General Politics Discussion VII [ARCHIVED] • Page 1015

America Is Giving Up on the Pandemic

Americans may wish the virus to be gone, but it is not. While the outbreak has eased in the Northeast, driving down the overall national numbers, cases have only plateaued in the rest of the country, and they appear to be on the rise in recent days in COVID Tracking Project data. Twenty-two states reported 400 or more new cases Friday, and 14 other states and Puerto Rico reported cases in the triple digits. Several states—including Arizona, North Carolina, and California—are now seeing their highest numbers of known cases.

These numbers all reflect infections that likely began before this week of protest. An even larger spike now seems likely. Put another way: If the country doesn’t see a substantial increase in new COVID-19 cases after this week, it should prompt a rethinking of what epidemiologists believe about how the virus spreads.

This scares me. We're not yet even in phase 1 of reopening in Portland, but other parts of the state are, and it really seems like we haven't come to terms with the fact that this virus was not beaten/isn't over.

 

Purely anecdotal but so many people taking off their masks and generally people just want it over as if the virus cares

 

Yep....people have just decided they're sick of it so they're not gonna try anymore.

Meanwhile I"m reading more and more stories of people dealing with long term complications annnnd nope

 

Not to take away from the issue of social justice and police brutality, but almost feels like the media could inadvertently be fueling more people to stop caring about coronavirus. Their coverage has probably become 90% about the protests and social justice. And not saying it is a bad thing to be focused on that, it does seem like if people turn on the news now they will be given the false narrative that we are no longer in a pandemic. None of the new outlets even show the little chyron in the corner of the total cases and deaths anymore that they had on the screen for the past two months.

 

That’s definitely the case, much like how it’s definitely the case that they’re going to blame spikes from reopening on the protests

 

related:

 

Case in point ^

 

Small thread lol

 

great point here from bonerhitler

 

As usual

 

Yeah the Texas rising numbers are already being talked about as due to the protests and not the fact that so many annoying instagram folks flooded down their to get their vacation on and take pictures.

 

I thought Followers for Algernon was a pretty clever display name lol

 

Deep State Dorner

 

@SeanRMoorhead was using Veterans of Forum Wars for a while which I think is great lol, describes all of us for sure

 

Why do they keep doing this

 

Watching a company webconference with execs. It's a diverse group, but still a group of out of touch people. One woman saying we "have not taken sides", and a man saying he's praying and worrying for his family member who is a cop, saying we need reform "without hating our officers".

There are a few other people really sharing how upset and angry they are about this stuff and reflecting on news stories of racist assaults for years now while this woman's voice is shaking on the verge of crying.

 

lmao

man am I glad I posted the link to the story on my social media instead of a screenshot of the tweet

 

My favorite thing now is people not knowing the meaning of “defund” and republicans trying to use that as a negative talking point

 

I don't think it's really possible to even explain the internet from like, 1999-2006 properly to those growing up now. The things we've seen, oh the things we've seen.

 

Just addressing the discussion around "defund the police" messaging, I think my issue is that it's a negative framing. Feels to me like the more effective strategy would be to shift the focus to what the funding is being moved into - but then that would require people to actually agree on that point.

 

thousand post stare

 

People do know what it means. It’s a poor choice of verb in this context and will do more harm than good. We’re already starting to lose control of the narrative.