The General Covid19 Thread

C_J

So how do you explain the failure of communism and socialist states such as Venezuela then?

Homegrove

C_J fuck’s sake you should be comparing it to Scandinavia (not with the Covid approach however) with our high taxes and excellent social programs. There is a reason we have very few homeless people.

LT42

C_J Systemic corruption and interference from foreign superpowers. You can’t talk about Venezuela without including the USA’s gigantic affect for the last 35 years.

C_J

Homegrove the reasons for Scandinavian prosperity is more complicated than high taxes. Fundamentally it is about a high degree of community participation and trust amongst the population. The prosperity of the society combined with the aforementioned factors are what permits such high rates of tax - the high rates are not what created the prosperity in the first place, in my opinion.

I could be wrong about this, it’s a complicated and debatable subject but that’s how I see it anyway. I am open to being persuaded otherwise with sensible and intelligent arguments.

If higher taxes were a solution to all societies ills then I don’t think there would be much opposition to them.

Old-Dutch

Homegrove

Because it’s fucking freezing?

jonattonyeah

Conference call this morning had a doc from UCSF who’s their head of global epidemiology. He said Europe just opened too early. Netherlands at 17% positivity. 10% in Spain. 8% in France. 6% in Italy and the UK. 1% in Finland. San Francisco is now a hair below 1% (900,000 residents, 11,756 cases, 126 deaths) with California at 2.6%.

Said our lower positivitiy rates are due to keeping indoor activities limited and strong mask adherence. Lower death and ICU rates due to highly targeted testing among specific groups - Latino/a/x, Black & African American, public housing residents (“council estates”), homeless and SRO residents, essential workers (specifically restaurant workers), and nursing facilities.

Testing occurs weekly at these facilities and where those demo groups reside. Every week with results turning around in 24 hours.

Seems pretty straightforward to me.

Along_the_Wire

jonattonyeah by your own admission though, the West Coast got a milder dose to Europe and the East Coast?

C_J

303abuser not exactly this. That’s a whole other argument. More along the lines that giving people money is unsustainable, disempowering and discourages work and self-improvement.

Homegrove

C_J that’s a philosophy, not a fact.

bosstrabs

C_J More along the lines that giving people money is unsustainable, disempowering and discourages work and self-improvement.

I wouldn’t disagree with this, and this is the kind of Conservatism that was actually based on principles, and would have been cogently argued by a certain generation of Conservatives.

Not anymore, though. The shits have taken over the asylum. They have no principles.

C_J

Homegrove I agree this is a general philosophical belief rather than an empirical fact which holds true in all circumstances.

jonattonyeah

Along_the_Wire

Seems that way but I don’t have any science or evidence to back it up. Just knowing the large Chinese population here and the frequency travels across the Pacific, I’d guess COVID was making its way around the Bay in late 2019, in a possibly less virulent form.

Given the density of San Francisco (second most-dense large city in the States) and the shockingly high number of homeless, one would expect SF to get it bad, but we really haven’t. SF does have a robust infectious disease infrastructure due to being bollocked by HIV like few places were, but even then…something else must be going on.

But if this keeps up, we could be done with the little bastard by the end of the year; if a reliable rapid test can be rolled out. But masks and limited indoor activity will be a reality for a long while yet.

Homegrove

Higher taxes don’t also seem to hinderance wanting to get rich, the income tax can get to 60 % here, yet we have more billionares per capita then the US.

Homegrove

Thanks to global warming mostly just dark in the winters these days! Last winter was ridiculously warm in the south of Finland.

jonattonyeah

Homegrove

Supposed to be 100 F / 38 C here today. Brutal. This is the fifth heat wave we’ve had since mid-August. Granted, the Indian Summer around here has always been a thing, but it’s never been this bad this frequently. We really have fucked the planet, haven’t we?

Mad_Cyril

jonattonyeah We really have fucked the planet, haven’t we?

Fuck the planet. It fucked our dinosaurs and now its payback time

Homegrove

jonattonyeah fuck….

zackster

jonattonyeah been wearing shorts every single day. Its low 60s today. 20 years ago it would have been in the 40-30s this time of year in PA. Its terrifying.

303abuser

jonattonyeah jesus. it’s -1 here today, 5 cm of snow, and the overnight low is -10 with a -14 windchill.

jonattonyeah

Mad_Cyril

Smallman1

Sounds great.

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