Links, articles..
Jul. 17th, 2020 09:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. The Great Mask Melee...
New York's Ad to get the Rest of the United States to wear a mask
"The United States continues to set daily infection records, with hospitalization and death rates on the rise — and Americans still can’t stop fighting about masks.
More than half of the country has some form of face mask requirement in place: Alabama, Arkansas, Texas and Colorado all issued statewide mask mandates in the last few days. But there is staunch resistance from those who see mask mandates as an attack on personal liberty.
In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp suspended all mask mandates and filed a lawsuit against Atlanta challenging the city’s mask requirement, even though a federal report recommended that Georgia require face masks in public. (Mr. Kemp also advised that residents wear them anyway, but refused to allow legal mandates.) In Oklahoma, Gov. Kevin Stitt tested positive for the virus but said he still opposed a mask order.
Public health officials say wearing a simple cloth mask is one of the most basic ways to prevent the spread of the virus. But the issue became increasingly partisan after President Trump eschewed them and downplayed their benefits. In many surveys, there is a 20-point partisan split, with Republicans much less likely to wear masks. A recent study found that your political affiliation is the best predictor of whether you wear a mask, even more than your age or where you live.
Even so, self-reported mask use in the U.S. is high: About 80 percent of Americans said they wore masks frequently or always when they were close to other people — a higher rate than in France, Canada or Australia."
Anyone else think the Universe is a frustrated Monty Python writer? No? Just me then.
2. How to open schools with a deadly virus on the loose? Can we just have class outside? (Kind of hard to do in a city...though.)
"In California, most schools will teach only remotely this fall. In New York City and many other large districts, children will be in class for only a few days a week. Such policies have “angered both exhausted parents, who feel that it is not nearly enough, and many teachers, who fear it as way too much,” writes Ginia Bellafante, The Times’s Big City columnist. But there is one possible stopgap that isn’t getting enough attention: holding classes outdoors.
“One of the few things we know about the coronavirus with any degree of certainty is that the risk of contracting it diminishes outside — a review of 7,000 cases in China recorded only one instance of fresh-air transmission,” Ginia writes. There is ample historical precedent, even in more northern climates like New England during the winter. During the early 20th century, when epidemics of flu and tuberculosis were common, hundreds of outdoor schools were created, with students swaddled in blankets in the winter to learn in the open air."
3. Tom Hanks talks about his experience with the virus, and his wife, Rita Wilson's experience with it and how they did not have the same symptoms
Updates List of Famous People with COVID-19
If you read through, you'll discover the same pattern I've been picking up on for a while now. This virus is kind of like playing Russian Roulett.
Or virus Bingo - you don't know what version of it you'll get or how it will attack your body. Hanks and his wife got it - She experienced a high fever, loss of taste and smell, cough, headache, and naseau. While Hanks felt like his bones had become brittle, and were cracking inside him like sandpaper, he was incredibly weak, and fatigued, and had tightness in the chest or a heavy weight.
Others describe something akin to the flu, some nothing serious at all - outside of passing out, and others...seriously ill, some died.
In other words? It's not clear how it will affect anyone's body until it does.
4. Travel and the Coronavirus
I don't know. If I had a car, and lived with someone who was willing to drive me up to a rental cabin in Maine? Yeah, I'd go. Or even Vermont or New Hampshire. But other than that, no.
I'd like to go somewhere though - I'd gotten into the habit of late August Vacations or Late July. Last year I went to Martha's Vineyard at this time. The year before, I'd gone to Seattle the beginning of September. Now? I'll be lucky to visit my parents for Christmas - which doesn't look possible at the moment.
I'm considering taking next Friday off and playing on Zoom with San Diego Comic Con. It's free. And Joss Whedon is doing a two hour Q&A on Zoom for free.(I know there's a lot of folks who don't like Whedon, but the reports I've seen aren't that damning and the sources not overly reliable or taken out of context. Also I find him to be an interesting writer. ) Also, Q&A's with Guilermo Tol - the guy who did Pan's Labrynthe on his new horror flick, Jim Butcher on the Dresden Files, and Nathan Fillion. I was hunting for a Marsters one - but he doesn't appear to be on the docket.
The cons are all virtual this year - so free. You can also do workshops on writing comics or how television shows, films and comics are made. I'm flirting with a couple.
San Diego Comic Con via Zoom
Although Whedon's Zoom chat mysteriously disappeared from the schedule.
5. University of Oxford's team is currently the front runner in developing a COVID-19 Vaccine
* How do you build a vaccine? Inside Johnson & Johnson's efforts to create one
On the plus side - everyone is racing to develop a vaccine, while Russia is trying to steal secrets from folks to develop one of the their own. (Why they have to steal secrets and why we aren't openly sharing is beyond me, we all need the vaccine. Idiot humans are too competitive for the own good.)
New York's Ad to get the Rest of the United States to wear a mask
"The United States continues to set daily infection records, with hospitalization and death rates on the rise — and Americans still can’t stop fighting about masks.
More than half of the country has some form of face mask requirement in place: Alabama, Arkansas, Texas and Colorado all issued statewide mask mandates in the last few days. But there is staunch resistance from those who see mask mandates as an attack on personal liberty.
In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp suspended all mask mandates and filed a lawsuit against Atlanta challenging the city’s mask requirement, even though a federal report recommended that Georgia require face masks in public. (Mr. Kemp also advised that residents wear them anyway, but refused to allow legal mandates.) In Oklahoma, Gov. Kevin Stitt tested positive for the virus but said he still opposed a mask order.
Public health officials say wearing a simple cloth mask is one of the most basic ways to prevent the spread of the virus. But the issue became increasingly partisan after President Trump eschewed them and downplayed their benefits. In many surveys, there is a 20-point partisan split, with Republicans much less likely to wear masks. A recent study found that your political affiliation is the best predictor of whether you wear a mask, even more than your age or where you live.
Even so, self-reported mask use in the U.S. is high: About 80 percent of Americans said they wore masks frequently or always when they were close to other people — a higher rate than in France, Canada or Australia."
Anyone else think the Universe is a frustrated Monty Python writer? No? Just me then.
2. How to open schools with a deadly virus on the loose? Can we just have class outside? (Kind of hard to do in a city...though.)
"In California, most schools will teach only remotely this fall. In New York City and many other large districts, children will be in class for only a few days a week. Such policies have “angered both exhausted parents, who feel that it is not nearly enough, and many teachers, who fear it as way too much,” writes Ginia Bellafante, The Times’s Big City columnist. But there is one possible stopgap that isn’t getting enough attention: holding classes outdoors.
“One of the few things we know about the coronavirus with any degree of certainty is that the risk of contracting it diminishes outside — a review of 7,000 cases in China recorded only one instance of fresh-air transmission,” Ginia writes. There is ample historical precedent, even in more northern climates like New England during the winter. During the early 20th century, when epidemics of flu and tuberculosis were common, hundreds of outdoor schools were created, with students swaddled in blankets in the winter to learn in the open air."
3. Tom Hanks talks about his experience with the virus, and his wife, Rita Wilson's experience with it and how they did not have the same symptoms
Updates List of Famous People with COVID-19
If you read through, you'll discover the same pattern I've been picking up on for a while now. This virus is kind of like playing Russian Roulett.
Or virus Bingo - you don't know what version of it you'll get or how it will attack your body. Hanks and his wife got it - She experienced a high fever, loss of taste and smell, cough, headache, and naseau. While Hanks felt like his bones had become brittle, and were cracking inside him like sandpaper, he was incredibly weak, and fatigued, and had tightness in the chest or a heavy weight.
Others describe something akin to the flu, some nothing serious at all - outside of passing out, and others...seriously ill, some died.
In other words? It's not clear how it will affect anyone's body until it does.
4. Travel and the Coronavirus
I don't know. If I had a car, and lived with someone who was willing to drive me up to a rental cabin in Maine? Yeah, I'd go. Or even Vermont or New Hampshire. But other than that, no.
I'd like to go somewhere though - I'd gotten into the habit of late August Vacations or Late July. Last year I went to Martha's Vineyard at this time. The year before, I'd gone to Seattle the beginning of September. Now? I'll be lucky to visit my parents for Christmas - which doesn't look possible at the moment.
I'm considering taking next Friday off and playing on Zoom with San Diego Comic Con. It's free. And Joss Whedon is doing a two hour Q&A on Zoom for free.(I know there's a lot of folks who don't like Whedon, but the reports I've seen aren't that damning and the sources not overly reliable or taken out of context. Also I find him to be an interesting writer. ) Also, Q&A's with Guilermo Tol - the guy who did Pan's Labrynthe on his new horror flick, Jim Butcher on the Dresden Files, and Nathan Fillion. I was hunting for a Marsters one - but he doesn't appear to be on the docket.
The cons are all virtual this year - so free. You can also do workshops on writing comics or how television shows, films and comics are made. I'm flirting with a couple.
San Diego Comic Con via Zoom
Although Whedon's Zoom chat mysteriously disappeared from the schedule.
5. University of Oxford's team is currently the front runner in developing a COVID-19 Vaccine
* How do you build a vaccine? Inside Johnson & Johnson's efforts to create one
On the plus side - everyone is racing to develop a vaccine, while Russia is trying to steal secrets from folks to develop one of the their own. (Why they have to steal secrets and why we aren't openly sharing is beyond me, we all need the vaccine. Idiot humans are too competitive for the own good.)