Topic: FUCKDOWN, U.S.A.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Mississippi is lifting all mask mandates and allowing states to operate at full capacity from today.

Conservatives shouting on Twitter "If you don't like you can stay home" which, aside from being a stupid argument anyway as we live in a society ignores that many people can't do that as they need to go out to work, provide care for others and go to the supermarket.

Of course this will also drive up coronavirus infections in other states as there are no border restrictions (as far as I know) between states.

I imagine the reopening in Mississippi is partly aimed at a distraction from their water issues.

Should we be adding the US to the red list of travel ban countries given the likelihood of mutations in Texas and Mississippi? I don't know how well vaccination is going in Mississippi.

Residents of Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, are still under a mask mandate. Good for Jackson mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba.

[Chedney Honks]

My oldest mate lives in Texas. Asthma to fuck.

Bye, mate. Shame we didn't have that reunion last summer. See you in hell.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Olbermann and Moore now calling for Texans to be punished for the actions of its governor:

https://twitter.com/KeithOlbermann/status/1366918063015268353
https://twitter.com/MMFlint/status/1367167700745732102

[Noodle Lizard]

Still, got to think of big business first and foremost.

To be fair, it's small businesses who are suffering the most. I think if Big Business™ were really suffering from lockdowns, there would be no lockdowns.

[FerriswheelBueller]

To be fair, it's small businesses who are suffering the most. I think if Big Business™ were really suffering from lockdowns, there would be no lockdowns.

It’s not the owners of Joe’s Laundromat who are lobbying Abbott to remove all public health restrictions and just plow on as normal regardless of the body count.

[Noodle Lizard]

It’s not the owners of Joe’s Laundromat who are lobbying Abbott to remove all public health restrictions and just plow on as normal regardless of the body count.

I don't know about Texas or Misssissippi in particular, but certainly in New York and California it's been almost entirely small businesses (restaurants, nail/hair salons etc.) doing so. Those unions are the ones who've been filing all the lawsuits, to varying degrees of success.

Not to throw my weight one way or the other necessarily, it's just definitely not as cut-and-dry as Big Business being the only ones who want things to open. The bigger companies have the infrastructure and capital to operate (or even expand) during COVID, and the stock market implies many of those companies have had an unusually nice year. Basically, if there's anyone I'm worried about suffering financially from lockdowns, it's not them - it's almost everyone else.

[bgmnts]

Why would big businesses want things open more than small husinesses when their business can take the covid hit?

[Mister Six]

Because $$$ and stock prices.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Three of Abbott's four person team of medical advisors have said he did not directly consult with them before lifting restrictions.

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/03/03/abbott-mask-order-texas-advisers/

The one expert on the team who did speak with Abbott was Dr. John Zerwas, an executive vice chancellor for health affairs at the University of Texas System and a former Republican state representative. Zerwas said to the Tribune that he told Abbott he couldn’t say whether now was the right time to remove pandemic restrictions. But he advised Abbott that if he did rescind those restrictions, Abbott, “in the same breath,” should “continue to emphasize the importance of the public health measures that have allowed us to continue to really kind of get past this pandemic.”

[Fambo Number Mive]

Abbott is now trying to start a bullshit conspiracy theory that undocumented migrants are responsible for spreading COVID in Texas aided by the Biden administration.

Terrible human being.

The Biden Administration is recklessly releasing hundreds of illegal immigrants who have COVID into Texas communities.

The Biden Admin. must IMMEDIATELY end this callous act that exposes Texans & Americans to COVID.

https://twitter.com/GregAbbott_TX/status/1367243450140086274

Texas is currently a red zone state - "25+ daily new cases per 100,000 people
Indicates: unchecked community spread" - and it's not because of undocumented migrants but because of those in charge, in particular Greg Abbott.

Mississipi is an orange zone state "10-24 daily new cases per 100,000 people
Indicates: escalating community spread"

https://www.wbur.org/npr/816707182/map-tracking-the-spread-of-the-coronavirus-in-the-u-s

[Fambo Number Mive]

Meanwhile in Pittsburgh, the local hockey team the Pittsburgh Penguins has tweeted out an image of fans that was altered to make it look like more of them were wearing their masks correctly than actually were:

https://twitter.com/TaylorHaasePGH/status/1367275372212027394

[Fambo Number Mive]

More than a year into a pandemic that has claimed 523,000 lives in the United States, right-wing protesters in Idaho, including a handful of elected officials, set protective masks aflame Saturday, claiming face coverings stifle their personal liberties.
Although local, state and federal health officials are clear that masks are crucial in the fight against COVID-19, helping to prevent the disease from spreading, some 70 adults and children — none wearing face coverings — stepped forward on a downtown street corner in Coeur d’Alene and dropped masks into a symbolic burn pot containing dry ice. “U.S.A, U.S.A,” they chanted.

The protesters held mask-burnings Saturday in locations across the state, where masks are strongly recommended but not required by Idaho Gov. Brad Little. At a gathering of more than 100 in the state capital, protesters tossed coverings into a flaming barrel and cheered at supportive remarks by Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin, a far-right militia supporter whose relations with Little, a fellow Republican, are strained...

On Saturday, they planned burnings in two dozen Idaho cities, equating them to the Boston Tea Party despite the fact that tea dumped into the harbor by colonists to protest British taxes in 1773 did not, like masks, help protect others from a deadly disease. Experts on extremism say that dismissing the rallies simply as antics of a fringe movement would be a mistake, much like overlooking signs of an imminent attack on the U.S. Capitol...

So did they purchase these masks in order to burn them or did they get them some other way? Be interesting to know who the elected officials were at the protest.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-03-06/idaho-coronavirus-mask-burning

Meanwhile, Connecticut is lifting all Covid-19 capacity restrictions on businesses.

[Dex Sawash]

The rural counties here have had poor turnout for available vaccines and have set up no appointment drive-through vaccine locations for all adults in all groups. Wife drove down to Dunn in Harnett county and got vaxxed yesterday. Seems a bit wrong.

[Dex Sawash]

Everyone at my work is vaccinated now except the parts department manager. He can't use websites or email so he'll never be vaxxed.

[monkfromhavana]

Everyone at my work is vaccinated now except the parts department manager. He can't use websites or email so he'll never be vaxxed.

How does he order parts?

[Dex Sawash]

TERRIBLE!