Once again, all this only serves to twist debates over when and how to reopen the economy into a battle between supposed elites and ordinary folks who have not only been ignored and left behind, but also ridiculed.
This just hasn’t been the case so far, and (R.R.) Reno, (Patrick) Deneen, and (Peggy) Noonan are making it up as they go along.
The latest polling continues to find, as described in a recent Washington Post article, “that there just aren’t meaningful divisions along class or education lines on these questions.”
There certainly isn’t a rugged, death-defying, God-fearing working class straining against the complacency of prissy white-collar overlords.
Imagining that’s the case, however, is less challenging than talking about what actually will help workers: hazard pay, paycheck protections, paid medical leave, proper safety equipment, and robust testing.
It’s (conservative) grievance-mongering all the way down.
The writer Sam Adler-Bell has described the “mutable dynamism” of conservative politics, a term that captures the way the search for fresh enemies can stoke these passions.
It explains why conservatives respond to novel situations with a tried-and-true mash-up of elite bashing and performative victimhood.
But Americans’ reserve of patience and good will so far shows the glaring mismatch between the old script of grievance and a sickness that can wreak destruction on anyone.
As we’ve learned, it takes just one person infected with Covid-19 to unleash chaos.
In Washington state, a person with the virus attended a choir practice, and more than half of the other singers subsequently got sick.
In South Korea, a 29-year-old man went out to nightclubs; he was Covid-19 positive, and he has since been linked to at least 54 new cases. In China, nine people sitting in the path of an air conditioning vent in a restaurant all got sick, most likely from one person, as the duct blew viral particles across their faces.
Small things could have changed these outcomes. The clubber could have decided to watch TV instead of going out dancing.
If the choir practice was rescheduled for the next day, maybe the person would have felt sick and stayed home. The air conditioner in the restaurant could have been turned off.
✄
Here are the mechanics. Scientists know that if we let up on social distancing, without an alternative plan in place, the virus can infect more people.
They know this virus is likely to persist for at least a few years without a vaccine. They know it’s very contagious. That it’s very deadly.
They also know that its pandemic potential is hardly spent, and that most of the population of the United States and the world is still vulnerable to it.
And so, scientists fear big resurgences of the virus over the next months and years, and their fears are grounded in history and scientific analysis.
But yet, they say, their view of the future is more occluded than ever, as the response to the pandemic grows more varied.
✄
Thinking about the future of the pandemic means wrestling with uncertainty, both personally and as a wider community.
It also means dealing with what’s not likely to happen: The virus disappears in the next several months.
If it does, it will do so for reasons scientists do not understand or can currently explain.
Republicans may think the virus just kills Democrats https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/us/politics/coronavirus-red-blue-states.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=Politics
All about the Banjamins https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/05/21/1002105/covid-bot-twitter-accounts-push-to-reopen-america/
The second wave is coming. Not sure when or how bad. I’m municipal emergency manager and what, when and how is an unknown at my level. Probably those upsteam are in the dark too. When we have to wind down again to get through another surge there will be a lot of public and business resistance which will make the outcome worse. A vaccine is on the horizon.
Meanwhile on the other side of the country, Amy Hollyfield of San Francisco’s ABC television affiliate KGO reports:
Doctors at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek say they have seen more deaths by suicide during this quarantine period than deaths from the COVID-19 virus.The head of the trauma in the department believes mental health is suffering so much, it is time to end the shelter-in-place order.“Personally I think it’s time,” said Dr. Mike deBoisblanc. “I think, originally, this (the shelter-in-place order) was put in place to flatten the curve and to make sure hospitals have the resources to take care of COVID patients.We have the current resources to do that and our other community health is suffering.”The numbers are unprecedented, he said.“We’ve never seen numbers like this, in such a short period of time,” he said. “I mean we’ve seen a year’s worth of suicide attempts in the last four weeks.”
Cheapskate0 almost 4 years ago
Points for being accurate. Whether you believe people are dying from this virus or not, going forward, things just aren’t going to be the same.
Silly Season almost 4 years ago
Once again, all this only serves to twist debates over when and how to reopen the economy into a battle between supposed elites and ordinary folks who have not only been ignored and left behind, but also ridiculed.
This just hasn’t been the case so far, and (R.R.) Reno, (Patrick) Deneen, and (Peggy) Noonan are making it up as they go along.
The latest polling continues to find, as described in a recent Washington Post article, “that there just aren’t meaningful divisions along class or education lines on these questions.”
There certainly isn’t a rugged, death-defying, God-fearing working class straining against the complacency of prissy white-collar overlords.
Imagining that’s the case, however, is less challenging than talking about what actually will help workers: hazard pay, paycheck protections, paid medical leave, proper safety equipment, and robust testing.
It’s (conservative) grievance-mongering all the way down.
The writer Sam Adler-Bell has described the “mutable dynamism” of conservative politics, a term that captures the way the search for fresh enemies can stoke these passions.
It explains why conservatives respond to novel situations with a tried-and-true mash-up of elite bashing and performative victimhood.
But Americans’ reserve of patience and good will so far shows the glaring mismatch between the old script of grievance and a sickness that can wreak destruction on anyone.
https://newrepublic.com/article/157773/pandemic-driving-conservative-intellectuals-mad
Silly Season almost 4 years ago
As we’ve learned, it takes just one person infected with Covid-19 to unleash chaos.
In Washington state, a person with the virus attended a choir practice, and more than half of the other singers subsequently got sick.
In South Korea, a 29-year-old man went out to nightclubs; he was Covid-19 positive, and he has since been linked to at least 54 new cases. In China, nine people sitting in the path of an air conditioning vent in a restaurant all got sick, most likely from one person, as the duct blew viral particles across their faces.
Small things could have changed these outcomes. The clubber could have decided to watch TV instead of going out dancing.
If the choir practice was rescheduled for the next day, maybe the person would have felt sick and stayed home. The air conditioner in the restaurant could have been turned off.
✄
Here are the mechanics. Scientists know that if we let up on social distancing, without an alternative plan in place, the virus can infect more people.
They know this virus is likely to persist for at least a few years without a vaccine. They know it’s very contagious. That it’s very deadly.
They also know that its pandemic potential is hardly spent, and that most of the population of the United States and the world is still vulnerable to it.
And so, scientists fear big resurgences of the virus over the next months and years, and their fears are grounded in history and scientific analysis.
But yet, they say, their view of the future is more occluded than ever, as the response to the pandemic grows more varied.
✄
Thinking about the future of the pandemic means wrestling with uncertainty, both personally and as a wider community.
It also means dealing with what’s not likely to happen: The virus disappears in the next several months.
If it does, it will do so for reasons scientists do not understand or can currently explain.
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/5/20/21257136/covid-19-future-pandemic-chaos
Brain Pudding almost 4 years ago
Be not afraid.
William Robbins Premium Member almost 4 years ago
Republicans may think the virus just kills Democrats https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/us/politics/coronavirus-red-blue-states.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=Politics
All about the Banjamins https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/05/21/1002105/covid-bot-twitter-accounts-push-to-reopen-america/
Scary weird https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/qanon-nothing-can-stop-what-is-coming/610567/
Understated, by a lot https://trumpdeathclock.com/
jbmlaw01 almost 4 years ago
Day 33 of the Georgia Economic Recovery.
Flatlander, purveyor of fine covfefe almost 4 years ago
The second wave is coming. Not sure when or how bad. I’m municipal emergency manager and what, when and how is an unknown at my level. Probably those upsteam are in the dark too. When we have to wind down again to get through another surge there will be a lot of public and business resistance which will make the outcome worse. A vaccine is on the horizon.
Maybe we will learn from this, I doubt it.
ChukLitl Premium Member almost 4 years ago
Don’t be afraid, be cautious. Forever. Good plan.
RobinHood almost 4 years ago
To live is to risk it all, otherwise you’re just an inert chunk of randomly assembled molecules drifting wherever the universe blows you
jbmlaw01 almost 4 years ago
Meanwhile on the other side of the country, Amy Hollyfield of San Francisco’s ABC television affiliate KGO reports:
Doctors at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek say they have seen more deaths by suicide during this quarantine period than deaths from the COVID-19 virus.The head of the trauma in the department believes mental health is suffering so much, it is time to end the shelter-in-place order.“Personally I think it’s time,” said Dr. Mike deBoisblanc. “I think, originally, this (the shelter-in-place order) was put in place to flatten the curve and to make sure hospitals have the resources to take care of COVID patients.We have the current resources to do that and our other community health is suffering.”The numbers are unprecedented, he said.“We’ve never seen numbers like this, in such a short period of time,” he said. “I mean we’ve seen a year’s worth of suicide attempts in the last four weeks.”