Comments

1

It’s Time to Hunker Down

A devastating surge is here. Unless Americans act aggressively, it will get much larger, very quickly.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/11/lock-yourself-down-now/617106/

2

I like that Inslee is not shutting down the schools but rather leaving that up to the localities.

Here's what's so remarkable to me about this huge second wave we're seeing across the nation:
* We're seeing it despite our having known for months now the measures we can be taking to reduce the risk of transmission.
* This huge second wave that dwarfs the first wave (and one can legitimately argue that the first wave never crested) mirrors the pattern with the 1918 influenza pandemic. Look it up.
* We in the USA might be worse, but we're not unique. Europe is seeing its own huge second wave. (I've lost track of the current situation for the East Asian nations that have been so successful in keeping the virus at bay.)

3

Well, he actually said you can hang out with people outside of your household if you quarantine for 14 days and then test negative within 48 hours of gathering. Some reports say it's only a week of quarantine.

I can understand why The Stranger decided not to report that. I guess. But the quarantine/testing does inform people what they need to do in order to do what they will, let's be honest, do anyway: People aren't all going to cancel Thanksgiving (they should), but if you were to follow these regulations, you would be making things significantly safer for the gathering that you've decided to have anyway.

So, yeah, just report the damn news. All of it. Not what you decide to report.

4

This is useless, again, if the Gov. doesn't stand up to Church and other special interests. What is the point of shutting things down if certain groups of people can go ahead almost as usual?

5

“... the rest will go into effect starting Monday at midnight, i.e. after you turn into a pumpkin tonight.”

I read that the restrictions go in effect 11:59 on Monday night; not tonight. Might want to check your facts on that one.

7

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/11/15/americans-need-to-remain-vigilant/

8

It's nuts that I can still get 'personal services' during the lockdown. Massage, bikini wax, haircut, nails--this is intimate contact with another person. No thanks! These days, the only person I get that close to is my doctor.

9

Notice inslee did not include the courts. That was a huge and deadly mistake. Hundreds of people are summoned every week for in person jury trials. The “liberal” prosecutors office is filing their backlog of out of custody non violent charges and mandating initial in person hearings, and issuing warrants for violations. The court rooms are packed. South king county (where cases are highest) presiding judge Veronica Galvan takes her mask off every hearing because she is behind plexi glass (not a real exception to the mask mandate but she is above the law). Please report on this, we will not slow the curve if some institutions like king county superior court are allowed to run against public health logic. Us court employees are desperate!

10

Some people don't have families. People who live alone need to be allowed to bubble with one other household.

12

I can't tell if unhinged comments like Outerlibitz' above are parody (in which case I salute "Dementiacrats"), trolling or just honestly deranged. The Democratic party isn't Marxist or communist or even socialist (though it has a few democratic socialists, to its credit). Unless you call support for big business, rich people and the military socialism. Which I guess it is, but that's not the good kind of socialism.

13

@12 -- well played.

I'm guessing bot but
whaddoIknow, ya know?

15

At this point it's just mad libs with these human centipedes.

16

@10 - That should be fine as long as the other household is adhering to guidelines, such as a next-door neighbor who you trust and see often.

17

@14yo -- "Apparently masks don't help, since we have had a mask mandate." --dc

which trumpfy's disciples ignored
for his nuremberg rallies. did you get to
go, too? hoo-ray for derr Fatherland, right?!

so if peeps don't
Wear them they
fail. that's News!

18

Thank you, Gov. Inslee. We can get through this Washingtonians. Follow the guidelines

20

A friend was just arguing on twitter with some current office holding politician in Vancouver (don't remember who the pol is, just went back and searched, but couldn't find) who had tweeted back at Inslee that they would be using this mandate as an excuse to invite even more people to their Thanksgiving Day celebration and will strive to make it as large as possible.

I've mentioned this here before, but I just really don't think the human condition really lends itself to the idea of self-governance. We're just collectively too goddamn selfish, spiteful, ignorant and vindictive to make it work effectively.

21

"Facial coverings must be worn at all times by congregation members and no congregational singing."

I predict this will usher in a new style of hymn/worship music, an entirely new genre of music based on humming, tamborines, and bongo drums. Humming Hymns. You heard it here FIRST.

Can anyone ELI5 why every single restaurant has not transitioned to curbside/takeout at this point? Wouldn't it keep servers busy, and employed, prepping and handing over deliveries, and keep the business going? Lots of patrons fed up with DoorDash ect...I think loyal fans would jump at the chance to keep their favorite place open AND tip a server that worked there for prepping and either handing over/delivering the food? Is it that much more difficult to transition to take out than it is to transition to outdoor dining?

22

I like how the virus is surging and businesses are all all like, "Why don't you let me fix you some of this Mococoa drink? All natural cocoa beans from the upper slopes of Mount Nicaragua. No artificial sweeteners!"

"I've tasted other cocoas. This is the best."

23

Thank you, third term-Governor-elect Jay Inslee, for diligently working to keep those of us in Washington State healthy and safe. Many in other U.S>. states aren't nearly as fortunate.

@14 yo: Doofy? Is that you? STILL mad that your mom sent you to bed without your favorite gallon tub of Breyer's for dinner?

@18 Lastlight: Agreed, seconded, thank you, and Amen.

@19 Begone, lil idly threatening MAGA bully, before you draw more of Pence's flies.

24

Give insurance companies the ability to deny coverage if people get sick after violating mandates.

Does Trump's negligence qualify as a high crime? The House should impeach him again. It's not going to get Biden into office any sooner, but maybe Pence will let the scientists have more of a say.

25

It's so fascinating how the people who rage against the lock downs believe churches (one example) are being discriminated against, but protests are not. Let's see...out of all of the Black Lives Matter protests, where nearly 100% of participants wore masks, have there been major outbreaks? Yet every church that has violated the rules has had outbreaks. Pastors and other religious zealots who have decried the virus as a hoax or punishment for (insert whatever they think god is mad about here) have DIED OF THE VIRUS. And all of the MAGA hat wearing rallies have been super spreader events (just wait until the numbers come back from yesterday in D.C. because if you look at the photos, NO ONE WAS WEARING A MASK AS THEY SHOUTED FOUR MORE YEARS TO THE LOSER WHO LOST THE FUCKING ELECTION.

As for courts, I don't know about WA state, but my friend has been a legal aid lawyer her entire career (she and I are the same age, so since she passed the bar exam in the '90s) and her office was on lock down for months in upstate NY. Then they re-opened the courts, because, oddly, court proceedings and matters of the law cannot be conducted virtually. Not sure what is happening now, because where she is in upstate NY is now being shut down again due to a surge in the virus (even our Alma Mater, which never should have allowed in-person classes to being with, Syracuse University, has shut down all in-person, on campus business and gone totally online).

This situation fucking sucks for everyone in this country, but it sucks more for people ACTIVELY WORKING TO STOP THE SPREAD fighting assholes who want to do whatever the fuck they want because they simply do not care if they get sick or get other people sick or die or kill other people.

And the people suffering the most are the doctors and nurses and health care providers and there WILL be a point where it is all too much and it has all gone too far and too many people are sick and too many doctors, nurses, and health care providers have either burnt out and quit entirely or they die because they got sick.

It really doesn't matter how much people complain, how unfair they think this or that is, what they believe regarding why all of this is being done (and it's not to inconvenience you, despite your ignorance) - the virus will continue to spread and kill until we have stopped it from doing so, full stop. That means a vaccine that is nearly 100% effective and a population that is nearly 100% vaccinated. Until then chaos will continue to reign and everything, all loss (of life, of business, employment, of finances, of housing, of health care, etc.) will continue unabated.

Everyone angry about this shit needs to be angry at Trump and his administration. He and his administration and his GOP criminal co-conspirators are to blame. Be angry at the parties responsible instead of the people working their asses off to limit the catastrophic loss to the best of their ability.

26

Bingo, xina:

Doctors Are Calling It Quits Under Stress of the Pandemic

Thousands of medical practices are closing, as doctors and nurses decide to retire early or shift to less intense jobs.

Many other doctors are also calling it quits. Thousands of medical practices have closed during the pandemic, according to a July survey of 3,500 doctors by the Physicians Foundation, a nonprofit group.

About 8 percent of the doctors reported closing their offices in recent months, which the foundation estimated could equal some 16,000 practices. Another 4 percent said they planned to shutter within the next year.

Other doctors and nurses are retiring early or leaving their jobs.

Some worry about their own health because of age or a medical condition that puts them at high risk.

Others stopped practicing during the worst of the outbreaks and don’t have the energy to start again.

Some simply need a break from the toll that the pandemic has taken among their ranks and their patients.

By Reed Abelson; Nov. 15, 2020

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/15/health/Covid-doctors-nurses-quitting.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

if you're gonna get Sick don't
do it when Repubs are in
charge or just were.

the "PRO-LIFE" party
Does NOT have Your Back

27

@24: What an absurd proposal. Just think about the details and ramifications.

28

Restrictions against private in home gatherings will likely fail constitutional muster. Particularly under this court. There is simply no exception even for instances during a health crisis. It’s common sense to distance but blanket restrictions against private gatherings are a violation of your rights.

Lack of leadership got us here and it’s spiraled so much out of control the genie is out of the bottle. The unfortunate reality is that pandemics kill people. Humans can mitigate it to an extent but some of the thinking posted here is naive in that there is nothing we can do to “control” it any more than we can control cancer.

29

@25: You're expecting an awful lot of logic and responsibility from a group that, by definition, expects everything to ultimately be in the control of - and part of a plan concocted by - an invisible sky daddy.

30

@25 xina oce again nailed it for the WIN!! Bravo! Agreed and seconded.

@26 kristofarian: Thank you for another spot on article about these dangerously uncertain times. Agreed and seconded, especially: the "PRO-LIFE" party Does NOT have your back" WOW---I guess Griz picked a good time to have a hysterectomy this year (gulp)...........

31

‘No One Is Listening to Us’
More people than ever are hospitalized with COVID-19. Health-care workers can’t go on like this.

In the imminent future, patients will start to die because there simply aren’t enough people to care for them. Doctors and nurses will burn out. The most precious resource the U.S. health-care system has in the struggle against COVID-19 isn’t some miracle drug. It’s the expertise of its health-care workers—and they are exhausted.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/11/third-surge-breaking-healthcare-workers/617091/

33

@31: "More people than ever are hospitalized"

Meanwhile, Ventec shut down one of its ventilator production lines due to weak demand.

34

@31 xina: So sadly true. I can't imagine being a healthcare worker right now.

@32: Begone, clueless MAGA troll, before you attract more of Pence's flies.

35

@33 Ventilation actually kills. It has been a long while since they determined that ventilating patients was killing them. In fact, young people (like Adam Schlesinger) who died on April 1, 2020, most likely would NOT have died if he had not been ventilated. Are the most extremely ill (as in dying) patients ventilated still? Yes.

They have learned an incredible amount about the virus since March and they keep learning more every day, even (and possibly especially) as the virus mutates. In fact, the mutated virus, they believe, will improve the vaccination effectiveness.

They've also proven that wearing a mask protects one from getting the virus as much as it protects one from spreading the virus.

Things have been changing and continue to change rapidly. Please do try to keep up.

The health care providers in this country are literally SCREAMING about how bad it is. We need to listen to them. Your irrelevant comment about ventilator production (some rando on the internet) vs. scientists, doctors, and nurses on the front line and you think you somehow know more. Right. /s

Fuck right off. People I know are sick (long haulers - got COVID and have never recovered, have a myriad of chronic health issues now. People I knew (including Adam Schlesinger) have died.

My mother is 71. I have a progressive, degenerative neuromuscular disease. I get COVID and I die (no possible exception). My mother, likely to die, could possibly survive.

I am so fucking sick of smug assholes who think they are smarter than the virus infecting tens of millions and killing hundreds of thousands world wide.

37

@24, @27: Insurance policies routinely contain clauses which limit or prevent payment for injury or damage in situations where the policyholder needlessly accepted avoidable risk. If you choose to gather indoors, without masks, when the governor of your state has prohibited such gatherings, then your insurance company should not waste its limited resources on treating your preventable case of COVID.

@28: Of course the restrictions are unenforceable. The purpose of them is to give justification for practicing healthy behaviors, or avoiding unhealthy behaviors, like the example in my paragraph, above.

We also could have stopped this pandemic with aggressive contact tracing and other responses, but the current occupant of the White House chose to lie about how serious COVID is, and do nothing. Read it and weep. (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/how-white-house-coronavirus-response-went-wrong/613591/)

@36: Yes, the hope was we could have limited indoor dining, because the virus does not travel more than about six feet, and very brief exposures do not transmit it. But we were wrong, so we're stopping indoor dining again. Live and learn.

38

@37 spoken like a true hmo drone. So health care should be denied to everyone whose condition is a result of their own irresponsibility? Addicts? At fault car crashes? COPD?

It’s insane how vindictive you “compassionate” people get when adversity actually strikes

39

@38: Indeed. Disingenuous to the core.

40

Terima kasih atas kiriman yang luar biasa. Saya suka membacanya! https://pussy88ku.xyz

42

Tensor those restrictions do nothing to persuade those that are against the science. It’s health safety theater. We can bring up the failures of leadership but in the end we have to deal with how it is now. We are the ones that are responsible for our own health. Not Inslee or Fauci. We have to each make decisions based on our life how to best protect our own health.

Harping on what could or should have happened does us no good right now. The citizenry is taking the brunt of lack of response. There is a significant number of the population that will not abide by the mitigation measures. You, I nor any government official can change that. We must deal with how things are rather than how they should have been or should be now.

43

The virus spreads most readily indoors, particularly withhout social distancing and masks. Churchgoers who make a point of congregating, chanting, singing loudly, and eating and drinking are launching a shittin of droplets and particles in the air and have prolonged exposure. The longer you are exposed to covid, the more severe your response.

Outdoor protests geneally involve a lot people wearing masks in close quarters, and yes the virus is also transmitted in those events, but to a much smaller degree due to winds and constant movement of people preventing recirculation of droplets and minimizing exposure, esepcially if most people are wearing masks. But in the case of Trump events, most don't wear masks and have made a point of doing so. Indoor dining also puts consumers at high risk but to a lesser degree with distancing and fewer people allowed in. Takeout, delivery, and distanced outdoor dining largely mitigate the spread.

47

@45. Congress should be responsible for bailing out small business in a pandemic, not holding up aid to ramrod sham supreme court hearings against the dying wishes of the outgoing honored against the very protocols upheld by the opposition as sacrosanct and utterly abandoned opportunistically.

48

30 people for a wedding or a funeral makes absolutely zero sense.

As in none.

The virus doesn't care about your religious beliefs.

The virus doesn't care about your political beliefs.

Even five people is too many.

50

This was a choice. We chose to let hundreds of thousands die. Even here in Washington we chose death. We were always going to fill up our hospitals, the plan was always to let things go until the hospitals started filling, and we got exactly that. Now the morgues will start filling in a few weeks, just in time for holiday shopping season.

It has been so long since we had an effective government, people can't even imagine what one looks like. We have had no coordinated national response, and the States and local governments are not set up to pick up the slack. No fully coordinated contact-tracing has been implemented. Because of that we still can't say what the greatest drivers of new infections are, so we are unable to more precisely target just those activities. Look at Taiwan, look at New Zealand. This was a choice, and our country chose death.

51

@38: "So health care should be denied to everyone whose condition is a result of their own irresponsibility?"

Yes. A child should get priority for respiratory therapy over an adult who smoked two packs a day, every day, since the Surgeon General's warning in 1963. Please let me know exactly what problem you have with that decision.

Furthermore, knowingly exposing other persons to unnecessary hazards should be a criminal offense, with possible civil penalties as well. Would you want your server to be Typhoid Mary?

@44: "Science can't answer the question of whether the benefits of the restrictions outweigh the cost."

Epidemiology actually does this very well. We now have a large body of evidence showing how COVID-19 is transmitted, and both the average and range of costs per transmission. Ignorant lines like yours simply attempt to excuse the inexcusable behavior of persons who knowingly engage in risky behaviors, as in the example you gave.

"The position of the other side is not to deny the science."

Anti-choicers deny the scientific evidence of human reproduction ("life begins at conception," means that the vast majority of all human lives ended BEFORE pregnancy). Anti-evolutionists deny the fundamental idea of biology. Global warming deniers reject all of the climate science done for decades. Now, please do tell, which American political party embraces all of that blatant science denial?

52

@46:

Look, we get it. You'd rather believe what the Cheeto-faced shit-gibbon and his minions tell you than the evidence of your own lying eyes and ears, but we're just going to keep pounding your little ole' pea-brain with facts whether you want to believe them or not. Go back and read @43, then, just for shits-and-giggles, provide credible references that show outdoor protests have been in any way, shape or form super spreader events similar to indoor church services or MAGAT rallies where people refuse to wear masks while packed in together like COVID-coated sardines.

Go ahead, we'll wait...

53

@51- Yes. A child should get priority for respiratory therapy over an adult who smoked two packs a day, every day, since the Surgeon General's warning in 1963. Please let me know exactly what problem you have with that decision.

How about "it's entirely unworkable, and would result in punishing millions of innocents"?

e.g. "Sorry that your Dad's dead, kid, we weren't allowed to treat his lung cancer because he smoked when he was in his twenties. Byeeee!"

56

@54:

Again, can you provide credible evidence to support your claim other than a vacuous "well, I believe this thing is true, so it MUST be true" tautology as your defense?

We're still waiting...

57

@53: "it's entirely unworkable, and would result in punishing millions of innocents"

Insurance companies do this all the time, but usually on ability to pay.

e.g. sorry my point's so incredibly obvious, you'd rather pretend you can't read what you just quoted!

60

@6 The only violence we have seen at protests has come from the police, so the solution to violent protests is to control the jack-booted thugs our mayor protects.

61

@58

Who said their hadn't been any studies? There HAVE been studies and those studies have shown no correlation between protests and increases in COVID diagnoses in the places they've occurred. It was all over the news, but I guess if you only watch FOX or listen to Alex Jones you might have missed them.

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/06/24/883017035/what-contact-tracing-may-tell-about-cluster-spread-of-the-coronavirus

https://www.modernhealthcare.com/safety-quality/little-evidence-protests-spread-coronavirus-us

https://news.northeastern.edu/2020/08/11/racial-justice-protests-were-not-a-major-cause-of-covid-19-infection-surges-new-national-study-finds/

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/black-lives-matter-protests-didnt-contribute-to-covid19-surge#No-evidence-of-protest-spread

https://www.cato.org/publications/research-briefs-economic-policy/black-lives-matter-protests-social-distancing-covid-19

https://abcnews.go.com/US/minnesota-sees-rise-covid-19-cases-tied-protests/story?id=71393938

https://www.denverpost.com/2020/06/15/coronavirus-protests-health-racism/

I could post more, but we all know you're not going to read any of them anyway, so why bother?

The point being: you're wrong, everyone knows you're wrong - hell, I'll bet even you know you're wrong - but you're just going to keep spewing your willfully obtuse, uninformed opinion as if it was cold, hard fact no matter how much evidence we pile on top of your ignorant, pathos-encrusted ass.

62

@54, etc.: There were huge Black Lives Matter protests in Seattle. Have you evidence showing those events were followed by spikes in the rate of COVD-19 in Seattle?

Because so far, you don't.

No one is required to believe a point for which you have shown no evidence.

"You would have done well in the middle ages. They thought as you do today."

They thought the world was flat because it looked obvious to them. Persons who were able and willing to gather evidence knew better. So, that's quite an own-goal you just did there.

63

@62:

OTOH, the whole "witches weigh the same as ducks" syllogism they came up with back then still seems a little suspect, even if it was a fair cop...

66

@64: Hundreds of thousands of Americans have already died, and you want a cost-benefit analysis of quarantining? That's some cold, heartless attitude you're accidentally revealing there. Masks and quarantine are our ONLY options until we get vaccines approved and distributed. You don't have a "right" to put other human beings at risk because you're bored and want to go shopping. Grow up.

"Increased heart attack deaths at home because people don't go to the hospital,"

Yeah, our hospitals overflowing with COVID cases because we won't take simple precautions is another cost epidemiology can reveal. Thank you for mentioning all of the other costs this pandemic is imposing on us. How about we do what we can to lower those costs? Like, maybe wearing masks when making those few essential trips?

@65: Super-spreader events are only a small part of the problem. If they were the entire problem, we would not have a pandemic. I do like how you criticize restrictions upon restaurants WHILE admitting infected staff handling food might just pose a bit of a problem. (And how did they get infected? Was it before or after we returned to indoor dining? Science.)

67

I should point out that none of these restrictions apply to higher education - colleges or universities.

And no matter what you agree to, the Death Merchants of the GOP will always whine about the cost, unless it's padding their own pockets. They care nothing about people, only profit, at any cost.

68

@25 -- brillaint, xina.

also faiing to see KkKonnell's machinations as the instruments of their un-earned, un-asked for, perhaps Devastating and brutal Austerity is tremendously Sad . . . their Targets are Invisible to them.

that's just Good P.R.

69

also
Great comments tensor.

70

@66 you don’t have to have a cold, heartless attitude to recognize that there is a philosophical question here. We’re not talking about whether jack and jill crybaby feel like wearing masks, we’re talking about every activity human beings take pleasure in and get edification from being impeded. X years of universally lower quality of life is equal to Y years of life saved by preventing disease—what’s your easy solution to that equation?

We make these cost benefit analyses all the time. Some professions are riskier than others, all forms of transport are calculated risks, some people jump off cliffs for fun. Some people are willing to accept a 0.005 or a 0.05 or a 0.5 risk of death and some aren’t. Because we are a compassionate society we defer to those who aren’t.

But sacrificing quality of life makes less and less sense with time. It looks like a vax is coming pretty quickly, so that’s great—but if we were seriously looking at years of this, the question would shift to: How much are we willing to suffer to avoid death?

71

@70: "X years of universally lower quality of life is equal to Y years of life saved by preventing disease—what’s your easy solution to that equation?"

It's the wrong equation. X is not measurable, only speculative. Y should be "number of lives NOT saved," i.e. number of dead from COVID, plus from other treatable conditions because our medical system was overwhelmed by COVID. Can you solve it now?

"all forms of transport are calculated risks,"

Yet most of them have safety belts. And when we were mandating use of safety belts in cars, we heard the same inane arguments you're making now. You don't have a "right" to endanger other persons with your only "benefit" being your personal "freedom" to slide your ass across a seat.

72

We will have to lock down for Christmas and New Year's also, so we might as well stay locked down for the rest of the year. This should weaken all small businesses so they're ready for the $15/hour minimum wage kill shot after Biden is inaugurated

73

WHERE'S
THE FUCKING
STIMULUS MONEY
McFucking Connell?

It.
Ain't.
YOURS.


Please wait...

Comments are closed.

Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.


Add a comment
Preview

By posting this comment, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.