Coronavirus - the new pandemic

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Have you seen the "protests"? they are not social distancing. They are wearing masks, but thats cuz their antifa

I lol'ed.

But really between peeing your pants to get businesses reopened and BLM I will be more sympathetic to the latter.

I'm in favor of the latter over the former, but I also believe that thousands, possibly even 10s of thousands will die from Covid-19 because of this. Especially because it's become self re-enforcing as the police respond to accusations of needless brutality and abuse of power by abusing their power to commit acts of needless brutality.

Well also it exacerbated tensions between demonstrators and government security. I don't know what to say really. I feel it's a gray area of progressive politics having to do with selective attention and prioritization, vaguely speaking of course. It's slightly fortunate that this is happening more on the tail end of the lockdown instead of in the middle or right before it started lol.

Really though I would like to know what happened differently across city governments to make the brutalization seemingly more prolific than in 2016.

The same thing that made hate crimes go up since 2016, Trump. While he has limited direct power (though he did roll back a number of Obama era executive orders that restricted police) he serves as a symbol of white power due to his open racism and willingness to go to bat for and under play the actions of white nationalists and other abusers of power. Remember this is a guy that was calling for the execution of the Central Park 5 in 2011, long after they had been acquitted and the real rapist put behind bars.

I guess time will tell on that one.

[Darth Wedgius]

Good news! Doctors have said that the BLM protests are safe and not a risk for spreading Covid 19.

Protests against lockdown are still considered a risk for spreading Covid 19, however.

I'd think this was a very PC virus, but it's hit black people harder. Maybe it just wants better PR.

Have you seen any of the pictures from these protests?
Reopen:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/signs-from-covid-19-reopen-protests-across

Police Brutality
https://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/protest-signs-from-black-lives-matter-protests

Those that protest against lock down made a point of not wearing masks, standing close together, and yelling at people in close quarters.

Current protests have people in masks and often (not often enough) standing apart from one another.

Beyond that, you do know that there is a functional difference between protesting, "I want a haircut" and protesting, "I don't want to be murdered by cops"? One is a stupid spoiled person who is actively endangering people for no good reason, the other is a person in danger and taking a risk of catching a disease hopefully compelling action to be taken to ensure their safety.

Doctors are able to identify the differences in these scenarios and speak out accordingly. To say nothing of the, "Jesus, look at how over equipped and over funded the cops are... Why am I wearing a garbage bag to treat patients right now?" factor, which is what must be going thru the heads of many-many doctors and healthcare professionals.

Which pictures did you select from the protests? I can select others.

https://media.graytvinc.com/images/stevens+point+blm+protest+6+7.jpg

And https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150427233401-16-baltimore-clashes-0427-exlarge-169.jpg

And here, as protesters beat a man, you can clearly see them not applying proper social distancing, and some are missing masks. That can't be good, right?

youtu.be/0gwb1VqqVLQ

As to different causes having different work, don't cherry pick. Besides the "I want a haircut" you also have people saying, "I want my job back." Or simply people who want liberty back, which I think a noble cause in and of itself.

As to the legitimacy of the protests, not wanting to be murdered by cops is a good one. However, such murder is pretty infrequent in the U.S. compared to other causes of death for black people in the U.S. Will exposing themselves to SARS-COV-2 really help?

Look at it this way: black kill whites in America far more frequently than whites kill blacks. If I started up a march saying, "Stop killing our people!", regardless of whether you agreed with it, would you agree with dismissing any SARS-COV-2 concerns? It's not the same situation, I'll grant you. Murder under color of authority seems especially heinous to me. But certainly not wanting to be murdered is a good and noble cause, right?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

So I was walking into Jamba Juice today and before entering was quick to put my mask on as it had slipped my mind. A man with his daughter saw me and said at me, "blessed be the lord, and he has said not that you must continue to wear your mask among him and his children." Now it's true that I wasn't wearing a mask before, but I wasn't conversing with anybody and I was maintaining social distancing standards, even though the ordinance has loosened a bit. But at this point I just had to reply, "sir, I'm sure you take this happening very seriously and that the lord has told you much about it. But myself, in my heart, with what I know, the lord didn't tell me that it's necessarily a good time to not be careful, so I'll listen to him closer for both of us maybe." At that point it looked like he didn't know what to say, as he nodded singly and went on his way.

[Rocketboy1313]

I have a feeling that you and I are on too different a spectrum to ever agree on this.
I don't know what evidence you would want, and I find your characterization of events unfolding to be inaccurate at best and tinged with bad faith.
However I will try to respond to things as best I can, and leave you with this overarching criticism, please proof read, I am not holding it against you in this instance, but frequent misspellings are unforced errors that give your opponent ammunition.

Which pictures did you select from the protests? I can select others.

https://media.graytvinc.com/images/stevens+point+blm+protest+6+7.jpg

And https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150427233401-16-baltimore-clashes-0427-exlarge-169.jpg

Why did you link to the images specifically and not the articles associated with them?
Also, I linked galleries, link more stuff, so as to illustrate a meaningful pattern of behavior, rather than two images that could be dismissed as outliers.

And here, as protesters beat a man, you can clearly see them not applying proper social distancing, and some are missing masks. That can't be good, right?

youtu.be/0gwb1VqqVLQ

Point taken, people should be wearing masks.... BUT, I am a little confused as to why you pivoted to the whole "beating a man" angle which is why I see your characterization of events as tinged with bad faith, as you are trying to shift the discussion toward bad characterization of the protesters rather than the Covid discussions.
Also:
Sky News? Where have I heard of that before? Oh, that is right, they were founded by Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News. Do you consider them a trustworthy source?
You don't find it a little suspicious that a clip which starts with complaining about "The Left" and then shows clips of violence without commentary beyond, "This doesn't look peaceful" might be a little suspect? And not just them re appropriating words like "Gas Lighting" to make it seem like protesters (of which there are many orders of magnitude more than the police) are out of control?
The police are a funded and regimented group, videos of their misconduct are to be held to a higher standard than the protesters. If you hear a news organization trying to characterize the protesters by their worst members, do keep in mind that they should be holding the police to a much higher standard.

As to different causes having different work, don't cherry pick. Besides the "I want a haircut" you also have people saying, "I want my job back." Or simply people who want liberty back, which I think a noble cause in and of itself.

No.
While "I want my job back" is an interesting position, considering it is not the government taking away jobs it is companies that furloughed or fired workers because of the shutdowns. If the protesters had wanted unemployment insurance to get them thru the disaster (and it is a disaster) I am all for that, but again, arguing for some abstract form of "liberty" during a pandemic is nonsense.
We live in a civilization that is in the midst of a plague, people need to stay home.

As to the legitimacy of the protests, not wanting to be murdered by cops is a good one. However, such murder is pretty infrequent in the U.S. compared to other causes of death for black people in the U.S. Will exposing themselves to SARS-COV-2 really help?

Look at it this way: black kill whites in America far more frequently than whites kill blacks. If I started up a march saying, "Stop killing our people!", regardless of whether you agreed with it, would you agree with dismissing any SARS-COV-2 concerns? It's not the same situation, I'll grant you. Murder under color of authority seems especially heinous to me. But certainly not wanting to be murdered is a good and noble cause, right?

First off, the blight of minorities in the United States is an interrelated one. You can't say, "Sure all the police murder is bad, but compared to the diabetes and obesity it isn't bad" and think that is a rational argument. Police violence and the myriad other systemic failures of the government in regard to minorities are all fruit of the same poison tree. Comparing murder rates with the "black kill whites" bullshit you listed is unsourced and also bullshit.

I don't expect you (and I am not going to) write some kind of peer reviewed paper on racial violence in America. And you probably do not have access to the online resources I do (I work at a university and can still search for articles) and I don't want to work for free changing your mind.

All I am saying is that there is a moral and functional difference between the current protests that are for racial justice in America, and those protests about people wanting to go back to sports bars during a pandemic. Doctors have rightly acknowledged the moral difference between these things, and I agree with them, only regretting that Covid will gain legs during this time... Not even because of the protesters, just because Americans are stupid and with all of the protests crowding up the news and head space, Covid is going to slip people's minds and they will go back to acting like nothing is wrong.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

So first off, we have the wikipedia defined demographic concentration of African Americans coming to 12% of the total population, compared to whites being at 73%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity

Then the first statistic I found on Google had 2020 fatal police shootings at 88 for black and 172 for whites, so about 1/2 as much despite having 1/6 times the population.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/

[Robovski]

See, the point Darth is making is that viruses don't care about your politics, and on a matter of health your politics should not matter. This is a way you can wear out the authority of experts so that people no longer recognize their authority as they are no longer seen as the experts on the matter and telling the facts, but instead are telling the approved Truth(tm) and rubber stamping what some interested party wants them to say. Normally wearing out authority isn't that big of a deal as people maybe should pay less attention to teachers or politicians, but politicizing doctors has a detrimental effect on us all when it comes to plague.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

There is honestly so much shit going down I keep forgetting that we are ALSO in a pandemic. I wish my Governor had waited longer to declare a "green" zone in my city/county.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

See, the point Darth is making is that viruses don't care about your politics, and on a matter of health your politics should not matter. This is a way you can wear out the authority of experts so that people no longer recognize their authority as they are no longer seen as the experts on the matter and telling the facts, but instead are telling the approved Truth(tm) and rubber stamping what some interested party wants them to say. Normally wearing out authority isn't that big of a deal as people maybe should pay less attention to teachers or politicians, but politicizing doctors has a detrimental effect on us all when it comes to plague.

Like the borg virus.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

Rightly or wrongly, the perceived credibility of certain public health experts is going to take a hit, to the point that if/when a second wave comes, I don't know that a lockdown will be possible.

To be honest, I think some medical professional screwed up by jumping in with these protests with both feet. Don't get me wrong, it's perfectly valid to argue that protesting here is too fundamental and important, so that in a cost-benefit analysis you come down on the side of go ahead and do it. But people turn to medical experts for where their expertise actually lies. Banal justifications like "Racism is the real virus!" and explicitly singling out what protest is or is not valid creates the perception that their advice is political rather than scientific. I don't think it helps that so many downplay the effect the lockdown can have on people. Sure, maybe some people just wanted a sandwich or a haircut. But anyone who lose a job or a business, or was unable to attend a loved one's funeral, is going to be rightfully outraged if they're given the "you just want a haircut" spiel.

Although the stories on the coronavirus have changed so many times over the past few months that some decline in trust was probably inevitable, unfortunately. The media's habit of using generally shoddy headlines that misconstrue what experts are actually saying doesn't help.

So first off, we have the wikipedia defined demographic concentration of African Americans coming to 12% of the total population, compared to whites being at 73%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity

Then the first statistic I found on Google had 2020 fatal police shootings at 88 for black and 172 for whites, so about 1/2 as much despite having 1/6 times the population.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/

Here's an interesting one if you want to dive a bit into more substantive numbers and analysis- https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/empirical_analysis_tables_figures.pdf

A number of caveats can be made (including that not all figures are national), but to summarize- blacks and Hispanics are much more likely to have police interactions where non-lethal force is used, but there was no racial disparity found when it comes to officer-related shootings. Many would find that somewhat surprising, but for what it's worth that is consistent with the other studies I've seen (not claiming to be an expert or to have read them all).

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

So first off, we have the wikipedia defined demographic concentration of African Americans coming to 12% of the total population, compared to whites being at 73%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity

Then the first statistic I found on Google had 2020 fatal police shootings at 88 for black and 172 for whites, so about 1/2 as much despite having 1/6 times the population.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/

Here's an interesting one if you want to dive a bit into more substantive numbers and analysis- https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/empirical_analysis_tables_figures.pdf

A number of caveats can be made (including that not all figures are national), but to summarize- blacks and Hispanics are much more likely to have police interactions where non-lethal force is used, but there was no racial disparity found when it comes to officer-related shootings. Many would find that somewhat surprising, but for what it's worth that is consistent with the other studies I've seen (not claiming to be an expert or to have read them all).

To tell you the truth, my mind was kind of fixed on gun related fatalities without realizing this whole thing now didn't involve a gun. For the most part I was a bit confused about the article and kept feeling it leaves something to be desired as far as police firearm fatalities, but yeah if you look at police encounters in general I find this to be very significant.

The hostile level of interaction for otherwise generic issues is much thicker with a wider window for mistreatment in exclusive manner. I would I guess think that police firearm fatalities would somehow be included in the indifference pool that they swim around for more serious of force uses.