we are less than 50,000 confirmed cases away from ONE MILLION

[NRaleighLiberal]

and that those are only the ones we know about.

1 month ago we were at 60,000 confirmed cases.

My right wing fundie religion brother (lives in FL) texted me today how rough it is for he and girlfriend and thinks it will all be better in a month.

He didn't want to hear my response.

[malaise]

1. This happens when an abysmal failure - at everything steals an election

and enough assholes pretend that he can govern.
Unfuckingbelievable!
Don the criminally negligent Con will go down in history as the worst president ever and a fucking mass murderer

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. he is indeed making history of the most unfortunate (for us) kind

[hlthe2b]

2. It is amazing, shocking, and most of all...

gut-wrenching/angering.

It didn't have to be this bad.

[unblock]

4. we'll get there monday.

we've had roughly 1.5% tests as a percentage of the u.s. population. that's a tiny fraction of the people, never mind that many tests are repeated on the same person.

it's possible that by the end of the summer, we've increased medical capacity and equipment so the hospitals aren't swamped (even that is optimistic), but it's unlikely that we'll have any silver bullet regarding either treatment or vaccine. nor is it likely we will have tested more than, say, 10% of the population.

so on what basis do we really "get back to normal"? certainly anyone in a high risk category shouldn't be eager to mingle in crowds of any size. it's entirely likely that if you go out an get covid-19 in september, your chances of dying are not vastly better than if you were to get it today, so why would you risk it? yeah, hospitals are tweaking treatment and learning as we go, but there won't be dramatic improvement in survival rates until we get some sort of silver bullet, which we don't have any particular reason will happen any time soon.


personally, i think we will come back on live in a scattered fashion, guided by testing and medical advances. my own job and business can all be done from home. i'm very lucky in that, but it also means that we'll be the last to go back to the office, because there's no need for us at all, unlike, say, restaurants.

there will be a long period where we're "half open". restaurants with very few tables, bowling alleys with every other lane closed, etc.

[NRaleighLiberal]

5. wise post. thx.

[Botany]

6. Your fundie right wing brother is watching Fox News ..... they had a chyron on last night ... I saw

... ten seconds ..... how are we going to adjust to a post pandemic economy.


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Developing_Cherokee_Purple_Tomato.J

[NRaleighLiberal]

7. he sure is. sad.

[Bengus81]

8. And that's with about 1.5% being tested

Think what it would be with 50% tested.............

[Still Sensible]

9. My "HealthLynked" app says we are only

7,464 cases away from that milestone. I'm not sure what the source of their data is though. The Johns Hopkins site is reporting closer to your number.

[NRaleighLiberal]

10. I follow 5 sites or Apps and they all report widely different numbers