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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2020 10:54 am 
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Trump is kinda where the GOP has been going since World War 2. It's basically the party of America's losers; the ones who aren't making it in the modern economy and don't want to admit the 1950s aren't coming back to give them a massive advantage again. That pretense made them the party who openly mocked the rest of the country for being the 'reality based community' back in 2000.

Well, for the moment, the People of the Lie feel the need to lie about this particular lethal disease. I'm just wondering how much it has to cost them before they finally stop lying. At least about this.

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2020 8:58 pm 
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To be fair, the modern economy sucks. We know the story. Wages flat, health care more expensive, education more expensive, homes more expensive, more debt, crappier jobs.

When this first started happening to black communities in the 1960s and 70s the conservatives blamed their misfortune on bad morals. Now it's happening to white small towns and the Republicans pander to their worst impulses. Yes the game is rigged against you, they say, and it's the fault of immigrant-coddling latte liberals.

As for the pandemic denial, I don't know. There's anecdotes of Covid patients insisting to their dying breaths that it's a hoax. I hope these people are an extreme exception but I think that the red states by and large have gone in too deep with "keep the economy open!" to admit fault. It's too embarassing, so they will say it was an unavoidable tragedy. Much in the way that they accept mass shootings as the price of the freedom to own as many guns as they want, not that I am starting a debate about arms control.

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2020 12:00 pm 
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I suspect it's a bit more fundamental than covid strategy; the right/Republicans are fundamentally immoral people who will accept the crippling and killing of an effectively unlimited number of 'others' to gain their own selfish goals. What makes it more pathetic is that all too often they'll do that simply for convenience; poisoning the other for whiter clothes is an acceptable trade to them, so why not kill granny for a paycheck?

Given that fundamental right wing ethos they can't accept a public benefit>private gain plan. Hell, note the five Republican judges on the Supremes who just said that public health is trumped by claims of religious convenience; they're exactly who and what the right is around here.

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2020 1:54 pm 
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Yesterday the US lost 2,614 people to Covid-19 infections. Which, btw, is the 4th largest 'official' one day loss to that disease so far in this country. For perspective, 2,499 Americans were killed on D-Day by the Wehrmacht; so for a virus which may not exist, it's doing a fair amount of damage.

That said, at least 90% of those folks would not have died absent the choices of Trump and his party. Which puts the number of Americans killed yesterday by the GOP in just this one way at a minimum of 2,352; less than the Germans at Normandy, but more than the IJN at Pearl Harbor (2,335). The war the Republicans are waging against their own country seems to be progressing nicely, doesn't it?

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2020 2:16 pm 
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The Republicans down Florida way just raided the home of the woman who wouldn't falsify the Covid casualty numbers on the official website, and then set up her own site when she was fired for telling the truth. They made off with her computer and phone. Needless to say whomever might have been sharing the truth with her has now had their information dragged out, and we can reasonably expect a purge of those folks real soon.

Ok, technically the Republicans who did this were Florida cops; knowingly acting on false accusations to steal information no court would ever have given a warrant for so the party can put it to openly criminal use. Good to see the Republicans remain true to their core values.

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2020 9:51 pm 
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I was just reading an article about Covid denialism among the ultra-orthidox Jewish community in NYC, and how, despite the virus spreading through their population and killing many people, they have doubled down on their denial and are rejecting public health precautions almost out of spite because they feel the authorities are targeting them unfairly. They distrust the authorities so much they would rather get sick and when their family members die they rationalize away their guilt and blame the hospitals for not saving them. They're fearful and traumatized and that's making them even more stubborn, as though suicidal defiance were the only thing that allows them to cope from day to day.

And that's exactly what's going to happen in red states. The social dynamics and psychology are remarkably similar. They will never learn their lesson.

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2020 4:12 pm 
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The ultra-orthodox Jews being referred to are a particular brand of toxic-stupid that survived the massacres of Europe in the 40s because they pissed off their fellow Jews so badly in Poland that by the 20s they had to leave or they all would have starved to death. Stalinism is regarded by them as a perfectly reasonable model for political organization. Therapists were not permitted to help their members until they agreed up front to never tell them the simple truth that the problem is their toxic environment and the solution is to leave.

They're not exactly cut from the same cloth as the magats. Though they do share some superficial traits regarding inconvenient truths, their views on the inherent worthlessness of the interests of the individual against the rights of the society would never fly with the typical Trumpies.

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2020 11:36 pm 
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Isn't the Trumpies' obsessive devotion to individual interests the precise problem in this pandemic? They put their desire not to be temporarily discomfited over the rights of everyone else not to catch a serious disease. If anything, won't the magats be even worse?

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2020 7:42 pm 
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The magats don't usually crowd together in dense urban settings and live in overcrowded apartments because they have very large families on marginal incomes. That kind of thing makes infection control somewhat harder. Besides, some of the magats view their selfish short term best interest as masking up and etc whether Trump likes it or not.

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2020 12:38 am 
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I think by now we've seen that population density does not actually make that big of a difference to Covid transmission. NYC got hit hard first not because of its density, but because of its extensive international connections (and being asleep at the wheel). The current hotspots are not densely populated areas. Yes, crowded city apartments are a problem, but so are suburban magats who drive to bars, church (with singing!), birthday parties, and their elderly relatives' homes on Thanksgiving.

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2021 9:14 am 
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Our goverment keeps going with a sensible headlines, but low on details strategy.

Likely because of the low turnout in the mass tests in december, they had come up with the plan of "free-testing" for january. For people who have a test, the lockdown would end one week early.

Only they had no coherent plan, who would be responsible for checking if a person really has a test.

The plan in the end failed, because the opposition did not agree and they have a majority in the second chamber of the parliament, that allows them to delay laws.

The lockdown has been prolonged and for some applications (including grocery stores) now FFP2 masks are required. But either this does not apply to public transport or barely anyone follows it, as i have seen today, since today i had to physically get to work.

Anyway i am sceptical that this helps a lot, since i would guess most infections come from people not wearing masks properly or simply not follow rules. And better masks don't help much with that. But i have a package of FFP3 masks now (since they cost about as much as FFP2 masks now).

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2021 7:46 am 
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A little update, i got the date when FFP2 masks are mandatory wrong, the rule only goes into effect today.

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2021 11:31 am 
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I don't think it's intentional, but the Austrian government ist trolling the 5G conspiracy now.

They have (already a while back) instated the 3G rule for certain locations or activities. This stands vor "geimpft" "getestet" and "genesen" which in English is "vaccinated" "tested" and "recovered" and you have to check at least one of thoose boxes to be allowed entry or participation.

We also have a kinda typical example how federalism is done in Austria. States are responsible for organizing vaccinations and assigning appointments, because i guess state politicans need to be seen doing something. Vaccine doses have been purchased by the federal government and were distributed to the states according to the population that lives in them. States (i assume all or most of them) have decided to prioritize people who work in them in high risk professions such as hospital staff.

So a lot of doses assigned to Vienna were given to people, who work in high risk professions in Vienna, but live in Lower Austria and other states. After all commuting to Vienna for work is a common thing, the reverse is unusual. So Vienna is way behind in vaccinating its "general" population. (I managed to get my first Moderna shot last week though)

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2021 1:44 pm 
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Apparently for a lot of people a dislike towards buerocracy trumps a lot.

Now after for i guess more then a week, when everyone can get an appointment for vaccination, in Vienna and Innsbruck they also opened options for getting vaccinated without an appointment.

And a lot of people did choose to take that offer. Seems like they prefere either to not get vaccinated or waiting in long lines (while still not vaccinated) to making an appointment.

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 Post subject: Re: The Virus
 Post Posted: Fri Jul 23, 2021 12:37 pm 
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Apparently the Republicans are starting to worry that they'll be blamed for the epidemic going forward, and that between that and the number of their own faithful they're setting up to die it might cost them an election or two in future. To that end, some of them are starting to say their faithful should get vaccinated. Indeed, the governor of Alabama just came out and said that the unvaccinated should be blamed for the epidemic (but presumably not the Republican Party which has been telling people not to get vaccinated)

Mind you, they're not saying it very loudly. If you're what passes for a right wing information consumer then you could easily miss it; and even if you do catch it, still take away the message that it's not a great idea for various reasons. But given that there's pretty much an irreduceable minimum of 60% of the unvaccinated who refuse to get the shot no matter what the positive incentive, it's dubious that a handful of Republicans can change many minds. Trump might be able to, but don't hold your breath on him trying unless he can figure out a way to grift a serious chunk of change out of each shot.

So it might be time to break out the negative incentives.

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