Coronavirus 2

[Ozlsn]

2 hours ago, 47of74 said:

I do have a question on the estimated number of deaths per day.  Is that just in general or is the 3,000 above and beyond other deaths.  In 2018 there were 2,839,205 American deaths total officially registered.  That works out to about 7,750 deaths per day.  

I assume (not having read the report myself!) that that is 3000 deaths per day from coronavirus. How much that will end up being in addition to the usual deaths is a bit hard to say at this point - deaths from other diseases, age and so forth will continue, but some will die earlier because of infection and will probably be counted in that toll. Car accidents will probably diminish as people stay home, so there will likely be a reduction in those deaths, and from similar deaths which involved leaving home. No idea about what homicides are likely to do. 

So overall I'd say above and beyond the usual level of expected deaths, but the expected level is likely to also drop due to changes with the pandemic. Hopefully that made sense.

[fraurosena]

Tuesday's update:

• The residents of the Isle of Whight are participating in a corona-app test. The app uses bluetooth technology and stores its information on government servers. This is cause for concern, as from a privacy standpoint it would be better to store the information on the phone itself. The British government says that it isn't necessary to give your name and phone number in order to use the app. Critics say it's almost impossible to store the data anonymously. The test is carried out on the Isle of Weight because it's a clearly defined area. The government needed an area that was easily controllable, and where people don't continuously travel in and out of. If the test is successful, the NHS expects to roll out the app for the whole country in a couple of weeks.
  The total number of corona-related deaths in the UK has risen above 30.000, which is more than in Italy and Spain.
• There were 185 corona-related deaths in Spain, brining the total number of deaths up to 25.613. 
  There are 219.329 confirmed cases, almost 44.000 of which are healthcare workers. 
  The Spanish government has announced that even after the summer holidays, schools will not be fully re-opened again. The Spanish minister of Education is working on a plan to only partially re-open schools with half of the students. The other half will stay at home and receive online lessons. This situation will continue until a drug against the virus is found.
• The number of new confirmed cases in Russia rose by 10.102 up to 155.370 cases in total. The past three days the daily number of new cases has been about 10.000.
  There were 95 corona-related deaths, bringing the official number of deaths up to 1451.
  Three Russian doctors who had been critical about the corona crisis policies in the country have mysteriously fallen out of windows recently. Two of them died, the third is fighting for their life in hospital.
  Aleksandr Shulepov, an EMT physician from Voronezh, south of Moscow, fell out of of a window in the hospital where he was being treated for the corona virus. Together with a colleague Shulepov had complained about the lack of PPE in a video message. He also said that he had to keep on working despite testing positive for the virus. Afterwards, Shulepov's colleague was visited by police who warned him not to spread false rumours about corona. It's unclear what happened after that, and if Shulepov jumped or fell out of the window. He is still in critical condition in the hospital.
  Shulepov isn't the only doctor who got into trouble after voicing criticism. Late April Elena Nepromnyashchaya, head physician in a veteran's hospital in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, was critically wounded after a fall out of a window. She died a few days later. She had recently objected to plans of treating corona patients in her hospital, and had complained about a lack of PPE.
  On April 24, Natalya Lebedeva, a doctor working in a hospital in a training centre for cosmonauts, also died after falling from a window. She had recently been hospitalised with corona symptoms. Authorities said this was a 'tragic incident'. Russian tabloids suggest the doctor committed suicide because of the enormous pressure she was under. 
• The Indian capital New Delhi has instated an extra taxation of 70% on alcohol, as a measure to prevent hoards of people at liquor stores. Yesterday the corona restrictions in India were eased somewhat, and liquor stores could open their doors again. This lead to a veritable run on stores selling alcoholic beverages. The local government in New Delhi said it wants to combat the chaos with this special 'corona-taxation'. If it doesn't help to prevent large gatherings of people wanting to buy liquor, the government will close the stores again. Other Indian states have also instated extra taxation in order to prevent a run on stores. 
• There were 139 corona-related deaths in Germany, bringing the total number of deaths up to 6831. 
  There were 685 new confirmed cases, bringing the total number of cases up to more than 163.000.
  Germany has prolonged the checks at the border until May 15. These checks are at the borders with Denmark, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland and Austria. Borders with the Netherlands and Belgium aren't being scrutinised. Non-Germans or people who don't live in Germany, have to have an urgent reason to enter the country.
• American historian John M. Barry, author of a book on the Spanish flu pandemic, says that despite more than a century of scientific development, the current pandemic is a lot like the one in 1918. He says that science has been able to quickly deciphered the virus' genetic code, but that just as in 1918, a vaccine or a treatment is still far from being developed. Just as now, that virus jumped over to humans from animals, and keeping distance, washing hands and wearing masks were the best ways of preventing the spread of the virus. "The advice then too was: if you are infected, stay home and only come out again when the symptoms have passed."
  Not only is the age old measure of quarantine back, also chicanery and quackery is back as well, Barry says. "Back then people said you should rub raw onions on your chest, now Trump is saying you should inject bleach into your veins."
• For two days in a row, there have been no new confirmed cases in New Zealand. Prime minister Jacinda Adern has said that later today she will know more about resuming travel between New Zealand and Australia. Earlier she expressed a wish to form a 'trans-Tasmanian bubble' that would enable travel between the countries again. She said that travel to other countries will remain improbable for the time being, but it seems logical to pick up the economic ties with Australia again when it is safe to do so. "We will not have open borders for the rest of the world for quite some time," she said.
  There are 1137 confirmed cases in total in New Zealand. 20 patients have died of Covid19.
• There were 1015 corona-related deaths in the US, bringing the total number of deaths up to 68.920. Washington University's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation has estimated that by August there will be approximately 135.000 corona deaths in the US. That estimation is almost twice as high as the numbers that earlier models predicted. The Institute explained that the expected rise is the result of the 'growing mobility in most states' now the corona restrictions are being lifted. 
  There are more than 1.2 million confirmed cases in the US. 
• There were 86 corona-related deaths in the Netherlands, bringing the total number of deaths up to 5158.
  There were 317 new confirmed cases, bringing the total number of cases up to 41.087.
• The WHO has said that it 'isn't surprising' that the first case of Covid19 in France was traced back to December 27, almost a month before the French government reported their first cases. "It's entirely possible there are more early cases to be found," WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said during a briefing in Geneva. He encouraged other countries to also check their medical dossiers from the end of 2019, and said that this will give the world a 'new and clearer image' of the outbreak.

[GreyhoundFan]

You couldn't make this up:

Christie needs to go away. Now.

[GreyhoundFan]

Wait...Faux was hypocritical? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you. /sarcasm

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Interesting:

 

[klein_roeschen]

22 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Researchers at the university in Bonn, Germany, estimate that about 1.8 million Germans have been infected with the corona virus. That is 10 times higher than the official numbers state. The actual number of infections is so much higher, the scientists say, because their research has shown that 22% of the infected are asymptomatic. "Every so-called healthy person whom we meet, can be carrying the coronavirus without them knowing it," researcher Martin Exner said, and he emphasised the need for social distancing and good hygiene practices.
North Rhine-Westphalia's vice prime minister Joachim Stamp has criticised Chancellor Angela Merkel for dictating the corona crisis policy like a monarch. Merkel is getting ever more criticism over her resistance to easing the corona crisis restrictions. Stamp is threatening to re-open day care centres in North Rhine-Westphalia himself if Berlin keeps prevaricating. "We can't be kept waiting for another week and we'll be going our own way soon," Stamp said. North Rhine-Westphalia's prime minister, Armin Laschet, who is from Merkel's own party, is one of her sharpest critics when it concerns corona-policies. He's advocating a quick easing of the restrictions because he fears a collapse of the economy.

Chancellor Merkel has made it clear that this term will be her last and since then, the dog fights for who's succeeding her have started. We have her a lot of politicians who at first called for lockdown and now with the success of closings and social distancing are doing a 180 and whine for opening up. And we have the likes like Armin Laschet, who called for less strict meassures from the beginning and they also get louder every day.

[nst]

Will this pandemic ever end? Will the social distancing end ever. 

Sounds like that because I did choose my parents over going into the office I might lose my job. 

Can they do that? 

I mean good lord.

[47of74]

2 hours ago, nst said:

Will this pandemic ever end? Will the social distancing end ever. 

Sounds like that because I did choose my parents over going into the office I might lose my job. 

Can they do that? 

I mean good lord.

I am sorry about your job and hope they see sense. 

As for your questions thanks to fuck face not any time soon.

Something occurred to me today when someone was wondering how other countries might not want to allow Americans to visit or move there anytime soon, or let their own people visit the US.  Sickfuck von Bodybags might be fucking up the response so that he can isolate Americans from the rest of the world and keep us from escaping to a better existence even if only temporarily. 

 

[fraurosena]

Wednesday's update:

• Spain has reported 244 new corona-related deaths, bringing their total up to 25.857. There were 1318 new confirmed cases, bringing the total number of cases up to 220.325
• For the first time in three days the number of new hospitalisations in Belgium rose by more than 100. There were 116 hospitalisations, brining the total up to 2849. The number of corona patients in the ICU remained the same: 646. 
  There were 272 new confirmed cases.
  A person in the family of Prince Laurent, King Filip's younger brother, has been infected with the virus but is on the mend. For privacy reasons the 56 year old prince won't say who it was. Laurent was kept in an induced coma in 2014 after a bad case of pneumonia. He and his wife and three children are taking all precautions, but Laurent says he isn't afraid. "When you have to die, you have to die."
• China is reporting it has hardly had any new cases lately. There were two new confirmed cases in the past 24 hrs, and twenty asymptomatic cases. The two new confirmed cases were so-called 'imported infections' concerning travellers from abroad. 
  The total number of confirmed cases in China is now 82.883. The death toll remains unchanged at 4633, according to China's national health authority.
  After being closed since January, schools in Wuhan were reopened today. The re-opening is occurring under strict precautionary measures. All teachers and students must wear face masks, everyone had to enter school in neatly distanced rows and before they went in their temperature was taken. 
•  There were 165 corona related deaths in Germany, bringing the total number of deaths up to 6996. There were 947 new confirmed cases, bringing the total number of cases up to 164.807. 
  Germany is considering easing restrictions today. The expectation is that the Chancellor will let the states decide what can be re-opened or not.
• The Senate in Poland has voted against voting by mail. Because of the corona crisis, the planned elections on May 10 can't be held in the usual manner. The government wants voting by mail to be possible, but the opposition is against it, and they hold the majority in the Polish Senate. Their arguments are that it's easier to commit fraud by mail, and that there is still a danger of spreading the virus; nor is there enough time to prepare.
  The opposition also says the manner in which the campaign was held is unfair, because the sitting president Andrzej Duda (PiS) was the only one to have had a podium to campaign on. As president he was seen regularly, whilst his opponents had to stay inside because of the corona restrictions.
• Trump is going to replace the corona taskforce, because 'there needs to be a new group of people'. The new team should focus more on reopening the economy. Trump said Fauci and Birx will remain on the taskforce. "The battle hasn't been won yet," Trump said, "I'm not saying everything is perfect. Some people will be hit hard. But we have to reopen our country again and we have to to it soon." Experts fear that Trump is sidelining health experts in order to reopen the economy.
  In the meantime, there were 2333 corona-related deaths in the US, bringing the total number of deaths up to 71.000. The US is the worst hit country in the world. The number of confirmed cases is above 1.2 million.
  A judge has ruled that the Democratic primaries in New York will have to be held, even though vice-president Biden is the only remaining candidate for the presidential elections. The New York Democrats had decided not to hold the primaries, planned for June 23, because there are no opponents left and because of the corona crisis. Ex-candidates Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang then went to the courts. Sanders has said that although he isn't a candidate anymore, he still wants to continue gathering delegate votes during primaries. The more delegates he has, the more influence he can have on the party. The judge agreed. According to her, not holding primaries is unconstitutional and the Democrats have enough time to ensure the elections are held in a safe manner. She also pointed out that no other state has annulled their primaries.
• There were 330 corona-related deaths in France, bringing the total number of deaths up to 25.531.
  President Macron seriously blundered during his visit to a school in the west of Paris. Macron wore a face mask, but the French media is reporting all the things Macron did wrong: he touched the mask repeatedly, which French authorities are advising against. He even completely pulled down the mask from his face at one point. At times he wore the mask too low, under his nose, so it offers no protection whatsoever. The minister of Education also touched his mask repeatedly. And then a local politician also bent over in the classroom towards Macron to whisper something in his ear, without keeping any distance whatsoever.
• There were 236 corona-related deaths in Italy, bringing their total number of deaths up to 29.315.
• The economy of all euro-countries will shrink by 7.75% this year, according to the European Commission. However, these are all estimations that contain many uncertainties, Euro Commissioner Dombrovkis emphasised. "The only thing we can do for now is register what is happening." He said it is clear that the consequences of the corona crisis are much worse that those of the financial crisis. Plus, the economic shock is without exception hitting all EU-countries. "It is a historically deep recession." 
  The recession is leading to more inflation, more unemployment and much higher national debts.
  It is expected that the economy of the 19 euro-countries will start growing again next year. Calculations show an excepted growth of 6.3%, and a 10% increase in investments. 
• The Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, will be reopening their borders to each other's populace on May 15. Latvian prime minister Karins tweeted that the corona crisis policies have been successful in the Baltic States, where there have been a total number of 4000 confirmed cases and 120 corona-related deaths. Citizens from outside the three countries may be allowed to enter, but will have to go into a two-week quarantine upon arrival.
• Research in Czechia has shown that the building up of immunity against the coronavirus seems to be going slowly in that country. Czechia has tested more than 26.000 people for antibodies -- one of the largest researches in Europe. Preliminary results show that no more than 4 or 5 percent of people have built up immunity.
  Remarkably, in the two largest cities, Prague and Brno, immunity is lower than average in the country. The report, that was presented by Czech authorities, shows that approximately 27 - 38% of Czech corona patients is asymptomatic.
  With 7899 confirmed cases and 258 corona-related deaths, Czechia has a relatively small amount of cases. The country was one of the first to close its borders and closed most of its shops and restaurants in March. Czechia is considering re-opening in phases and says the results of this research will not change that.
• Queen Elisabeth has called with Australia's PM Scott Morrison. According to Morrison the queen was 'very interested' to hear how Australians are doing during the corona crisis. "Our recovery from the bushfires was also a key area of interest for her as well as the ongoing drought," Morrison said. "Her Majesty was also pleased to hear that our horse races were still running in Australia and sent her very best wishes to all Australians."
  Australia has less than 7000 confirmed cases and 96 corona-related deaths. 

[clueliss]

Well - that's intriguing

 

[GreyhoundFan]

This is interesting. "The urgent quest for a coronavirus treatment involves door-to-door blood collection and a llama named Winter"

Quote

The global search for a treatment targeting the novel coronavirus has led to an unlikely potential savior: a cocoa-colored llama named Winter, whose blood could hold a weapon to blunt the virus.

She lives at a research farm in Belgium with about 130 other llamas and alpacas. And like all of them, she produces a special class of disease-fighting antibodies — tiny, even by antibody standards — that show early promise in laboratory tests in blocking the novel coronavirus from entering and infecting cells.

In a paper published Tuesday in the journal Cell, an international team of scientists reports that these petite antibodies, harvested from Winter’s blood, were used to engineer a new antibody that binds to the spiky proteins that stud the surface of the novel coronavirus, “neutralizing” its insidious effect. The study, though preliminary, points to a possible treatment for covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, if the results hold up in animal and human studies.

Winter the llama is the cuddly face of a broader — and urgent — scientific quest to create coronavirus drugs inspired by the targeted responses mustered by the immune system. Winter’s antibodies are a niche kind that are called nanobodies and are prized by researchers because of their ability to get into nooks and crannies and because they are slow to degrade in the body.

Other scientists are exposing laboratory mice to the coronavirus spike protein and studying the blood of people who have recovered from covid-19 to identify traditional antibody drugs. While work continues in the lab, U.S. hospitals are already harnessing naturally occurring antibodies to treat patients by providing experimental transfusions of blood plasma from covid-19 survivors, hoping the plasma, rich with virus-fighting antibodies, can save lives.

With a widely available vaccine probably at least a year away, antibody therapies have become, in the eyes of some experts, one of the most promising weapons against covid-19, which has killed more than 250,000 people worldwide.

Wayne Marasco, an infectious disease specialist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute who developed experimental antibody therapies against close cousins of the current coronavirus, said he thinks the approach could be a “game changer.” A single dose could potentially act to treat the disease or to prevent it for months. Former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb wrote in the Wall Street Journal last month that such drugs “may be the best chance for a meaningful near-term success.”

The antibodies inspired by Winter are still far from being tested in people. Belgian researchers are only now starting preclinical trials on hamsters.

But other efforts to create more-traditional antibody drugs are moving forward fast, with the hope they could provide a bridge until there is a vaccine.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals exposed a special strain of mice, genetically tweaked to have a human immune system, to the characteristic spike protein on the surface of the coronavirus to identify thousands of antibodies that show promise. The company also studied the blood of people who recovered. The company will start several human trials in June, testing antibody cocktails both as a treatment and a prevention measure for people who are at high-risk of developing covid-19. The company hopes to make the treatment available by the end of summer or early fall, with the ability to manufacture hundreds of thousands of doses.

“It’s never been done before,” George Yancopoulos, chief scientific officer of Regeneron, told investors Tuesday. “On the other hand, I don’t think we ever had quite a pandemic like this before... And so the hope is yes, it might be possible by the end of the summer or the fall that, our antibody treatment could be available. A lot of risks, a lot of concerns, but we are working as hard as we can with so many collaborators to try to turn that into a reality.”

Vir Biotechnology, which also plans to start human tests this summer, hired a nationwide network of phlebotomists to go door-to-door collecting blood from people who recovered from covid-19 to aid the search for an antibody-based treatment. The company that did the blood draws, Sanguine Biosciences, sent phlebotomists to people at home to reduce the risk of infection, saving recently recovered people a trip to a crowded clinic or laboratory.

A research team from Utrecht University in the Netherlands reported Monday in the journal Nature Communications that it had created a monoclonal antibody called 47D11 that is capable of blocking the coronavirus in laboratory tests.

Such drugs are manufactured not by chemists but by living cells growing in bioreactor vats and tend to be expensive; they must be given by injection. Even now, with little idea of whether their drugs will be shown safe and effective, researchers are thinking about how to increase production.

“It takes time to scale, and we’re already scaling,” said George Scangos, chief executive of Vir. “The problem with this whole approach is you have to scale before you know if your drug works. Because if you don’t [scale], and your drug works — now it’s a year before you can provide any reasonable number of doses, and that’s not a situation that anyone wants to be in.”

The fastest way to a coronavirus treatment would be to repurpose an existing drug with a long safety record. To that end, scientists are pulling many time-tested drugs off the shelf to see whether they show promise in laboratory experiments and are moving some into the clinic. But antibody treatments could provide a powerful and targeted way to quickly develop a new drug that not only treats the disease but also could prevent people from becoming ill.

Much of this research already has a head start based on experience with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Marasco developed a library of 27 billion human antibodies from blood samples taken from hospital staffers in the late 1990s, which he then used to develop experimental therapies for SARS and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). Those therapies were licensed to companies, but government and commercial interest evaporated when those viral outbreaks petered out. Marasco is working now on antibody therapies for the novel coronavirus, confident that this time things will be different.

Winter’s part in the battle against coronavirus disease began in 2016, when researchers immunized her with spike proteins from MERS and SARS. Then they drew her blood and isolated antibodies, one of which showed potential for neutralizing MERS, and another of which neutralized SARS, said Daniel Wrapp, a co-author of the study and graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin.

The Texas team, working with colleagues at the U.S. National Institutes of Health and Ghent University in Belgium, was trying to develop a universal vaccine for human coronaviruses, four of which are common and cause cold-like symptoms. While the researchers were hoping to find a single antibody that could target all the coronaviruses, the “consolation prize” was finding two that showed promise against MERS and SARS, Wrapp said.

They were writing up what they’d learned from Winter when the novel coronavirus emerged. They quickly got to work. Soon, they’d found that a new antibody — which they created by linking two copies of the llama antibody that had hindered the original SARS — was able to bind to and neutralize the novel coronavirus, known as SARS-CoV-2, Wrapp said.

“It’s interesting to have a renewed sense of urgency toward your work, because it could have such dramatic implications for vaccine development and therapeutic” treatments, Wrapp said.

If the small antibodies work in humans, their stability means they possibly could be delivered as treatment via an inhaler, Wrapp said. Larger monoclonal antibodies must be administered by injection.

Winter was randomly selected from her herd to participate in this research, noted Wrapp, who has never met the 4-year-old llama. Now, he said, “she’s kind of the superstar of this.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Wow:

 

[nst]

I have a plan 

I think this pandemic is making me wonky

but I have a plan to go over her head

thoughts ...

Edited May 6, 2020 by nst

[GreyhoundFan]

This is nice to see: "Shoe donations help frontline employees get off on the right foot"

Spoiler

Hoping to get frontline employees off on the right foot, a pair of local shoe companies is donating thousands of high-performance running shoes to people who are working to protect everyone during the pandemic.

The 5,000 shoes are being donated by Pacers Running and Potomac River Running Store, which both have locations in D.C. and Northern Virginia.

“We are distributing these shoes to frontline workers and hospital workers,” said Kathy Dalby, CEO of Pacers Running. “We know the value of your feet feeling good throughout the day so hopefully these shoes will make their shifts a little bit easier.”

The shoes, which are from the Switzerland-based company “ON Shoes,” feature a special cushioning system.

“These shoes specifically are very comfortable,” Dalby said. “Knowing that you have a pair of shoes on your feet from people who are really behind you — there’s some benefit there too, some emotional support.”

The two companies have been donating the shoes to a wide range of organizations and individuals including police officers, firefighters, medical providers, restaurant employees, delivery drivers and grocery store employees.

On Wednesday, the businesses dropped off 150 pairs of the shoes to hospital employees at the Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington.

“We are grateful to have the opportunity to support our front-line workers and many other charitable organizations,” said Potomac Running Company owners Cathy and Ray Pugsley.

“We know there are physical and mental health benefits to walking, running, and staying active and are so appreciative of the great community we serve.”

 

[clueliss]

Kansas Covid Cases (fueled of late by a prison outbreak)

Spoiler

 

If you get stimulus payment for dead realtive - better return it

Missouri has 186 new cases - the St. Joseph, MO Triumph Foods plant is the source of a lot of the new cases.  

Spoiler

 

 

[nst]

Well vancouver is re-opening in stages. 

and who did I call 

My massage therapist. 

[clueliss]

1 death from the St. Joe (sorry, I'm originally from KC nobody says St. Joseph) Missouri processing plant.  After 400 test positive who are mostly asymptomatic

 

[Coconut Flan]

I found this disturbing:

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/ny-gov-cuomo-says-its-shocking-most-new-coronavirus-hospitalizations-are-people-staying-home.html

 

[therulesofjinx]

My state is allowing for gatherings of 10 or fewer people starting today (although our Stay Safe, Stay Home order isn't set to expired until the 15th) and is opening up outdoor recreation areas- hiking trails, playgrounds, skate parks, etc. with the caveat that people should still maintain distance and only gather with people they trust who have also been taking safety precautions- the governor suggested sitting on the porch and having a chat with your close neighbors or family. I'm really hoping I don't see an abundance of  unrelated children crawling all over the play area with parents/guardians sitting together on the benches when I take my dog to run the fields (far away from everyone else) at the park later.... 

[clueliss]

46 minutes ago, Coconut Flan said:

I found this disturbing:

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/06/ny-gov-cuomo-says-its-shocking-most-new-coronavirus-hospitalizations-are-people-staying-home.html

 

I heard the discussion about this on Squawk Box on CNBC this morning.  They think the issue is mass transit or people who are in households with other people where it is difficult to self isolate in the home - other people in the home are going out and bringing it back tied in with asymptomatic cases.  

[GreyhoundFan]

Because we can all use a laugh. A good piece of satire from Alexandra Petri: "‘We are not worth killing Grandma,’ zoo animals agree'

Quote

THE ZOO — Zoo animals banded together to push back against the demands of people who wanted to be out visiting them and other temporarily shuttered attractions right away, even if it meant being called “Grandma killer” and bearing responsibility for an unnecessary rise in fatalities.

“The hell?” said one puffin. “Let actual living people die, so that you can see me? I’m just some bird. You can get better visuals of me on the Internet. Yeesh. I am not worth it.”

“Have you visited a zoo before?” a rhinoceros added. “I will stand in the corner of my enclosure in such a way that I am not visible at all, except for my hindquarters. I will do nothing of interest except possibly defecate indifferently in front of your 6-year-old.”

“I will not be visible either,” a tamarin that was supposed to be rare and interesting added. “I will be very clearly labeled, but you won’t be able to see me at all, because I will be behind some foliage, where I will remain for the entire duration of your visit.”

“Same,” said a hippopotamus, “only I will be in the water. You will see some sort of gross carrots or something I was supposed to eat, but I won’t be there. You will stand there for a very long time staring at the gross carrots and the fake rocks of my enclosure. You will convince yourself that one of the rocks is my partially submerged body, but then on further scrutiny, you will realize it is just a rock. Then you will give up and keep walking, and that will be your entire experience of me.” The hippopotamus farted and sank below the water line. “Definitely worth additional human deaths.”

“I won’t be out at all because my area is under construction,” a lion added. “But this won’t be announced in advance; you’ll just discover it when you arrive.”

“I will be there,” said some unidentifiable crab thing.

“Me too,” said a chameleon, “but I will be completely indistinguishable from the branch on which I sit.”

A coterie of prairie dogs confirmed that their plans, as usual, were to spend your entire visit down their hole having an important family discussion, only to emerge when the zoo was closing and you were trying to see the Przewalski’s horse.

Several pandas chimed in to say that after all human beings had done to keep their species alive in spite of all nature’s attempt to the contrary, they could not bear not to return the favor and would be hiding from view.

A red panda could not be reached for comment as it had escaped from the zoo a fifth time.

“I will be completely visible,” said a naked mole rat, its entire body like a thumb that had been submerged too long in bathwater, with teeth. “Extremely visible. Indeed, you will see nothing but me. I am looking forward to seeing you and hope you will decide to come out. Forget Grandma. Surely I am worth your while.”

 

[clueliss]

Missouri Air Guard will be flying B2 Bombers (Stealths) to honor healthcare workers on Friday.  Map/schedule is at the link.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

This is the most 2020 thing ever: "Axl Rose, Steven Mnuchin and the pandemic Twitter feud no one saw coming"

Quote

By all accounts, 2020 has been, to put it mildly, a weird year.

This week alone has already seen a 5-year-old boy from Utah attempt a solo drive to California on a mission to buy a Lamborghini, a llama named Winter emerge as a potential key player in the race for a treatment targeting the novel coronavirus, and Tesla chief executive Elon Musk and Canadian singer Grimes naming their newborn baby X Æ A-12.

But just when it seemed like things couldn’t possibly get any weirder, Wednesday night rolled around with a Twitter feud no one could have anticipated: Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose versus Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

Rose threw down the gauntlet shortly before 6:30 p.m. Wednesday when he hopped on his seldom-used Twitter account and declared to his 1.2 million followers, without context, “Whatever anyone may have previously thought of Steve Mnuchin he’s officially an a--hole.”

“It’s official!” tweeted the rock star, who is a prominent critic of President Trump.

Then, in a move that prompted collective surprise, Mnuchin hit back.

“What have you done for the country lately?” he tweeted, tacking what appeared to be an emoticon of the United States flag to the end of his response.

Upon closer examination, however, eagle-eyed social media users noticed that Mnuchin had actually used an icon of the flag of Liberia, which is nearly identical to the American flag except instead of 50 stars it only has one. The original tweet was deleted and replaced with one using the correct flag, but not before numerous screen grabs had been taken.

The flag mix-up didn’t escape Rose’s attention either.

“My bad I didn’t get we’re hoping 2 emulate Liberia’s economic model,” Rose tweeted sarcastically, before revealing what prompted him to go after Mnuchin in the first place.

“But on the real unlike this admin I’m not responsible for 70k+ deaths n’ unlike u I don’t hold a fed gov position of responsibility 2 the American people n’ go on TV tellin them 2 travel the US during a pandemic,” he wrote.

Rose appeared to be referencing Mnuchin’s Monday interview with Fox Business Network. When asked by host Maria Bartiromo if he thought international travel might resume this year, Mnuchin said it is “too hard to tell” and suggested that Americans should consider traveling more domestically.

“This is a great time for people to explore America,” Mnuchin said. “A lot of people haven’t seen many parts of America. I wish I could get back on the road soon.”

Representatives for Rose and Mnuchin did not respond to requests for comment late Wednesday.

It didn’t take long for Wednesday’s bizarre exchange to spark a social media frenzy. By early Thursday, the Mad Libs-like combination of “Axl Rose,” “Steve Mnuchin” and “Liberia” was still trending on Twitter.

Some commentators attempted to make sense of the bizarre exchange, which notably came one day after the Guns N’ Roses version of “Live and Let Die” blared over the loudspeakers at a mask-making facility in Phoenix while Trump was there for a visit.

“Why is the Secretary of the Treasury fighting on Twitter with Axl Rose?” one person asked. “2020 is becoming more weird by the minute.”

Others rushed to criticize Mnuchin for not only mixing up the flags but also taking the time to engage in the seemingly trivial war of words with Rose amid the ongoing pandemic.

“Pretty hilarious to call out Axl Rose’s American patriotism and then ADD THE WRONG FLAG,” tweeted music writer Corbin Reiff.

Several people also defended Rose, arguing that the musician, as one critic put it, “has done way more for this country” than Mnuchin.

“There is a 100% chance America would be better off with Axl Rose as Secretary of the Treasury, Slash as Secretary of State and Duff McKagan as Secretary of Commerce instead of Steve Mnuchin, Mike Pompeo and Wilbur Ross,” tweeted Brandon Friedman, who served as deputy assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Housing and Urban Development during the Obama administration.

In another tweet, writer and lawyer Amee Vanderpool wrote, “To answer your question @stevenmnuchin1, @axlrose doing November Rain 30 years ago alone counts for more than you will ever accomplish.”

Meanwhile, Republican political consultant Rick Wilson had a different take on Wednesday’s events.

“The Rose/Mnuchin War is 2020′s next sign of the endtimes,” Wilson tweeted.

 

[clueliss]

Just another sign of Bizzaro world on that feud.  Oish.

[clueliss]

Amtrack to require use of face masks for passengers

Protestors in Downtown Columbia MO (because the city/county are being evil with a stricter than state order) (notice if you look at the pics closely you'll see a lot of them while being crap at distancing are wearing masks)

Spoiler

 

The White house is contemplating pushing back tax deadline until 9/15

Spoiler

 

 

Edited May 7, 2020 by Destiny
remove grammarly fuckery