BBC: China pneumonia outbreak: COVID-19 Global Pandemic

[CousinsCowgirl84]

@Larry I disagree with what they were saying but I don’t think anything was the assertion.

 

What do you all think about this:

 

https://www.wavy.com/news/national/mississippi-churchgoers-fined-500-while-attending-drive-in-service/
 

During Thursday night service at King James Bible Baptist Church, while parishoners sat in their vehicles listening to Pastor Charles Hamilton, Greenville Police surrounded the church parking lot.

 

Jeremy Dys, with First Liberty Institute, is representing Pastor Hamilton and says police were violating the church’s constitutional right while enforcing a curfew order from Mayor Errick Simmons.

 

“They park in their parking spaces, they keep their windows up, the doors closed, they never get out of the cars like the CDC recommends they do,” Dys said. “There’s no exception to the United States Constitution for a pandemic. What Mayor Simmons has done is to apply an order without regard to equality and he’s singled out churches in particular.”

 

 

 

It was a drive through service and everyone was still social distancing.. still got tickets. Certainly this feels like governmental overreach.

Edited April 11, 2020 by CousinsCowgirl84

[Larry]

17 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

What do you all think about this:

 

I'm conflicted on a lot of these things.  

 

Apparently, the tickets are for violating a curfew.  The specifics of the curfew aren't mentioned, so I have to go with the word "curfew", and assume it's along the lines of "nothing after dark", or some such.  

 

If that's the case, then it sure seems like this isn't singling out churches for anything special.  Would have been the same thing if they were gathering to commemorate somebody's death, or a flash mob performance of "Let It Go".  

 

And yes, I understand that the religious right has lately been pushing this notion that anybody can declare themselves immune from all laws, if they recite the word "religion" when they violate it.  There is no such right.  

 

------

 

However, if the mayor issued a "nothing after dark" order, then I do thin that maybe his order was an overreach, whether this was a church or anything else.  

 

To start with, I have a problem with the notion that when there's a crisis, then politicians have the power to just declare themselves dictators.  To simply, by fiat, order people to cease a protest or get off the streets by a certain time or whetever else they think they can order.  

 

I assume that what's in place, here, is that the legisature passed some kind of law, which grants the executive to declare an emergency, which then grants him the power to, in effect, pass legislation on his own.  That in effect, the legislature delegated that authority to the executive, in an emergency.  But still, I've got a prblem with it.  

 

I recognize that there might be circumstances that might require it.  Maybe when a hurricane or a wildfire is coming, the government needs the authority to arrest people who fail to get out of their own homes.  Maybe.  And a pandemic of a possibly fatal disease seems like a legitimate emergency, that might call for such powers.  So, I don;t like it, but I can recognize that maybe it's necessary.  

 

But I also think that such absolute power comes with the obligation t use it as minimally as possible, to deal with the emergency.  To do the things that are necessary, and no more.  

 

Not sure that "nothing after dark" fits that bill.  Far as I'm aware, there is nothing about this virus that causes it to spread better at night than during the day.  

 

So, if they were ticketed for gathering during prohibited hours, then I don;t think it's an infringement of their religion, but I do think the order itself might be an overreach.  

 

(Now, if the order, say, prohibited "all gatherings of more than 4 people who do not live together, except for the following purposes:  Medical, grocery shopping, gas, . . . ")\, then I don't think "curfew" is the right word, and my objections to the order are a lot less.)  

[kfrankie]

4 hours ago, Larry said:

 

Unless of course, one is responding to the assertion that anything which turns out to kill fewer people than the flu, should be ignored. In which case, "kills less people than the flu" is the only characteristic the analogy has to meet.

 

I think it's a fair analogy, on an inch deep level. Both the seasonal flu and covid-19 are viruses that cause fever and respiratory symptoms.  Both disproportionately affect the elderly, particulately in instances of death.  Much like the analogy between pearl harbor and 9/11. Both of those incidents were attacks by foreign actors against a sovereign nation, and justified the strongest reasonable military response.

 

People drawing an analogy between the deaths caused by seasonal flu and covid-19 are not completely off base.  It is true that the flu kills 10,000 - 50,000 per year in the U.S., depending on the severity of the strain, with the vast majority of those deaths coming from the weakest amongst us.  That's he same demographic that covid-19. It's something that is so "regular" and has been ocurring for so long that many people were not even aware of that fact until recent events made it relevant.  However....

 

What the "analogists" ("gizers") are missing is that the deaths this year from covid-19 will be in addition to the yearly total from the seasonal flu, and not in place of those deaths.  So take your average 25k or so deaths from flu, then add the deaths from covid-19.  So let's say, best case scenario, covid-19 adds an additional 75k deaths.  That's a lot of dead grandmas and grandpas.  And....   

 

Let's not forget that Covid-19 appears, at this point, to be far more virulent than seasonal flu.  So if the U.S. ends up with "only" 75k deaths from covid-19, it will be because of the unprecedented lock downs/sheltering orders implemented by your state governors.  If not for those measures, you may be looking at the death of 10% of our elderly population.  The only reason that the death figures between the flu and covid-19 could even be reasonably comparable to prior years' seasonal flu figures is because of the extreme sheltering measures taken (it'll also be interesting to see the extent of this years common flu death figures due to the sheltering, but I imagine most of those deaths would be expected to occur during traditional flu seasin from October to January 2020).  So really the comparison between the death rates is a bad way to argue.  

 

[PCS]

 

 

 

 

 

[Larry]

The fact that there's huge numbers of "didn't get tested, so it's unknown causes and doesn't count" is a factor, too.  

 

I think somebody was claiming that in NYC, people are dying in their homes at 8-10 times the normal rate.  But they're dead, so they don't get tested.  

 

Although then you can play lots of hypothetical games with those facts, too.  Suspect the only real death numbers we will ever get, would come from comparing the number of deaths, this year vs last year.  

[PCS]

 

 

 

 

[JSSkinz]

 

[Larry]

Quote

"Frustration is brewing among some of the president's aides that wealthy outside voices are pushing their own agendas -- with their own portfolios and companies in mind -- rather than what may be best for the country..."

 

Well, most of them are new here.  What with turnover and all.  

 

[StillUnknown]

Bill Maher is still a thing?

[Mr. Sinister]

There is nothing worse than an ivory tower liberal 

[The Sisko]

27 minutes ago, StillUnknown said:

Bill Maher is still a thing?

No. But then he never was.

[No Excuses]

1 hour ago, JSSkinz said:

 

He’s not wrong. Wet markets are operational again in Wuhan and other parts of China. They seem to be taking the same exact approach as the last time we had SARS. Temporary bans and regulations and then it’s back to business. 

[Larry]

While I'm pretty sure that China deserves some criticism, I'm also thinking of a slogan about glass houses and stones.  

 

(Or sin and stones, for that matter.)  

[PCS]

 

 

 

[Wildbunny]

3 hours ago, Larry said:

I think somebody was claiming that in NYC, people are dying in their homes at 8-10 times the normal rate.  But they're dead, so they don't get tested.  

That happened in Madrid early last month. Army went into some house to find out that people died alone at their home.

 

Right now, most countries are counting people that die at the hospital. But when we're gonna go count those that died at their home while staying at home, I fear that numbers will explode even more...

[No Excuses]

10 minutes ago, Larry said:

While I'm pretty sure that China deserves some criticism, I'm also thinking of a slogan about glass houses and stones.  

 

 

Doesn’t really apply here. China has been uniquely awful in kneecapping the WHO while being a hot zone for zoonotic diseases. They’ve taken the approach that they’ll readily allow practices that have now lead to multiple infectious disease outbreaks while being as opaque as possible to prevent anyone outside from really knowing what’s going on until it’s too late. 
 

The CCP is the most dangerous political entity in the entire world. Just a dumpster fire of human rights abuse and the worst suppressors of human freedom. 

Edited April 11, 2020 by No Excuses

[Larry]

1 minute ago, No Excuses said:

The CCP is the most dangerous political entity in the entire world. Just a dumpster fire of human rights abuse and the worst offenders of human freedom. 

 

Maybe my American-ness is causing me to ignore the rest of the world, but I'm not sure the GOP doesn't deserve that title.  

 

(I agree they're both top seeds in my bracket.)  

[PCS]

 

 

 

[Larry]

Awaiting a court ruling that religion gives people the right to ignore public health orders.  

 

Followed by the NFL and NCAA asserting that football is a religion.  

 

[No Excuses]

2 minutes ago, Larry said:

 

Maybe my American-ness is causing me to ignore the rest of the world, but I'm not sure the GOP doesn't deserve that title.  

 

(I agree they're both top seeds in my bracket.)  

 

The GOP is the diet coke version of the CCP. The GOP is full of idiots, who even on their best day, are too dumb to carry out some of their worst ideas.

 

The CCP is what the GOP would be if it were staffed with technocrats with PhD's and a deep understanding of how technology can be used to oppress and control the population.

[Wildbunny]

11 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

The CCP is the most dangerous political entity in the entire world. Just a dumpster fire of human rights abuse and the worst suppressors of human freedom. 

Maybe. I don't really know.

 

I wouldn't want to be in charge of 1.5 billions of people.

 

Could you imagine the mess it would be if China elected Trump as their President? It could be even worse.

 

Now, they obviously deserve some blame, and they will get it at the end of this. They'll probably have to pay some part of the bill for every country. If not, I suspect most countries will just erase the debt as they can do so they do not put themselves in Jeopardy. Which won't please some other countries as well, so this will probably leads to even darker times...

Edited April 11, 2020 by Wildbunny

[Spaceman Spiff]

13 minutes ago, Larry said:

Awaiting a court ruling that religion gives people the right to ignore public health orders.  

 

Followed by the NFL and NCAA asserting that football is a religion.  

 

 

Maybe not the NCAA entirely.  The SEC, for sure.

[PCS]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Malapropismic Depository]

Seriously, what is going to happen if this stretches into hurricane season ?

And a Category 4 hurricane starts barreling toward a heavily populated area.

Will residents get "evacuation orders" or "stay at home" orders ?

It is a realistic scenario.

[Jumbo]

per de santis' fla under-reporting and much related stuffs

 

some form of legal process that ended in long-term or life imprisonment for all but a small percentage of gop governors, gop congresspeople, and the trump family/admin/cabinet would significantly help move us towards a more decent, just, sane, intelligent, and generally healthier society in many ways

 

 

 

don't be afraid to dream