Quarantine Day 10: This is My Life Now
The New York Times published an article this weekend about what the world could learn from Italy, the world’s newest coronavirus hotspot.
The lessons in shorthand:
Go on lockdown as early as possible.
The government must be clear in its demands.
Strictly enforce quarantine rules.
This stuff is also backed up by academic data, and by both accounts Italy fucked up all that.
When the lockdown came, their politicians sent a mixed message. Citizens understandably shrugged and went out like everything was normal.
Three weeks later, people wait on hold for an hour to report heart attacks because all the medical emergency lines are clogged. If you die, you do so without friends or family by your side. Funerals are illegal.
Mayors across the country are losing their minds at people still refusing to stay in side:
President Business Deals was told on January 3rd that China was lying about the threat of coronavirus. He spent the next two and a half months praising Chairman Xi’s response and downplaying the threat to America.
Let’s see how that played out for our country’s most powerful dipshit:
Deals seems to see himself as a “wartime president” now. The problem is, the man only has a stomach for a fight when he can bully or bluster or bribe his way out of the problem.
With coronavirus, he doesn’t even have the stones to declare an emergency manufacturing order. That would make it harder for him to continue his effort to disavow any responsibility for the impending disaster in our hospital system.
We should be moving as 50 states side-by-side and under the direction of a competent president who is capable of passing a 5th grade science test. Instead 63 million Americans elected to run our government like a business, so we have 50 states jostling for limited resources at the expense of other Americans.
Our problem is compounded by the fact that you don’t have to pass an IQ test to become governor of a state.
West Virginia’s governor, Jim Justice, told his Boomer constituents on Monday to go out to eat at Bob Evan’s if that’s what they want to do. Florida governor Rob DeSantis let Spring Breakers from all over America and Canada descend on his beaches last week. The first wave started testing positive for COVID—19 yesterday.
As for clear messaging from politicians and thought-leaders, we can throw that out the door thanks to Rupert Murdoch putting his Kendall Roy-ass son in charge of Fox News’ coronavirus coverage.
Even with Deals’ shift in tone, people from Hugh Hewitt to Kirk fucking Herbstreit shared a “is our response to the virus overhyped?” article that was inaccurate that Medium took it down as a threat to public safety. That is the level of discourse in our country right now.
We’re also not strictly enforcing any social distancing rules. I had to stop watching Instagram Stories because there were too many people that I once respected who think “social distancing” is simply congregating at their friend’s house instead of the bar.
Anyway, the markets are going to get battered again today. The Republicans are shrieking about Democrats “blocking stimulus aid,” right down to the Senator who dumped millions of dollars in hotel stock and investing in work-from-home technology two days after receiving confidential information about America’s pandemic preparedness.
Sick, sick, shit. She’s lying to the point that I’m sure whichever staffer typed that tweet closed their computer and went outside immediately after hitting “send.”
The Republicans, in truth, tried to do what they do best — loot the state and fork the money to their corrupt capitalist cronies.
Mitch McConnell’s death squad wanted to award Secretary of Treasury Steve Mnuchin a slush fund of $500 billion to dispense, at his discretion, to corporations. None of which would be known to the public for at least six months!
President Business Deals’ hotels and resorts are undoubtedly feeling a pinch right now. Would he receive any of that taxpayer money? He refused to rule out that scenario yesterday:
Keep in mind we still haven’t seen this man’s taxes. It’s impossible to tell if he sold stocks before the pandemic broke out. Unless…
Deals owns at least $61 million in stocks. As he has proven throughout his life, he will reflexively lie whenever confronted with a fact that doesn’t paint him as the smartest man in the room.
At least Rand Paul tested positive for coronavirus. Paul was the lone Senator to vote against the initial coronavirus stimulus package that President Business Deals signed into law last Wednesday.
He probably took a note from his dad, who like his son is a doctor:
Rand, in true libertarian fashion, went to the closed Senate gym and pool while awaiting to find out if he had the famous viral infection. Hours later he became the first Senator to test positive for coronavirus.
Seeing he had lunch with the entire GOP Senate caucus on Friday, his actions sent four other Senators into self-quarantine (including Mitt Romney!) and will likely shift the balance of the Senate due to their archaic rules that don’t let them vote anywhere outside the Senate Chamber.
He is asymptomatic, though he had part of his lung removed after his neighbor stomped his ass out over some petunias. So that could change in a heartbeat.
BIG DICK DEWINE AT IT AGAIN
I expected Governor Mike DeWine to shutter non-essential businesses on Friday. It was a move he had been telegraphing all week. Instead he waited until Sunday to issue the proclamation that goes into effect at 11:59 p.m. tonight.
From Laura Mazade of cincinnati.com:
Can I leave my house during a stay-at-home order?
Yes, under specific circumstances. The exceptions that are included with the stay-at-home order include:
If it’s a matter of health and safety: This includes seeking emergency services, obtaining medical supplies or medication, or visiting a health care professional.
For necessary supplies and services: To obtain groceries or food, household consumer products, supplies needed to work from home get auto supplies (including dealers, parts, repair and maintenance).
For outdoor activity: These include walking, hiking, running or biking. Individuals may go to public parks and open recreation areas, however, playgrounds are closed.
Certain types of work: To perform work providing essential products and services
To take care of others: Including a family member, friend or pet in another household and to transport those as allowed by the order. This includes weddings and funerals.
I gotta tip America’s writers. For years I have been saying this country is a sham. And yet even I did not think they could reduce me to the point where I would be thankful for the calming influence of a daily Mike DeWine press conference.
I realized yesterday that on another hellacious timeline, Mary fucking Taylor — the Lieutenant Governor that couldn’t even get an endorsement from her former boss while running against DeWine — could be our governor right now, in which case I would have no choice but to leave the state.
People are calling this a “lockdown.” This is nowhere close to a lockdown.
Ohio classifies everything from payday lenders to insurance agencies to pawn shops as “essential,” so this isn’t the tyrannical march to martial law that soft-brained idiots with “COME AND TAKE IT” avatars seem to think it is.
We won’t know the effect of this response for another two weeks. I wish we had gone further, though. This is a critical time in our response and a certain strain of American that can’t be bothered to care about anyone else generally won’t listen to government advice.
Wisconsin’s Department of Corrections announced Saturday it would no longer accept new inmates due to the threat of coronavirus spread. While jails might seem isolated from the population, they’re not. They’re hotbeds for any virus and a spread in jail can quickly contaminate outside communities through the boomerang effect. We should be freeing as many prisoners are possible.
Minnesota and Vermont classified food distribution workers as Class 2 Emergency Employees last week, which entitled them to free childcare.
So there’s more we could be doing. I don’t want this to seem like I’m bashing DeWine. I’m not. I am thankful that in the era of President Business Deals, Ohio Republican voters elected a career politician with valuable experience instead of some radical yahoo who bribed her way into the upper echelons of state government.
I just want people to be prepared for quarantine culture to last longer than April 6th, which is when this stay-at-home order will be re-evaluated. Do I think we’ll be quarantined for 18+ months, like leaked documents from the Trump Administration warn? No. But I we sure as hell won’t be drinking on patios on April 7th.
GUILLOTINE THE MEDICINE-HOARDING DOCTORS
Saturday morning, President Business Deals, a non-licensed physician, took to Twitter to dispense medical advice to his 74 million followers, which is a crime in all 50 states:
This is, of course, horse shit.
Dr. Anthony Fauci (who will probably be fired soon) later rebutted this notion at a press conference, saying the evidence was “anecdotal.” It’s also an elixir that shouldn’t be taken without a prescription because the combination overwhelm your heart and kill you.
So what did a bunch of asshole doctors do in response? They wrote prescriptions for a “potential cure” to themselves, their families and their friends.
The practice was so widespread that the Ohio Pharmacy Board had to end it Sunday.
From Lucas Sullivan and Darrel Rowland of dispatch.com:
Ohio doctors are obtaining so many prescriptions of a possible coronavirus treatment for themselves, their families, their colleagues and their friends that it’s wiping out the supply for everybody else — including people with lupus who will become more susceptible to the virus without their usual medication.
As a result, Ohio’s pharmacy board, in an emergency meeting Sunday morning, barred pharmacists from dispensing chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 unless a person has tested positive for the virus or is otherwise approved by the pharmacy board’s executive director.
In order to get either of those drugs, the patient must have their positive test disclosed by the doctor on the prescription request. The prescription must be limited to a 14-day supply, and no refills are permitted without a new written prescription.
I can almost guarantee these doctors weren’t the ones on the front line of the disease. They were probably dermatologists (dermatologists are the biggest hustlers in the medical game this side of chiropractors). This is such a brazen crime that I’m stunned they even tried it.
Hopefully the statute of limitations hasn’t expired when we weather this storm. If you took the Hippocratic Oath and your first response to a pandemic is to horde nonsensical cures for you, your family, and your loved ones, then you deserve to go to jail.
So thanks, President Business Deals. Because of your dipshit tweeting, lupus patients went without their drugs this week.
DAVE YOST IS STILL AN OPPORTUNIST BAG OF TRASH
The worst part about global crises — and as a Millennial, I have come to see many bad things about them — is that the worst people in the world will always use it as an excuse to advance their nefarious political agenda.
Look at 9/11. We invaded Afghanistan three days later. Nearly 20 years later, we’re still there spending blood and treasure while negotiating a peace treaty with the same organization we went there to topple in the first place. Oh, and we also expanded the police state with the PATRIOT Act (still in existence) and the Iraq War (still in existence).
So why should a global pandemic be any different? And why wouldn’t an Ohio Republican use that pandemic to do what they truly love — stripping the reproductive rights from any woman not wealthy enough to travel to distance lands such as Illinois or Pennsylvania.
Enter Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, a man who loves nothing more than using taxpayer money to get owned in court by the ACLU.
From Darrel Rowland of dispatch.com, who obviously feels some type of way about a routine medical procedure:
Despite a state health order banning non-essential medical procedures during the coronavirus health emergency, Ohio abortion clinics remained open last week.
Jesus Christ, Darrel. Despite? What do you mean despite? Abortions are always essential as women can’t exactly put their pregnancies on hold while our incompetent government scrambles to corral a plague their idiocy unleashed on us in the first place.
Actually — I have bigger fish to fry. Let’s move on.
But after receiving complaints, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost ordered two of them to follow Ohio Health Director Amy Acton’s mandate. Yost’s warning applies to all such clinics in the state.
However, operators of at least one of the clinics responded that they would both comply with Acton’s order and continue to provide abortions.
“Under that order, Planned Parenthood can still continue providing essential procedures, including surgical abortion, and our health centers continue to offer other health care services that our patients depend on. Our doors remain open for this care,’” said a joint statement from Iris E. Harvey and Kersha Deibel, respectively presidents and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio and Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region. The latter runs an abortion clinic in Cincinnati.
Shoutout to all the normal brained people that spent last week not at home but in parking lots filming the comings-and-goings of abortion clinics and then tattling to the police. And by shoutout I mean go fuck yourselves.
Shockingly, Yost must have recognized he would get owned in court. But he got his name attached to anti-abortion messaging that got broadcast throughout the country, and that’s all he really cared about in the first place.
MEGA CHURCH MORE THAN WILLING TO KILL THEIR MEMBERS TO KEEP THE TITHES TURNING
Current Center of Disease Control guidelines advise Americans to avoid groups of more than 10 people. Despite bans on large crowd gatherings, there is always an exception for churches.
Some churches recognize that gathering older people in large groups could lead to a coronavirus rampage. Others are cults that are more concerned about keeping the offering plate passing around.
From Eric Schwartzberg of daytondailynews.com:
TURTLECREEK TWP. — While other congregations across Ohio are encouraging their worshipers to stay home and worship online to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, Solid Rock Church held in-person services Sunday morning and evening in Warren County.
“We are open!” the church posted this morning via Facebook, publicizing its 10:30 a.m. and 7 p.m. services. “Thankful the governor hasn’t placed restrictions on churches. Join us today! If you can’t make it or aren’t feeling well, watch us online at www.solidrockchurch.org.”
The Rev. Lawrence Bishop, Solid Rock Church’s pastor, said during a live stream of the 10:30 a.m. service that those concerned with the public’s health would be better served protesting outside Planned Parenthood locations instead.
Perfect insight to these types of con artists. Not only did he urge older attendees to congregate in a large group in a closed space for hours at a time, he then told those that were (rightfully) concerned that their time would be better spent heckling women outside an abortion clinic.
Killing a cluster of cells? Murder. Prodding Boomers out into public and getting them infected and killed? God’s word.
Always good to know where you stand with these people.
THOSE WMDS. Factory of Sadcast: Quarantine Content… The rise of coronavirus influencers… Podcast: The bullshit of the victim’s rights movement… It’s time to ban targeted advertising… Sorry, you shouldn’t go to your friend’s house during social distancing… Subtle information hackers find in the background of your social media posts.