World Politics

[MetalCaveman]

Looks like they're taking it seriously now. Schools will be closed from March 20 until April 20, some colleges like Tec de Monterrey have announced they'll be holding online classes only. Some sport events have also been cancelled.

 

Hopefully it's not too late, but only time will tell.

 

My grandmother doesn't really leave her home that often, though she does get visits from her daughters and I know one of them doesn't necessarily have the best hygiene habits. My mom is the one that worries me the most, she smokes a ton, has some health issues and refuses to see a doctor for most of them because her friends have told her that magnets and garlic tea work better than any medicine.  She also doesn't listen when people tell her to avoid crowds and other large events. If she gets sick, it's likely that my father and aunt, who moved here after my grandparents died, will also get sick. How do you convince someone like that to not do dumb shit?

 

Another big thing is going to be the ending of Semana Santa (lent?), a huge religious thing where people gather to watch a dude get crucified, I don't think people will be happy to see it cancelled, but they should definitively call it off ASAP.

 

 

[Mal]

12 minutes ago, MetalCaveman said:

How do you convince someone like that to not do dumb shit? 

Me and Ethan was lamenting about it on Twitter. It's honestly kind of driving me up the wall. I'm doing my best so I don't inadvertently ice my grandma but she's sometimes goes out to ride the bus in a Californian hot spot. 

 

I guess what will come will come. Problem for Future Me. Problems for Future Me... exponential curves are haunting me.

[deanb]

I work at a college of roughly 5,000 (older high-school thing, not a uni) which my department has spent the last half-week waiting for news on-high to close schools and colleges down. Already checking we can work from home (I can only do like 20% of my job externally, but chunk of my job is sending staff to external conferences and training so not going to be a major issue cos we'll likely stop that).

Problem is our government doing nothing except state "some of your loved ones will die". The Health Secretary posted their plan to a pay-walled website rather than to an official gov.uk site too. Boris is pretty much a more eloquent Trump, just all full of bluster and spin, and hopefully people are paying attention to the woeful response of the tories for the next election (oh one action taken has been to postpone local elections a year. Oh and another thing to give themselves emergency powers to detain people suspected of being infected. Because police are now the medics). Oh and they've asked factories to pop out ventilators. It turns out production lines set up for making cars can be easily reconfigured to making ventilators.

 

Thank god we didn't do anything recently that meant many qualified doctors and nurses left the country...

[Mal]

56 minutes ago, deanb said:

 Problem is our government doing nothing except state "some of your loved ones will die". 

 

 

[Mister Jack]

 

[MetalCaveman]

3 hours ago, deanb said:

Problem is our government doing nothing except state "some of your loved ones will die".

 

Our president said "You know what they've been saying? About avoiding contact? Don't listen to them, everything's alright, hug each other, it's fine, that's how we beat this."

 

 

[MetalCaveman]

Well, just had a fun discussion with some relatives in terms of what to do in the coming days. Basically, my father and I told them to avoid going out as much as possible, only go out when necessary, avoid markets and other crowded areas. Their response "Well, we went outside and there weren't many people around, so we'll be fine, whatever." My father told them that they should still take care to avoid certain places and recommended that if they have to buy some groceries, to do it when there aren't many people around, usually early in the morning. "Well, whatever, I still have to stand in line with other people at the butcher, otherwise what am I going to eat?" They didn't like the suggestion of canned food, pasta and other stuff that you can buy that'll last for a while. Sure, it may not be the best, nor the most nutritious/delicious/whatever, but the alternative, exposing yourself just because you don't think it's serious enough is not worth it IMO. They disagreed and now I'm just wondering what to do. 

 

I mean, if people don't care about their own health and how it affects others what can you do?

 

At the moment I'm, debating between trying to explain things in a more detailed manner, show them what it's like in other countries, show them what happens when people don't take care of themselves, but then I remember that their attitude towards this is just to ignore it all, to act like it's no big deal, like they're immune to it and I start to think "If you don't fucking care then why the fuck should I, I'll just stay away from ya'll".

 

Not the way I wanted to spend my Sunday. Then again, I guess things rarely go the way we want them to.

[TheMightyEthan]

They're adults, all you can do is try to give them the information, you can't make them make good decisions. My wife is worried about her dad, who is in his early 70's, but doesn't seem to have any concerns whatsoever, and I keep telling her the same thing.

[Mal]

[MetalCaveman]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-16/amlo-won-t-stop-hugging-mexican-fans-amid-accelerating-pandemic

 

Good thing these trips are important, vital even, to the safety of our country.  

 

 

 

When asked if the president turned out to be infected, but without symptoms, and his visits to marginalised communities could expose people vulnerable to the virus the undersecretary of health said:

 

"The strength of our president is a moral one, not a contagious one"

 

I don't even know what the fuck that means.

 

Curiously, if you watch conferences where the dude is alone or with other experts, he seems to know what he's talking about, when in front of the president though... Well, that tweet explains itself.  

[Mal]

Take the report and the Twitter thread as you will... it basically applies to the UK and other countries (non)responses as well.

Edited March 18, 2020 by Mal

[Mister Jack]

A little bit of good news for a change. The Japanese have found a flu drug that seems effective against the Coronavirus.

[TheMightyEthan]

Hopefully it pans out and doesn't just give people a false sense of security.

[Mal]

The "Thai-cocktail" looks to be ineffective for treatment. Looks like the world over is tossing whatever seems to work and hoping something sticks. 

 

This is kind of why I'm a proponent of expecting a loooong fight. 

Edited March 19, 2020 by Mal

[Mister Jack]

Was that supposed to be a vaccine? It's honestly hard to keep up with who's testing what anymore.

[TheMightyEthan]

Since they're calling it a "drug cocktail" I'm guessing it's supposed to be a treatment, not a vaccine.

 

In other news, the Kansas Supreme Court has issued an order suspending all court proceedings state-wide except for a narrow list of "emergency" functions. The order is technically indefinite, but will be re-evaluated in two weeks.

[Mal]

Yeah, it's a treatment to squash the infection quickly. Not sure how well all these proposed treatments will work on the elderly. 

 

Now I have to wonder, how much do you guys trust the numbers coming out from various countries? For me, the only number I really trust is South Korea and probably Taiwan. All others I hold as suspect with some more than others. I still use their numbers to make some form of informed decision since it's all we got. 

[MetalCaveman]

1 hour ago, Mal said:

Yeah, it's a treatment to squash the infection quickly. Not sure how well all these proposed treatments will work on the elderly. 

 

Now I have to wonder, how much do you guys trust the numbers coming out from various countries? For me, the only number I really trust is South Korea and probably Taiwan. All others I hold as suspect with some more than others. I still use their numbers to make some form of informed decision since it's all we got. 

 

From here, no trust, 0, nada. From what I've seen, it works like this:

 

You go to the doctor, the doctor says you have the symptoms and should be tested, you get tested either with your doctor or in a hospital, if you're positive, in order to get the results added to the numbers coming out from the country, the INDRE has to send someone to conduct the test. However, doctors are reporting that it can take days for them to send someone, IF they send someone at all.

 

 

"Our protective shield is the 'stop right there', the 'stop right there' will protect us. 'Stop right there' is honesty, not allowing corruption anymore, that's what will protect us. Here's the 'stop right there' *pulls out religious thingamabob* see... 'stop right there enemy, for Jesus is with me'"

 

That's just a part of it, the whole thing is just... It'd be funny it this guy weren't the president, as it stands it's more of a surreal dark comedy horror movie.

 

Then the undersecretary of health had this to say:

 

"If a school has 1000 children, and one of the gets sick, we can close the school, and the other 999 children won't get stick and it'd be good. But if we wait, until 100 children get sick, THEN we close the school, it's more effective, because those 100 kids can't infect anyone else, and so on, if we have 250 sick children, or 500 sick children, the longer we wait, the more effective our strategy"

 

The first case in the city I live has been confirmed, as well as one case in a nearby city.

 

Interesting days ahead.

 

Edit: It gets worse, the government has banned all hospitals and laboratories from performing tests.

 

 

 

Edited March 20, 2020 by MetalCaveman

[MetalCaveman]

Governor Omay Fayad has issued a statement, all night clubs, bars, markets, stores, etc. are to close or otherwise suspend their activities, only grocery stores will remain open.

 

http://hidalgo.gob.mx/

 

This is in defiance to federal government who continue to refuse any actions.

 

In more personal notes, my mom and aunt continue to not give a shit, they wash their hands often, but continue to go out, hang out with other people, go to crowded places and in general, the opposite of isolation, quarantine or any other measure to protect oneself and others. 

[Mister Jack]

Jesus, and I thought it was bad over here in the states. Even if I was someone who only cared about how it was affecting the US---and I'm not---this kind of irresponsibility endangers not only his own country but the surrounding borders too. If by some miracle we manage to shut down enough in the states to stop the spread of the virus, all it would take is a few infected people coming up from Mexico with its business as usual attitude to potentially start things up all over again. Unfortunately this will also give the anti-immigration people a pretty convincing argument. "Oh, you don't believe they're bringing crime and drugs? Well how about the coronavirus? Do you wanna go through that again?"

Edited March 21, 2020 by Mister Jack

[Mal]

No testing... Good luck metal and stay safe. 

 

On a personal note, I'm working from home for two weeks. My gut says that it'll be longer. Maybe unemployment. We will see. I REALLY want to be proven wrong. 

[deanb]

Yesterday I found out since I work at a college I'm an "essential worker" (schools are remaining open for staff so "key worker" kids can be looked after. So nurses/doctors kids etc). So I'm officially still working, but due to the admin-nature of our jobs as opposed to direct teaching our department (and others) are on a rota basis, so I'm working home 4/5 days. But I've put to HR that I could be our man-in-the-office for our department since I'm the youngest in our department, got no kids or vulnerable people I'm living with (most of our department are pissed we're being asked to work from the college at all).

 

On the fact schools are being open to some kids but not all I have (and seems others have as well) that really the provision should be putting the kids into temporary care or putting "key workers" into hotels/similar to avoid spread to family members. Because kids are still interacting with their hospital working parents on evenings and weekends.

 

Boris announced last night that we'll be closing bars, cafes, restaurants etc "as soon as possible" which of course as a Friday evening measure meant that most pubs and clubs stayed open as usual until the late AM for one last hoorah. Him doing his daily briefings in the evening has been the worst idea ever, should really have been done like 10am to give businesses a full working day to act on rather than doing it after most businesses are closed, then all night for shit to spread around social media, and needing the next full day to deal with. If he'd announced at 10am to close pubs and bars they just wouldn't have opened in the evening. He's literally killing thousands with his wishy-washy statements.

 

Also fucking Trump and his total lack of empathy. Fucking attacking the press when handed a simple question with a response of "I say we're great people that shouldn't be scared" or something.

[MetalCaveman]

Nuevo Leon's Governor "El Bronco" announced they will ignore the federal government and perform tests for every suspicious case, they're also working with private hospitals to ensure they don't charge exaggerated fees for their tests.

 

Jalisco's Enrique Alfaro has called for a 5 day quarantine, asking people to not leave home. They also announced that they will make sure that people who can't work still get paid.

 

The president insists nothing will be done on a federal level and that there won't be any payments for people who can't work.

 

Some hospitals are having issues, doctors are protesting, because they don't have gloves, masks, medicines, etc. Medical interns in several hospitals are denouncing that they're being sent to work without proper measures in place to protect them.

 

They placed an inflatable hospital in the city where I live, it's meant to be so that the rest of the hospitals can continue working normally, while COVID-19 patients get sent there. It has received 10 patients so far, not confirmed, but suspicious, we'll see what comes out of it.

[MetalCaveman]

So here's something else to add to the ever growing list of things that are going to make this worse:

 

https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/estados/entregame-el-gel-antibacterial-o-te-macheteo-hombre-roba-tienda-en-campeche

 

Some dude in Campeche went into a store, and threatened the employees with a machete, he was looking for hand sanitizer.

 

We're headed for a recession, oil prices are fucking everything else, and now a virus is going around. Certain parts are already far from safe, this thing is just going to make everything worse ain't it? How long until we go full Mad Max?  

[TheMightyEthan]

Has the government changed it's "nothing to worry about" position at all?