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Covid-19 #20: Nowhere to Hide


Fragile Bird

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Good find @kairparavel

I don't want to entirely consign AstraZeneca to the trash, but I did smell a rat when I read about the mistaken doses in one of the trials. 

Separately, has anyone been following the Slovakia COVID response? I know that they were trying to blitz-test their entire population China style and it does seem to have had some results (daily cases have halved in a few weeks). I have always liked the idea of that approach if you can pull it off. 

 

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11 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

C'mom. Random hook-ups carry their risks (and their rewards tbh). A friend of mine took a lady home, it took him a while the day after to notice that the "lady" in question stole him some money. 

OK, but I think you may not have expressed that the way you wanted to in English.

I think you meant that she "stole some of his money."

"Stole him some money" would be that she stole money from someone else and gave it to him. :)

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3 hours ago, kairparavel said:

Yeah, the New York Times published an article after the Wired article with some additional details.  The lower dosage, which was given as a mistake, was given to less than 3000 people.  If they want to prove that the lower dosage is actually 90% effective they are going to have to redo the study with thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of new test subjects.  Might not take that long to get results though given how widespread SARS-CoV-2 is now.  

Some of this information was disclosed first to investors in a private conference call, like they did earlier in the year with the adverse events.  The lack of transparency and misleading characterization of the efficacy does not inspire confidence.  

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56 minutes ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

I noted the word “lady” in quotation marks, which I read as a trans individual who was passing for cis. Or perhaps a cross-dressing man who was passing for female.

Hence, I assumed that the story was true and correct but with a 1980s style Aerosmith misgendering or a story that involved passing without a misgendering.

Maybe it’s because I’m old but I read “lady” in quotes as meaning she was no lady, she was a thief. :dunno:

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2 hours ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

I noted the word “lady” in quotation marks, which I read as a trans individual who was passing for cis. Or perhaps a cross-dressing man who was passing for female.

Hence, I assumed that the story was true and correct but with a 1980s style Aerosmith misgendering or a story that involved passing without a misgendering.

I interpreted it to mean a prostitute, and she was simply collecting what she was owed for her services. But the dude thought she stole not realising she was a service for hire.

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17 hours ago, Ormond said:

OK, but I think you may not have expressed that the way you wanted to in English.

I think you meant that she "stole some of his money."

"Stole him some money" would be that she stole money from someone else and gave it to him. :)

Probably. I'm not a native speaker and I have a small speech disability that sometimes shows up in writing too. Specially when I haven't slept well. I had a nightmarish telecon yesterday. Besides the usual technical problems I had more trouble than usual to make understand.

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As for Macy's, with a parade work force that is 88% less than normal and a route which is basically only one block long, I think they have probably done about a good a job as they could of making it safe without completely cancelling it. 

 

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18 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Seeing imagines of cars I know are worth at the least $50,000 driving through a food line is fucking offensive. 

The food isn't for the car?

People with cars of any value have lost their jobs this year. The stimulus checks have long since run out along with the extended unemployment bonuses. So perhaps yes, even people with a 50G car need help this year. 

In 2008 I had been working a year in a job with the highest salary I'd ever made. I gave myself a little treat - an Infiniti G35. A year later I was unemployed, and selling that car would have left me upside down on my loan. With only unemployment to cover my bills. And I wasn't living in a pandemic. It didn't get to the point where I needed to utilize the services of a community food bank, but if it had? Good to know it would have been a problem for someone. 

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16 minutes ago, kairparavel said:

The food isn't for the car?

People with cars of any value have lost their jobs this year. The stimulus checks have long since run out along with the extended unemployment bonuses. So perhaps yes, even people with a 50G car need help this year. 

In 2008 I had been working a year in a job with the highest salary I'd ever made. I gave myself a little treat - an Infiniti G35. A year later I was unemployed, and selling that car would have left me upside down on my loan. With only unemployment to cover my bills. And I wasn't living in a pandemic. It didn't get to the point where I needed to utilize the services of a community food bank, but if it had? Good to know it would have been a problem for someone. 

Funny, I have a silver G35x.

People are living way outside of their means though. I could understand long lines of beaters needing food. But most of the cars in these lines look new. Or newish. That food should be going to those who are really struggling first.

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23 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Funny, I have a silver G35x.

People are living way outside of their means though. I could understand long lines of beaters needing food. But most of the cars in these lines look new. Or newish. That food should be going to those who are really struggling first.

How do you know they are picking up food for themselves?

Years ago my mother helped out an elderly poverty-stricken man who lived in a shack in the woods at the end of the road our house was on. She was able to get him supplemental security income and food stamps. He was often ill and could not go to the grocery store himself, so she took the food stamps and bought his groceries with them. The person who has the food stamps does NOT have to be the one who physically buys the groceries.

My mother drove a fairly highend Oldsmobile at the time and would have been seen as a well-dressed "middle middle class" woman, as she was. I am sure there were people who saw her using the food stamps who thought she was some sort of welfare cheat, but it was just the opposite -- she was helping out someone who was truly needy. 

I am sure that a lot of private food banks would work the same way -- the person picking up the food doesn't have to be the person who is using it. Some of the people in those cars are surely getting food for poorer people they are helping out.  And sometimes the poorer person may even be in the car and a better off friend, neighbor, or volunteer is driving them to the food bank.

You have no way of knowing what the situation is if you do not know the individuals in the car personally. 

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10 minutes ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

I have a 2013 Honda Civic (fully paid for) and a 2018 Honda Accord. 

My cars are nowhere near indicative of my overspending :rofl:

Show me the zappos.com receipts! 

4 minutes ago, Ormond said:

How do you know they are picking up food for themselves?

Years ago my mother helped out an elderly poverty-stricken man who lived in a shack in the woods at the end of the road our house was on. She was able to get him supplemental security income and food stamps. He was often ill and could not go to the grocery store himself, so she took the food stamps and bought his groceries with them. The person who has the food stamps does NOT have to be the one who physically buys the groceries.

My mother drove a fairly highend Oldsmobile at the time and would have been seen as a well-dressed "middle middle class" woman, as she was. I am sure there were people who saw her using the food stamps who thought she was some sort of welfare cheat, but it was just the opposite -- she was helping out someone who was truly needy. 

I am sure that a lot of private food banks would work the same way -- the person picking up the food doesn't have to be the person who is using it. Some of the people in those cars are surely getting food for poorer people they are helping out.  And sometimes the poorer person may even be in the car and a better off friend, neighbor, or volunteer is driving them to the food bank.

You have no way of knowing what the situation is if you do not know the individuals in the car personally. 

No one is saying your mother is anything less than a saint, but you must recognize she's an outlier. 

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Just now, Tywin et al. said:

Show me the zappos.com receipts! 

No one is saying your mother is anything less than a saint, but you must recognize she's an outlier. 

I am quite sure there are enough "outliers" in the Twin Cities area to lead to many of the people picking up food to be in similar situations to my mother.

Are you implying that if you had a relative, friend or neighbor who was truly needy and who asked you to pick up food for them at a food bank that you would refuse? And that you think most Americans would refuse? I think you're wrong. My mother was unusual to pro-actively find out about Mr. Kirby's needs and then help him out, but one does not have to be a "saint" to be helping out someone they know. 

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1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Funny, I have a silver G35x.

People are living way outside of their means though. I could understand long lines of beaters needing food. But most of the cars in these lines look new. Or newish. That food should be going to those who are really struggling first.

What does any of this have to do with immediate need? Who the fuck are you to determine need from your 30 000 miles in the sky view of strangers? Choices were made, are made everyday in this country. How often do we hear about people being one emergency expense from disaster? No one expects to be in this current timeline. No one considers the possibility of a global pandemic when purchasing a car or home. The people you consider to be in appropriate vehicles and clothing in the food lines, are you following them to make sure they live in appropriately rundown homes as well?

I don't think you've wrapped your head around the idea of just how many people have been completely fucked over by an indifferent government and corporate greed to go with economic hardship in so many industries these past nine months. Lost jobs. Lost benefits. Lost family members. And all the while the bills haven't stopped. 

JFC. 

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Woke this morning to e mail and text messages from near and dear, one and all deeply depressed and distressed.

This Day is throwing into stark reality, what we cannot have, what we've been denied, everything we most value, and which in Before times this Day was all about for all of us.  And thanks to consciously evil monsters and to idiots, we've been denied it for nearly a year, all year, already!

But most of all, I think, the distress isn't about losing this Thanksgiving's festivities with those we love, respect, admire and with whom we enjoy making merry the most among our ever revolving, evolving, shifting kaleidoscope of people, old, true and new. What it is, is we're acutely frightened.  

That so many people are traveling and saying the hell with it, while all around us, now, unlike March, etc., so many we know are now sick, and are even dying (well, we knew and were surrounded, since our circles include so many musicians and African Americans, including the students and their families).

So many infected and contagious, how can we and our loved ones not become infected as well? Then, you know, employment and all the rest.  Friends who have been cheery, busy and staunch all along -- well, today, they are not.  And even on this Day, we see how much more is coming as Barret's SC struck down NY's limitations on religious gatherings (though the governor says it means nothing since the suits in question were from institution for whom the restrictions had aleady been lifted).  You heard about those two Hassidim 'secret' wedding celebrations of three days +, this month, with 7000 + guests, right?  So, ya, scared and feeling hopeless and helpless.  We're pathetically attempting to mask and distance ourselves as flimsy rafts by which we struggle to stay afloat in the raging sea of virus, with the hospitals collapsing all around the country. 

Yet my BIL was determined to fly to Minnesota to spend the holiday weekend with his son and family -- except son said, NO.  Now BIL is raging, because none of his sons and family will be spending the Day with him and he can't play pirate ship captain. I kid you not. This 70 year old man puts on costume complete with fake sword and beard, pretending garden shed roofs are ships and plays pirate, with his sons and grandkids as his crew.  If one wonders why this nation is run by idiots, just think about him. The grandkids would rather play video games and his sons just hate it, but you know, keep the old man from sulking. At least we get to drink a whole lot of rum, otherwise we might have made him walk the plank, one of the nephews wrote today, because Sis is in a state, because he's in a state, and she called him, crying.

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1 hour ago, Ormond said:

I am quite sure there are enough "outliers" in the Twin Cities area to lead to many of the people picking up food to be in similar situations to my mother.

Are you implying that if you had a relative, friend or neighbor who was truly needy and who asked you to pick up food for them at a food bank that you would refuse? And that you think most Americans would refuse? I think you're wrong. My mother was unusual to pro-actively find out about Mr. Kirby's needs and then help him out, but one does not have to be a "saint" to be helping out someone they know. 

I donate to the locate food shelf weekly.

 

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