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[Dostoevsky]

Probably just reinforces the stereotype of americans being stubborn, stupid, and only caring about themselves.

This might be old news but I just learned that because of Florida's spike in cases we will no longer be sending our tests to the CDC at all, and are instead sending them for Washington D.C. to run.  EDIT: You know, from a government run organisation with at least a tangential interest in public health, to a group operated by a known liar who has a clear interest in making sure the information is obscured?  EDIT2: Ok seems thats everywhere, not just Florida.  Welp looks like Trump is making good on his promise that the coronavirus will just disappear.  Probably going to have the most lethal flu season ever though.

 Why does this feel like its being done to allow the data to be faked?  Because it feels like data is going to be faked.

For those who haven't seen this story, the White House wants the data to go to just HHS now and cut out CDC. But CDC will supposedly have some sort of access? The whole thing stinks of something, but the press reporting at least is that this stems from a blame game between hospitals and HHS over who's screwing up certain data collection efforts. WH says hospitals aren't sending it in enough/properly, while hospitals say HHS is getting it largely fine but screwing it up internally. I'm... not sure what about that translates into it making sense to cut CDC out.

One of the weirder parts of this shift is the 'suggestion' (reportedly an order in earlier drafts, before being reminded they can't exactly do that) that national guard be deployed to hospitals. To do medical data entry jobs.

Is it intimidation? (Hospital industry folks initially getting told this interpreted it that way.) Is it the flailing idea of "war on X" mentality taken to its literal conclusions? Is it an awkward attempt at good PR?

Internal WH people reportedly noted that this wasn't exactly standard guardsman training and could just end up making new disease vectors. We'll see, eh?

[ChairmanPoo]

One of the weirder parts of this shift is the 'suggestion' (reportedly an order in earlier drafts, before being reminded they can't exactly do that) that national guard be deployed to hospitals. To do medical data entry jobs.

It does sound like someone has a harebrained idea to try to cover up the size of the mess.

Someone who has no idea on how hospital records, or data reports, work. This is not a top secret single copy affair. It canīt be. It will be data mining from many other reports. Even if they manage to commandeer that one, and bully the hospitals into not publishing their own reports, there will be medical teams and single doctors doing their own papers and audits on what is happening. Short of declaring it an official state secret and jailing anyone who writes up anything of this (and maybe even then) itīs coming up. ANd if they did that it would be an open admission to a coverup.

[Dostoevsky]

It does sound like someone has a harebrained idea to try to cover up the size of the mess.

Yeah, that was the angle I was glossing over because it's just so ridiculous. But hey, maybe someone over there had this crazy idea that maybe if they just took control of the data entry process at the source they could make this all go away?

There are so many problems with the idea I just can't wrap my ahead around the idea of somebody (somebody not Trump, at least) actually thinking that sort of cockamamie notion could work.

[ChairmanPoo]

Even if they did, which they wont for the forementioned reasons, their best case unrealistically successful scenario only leads them to the Kazakhstan scenario: a surprisingly high number of deaths attributed to "mysterious pneumonia"

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Maybe this is the Great Annihilation, where nature has decided to weed out people that truly don't give a fuck.

Everybody is saying it, folks! They're all talking about the Great Annihilation, which is just beautiful, more and more every day!

There are so many problems with the idea I just can't wrap my ahead around the idea of somebody (somebody not Trump, at least) actually thinking that sort of cockamamie notion could work.

People believe what they need to believe. For Trumpists, that means straight-up believing covid doesn't fucking real. For libs, that means believing they can convince capitalists to solve covid by asking nicely. I will grant the libs that not 100% of the capitalist class are space alien logic totally-divorced-from-physical-reality insane death worshipers, so it's a better plan than the Trumpist one. However, that IMF Master of Flame portion of the capitalist class rarely appreciates Trump, so he can't exactly make use of their endorsement.

For an examination of this, search "Bill Gates" on any right-wing forum. God help you.

Regardless of how much he believes in it, Trump's plan isn't totally unworkable. It's insane, but not unworkable. The idea is simple enough - force everybody to stop paying attention to covid. People get sick and die in America every day, who cares? I can tell you with certainty that the most baffling thing about all this to conservatives is that anyone cares to begin with, and that is what drives a lot of the conspiratorial thought.

So Trump does everything in his power to force the schools to open as normal, convince the governors to not take any measures, and most importantly of all get control of the data and testing facilities. Then he tells his people to tell Fox News' people that if they ever run a story on covid again that isn't about how the numbers are plummeting thanks to Trump's leadership that he'll have their children sold to pedophiles, and Trump instructs his followers that America Has Won The War, no thanks to Creepy Joe!

Then, in theory anyway, Trump's approval rating shoots up to 65%, the GOP rigs the election on top of that for good measure, and we march forth into the Great Annihilation with smiles on our faces and proud patriotism in our hearts. God Bless America.

Unrelated, but does anyone know a good text representation for the sound of a pneumatic bolt gun?

Anyway, I don't know if this grand plan has any chance of working. People in this country are so fucking arbitrary about everything, but they seem to arbitrarily hate Trump for covid right now, and so I doubt either I or him could predict if they'll get over it if people are told to stop talking about it. They did sort of try that a month ago and it got us to here. Personally, if I were Trump I'd pivot to racist populism and pass a covid heathcare bill, but Mitch might have him executed for that even if he's smart enough to think of it.

[Dostoevsky]

Due to how the national guard works (assuming he doesn't deploy the national military, which is a whole extra level of insanity) that'd result in only Trump loyalist governors deploying the guard in that capacity.

Assuming then that enough governors (swing states being a bonus, I guess) follow that order and volunteer guardsmen and commanders actually follow that sort of order (or manage to muck up the admittedly pretty tricky job just right, I guess), I suppose it could create a path to lower statistics and more forgetfulness?

It's, uh, sort of workable I guess. If the recorded deaths are now only in states/areas that 'most people' hate/dislike, then it could sort of work in the right sort of world.

[ChairmanPoo]

well, to be fair the states being ravaged right now are RED states right?


It still sounds like a stupid idea mind you. It only takes junior docs doing posters or audits and the whole scheme falls down.

[Dostoevsky]

California is getting it fairly bad right now, if I recall. And hey, we've got 3.5 more months of infection waves before the election!

[wierd]

It just freaking floors me how my country* is (mis)handling this situation.

The general public is divided between "bunker down" and "It's a HOAX!(tm), A Gameshow host said so!", and the government has been the most mealy-mouthed, pandering to money over human life, and denial of objective reality it can possibly be during an emergency.

Why can't more people be like me, and just plant a garden in the back yard, get a pressure cooker and some mason jars, and get supplies together to grow some winter crops indoors (like my mushroom operation, which is doing fairly well so far), so that this winter, when shit gets REALLY *REAL*, they can still continue to isolate? Why do people panic, instead of taking a calm breath, collecting their thoughts, and formulating a strategic plan for themselves?

At the worst, my plan will have me stuck with some home-made canned goods. Woo. So much terror. (Well, absolute worst is that my garden wont be productive enough, which is what is happening right now. I intend to fix that with a small stockpile of commercial canned products sometime soon. The mushrooms and other indoor grown crops will supplement.) Even people who do not have a yard can potentially grow oyster mushrooms. All you need really is some 3% peroxide, an aquarium, shredded cardboard, and some fresh oyster mushrooms from the store.  Other things that can grow indoors are tomatoes, herbs of various kinds, (and if you have good grow lights) green beans, peas, and black beans. Just use a kiddie pool as a protective aid for your floor, and put large pot planters inside it. Set up some lights in the room. Walmart has LED strip lights that make white light, that are light enough to stick to walls with non-damaging velcro.

I really hate the learned helplessness people have. There are ways to handle even the worst possible outcomes of this, if you plan for it.  Have a good supply of paracetamol (Acetaminophen, aka, Tylenol) on hand, etc. It's not the end of the world as we know it, unless you MAKE it be such.

Edit:

You know what, I am gonna make a thread about this. (Winter prepping)

[JoshuaFH]

Why can't more people be like me

You're one of the most incredibly rational people I've ever met wierd, I really wish I could be like you. I'm so attached to my subjectivity and emotional baggage, it'd be awesome if I could just be as lucid and objective as you are seemingly every day.

And I'm TRYING to be, so I can only imagine how difficult objectivity must be to people that consider their emotions to be the only legitimate evidence for every decision they make big and small.

[dragdeler]

-

[kaijyuu]

systemic problems are certainly the fault of random powerless individuals

[Iduno]

While I agree, I'll just light a small candle for all those, what was it? 61% of americans that can't afford a 1000$ emergency.

Over a third aren't keeping up with housing (including apartment) payments right now. It's been a known problem for a long time, but "Profits!" and other bogeymen are good enough to get a lot of people to just ignore problems.

Probably just reinforces the stereotype of americans being stubborn, stupid, and only caring about themselves.

For good reason.

Why does this feel like its being done to allow the data to be faked?  Because it feels like data is going to be faked.

Once states started saying out loud that they weren't going to record cause of death, or wouldn't test regularly, we all knew they intended to lie. There have been times when I personally knew more COVID victims than they were admitting to around here.

[ChairmanPoo]

Contagions in Spain keep going up. 580 csses yesterday. 58 in Euskadi.

Masks were made mandatory in all places yesterday. I hope we see that making a difference next week

[misko27]

Always takes a while for changes to be reflected in the numbers.

It's what keeps me anxious about my own state, in spite of how things seem to have stabilized here: if we've made a mistake, it takes so damn long to see it reflected in the numbers. My impression of the mood here is "delay anything as long as you think we need to, but please don't have to lockdown again. "