Coronavirus thread

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Great, now I've got Kraftwerk stuck in my head.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Things are looking real bad for the fascists in the states right now in the short-term. Not only are things looking atrocious for Trump's approval ratings with the 'second' wave of COVID-19, we haven't even seen the worst of it. It's quite possible that this will reach a threshold* where the deaths will start eating into Trump's base of support and shift the center of gravity of fascism for the next few electoral cycles.

Trump and his subalterns opening up public spaces prematurely for no other reason than 'Daddy Warbucks is dissatisfied at the 3rd Quarter's Projections, do something' goes to show that (currently) it's not the skinheads and jackboots running the Republican Party, it's the Scrooges and Waynes. I mean, we should've known that already when instead of going with Bannon's suggestion of economic nationalism Trump decided to go for a second round of looting. But it's still just breathtaking how the frontline fascists went along with their ACTUAL masters' orders to sabotage Trump's chances of winning just so they could pad their piggybanks a bit more. I know most fascists are right-wing authoritarian followers instead of social dominators, but goddamn it's a trip just watching how sheeplike and submissive they are.

* I'm aware that it's racial minorities that are being disproportionately hit, but they're already packed into areas where they overperform electorally. The Republicans can only barely hang onto power in a lot of states due to their breadth.

[Thaluikhain]

They'll just have to cheat harder then. Which I'm pretty sure was the plan anyway.

[MGuy]

It makes sense to me. Don't count the fascists out yet. I'm still not sure how voting is even going to be done in November and they are showing that they are completely willing and able to just say 'fuck your right to vote' and not face any punishment. Besides, the country isn't on the brink of ruin as long as there is still something to be looted. The looters have done amazingly well in Trump's era and are set up to be insured on our tax dollars for the foreseeable future with at worst minimum oversight. Then there's the election to consider. Trump is going to lose to Biden. Why would they worry about Trump's chances of losing? Why would they care about Trump? You've said yourself that because we're going to have Biden Republicans will just be taking back over 2 years into his administration.

I'm more saddened at the precedent this sets. That this virus is for one really scary for me personally. Then America's eagerness to get back to 'normal' in the face of the worst pandemic in our lifetime. How it seems that our democratic leadership doesn't seem poised to take any drastic moves I'd imagine would be absolutely necessary going forward if this shit persists. That's both with the virus and the republican's open hostility toward the little democracy we have left in this country.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I'm not counting out the fascists yet. I'll never make that mistake again after the Democrats under Obama went from a legislative supermajority to its lowest state in 80+ years. And Biden is no Obama.

What I am saying is that at least for the next election, the fascists are fucked. What's more, it didn't have to be that way. Trump has the GOP by the balls; if he decided that his survival was more important than pleasing the plutocrats he could've done so. I mean, fuck, there were a few weeks when people trusted Trump more than Biden to handle the pandemic.

And this is why the Democrats are never going to do anything useful or permanent against the fascists until it's way too late. Trump and the Bushes have just been too good for their electoral prospects. I mean, yeah, sometimes it means embarrassments like 2010 and 2014 but was anyone in the leadership punished for it? Did any of the Democratic leadership (aside from Hillary Clinton) face any personal or systemic consequences for the 2016 Presidential and Congressional disasters for losing to a cartoon pig rapists? No. Why WOULDN'T they roll the dice on letting the fascists take the reign again when the sheen wears off from Biden?

[Josh_Kablack]

Going with the numbers from the Johns Hopkins's site the end of month totals for Covid-19 in the US of A have been

2,634,000 cases and 127,753 deaths at the end of June
4,560,904 cases and 153,361 deaths at the end of July
6,023,368 cases and 183,431 deaths at the end of Auguest
7,229,319 cases and 206,887 deaths at the end of September
9,055,410 cases and 229,818 deaths at the end of October

(June cases are rounded to nearest thousand, all other numbers are the total listed at the time I made my FB posts on the final day of each month, so some may lag by one day)

Thus we've been adding roughly 1.2 million to 1.7 million new cases and roughly 25 thousand to 30 thousand new deaths for each of the past four months. The monthly averages are 1.6 million new cases and 25.5 thousand new deaths. This makes Covid-19 the third leading cause of death in the US behind only Heart Disease and Cancer. For comparison, monthly deaths in the US from cancer (all types) are around 48 thousand.

Currently, records are being set for highest new numbers of daily cases, and many experts are saying that we are headed into the worst part of the pandemic. Even once a vaccine clears phase three trials and wins approval, it will take several months before it can be manufactured, distributed and administered widely enough to have a significant effect on the spread of this pandemic. So there is little reason to expect future trends to be better than the past few months, and significant cause for concern that future trends are likely to be worse.

[Josh_Kablack]

Going on record with this:

The month January of 2021 will see at least 100,000 additional Covid deaths in the US of A.

[Whatever]

The majority of American COVID deaths will be people who have not gotten sick yet.

[Kaelik]

The EU is implementing a vaccine passport system designed to prevent any immigration from anywhere but the US and the EU for any reason, including turning away refugees.

A slight detour to explain a related thing: The Astra Zeneca vaccine produced by Oxford and originally promised to be patentless until Bill Gates threatened to withdraw all funding unless they gave the rights to Astra Zeneca exclusively (a company he is heavily invested in and profits from) is being made in many parts of the world contracted by Astra Zeneca. However it is being sold/distributed under different names. When made in Europe it is Astra Zeneca, but when it is made in India which are also the only vaccines being given under Covax (an extremely pathetic charity program created to once Bill Gates stepped in to stop all open source vaccine research) it is called CovidShield.

The EU vaccine passport specifies some vaccines as good ones that count, and some as bad ones that don't. Vaccines that don't count are the Cuban vaccine (that has tested better than Moderna and Pfizer), the Russian Sputnik vaccine, the Chinese vaccine..... and CovidShield.

So basically, only white people (and also not even white people from Latin America or Russia) are allowed in the EU forever.

Literally identical vaccines created from the same patents profiting the same company are tainted by the browness of the people they are injected in and no longer work, despite the WHO approving those vaccines.

[Harshax]

Vaccines are the new colonialism. There’s an effort to package The Pfizer product but not the solution in African labs. So, yeah - death for profit is abound.

I’m beginning to feel like Covid didn’t kill enough of the right people or more people generally. The 180 by some right wing idiots in the US recently, specifically on Fox News, is predicated solely on the Biden sound bite that misinformation distributors are killing people.

[Thaluikhain]

Er, you seem to be breaking forum rules there, might want to rephrase that.

Anyhoo, in Australia, we keep getting bombarded by patronising ads saying we should get vaccinated. Which I'm not going to do any time soon, and the government can kindly shut up about it.

In that, not being a government minister, or an Olympic athlete, or a rich kid going to an expensive private school, the government has decided I'm not currently eligible for the vaccine it keeps complaining that I'm not going out and getting.

[Harshax]

Vaccines are the new colonialism. There’s an effort to package The Pfizer product but not the solution in African labs. So, yeah - death for profit is abound.

I’m beginning to feel like Covid didn’t kill enough of the right people or more people generally. The 180 by some right wing idiots in the US recently, specifically on Fox News, is predicated solely on the Biden sound bite that misinformation distributors are killing people.

Yeah, I wasn’t trying to encourage or celebrate death. I missed a key punchline that would have made it more obvious. I was inferring that the politicalization of the pandemic is an odd strategy by the right as the data shows the delta variant is killing off their own constituents.

[MGuy]

All the centrist stations basically hosted Bill Gates telling everyone that the vaccine data shouldn't be 'given' to certain countries in order to enable them to create their own vaccine. I don't think the stranglehold profit seeking people have on government and continued exploitation of countries abroad is partisan. Fucking over the poor and the foreign seems to be the only thing that's bipartisan in this country. As far as I can tell the only thing the rightwing has done as far as the virus is concerned, or at least is unique to them, is get as many people as they could manage to reject it stateside. Which, on the surface, would seem like they are shooting themselves in the foot since that would be effectively killing their own voter base. I think that that doesn't matter to them because the places most effected are deeply red anyway.

[Zaranthan]

I think that that doesn't matter to them because the places most effected are deeply red anyway.

This really cinches the whole thing nicely. Much like Trump could shoot a man in broad daylight and not lose votes, the GOP can murder thousands of poor people and not lose any districts.