Virus thread, the political one.

[thollandpe]

I am working this week again and can report higher loads than a month ago. Still far less than full and our schedules have been reduced by 60+%. So business is massively reduced over a year ago. Still carrying way more freight than usual. This is my first time flying in nearly a month. Coast to coast today via Denver.

Airports are very spartan with greatly reduced food options. Boarding is very different as well. Passengers and crew members as well as ground staff are required to wear masks. There is resistance but my company will not allow people to board without them.

This is imperfect but my industry employs hundreds of thousands of professionals and the industry will die if not allowed to operate at least at reduced levels. 9/11 was a huge disruption but this situation dwarfs that.

We will see what happens going forward. I am dismayed by the people who still think this is a joke or a hoax, and they’re out there. But I am encouraged by the overwhelming majority of people practicing common sense and complying with the new norms. Hopefully we can return to some kind of normal again someday.

Saab, air traffic in my neighborhood is almost entirely C-5's. Have not seen one overhead since mid-March, just the occasional C-130. Started seeing C-5's again today, and just heard one overhead. That gives me some hope, that the USAF is confident enough that procedures are in place that they can start putting those birds in the air again.

[guido]

Trump Is a Superspreader—of Distraction | The New Yorker

"A couple of months ago, in the early days of the Great Shutdown, Republicans complained that Democrats’ impeachment of Donald Trump had distracted the President from taking more aggressive action to counter the spread of the coronavirus. Trump’s Senate trial, they pointed out, began in January, just as COVID-19 was making its way out of China and the President was receiving his first briefings about it. “I think it diverted the attention of the government because everything every day was all about impeachment,” the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, told the radio host Hugh Hewitt in late March. Trump, when asked about McConnell’s comments at the time, first denied that he was distracted before allowing that the Senate trial “probably” did divert him. After all, he deadpanned, “I certainly devoted a little time to thinking about it.” The public did not buy the impeachment defense, however. Polls since then have shown that a majority of Americans hold Trump himself accountable for America’s halting, uncertain reaction to the pandemic. His belated response is all the more striking given a new model from epidemiologists at Columbia University, released this week, showing that tens of thousands of American lives might have been saved if major cities had closed down even one week earlier in March.

It’s no wonder that Trump and the Republicans are the ones trying to use impeachment as a distraction now. In recent days, the Republican-controlled Senate has not considered any major legislation related to the virus and the historic havoc it has wrought on the country’s public health and economy. Nor does it have any current plans to do so, leaving the fate of a three-trillion-dollar relief measure passed by the Democratic-controlled House last Friday uncertain. Meanwhile, a Senate Judiciary subcommittee voted along party lines to issue a subpoena that seeks to resurrect one of Trump’s main impeachment deflections—the canard that his scheme to extort Ukraine into investigating his election rival, Joe Biden, was based on criminal wrongdoing by Biden when his son Hunter was a board member at the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. At the same time, Trump, has continued his systematic post-impeachment purge of independent watchdogs across the federal government. When Trump fired the State Department’s inspector general, late last Friday, it was the fifth time an inspector general had been pushed out since the Senate trial ended, in early February. After Mitt Romney, the lone Senate Republican to vote in favor of Trump’s conviction at the trial, criticized the firing, Trump hit back with a trademark tweet. “Loser,” the tweet said, attached to a video revisiting Romney’s defeat in the 2012 Presidential election."

[theflashunc]

Meanwhile, Montgomery, Alabama ICUs are full up. They're sending patients to Birmingham. This is far from over, despite the Administration wanting to pretend it's all done.

With just one ICU bed available, Montgomery, Alabama, is sending sick patients to Birmingham - CNN

[Mabouya]

Meanwhile, Montgomery, Alabama ICUs are full up. They're sending patients to Birmingham. This is far from over, despite the Administration wanting to pretend it's all done.

With just one ICU bed available, Montgomery, Alabama, is sending sick patients to Birmingham - CNN

Send them all home, they can't be sick with some fake disease. Most are probably crisis actors anyway.

[BBB]

Meanwhile, Montgomery, Alabama ICUs are full up. They're sending patients to Birmingham. This is far from over, despite the Administration wanting to pretend it's all done.

With just one ICU bed available, Montgomery, Alabama, is sending sick patients to Birmingham - CNN

It's a bit like the Lenny Kravitz song.

In Australia there is some concern about lifting the restrictions (see link below) and there's even a spat between states about borders being closed.

Coronavirus Australia: COVID-19 restrictions relaxing keeps Australians wary, survey finds

And this is in circumstances where Australia is coming through this thing in much better shape than the US (100 dead versus almost 100,000).

While the push to re-open is being led by Trump for reasons that have nothing to deal with the health and well-being of the people, it seems hard to fathom when the virus is still spreading. Are regional areas equipped and ready for an upswing? If Australians have some concerns, surely people in the US should be sh*tting themselves?

[theflashunc]

It's a bit like the Lenny Kravitz song.

In Australia there is some concern about lifting the restrictions (see link below) and there's even a spat between states about borders being closed.

Coronavirus Australia: COVID-19 restrictions relaxing keeps Australians wary, survey finds

And this is in circumstances where Australia is coming through this thing in much better shape than the US (100 dead versus almost 100,000).

While the push to re-open is being led by Trump for reasons that have nothing to deal with the health and well-being of the people, it seems hard to fathom when the virus is still spreading. Are regional areas equipped and ready for an upswing? If Australians have some concerns, surely people in the US should be sh*tting themselves?

Some are. But a recent poll shows 61% of Republicans want nonessential businesses reopened immediately. The President has politicized the entire public health response to this thing. So no, some people aren't scared, and they may end up dead as a result.

[Matthew Strongin]

Some are. But a recent poll shows 61% of Republicans want nonessential businesses reopened immediately. The President has politicized the entire public health response to this thing. So no, some people aren't scared, and they may end up dead as a result.

Not to mention all the people who need to open those nonessential businesses against their better judgement and own fears and who will be exposed needlessly.

[ides1056]

The right-to-life party has no interest in anyone's lives but their own.

I wear a mask because I don't want to infect someone else. Their lives matter.

[htwoopup]

Bonnie Henry, the medical chief in British Columbia, made a statement the other day....and perhaps this belongs in the other thread not the political one although the politics are about forgetting history and repeating it....”There has never been a pandemic in recorded history that did not have a second wave.”

[HorsCat]

"Trump wears lifts in his shoes, a girdle, Depends, a fake tan and a dead ferret on his head while standing like a drunk centaur as he tours the Ford factory. But he won't wear a mask because he thinks it would make him look stupid."
- Some anonymous guy on Twitter

Even the Depends part of the quote is plausible with this turd.

[caleb]

Does anyone know how the Federal government plans to treat benefits for businesses that can legally reopen but decline to do so? For example, will that business still be able to access the Paycheck Protection Program, and/or any other small business support? Will an owner of a business that declines to reopen remain eligible for the $600 bump in personal unemployment from the CARES Act?

I'm sure base unemployment insurance will vary by state, but I'm curious how much pressure the Federal government is putting on businesses to open their doors, even if they'd rather sit tight for now.

[sine]

We will see what happens going forward. I am dismayed by the people who still think this is a joke or a hoax, and they’re out there. But I am encouraged by the overwhelming majority of people practicing common sense and complying with the new norms. Hopefully we can return to some kind of normal again someday.

We have friends who traveled last week visiting families and they reported that everyone was civil and all wearing masks. Planes were pretty full....as full as can be expected with today's limitations.

I'm hoping that the USA/Canada border will reopen late next month with flights resuming shortly after that.....albiet Ontario's rising covid19 cases needs watching.

[thollandpe]

Truth can be stranger than fiction. Funnier, too.

[lumpy]

Re that above: The kids are alright.

[Sbti]

Relax folks, it's all over! American deaths "limited" to 100,000 so he's golfing today. Everything is back to normal including him attending church tomorrow since he declared it essential.

[robin3mj]

Relax folks, it's all over! American deaths "limited" to 100,000 so he's golfing today. Everything is back to normal including him attending church tomorrow since he declared it essential.

I saw three of the Marine One helicopters fly over the house this morning which tends to indicate the orange grifter is on the move. Figured it was to another mask factory or similar.

Nope. Golf.
At one of his own properties. On the taxpayers dime. At least there’s no pandemic and unemployment is at an all time low.

[beeatnik]

Golf courses around here opened two weeks ago. I'm a No Masker in Public but the optics of that decision were a head scratcher.

Anyway, if thoughtfully considered, how is golfing any different than riding a bike. It may be a smarter decision, actually. It's more zen. If my golf skills matched my cycling talent, I'd still be golfing. Probably scratch. 12 hours. Every weekend.

[ides1056]

let them eat my divots

[caleb]

Stranger than fiction.

[beeatnik]

^que es eso?