DramatistDreamer

'Murica.

Who's actually surprised by this?

Oh no, I'm sorry to hear this. I will be holding a special word for your brother's health to improve and that he has the best possible outcome. If this helps at all, one of my family members who is a nurse, is recovering from COVID-19. She was hospitalized but thankfully was released and is home recuperating. So often, we seem to focus almost exclusively on the worst case scenarios, but remember that many many people do indeed recover.

If Tamara Tunie and Hillary Bailey Smith were there, I think he would have been available.

Um...wut?!

I just started reading this thread on the USPS but it's already worth the read. Some things you may have already known, and others you may not.

What...whaaat??!

but sadly, very "on brand" for this current Republican party, in which the cruelty is the point.

I still haven't seen the new livestream, lol. I guess I'm really not that interested in it this time around.

FWIW, Republicans have been trying to privatize the Post Office for far longer than Trump has been in office, the way they've been trying to kill PBS since PBS's inception.

If memory serves me correctly, she also seemed to imply that he had been drinking at times too. If CZ tired of playing the victim, well nobody victimized her like James Stenbeck, I'm surprised she never mentioned that. Despite AH's obvious talents, after the late 80s, there was no real reason for Stenbeck to keep returning, and the stories bringing him back became more and more pointless. I guess CZ just enjoyed playing off of AH more than HN because there was no way the last two returns of James Stenbeck were anything to fawn over. I've seen pictures of her at some event with HN and she seemed thrilled to see him, so I'm guessing the critcisms weren't personal, BH otoh, seems quite a different story. To me, it still seems as if over its very long history, ATWT seemed to have relatively little friction between the actors. It seemed to be a handful of people and everybody else just seemed to do their job and go home.

You're welcome @Khan. This is a worldwide pandemic and this disease has been tragically effective at crossing borders and across oceans, which keeps this in perspective for me. Speaking of global, Seems as if Russia could finally be coming to terms with the fact that coronavirus is spreading there. I'm reading that infection rates are doubling daily in Moscow and almost half of the cases of infected in the capital city are of people under the age of 45. I don't know how the quality of the general health of younger populations are in Russia but in terms of the spread, that's not good news. Looks like Putin is playing the same type of role as Xi Jinping did in China, which was hardly any, with Putin opting to leave for the countryside and let the mayor of Moscow deal with the scourge.

I truly cannot stand this man.

There are poorer countries where people also live in dense areas that don't have anything near the alarming rates of transmission that even most U.S. suburbs now have. These countries have their people wear masks. In some countries, their seamstresses are literally sewing masks for medical workers and their average citizens. I've been looking at countries in the Caribbean and most, except for The Dominican Republic have low rates of infection. Anybody who has ever been to Kingston, Jamaica knows that there are densely populated areas where there is crushing poverty. People have still been wearing masks and social distancing. If you violate social distancing mandates, you can get a huge fine. Jamaica also tests as many people as they can frequently, which I believe is key. The problem is that the U.S. started late because of an intransigent person in charge who denied the existence of this virus and continues to obfuscate and misinform.

Well, in the beginning the CDC and surgeon general also said that COVID-19 was contagious only when someone began to show symptoms. I knew that wasn't true from the get-go because that is not generally how communicable disease works. Someone can be completely asymptomatic, never show symptoms yet still have the flu virus and infect other people. The reason why they were downplaying wearing masks was likely because they knew they had a shortfall of supplies and wanted to save them for frontline medical workers (who quickly ran out of supplies). Also, due to a fear that people wouldn't remove or dispose of their masks or gloves properly. As someone who has had experience working with medical waste, you must remove your gloves properly so as not to contaminate yourself or others. If folks are not even washing their hands properly, there was likely concern that they wouldn't use gloves or masks properly.

Also, being diagnosed with COVID-19 is different than dying from it. It is is an indictment that a "rich" country such as the U.S. is the country with one of the worst outcomes. The medical (I won't even refer to is as a healthcare system) system has been shown to be in tatters with nurses forced to wear garbage bags for their own protection. Nursing homes, many of which are owned and operated by wealthy politically connected insiders have been shown to be poorly run and inept are becoming a new hotspot for the coronavirus. Am I the only one who has noticed that the countries that have the worst outcomes all have utterly dysfunctional governments? Putting aside the U.S. and China (it's obvious what's wrong with them) but also the U.K. (Brexit), Italy (dysfunction since the days of Berlusconi and now Five Star movement), Spain (infighting among political parties for years now). France has also had it pretty bad and their government has been teetering on the edge of instability for years.

Anyone participating in the factory farm system has no place to talk. Unless you're vegetarian or own, raise your own chickens, it's all just idle talk, isn't it?And both countries are no doubt, under-counting their dead. Trump can talk his bullsh*t at his circus PR conferences all day, every day but it doesn't negate or even obscure the truth that the intelligence about this growing COVID-19 crisis was there since late last year, if only he'd read a goddamned intelligence report. Now because of the buffonery and ignorance of that oaf in the WH, we have to see scenes like this play out in NYC and likely in other places across America. China is a repressive government that lies to their own people, which left Chinese citizens unable to protect themselves. America has a racist, white supremacist, xenophobic, misogynist wannabe authoritarian who doesn't have the sense and intelligence God gave a gnat and it is causing the deaths of thousands of people.

The U.S., which also has a disgusting system of factory farming, is in no position to throw stones at China. Both have practices that are uttery foul. People do know that there is coronavirus spreading all over U.S. meat and poultry plants, right?

This article states that most economist seem to agree that the government's aid efforts were too small and arrived too late-- as a result, many businesses have abandoned their workers.

ICYMI

It's time for Sascha to get some sense. Unless he had an actual positive test, it could've been flu, bronchitis or a garden variety respiratory infection (non coronavirus). Seems truly irresponsible on his part but that's the way he wants to play it, I guess. He may be exposing himself for nothing, if the season turns out to be a wash.