COVID-19/Coronavirus thread

[bmags]

29 minutes ago, NorthSideSox72 said:

I just gave up on all the "news networks" (Fox, CNN, MSNBC, other alphabet soups), and my news diet is almost exclusively from journalistic sources. My regular reads are WSJ, Economist, WaPo, the Trib. Occasional reads on NPR, NY Times. Some of those have their biases too (some right and some left in there) but A) they do quality journalism and just as important, B) they separate reporting from analysis/opinion and do it clearly. I think that second thing is a big part of the problem with network news, it's all blended together so that opinions start to obscure facts.

I highly recommend making a switch like this. Clarifies the mind quite effectively.

That said, none of those networks - even Fox - lie or manipulate at as high a rate as our own damn President. Just watch his COVID briefings for G-d's sake.

 

Right, I get uncomfortable when defending journalism and people lump in CNN/msnbc/etc. We are 4 years away from their hyperventilating coverage of that one plane disappearing. Watching 24 hour news networks for 4 hours a day will not make you smarter. You will get looped each hour and listen to people with provocative, baseless arguments. However, I'll admit when there is actually breaking global news they suddenly find their journalism pants and you see correspondents you didn't know existed with excellent stuff.

But reading a full newspaper, especially with rich local sections, will absolutely make you smarter. And you don't have to read the editorials! There isn't a single editorialist at the chicago trib I like, and their editorial board has an almost comical ability to be on the wrong side of everything even while trying to avoid the appearance of opinion, but the paper does great job all in all, with some terrible articles here and there.

It's coverage of covid in illinois is incredible, including repurposing the dept. of health daily stats with a data viz center.

[caulfield12]

26 minutes ago, NorthSideSox72 said:

I just gave up on all the "news networks" (Fox, CNN, MSNBC, other alphabet soups), and my news diet is almost exclusively from journalistic sources. My regular reads are WSJ, Economist, WaPo, the Trib. Occasional reads on NPR, NY Times. Some of those have their biases too (some right and some left in there) but A) they do quality journalism and just as important, B) they separate reporting from analysis/opinion and do it clearly. I think that second thing is a big part of the problem with network news, it's all blended together so that opinions start to obscure facts.

I highly recommend making a switch like this. Clarifies the mind quite effectively.

That said, none of those networks - even Fox - lie or manipulate at as high a rate as our own damn President. Just watch his COVID briefings for G-d's sake.

 

Even here, you’re getting a really conservative editorial thrust from WSJ, center left from Economist, center left from WaPo and pretty much down the middle with the Tribune.  NY Times has a variety of opinion columnists, but they’re also center left editorially.   In general, reading detailed articles from reporters is the best, and the Times is still the gold standard there.

To me, the Tribune and LA Times have become virtually indistinguishable (well, there’s an obvious reason there.)

I try to catch BBC and Al Jazeera and anything from outside the States that’s not Chinese-centric.

[bmags]

And to second nss, while the Wall Street Journal's editorial sections are not even worth wiping your behind with...it's an incredible paper. The feature on what happened to GE the last 30 years that ran last year was some of the best stuff I've ever read.

[bmags]

2 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Even here, you’re getting a really conservative editorial thrust from WSJ, center left from Economist, center left from WaPo and pretty much down the middle with the Tribune.  NY Times has a variety of opinion columnists, but they’re also center left editorially.   In general, reading detailed articles from reporters is the best, and the Times is still the gold standard there.

To me, the Tribune and LA Times have become virtually indistinguishable (well, there’s an obvious reason there.)

I try to catch BBC and Al Jazeera and anything from outside the States that’s not Chinese-centric.

You are way too focused on the editorial sections which are quite often boring and only seem important when you follow twitter and the occasional one gains traction. And while the trib has quite a few liberal columnists, it's editorial board as a whole is quite conservative.

[pcq]

Just now, NWINFan said:

CNN, like any other news organization, is far from perfect. But Trump adds to this situation with his stupid tweets and anger. Not to mention he has no respect for the truth.

For one thing, I am sick of the fake news slogan. Any time Trump or any Republican is confronted with something they need to answer, they simply say fake news and walk away. There is inaccurate and slanted reporting. I watch MSNBC, but I even I can see the bias at times, and some of the things they do make me sick. Really sick. I was glad to see Chris Matthews go. That man was awful.

But if I want real bias and real fake news, it's Fox. Those people have no shame. They don't care how they lie or who they smear. And they are still not taking this crisis seriously, and that is dangerous.

The concern about Trump relates to personality much more than politics which his supporters seem not to notice. They are entitled to their politics which there is no point in debating. Comparing him to Obama or Eisenhower does not solve the problem. 

[NorthSideSox72]

11 minutes ago, bmags said:

Right, I get uncomfortable when defending journalism and people lump in CNN/msnbc/etc. We are 4 years away from their hyperventilating coverage of that one plane disappearing. Watching 24 hour news networks for 4 hours a day will not make you smarter. You will get looped each hour and listen to people with provocative, baseless arguments. However, I'll admit when there is actually breaking global news they suddenly find their journalism pants and you see correspondents you didn't know existed with excellent stuff.

But reading a full newspaper, especially with rich local sections, will absolutely make you smarter. And you don't have to read the editorials! There isn't a single editorialist at the chicago trib I like, and their editorial board has an almost comical ability to be on the wrong side of everything even while trying to avoid the appearance of opinion, but the paper does great job all in all, with some terrible articles here and there.

It's coverage of covid in illinois is incredible, including repurposing the dept. of health daily stats with a data viz center.

And it's not that there aren't good content creators at CNN, MSNBC, even Fox. There are. And you're right that in certain breaking news scenarios they are better equipped to get on the ground and get out info quickly. And on the actual election nights I will watch CNN, plugging my ears through their painful panel discussions, because their provision of data as the night goes on is the best out there. So they serve a purpose, I just don't read them beyond those narrow needs.

 

[tray]

Trump is not well informed by choice.  He lacks intellectual curiosity and instead relies on the opinions of people who share a similar ideology.

 Trump has a very limited vocabulary..probably on par with a 7th grader. That indicates to me that his internal conversations are as shallow as a puddle.

Trump is a narcissist , a know-it-all and a bully. I don't  think he ever learned a lesson from bullying the wrong guy in the school yard or otherwise got his ass kicked for mouthing off.  He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, got every break in the book, cheated contractors out of getting paid, cheated on three wives, and now is trying to leverage a freaking pandemic for his own personal and political gain.

So don't tell me that people want this dude gone because CNN or MSNBC do not  treat him fairly.   They want him outta there because now they know who he is.

 

 

Edited April 10, 2020 by tray

[StrangeSox]

All cable news is harmful trash.

 

 

Add propublica to the list of solid investigative journalistic outlets. On the Media is really good weekly media criticism too!

[pcq]

And he has been annointed by the Christian right on direct order from Jesus. We are seriously screwed and I don't see a likely way out. 

[Dick Allen]

They are bragging about 2 million tests when a couple of weeks ago they told us they would have 27 million tests by now.

[caulfield12]

20 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

They are bragging about 2 million tests when a couple of weeks ago they told us they would have 27 million tests by now.

Germany is still putting the US to shame.

We can’t get the Covid rollout right, and now we’re going to introduce the antibody one in another week?

Without nearly enough reagents to pull this off...and with every country in the world fighting over the same materials?

Science would argue you’d need to have those antibody tests for roughly 900,000 (10% of population) in the NYC area alone, and they don’t have close to those numbers.  No way private labs can keep up with this.

 

 

[Dick Allen]

5 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Germany is still putting the US to shame.

We can’t get the Covid rollout right, and now we’re going to introduce the antibody one in another week?

Without nearly enough reagents to pull this off...and with every country in the world fighting over the same materials?

Science would argue you’d need to have those antibody tests for roughly 900,000 (10% of population) in the NYC area alone, and they don’t have close to those numbers.  No way private labs can keep up with this.

 

 

This is why the DPA must be involked and companies need to be producing tests. I don't know why Trump is so scared. He will get the country open sooner, and these companies get paid.So he loses a few votes.

[bmags]

6 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Germany is still putting the US to shame.

We can’t get the Covid rollout right, and now we’re going to introduce the antibody one in another week?

Without nearly enough reagents to pull this off...and with every country in the world fighting over the same materials?

Science would argue you’d need to have those antibody tests for roughly 900,000 (10% of population) in the NYC area alone, and they don’t have close to those numbers.  No way private labs can keep up with this.

 

 

It seems Illinois' plateau was pretty similar nationwide. Can't seem to get past the 5-6k a day hump. A lot of the new tech that was supposed to help ended up not working well, so they are basically where they were, and all of the abbott tests they hoped for were taken by feds to be distributed.

[caulfield12]

21 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

This is why the DPA must be involked and companies need to be producing tests. I don't know why Trump is so scared. He will get the country open sooner, and these companies get paid.So he loses a few votes.

The worst case scenario is we just gifted GM $14,000 per unit for about 30,000 new ventilators that will go into the Federal stockpile.

Let’s hope they don’t have to use most of them when they’re delivered in June and late summer.

There’s just no reason not to throw the money we need to into fixing these testing problems...because you have a current scenario where at least 60% of America doesn’t feel confident enough to go back to work.

It would cost hundreds of billions, if not trillions...if they rush back and then experience second and third wave outbreaks where majorities of the workforce have to go back home.

 

[chitownsportsfan]

Struggling today personally.  Just kinda feel deeply lethargic. 

[StrangeSox]

1 hour ago, StrangeSox said:

All cable news is harmful trash.

 

 

Add propublica to the list of solid investigative journalistic outlets. On the Media is really good weekly media criticism too!

Speaking of OtM, here's a good 20 minute segment on the origins of the HCQ hyping in the press

 

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/how-hydroxychloroquine-became-thing

 

President Trump has continued to push the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a potential treatment for Covid-19, even though scientists say more research is needed to prove that it is safe and effective. But how'd we get here in the first place? Julia Carrie Wong is a reporter for The Guardian who has traced how a misleading, flawed study from France has become a widely-cited piece of evidence by media personalities on Fox and elsewhere. In this podcast extra, she explains what's deeply wrong with the study's conclusions and what happened when it got to be featured prominently by Trump's preferred television network. Wong talks to Bob about what's so appealing about the hydroxychloroquine narrative and why the administration might be so attracted to it. 

[caulfield12]

Trace/Track/Target

Test

Treat

 

Three T’s approach to opening up the economy seems to be taking hold.

Tracing required hundreds of thousands doing that super-challenging work here in one concentrated population center, Hubei Province.    In the US, this is going to require a nationalized approach from severely underfunded public health departments, one of the weakest areas of current health care networks due to a series of cutbacks over the course of many years...but those beleaguered civil servants and lots and lots of volunteers with at least some basic training.

Edited April 10, 2020 by caulfield12

[The Beast]

16 minutes ago, chitownsportsfan said:

Struggling today personally.  Just kinda feel deeply lethargic. 

I felt that way the other day, so I went for a run. I’m going for a long run after work since my wife and I ordered groceries and I have the time. Maybe try going for a walk or run?

[chitownsportsfan]

2 minutes ago, The Beast said:

I felt that way the other day, so I went for a run. I’m going for a long run after work since my wife and I ordered groceries and I have the time. Maybe try going for a walk or run?

Def not a bad idea but for me personally just walking isn't enough.  Need my gym endorphins.  Not a jogger never have been.  Might get into cycling a bit tho.

[The Beast]

3 hours ago, Tony said:

The issue is the definition of the word “fake” has changed. For Trump supporters, fake doesn’t mean “counterfeit” or a “lie”, but instead it now means “I don’t agree with what you are saying....so it’s fake.”

Bingo. The two Fox News heads at my small office spew the crap they heard from their favorite Fox News personalities and if I hear a claim from one of them, I ask where they got that from. They look at me oddly and say Fox or they say, “I don’t know where I read it.” So it is, “I don’t agree with what you are saying, so it’s fake.”

I read and watch CNN, listen to NPR, Pod Save America, listen to C-Span when there is something going on in the courts or on the house or senate floors, read the Bulwark, National Review, the Chicago Tribune, Fox News, listen to the Chicago Way and the Pulpit (a podcast with a former legislator and mayor of Downers Grove). So I’d like to think I get varied news and can say I think from a more moderate perspective.

Edited April 10, 2020 by The Beast

[ron883]

16 minutes ago, chitownsportsfan said:

Def not a bad idea but for me personally just walking isn't enough.  Need my gym endorphins.  Not a jogger never have been.  Might get into cycling a bit tho.

That's one way to retain and possibly put on mass without having access to a gym. I would if it wouldn't result in a receding hairline

[Jack Parkman]

I'm convinced that MSNBC and CNN only exist to give Fox an argument for legitimacy. 

I'm sure that their respective corporate overlords would love to spew Fox level bullshit but realize that spewing bullshit masquerading as the other side is more powerful, as it gives Fox legitimacy. 

When it comes to news, I don't want opinions. I want facts and reality. 

Just give me the truth and let me come to my own conclusions. 

You guys all know where I stand politically but this CNN/Fox/MSNBC and even newspapers have crossed the line from news to propaganda long ago. 

I can't fucking stand it. I've done a lot of looking into truth and all I can find is propaganda. 

There's right wing, left wing, and centrist propaganda but the truth is nowhere to be found at every level of journalism. Everyone has an agenda. Why? Because news companies have fallen victim to the shareholder profit scam. They'll print what sells vs. what is factual. Without an independent press, we're doomed. 

When you can't trust journalists because they're being manipulated by their corporate overlords to push an agenda, then we're in a post-truth world. It's 1984 level shit. 

Edited April 10, 2020 by Jack Parkman

[StrangeSox]

Absolute disaster of democracy in Wisconsin

 

[Quin]

51 minutes ago, Jack Parkman said:

I'm convinced that MSNBC and CNN only exist to give Fox an argument for legitimacy. 

I'm sure that their respective corporate overlords would love to spew Fox level bullshit but realize that spewing bullshit masquerading as the other side is more powerful, as it gives Fox legitimacy. 

When it comes to news, I don't want opinions. I want facts and reality. 

Just give me the truth and let me come to my own conclusions. 

You guys all know where I stand politically but this CNN/Fox/MSNBC and even newspapers have crossed the line from news to propaganda long ago. 

I can't fucking stand it. I've done a lot of looking into truth and all I can find is propaganda. 

There's right wing, left wing, and centrist propaganda but the truth is nowhere to be found at every level of journalism. Everyone has an agenda. Why? Because news companies have fallen victim to the shareholder profit scam. They'll print what sells vs. what is factual. Without an independent press, we're doomed. 

When you can't trust journalists because they're being manipulated by their corporate overlords to push an agenda, then we're in a post-truth world. It's 1984 level shit. 

This is fucking stupid.

[Jack Parkman]

37 minutes ago, Quin said:

This is fucking stupid.

I believe that there are independent journalists that have a moral compass but they get fired or neutered fairly quickly. When was the last time a politician or CEO was actually held accountable by the media? 

Where's the investigative journalism that took down Nixon, gathering enough evidence that not even his own party could defend him? Where is that when it's needed now more than ever? It doesn't exist. 

Excuse Me for distrusting the media when a major newspaper like the Washington Post is owned by Gollum incarnate himself, Jeff Bezos. 

Until we start putting people and the truth over profit, nothing will change. 

Btw you might have misunderstood me, but I think a lot of it is intentionally misleading. It takes a brain to pick out the facts from the bullshit. 

I haven't posted in this thread for a while, Maybe I'll just continue to stay out. 

 

Edited April 10, 2020 by Jack Parkman