Coronavirus 3

[47of74]

I think I mentioned before that my travel agent closed her business due to the fallout from the pandemic and her own health issues.  She was an independent AAA agent so she gave her files back to them. 

So I got an email from my new agent yesterday. I replied back that the trip to Greece isn’t happening for me this year and either we push it back to likely 2022 if possible or I just eat any monetary loss and cancel. 

And I’m thinking that instead of Greece if I do go overseas again after Fuckmuppet von Bunkerfucker von Orange Lump of Shit is out of office it will be to Australia. Get the last inhabited continent in as I’ve been to Europe several times already. 

[Audrey2]

Really, I think if I were doing vacation this year the only ones I would feel comfortable with would be either a staycation and go hiking fairly locally on the weekdays, or if I had a completely self-contained camper with a bathroom and shower fill the camper with food go park at some place not use the bathroom there at all and spend five days hiking on trails that are rated less popular.

[mamallama]

6 hours ago, Flossie said:

I suppose you could tell him he'd have to go alone, although you'd welcome daily calls from him to keep in contact.

Then, when he returns, let him stay in a tent in the yard for two weeks.  Make it a nice one and run a line out so he can plug in a TV, lights, and charge his phone.  Set up a separate tent if you can for a chemical toilet, and a tarped area for a solar shower he can use.  Give him a cooler to put beverages and cold snacks in.  Put his meals out and either eat alone or you can join him while staying at least six feet away.

If he comes down sick you'll need to be healthy to help him through, because you love him.  Hopefully, he'll decide not to go because he loves you too.

And if he disagrees you can tell him that's what healthcare workers in NJ did after seeing what the virus could do.  People eventually pitched in and lent them RV's to stay in and some hotels donated rooms.

[Ozlsn]

10 hours ago, Smee said:

I don't know what the solution is. I don't know if I can blame the Victorian government for their rationale or motivations. But it sits in my stomach making me feel deeply uncomfortable and my heart is breaking for the people in those towers.

Yeah that sums up how I feel about it too. I understand the reasons for the hard lockdown (lifts, limited exits) but they need to be providing food and other necessities to residents from now, and making arrangements around jobs etc - because a significant number of people are going to lose work from this. 

(The towers just incidentally urgently need replacement and refurbishment, but due to consistent underfunding of social housing by both governments over the last 40 at least years we are so short of social housing that they're likely to be kept a while longer. Which is also frustrating - although perhaps this crisis may cause a rethink of priorities. I can hope.)

It was also reported yesterday that the government may turn homeless people out of the hotels they have been accommodated in - now is really not the time to do that, and frankly I think it is completely unethical to do that without providing other accommodation for them to move into. The federal government is making noises about a blokey construction-led recovery - how about we start there.

There are rumours that all of metropolitan Melbourne will lock down again today, but who knows.  I switched off the news last night because I needed a break. 

9 hours ago, Quiver Full of Kittens said:

We reside in Florida and he wants to visit western Texas/New Mexico/Colorado. A huge part of what he wants to do is theme parks, so we have lots of exposure there as well. 

Personally I agree with you that now is really not the time to do this. 

[Coconut Flan]

In news I'm finding humorous, California has banned singing in church.  It's certainly a concern, but I can imagine the outcry.

[JMarie]

On 7/1/2020 at 7:53 AM, Ozlsn said:

"Permanently damages your immune system" WTAF already??? God I hope some of these people contract non-mild cases of covid and discover just how permanent some actual damage can be.

Permanent damage? Not for them! They'll use something from Plexus or DoTerra to boost their immune system and everything will be just fine.

[Smee]

39 minutes ago, Coconut Flan said:

In news I'm finding humorous, California has banned singing in church.  It's certainly a concern, but I can imagine the outcry.

We have that rule here - churches can have in-person services again, but people not from the same household must be 1.5m apart, there’s a register at the door for everyone to put name, phone number and arrival time on for contact tracing, masks and hand sanitizer available, and while the musicians at the front can sing, the congregation can’t. We now have a laptop at the front running a zoom call so people can still participate at home if they’d prefer, and because we have limited numbers in the building. This is what my church building looks like inside:

 

Edited July 4, 2020 by Smee

[Ozlsn]

27 minutes ago, JMarie said:

Permanent damage? Not for them! They'll use something from Plexus or DoTerra to boost their immune system and everything will be just fine.

 

36 minutes ago, Coconut Flan said:

In news I'm finding humorous, California has banned singing in church.  It's certainly a concern, but I can imagine the outcry.

And I'm dying laughing here imagining JRod's reaction. Can't sing? Of course we can sing - the Bible tells us to make a joyful noise unto the earth! God will favour us, and if he doesn't then Plexus will cure anything!

More seriously I sincerely hope no one in her family (or the other travelling singing/preaching families) gets it because they are highly likely to transmit it to a large number of churches with vulnerable populations, and I don't wish that on them.

[Coconut Flan]

41 minutes ago, Smee said:

We have that rule here - churches can have in-person services again, but people not from the same household must be 1.5m apart, there’s a register at the door for everyone to put name, phone number and arrival time on for contact tracing, masks and hand sanitizer available, and while the musicians at the front can sing, the congregation can’t. We now have a laptop at the front running a zoom call so people can still participate at home if they’d prefer, and because we have limited numbers in the building. 

We are pretty much the same way except it's 6 feet apart and we were supposed to previously be limited to one singer.  Now it appears no singers at all.  There was also a 100 person cap and a capacity limit.  

Edited July 4, 2020 by Coconut Flan

[Cartmann99]

Good article about what those trying to get people to wear masks are up against in my region of Texas:

In West Texas, Lingering Distrust in Public Health Measures as Virus Spreads

Quote

LUBBOCK, Texas — For a while, it seemed that the coronavirus had spared West Texas. Cases were low. Few had died. Concern through the spring was focused on getting businesses running again.

By mid-June, the Texas Tech football team returned to campus. Local baseball tournaments resumed. Hotels filled up.

Then people started getting sick.

In Lubbock, a burnt-tan city of 250,000 with a rollicking college bar scene, more people tested positive for the virus in the last three weeks than in the previous three months combined. On the day Gov. Greg Abbott began to swiftly reopen the state, two months ago, the city recorded eight positive tests for the virus. On Wednesday, there were 184.

The sudden jump, concentrated among those in their 20s, reflected a sharp and uncontrolled rise in the virus that has hit Texas harder than many other places in the country. Unlike the early weeks of the pandemic, when infections were concentrated in the state’s mainly liberal cities, the virus has now reached into the deep-red regions of the state that have resisted aggressive public health regulation.

Yet for many conservatives, even those with the virus now at their door, the resurgence has not changed opinions so much as hardened them.

For those Texans, trust in government is gone, if it was there to begin with, and that includes some of the state’s top leaders. On Tuesday, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick of Texas declared himself tired of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease doctor. “I don’t need his advice anymore,” Mr. Patrick said.

That sentiment was echoed outside a popular, newly opened hamburger restaurant in Wolfforth, Texas, just outside Lubbock, where even Mr. Abbott, a Republican, came under harsh criticism. “It seems like he’s been influenced by Fauci and the left,” said Mark Stewart, who sat with his wife and children and several other families at a gathering for locals who home school.

None in the 18-person group, which squeezed around several outside tables, wore masks or made an attempt to stay distant. “This is the first time we’ve met each other and we don’t care,” said Mr. Stewart’s wife, Tamera, adding that other people might take precautions when they are together and stay far apart. “Texas has all kinds. But we’re done with all that.”

Such attitudes present a daunting challenge for local leaders trying to contain a resurgent outbreak, especially in solidly Republican areas, where mandatory public health measures can generate swift opposition.

And they could complicate an order by the governor, issued late Thursday, requiring Texans to wear face coverings in public, with few exceptions, or be fined up to $250. The order applies to counties with more than 20 positive cases, in other words, most of the state.

It is the sort of requirement that Lubbock’s conservative mayor, Dan Pope, an eighth-generation Texan, sought to avoid imposing himself, opting instead to urge compliance from his avowedly independent-minded constituents.

“My approach all along has been one of personal responsibility,” Mr. Pope said in an interview from a ground-floor conference room in the city’s new municipal building. He said that he would enforce the governor’s mask order nevertheless.

The mayor, who wore a black Lubbock-branded face mask, was working out of the conference room, rather than his 11th-floor office, because his adult daughter who lives in town had recently tested positive for the coronavirus. His younger brother had also been infected, he said.

“I’m clean as far as our health department goes, I just think in an abundance of caution — I don’t want to be the guy,” Mr. Pope said. “I’m asking our people to act this way. Why wouldn’t I act that same way?”

That message is commonly heard from conservatives in Texas as they seek to balance public health concerns against worries that an aggressive government response could result in a backlash. Mandates have come to be associated with demands from leaders of the state’s largely Democratic cities.

In the Houston area, the top county executive, Lina Hidalgo, has called for a new and stricter stay-at-home order. Several other county leaders from major metropolitan areas, all Democrats, have also urged Governor Abbott to grant them the power to impose local lockdowns. He has so far refused.

But that has not won Mr. Abbott support on the right. Instead, many conservatives have strongly criticized the steps that Mr. Abbott has taken — such as closing bars and limiting restaurant service, as well as the mask requirement — in response to the huge increase in cases.

“There’s a lot of frustration that the governor is not giving our nation a contrasted worldview to that of California or New York,” said Luke Macias, a conservative Republican political consultant in Texas who said that Mr. Abbott had not offered a conservative vision of how to deal with the crisis. “With Abbott, he’s tried to have his cake and eat it too; he wants to not protect your individual liberty and then say he is.”

Before Mr. Abbott’s latest order, mayors in West Texas had blocked efforts to require residents to wear masks while inside stores, in some cases linking their opposition to disgust with leaders in Austin and Washington.

“Free Americans, and free Texans, must not allow a fractious, divided and politically motivated body of values lightweights to dictate day-to-day living,” Mayor Patrick Payton of Midland said at a news conference on Wednesday.

Gabrielle Ellison was elated to hear that message. Ms. Ellison is the owner of Big Daddy Zane’s, a bar in Odessa that attracted national attention in May after it joined with other businesses in Texas and, aided by men carrying assault rifles, reopened in defiance of state restrictions.

Ms. Ellison said she was defying the state’s order again and keeping her bar open. She has joined a statewide lawsuit over the governor’s closures.

“To me that is a life-and-death situation,” she said. “I can’t feed my family. My bartenders can’t feed their families.”

If anything, she said, the aggressive growth of coronavirus cases in Odessa made her more confident in reopening. “It has affected it in a more positive way,” she said. “We’re having people survive,” she said, adding, “Let’s just let this run its course.”

In Lubbock, the shutdown of bars left a usually bustling strip near the Texas Tech campus devoid of all activity on Wednesday evening, even as parking lots filled outside gyms elsewhere in town. Several local bars have said they would not reopen.

The city is deep in Trump country — the president won here with 66 percent of the vote — but it is also a college town. Household income is below average for the state, the mayor observed, while the number of people with college degrees is above.

“We’re some of the nicest people in the entire world,” said Jason Corley, a conservative who beat a more moderate Republican to become a Lubbock county commissioner. “But as soon as you make demands and tell them they’re going to do something, you get a different response: You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

About a third of the city’s residents are Hispanic, according to census figures, and that community has seen about a third of the city’s total coronavirus cases. Officials said they could not yet provide a demographic breakdown of the recent wave of cases, which have now totaled more than 1,700 since June 15.

While many residents expressed confidence that they would not be infected, others were more concerned.

Michael Machuca, 29, said he worried about the virus spreading among staff in the warehouse where he works. “The whole night shift didn’t show up one day,” he said, as he and his 6-year-old son were casting for bass in a local park.

The focus on bars came in part from what was learned about the outbreak by the city’s contact tracers in their interviews with young infected people, said Katherine Wells, the city’s director of public health.

Still, it has been a challenge to get people to self-quarantine, she said. And the virus has since spread more broadly into the community, cropping up again in at least one nursing home.

The return of the virus to nursing homes has been particularly demoralizing: The majority of the city’s 52 deaths have occurred in those facilities, but city leaders believed they had blunted that part of the early outbreak by the end of April.

While the campus of Texas Tech remains closed, many student athletes returned for practice in the middle of June. On the football team alone, 23 players and staff tested positive for the virus, a school spokesman said, adding that all had recovered.

“When the governor opened the bars, the floodgates opened,” said Latrelle Joy, a City Council member. “Now we’re in a position where he’s closed those bars, but we’ve got spread in the community.”

With the closures, gatherings had shifted from bars to pool parties by day, and house parties at night, officials said. Cases have now been traced to those gatherings.

Despite the surge in infections among young people, before the new mask order this week, many chose not to wear a mask. Or let it slip their minds.

“I left mine in the car,” said Ambroshia Pollard, 29, as she emerged from a grocery store with her mother and month-old daughter. Still, she said, she took the virus seriously. “My brother’s friend got it. He’s young, 21,” Ms. Pollard said. “I feel like it’s real and people should be more conscious. Us too, we should have masks.”

But many of their fellow shoppers also came and went without them, as did diners at a Braum’s Ice Cream and Burger restaurant in Wolfforth, and drinkers at the Brewery LBK in downtown Lubbock. There, groups of friends gathered around beers and cigarettes on the patio and argued about the utility of the governor’s mask order shortly after it came out.

Not a mask in sight.

Last Monday, my area took a vote on mask mandate that failed miserably, mainly because the majority of city council members saw it as an infringement of civil liberties. The mayor admitted that he had received death threats for even bringing the issue up in the first place, and angry members of the public swore they'd vote out anybody who voted in favor of a mandate. As things in my county have continued to deteriorate, culminating with one of the two hospitals in our county going to temporary diversion status (only county residents can be admitted), the mayor told local media that we needed to revisit the issue, but then Abbott issued the state-wide mask mandate, so now the locals have turned their ire back to him.

If you're playing Texas blackout bingo, you've only got eight more counties to go:

Spoiler

My county's health department is only updating their website a couple of days a week now, and the data they send to the state is sometimes two or three days worth at one time.  I know that we're not the only county in the state or country dealing with these sorts of issues, so Rufus only knows what the real case numbers are right now.

TL;dr The Trump Plague has made Texas extra-super-crazy with little gun-shaped sprinkles on top.

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[Cartmann99]

Texas leaders warn of hospital capacity, ask for lockdowns

Quote

DALLAS (AP) — Leaders in two of Texas’ biggest cities are calling on the governor to empower local governments to order residents to stay home as the state’s continued surge in coronavirus cases tests hospital capacity.

Austin Mayor Steve Adler told CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday that he wants Gov. Gregg Abbott, a Republican, to return control of his city to the local government as its hospitals face a potential crisis.

“If we don’t change the trajectory, then I am within two weeks of having our hospitals overrun,” Adler, a Democrat said. “And in our ICUs, I could be 10 days away from that.”

Texas reported it’s highest daily increase in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases Saturday, and hospitalizations from the disease caused by the coronavirus have continued to climb.

The Fourth of July weekend has also seen some defiance of Abbott’s orders closing bars and requiring people to wear face coverings in public in much of the state.

The mask order — which carries a $250 fine — came as part of the most dramatic about-face Abbott, a Republican, has made as he retreats from what stood out as one of America’s swiftest reopenings.

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the top county official in the Houston area, said she’s grateful for the mask mandate but that a stay-at-home order is needed.

“We don’t have room for incrementalism, we’re seeing these kinds of numbers, nor should we wait for all the hospital beds to fill and all these people to die, before we take drastic action,” Hidalgo, a Democrat, told ABC’s “This Week.”

Houston has rapidly become one of the American cities hit hardest by the virus. In addition to strained hospital capacity, it needs help meeting the demand for testing, Mayor Sylvester Turner told CBS’ “Face The Nation” Sunday.

Over the last month, the proportion of tests that come back positive for the virus has rocketed from about one in 10 to nearly one in four, Turner, a Democrat, said.

In the face of the city’s rising infection rate, Texas’ Republican party leadership last week affirmed plans to hold its in-person convention in Houston. And not all Texans are following measures meant to limit the virus’ spread over Independence Day weekend.

People flocked to cookouts and lakes to celebrate Saturday, with some not wearing masks or appearing to keep a safe distance from others. In Fort Worth, a bar may have its license suspended after hosting a “Tea Party Protest” Saturday, WFAA-TV reports.

Adler said the lack of unified public health messaging is endangering Texans, and expressed outrage over President Donald Trump’s statements this week that the virus could “just disappear.”

“And when they start hearing that kind of ambiguous message coming out of Washington, there are more and more people that won’t wear masks, that won’t social distance, that won’t do what it takes to keep a community safe,” the mayor told CNN. “And that’s wrong, and it’s dangerous.”

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms that clear up within weeks. But for others, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, the highly contagious virus can cause severe symptoms and be fatal. The vast majority of people recover.

 

[Ozlsn]

The outbreak here in Victoria is holding steady, with 108 cases Saturday, 74 Sunday and 127 today. Of the cases today 16 were from the housing towers that were shut down at very short notice on Saturday - there is still a lot of debate over how that was handled, and whether adequate support including information is being given to residents. 

Today's big news is that the border between NSW and Victoria is closing from midnight Wednesday - this will be interesting given the number of communities either side of the river (which makes up most of the border) where people cross routinely to work, shop, socialise etc. Apparently there will be a permit system.

Meanwhile door to door testing in hotspot suburbs is continuing - 25,000 were done on Sunday, and the plan is to test as many of the 3000 tower residents as quickly as possible to hopefully control the spread again. There are 645 known active cases here, with 31 in hospital, and 5 in ICU. We are all aware of how much worse it could be - we see the news - but I think we're all realising just how easily it can get out of control again. All it took was a couple of idiots, and some family gatherings - and here we are with rising numbers, more deaths (two overnight) and the not impossible scenario of locking down fully again. 

 

[clueliss]

Um - and apparently they found legit bubonic plague 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

This really irks me:

 

 

 

Why the fuck is Kushner getting one cent?

 

[JMarie]

3 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

This really irks me:

 

Maybe it's for his presidential campaign?

[GreyhoundFan]

Gee, the Milk Dud took PPP money too:

 

[Cartmann99]

COVID-19 hospitalizations in Texas continue to rise

Quote

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Hospitalizations across Texas have more than doubled in the last two weeks, rising to 8,698 people in hospitals on Monday.

Local officials across Texas say their hospitals are becoming increasingly stretched and are in danger of becoming overrun as cases of the coronavirus surge.

Along the Texas-Mexico border, Starr County Judge Eloy Vera said over the weekend that two severely ill patients were flown hundreds of miles north to Dallas and San Antonio because hospitals in the Rio Grande Valley were at capacity.

Texas surged past 8,000 statewide hospitalizations for the first time over the Fourth of July weekend — a more than quadruple increase in the past month. State health officials reported Monday that more than 12,000 beds remained available throughout Texas but the numbers differ locally.

Austin Mayor Steve Adler said hospitals in the Texas capital are at risk of becoming “overwhelmed” in the next week to 10 days unless the trajectory changes. San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg says hospitals in the nation’s seventh-largest city are approaching capacity, and in Houston, officials say hospitals have already exceeded base capacity in intensive care units.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott issued a mandatory statewide mask order last week after previously resisting the idea.

On Monday, Texas reported 5,318 new cases, after a record high of 8,258 on Saturday. Texas also reported 18 additional deaths Monday, bringing the totals to 2,655 reported deaths and 200,557 confirmed cases.

The true number of cases is likely much higher because many people have not been tested and studies suggest that people can be infected and not feel sick.

Meanwhile, Texas’ Republican Party leadership last week affirmed plans to hold its in-person convention in Houston.

In a tweet on Monday, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner urged the party to hold a virtual convention, saying “in this city, all of our conferences have rescheduled or canceled for this year except one.”

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms that clear up within weeks. But for others, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, the highly contagious virus can cause severe symptoms and be fatal. The vast majority of people recover.

 

Ector County GOP censures Abbott over executive power amid coronavirus, state Sen. Charles Perry calls for special session

Quote

The Ector County Republican Party voted Saturday to censure Gov. Greg Abbott, accusing him of overstepping his authority in responding to the coronavirus pandemic, while state Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, called for a special session so lawmakers could have a say in how Texas proceeds amid soaring caseloads.

The party executive committee in Ector County, home to Odessa, passed the censure resolution 10-1, with one abstention and three voting members who were not present, according to the chairperson, Tisha Crow. She said she was among those who supported the resolution, which accuses Abbott of violating five party principles related to his exercise of executive power during the pandemic.

While the resolution asks that delegates to the state convention later this month consider — and affirm — Ector County's action, Crow said consideration is "not guaranteed," and one precinct chair, Aubrey Mayberry, said the resolution "doesn't have any teeth" for now — but that it was important to send a message about what they consider Abbott's overreach.

Mayberry, who voted for the resolution, said he was working with precinct chairs in other Texas counties to get similar resolutions passed ahead of the convention.

The Ector County vote came two days after Abbott took one of his most sweeping executive actions yet, requiring Texans in most public places to wear masks. For months, Abbott has used his executive authority aggressively to respond to the pandemic, forcing hospitals to suspend elective surgeries, ordering Texans to stay at home in April except for essential activities, and shutting down certain businesses — and then reopening them before COVID-19 cases surged. Texas is now one of the nation's epicenters for the virus.

Perry wrote Saturday on Facebook that he is "deeply concerned about the unilateral power being used with no end in sight."

"This is why I urge Governor Abbott to convene a special session to allow the legislature to pass legislation and hold hearings regarding the COVID-19 response," Perry said. "It should not be the sole responsibility of one person to manage all of the issues related to a disaster that has no end in sight."

In the upper chamber, state Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, has also called for a special session, as have several House Republicans.

Abbott has not explicitly ruled out a special session before the Legislature meets again in January. In a TV interview Friday, though, he made clear it was not his preference at this point.

"The important thing is that we have the capability of responding very swiftly, and now is just not the time [to call the Legislature back]," Abbott told KTRK in Houston. "I will say that all possibilities will always remain on the table, but right now we're just making sure that we do all the right things to ensure that we're putting public health and safety first and that we reduce the spread of the coronavirus."

The "pro-life" conservatives are throwing a hissy fit because the governor's trying to do something that could save lives. I've seen where Abbott's been accused of "caving to liberals" for issuing the mask mandate.

[Ozlsn]

Florida teen dies after her conspiracy theorist mother took her to a mask-free church event, then tried to cure her using a drug Trump recommended.

I am so angry. Story in spoiler.

Spoiler

A Florida mother allegedly took her high-risk teenage daughter to a “COVID party” at their church, tried treating the girl at home with unproven drugs when she got sick — and then hailed her as a patriot after she died.

Carsyn Davis died June 23, two days after her 17th birthday, after she contracted the coronavirus, reported the News-Press, but former Florida data scientist Rebekah Jones detailed shocking claims in a medical examiner’s report about her illness.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigated the teen’s last two weeks in the medical examiner’s report, which Jones said shows her mother, Carole Brunton Davis, had taken her on June 10 to a church-sponsored event to intentionally expose her immunocompromised daughter, who had survived cancer at 2, to the potentially deadly coronavirus.

More than 100 mask-free children attended the event, and Davis allegedly gave her daughter azithromycin, an anti-bacterial drug with no known benefits for fighting COVID-19, after she developed headaches, sinus pressure and a cough, Jones reported.

Davis — whose Facebook page is awash in QAnon conspiracy theories, anti-vaccine and coronavirus misinformation and dubious legal theories — next put the girl on her grandfather’s oxygen machine after she “looked gray” on June 19, Jones reported.

Then she gave the girl hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug touted as a cure by President Donald Trump, despite evidence of deadly side effects, and Carsyn’s condition worsened.

Davis finally took her daughter to a hospital, where she was admitted to a pediatric intensive-care unit — but declined intubation until it was too late, Jones wrote.

The hospital started plasma therapy on June 20 and 21, Jones reported, but Carsyn’s cardio-respiratory system was too seriously damaged and she died June 22.

"We are incredibly saddened by her passing at this young age, but are comforted that she is pain free,” Davis told the News-Press after her daughter’s death.

She told the newspaper her daughter was a patriotic Christian who was involved with Operation Christmas Child and organized Christmas card writing for Ten Thousand for the Troops.

“Though she never wanted anything for herself, she was always making or buying gifts for others,” Davis said.

Mother of the Year right there. I hope the church faces scrutiny too.

Edited July 7, 2020 by Ozlsn

[Ozlsn]

It's been a pretty full on 24 hours in Victoria. After I posted the ACT announced restrictions on Victorians entering, which affected my family as my parents (who live in a rural area with no cases) were on their way up there. Fortunately they crossed all borders ahead of the deadlines. Then today we had 191 new cases (which is a new record for us, yay?) and to no one's surprise but a pretty universal resigned sigh we are locking down all of Melbourne and one rural LGA for the next 6 weeks. School holidays have been extended a week, y11 and 12, and specialist schools will go back but no one else. Everything that had started reopening is shut again - cafes/restaurants are back to takeaway only, gyms are shut (one week. They were open one damn week), no one knows whether we'll be doing distance ed again or what. Still - we had more notice than the poor folk in the towers, who are still getting patchy ad hoc support at this point. Why 6 weeks? Roughly three virus cycles, so if cases fall enough and stay fallen we can cautiously start reopening again. And maybe this time some of the freaking morons will listen and not try and revert to business as usual immediately. 

[clueliss]

The city I live in voted very late last night to require masking as of July 10.  Given the rising number of cases - I'm happy with this.  

[WiseGirl]

My state now has the lowest transmission rate, at least according to rt.live

Our testing rates are up, hospitalizations are down, and phase 3 opening has been delayed indefinitely.  (However they still want us back in school in the fall). 

Compared to other states we are doing well. Yes, we have conspiracy theory people here in this blue state but at least they are wearing their masks. It will be interesting to see what happens in 2 weeks,

[Smash!]

I took public transportation yesterday for the first time in weeks. Thankfully almost everyone is masked up (you won‘t find self-responsibility but at least people abide to law) except a few who ate their lunch in train (you are allowed to do that). Afterwards I went for a short visit to my parents and my sister was there as well. They didn‘t practice any.social.distancing. I complained, but in our family I‘m the alarmist, so I left shortly after.