Comments

1

It is probably a wise decision. Washington got hit pretty hard, and pretty early, but California just has a lot more people and is likely to suffer more in the next couple weeks. It wouldn't surprise me if both ships will be needed on the East Coast pretty soon, as places like Louisiana and Florida have more trouble with the crisis than any state on the West Coast.

2

@1 Louisiana and Florida perpetuated the lie that the virus was a hoax and refused to do anything about protecting people. Fuck Louisiana and Florida.

5

18.8M > 4.2M

6

We are all in this together. Fuck nobody.

7

@4 More black and brown people live in CA and NY than live in LA and FL (LA is 62% white, FL is 75% white).

Louisiana and Florida sacrificed those people. Louisiana and Florida "leaders" and all people who live there who said it was hoax, ignored all information regarding it not being a hoax, and who blatantly did whatever the fuck they wanted in defiance and "owning the libs" chose the fate of their states. They (and Trump) are responsible if they suffer high rates of infection and death.

WA and NY and CA actually have Governors and other leaders working to save the lives of the people in their states. CA has the largest population. NY has the densest population. WA is ground zero of the pandemic in the U.S., but the larger states with more people and denser populations will take precedent (again who decided, well Trump did, so there's that). Trump has made it clear that everyone is expendable and all Governors are on their own.

I don't live in Portland and OR also has leaders that are (and have been) taking action to protect the people of Oregon.

8

I have a proposal. Trump supporters, please take this seriously. Everyone else, please remember that the media indeed profits from hysteria, so we need to remain concerned but not blame Trump supporters for everything. I realize I am being a hypocrite here, but my own struggles do not excuse excessive amplification of fear against our own countrymen. We can't convince them we are not a threat by lashing out. I realize that now. Let us pursue peace and productive communication. We will need our strength and patience to see this through.

9

We also need more doctors, nurses, medics, pulmonary specialists, respiratory techs, nurses aids, EMTs...

My friends and family members who work in healthcare tell me that UW hospital system (U Hospital, Children's, Harborview, NW Hospital) are working shorthanded everyday, often with only half the staff they're supposed to have - people out sick, people who can't get child care, people who are afraid to come into work.
The other hospital systems are probably having the same problems, especially in rural areas where they don't have much heathcare infrastrucure and providers to begin with.

They need to mobilize the Arm Forces' medics, doctors, nurses, and maybe even the M*A*S*H units to help out now at the states with the most cases. Washington is already talking prioritizing care for the sickest and most vulnerable (which means others will be ask to ride it out at home like China had to do in Wuhan, and Italy is having to do now.)

10

What is with all the foaming trolls? Do they even live here?

12

@7: Then please aim your profanity torpedos at the governors instead of whole states as it's more accurate.

Think of the tears rolling down the cheeks on Bourbon St.

14

Hey xina. Sending you proper distance hugs. Looks like there’s toads about.
How come nobody’s singing “ don’t stand, don’t stand so close to me..’ maybe they are and cause I’m home I don’t hear it.
That’s disappointing for Seattle. Proper distance hugs to all of you.

15

Agree@8, Garb. Now is the time to deal with a new and overwhelming health crisis. We see though from China and other Asian states, that social distance is our best defence, in the short term. Yet to see if it returns to China. They were prepared, as were other Asian countries, because they have dealt with these pandemics before.
The West has been blaze, racist even.

16

'Trump’s plans were ambiguous, and it remained unclear Sunday how he would implement them.'

Gosh, it sounds like maybe Trump and Co. have no clue on what to do, doesn't it?

'Trump tweeted on Sunday, “Ford, General Motors and Tesla are being given the go ahead to make ventilators and other metal products, FAST!"'

'Major auto companies signaled last week that they are studying the feasibility of making ventilators but made no promises about the pace of production, should it begin...There are many obstacles. Ford, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler — the Big Three automakers — have suspended production at their North American plants through at least the end of March because of the coronavirus'

'“We need the product now,” Cuomo said at a news conference on Sunday. “We have cries from hospitals around the state. I’ve spoken to governors around the country, and they’re in the same situation.”'

'Larry Hogan, a centrist Republican, said the Trump administration, through FEMA, “has to take the lead” in securing medical items.
“We are getting some progress. Now, it’s not nearly enough. It’s not fast enough. We’re way behind the curve,” Hogan said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” as he detailed how Maryland is scrambling to find supplies without any guarantees from the federal government.'

“All of this should have started months ago, so we are behind,” said Bill Greenwalt, a defense consultant who led acquisition policy in the George W. Bush administration. “On production, I think we will find out that our base is not capable of producing what we need as I expect much of it has been outsourced to China and elsewhere.”

'Gordon Adams, a former Clinton administration procurement official, said
“It’s the right authority but it’s way late in the game,” Adams said. “We started hearing about Chinese cases in November. We probably should have been invoking DPA authorities in January or February. WE HAD NO PLAN”'

And we're fucked!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/governors-and-mayors-in-growing-uproar-over-trumps-lagging-coronavirus-response/2020/03/22/98ac569a-6c49-11ea-a3ec-70d7479d83f0_story.html

17

"Ohio clinics ordered to halt abortions deemed ‘nonessential’ amid coronavirus response"

So poor and desperate women are to be pushed into unsafe 'back street' abortions, or forced to have babies they can't care for, and/or not ready to have?
Anti-abortion people are beyond vile to use a national crisis to push their agenda.

18

@7 -- >> Louisiana and Florida "leaders" and all people who live there who said it was hoax ... WA and NY and CA actually have Governors and other leaders working to save the lives of the people in their states ...

That's my point. It is quite likely that Louisiana and Florida will soon have a complete mess on their hands because their local leadership sucks. Lots more people will die if nothing is done. If your attitude is "tough shit, don't elect such morons" then why the fuck should anyone care about the USA? Should we all fucking die because of Trump?

There are innocent victims in those states -- innocent people who fought hard against the Republican idiots. They -- and even the Republican idiots -- shouldn't suffer because of other Republican idiots.

19

https://youtu.be/1jCWOFGYP2I

21

Washington is Puerto Rico.

22

Today, Dr. David L. Katz - the founding director of Yale University’s C.D.C.-funded Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center - is echoing the calls of other members of the productive class for Inslee to stop his politically-motivated fearmongering and to lift the events ban and restaurant closures. Isolate the 20% high-risk and let everyone else get infected. Yes it'll be difficult but it will happen anyway; there's no reason to delay the inevitable and wreck the economy just so Papa Jay can look strong in an election year by wielding martial authority like it's a 12-inch dick.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/opinion/coronavirus-pandemic-social-distancing.html

23

@3 I know you're dumb deutsche weiner, but the USNS Mercy is a trauma medical ship, not a hospital ship and lacks capabilities to handle infectious diseases. Very few isolation rooms, all close quarters and shared rooms.

Mind you, you might enjoy some buggery below deck because, "In the Navy...."

24

test

25

@22 -- from your link:

"First, the medical system is being overwhelmed by those in the lower-risk group seeking its resources, limiting its capacity to direct them to those at greatest need.

Second, health professionals are burdened not just with work demands, but also with family demands as schools, colleges and businesses are shuttered.

Third, sending everyone home to huddle together increases mingling across generations that will expose the most vulnerable.

As the virus is already circulating widely in the United States, with many cases going undetected, this is like sending innumerable lit matches into small patches of tinder. Right now, it is harder, not easier, to keep the especially vulnerable isolated from all others — including members of their own families — who may have been exposed to the virus.

If we were to focus on the especially vulnerable, there would be resources to keep them at home, provide them with needed services and coronavirus testing, and direct our medical system to their early care.

I would favor proactive rather than reactive testing in this group, and early use of the most promising anti-viral drugs. This cannot be done under current policies, as we spread our relatively few test kits across the expanse of a whole population, made all the more anxious because society has shut down.

This focus on a much smaller portion of the population would allow most of society to return to life as usual and perhaps prevent vast segments of the economy from collapsing. Healthy children could return to school and healthy adults go back to their jobs.

Theaters and restaurants could reopen, though we might be wise to avoid very large social gatherings like stadium sporting events and concerts.

So long as we were protecting the truly vulnerable, a sense of calm could be restored to society. Just as important, society as a whole could develop natural herd immunity to the virus.

The vast majority of people would develop mild coronavirus infections, while medical resources could focus on those who fell critically ill.

Once the wider population had been exposed and, if infected, had recovered and gained natural immunity, the risk to the most vulnerable would fall dramatically.

A pivot right now from trying to protect all people to focusing on the most vulnerable remains entirely plausible. With each passing day, however, it becomes more difficult.

The path we are on may well lead to uncontained viral contagion and monumental collateral damage to our society and economy. A more surgical approach is what we need."

A thought-provoking Idea.
To say the least.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/opinion/coronavirus-pandemic-social-distancing.html

28

Nearly 40% of Those Hospitalized for COVID-19 Are Under 55

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/covid-19-isnt-just-dangerous-for-older-adults

29

I can't help but wonder if the totally outdated electoral college hadn't fucked up the 2016 general election, would any of the current worldwide travesties would be happening now.
And Donald Trump claims he's a smart man, he predicted this, and is PROUD of himself.

30

People are NOT being tested (unless they are a politician or a celebrity with NO symptoms, then magically they have access to being tested).

Meanwhile, you can have it and have no symptoms for 14 days, infecting who knows how many people in that time.

This is NOT like the flu ~ saying over and over it is basically just like the flu is a flat out lie that will get people killed. Doctors and nurses not only don't have tests they need, they don't have personal protective equipment. Our government is directing them to use and reuse equipment (not remotely safe) and they keep wondering what is going to happen when they have no more equipment.

“The doctors are talking about making living wills and what will happen when we are faced with this,” she said. “All of us are wondering which one of us will die.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/system-doomed-doctors-nurses-sound-nbc-news-coronavirus-survey-n1164841

31

This is NOT like the flu.

1 The flu kills and sickens far more Americans than this virus has
2 The Leftist Propagandist do not hype the flu in order to terrify their credulous ignorant followers and in order to undermine efforts by the Federal Govt to protect Americans.

Living Wills?
oh my....
Any and every whining attention whore in all walks of life are seizing on this virus as an opportunity to feed their addiction.
Look. At. Them.

32

@27. It is not the flu. Healthy people are dying from it, and if not dying suffering life long lung damage.

33

@31: You’re an idiot. This is fucking serious. Read up on personal experiences, from those lucky enough to survive.

35

29
No need to wonder;
if a Democrap was in office the Leftist propaganda machine would be ignoring this just like it ignored the viral outbreaks when Obama was in office;
we would be happily living our lives and no one would even know 350 people (.000001 of the population....) had died from it.

36

33
Anecdotes make great social media fodder but are a very poor basis to form public health policy.

37

@29 can you not help but wonder that because you read some fake news bullshit on Facebook?

Trump is a blithering idiot who can be fairly blamed for an extraordinary number things, but the actual germination of novel coronavirus is squarely on the Chinese communist leaders and their capitulating wet market policy. They screwed the pangolin; we get a pandemic.

Here's a little reading on both claims, i.e. wet market policy and that you are a Facebook fake news dupe (and open racist?)

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/the-chinese-wild-animal-industry-and-wet-markets-must-go/

https://ordinary-times.com/2018/11/06/auntie-grizeldas-bandwagon/

38

How come no Senator, D or R, sounded the alarm to the American people when Intelligence officials briefed Congress on an impending pandemic?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/us-intelligence-reports-from-january-and-february-warned-about-a-likely-pandemic/2020/03/20/299d8cda-6ad5-11ea-b5f1-a5a804158597_story.html

Now the democrats are holding up a relief packages based anti-corporate residual talking points.

39

@26 the economic question is interesting and difficult. Many totally unqualified punters hold your view, and some economists as well. On the other hand, many economist (and just a few punters) argue that the unchecked disease would cause 8-9 trillion of economic damage to the USA, which is much worse than sacrificing a chunk of the service economy to prevent the collapse of the goods economy. Once the goods supply chain is sufficiently disrupted it is far more likely that the whole system and society collapse.

So it sort of a bird in the hand or (maybe) zombie apocalypse situation. As usual, the PhD's in Econ who think about this every day for a living are distributed across a wide spectrum of projections and responses.

My point being it's not so obvious what the right answer is. I can feel like we are overreacting and need to get everyone back to work, but glad it's not on me to actually enact that policy, because if the disease spiked hard and we couldn't produce enough food and medicine I'd totally feel like oops.

40

@18 perfect. that precisely what I was saying.

Except I say it by saying Fuuuuck dem fuckin pig fuuuckers!!!! Let dem and der shit 4 years old die in the streets!

41

@31. You are clearly unfamiliar with science because you conflate it with leftist propaganda. In fact, any time you say leftist propaganda you lose immense credibility because a real scientist will not reject any variables in their analysis when drawing conclusions. The fundamental assumption of science is a lack of conviction and only a placeholder explanation or theory of what credible conclusions to draw based on an ever evolving and perfecting equation of rejection of surety and refinement.

In other eords, Science is the cumulative result of the most rigorously tested peer review of all implementations of the scientific method in solving a problem. You cherrypick data from very biased and singular sources and reject all evidence to the contrary as leftist propaganda, while calling yourself a scientist. It may fool people who are looking for confirmation bias and are raised to believe that what is observed and recorded in nature when this method is applied (natural science) is sinful and conflicts with religion, but this is the very essence of propaganda and irrationality itself. And when your tripling down on ignorance fails, you stoop to viscious personal attacks.

What is hysteria is people freaking out about the end of thr world. It is not leftist propaganda to report the facts about the intensity of the symptoms and the fact that people with robust immune systems may die and destroy their lives because they can have idiosyncratic reactions and the immune system is variable in its ability to manage the balance of trillions of microfauna and maintain a functional inner ecosystem.

We have come to the table in good faith, and although you managed to concern troll your way into the appearance of willingness to do the same, you have revealed yourself to be nothing more than glass, waiting to be smashed.

42

I don't care who needs it more, it would just be nice if there was any sign that our leaders are coordinating well. Instead, any time they tell us they're taking actions like sending aid there's credible reason to doubt those words.

43

@23 @34

Nobody, anywhere, has suggested that the Navy's hospital ships will or even should be used to treat COVID-19 patients.

I'd try to explain why this doesn't mean they're useless, but I suspect you might be the sort of people who won't believe a damned thing unless someone gives you a way to claim you figured it all out on your own.

44

On one hand, I'm sympathetic to The Stranger's current plight. On the other, I won't be clicking on that "Donate Now" button until I see some concrete steps taken toward preventing the troll from stinking the place up all the fucking time. I can't be the only one around here who's had it with that, and doesn't understand why it's either so difficult or, somehow, detrimental to their bottom line. Surely he's not generating enough traffic to justify his continued fetid presence?

45

I mean, either make it harder to register a new account for every comment, or just spend a little time deleting every single one he makes right away until he decides it's not worth it and loses interest. It can't be that difficult.

46

@44 Yeah, I've more or less given up on The Stranger at this point.

Comments like @22, @26, @27, @31 (and yes, @7, too) aren't just amusing hot takes anymore, lively little exaggerations in a no-stakes game of subcultural typist-tennis.

If you have an established audience and you're allowing bad actors to reach that audience with lies and hatred in the midst of an acute crisis, that shit has consequences.

There's only a skeleton crew running the site. Keck is holed up in one of his vacation homes somewhere, he's not going to come out to fix anything. But unless comment moderation changes, and changes drastically, The Stranger's willingness to platform pandemic disinformation, denialism and bigotry is doing more harm in this crisis than any good that might come out of its reporting and op-ed pieces.

48

“People are NOT being tested (unless they are a politician or a celebrity with NO symptoms, then magically they have access to being tested).”

My neighbor and at least 5 people we know in Seattle have been tested. All negative. Not a celebrity or politician among them.

49

@48. Where they get their kits, apocryphal hearsay?

50

45
46
WETF are you babbling about?
Someone in the field has an important insight into how we are handling this and your going to run away with your feelings hurt?
Fuck You, you ignorant head-up-your-asses credulous Leftists lapdogs;
your kind of narrowminded know-nothing ignorance is destroying this civilization.

51

So when you see abusive and racist panic like that one when they know they have lost, and since moderating it will still require a person to exhaust themselves in sorting through the fodder until Swifty invents a natural language processing AI capable of terminating such garbage before it pollutes our page, it is up to us to raise the discourse and ignore the baiting to steer the conversation away from irrationality to convincing those who can be reached.

And while 404 may respond by spamming more, you can at least tell that whatever nonsense continues its attempts to win a promotion at Professor Chaos's troll farm in Macedonia or whatever, the more he does so the less people will side with him.

Also, people like xina are suffering and in pain right now. Others, myself included, have acute PTSD and flashbacks and physiological symptoms of existential harm and involuntary stress responses. In a siege, morale is often the deciding factor in victory and avoiding foolish breaches of security from impulsive panic in the face of pressure. We can all support each other through this crisis because we outnumber the trolls and all have valuable perspectives to share. And we are doing so. Phasing out the Stranger would be just what 404 wants, to undermine our bastion of free speech and trust. Unfortunately, free speech and democracy means allowing evil to voice its opinion, but if we wish to uphold the same rights we must stand together for the right cause. And although time and attention is infinite, someone like 404 will always be with us.

"Vigilance, Mr. Worf. That is the price we must continually pay."

https://youtu.be/GRyyJy1doqY

52

51

Humor....I LOVE IT!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt30Q4Cw63c

53

@33, @41
Either that person is getting paid to spew their tired message, or they're a 15 year old who never learned how to masturbate. Just ignore them. I promise they'll dry up and blow away.

54

Oh haha, i see the comments i hadn't gotten to reinforce my thesis.

For awhile i was convinced it was a Stranger staffer 404ing their own blog, and even accused their web person of that. The reply i received did not convince me i was wrong.
I'm not so sure anymore, but the fact that they aren't doing their due diligence to disinfect (see what i did there?) the place is also preventing me from considering donating.

BUT! If we can all socially distance from the troll/s: no responses, no engagement, no nothing, I PROMISE they will go away. That virus, like Typhoid Donnie, does not thrive in isolation, and requires care and attention. It's up to each and every one of us to stop the spread. DO YOUR PART, SLOGGERS! FOR THE GOOD OF THE NATION AND THE WORLD!!

55

Talking about them behind their backs is acceptable, and might even speed their disappearance. More research is needed...

56

54
What reply was that?

57

Report every 404 Troll comment and request they be removed. Email the Stranger, and the Stranger webmaster. If they can't make it more difficult for 404 to make a new account for every comment, they can at least delete 404's comments in the interest of keeping disinformation from spreading.

59

True.. though trolls are people too and obviously need educating and sending big social distance hugs to.
Their hatred of the left is stronger than any common sense they might have.
This virus is not political.. some are taking a while to hear that.

60

54

FTW!

Much love to everyone out there.


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