I KNOW COVID-19 IS KILLING TENS OF THOUSANDS BUT I HAVE FEELINGS TOO
So yes, for the last week people have been out on the streets protesting for their right to leave their home any damn time they feel like it. Which was predictable, given that Trump, the GOP and Fox News have been going out of their way to encourage them.
So, to the bloggery:
1. Is it stupid and dangerous? Yes, very. We know this because (1) science and (2) history - we literally had this argument during the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, with lots of people deciding it was time to stop wearing masks and get back to work. It went badly for everyone.
That said, we’re lucky that the turnout for these things isn’t as big as certain news outlets might be making it look - at least so far - and it’s encouraging that most people don’t support the protests or lifting the stay-at-home orders too soon. Still, it doesn't take that many people to get a cluster going.
2. Is it staged? To an extent, yes. There’s plenty of evidence it’s the kind of astroturfed protests we used to see with the Tea Party rallies that preceded Trump (complete with Fox News promos). This is essentially Tea Party 2.0, only smaller, and this time it’s serving as a re-election campaign strategy for Trump (namely, ensuring voters blame Demo governors for PPE shortages, economic damage and the rising body count).
3. However, that’s not to say all of the people attending these protests are paid actors or don’t have real grievances. I mean, yes, much of it (possibly most of it) is conspiracy theories, liberty-posturing, terrible white-privilege analogies and unlimited refills. But I have seen interviews with a few protesters who said their real complaint is that they can’t work from home, their workplace/job has been deemed non-essential and they have no income as long as the stay-at-home orders are in place. Unemployment is sky-high and they have no idea if they're getting their jobs back, and they’re worried that they’re going to be in huge trouble financially if the lockdown continues.
I think that’s a legit worry - in fact, it’s probably evidence that one of the downsides of extended quarantine or lockdown is that it’s bad for you both psychologically and physically. This (along with the economic impact) is why a number of experts have said that while it’s going to take as long as 2022 to defeat COVID-19 with a vaccine or herd immunity, we can’t realistically stay on lockdown until then.
4. The problem is that we can't go back to business as usual, either. What we need is the right balance of social distancing and PPE - plus adequate testing capabilities - to allow businesses to open and for people to work safely or generally go outside to minimize the risk of starting new clusters and starting the whole process over again.
This can’t be done state by state - it requires a coordinated national strategy with strong leadership, as opposed to (say) a vindictive whimsical man-child grifter.
Unfortunately, that’s what we have.
5. On a related note, regarding the evangelical churches defying lockdown orders …
Like with the protests, most of it is the usual posturing and scoring political points in the fictional Liberal War On Christianity™, but some of it is reasonable - particularly small churches (with congregations of maybe 20-30 people on a good day) who think they should be exempted because they’re capable of maintaining sufficient social distancing and other precautions.
I do think that’s a fair point - on the other hand, I don’t know how enforceable it is, and of course everyone will want to be an exception to the rule, so a blanket lockdown is probably the most realistic policy, at least for now (for the reasons mentioned above).
Also, as a Christian, I get that fellowship and worship are meaningful. But I also think as Christians we should take all precautions to not spread a deadly virus around. This just seems obvious to me. But then here in HK, my church has been holding Zoom/YouTube services for over 10 weeks. So it’s a sacrifice we’re willing to make. We’re pretty sure Jesus is okay with it.
I should mention this is true for many churches in the US. It’s mainly the charismatic / evangelical megachurches who gleefully hooked their ministries to the Trump Crazy Train that have been refusing to cooperate and playing the “O look at the Atheist Deep State persecuting my Christian faith” card.
6. As for the politicians and pundits going on TV saying the economy is more important than living and if reopening businesses means 2% of the population has to die, that’s fine, two quick thoughts on that: (1) it would actually make the economy worse, and (2) I guarantee you the people who spout this line on TV are okay with it because they assume the death toll won’t include themselves, their loved ones or anyone of consequence, so who cares?
7. Anyway, it’s hard to be optimistic about this. Far too many people think COVID-19 is fake news, or they think it's real but overblown, and meanwhile the federal govt is hoarding PPE in an apparent bid to hold states for ransom, while Glorious Leader is using press briefings mainly as an excuse to gather the media in the room so he can work on his insult comedy stand-up routine.
I mean, I’m honestly not sure which is worse - that he actually believes that injecting yourself with Lysol while lying in a tanning booth will clear COVID-19 out of your system, or that he just says such things to pwn the libs and entertain his fans at a time when almost 60,000+ Americans are dead from this thing (which is a subset of 218,000 deaths globally) and counting.
Anyway, some states are already reopening, so I guess we’re going to find out the hard way if it’s a bad idea or not. If we’re lucky, enough people will keep washing their hands, wearing masks and social-distancing as much as possible when they go out. That will help. Let’s just hope it’s enough.
Catch the wave,
This is dF
POSTSCRIPT: If yr wondering, here in Hong Kong we’re doing surprisingly well. But we’re also an example of what happens when you get lax too early. We recorded our first case on Jan 24. Between then and mid-March we only had around 160 cases and four deaths. Then a new cluster emerged in Lan Kwai Fung (a popular club district) and in less than a month we shot up to 1,000 cases.
That’s now tapered off - we’re at 1,038 cases currently, and we’re at a point where we can actually go several days a week without a new case being reported. And we’re still only at four deaths total.
Still, be warned - lower your guard too early and you’re going to get hammered.
PRODUCTION NOTE: I have a lot of links for this post, but Dreamwidth isn't doing rich text, and I'm really not keen to write out all the html manually, so you'll just have to take my word for it. I'll repost this link-embedded version when Dreamwidth or my browser get their act together. This entry was originally posted at https://defrog.dreamwidth.org/1640687.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
So, to the bloggery:
1. Is it stupid and dangerous? Yes, very. We know this because (1) science and (2) history - we literally had this argument during the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, with lots of people deciding it was time to stop wearing masks and get back to work. It went badly for everyone.
That said, we’re lucky that the turnout for these things isn’t as big as certain news outlets might be making it look - at least so far - and it’s encouraging that most people don’t support the protests or lifting the stay-at-home orders too soon. Still, it doesn't take that many people to get a cluster going.
2. Is it staged? To an extent, yes. There’s plenty of evidence it’s the kind of astroturfed protests we used to see with the Tea Party rallies that preceded Trump (complete with Fox News promos). This is essentially Tea Party 2.0, only smaller, and this time it’s serving as a re-election campaign strategy for Trump (namely, ensuring voters blame Demo governors for PPE shortages, economic damage and the rising body count).
3. However, that’s not to say all of the people attending these protests are paid actors or don’t have real grievances. I mean, yes, much of it (possibly most of it) is conspiracy theories, liberty-posturing, terrible white-privilege analogies and unlimited refills. But I have seen interviews with a few protesters who said their real complaint is that they can’t work from home, their workplace/job has been deemed non-essential and they have no income as long as the stay-at-home orders are in place. Unemployment is sky-high and they have no idea if they're getting their jobs back, and they’re worried that they’re going to be in huge trouble financially if the lockdown continues.
I think that’s a legit worry - in fact, it’s probably evidence that one of the downsides of extended quarantine or lockdown is that it’s bad for you both psychologically and physically. This (along with the economic impact) is why a number of experts have said that while it’s going to take as long as 2022 to defeat COVID-19 with a vaccine or herd immunity, we can’t realistically stay on lockdown until then.
4. The problem is that we can't go back to business as usual, either. What we need is the right balance of social distancing and PPE - plus adequate testing capabilities - to allow businesses to open and for people to work safely or generally go outside to minimize the risk of starting new clusters and starting the whole process over again.
This can’t be done state by state - it requires a coordinated national strategy with strong leadership, as opposed to (say) a vindictive whimsical man-child grifter.
Unfortunately, that’s what we have.
5. On a related note, regarding the evangelical churches defying lockdown orders …
Like with the protests, most of it is the usual posturing and scoring political points in the fictional Liberal War On Christianity™, but some of it is reasonable - particularly small churches (with congregations of maybe 20-30 people on a good day) who think they should be exempted because they’re capable of maintaining sufficient social distancing and other precautions.
I do think that’s a fair point - on the other hand, I don’t know how enforceable it is, and of course everyone will want to be an exception to the rule, so a blanket lockdown is probably the most realistic policy, at least for now (for the reasons mentioned above).
Also, as a Christian, I get that fellowship and worship are meaningful. But I also think as Christians we should take all precautions to not spread a deadly virus around. This just seems obvious to me. But then here in HK, my church has been holding Zoom/YouTube services for over 10 weeks. So it’s a sacrifice we’re willing to make. We’re pretty sure Jesus is okay with it.
I should mention this is true for many churches in the US. It’s mainly the charismatic / evangelical megachurches who gleefully hooked their ministries to the Trump Crazy Train that have been refusing to cooperate and playing the “O look at the Atheist Deep State persecuting my Christian faith” card.
6. As for the politicians and pundits going on TV saying the economy is more important than living and if reopening businesses means 2% of the population has to die, that’s fine, two quick thoughts on that: (1) it would actually make the economy worse, and (2) I guarantee you the people who spout this line on TV are okay with it because they assume the death toll won’t include themselves, their loved ones or anyone of consequence, so who cares?
7. Anyway, it’s hard to be optimistic about this. Far too many people think COVID-19 is fake news, or they think it's real but overblown, and meanwhile the federal govt is hoarding PPE in an apparent bid to hold states for ransom, while Glorious Leader is using press briefings mainly as an excuse to gather the media in the room so he can work on his insult comedy stand-up routine.
I mean, I’m honestly not sure which is worse - that he actually believes that injecting yourself with Lysol while lying in a tanning booth will clear COVID-19 out of your system, or that he just says such things to pwn the libs and entertain his fans at a time when almost 60,000+ Americans are dead from this thing (which is a subset of 218,000 deaths globally) and counting.
Anyway, some states are already reopening, so I guess we’re going to find out the hard way if it’s a bad idea or not. If we’re lucky, enough people will keep washing their hands, wearing masks and social-distancing as much as possible when they go out. That will help. Let’s just hope it’s enough.
Catch the wave,
This is dF
POSTSCRIPT: If yr wondering, here in Hong Kong we’re doing surprisingly well. But we’re also an example of what happens when you get lax too early. We recorded our first case on Jan 24. Between then and mid-March we only had around 160 cases and four deaths. Then a new cluster emerged in Lan Kwai Fung (a popular club district) and in less than a month we shot up to 1,000 cases.
That’s now tapered off - we’re at 1,038 cases currently, and we’re at a point where we can actually go several days a week without a new case being reported. And we’re still only at four deaths total.
Still, be warned - lower your guard too early and you’re going to get hammered.
PRODUCTION NOTE: I have a lot of links for this post, but Dreamwidth isn't doing rich text, and I'm really not keen to write out all the html manually, so you'll just have to take my word for it. I'll repost this link-embedded version when Dreamwidth or my browser get their act together. This entry was originally posted at https://defrog.dreamwidth.org/1640687.html. Please comment there using OpenID.