Coronavirus - the new pandemic

[Captain Crimson]

It's not hard to see why he's doing this, since Ms. Abrams would be the successor to Mr. Biden in possibly five to seven years. That, and he has a general habit in going for the jugular to all his opponents. He's a bully, and yet somehow people think that's a successful businessmen? I will say it's sad when his mocking nickname for Mr. Biden is actually on-point, given how often Mr. Biden rambles and looks to be half-there.

[clearspira]

First, personal liberty is important to a lot of Americans in a way that many on the left just don't get.

Most people don't want to open up the economy so that they can get a haircut. Though haircuts were important to Lori Lightfoot. Hey, who am I to judge? But what about the person giving the haircuts? A

Small businesses are closing that may never re-open, while Amazon and Walmart do OK. I've been eating more local take-out than ever before trying to help keep local eateries going. And you can't just keep power on and food coming forever.

Many US states are seeing lower rates of infection after ending the lockdown.
[url]https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8347901/US-states-LOWER-infection-rates-lockdowns-end-study-claims.html[/url] There's a long incubation period for this bug, so I'm taking a wait-and-see approach.

If some people think we can keep the most vulnerable isolated and are willing to take a chance on their own health, that's not necessarily wrong. Maybe some urban areas may need to stay locked down for a while (if it is helping), but outside of the urban areas we seem to be weathering the storm pretty well. Field hospitals set up for Covid 19 have closed down, and most didn't treat a single patient.

Your government seemed not to appreciate that the US is gigantic. Some parts of it is wide open desert or trees as far as the eye can see with barely a man in it. Other parts are so dense that it is shoulder to shoulder most of the day. Locking down those states where sheer geography means that you will never see another person for days was ridiculous. But the lockdown in places like New York was VITAL.

My personal opinion is that Teflon Trump, the man who has weathered every scandal like teardrops in the rain, has been hard hit by Covid-19. People can throw out excuses to defend him, but examples like advising people to drink bleach, his preoccupation with a malaria drug that has no proven anti-Covid ability whatsoever, the uneven lockdown, and his late reaction to the crisis has all left dents. That said, counting him out is foolish. Let us not forget how few believed that he would win the first time around and he now has the Chinese as a convenient foil to rally his voters. And frankly Biden and the other guy (the old man, I forget his name) do not seem to have capitalized on the opportunities for point scoring that Covid-19 has given them.

I tend to agree with most of that (except he didn't tell anyone to drink bleach, of course) and I don't know that he's been hit hard by it. Japan seems to have done well with minimal lockdown, and people are still scratching their heads over that one.

I do think Trump is vulnerable on Covid 19, Biden's trying, with mixed results ( https://www.statesman.com/news/20200421/fact-checking-joe-biden-on-donald-trump-coronavirus ). But if he keeps shooting himself in the foot (e.g., "you ain't black"), he will fritter away the opportunity.

It is thought that because the Japanese have a very hierarchical society, when their government said "please social distance and wash your hands" literally most of them did. Whereas in the West we were like, "Freedom! I ain't no one's bitch!!" Right up until thousands of people were dropping dead and thus stronger measures were required.

I am a Boris supporter but I can admit that when he tried the Japanese approach pre-lockdown that shit was never going to wash with the British. We were always going to have to barricade the doors.

Going back to your original comment regarding how much the Americans love freedom, it's the same in Britain. It takes a different course, our gun culture is nil for example, but it is the same thing.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Nearly half of some 200 million tweets about COVID-19 likely came from bots, with many of them plugging false cures, peddling conspiracy theories and clamoring for the U.S. to drop safety measures in order to re-open America, researchers have found.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/carnegie-mellon-covid-19-twitter-bots-research_n_5ec9e47bc5b64085c39ba7d0

[Captain Crimson]

Why is it leftists always turn to bots? Not saying it's wrong, but you got this and the Russian bots of 2016.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Why is it leftists always turn to bots? Not saying it's wrong,

Yes, you are. Own your words or keep them to yourself. Stop playing the coy devil's advocate.

[Captain Crimson]

Why is it leftists always turn to bots? Not saying it's wrong,

Yes, you are. Own your words or keep them to yourself. Stop playing the coy devil's advocate.

Bot interference, while a concern, seems as nonsensical as saying the DNC was using the voter rolls of millions of dead people or illegal immigrants, which I've seen them hurl at the other side.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

"Seems". Either it's real, or it isn't. Stop hedging your bets and couching non-opinions in fence-sitting noncommittal false neutrality.

If it is bots, then it's important because it means somebody is mass-producing medical disinformation in the midst of a pandemic, which gets people killed.

[GreyICE]

Why is it leftists always turn to bots? Not saying it's wrong, but you got this and the Russian bots of 2016.

Honestly, take a moment to think about it. Look at the information. Judge if it's true.

If it's true, why are there facts that you don't want to know? Are these "dangerous facts"?

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Clearspira, you really should have expected no better from your pal Boris, considering he thinks the evil mayor in Jaws is the hero of the story https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/mar/13/boris-johnson-coronavirus-hero-mayor-larry-vaughn-jaws

[clearspira]

Clearspira, you really should have expected no better from your pal Boris, considering he thinks the evil mayor in Jaws is the hero of the story https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/mar/13/boris-johnson-coronavirus-hero-mayor-larry-vaughn-jaws

Yeah... That did come back to bite him rather.