Fear and Loathing, a Rat Flu Odyssey

[wooley12]

Every time Montucky says he doesn't get it, I get it. What I don't get is why he continues to mit he doesn't get it.

[old goat]

It makes sense for a country to restrict entry if the pandemic is controlled there--ie numbers zero or so small that any outbreak can be stopped with contract tracing and testing. Or to restrict entry from any country where there is a dangerous variant not yet widespread in the country of arrival. But restricting travel between the US and Europe--at this point what good would it do?

A very good short opinion piece from Moonshine Ink, our local "alternative" monthly newspaper--titled Masks and {rivilege.
https://www.moonshineink.com/opinion...and-privilege/

"Remember, privilege is the belief that something isn’t a problem because it hasn’t been a problem to you, personally."

[Benny Profane]

With the weather warming up and every willing adult vaxxer soon, it will be cool by fall.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/irel...ases-1.4529036

[KenJongIll]

Exactly. I mean I'm sure there's lots of political "reasoning" that claims it's ok, it's not. That's a superspreader location.


Like other countries, the borders should be "closed" until the pandemic passes. By closed I mean sit in quarantine until you're very much less likely to spread covid than the region visited. Considering also that as a traveler we assume you're more likely to have more contacts. We might want to similarly limit regional travel.

It's not a hard lockdown that excites me. It's getting the case numbers really low while driving them lower. <300 active cases for the whole country seems a good target, all traced and contained. It's my opinion this would be much better for the economy than opening early. Is it practical in the US? Well, we're dumb.

Vaccines alone won't get us there very fast. Cases locally were falling 30-40% a week in January. Now many of us are vaccinated and cases are rising slightly. We're failing. Every state has shown the ability to rapidly drive down case counts - we should do that until the cases are low enough that lesser measures can keep them low.

The faster we drive down cases, the sooner we can let up on restrictions.

LOCKDOWNZ FOREVER

[The AD]

With the weather warming up and every willing adult vaxxer soon, it will be cool by fall.

I'm confident that equatorial regions and the southern hemisphere can keep things cranking till then.

[bodywhomper]

Paul offit discusses his theory about seasonality a little bit here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...=1000516103607

I did not know that Brazil did not have seasonal flu, it’s all year long.

[LongShortLong]

But restricting travel between the US and Europe--at this point what good would it do?

Keep the next, scary variant out. So far it's looking like vaccination works well against the variants. If a bad one shows, current policy will spread it everywhere (except CN, AU, NZ, TW, ...).

LOCKDOWNZ FOREVER

If we continue with half-ass policies, I agree that it may be awhile before things are normal. At some point in the US, I expect the vaccines will have a large effect on new cases, or at least morbidity and that might be good enough. It will take longer to control covid while loosening protections, but I think vaccination will force cases to fall, fall consistently for weeks, and to a low level. Given that we're dumb, I can see keeping covid around may help convince holdouts to get jabbed.

With rates at 6 new cases/100k/day, visiting a bar with 50 others means (6/100k * 5 days transmissible * 4 times undercount * 50 people = 0.06) 6% chance someone in there is transmitting. It'll be awhile before I go out for a drink/meal/movie/shopping/etc.

[MontuckyFried]

WaPo article about Brazil's P.1 variant. You know where they're saying a large part of the blame lies? Loose flowing borders. Read about it here:
Brazil has become South America’s superspreader event:
https://webcache.googleusercontent.c...&ct=clnk&gl=us

How P.1 spread across the region is a distinctly South American story. Nearly every country on the continent shares a land border with Brazil. People converge on border towns, where passing into another country can be as simple as crossing the street. Limited surveillance and border security have made the region a paradise for smugglers. But they have also made it nearly impossible to control the variant’s spread.

“We share 1,000 kilometers of dry border with Brazil, the biggest factory of variants in the world and the epicenter of the crisis,” said Gonzalo Moratorio, a Uruguayan molecular virologist tracking the variant’s growth. “And now it’s not just one country.”

Just remember that when trying to compare the US to island nations with total border control like NZ, Iceland, Japan, etc. If this P.1 variant is as bad as they're saying, might be past time to lock international travel back down, and yes that includes undocumented immigrants pouring up from the various Central American countries. Instead, we're now bussing them even further inland like oilfield mancamps in Midland, TX and the Dallas Convention Center. It's so asinine, it's almost as if it were intentional.

This is a map from Greyhound showing where they've been bussing migrants to, and this just from McAllen, TX:


Yeah, we're boned.

[Benny Profane]

This is a map from Greyhound showing where they've been bussing migrants to, and this just from McAllen, TX:

That's pretty moronic of you. Well, first, you're doing this blame the immigrants thing, which serves two purposes. It argues that the spread of this virus is somebody else's fault, not ours. You know who is second in the world in Covid deaths? Brazil. Who's first? Yes! USA, USA! We're the problem. Then you conveniently demonize immigrants, which is standard fare for racists. Like after 9/11, when your type got all hot and bothered about closing the southern border for our "security", all the while ignoring the fact that the attacks that day were carried out by Saudi Arabians who were welcomed into the country with open arms. But, yeah, beat up on the Mexicans who travel a thousand miles to clean your hotel bathroom.

But, what the fuck with that map, and your statement that it's "from Greyhound" and it's "where they are bussing migrants to.".Are you that stupid, or do you think we're that stupid, or, is it both? As though Greyhound is even keeping those stats. Looks to me that you just found a map of everywhere Greyhound has terminals, right? And then you made that shit up, right? Because you're an evil, bitter little racist, right?

Fuck you.

[glademaster]

That's pretty moronic of you. Well, first, you're doing this blame the immigrants thing, which serves two purposes. It argues that the spread of this virus is somebody else's fault, not ours. You know who is second in the world in Covid deaths? Brazil. Who's first? Yes! USA, USA! We're the problem. Then you conveniently demonize immigrants, which is standard fare for racists. Like after 9/11, when your type got all hot and bothered about closing the southern border for our "security", all the while ignoring the fact that the attacks that day were carried out by Saudi Arabians who were welcomed into the country with open arms. But, yeah, beat up on the Mexicans who travel a thousand miles to clean your hotel bathroom.

But, what the fuck with that map, and your statement that it's "from Greyhound" and it's "where they are bussing migrants to.".Are you that stupid, or do you think we're that stupid, or, is it both? As though Greyhound is even keeping those stats. Looks to me that you just found a map of everywhere Greyhound has terminals, right? And then you made that shit up, right? Because you're an evil, bitter little racist, right?

Fuck you.

Tremendous rebuke.

[Bunion 2020]

Benny, that right there was pure unadulterated poetry. Well done.

[powdrhound]

That, right there, is why we read Benny’s other BS.

[Kinnikinnick]

Boy Monfuckey has gone full on Trumptard!!


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[jono]

Benny, that right there was pure unadulterated poetry. Well done.

For a millisecond I thought maybe Benny had taken it a bit too far, so I checked the website that map came from. Note the caption MF omitted.



New low.

[MontuckyFried]

^^
Didn't purposefully "omit" anything. Just copied the image link from this previously linked current article about COVID and the current border situation:
https://ktxs.com/news/local/covid-te...d-consistently

[jono]

^^
Didn't purposefully "omit" anything. Just copied the image link from this previously linked current article about COVID and the current border situation:
https://ktxs.com/news/local/covid-te...d-consistently

So you agree.

[MontuckyFried]

For you dumbasses saying this is a "racist" issue, then why is that:
Iceland locking down border = good
New Zealand locking down border = good
Australia locking down border = good
https://www.health.gov.au/news/healt...nal-travellers
You guys have been applauding every other country shutting that shit down, but us? Even just having that conversation over a year ago? Oh. Well that's different. NOW, it's racist you see. The cognitive dissonance around here is astounding.

Is Washington Post a racist source now? Because the WaPo article I linked to above was literally saying one of the primary reasons Brazil couldn't contain the troublesome new variant over there is because of their borders. Borders are the low hanging fruit to address in a pandemic. Easiest thing to address early on. Now, you could say the cat's out of the bag already for COVID, but we DO have a chance to hopefully slow down the emergence of the P.1 strain. So again, countries like Australia = not racist for shutting down borders and they're super awesome for doing so according to many here. US = Racist for even talking about shutting down borders. Got it.

[riser4]

That, right there, is why we read Benny’s other BS.

This.

[Bunion 2020]

Austin, quick question. Exactly how do you propose we "Shut down the border"? You will admit that being an island is an advantage, no?

And next time start your posts with, I am not a racist but.....

[Benny Profane]

^^
Didn't purposefully "omit" anything. Just copied the image link from this previously linked current article about COVID and the current border situation:
https://ktxs.com/news/local/covid-te...d-consistently

So fucking absurd. No testing of immigrants, but, how about no testing and mask wearing and packed stadiums right there in Texas? Jesus, please let that state secede.

I cringe when I hear Brazil variant, or even UK variant, and that's the new danger. As though we don't have our own mutations? Of course we do, but nobody knows, due the chaos of how we've treated this thing. But, the media loves the scare tactics of "the other".

[The AD]

So fucking absurd. No testing of immigrants, but, how about no testing and mask wearing and packed stadiums right there in Texas?

But a packed stadium with no masks is okay. It's all about teh migrants!!

100% blame deflection.

[CarlMega]

These immigrants don't even have the decency to honor the laws and safety precautions we ignore.

[concretejungle]

Another day another Austin smackdown.

[Mod Team]

Austin, please knock it off with the politically charged covid talk. If you want to talk about the illegal immigrants bringing in the covids, there's a thread in PoliAss or you can start a new one.

[Kinnikinnick]

Monfuckey, pawning himself everyday.


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