Racing Turtles

please, please, please do not pretend this is close to over.

still praying for biden to sniff the hair of a woman with coronavirus

This is probably the most Gen Z headline I’ve ever read and I can’t get enough

Hey young followers? Don’t fucking do this.

This is not about us. You’re gonna get other people killed.

It’s inconvinient. It sucks. I hate that I can’t go see my parents and my friends. I deal with it, because this is not about us. Protect vulnerable people, stay at home.

THANK YOU

Staying home is a preventative action.

Kids, I live in the middle of China.  And guess what?  It’s on the decline here, because travel was shut the fuck down, and people have been self-quarantining and staying home.  Stay home.  And I’m not saying that because I’m a doomsday fear-monger.

Do you know why self-quarantining works?  Because the incubation period is anywhere from one to two weeks.  You could be a carrier long before you know you have it.  You can leave your home, catch it from another carrier, and go about your life spreading it to others for a solid fourteen days.  And everyone knows that aeroplanes are just flying Petri dishes.  You’re at risk of transmission on a plane, and you’re at risk of transmitting for much longer than most of you may realize.

The virus is travelling at an exponential rate because of this incubation period.  When it reaches where you live, no one will know for two weeks.  People will be passing it around for two weeks.  And then the cases will crop up, and when they do, your healthcare systems will be overwhelmed.  Your neighbours will be treated in hallways and waiting rooms.  There will be limited resources, limited oxygen machines, limited kits.  Doctors and nurses will be pushed to breaking point, and they will exhaust themselves.  And as I’ve seen here, some of them will die as a consequence.  And the elderly and the immunocompromised will be at risk of dying.

But you can help this.  By staying the fuck home like the goddamn CDC says.  Go out only if it’s necessary.  For work, for groceries, for doctor visits.  If your job allows you to work from home, do it.  Travel only in emergencies.  Stay home.  Don’t put yourself or others at risk.

Here’s a graph!

See those flat lines?  Those are Chinese provinces, where the virus could have been exponential, but people were quick to distance themselves and stay home, so it hasn’t been exponential. There haven’t been that many new cases.  And, yeah, it was government-enforced.  It also worked.

So when your CDC advises social distancing because your government can’t constitutionally enforce it? Do it.  Just fucking do it.  Look at the graph.  And do it.

I know it sucks.  But someone else’s right to LIVE is greater than your right to a cheap plane ticket and a weekend away.

We’re going to survive this.  And you increase how many of us will by staying home.

Staying home is not a fear reaction.

Staying home is a preventative action.

The covid-19 (coronavirus) outbreak is a great example of why conservative governments cutting public health funding and eroding workers rights so they’re forced to work to survive even while sick is a terrible thing. It’s terrible even without a pandemic but a pandemic really highlights just how utterly incompatible conservative ideology is with a robust and well functioning society.

Remember that the U.S. federal government’s non-response is not just Trump. It’s the Republican party. Trump’s policies are pretty normal for Republicans.

The Republicans in the Senate shot down paid sick leave. The McConnell-led Senate isn’t going to take up a coronavirus bill until they’re back from recess (as of this morning.) Susan Collins stripped nearly a billion dollars for pandemic preparations out of the 2009 stimulus. Tom Cotton pushed the conspiracy theory that the coronavirus is a bioweapon purposefully developed and spread by China.

Vote in every election, not just presidential.

Prediction for other Americans: In a year or two when COVID-19 is winding down either just due to burnout or a vaccine there will emerge a narrative that it was tragic, and sad, but unavoidable, and people did what they could in the face of overwhelming odds.

This will be false.

The US has been far, far too slow in responding. Contrast our response with South Korea's, with their aggressive testing, containment, and mitigation. Notice how slow we have been in implementing measures that can slow the virus's spread. Notice how lack of insurance, paid time off, and a robust safety bet will speed the virus's spread. Notice the lack of testing, and the spread of misinformation. This was, perhaps, not something that can be prevented, but it is absolutely something that can be mitigated, and our leaders and our country failed and continue to fail to take actions that can mitigate it.

And remember this abysmal response is directly due to the current administration slashing the budget for CDC and firing the epidemic response team, then turns around and blames it on his black predecessor. Do NOT forget this is another huge failure on trumps part.

AND their conscious choice to slow-walk testing to keep official infection numbers low so Trump could claim he was doing a good job containing it, and it wasnt a big deal anyway.

Btw for anyone who’s staying inside for whatever reason (you’re unwell, you’re immunocompromised, you’re playing it safe) don’t forget that your public library probably has all sorts of e-resources, including ebooks, audiobooks, streaming, educational materials, and sometimes even e-graphic novels. Enjoy a wealth of material without ever leaving home!

my dr says the healthcare system’s got two weeks until it’s turbofuckt by covid. Wash your hands for grandma and attempt to prevent your relatives from traveling to see one another.

so wait, the other day everyone was like “coronavirus, no big deal, flu is worse, yadda yadda yadda” and now today everyone is like “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIEEEEE”

so which is it

I think it’s, we vaccinate for flu, but nobody’s vaccinated for coronavirus, and it spreads really quickly, so our infrastructure will likely be slammed by everybody susceptible getting it more or less at once.

part of it’s a joke based on a handful of conservative commentators who have pretty long track-records of being wrong coming out to say “we’ve got this under control everything’s fine” over the last week, but another part of it is that the Trump admin is just generally botching the response to coronavirus pretty spectacularly, trying to prevent medical experts from talking honestly about the coronavirus situation in the US and, as of yesterday, claiming it’s “a hoax” drummed up by dems and the media to “destroy the president” and “sabotage wall street”.

Let’s put the guy who caused an AIDS outbreak in Indiana in charge of preventing a Coronavirus outbreak in America.

In the 2017-2018 flu season in the US:

20,731,323  people visited the doctor for their symptoms (there’s no record, of course, for people who had the flu but did not visit the doctor)

808,129  were hospitalized

61,099  died

These numbers are directly off of the CDC site

but they probably didn’t make the news, because, pfft, it’s just the flu

Also, flu sucks so much worse when you’re poor. I know, that seems obvious, but still. The last time I got the flu, my joints locked, my bones felt sunburned, and I needed water so bad but my whole GI tract from my nose down hurt at the thought of drinking of anything. I probably should have been hospitalized. I probably should have stayed in bed for two weeks. But I had shifts to cover, and three days was the most I could call out without being fired immediately. I was standing in my retail environment like a zombie, and probably looked and smelled like one too because showering cost too many spoons, but it didn’t matter because capitalism demands warm bodies. I wore a mask, washed my hands frequently, and prayed to any deity that felt like listening that a) I didn’t infect anyone else, b) my shift would be over soon, and c) I would just fucking die there in the store and maybe that would be enough to change their policy.

People with money and good insurance can just go to the hospital, confident in rapid recovery with a saline drip and time to recuperate. Thanks to modern medicine, their survival of the flu is practically guaranteed. That’s not an option for most other people in the US. We’re ripe for a plague, and it will probably be flu.

Get your goddamn flu shot. It’s usually free, and is so much better than the alternative.