Contagion, by the brilliant director Steven Soderbergh, leaves HBO Max tonight. Most of the friends who scolded me for lack of coronapanic orthodoxy and weak adherence to Faucism are still in their crowded vacation destinations, often in foreign countries where they can harvest exotic variant SARS-CoV-2. I know that, by contrast, readers of this blog follow the science and therefore will be home, and certainly wouldn’t wish to participate in a New Year’s Eve superspreader event such as a party without adequate vaccine papers checks, let me suggest watching the movie!
(And, remember, that “Fauci says to cancel New Year’s Eve parties, as millions struggle for normalcy nearly two years into pandemic” (Fox, 12/27): “But when you’re talking about a New Year’s Eve party, we have 30, 40, 50 people celebrating. You do not know the status of their vaccination, I would recommend strongly stay away from that this year.”)
Though both are zoonotic, there are some differences in the movie disease compared to COVID-19. The movie disease doesn’t seem to spread as well as a pure aerosol, but rather is best transmitted via surface contact. The movie disease has a death rate of about 30% for previously healthy children and young adults, i.e., lining up pretty well with what my friends who read the New York Times and listen to NPR believe.
The movie should have been required viewing for all Americans in March 2020. People would have learned what #Science believed at the time about COVID-19, i.e., that it was spread by fomites and that it was critical to understand R0. The movie depicts shortages, mostly peaceful activities by citizens (i.e., looting) and, contrary to what happened with COVID-19, health care workers abandoning their jobs.
The movie also shows citizens resigning themselves to a yearlong lockdown in order to avoid the 30% chance of death.
The movie shows an alternative medicine fad, roughly analogous to what we saw with ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. It misses the “often in error, never in doubt” phenomenon that we’ve seen from regular medicine with COVID-19. Doctors, especially CDC doctors, are essentially infallible and advice informed by #Science never has to be revised.
*** SPOILER ALERT *** There are some anachronisms from our point of view. The film was made in 2011, when identifying as Black or as a “woman” (as the term was understood then) was sufficient for being a brilliant scientist. There was no need to also be part of the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community. Despite not being 2SLGBTQQIA+ (and, in fact, although there are sexual relationships referred to, I don’t think that there are any 2SLGBTQQIA+ characters), the brilliant female scientist is sufficiently brilliant to develop a one-and-done vaccine. *** END OF SPOILER ***
To everyone who will be safely at home watching TV: Happy New Year!
To everyone who will be attending parties: We’ll see you in Hell!
Related…
“Delta and Omicron are coming to your party”: Authorities ask Illinois citizens to vaccinate and mask up” (Illinois News Live):
As New Year’s Eve approached, Ejike told everyone to expect uninvited guests from their gathering: Delta and Omicron, a variant of the virus that is currently prevalent in the state. The word Omicron seems less deadly, especially given that Delta is still a prevalent strain in Illinois, isn’t a reason for people to relax, Ezike said. ..
“Omicron and Delta are coming to your party, so you need to think twice,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “People obviously should pay special attention.
What does the expert on a disease that attacks the obese look like? Here’s Governor Pritzker:
A view from the front:
Let’s check “the curve” for Illinois:
While I know you love The Atlantic, a lot of health care workers have indeed quit their jobs (and continue to do so), which is pretty much bad for everyone concerned and this article mentions that (among other things): https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/11/the-mass-exodus-of-americas-health-care-workers/620713/ I think Contagion 2 wasn’t ready for tonight’s viewing, but it’s on its way: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/steven-soderbergh-sequel-contagion/
> a lot of health care workers have indeed quit their jobs (and continue to do so), which is pretty much bad for everyone concerned
I agree with this based on my experience at a hospital ER a couple of days ago. In this case, people were jacked up in the waiting room not so much because of lack of beds/space, but workers. They showed some classic signs of understaffing: 1) Workers doing jobs they were never trained for or trained with the “Cliff’s Notes” 2) People with wearied looks running around furtively just at the edges of your vision 3) Long delays and an almost total lack of communication 4) Serious lapses in (what one would think) basic protocol.
Half of methinks that COVID was designed to drive America crazy and make enough people quit that the country suffers permanent damage, compounded by new actions by external actors who were waiting for it…
Contagion is a must-watch movie, as it reads as a script for the Covid-19 P(l)andemic. I add the (l) because one wonders if Chinese propagandists watched the movie in planning their public relations strategy.
I will add the following details that our beloved blogger omitted:
1- Early scenes from Minneapolis showed newly infected abruptly dropping dead in the streets. Similar Covid-19 videos emerged from Wuhan, but strangely were never seen elsewhere in the world.
2- A “highly divergent” variant emerged from Durban, South Africa, which doubled the R0.
3- Contagion successfully anticipated government officials trying to help family get out ahead of military quarantine.
4- The blogger selling the homeopathic remedy “Forsythia” was arrested by the noble government. Of course they couldn’t arrest him misinformation, so they went after him for securities fraud instead.
5- At the end of the movie as vaccines were being being raffled off by birthdate, the shopping malls required bar-coded wristbands for entry. The movie successfully anticipated the contradiction between a completely sterilizing vaccine, and the desire to implement medical segregation anyway.
Question for Governor Pritzker: Where’s your neck?
San Francisco waited until Wednesday to cancel its fireworks. Until then, we were planning to pack on BART trains, face mask to face mask, just like it was before. The guys who set up all the chain link fences to keep homeless startup founders from falling in the bay still got paid. The fireworks factory still got paid. Only the restaurants, hotels, & taxi drivers lost everything.
> Most of the friends who scolded me for lack of coronapanic orthodoxy and weak adherence to Faucism are still in their crowded vacation destinations, often in foreign countries where they can harvest exotic variant SARS-CoV-2.
Don’t worry, hospital ERs are making no attempt to even separate the COVID+ from COVID-, never mind distancing or sanitizing. Two days before yesterday I was in a hospital ER (I’m OK) that was packed to the rafters with people, many of them with obvious respiratory problems (coughing, wheezing) and wearing either cheap medical masks or whatever they came in with, including bandannas. There were at least 25 people who were nowhere near 6 feet from each other, hacking and coughing, etc. A woman was admitted to the ER, the next person came in and took her seat, and the woman next to her (who apparently had a long conversation with the just-admitted gal) said: “Oh, you might not want to sit there, the last person who did is COVID-positive.” Hospital staff did NOT ask anyone in the room if they were COVID+ and made no attempt to ascertain their status, by rapid test or question, and made no attempt to even place the self-reporting COVID+ people in a separate area. No wipedowns, and the ventilation was tepid.
So if a hospital ER in Massachusetts doesn’t give a flying finger about the Rules, why should anyone else?
^^ The above was in the waiting room. I made a mistake: the staff *DID* ask when you first walked in if you had SYMPTOMS of COVID. But apparently whatever your answer was, there was no difference in where you were directed to sit or how you were treated. One would think that if you said you were COVID+, they would make you wear an N95 and sit in a different area (this hospital had a lot of available square footage) but they just packed everyone together like an airplane, minus the beverage cart.
Glad you got through that horrible experience. Wishing you a much better new year.
@Nate: After a few minutes, you feel like you’re in a Russian novel, except with smartphones, big TVs on the wall, and about 1/3rd the people talking into them in Spanish and whatever they speak in Turkmenistan.
I was taking no chances, wearing a brand-new, carefully fitted Aegle N95 folder in addition to the hospital-supplied face rag, I tried to find a seat directly underneath a ventilation duct that was expelling air, and rapid-tested negative a day later, so fingers crossed.
It was an amazing scene.
https://aegleco.com/products/foldable
I have to say that I’m always very happy to see that Governor Pritzker – and everyone in his family who was ever associated with subprime lending – is active and healthy. The Arrow of Time drives us relentlessly into the New Year, and there can be no exaggeration that he and his family are some of our country’s most enormous assets.
The Pritzkers seem to have an excellent PR firm. It is easy to learn online that the family are “philanthropists” and that Pritzker’s weight is 75 kg, but for the juicy details one has to go to diametrically opposed sites like CounterPunch and FoxNews.
@Anonymous: I was lucky enough to have lived in Chicagoland while Penny Pritzker’s bank was “writing the book” on Subprime Lending, building the foundation for the 2008 financial crisis out of their magic quicksand. I didn’t need either of those sources! That is one really amazing family, right there! Nothing ever sticks to them! She was Barack Obama’s Campaign Finance Chair! If there is a group of SuperPeople in America, they’re part of it!
More on the power of vaccines is just in:
https://www.brusselstimes.com/belgium-all-news/199687/belgian-scientific-base-in-antarctica-engulfed-by-covid-19-despite-strict-measures
“Two-thirds of the staff currently based in the Princess Elisabeth Polar Station in Antarctica have been infected with Covid-19, even though very strict health measures were put in place.”
“All those present have received two doses of vaccine, and one person has even received a booster shot.”
More on the power of PCR tests:
“All staff members preparing to depart to the station had to undergo a PCR test in Belgium two hours before leaving for South Africa, take a PCR test five days after their arrival in Cape Town, where they also had to quarantine for ten days. Another test was required when leaving Cape Town for Antarctica and another PCR test had to be undergone five days after arrival.”