American public at heart? Can we expect the people we task with evaluating these measures to be incorruptible?

As other people have said, one size fits all obviously doesn't really work and that's a great point. Just like with everything else, what might work in NYC or Los Angeles cannot be expected to work out well for places like Billings, Wichita, Cleveland and it especially can't be expected to work for the countless small towns and rural areas. I guess my solution to all of this would be far less draconian. Current hot zones need these restrictions, there's no doubt in my mind, and in places like that I think these restrictions should have teeth. If you live in Manhattan and you're organizing a flash mob or having a house party in the midst of this, you should experience consequences. Additionally the people in those hot zones shouldn't be able to leave the city and bring the plague to lesser affected/or unaffected areas, if we can come up with a method to ensure that they are not infected, go ahead and take a road trip. People in the lesser affected/less dense areas should be able to go about their business as usual but be reminded of the risks and measures they can take to prevent their own lesser-affected area from becoming a hot zone. If already infected individuals are able to flee the cities, shit is going to go pear shaped very quickly.

Many rural communities and small towns don't even have anything approaching a good medical infrastructure. The local hospital has been sued so many damned times for malpractice that I don't know how they're still operating. Point is, if people decided to flee Cleveland [or anywhere else heavily affected for that matter] and passed through/decided to stay in my county or many of these other areas, it wouldn't be good for anyone.

Basically, my concern is that if these restrictions are lifted in relatively unaffected communities, it could very rapidly develop into an outbreak if that lifting of restrictions persuades people to flee the worst areas and try to find higher ground. There's really no good solution to any of this that would be fair to everyone while still preventing this thing from killing swaths of people.

 

[Flaming Carrot]

I don't know if even a temporary UBI would help once food shortages start to emerge.

Also, just randomly came across this...

View attachment 1225278

Yeah, I was thinking the UBI might at least help with rent and mortgage, but if food supply chains start breaking down, we're in big trouble. Also, my son had to get this exact same coivd test before going to the hospital. It looks scary, but it's over in two seconds, and he had no reaction whatsoever. So I think trying to scare people is going to be counterproductive. We want people to get tested, not avoid it.

 

[JosephStalin]

First real heat wave and it will get ugly. No going to parks, waterparks, pools, hydrant parties, cops messing with people in their own yards in some places. Stuck in your house, maybe no job, some without ac, nothing better to do. Yeah, ugly.

There are already too many people in some places with nothing to lose. Can see riots starting very easily when the police try to arrest some people outside trying to catch a breeze, or running around in their yards with sprinklers on, etc.

It doesn't take much to set fires when the tinder is dry enough, and that tinder is starting to dry.