Alternatives for the skateboarders.

11 masks to use:

https://m.imgur.com/gallery/7VJYEj1

Turned out there was one more.

I want the mask that makes me sound like Bane. Citizens of Gotham.

Someone with sense. Remove him from office immediately!!!

Schmaling wrote “state law does not have the power to supersede or suspend the Constitutional rights of American citizens.”

https://newsthud.com/watch-wisconsin-sheriff-refuses-to-enforce-dem-governors-safer-at-home-order/

Remember: China is asshoe.

"The drones, donated by DJI, a Chinese company, have gone to 43 agencies in 22 states, all to help enforce social distancing rules."

US using Chinese drones to spy on and lecture Americans about a virus caused by communist China

Oh, and DJI "may be sending data to China"

https://twitter.com/LizRNC/status/1251158887996116996

From some of the blogs/podcasts I pay attention to, ad revenue is in the shitter. Here come the journalists, asking for a bailout. No bailouts for BigJ.

Yeah I don’t think so

https://twitter.com/GarbyJooman2020/status/1251969751552651264

A recently-published academic paper concludes that the subways have indeed been New York’s worst virus problem:

New York City’s multitentacled subway system was a major disseminator – if not the principal transmission vehicle – of coronavirus infection during the initial takeoff of the massive epidemic that became evident throughout the city during March 2020.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/04/did-the-shutdown-of-new-york-city-fail.php

Hey, soon to be out of work journalists, #LearnToCode.

The suddenly strained unemployment systems often run on a 60-year-old programming language, COBOL. So, how can you learn it, make big bucks, and save lots of state agencies that need new code to deal with all the new government stimulus programs?

https://stackoverflow.blog/2020/04/20/brush-up-your-cobol-why-is-a-60-year-old-language-suddenly-in-demand/

When life gives you lemons:

https://twitter.com/JoeySalads/status/1252101549355986945

Oh, those wacky Michiganders. I guess we could call these folks "trolls" since they live under the bridge.

Well, there's guidance and then there's guidance. The club has its own, telling members in an email that "We cannot rely on the superfluous statements made by each respective office and must only rely on the text of the order itself." The email went on to claim that "If the governor intended the order to specifically ban golf, she would have included such specific language in the order."

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/video-michigan-golfers-flaunting-lockdown-rules-right-next-door-to-governors-mansion/

When life gives you lemons:

A couple of replies down shows that they cleared off enough sand to use their skateboards. And a dog off leash!

Quick, call the national guard! This scofflawery can not be permitted!

Instapundit:

I wonder how Vladimir Putin feels about his oil price war now?

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/367117/

Given that at least some out-of-work people are refusing low-wage jobs right now because those jobs are high-risk (such as supermarket jobs), I have to wonder how many of those people on the news wielding rifles and hand-written signs (and who are NOT social distancing) would be willing to sacrifice their own lives (or maybe their parents' lives) just for the sake of the economy. Or their children. How are the children likely to feel when they realize that their parents didn't really have to die, despite what else they might have lost had the shutdowns continued?

As I told someone else, it MAY not be quite realistic to assume that, without the lockdowns, the deaths in the U.S. would continue to double every three days indefinitely - at that rate, EVERYONE would be dead by mid-late May. However, that doesn't change the fact that the three-day formula was very much in effect from Feb. 28 through April 10th, when we reached more than 16,400 deaths - and that when the formula broke down, it was very likely because of the lockdowns! Plus, even if we have an average of "only" 10,000 deaths a week from April 10th until the end of the year (and the number is already ahead of schedule), that's still going to be six times the number of people who die from flu and pneumonia. How can we expect the health care system to keep up with that - or to take care of anyone else?

Oil prices fall below $0.

https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1252300140515336193

When the dog finds your dentures:

https://twitter.com/phootahh/status/1252216955924180993

Who wants some chainsaw-resistant pants?

https://twitter.com/is_ikesan/status/1252089493290541057

Calm down and look at actual facts instead of media hysteria Lenona.

How can we expect the health care system to keep up with this? By operating normally. The very vast majority of hospital are not overrun. The very vast majority have no shortages. Instead places have been forced to close down because no patients showed up. Field hospitals were built and then disassembled unused due to lack of demand.

This is a very regional disease.

The US has a corona mortality rate of 128/million. The state of California has a mortality rate of 31/M. That is a huge difference. Texas is at 18/M. Arkansas is at 14/M. There are only 7 states that have a mortality rate above the average. The other 43 are below it. Most well below it.

New York - 965/M
New Jersy - 493/M
Connecticut - 372/M
Louisiana - 285/M
Massachusetts - 250/M
Michigan - 248/M
Rhode Island - 147/M

That hospitals in New York city are overwhelmed doesn't mean people in Salt Lake City need to change their behavior. The two aren't linked at all.

To put things in more context for you. Roughly 8,000 people die every day in the US. So, how has the death rate changed now that COVID-19 hit the US? Your Feb 28 to April 10 gives you 43 days (inclusive) and an expected 334,000 deaths. So you are claiming there should be a 4.7% increase in the death rate over that time period. Did it happen?

What do you mean, "did"?

Not to mention I made no claims about any percentages - I merely calculated according to what Worldometers said. (Feb. 28th was the day of the first U.S. COVID death.) Are you saying the numbers of fatalities reported so far are likely way off, or what?

Not to mention that the numbers were way ahead of schedule until about April 8th.

Right now there have been over 42,000 COVID deaths. There are 36 weeks left in the year. So we can't yet have an accurate count of how many COVID deaths there will be by the end of the year, under the lockdown, or how much the vehicle-related deaths will go down due to the lockdowns, or how much the deaths caused by heart disease, cancer or suicide will go UP as a result of the lockdowns. OR just when most businesses can open without starting the whole thing over again, since a vaccine is maybe more than a year away.

On top of everything else, we don't know how many thousands of undiagnosed cases there are, in addition to those thousands who have been diagnosed.

Btw, a friend recently asked "why lock down that pork plant, but not the supermarkets? What sense did that make?" Well, maybe because that plant turned out to have hundreds of workers with the virus, IIRC, but we haven't seen that with supermarkets, so far, due to all their hard work?

In other words, yes, the food supply chain has big problems right now, but an unrestrained virus would force the suppliers to shut down anyway. How would that be any better?

If the governors of the less crowded states want to claim, with good evidence, that things won't get any worse if those residents are allowed to go back to work - while maybe forbidding anyone to fly in - I'm all ears. Haven't heard anything like that yet. Maybe there's a reason for that? As in, maybe the mortality rates in those states are so low right now BECAUSE they went into lockdown before the virus really had a chance to invade?

"As in, maybe the mortality rates in those states are so low right now BECAUSE they went into lockdown before the virus really had a chance to invade?"

No. The virus is here. It is everywhere. There are cases in just about every single county in the USA. The lockdown failed to stop any of that.

Considering there is a relatively small geographic area where the mortality rate is high it is a better question why there and not anywhere else. And the answer is obvious and has been documented, New York City. New York is the COVID-19 capital of the US. It has a very dense population. And it has a very dense mode of transporting people, the subway.

Once you remove the New York effect you are down to Louisiana. Once again you are looking at one and only one city, New Orleans. New Orleans refused to cancel Mardi Gras. They refused to close Bourbon street. In general New Orleans is a corrupt and lawless city where no one trusts the government. The fact that people were spreading the rumor that only white people can get corona didn't help either.

And that takes you to Michigan. Once again you are only talking about one city, Detroit.

If you eliminate those three cities you drop the US average from 128/M to under 30/M. Those three cities are a clear example of doing things wrong.

"What do you mean, "did"?"

I mean exactly what I wrote. Has the US monthly death rate gone up? How much did it change by? You selected a time period, we know how many people died of COVID-19 in it. Well, what about all the rest? Did the death rate spike by the ~5% you predicted?

If the death rate didn't spike then you didn't actually see people dying of corona that wouldn't have died of something else at approximately the same time. Look I don't want anyone to die, but that just isn't an option. From the New York Data ~75% of COVID-19 deaths had a known underlying condition. They were already near death. That corona pushed them over the edge isn't very significant. Millions of other things could have done the same thing. ~30% of deaths it is unknown if there was an underlying condition or not. Only ~8% of deaths happened to people known to not have any other contributing factor.

I agree we can't know the future. But this time period is already in the past.

As for the pork plant and not the supermarkets, workers in the plant are in relative close contact. They can get each other sick relatively easily. The food they produce is relatively sterile. COVID-19 is the least of your worries as far as food products. Current sanitation processes appear to deal with it quite well.

Thanks for all of that, but I was talking about the COVID mortality rate in those Western states, as you know. Not the fact that the virus is everywhere. Who isn't aware of THAT by now?

Germans apparently managed to stay on top of the problem by moving fast and obeying all the officials' orders, so they're already talking about opening businesses again, with little argument, unless I'm missing something. That is despite the high-morbidity countries to the west and south. If governors of Western states aren't as eager to follow suit, maybe there's a reason for that?

So I went to a funeral yesterday (11 mourners, 1 pastor, 2 funeral home employees, all in masks, chairs a couple meters apart).

The funeral home employee said that deaths are definitely up from usual, they are seeing more than they normally do.

I looked on the wall, and out of about ten or so rooms, two were free. So they weren't at maximum capacity. However, it's not hard to imagine that if there were no restrictions they mght be. And also, we're on the downward slope of the curve at present.

I knew I forgot something. There's been more than one story about how many Native American populations in the West, despite the huge expanses of land, cannot social distance and just might get wiped out entirely, because it's not as though most of them can afford to live alone. In fact, they're often pretty crowded for space, at home. Not to mention their well-known health problems.

To put it another way, it isn't just people over 70 who have serious health problems that often can't be easily avoided, and do we really want to say, in effect, "too bad, youngish people will have to die in large numbers too"? Especially when that includes children? What sensible politician would want to be accused of being THAT type?

Not to mention that men are at a much higher death risk than women, but no one who's demanding in the streets that restrictions be lifted seems to want to talk about THAT.

None of that is persuasive Lenona.

1. Western states? Like Georia? Florida? Maine?!?

2. On mortality, I gave you the numbers. Outside of those three cities (not even states, just greater metropolitan areas) hospital are not overrun. There is no curve needing to be flattened.

3. Yes the mortality data says it is people over 70. There is nothing to support your claim that "too bad, youngish people will have to die in large numbers too". Will some young people without comorbidities die? Yes. Zero is never an option. But they definitely will not die in large numbers. Your argument here is pure fantasy.

4. "men are at a much higher death risk than women ... [no one] seems to want to talk about THAT."

Welcome to being a man. The male risk of death is much higher than that for women at all ages.

Death rate for people over 50, 60% male, 40% female. (2017 data)

Death rate for corona, 61.8% male, 38.2% female. (New York City Health as of April 14)

If you account for age and the natural gender difference in death rates the gender effect on corona more or less disappears.

Another fun fact, the median wealth of men is higher than the median wealth for women at all ages. From conception (pre birth) all the way to 100 years old men are richer on average. So given that the unborn don't tend to have jobs how are those guys so wealthy? Well, poor boys die. And even for the unborn men have a higher death rate than women.

5. On native americans, by your own argument they are in more danger from this disease when being quarantined than not being quarantined. I don't personally buy all that. But I also don't buy your one off stories designed to entertain rather than to inform.

Seriously Lenona, look up real data. It will help you to stop panicking like this.

You mean "WITH comorbidities." The point, of course, is that politicians are not about to suggest that highly useful people under 60 are expendable just because many were not in the best of health. Even though fewer younger people than older people would die, obviously.

Again, if there's good reason for certain governors to loosen the restrictions, why aren't they doing it already? Are all such governors dunces? What are you saying?

And while it may be true that conservative or working-class people are not much more concerned about the COVID male death rate than liberals are, MRAs are often from the alt-right, so it surprises me that I don't hear them complaining about this.

No Lenona. I was accurate in what I said. The very vast majority of young people who die from COVID-19 will have comorbidities. Usually very significant ones. There are a small number of people without comorbidities that will also die. It will not be zero. But it is also not statistically significant.

"Again, if there's good reason for certain governors to loosen the restrictions, why aren't they doing it already?"

They are starting to. Texas is beginning to return to business. It looks like it will be phased in week by week over the next month or so. Other states are ahead of Texas. Many are behind.

As for MRAs or social justice warriors arguing over the gender ratio I don't really care. At the end of the day it isn't a significant point. The US death gender ratio is the same with or without COVID-19. No different than the flu or drunk driving in that respect.

The very vast majority of young people who die from COVID-19 will have comorbidities.
___________________________________

And I understood that, as I pointed out. Once again, people are horrified at the idea of allowing ANY youngish, hardworking taxpayers - or children - to die when they have non-terminal health problems. Politicians are naturally sensitive to that.

Come to think of it, if the disease was always fatal - but only to infants, healthy or not - we'd be kind of panicky about that too, right?

Look, that is just media panic stuff. For young people without comorbidities it is far far more dangerous to drive anywhere. Your risk of death in a traffic accident is several orders of magnitude higher. Driving millions of people to bankruptcy, homelessness, and starvation over an event on par with getting struck by lightning isn't going to work.

An no it isn't really what the politicians are reacting to. Originally there were estimates that millions of people would die. Didn't happen. And it has become clear the quarantine isn't why it didn't happen. Those were just bad predictions. The second driving force is reflexive cross party politics. Orange man bad and all that.