A Maskachusetts resident who has achieved Super Karen status when it comes to advocacy of masks and shutdown (daily Facebook postings for our full year (so far) of “14 days to flatten the curve”) went down to Wicked Florida for the February school break that we have here. He hung his phone out of a car window and made a video of people mixing in various open-to-the-street venues on the beach in Ft. Lauderdale, captioned
Wonder what happens if you party like it’s 1999…you get the highest virus transmission rate in the country. Looks like fun though I think I’ll just keep on driving!
Among the various comments, one from a Floridian:
in your statement above, “because these folks ignore the rules they are going to cause a problem and creat a backlash that will cause shutdowns and restrictions”. Aren’t you also doing that by out of state travel?
My answer to her:
I think [he] is working in an established literary tradition. Devout Christians, for example, used to go to whorehouses, strip clubs, and gay bars so that they could then write about the awful sins that were taking place.
Now that Christianity is on the wane here in the U.S., are posts like this guy’s evidence that Shutdown Karenhood is one of the replacements?
From a club in Miami, end of January:
It would have been interesting for your friend with his phone out the window to study the numbers from Florida to see if they actually have the “highest transmission rate” in the country. https://business.fau.edu/covidtracker/
The numbers for the state & counties are particularly interesting given the state has been open since September (although even earlier in many places, which never re-shutdown during their surge in July) and that life is pretty back to normal (little mask wearing, no distancing) in many places.
Florida is the 29th worst state for overall Covid cases per capita, Massachusetts is 33rd. By shutting down the state for a year, Massachusetts has achieved a total cases per capita number 5% lower than Florida. Congratulations!!
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html
CalSK: Given that “cases” include people without any symptoms and depend a lot on how much people enjoy running PCR machines, I think it is more relevant to look at deaths. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#compare-trends_totaldeathsper100k produces some clear graphics. If you compare MA to FL you’ll see that the cumulative death rate in Florida is much lower than in locked-down Massachusetts (FL is similar to masked-and-locked CA). With another click you can see that the daily death rate over the past 100 days has been generally higher in MA than in FL (and much higher in CA than in FL).
What’s a faith if it isn’t tested? How’s this for a test: get injected with the product of a plant that “has repeat quality offenses“.
“…bacteria and mold in supposedly sterile areas … failed to properly sample drug products to ensure they didn’t have excessive levels of certain toxins … significant violations of current good manufacturing … drugs were found to be contaminated with cardboard and other particles”, etc.
But surely the health bureaucracy has remained thoroughly vigilant? “The FDA halted all inspections of drugmaking facilities at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, though it has since resumed some domestic visits.”
“The most recent inspection also found that the company’s [Pfizer’s] testing for endotoxins in drugs including morphine and the cancer drug Nivestym wasn’t adequate. Endotoxins are created by certain bacteria and in some forms, such as E. coli or botulism, can lead to serious conditions or even death.”
Never fear, if you happen to receive some contaminated, poisonous dose of vaccine, it just shows your Coronafaith wasn’t strong enough!
There is no reason to scold any of the people in the video from Miami. They’re using #Science to burn the virus right out of the air! I admit it’s difficult to determine whether the sparklers, drinks and music are to fight the virus or combat boredom.
https://www.chemicalsafetyfacts.org/the-bright-history-and-chemistry-of-fireworks/
“A sparkler is typically made from a metal wire coated with a mix of potassium perchlorate, titanium or aluminum, and dextrin. Aluminum or magnesium also helps create that familiar white glow.”
During the Black Plague, a variety of similar techniques were used:
https://www.ancient.eu/article/1540/medieval-cures-for-the-black-death/
“Aside from potions, clearing the air was considered another effective remedy. Since the plague was thought to spread by “bad air”, homes were fumigated with incense or simply smoke from burning thatch.”
The folks in the video appear to be at a restaurant and it looks like scientific progress has caused this technique to fall out of favor:
“A healthy chicken was taken and its back and rear plucked clean; this bare part of the live chicken was then applied to the swollen nodes of the sick person and the chicken strapped in place. When the chicken showed signs of illness, it was thought to be drawing the disease from the person. It was removed, washed, and strapped back on and this continued until the chicken or the patient died.”
Many of the people in Miami still practice astrology, though. So beware!
“According to scholars at the University of Paris, the Black Death is created on March 20, 1345, from what they call “a triple conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars in the 40th degree of Aquarius, occurring on the 20th of March 1345.″
But we’ve managed to avoid repeating this one, so far at least:
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/black-death-is-created-allegedly
“Jewish people were tortured and burned to death by the thousands for supposedly causing the Black Death.”