I'm not sure lol is the word for this anymore.

4/29/2020 3:26:15 PM

Quote :

"8:30 a.m.: A small group of about 10 people has gathered in downtown Raleigh to protest their first and second amendment rights. Most people in the group were carrying guns and wearing masks. Police spoke to them, reminding them it is against the law to protest while carrying a gun."

5/1/2020 10:46:47 AM

wonder why they were at Oakwood cemetery?

5/1/2020 10:56:48 AM

Good question. I knew that looked familiar.

5/1/2020 11:00:57 AM

We drove by this morning and gave them hell. These are white nationalist types. They were there because of the Confederates buried there. I guess they decided not to go over to the capital when told they couldn't protest with weapons.

5/1/2020 11:07:14 AM

DUR HURR I'VE NEVER BENEFITED FROM WHITE PRIVILEGE IN AMERICA

5/1/2020 11:31:05 AM

Those outfits look incredibly expensive.

5/1/2020 11:55:28 AM

Military surplus.

$rhodeisland

5/1/2020 12:43:16 PM

If Democrats were serious about gun control they’d pay some leftist African American group to protest like that. NRA would be demanding more stringent laws yesterday.

5/1/2020 12:57:36 PM

Why would you dupe a bunch of people who do not want gun control into helping you pass more gun control laws?

wtf is wrong with you.

5/1/2020 2:45:01 PM

Incredibly insensitive as most of the confederate dead at Oakwood Cemetery were victims of gun violence.

5/1/2020 3:12:24 PM

Raleigh Police Say Armed Right-Wing Protesters Weren’t Protesters, No Arrests Made

https://indyweek.com/news/northcarolina/boogaloo-alt-right-protesters-raleigh/

5/4/2020 10:08:37 AM

Oh good. I'm glad everyone was just out getting some exercise.

5/4/2020 11:49:00 AM

Anyone have some books on “boogaloo”?

5/4/2020 12:34:21 PM

Ringo Starr did an anti-Boogaloo song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWlzmhxh9G4

5/4/2020 12:57:10 PM

The numbers dropped considerably for today's protest. Stephen Wagner (one of the gunmen) called for people to join him on an armed march in Raleigh on Saturday.

5/5/2020 3:58:00 PM

What flavor idiot is Wagner? Nazi? Klan?

5/5/2020 4:02:57 PM

I’m the last person to ever consult on linguistics, but “Wagner” screams Nazi. Just sayin’.

5/5/2020 4:19:21 PM

it depends how you pronounce it

5/5/2020 4:31:59 PM

I don't see any nazi or clan symbols in the picture, and those fellas love their branding. Therefore, I'm convinced they're just gun nuts angry their favorite gun store was closed

5/6/2020 9:41:59 PM

https://youtu.be/n4M_lLqMZl4

What a delightful political ad.

I would not be surprised to find crossover between the Dan Forest campaign and the ReopenNC AstroTurf operation here in the next few months.

5/7/2020 10:57:30 AM

Shelley Luther is going to become a millionaire overnight.

Quote :

" Shelley Luther is an American Hero that has decided to resist tyranny by opening her business against an unlawful State Executive Order. Her business, SALON A LA MODE offers services for hair and nails, microblading, permanent makeup, professional event makeup, braiding and more! Shelley and her team will likely face legal action, fines, and more during her journey back to freedom. She is doing what everyone else is only talking about, in a patriotic move to take back her liberty! Please support Shelley, and her employees by contributing to this worthy cause. You will not just be supporting Shelley, but you will be supporting the idea that our founders put in writing in the Constitution. 100% of all donations will go directly to Shelley Luther."

You can't make working illegal and not replace people's income. One or the other.

[Edited on May 8, 2020 at 3:08 PM. Reason : also government officials and their families are getting haircuts and doing what they want]

5/8/2020 3:07:31 PM

I wouldn't call raising $500k over a 3-week span becoming a millionaire overnight

5/8/2020 4:59:43 PM

^it's definitely more than she would have got through hard work alone. Never underestimate the power of the right-wing grift. It's pretty goddamn lucrative.

Fuck this lady. She isn't protesting to go back to work. She's protesting to make her employees go back to work.

I hope her employees unionize and demand hazard pay, an increase in benefits, extended paid sick leave, and personal protective equipment from this new windfall the boss just got (however much it is).

5/8/2020 6:14:11 PM

The #ReopenNC movement initially created a 10,000 march on Raleigh event for this Tuesday. It was then edited to 1000's march on Raleigh. The event itself is titled "The 1000's Man March". A total of 13 rsvp'd as of the night of 5/8.

5/9/2020 8:13:42 AM

public officials have been lying and haven't been transparent. LA health director just said with certainty that LA will be on stay at home through July now the mayor is on CNN doing damage control saying she meant there will still be some restrictions through July. A lot of bullshit and confusion for a place with very low cases from the start.

First it was "lets stay home for 2 weeks so the hospitals don't get overloaded but you can still go to exercise at the beach and parks"

Then it was "well we don't have testing so lets wait a month until we have testing and o by the way we will be destroying all parks so you can't use them and closing all beaches too"

Now its "lol, jk, we don't want anyone to get it all so everyones staying home until we have a medicine or vaccine"

5/12/2020 4:55:30 PM

Sounds like you're ready to strap up and join the REOPEN protests horosho.

Make sure you forget your mask so everyone knows how tough you are.

5/12/2020 7:20:26 PM

Looks like they drew 200-250 this week at most. That is well short of the advertised 1000's. Organizer Ashley Smith is an antivax "sovereign citizen" nutjob. It is a wonder they couldn't generate more support. Suprisingly this week I notice a lot less Trump gear (though there was still plenty). Of course they also have the Q Anon wackos as well.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EX59v5_XsAIxBwN?format=jpg&name=large

5/13/2020 11:01:05 AM

i kinda want to go down just to people watch

5/13/2020 12:20:37 PM

These restrictions don't even make sense when you really think about them from a public health perspective. The government says shopping for pots and pans at walmart is safe but shopping for them at my local kitchen supply shop would be dangerous and irresponsible.

When I go to cryo, theres rarely anyone else there I don't come near the tech, who sanitizes the booth after I leave and am out in 10 minutes but now when I go to CVS to buy painkillers instead, I'm passing 10 people and coming in contact with the cashier. Its more dangerous but its more money for big business.

If you were going to close any business, it seems like it would have started with the airlines; the ones that allow this thing to spread around the globe in hours but no, airlines were never shutdown and no one ever even questioned whether they should. It was never on the table. None of the biggest companies were ever shut down.

All this is doing is funneling all of the money to the biggest companies giving companies like amazon a chance to consolidate their market dominance. Anyone who lost their job can go work for costco, amazon, walmart, cvs , or albertsons and any small business who dares to compete with big retail will be arrested. The government is forcing us to only shop at businesses that are, by default, mass gatherings.

Then when you look at the people getting sick, its all your essential workers and old people anyway. So we are all staying home and its not even helping the people who were getting sick anyway.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/14/21259474/amazon-warehouse-worker-death-indiana
So amazon is breeding the virus, having workers die, not sharing data, but they have complete political immunity to this. Meanwhile, businesses that had no cases were shutdown indefinitely and aren't allowed to operate.

If you take a look at the data from Georgia, you can see reopening had no effect which suggests the shutdown doesn't even work at all.
https://dph.georgia.gov/covid-19-daily-status-report
Georgia reopened 3 weeks ago and everyone thought it would be a disaster but their case totals have taken a nosedive.

[Edited on May 15, 2020 at 12:37 PM. Reason : all hail lord bezos]

[Edited on May 15, 2020 at 12:39 PM. Reason : instead of spreading out by going to a lot of little businesses. ]

5/15/2020 12:30:56 PM

I don't believe it was a big business conspiracy. No, this was a product of China worship. But, it was rather stupid. There is a case being made that seems persuasive, that social distancing and other policies that actually are reducing infectivity were adopted as far as they were because the lockdown popularized information among the public about the virus.

Therefore, I think a one week lockdown to allow businesses to make any changes they could make to reduce infectivity would have been more than enough to get the word out.

Secondly, expanding unemployment as we've done for most (but not enough) was a great idea. Those with pre-existing conditions that need to avoid infectivity risk are now at home on unemployment, hopefully refusing to return to work because they don't need to. Work search requirement has been waived, after-all.

But, it takes time for people to change their minds. Everyone saw what China was able to do, so they believed we should do that. Everyone that disagreed was shamed and marginalized. It takes time for the majority to come around to the truth of it all. We need to keep in mind the alarmist modellers at the beginning predicting tens of millions of deaths without a lockdown (garbage in, garbage out) and that a lockdown would drive the infectivity rate to near zero. What actually happened was that the data from China turned out to be crap, death rate was less than a tenth of what was predicted, and that under lockdown the infectivity rate (R0) was still 0.7. Therefore, no, lockdown makes no sense given these numbers. Most everyone that is going to die from the virus is going to die anyways, lockdown or not, just later in the year.

5/17/2020 1:16:30 PM

Quote :

"Most everyone that is going to die from the virus is going to die anyways, lockdown or not, just later in the year."

This is just a bunch of words completely divorced from reality. Considering what I've personally witnessed in New York, the lockdown saved thousands of lives and substantially reduced the length of this ordeal. The people I know who've had COVID are all healthy and in their 30's and they were pretty much worthless for 2 weeks to a month. If a large portion of the population were sick with this all at once, the economy would have completely shut down.

The Hasidic community in New York has pretty much ignored all social distancing and lockdown requests. A Hasidic guy the company I work for does business with said he knows dozens of people who died. All of which were years from death.

[Edited on May 17, 2020 at 10:23 PM. Reason : more ]

5/17/2020 10:13:56 PM

Quote :

"Most everyone that is going to die from the virus is going to die anyways, lockdown or not, just later in the year."

Man talk about burying the lede

5/17/2020 10:48:08 PM

Quote :

"The people I know who've had COVID are all healthy and in their 30's and they were pretty much worthless for 2 weeks to a month."

How many of them died? How many of them were infected before vs after the shutdown began? How many people do you know in their 30s who were infected and didn't get sick at all? You can't even answer that.

Quote :

". All of which were years from death. "

How does he even think he knows how far anyone was from death?

[Edited on May 17, 2020 at 10:59 PM. Reason : you can't know if the lockdown saved lives or not unless you can answer all those questions]

5/17/2020 10:57:54 PM

Quote :

"How many of them died? How many of them were infected before vs after the shutdown began? How many people do you know in their 30s who were infected and didn't get sick at all? You can't even answer that."

1) know one person in their 30's who died.

2) Personally, I don't know anyone who got sick after the lockdown.

3) Why does it matter? Thats like asking how many people in their 30's can survive a 50 foot fall.

Maybe I'm confused but are you suggesting New York shouldn't have closed offices, bars and restaurants?

Also when a Hasidic guys says he knows a lot of people who died you want me to ask how many of them were old smokers? ok

[Edited on May 17, 2020 at 11:50 PM. Reason : ok ok]

5/17/2020 11:49:53 PM

No I'm not suggesting anything other than nobody knows the answers. I'm questioning how you can be so certain that the lockdown "saved thousands of lives" especially when it wasn't even a real Wuhan lockdown and more just a shutdown of small businesses.

It seems odd that people think its so much safer to have dinner parties inside homes instead of restaurants or house parties with your friends instead of going to the bar or yard parties instead of going to the beach.

You could make the "small pods" argument but that all goes down the drain the moment one person from each pod goes to walmart or costco and mixes with the whole damn city.

And we're talking about NYC. How many people actually live alone? I was the only person I knew who did for the few years I lived there.

Girls A,B,and C share an apartment. Girl A visits Boyfriend A who lives with boys E,F, and G, who date girlfriends E, F,G, and H, and visit them occasionally. Girls B and C have boyfriends B and C, over girl A's living room on a regular basis. Girlfriend of H is an ER nurse who works with COVID and girlfriend of F has two kids who play with the kids of girl D and boy D who are married with 4 young kids of their own but they also share cooking with families H and I. Teenager D has been sneaking out at night to meet up with other teenagers. All of a sudden you have 50 people making regular contact. Its pretty much the same as it was before.

Work is the most isolation a lot of people in NYC ever see so I don't know. Maybe it saved thousands of lives. Maybe it costs thousands of lives. Maybe it didn't change the numbers one bit. We can never know.

[Edited on May 18, 2020 at 12:22 AM. Reason : or worse]

5/18/2020 12:13:33 AM

Ok, so you have no clue what you’re taking about.

Most New Yorkers stopped ridding the trains, going to work, and eating in restaurants around March 13th. Reported cases peaked around the beginning of April. Deaths peaked about a week or 2 after. Plenty of people still had to ride the trains and go to work. I am sure those people account for a huge amount of those infected post “lockdown”.

Also as an example: I was going to fly to Charleston at the end of March to see my parents who live in the Midwest. Let’s say I lived life as I normally do in March, went to Charleston and ate at restaurants with my parents who then flew home. Now multiply that by thousands all over the country.

[Edited on May 18, 2020 at 12:34 AM. Reason : Derp. ]

5/18/2020 12:22:37 AM

Also this sentence is completely stupid.

Quote :

"Work is the most isolation a lot of people in NYC ever see so I don't know."

5/18/2020 9:26:20 AM

Quote :

"2) Personally, I don't know anyone who got sick after the lockdown."

It sounds like everyone you know had it before the lockdown, so, this only demonstrates people don't catch it twice.

Remember my position. Social distancing is good and must be encouraged. Lockdowns where people are threatened with arrest for trying to work are bad.

Quote :

"Considering what I've personally witnessed in New York, the lockdown saved thousands of lives and substantially reduced the length of this ordeal."

All evidence to the contrary. New York's infection rate is not zero. Of course, given that 40+% of New Yorkers have already had the virus and are now presumably immune, New York's infection rate has presumably fallen far more than other regions where the immunity rate is still single digits. In these regions, even in lockdown, the infection rate in Germany fell to only 0.7 then rose back up to 1.2 after their lockdown ended. These numbers are not dramatically different from each other. With millions already infected, it is only a matter of months until most of the population has had the virus and either died or become immune.

5/18/2020 9:49:58 AM

Quote :

" In these regions, even in lockdown, the infection rate in Germany fell to only 0.7 then rose back up to 1.2 after their lockdown ended. These numbers are not dramatically different from each other."

I hope you didn’t take epidemiology from NCSU because this isn’t right at all. The difference between 0.7 and 1.2 is a slow downward trend versus what could be exponential growth.

5/18/2020 10:25:55 AM

Quote :

"It sounds like everyone you know had it before the lockdown, so, this only demonstrates people don't catch it twice. Remember my position. Social distancing is good and must be encouraged. Lockdowns where people are threatened with arrest for trying to work are bad."

How can this be your take away? People were riding the train and going inside buildings multiple times a day PRIOR to the lockdown. People got sick. After the lockdown, almost everyone I know worked from home or were unemployed so they didn't ride the train or go inside. They stopped getting sick.

Quote :

"All evidence to the contrary. New York's infection rate is not zero. Of course, given that 40+% of New Yorkers have already had the virus and are now presumably immune, New York's infection rate has presumably fallen far more than other regions where the immunity rate is still single digits. In these regions, even in lockdown, the infection rate in Germany fell to only 0.7 then rose back up to 1.2 after their lockdown ended. These numbers are not dramatically different from each other. With millions already infected, it is only a matter of months until most of the population has had the virus and either died or become immune. "

You're pulling this 40% number of your ass. What I read was 20-30% of the people who voluntarily got antibody tests had antibodies. This is no way says they are immune to further infection and I would assume a disproportionate of people who thought they had COVID got these tests.


New York City went into a LIGHT lockdown and significantly reduced the spread of the infection.

5/18/2020 11:00:20 AM

^^Right. A downward trend that ends when 40+ percent of the population has had it (herd immunity) versus an exponential growth that ends when 40+ percent of the population has had it (herd immunity). As herd immunity kicks in, R0 drops to zero, which is a huge difference.

So, yes, mathematically the two numbers are very different. But, for the ultimate death count, it doesn't change the ultimate outcome enough to be worth the costs.

Quote :

"You're pulling this 40% number of your ass. What I read was 20-30% of the people who voluntarily got antibody tests had antibodies. This is no way says they are immune to further infection and I would assume a disproportionate of people who thought they had COVID got these tests."

Such is what is called anecdotal information. To be considered data, it needs to be random and blind to filter out selection problems, and "20% of everyone that wanted to take the test had it" is neither random nor blind. Maybe all the tests were taken by germaphobes which were less likely to catch it. I'm sure such studies are being run as we speak, but I haven't heard the results so far. All we do know for sure is that given the death rates estimated by such studies that have completed already, given New York's death rate, their previously infected rate cannot be as low as 20%.

[Edited on May 18, 2020 at 11:27 AM. Reason : ^]

5/18/2020 11:16:30 AM

Herd immunity is the failed outcome, it's the one that maximizes the number of deaths.

I guess if you accept failure, then the most successful failure is the one that minimizes disturbance to economic activity.

But we should be optimizing for suppressing the virus and minimizing deaths. This leads to the most rapid bounceback of society in general. South Korea saw a small blip in their unemployment rate for example, following this route.

It's weird to talk about the best way to fail, when options to actually have a successful outcome are still on the table (although dwindling by the day).

5/18/2020 11:27:46 AM

Quote :

""It sounds like everyone you know had it before the lockdown, so, this only demonstrates people don't catch it twice"

Lol, wut? I don't think it demonstrates what your bias wants it to demonstrate.

5/18/2020 11:29:03 AM

Quote :

"It's weird to talk about the best way to fail, when options to actually have a successful outcome are still on the table (although dwindling by the day)."

Which are? Why are you keeping these life saving options a secret!?! What the hell is wrong with you!?

Only option that "plans for success" as you phrase it is not an option. Close the borders of every county. Checkpoints armed with thermometers to detain anyone with a fever. Requiring prescriptions for fever reducing drugs so people cannot avoid the checkpoints.

What South Korea did works great if your infected rate is well less than 1%. Drop the totalitarianism on those exposed and leave everyone else mostly alone. South Korea detained everyone that had been exposed in corporate retreats. But when it is 10 to 20%, that list of exposed includes the majority of the population. It just isn't possible.

[Edited on May 18, 2020 at 11:39 AM. Reason : .,.]

5/18/2020 11:29:24 AM

It was the lockdown.....

They Hasidic community didn't adhere to the lockdown and the deaths in that community are still being uncovered. Countless people died in their homes The true numbers are going to be awful.

[Edited on May 18, 2020 at 11:37 AM. Reason : bigly]

5/18/2020 11:35:51 AM

^^the death toll will only be same if you assume that your healthcare system is capable of providing the same level of care in a R=0.7 outbreak and a R=1.2 outbreak. Now, maybe that is true, especially if you believe we can hit that 40% number in 6-8 weeks. But if you maintain an R=1.2 outbreak for an extended period, it will absolutely lead to Drs/nurses triaging patients. I get that some level of death is inevitable with this shit, but I personally think we need to give old folks a fighting chance, at a bare minimum that means an available ICU bed when they get sick.

It’s been amazing to watch so much discussion morph from “we need to flatten the curve to keep our hospitals manageable,” to “what’s an acceptable death rate per job loss?” It may be because we haven’t seen hospitals swamped except in a few areas of the US (SO FAR), but the potential is still obviously there.

All that being said I still agree with you on some level LoneSnark. We need to open the country up as much as possible as soon as possible. But rather than linking it to some R=#, why not maintain an infection rate at whatever level our healthcare system is capable of dealing with? That’s the only metric that matters IMO.

[Edited on May 18, 2020 at 11:41 AM. Reason : ^ ]

5/18/2020 11:39:55 AM

Quote :

"They Hasidic community didn't adhere to the lockdown and the deaths in that community are still being uncovered. Countless people died in their homes The true numbers are going to be awful."

It sounds like a lot of those deaths were people refusing care. The wider population will willingly go to the hospital to be intubated as necessary.

Of course, this is new information I didn't have before. If it is the case that a chunk of New Yorkers refused treatment and died as a result, that implies a lower previously infected rate based upon New York's death rate. Fascinating...

Quote :

"But rather than linking it to some R=#, why not maintain an infection rate at whatever level our healthcare system is capable of dealing with? That’s the only metric that matters IMO."

Of course. However, it seems hospital capacity isn't a concern anymore. Social distancing seems to work plenty well, we'll have herd immunity before hospital capacity runs out, as long as it remains around 1.2. If people give up on social distancing then we will have a problem, but we'd deal with that situation if it arrives.

[Edited on May 18, 2020 at 11:49 AM. Reason : .,.]

5/18/2020 11:42:45 AM

I agree social distancing works. But social distancing involves steps that prevent certain parts of the economy from opening up. Most offices make it impossible to social distance and restaurants are even worse.

Also I think an issue is people are dying in their homes and not being counted as COVID deaths. I believe in April upwards of 200-250 people were dying in their homes per day when the normal rate is 25-30. I am not sure if these were taken into account or what the actual scope was. Some of these people could have died bc they didn't want to go to the hospital for other illnesses.

[Edited on May 18, 2020 at 12:00 PM. Reason : per day]

5/18/2020 11:59:38 AM

^^if you’re right, you’d look like a genius. If you’re wrong you are talking about potentially 10s of thousands of excess deaths. You’re also relying on the country’s ability to maintain an R=1.2 instead of Sliding down the infection slope to 2 (extremely easy to do as I understand.)

[Edited on May 18, 2020 at 12:02 PM. Reason : Y’all posting with a quickness today!]

5/18/2020 12:01:27 PM