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The US has major public leaders [1] and news organizations actively suggesting to people this is overblown and that they should go continue about their normal l
by meritt 7y ago
The US has major public leaders [1] and news organizations actively suggesting to people this is overblown and that they should go continue about their normal lives. We are so completely far from that step happening on a national level.
Edit: Source added.
[1] https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/03/devin-nunes-this-is-why-we-cant-have-nice-things-coronavirus/ https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/03/devi...
- AlexCoventry 7y agoWhat's the most recent example? It seems to me as though any diminution of the crisis stopped this weekend.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mikeyouse 7y agoLiterally several Republicans today. The Governor of Oklahoma tweeted a pic of himself at a busy restaurant last night (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ETHs_hQUcAAu3Ep?format=jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ETHs_hQUcAAu3Ep?format=jpg). Sheriff David Clarke, who has nearly a million followers on Twitter just said this a few hours ago and got thousands of retweets and favorites: > It is now evident that this is an orchestrated attempt to destroy CAPITALISM. First sports, then schools and finally commercial businesses. Time to RISE UP and push back. Bars and restaurants should defy the order. Let people decide if they want to go out. > GO INTO THE STREETS FOLKS. Visit bars, restaurants, shopping malls, CHURCHES and demand that your schools re-open. NOW! If government doesn’t stop this foolishness...STAY IN THE STREETS. END GOVERNEMNT CONTROL OVER OUR LIVES. IF NOT NOW, WHEN? https://twitter.com/SheriffClarke/status/1239324440934133760 https://twitter.com/SheriffClarke/status/1239324440934133760 These people are psychotic and should be expelled from polite society.
- anigbrowl 7y agoYou shouldn't be downvoted for sharing facts.
- pdonis 7y agoHe didn't just share facts, he expressed an extreme personal opinion.
- anigbrowl 7y agoI don't think it's extreme. He's quoting someone demanding that people ignore all public health information and engage in insurrection. We should stop listening to people who are actively and willfully undermining public health.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y agoI think that popular figures trying to exacerbate a pandemic by sowing public distrust deserve a bit of vitriol in response. It's not a subject that's really amenable to polite argument; Sherrif Clarke is killing people, as surely as if he walked up and shot them in the head.
- mikeyouse 7y agoAs OP -- One of my really good friends (and a mother of 3) is currently undergoing chemo to knock out her immune system and prep her for a bone marrow transplant since she discovered she has severe aplastic anemia on Christmas, several of my family members work in primary care in hospitals, I have a large very close-knit family with ~10 uncles/aunts with significant Covid19 comorbidities and a 90-year old grandfather who lives in an urban center. If "Expelling people from polite society" for directly endangering all of their lives is extreme then I'm glad I didn't share my true opinion of what should happen to these charlatans.
- avs733 7y agoOh nonsense....he correctly noted that a person with no medical training was trying to use fear and political motivations to get followers to do things that put them in physical danger. That is not an opinion much less an extreme one.
- HarryHirsch 7y agoHere's somone running for public office in Clark County, Nevada trying to score points against AOC: https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/clark-county/coronavirus-tweets-from-ccsd-candidate-go-viral-1981380/ https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/c... That's kind of problematic. The population in New York City is much denser than in Las Vegas and the number of infected much higher, consequently you might need a lockdown in NYC while in suburban Las Vegas everyone can just retreat into their McMansion on Cobblestone Court Road and watch Foxnews for two weeks. As a politician you can angle for votes by mocking the healthcare system in Lombardy, one of the best in the world, because your local hospital won't be hit quite as hard, while the healthcare personnel on the frontlines risks infection with coronavirus. The free-rider problem in politics in unsolved, it seems.
- blhack 7y agoWho is saying this?
- tomrod 7y agoSunday morning TV show, Fox News, Devin Nunes. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/its-a-great-time-to-go-out-california-republican-devin-nunes-talks-about-life-amid-the-coronavirus-pandemic-2020-03-15 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/its-a-great-time-to-go-out...
- iagovar 7y agoThis is exactly how it happened in Spain. Please guys, consider it, most media is just nonsense, people pretending to have knowledge about stuff they don't know shit about. Most of you here are smart enough to know what's an exponential, logit and even run your own SIR model. You'll be in a situation where people will die by contagion of other people who isn't even aware they are infected. You might infect your loved ones. If you don't lock down now, it will be bad.
- kaoD 7y agoSpaniard here. I'm not looking forward to the >2 months I expect of lockdown but it is what it is. Why is everyone so cocky? It will happen to your country too, just like it happened to us other countries.
- inferiorhuman 7y agoWithin my social circle it's not about being cocky it's about survival. Lots of them are living paycheck to paycheck. While San Francisco has moved to block evictions and the state is working to protect mortgage holders and tenants, there are other bills to pay. A degree of separation or two and then we get the anti-vaxxers and maga tards and other mentally deficient folks who think the CDC is just putting out a giant hoax. Edit: And if you look around HN you'll see plenty of horrific medical and dietary advice in general and so SARS-COV-2 is no exception. My favorite was the one guy promoting smoking and blood pressure meds as a way to stave off a coronavirus infection. Some people you just can't help.
- wolco 7y agoThe people who distrust the CDC likely have been preparing for years.
- joe_the_user 7y agoThis post (it's parents)! The US already moving that way in baby steps but things will certainly get there. That it isn't there already is already bad but I can't see this taking more than a few more days.
- xenospn 7y agoThis is a rather evil thought, but it's entirely possible that thousands of people in battleground states who watch Fox News continue their daily routines, catch the virus, die or are unable to vote, and then the same people who encouraged them to go out end up losing in November.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- pmoriarty 7y agoNo incumbent President has lost reelection in wartime, and this crisis has many similarities. Trump has also shown a remarkable ability to overcome crisis after crisis, and his Republican supporters don't seem to show any sign that they are losing confidence in him. Furthermore, it's densely populated cities which are the most likely to suffer casualties, and cities tend to vote more Democratic. On the other hand, Florida (a key battleground state) has a lot of older people and tends to lean Republican, as do older people on the whole. Trump also doesn't seem to have the most inspiring Democratic opponent in the form of Biden. On the other hand Trump has himself been abysmally unpopular. Something else to consider is that all the Presidential candidates and the President himself are old enough to be in the high risk category for succumbing to this illness, so it's quite possible that one or more of them won't even make it to November, which would throw the election in to chaos. On the balance, both parties have their work cut out for them if they want to win in November. It could go either way.
- thatcat 7y agoThere is no war and the vulnerable demographic is the elderly who are all housed in group assisted living, but whatever.
- crooked-v 7y agoAs morbid as it is to consider, one must note that about 3% of total fatalities from the virus are people 60 and under, while about 97% are people 60 and older. Or, to put it another way, somebody 60 and under who catches it has about a 0.06% chance of dying, while somebody over 60 has about a 1.94% chance of dying. Of course, this is before considering the effects of overloaded hospitals, which would be likely to skew those numbers, as younger people would have a better chance of surviving without proper medical care than older people.
- tomrod 7y agoIn a just society this would be grounds for negligence.
- ohazi 7y agoOlder Republicans are the ones spewing and buying into this crap, which is not surprising, since that's where a lot of the "you'll pry my liberty from my cold dead fingers" attitude resides. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/14/older-americans-are-more-worried-about-coronavirus-unless-theyre-republican/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/14/older-ame...
- sheeshkebab 7y agoI’m not an “older republican” but having been through post 9/11 changes, I am too of a similar opinion.
- freehunter 7y agoThe answer cannot be a choice between “lose all your freedoms forever” or “the virus kills a million Americans”.
- crooked-v 7y agoProbably closer to several million if stricter measures aren't taken, because the severe cases will overload hospitals and there won't be enough ventilation equipment and doctors to go around.
- rorykoehler 7y agoYou have the freedom to take personal responsibility in a time of crisis. Despite the zeitgeist freedom doesn't have to be all about being dangerously selfish.
- ramblerman 7y agoTrusting people to take personal responsibility and act appropriately has failed in every country so far. Even Switzerland. Do you believe the US is special in this regard?
- 7y ago
- threatofrain 7y agoHere's California Representative Devin Nunes on healthy families visiting restaurants to help local economy: https://thehill.com/homenews/house/487666-nunes-urges-americans-to-stop-panicking-its-a-great-time-to-just-go-out-if https://thehill.com/homenews/house/487666-nunes-urges-americ...
- madez 7y agoWho knew? Electing badly can have bad outcomes.
- caseysoftware 7y agoThe Mayor of Austin and other City officials were still encouraging people to go out to clubs and restaurants after they canceled SXSW. Stupid has no party.
- x0x0 7y agoI kind of get it. This is going to devastate cafes, bars, clubs, restaurants, and tons of other small businesses. Hell, I doubt our dog boarding place will survive. Until our government steps up and promises replacement dollars, mayors and even governors are in between a rock and a really hard place. These small businesses rarely have a spare 1-2 months of rent, let alone payroll, sitting around.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- hn_throwaway_99 7y agoTo be fair, that was a week ago, at a time when there were no confirmed cases in Austin. The mayor has completely changed his tune: https://www.kxan.com/news/coronavirus/full-interview-mayor-adler-on-coronavirus-in-austin-and-his-advice-to-austinites/ https://www.kxan.com/news/coronavirus/full-interview-mayor-a... You may say stupid has no party, but the hallmark of stupid is trying to pretend reality doesn't exist so that it fits whatever you said (sharpie'ing out the exponential growth curves won't cut it this time), instead of admitting you were wrong and changing as the facts require.
- caseysoftware 7y agoFrom that interview, sounds like he's set a headcount but otherwise still wants people to go out: "We are not saying you shouldn’t go to restaurants, but we certainly don’t want any restaurants with more than 250 people, we have ordered that. If you are in a restaurant, try not to be on top of other people, increase the social distancing, social separation."
- friendlybus 7y agoThe French yellow vests are still rioting saying this is a move by the capitalists to lower stock values so they can buy in cheap. Honestly it does seem to have a lot of blatantly manufactured steps added on top of a normal health situation. Australia has implemented a 50k fine for people who break curfew. When did 1984 become reality for the public? This is not the stiff upper lip, we don't give our lifestyle away to foreign threats, classic western attitude. This is blatant politicking for a police state off the back of dead people. Nobody wants to live like this and sometimes you have to choose for yourself.
- fragsworth 7y agoI predict that in less than 3 weeks, most people like you will have changed your minds. When the time comes (and it will), please look back at how selfish you sounded here.
- friendlybus 7y agoThere are more ways to deal with this crisis than are being implemented. A desire to live outside of lockdown is not synonymous with selfishness, even if that were my motive.