Fear and Loathing, a Rat Flu Odyssey

[dannynoonan]

Those are quotes from members of the HEALTH BOARD mind you. Total fucking idiocracy.

[Benny Profane]

Those are quotes from members of the HEALTH BOARD mind you. Total fucking idiocracy.

Yeah, but, if you read further, all political appointees with no medical background. What Trump will do to almost all Federal agencies if four more years.

[jono]

There are medical backgrounds on that board, too. Also noteworthy that none of the 4 covidiots live in Kootenai County, where the mandate was. Both of the members actually from that county voted to keep it. Awesome.

Further kookery:

Allen Banks, Ph.D.
Bonner County (At-Large)

Dr. Banks was appointed to the Board of Health in 1997. He earned his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington and his Doctorate in chemistry from the University of Colorado. For 30 years, he has worked in medical research in biotechnology and pharmaceutical development, including the development of genetically-engineered vaccines for humans and animals. He holds patents related to the manufacture of new therapeutics. Dr. Banks teaches at the University of Wisconsin and is a world recognized expert in prolotherapy, a technique for healing injured ligaments, particularly in the lower back.

[dannynoonan]

Unbelievable. And it says they're sending the overflow patients to Seattle because they're full up?

The hell with that I don't want people coming here from those shithole counties. Keep your covid.

[jono]

If only that had worked both ways.

[dannynoonan]

If only that had worked both ways.

Haha, touche'.

[PB]

There are medical backgrounds on that board, too. Also noteworthy that none of the 4 covidiots live in Kootenai County, where the mandate was. Both of the members actually from that county voted to keep it. Awesome.

Further kookery:

Allen Banks, Ph.D.
Bonner County (At-Large)

Dr. Banks was appointed to the Board of Health in 1997. He earned his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington and his Doctorate in chemistry from the University of Colorado. For 30 years, he has worked in medical research in biotechnology and pharmaceutical development, including the development of genetically-engineered vaccines for humans and animals. He holds patents related to the manufacture of new therapeutics. Dr. Banks teaches at the University of Wisconsin and is a world recognized expert in prolotherapy, a technique for healing injured ligaments, particularly in the lower back.

Not just kookery; let's call it for what it is - criminal malpractice. Avoid UW at all cost.

[old goat]

Costco now selling home PCR test kits--saliva, not nasal swab. I have no idea if they're any good.

[old goat]

Not just kookery; let's call it for what it is - criminal malpractice. Avoid UW at all cost.

Speaking of malpractice, I referred Dr. Atlas to the Medical Board of California for malpractice. They weren't buying it unfortunately.

[jono]

You may not have been the first. But good on you. That conversation needs to happen within the profession.

Unfortunately chemists have no such governing body. See also: Duke U.

[jono]

Costco now selling home PCR test kits--saliva, not nasal swab. I have no idea if they're any good.

From the provider, azovahealth.com:

The at home COVID-19 Saliva test only needs a saliva sample and is highly accurate, With 98% sensitivity and 99% specificity.

[Benny Profane]

Costco now selling home PCR test kits--saliva, not nasal swab. I have no idea if they're any good.

Perfect stocking stuffer.

[CascadeLuke]

Thank you for reminding me why I choose not to live in some places, no matter the skiing and biking.

So true. My family spent time this summer somewhere we considered buying property down the line. The place is still nice and checks so many boxes but the brodozers flying Trump flags and the loud mouths we saw on the water wearing Trump shorts really put a stain on the place. Knowing their general decision skills are so awful you just can’t subject yourself to it. Maybe that’s their point - repel anyone who’s not on the train, from moving there.

[NWFlow]

Idaho's brutal that way. I only lasted a summer.

[dannynoonan]

Now that the "physical office" bandaid has been ripped off in white collar work, one does have to wonder if the influx of urban WFH professional refugees into the small towns of the west will start to have an effect on the local politics, tho. Sort of a gentrification, if you will.

[dannynoonan]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...outputType=amp

BOZEMAN, Mont. — The four-bedroom contemporary just west of town smelled of fresh paint, flooring, sealant and new beginnings. The Bridger Mountains beckoned against an azure sky off the back deck, and Robert Carder, Montana's newest transplant, couldn't contain himself.

“This is your new home, Conner!” he exclaimed to his 57-pound Australian cattle dog, whose paws were slipping on the wood floor in the living room. Carder spread his arms wide. “How much bigger is this than the picture?” he asked his wife, Valentina, confirming what the couple from Los Angeles already knew.

Their living room didn’t just seem bigger than the photos on Zillow that had led them to make a $559,000 offer after 24 hours in Montana, a place they had never been. The 2,300-square-foot house was twice the size of the two-bedroom condo they sold in Brentwood, Calif., before packing their cars and driving 16 hours northeast, released from the confines of the coronavirus pandemic and the jobs Robert had grown to hate and Valentina had lost.

This was the 19th walk-through their broker, Charlotte Durham, had done for out-of-state clients since Montana’s virus shutdown ended in late April and its real estate market flipped into hyperdrive. Buyers fleeing New York, Los Angeles and other densely populated U.S. cities say they want to leave the coronavirus clusters and social justice unrest behind.

Montana governor’s race epitomizes a state changing along with its politics

Even as the state’s fierce winter looms, the transplants are pushing house prices to record levels. Some are offering millions of dollars in cash for houses and land they have seen only on the Internet.

“They were like, ‘We’re hoping we love it!’ ” Durham recalled on a late-summer morning as the Carders nodded in agreement.

Montana has remained a mystery to most Americans, even though it boasts some of the most magnificent scenery in the West. But as the pandemic has taken hold across the United States, what once were rural outposts here have turned into boomtowns.

These arrivals are not just tourists visiting Yellowstone National Park or looking for a wilderness vacation. This is a stampede of transplants descending in Porsche Cayennes and Teslas with cash offers. It’s multimillionaires grabbing up luxury ranches to serve as second or third homes. It’s buyers with more modest resources looking for a way out. It’s city dwellers seeking bare land in Montana’s wilderness to serve as insurance policies for America’s uncertain future.

[https://www]

But the virus they are fleeing has been spiking here, too. Along with the neighboring Dakotas, Montana has one of the worst per capita outbreaks in the country. The state’s coronavirus infections have risen precipitously in recent weeks, with a seven-day rolling average of 58 new reported cases per 100,000 residents, the third-highest rate in the United States. The total number of confirmed cases and deaths remains low — fewer than 24,000 cases and 241 deaths — but nearly 3,800 of those cases and 10 percent of the deaths were reported in the past week.

U.S. coronavirus deaths near 220,000, cases surge past 8 million

“We still have way fewer cases than most places and lots of wide-open space,” said Durham, 31. “It’s way better here than where people are coming from.”

The new infections have overwhelmed jails and health-care clinics in some communities and led to suspicions that outsiders are bringing the virus with them. But Gov. Steve Bullock (D) and health authorities said last week that out-of-state visitors account for fewer than 5 percent of Montana’s new cases.

“This is coming from us, to us,” said Sarah Stewart, a family physician at St. Vincent’s hospital in Billings, which serves the city and the Eastern Montana region.

[https://www]Dog owners visit Oak Springs Park in Bozeman, Mont., with the Bridger Mountains in the background. (Tony Bynum for The Washington Post)

Sportsmen have long revered Montana, casting flies for the world-class trout in its rivers and hunting deer and elk on its snow-capped mountain passes. A century ago, the state’s mines and forests provided jobs to immigrants from Northern Europe. In the 1990s, moviegoers glimpsed its sun-dappled rivers and towering firs in Robert Redford’s adaptation of the Norman Maclean memoir “A River Runs Through It,” and a generation of retirees and environmentalists put down roots to smell the sagebrush for themselves.

Silicon Valley tech workers put southwest Montana on the map a few years ago, as they sought an alternative to ever-pricier towns such as Aspen and Vail in Colorado and the Jackson Hole region in Wyoming. They’re taking advantage of the wide-open spaces at Big Sky, a ski resort in the midst of a building boom 40 miles south of Bozeman. The transplants work remotely and commute from a growing airport with more hangars for private jets than commercial carriers.

Downtown Bozeman remade itself with craft breweries, gluten-free bakeries and high-end galleries displaying frontier art. Soon a derisive nickname followed: Bozeangeles.

The newest migrants are different. They’re escaping fear, of the pandemic and of the social justice marches they believe are bringing violence to their door. Montana can bring them back in time.

The state is open for business. Interest rates are hovering below 3 percent. The mask police lie low. In a hyper-divided country, Montana’s politics are balanced. Its demographics less so, but that is part of the appeal for many who are coming here.

“We are 98 percent Caucasian,” said Candace Carr Strauss, chief executive of the Big Sky Chamber of Commerce, figuratively describing Montana’s lack of racial diversity.

The state is 89 percent White, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“We haven’t, thankfully, seen a lot of the unrest other places have seen,” she said. “Our protests have been peaceful and inclusive. And while we are mostly homogenous, we welcome diversity.”

The once-sleepy Big Sky Resort is quickly acquiring first-tier status. Its neighboring private mountain ski club for the ultrarich no longer has an offseason, what with so many members who sought refuge from the pandemic in March and never left. The resort plans to open its slopes on Nov. 26 — with new coronavirus protocols in place.

Charlotte Durham, an owner-broker for Big Sky Sotheby’s International Realty, shows clients a listing in Bozeman in the Black Bull community, a private golf course a few miles west of downtown. (Tony Bynum for The Washington Post)

Property gold rush

The property gold rush of 2020 has been dizzying. Deals move too fast for a review of comparable sales. Appraisers and title companies are being outpaced by the demand. Lenders are confronting liquidity problems. And developers can’t keep up with the thirst for new homes, which are preselling as soon as floor plans come to market.

“We’re running around like lunatics,” said Amy Hyde, a mortgage broker in Bozeman. “People have done a month in an RV, and they’re saying they want to move to Montana. The number of out-of-state cars in our town right now is insane.”

Her loan volume has tripled since the spring. When she did not return a buyer’s call for 20 minutes a few weeks ago, the buyer had already found another lender, she said. “People are just frantic and so stressed out.”

The median price of a single-family home around Bozeman vaulted $94,000 from July to August, to $710,000, according to the Gallatin Association of Realtors, which tracks sales in the city of 52,000 and the surrounding valley, the state’s fastest-growing region.

Montana’s less-flashy population centers, from the old railroad hub of Billings to the college town of Missoula, also are seeing buying frenzies. Even the long-depressed mining town of Butte and the isolated state capital, Helena — with a main street called Last Chance Gulch and a legislature that meets every other year — have watched prices surge 22 percent to 25 percent above pre-pandemic levels.

“There’s a perception that a lot of things are going to change depending on the election outcome, and here you can protect yourself where you still have gun rights,” said Myrna Rue, a real estate agent in Red Lodge, an old coal-mining town of 2,300 at the edge of the Beartooth Mountains. During one week in mid-August, she was juggling 39 deals.

Tensions on the rise

The state is changing so fast that even those who study rural migration patterns have no idea how long the madness will last — or how many people are even coming. This summer, Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport added five flights a day.

What’s far clearer is that the infusion of wealth is creating tension; Bozeman is now a city of haves and have-nots, and it is breeding resentment.

“It’s changing the whole basis of the state,’’ said Mike Garcia, owner of Northern Lights Trading Co. — River, Lakes and Oceans, an outdoor sports and recreation store. And it’s not for the better, he said. The summer brought its usual share of inexperienced sportsmen, he said, but in larger numbers. “My wife would call me up and go, ‘You need to come talk to these people. They’re clueless.’ ”

<Snipped for post length>

Valentina, 34, born and raised in Russia, said she “loves, loves, LOVES L.A.” But when Santa Monica shut down as the virus ravaged Southern California, she lost her job as an aesthetician. Robert, a consultant who managed a bar and restaurant at night, had always said he would never leave California. But he had grown weary of “making cocktails in jars like it was a conveyor belt” to hand to customers through a takeout window, he said.

In Bozeman, they sense opportunity. “We think she’ll be a superstar in town,” Robert, 52, said of the salon his wife plans to open this week.

[concretejungle]

Thank you for reminding me why I choose not to live in some places, no matter the skiing and biking.

"Board member Walt Kirby said he was giving up on the idea of controlling the spread of coronavirus.

“I personally do not care whether anybody wears a mask or not. If they want to be dumb enough to walk around and expose themselves and others, that's fine with me,” Kirby said. “Nobody's wearing the damned mask anyway. ... I'm sitting back and watching them catch it and die. Hopefully I'll live through it.”

Another member, Allen Banks, denied COVID-19 exists.

“Something's making these people sick, and I'm pretty sure that it's not coronavirus, so the question that you should be asking is, 'What's making them sick?'” he told the medical professionals who testified."

We were driving back from Washington and stopped in CDA . My partner asked if I thought I could ever live there and I said no. I just sent here the link to the article. We had lunch and we were the only people masked up, which felt odd since cases have been rising and everywhere else on our vacation was "mask required" inside and most people wore them outside around town.

[ötzi]

Now that the "physical office" bandaid has been ripped off in white collar work, one does have to wonder if the influx of urban WFH professional refugees into the small towns of the west will start to have an effect on the local politics, tho. Sort of a gentrification, if you will.

No doubt in my mind. Shit, scatter a couple million Californians across the Mountain West and you just changed the whole region's politics.

[dan_pdx]

Valentina, 34, born and raised in Russia, said she “loves, loves, LOVES L.A.” But when Santa Monica shut down as the virus ravaged Southern California, she lost her job as an aesthetician. Robert, a consultant who managed a bar and restaurant at night, had always said he would never leave California. ...“We think she’ll be a superstar in town,” Robert, 52, said of the salon his wife plans to open this week.

So, 52 year old consultant and a 34 year old Russian wife? Nice.

[dan_pdx]

No doubt in my mind. Shit, scatter a couple million Californians across the Mountain West and you just changed the whole region's politics.

Fingers crossed! I just looked it up and Trump's margin in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah and the Dakotas was in the 100k-220k range. I could easily imagine that many CA refugees moving to one or more of those states.

[Benny Profane]

They'll be back. More mountain homes sitting empty 50 weeks out of the year.

[fastfred]

Now that the "physical office" bandaid has been ripped off in white collar work, one does have to wonder if the influx of urban WFH professional refugees into the small towns of the west will start to have an effect on the local politics, tho. Sort of a gentrification, if you will.

yes but nothing in a good way
already for years we have had the retirees show up tell us how it is how it should be and how smart and successful they were in a pervious life before moving to the "mountains"
they last 3-10 years and they are gone replaced by someone else with the same bullshit and complete lack of self awareness ready to change everything to make it suit there needs and wants

had a conversation about this with my dad years ago, he said it was the same thing in the small college town I grew up in, so many over educated people show up in town want to tell you how smart they are and how they know best they stick around a couple years and poof they are gone replaced by another fucktard that is spouting the same I'm better than you intellectual bullshit meanwhile the people who have been there for ever run businesses and are in it for the long haul are all labled idiots by these types of people

[schuss]

Eh, plenty of mountain people do the math and choose not to roll the dice on a shitty service job future. If anything it will be good for building more sustainable businesses than food service and luxury construction in mountainous areas.

[jono]

Lots of people think the politics of an area can be improved by immigration but they're wrong. Carpet baggers are never accepted anywhere and California is not sending their best. They're Republican, they're capitalist, they're self-important. But they don't know what to expect and their contributions are generally half-assed and inconsistent until winter sends them back south. Should be a good year for it: vaccine and a late spring may arrive together.

[fastfred]

a realtor friend who has been selling shit left and right for months said to me the other day
"I hope this is the worst hardest coldest winter in decades wake all these new comers up"