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[Dostoevsky]

Since I haven't seen it mentioned here yet, a few hours back some of the DC trade press reported that DeJoy has announced that the changes to USPS policies will be suspended until after the election. I assume next week's House hearing will still be happening, though, along with whatever legislation they're working on right now for a floor vote.

[MrRoboto75]

Since I haven't seen it mentioned here yet, a few hours back some of the DC trade press reported that DeJoy has announced that the changes to USPS policies will be suspended until after the election. I assume next week's House hearing will still be happening, though, along with whatever legislation they're working on right now for a floor vote.

He's already done the damage, doesn't matter if he stops now.  Sorting machine's already in the dumpster.

[hector13]

He’s covering overtime and not throwing away more sorting machines, closing sorting centers or removing mailboxes.

I imagine this is in part because he and Trump realized the vast majority of people view the postal service positively, and also because upwards of 20 states were planning to sue because of the delays the changes would have caused.

Better than letting it continue.

[delphonso]

He has probably successfully convinced enough of the population that they need to vote in person - something that will be difficult if not impossible as polls shut down without volunteers. No doubt Trump supports will be at the polls this year harassing anyone who looks lefty.

[Ibid Straydrink]

So, I'm my current assessment is about 55/45, favoring a Trump victory.

"May you live in interesting times."

[Iduno]

So, I'm my current assessment is about 55/45, favoring a Trump victory.

"May you live in interesting times."

Considering all of the people the Democrats are trying to get to vote for them are already voting for Trump, that's pretty likely.

I'd love to think they'll take the lesson and accept that the left has acceptable ideas, but I've also been paying attention for more than 4 years, and know they'll just double down on being further right than the Republicans in the future and keep failing.

[Zangi]

AoC’s nomination is savage.

[Maximum Spin]

What is the best research?

I missed this question before, but, to be clear, I didn't mean some specific study, but the general state of the field, where various meta-analyses (for example) show basic precautions already in effect (compliance rates generally around 90%) dramatically lowering the transmission rate, especially for demographics not at particular risk. Voting isn't a particularly social activity, and the incidental contact it involves should be of minimal concern to people who are being careful and not doing something especially stupid.

[Frumple]

Voting isn't a particularly social activity, and the incidental contact it involves should be of minimal concern to people who are being careful and not doing something especially stupid.

So in other words, we should expect the bullshit related to sabotaging mail-in voting instead of expanding it, and subsequently forcing people to the polls, will probably cause a nationwide spike in plague cases. Gotcha.

If the US in general wasn't constantly doing especially stupid shit in relation the covid, there wouldn't be 170 thousand and rising new corpses in this country.

[Iduno]

AoC’s nomination is savage.

The nominations are supposed to follow the number of votes delegates they got, so that's normal. Setting aside the percentage of the vote /= delegates, anyone who didn't give up their delegates should still receive some support despite no longer being a candidate.

Voting isn't a particularly social activity, and the incidental contact it involves should be of minimal concern to people who are being careful and not doing something especially stupid.

So in other words, we should expect the bullshit related to sabotaging mail-in voting instead of expanding it, and subsequently forcing people to the polls, will probably cause a nationwide spike in plague cases. Gotcha.

If the US in general wasn't constantly doing especially stupid shit in relation the covid, there wouldn't be 170 thousand and rising new corpses in this country.

"Both" sides have been advocating voting in person for months, which makes it a bit more obvious which side has any intention of supporting the general populous (neither of the major parties). More corpses is the goal.

[Maximum Spin]

Voting isn't a particularly social activity, and the incidental contact it involves should be of minimal concern to people who are being careful and not doing something especially stupid.

If the US in general wasn't constantly doing especially stupid shit in relation the covid, there wouldn't be 170 thousand and rising new corpses in this country.

That's simply objectively false. The US has a death rate on par or below that of demographically similar countries, compliance rates for precautions are extremely high (the 'Americans won't wear masks' meme is simply a lie, or at best a failed extrapolation from specific outlier regions), and QALYs lost have been low. There is no statistical basis to think that America has done significantly worse than any other country relative to its population base, and it's clear that, for example, it is doing much better than the European average. There have been a few mistakes — "stick 'em in the nursing homes" comes to mind for me, a New Yorker — but this is an inevitability in all cases where humans are allowed to make decisions, and there have been mistakes everywhere else too. Nevertheless, to drill down more specifically to whether there should or shouldn't be 170k corpses lying around, all the evidence is that the majority of deaths in America are simply statistically 'carried forward' from the next five to ten years; by any model, normal death rates will be suppressed over the near term due to the slight but significant 'youngening' of the population. From a long-term and especially from an evolutionary perspective, the epidemic has been good for the population of the country as a whole.

With that said, of course, statistically, we will expect a spike in cases from voting. (Nobody is forced to the polls, though, I must quibble. You can and most people probably should typically just not vote.) Anything which increases contact and therefore risk, however marginally, will cause a detectable spike when the baseline population is so large.

[MrRoboto75]

I can go outside any day of the week and find people not wearing masks correctly or not distancing correctly.  I've literally seen it every day.

[Reelya]

I don't know about being "on par". Raw deaths per million people is the best overall holistic measure of how good the total response has been.

And on that basis, the USA is #10 out of 200 countries. However, two of those top-10 countries include the micro-states San Marino and Andorra, with clusters of 40 or 50 deaths each but very low total populations, so those can be excluded as outliers. That puts the USA at #8 worldwide for per capita deaths, which is pretty bad even comparing apples to apples.

The nations with more deaths per capita than the USA include Sweden, which kinda-sorta decided to try and ride the pandemic out, Italy and Spain, where the virus hit early and hard before they could put a response in place, and the UK which initially tried to downplay the virus before being forced to enact harsher measures. That only leaves Peru, Chile and Belgium as nations with more deaths than the USA, but I haven't read up the specific reasons those nations are hit hard.

As for averages, the "world" amount of deaths per million is 100, vs the 500 for the USA.

[Maximum Spin]

I can go outside any day of the week and find people not wearing masks correctly or not distancing correctly.  I've literally seen it every day.

Whereas I rarely have, if at all. Like I said, bad extrapolation — actual *studies* find compliance rates around 90%.

I don't know about being "on par". Raw deaths per million people is the best overall holistic measure of how good the total response has been.

It is absolutely not, since deaths correlate with many demographic factors!

[WealthyRadish]

There is no statistical basis to think that America has done significantly worse than any other country relative to its population base, and it's clear that, for example, it is doing much better than the European average.

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