HIC, I don't think anyone is "responsible" for me. I am over 60, have had cancer, and have asthma. I want to go to Whataburger, HEB, Kroger, Walgreens, to eat Mexican food. I wear a mask that I hate out of respect for others. I live in Houston, where our testing centers are a textbook for political corruption, thus I have not been tested, but neither have over 23 million other Texans and nearly 250 million Americans. I will only get tested when I am forced to and/or when the testing center meets my professional standards, and that does not mean Catholic Healthcare Incompetence, which manages UT's local hospitals including MD Anderson. Will there be a vaccine? Sure, when big pharma is ready and can overcharge for it. I won't break my neck to get to it unless Mayo or John's Hopkins or Southwestern says, "do it".
I think there is room to disagree on this Will. I agree that the lockdowns are worse than the mask mandates. If I had to choose one I would choose the masks. I just think both decisions should be left to private property owners and customers. The government doesn't have to involve themselves in this. Plus there have been case studies done over the last several months showing that there is no reliable evidence that masks prevent infection. There are multiple actually that do time series plots comparing mask mandates to new case reports. No correlation. If we are following science, in this instance empirical studies, then mask mandates should be removed. I still support individuals making their own rules and property owners making their own rules, but society wide mandates don't hold up to scientific scrutiny. In addition to that they are dehumanizing. We identify people by their faces. Covering them up covers our identity. Forcing society to cover their faces leads to a decrease in our recognizing others personally. We turn into faceless drones walking around stores. That is not how you build a community. It is how you tear down a community. Maybe it is a minor factor. I agree with that, but simple things like our mentality on a subject or our sense of a situation can lead to more significant decisions and actions down the road.
Either the mom and daughter had minor cases or the dad had pre-existing immunity from cold virus. Viral load is highly determinative for being infected when exposed and also for how serious of a case you got.
People don't have to go to the grocery store anymore either. You can order food from the grocery online and either pick it up in your car or have it delivered to your house. There is no excuse to force healthy people into strict rules for the protection of the elderly. Protect the elderly and leave everyone else alone.
Find it strange that Texas tested 500,000 in March, April and May, then 4.5 million in June, July and August, and the ratios remained the same, that being percentage of positives and percentage of deaths, although we will never know who was truly a covid death and who was a motorcycle death.
Truth about government right here. Sorry, this is long. My daughter is in school in Trinidad, Co. The school was told point blank the kids are not allowed to socialize at all on campus nor off campus because Las Animas county has had almost no covid and they didnt want kids from all over the country to bring covid to them. So when she arrived she had to test before being allowed on campus then had to quarantine for two weeks before being allowed to leave her dorm. Fast forward a month. My daughter is homesick and still not allowed to socialize on campus and only allowed to leave campus for "necessary things" like supplies from the local wal-mart. She only gets to go to two classes on campus with the rest online and go to and from softball practices then back to her dorm. She calls us crying every other day saying how lonely she is. Fast forward one more week to this weekend. We arrive in Trinidad to visit her because shes having such a hard time and wants to come home. We found out this morning that on Thursday her and her entire team decide to go to a party because they are sick of being held like prisoners and the school finds out. It's like they went out and mass murdered 20 people and are being put thru hell because they "put the school and entire community at risk" and we arent even allowed to see her. They are told not to leave their room for two week, threatened to be sent home for the rest of the semester, fall softball cancelled completely now, etc. We set up a meeting with the coach and athletic director for today. Trinidad is a very small town in Southern Colorado and has over 35 of what I call pot shops because it's on the border of New Mexico. While fuming before our meeting we drove around town and holy hell there were at least 15-20 people in line outside of every pot shop waiting to get in with almost no one wearing masks anywhere we went. So we decided to see who is in town and counted 26 different state license plates. You're telling me 24 students go to a party where everyone there has tested negative and its death to the city but literally thousands of pot heads from around the country decend on the city with no regard to any policy and it's ok? Yet the county has had almost no covid cases? Oh yeah.....tax dollars at work. I found out the little city of Trinidad accounts for about 10% of the entire states pot tax revenue. We raised these concerns along with my daughters depression and they seemed shocked except the athletic director agreed it is contradictory. We strongly suggested they figure something out to create ways for students to be able to socialize or I'm going to have a hard time trying to convince my daughter to go back after the Holidays and I'm sure we arent the only parents with the same problem. I sure hope they heard what we had to say. This is the most ridiculous crap I've ever seen.
The students should have frequent massive revolts on campus until they are kicked out or the school relents. Only force will work at this point. School policy is harming your daughter they shouldn't be allowed to do so anymore with at least a fight.
Update: Today the coach came and took their uniforms back saying no one is on his team and has to earn their spot back by January. He then took pictures of every players car location to make sure they don't move. This is ******* crazy ****. As of tonight I'm looking for a new home for her to play softball. She was so excited to play ball in the mountains and now she hates everything about this place. I would find it hilarious if the entire team leaves and he has no team come spring. How's he going to explain that to all the other coaches in the region.
Thanks. We certainly didn't expect this. We had a zoom meeting a month before arriving and what was described as expectations there is not whats going on.
They need to band together and push back on the coach. The coach won't get paid for long if there is no team. They need to figure out where they have leverage and push it. He has more to lose than they do. The team needs to act like it. Make the SOB look bad publicly somehow.
Take her home, enroll in community college and start school next year when the insanity is over. I don’t see how you can salvage anything at that school.
This authoritarian BS right here would be the deal-breaker for me with the coach and the school. Also a good message for your daughter here, I think: we don’t tolerate these dick moves from folks who have grossly overestimated their importance in the world. I’d invite him to F right off.
The shutdown is a scam San Francisco gym owners livid after discovering gyms in government buildings have been opened for months Gyms within government buildings in San Francisco have been open for months, despite privately owned establishments being ordered to close due to the coronavirus. “It’s shocking, it’s infuriating,” Daniele Rabkin, of Crossfit Golden Gate, told a local NBC station. “Even though they’re getting exposed, there are no repercussions, no ramifications? It’s shocking.” The gyms that have been open for government employees include those for police officers, judges, lawyers, bailiffs, and paralegals, according to the report. One such gym, the Hall of Justice gym, has been open since July 1. “It just demonstrates that there seems to be some kind of a double standard between what city employees are allowed to do and what the residents of San Francisco are allowed to do,” Dave Karraker, owner of MX3 Fitness in the Castro, said. “What the city has unwillingly done is created this great case study that says that working out indoors is actually safe,” said Karraker. “So, at this point, we’re just demanding that they allow us to have the same workout privileges for the citizens of San Francisco that the employees of San Francisco have.” The report comes after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was recorded in a San Francisco salon without a face mask, despite local orders mandating that such establishments be closed. “It was a slap in the face that she went in, you know, that she feels that she can just go and get her stuff done while no one else can go in, and I can’t work,” salon owner Erica Kious told Fox News last week of Pelosi. “We have been shut down for so long, not just me, but most of the small businesses, and I just can’t — it’s a feeling — a feeling of being deflated, helpless, and honestly, beaten down,” Kious said. Pelosi addressed the video after it was released, calling it a “setup” and demanding an apology. “I take responsibility for trusting the word of the neighborhood salon that I have been to many times,” Pelosi told reporters Wednesday. “When they said they could accommodate people one at a time, and we can set up that time, I trusted that.” “As it turns out, it was a setup. So I take responsibility for falling for a setup,” she added. “The salon owes me an apology for setting me up.”
"but I take no responsibility for my actions" I wonder if she thinks it's a setup when a white drug dealer sells drugs to a white undercover officer? The fact she committed the act is irrelevant, only that she got caught. If it had been Melania we would be hearing about it 24 hrs day on the MSM, and Nancy would be on record calling her out at every opportunity. Just as the black felon should take no responsibility for resisting arrest, only the officer for doing his job. The leaders of the Democratic Party absolutely believe they're above the law, hence the perfect name is the Hypocrisy party.
They honestly, I think, will try to sell to the public that their testing protocols and prevention methods are so far and above what we minions can do that it is safe for them to do what we are forbidden to do.
Very good point. I hate looking at another person and not being able to tell if they are smiling, frowning, or whatever. It is dehumanizing, you are right.
The Wuhan virus (proper name for it following the tradition of German measles, Rocky Mountain Spotted fever, Lymnes disease, Spanish flu, etc.) has lead to some bizarre policy decisions. Colleges desperately want students back on campus. Why you ask? Money of course. The make a huge amount off the dorms, and that's a sunk cost of upkeep regardless of if no one is living in them. Also, if they keep having students take classes online, soon no one will want to pay 75 grand a year to read some coursebooks and take a test online. So they want them back, but at the same time they've bought into the idea that the Wuhan virus is such a deadly threat to us all that everyone must basically be in quarantine, including the young and healthy who by percentage of deaths, make up a minuscule amount. This has to be the first disease in human history that 1. Basically only kills the old and weak, yet 2. Has resulted in the preferred policy to be lock everyone up in their house and shut and many businesses as is possible. Now in comparison, at the height of AIDS in the 80's, despite the recommendation of public health officials, gay bathhouses were not shut down in New York or San Fran, despite the nightly transmission of the virus there, as they were considered, by the gay community and thus the politicians who depend on them for money and votes, as an important part of the gay community and culture. We tend to go to the extremes, based on who it benefits politically, instead of saying "who does this most affect - let's focus on them".
It's political to undermine Trump or attempt to do so. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a moron, plan and simple.
Yeah, you have to think so. Economy humming along, sub 3% unemployment, no foreign wars, we'd have been talking as close to an 84 Reagan / Mondale whipping, down to having the old tired VP from the last administration running. I'd have more time for lock downs if: 1. They were shown to have any benefit, besides a short term avoidance of ER overloading (the whole flatten the curve idea, which was quickly replaced by lock-downs now, lock-downs forever). 2. All the same people - leftist politicians, celebrities, heath workers, who told you in May that you had to stay home for the good of us all or you'll kill people, didn't then switch at the drop of a dime and said no, it's OK to congregate in the streets by the thousands as long as your protests are in line with our political views. No protests against lock downs, those are racialist, but throw rocks and bottles at police. That's OK, and encouraged.
We are back to early June in terms of hospitalizations in the Houston region despite opening up. September will be key as many school systems start on-campus learning and college will be in full swing. Note positivity rate for Texas is approaching 5%. We should open stadiums to 50% when that happens.
How many of the Houston hospitalizations are actually covid and how many are political to get more funding? Considering the testing fiasco, this is a very legitimate question, which no one will be willing to answer.
Just went back to look again...and yeah, it WAS you who referenced ONE kid dying. That is going to be interpreted by ANYONE in the English-speaking world as wanting an action to prevent ONE death. And to THAT, many of the masses say NO WAY! SCREW YOUR MASK!
Cases now dropping nicely in AL, NC, SC, and IA for example after the college surge as shown in the table below:
