[conspire] Let's look at fluview
Ruben Safir
ruben at mrbrklyn.com
Tue Apr 28 22:29:10 PDT 2020
On Tue, Apr 28, 2020 at 04:02:04PM -0700, Deirdre Saoirse Moen wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 28, 2020, at 10:18 AM, Ruben Safir wrote:
> > Almost as if one cue, our department is in the news today
> >
> > https://nypost.com/2020/04/27/ive-worked-the-coronavirus-front-line-and-i-say-its-time-to-start-opening-up/
> >
> > Ive worked the coronavirus front line and I say its time to start
> > opening up
>
> With respect, just because y'all were hit hardest and one of the first doesn't mean that you were hit *last*. There are places that haven't been hit at all yet, or at least not apparently.
>
> Because until there are zero active global cases or a working vaccine with a real vaccination plan, it's not safe to open up. I am *truly* hopeful we'll have a proper vaccine soon. I have just seen bad science happen on this before, some of it foisted off on the third world. Unfortunately.
>
> On fishing, I agree with you, and one place I used to enjoy a lot was the calm spot near the covered bridge two doors down from where I lived on an unpaved road in Vermont. (Most roads in Vermont are unpaved simply and only because it's a total PITA to pave them and actually more costly and unsafe to do so than to leave them unpaved and level them well.)
>
> Here's a view of the area we used to take a canoe and fish:
>
> https://www.google.com/maps/@44.956199,-72.3930312,3a,75y,223.29h,64.72t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s9b0CjmGFy8f6RBDeHOzKng!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
>
> Place we used to live (this was not the place north of the Canadian border, which has been torn down):
>
> https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9591115,-72.389837,3a,75y,310.04h,80.52t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sgZkSKQOCfcHzdE27EMrcRA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
>
> My old wood shop:
>
> https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9592318,-72.389783,3a,75y,142.06h,79.32t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sd2ByTLfBoU_l7_VA2_sc7Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
>
> They seem to have removed the old corrugated steel siding, which is a shame because bats used to nest in it during the summer. I figured that out when they used to chew me out when I tried to use power tools during the day. In winter, they'd actually migrate further south, so it wasn't a problem.
>
> If you look at a vertical view, you'll see the land behind is dark green, aka swamp. Lots of beavers and moose (moose are swamp creatures, which I had not known). We'd get a lot of them walking through our property because the power line right-of-way went through.
>
> So, this virtual fishing visit hopefully helped a wee bit in this stir crazy time.
>
> Deirdre
>
I appreciate it, but my freedom is the only thing that will help.
That and clean sweep of all the polticians that caused this, Cuomo,
Newsom, Schumer, Murphy, DeBalsio, Pelosi, Biden ... they are all guilty of
creating uncalled for hysteria, and destroying the fabric of our
civilization.
And now that they have this new power, they are not going to give
it up. I am looking forward to NY to actually run out of money.
This is not a war. It is a disease.
The questions that need to be answered are not science, they are
moral. How long can people be jailed in there homes for? Why is it
that this response has NEVER been attempted before EVER anywhere?
https://nypost.com/2020/04/26/wait-how-long-are-we-supposed-to-stay-in-lockdown/
Wait, how long are we supposed to stay in lockdown?
What are we waiting for? The question can be posed in either a wild,
irresponsible way — or a sane, measured way. In New York, our “pause”
will continue until at least May 15, and New Yorkers are asking, in a
measured, sane way: What exactly are we waiting for?
In the beginning, we had a goal: to flatten the curve. We were warned
that COVID-19 would overtake our hospitals and cause a health-system
collapse. We were to stay home to give our medical heroes a fighting
chance.
So we did, and thanks to the strength of our system, it worked. The
Javits Center never filled up; the USS Comfort is sailing away. Three
weeks ago, Gov. Andrew Cuomo was vowing to seize ventilators from
upstate hospitals and send them to Gotham. Last week, we were
dispatching our ventilators out to other states.
We did our part; we flattened the curve. So why is there no move to
loosen regulations?
In February and March, expert and elite opinion seemed to understand
that patience with lockdowns would at some point wear thin. But not
anymore. Last week, Cuomo used a graphic in his daily presentation that
listed the lengths of various wars and previous pandemics. The 1910
cholera outbreak lasted a year. World War II lasted six years. And so
on.
The message: We haven’t been living through this that long, and our
ancestors had it far worse. But if we are looking at years of lockdown,
we need to be informed of it, we need a debate — and we need a plan.
Otherwise, it isn’t relevant that the Vietnam War lasted eight years,
and the governor has to stop shaming us for looking for a light at the
end of this hell-tunnel.
It’s also becoming apparent that staying closed is some weird poke in
the eye to President Trump. Hyper-polarization means that if the
president wants to awaken the nation from its devastating economic coma,
it must mean that he and his cornpone followers are wrong. Smart people
— who tend to have lockdown-immune jobs in academe, government and media
— must know better, and they have a license to mock and demean.
But it isn’t true, as they say, that those of us who want a roadmap to
reopening play down the virus or minimize its deadliness. We lost a lot
in New York. We’ve watched our friends, family and neighbors succumb to
this horrible disease. We understand what’s at stake.
But there is life beyond COVID-19, too. There are pro-life concerns on
both sides. The pause has meant people are skipping cancer screenings.
The lines at food pantries are scarily long. Last week, Cuomo admitted
that domestic violence is on the rise. “Very bad.” But, he added, it’s
“not death.” Maybe not yet. But these costs are very real, and they have
to be tallied.
No one sane is pushing to return to “normal.” Normal won’t be back for a
long time, and no one expects it to. If restaurants, bars or movie
theaters opened tomorrow, people still wouldn’t flock to them. We are
walking around in masks and sanitizing our groceries. We get it — we’re
far from normal. We just want to start on the road back. We want to know
the road exists.
It’s less that we need to know when this ends than we need to know how
it ends. Are we waiting for deaths to fall below a certain daily number?
What is that number? Are we waiting for hospitalizations to evaporate?
For better treatment? For a vaccine? Antibody tests? Herd immunity? New
Yorkers are tough, we can handle the truth.
But this uncertainty can’t last, or people will decide to leap into
irresponsibility. We need a plan, and we need it now.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I disagree with one point she makes... return to normal is exactly
where we need to be, and we need to be there like now. If they open
up theaters, people will go right back to them. Synaguages, without
a doubt.
We can not survive like this. Anyone who wants to be locked up in
there own house is free to do so.
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