The new normal is the old normal

Anyone who eats otherwise is deluding themselves.

Already shaking hands with people I have t seen in awhile and I don’t give two shits about the uptight pansies parading around in their technicolor masks which are most likely worthless

.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: nhtagmember,

The wife and I were out for most of the day today. We are having a family gathering here on Saturday. Looks like there will be over 30 people now. It keeps growing. Anyways, we needed food and stuff and we wanted to drop the puppy off for some grooming.

We went first to a large supermarket (HyVee) in Osage. The place was packed with tourists and Lake dwellers from all over the mid-west for the holiday weekend. I would say 60% of the people were wearing masks which is not surprising as many are from the large urban areas and cities to the north. Prior to this weekend I seldom saw maybe 20% of the people out and about wearing masks.

Shoot, I actually found some hand sanitizer (germ-X) at one of the wal-marts. First time I've seen any in a store. Gas was $1.49. I ain't going anywhere until Tuesday.

We need to flatten the curve! stay home, be safe

oh its flattened?

We need to save lives! Stay home, be safe

Oh, the death toll has dropped significantly and was inflated?

We MUST prevent a second wave!! stay home, stay safe

In other words, we'll find any excuse to keep you at home.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
WTF is this "new normal" BS?

Not to worry. Remember when O told us that a crippled economy was the "new normal", and then Trump proved he was full of shit? It's the same political gambit - hell, it's a recycled political gambit - expect the same outcome.

I went to the bank to do some banking, old enough to understand the term.
And saw something which takes the cake.

Lobby has been closed, supposed to open back up June 1st.

So, waiting in the drive through, there's a couple sitting in the vehicle next to me.
Both wearing masks, both wearing gloves.

The lady grabs the bank canister, removes her stuff.... then grabs the hand sanitizer (which is tied to the top of the steering column) and uses it on the GLOVES!

Spoke to a friend who is a nurse and she kept ranting about how people need to stay at home, they don't have enough PPE and how her employer furloughed people and cut hours of others.

Even said she won't treat people who go out on purpose and get sick. Yeah, I'm sure it's really your choice.

Not sure she sees the relationship between people staying at home/being locked down and their furloughing and reduction of hours. I'm not a genius and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn last night but...

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Ammunition and charcoal briquets will be worth their weight in gold.

Thuringia is the first Germand state to announce plans for lifting the general rules of social distancing, wearing masks in shops and public transport, etc. State minister president Bodo Ramelow of the Left Party - currently in an uneasy minority government with Social Democrats and Greens that's sorta tolerated by the CDU pending new elections next April - said the current regulations will be replaced by measures at the discretion of counties from 6 June.

This comes as popular support for the national CDU-led government seems to have topped out after a spectacular rise during the crisis. Ironically, protests by fringe groups are increasing while restrictions are rapidly eased, with various political parties trying to seize on the issue. Particularly the right-wing AfD, the strong showing of which in last October's Thuringia state elections led to the current impassé; however, Ramelow's Left Party also has its corona rebels like national deputy parliamentary group leader Andrej Hunko, who recently held a diatribe about Bill Gates and the WHO at a protest in Aachen.

Totalitarian moving the goal posts to stay in power...

Comrade Whitmer Extends Stay-Home Order to June 12th – Michigan Now Focused on Eliminating Non-Existent “Second Wave”…

[Whitmer] said while coronavirus cases and deaths are clearly declining, “we are not out of the woods yet.” “If we’re going to lower the chance of a second wave and continue to protect our neighbors and loved ones from the spread of this virus, we must continue to do our part by staying safer at home.”

https://www.freep.com/story/ne...mpaign=snd-autopilot

quote:

Originally posted by Excam_Man:
uses it on the GLOVES!

I do the same thing except I use liquid 70% isopropyl alcohol.

Your tale doesn’t describe what the woman did with the stuff she got from the teller, but sanitizing the gloves could be intended to prevent whatever the gloves might have been contaminated with from then being transferred to the steering wheel or other surfaces. Whether that might be necessary or effective could be a matter of debate, but it’s certainly a possible motive for what she did. She might also intend to reuse the gloves (they are in very short supply these days), and the principle is no different than sanitizing touch surfaces in the home or elsewhere.

Article from the science journal Nature.
=======================================

How coronavirus lockdowns stopped flu in its tracks
Reported rates of influenza and other infections have fallen sharply, but some communicable diseases may see a rise.

Lockdowns and social-distancing measures aimed at slowing the spread of coronavirus seem to have shortened the influenza season in the northern hemisphere by about six weeks.

Globally, an estimated 290,000–650,000 people typically die from seasonal flu, so a shorter flu season could mean tens of thousands of lives are spared. But the net impacts on global health will be hard to unpick against the large number of deaths from COVID-19 as well as other causes in 2020 and beyond. Tracking influenza and other infectious diseases can help to reveal the effectiveness of public-health policies aimed at stopping the coronavirus pandemic.

Seasonal flu cases in the northern hemisphere usually peak in February and tail off by the end of May. This year, unusually, lab-confirmed cases of influenza dropped precipitously in early April, a few weeks after the coronavirus pandemic was declared on 11 March (see ‘Flu season cut short by COVID-19 measures’). The data comes from tests of more than 150,000 samples from national influenza laboratories in 71 countries that report data to FluNet, a global surveillance system.

The early end to the flu season comes despite the fact that it started with a bang; in January, before the coronavirus pandemic, the influenza season was on track to be the most severe in decades.

There are other possible contributors to the decline: people with flu symptoms might have avoided clinics altogether, for example, isolating at home and so not showing up in the statistics. But the response to the pandemic is likely to be an important factor: “Public-health measures such as movement restrictions, social distancing and increased personal hygiene likely had an effect on decreasing influenza and other respiratory virus transmission,” said the World Health Organization in a statement to Nature.

Local data from the state of New York show a similar pattern. Although the flu season started a few weeks earlier than usual there, the rate of cases fell sharply and the season ended five weeks early. In Hong Kong, the 2019–20 influenza season was 63% shorter than those of the previous five years, and the number of deaths from lab-confirmed flu was 62% lower1. A similar decline was seen during the 2003 epidemic of the related coronavirus that causes SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome).

Other infectious diseases might also have been affected this year, says study co-author, infectious-disease researcher Pak-leung Ho at the University of Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, compared with previous years, the number of chickenpox cases dropped by about half to three-quarters. In April, cases of measles and rubella were their lowest, globally, since at least 2016, according to provisional data available so far — only 36 cases of rubella were reported in April worldwide. Ho notes that typically these are diseases that affect children. “Closure of schools may have had the biggest impact,” he says.

Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) might also be affected, says Amanda Simanek, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Cases may decline in the absence of close contact, she says, but there may also be a decline in detection and treatment leading to a later surge. Other communicable diseases, such as tuberculosis, are more likely to see an upswing, because programmes to fight the disease have been derailed by the pandemic. The international organization the Stop TB Partnership released a report in May estimating that a 3-month lockdown and a 10-month period of recovery would cause an additional 1.37 million deaths globally during the next 5 years.

The flu season in the southern hemisphere is just starting (it typically peaks in July or August); it is unclear whether a similar flu trend will be seen there.

LINK

quote:

Originally posted by Rightwire:
We need to flatten the curve! stay home, be safe

oh its flattened?

We need to save lives! Stay home, be safe

Oh, the death toll has dropped significantly and was inflated?

We MUST prevent a second wave!! stay home, stay safe

In other words, we'll find any excuse to keep you at home.

Do you feel like you're Charlie Brown and your governor is Lucy with the football?

After once calling the lockdowns 'inconvenient,' Fauci now says they may cause 'irreparable damage'

https://justthenews.com/nation...ay-cause-irreparable

Dr. Anthony Fauci on Friday admitted frankly that the rolling state lockdowns which he has advocated for multiple weeks could cause "irreparable damage" to the United States, a sharp distinction from his earlier claim that the shutdowns were merely "inconvenient."

The White House adviser made the statement during an interview on CNBC on Friday morning. "We can't stay locked down for such a considerable period of time that you might do irreparable damage and have unintended consequences, including consequences for health," he said.

"I don’t want people to think that any of us feel that staying locked down for a prolonged period of time is the way to go," he added.

The tone of Fauci's warning was a sharp departure from his remarks in late March when the doctor appeared to characterize the shutdowns in a strikingly understated way.

"This is tough. People are suffering. People are dying. It's inconvenient from a societal standpoint, from an economic standpoint to go through this, but this is going to be the answer to our problems," Fauci said at a White House press conference on Mar. 31.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: wcb6092,

As predicted by President Trump and many other sane people
--------------------------------

CA Doctors Say They Have Seen More Suicide Deaths Than COVID Deaths During Lockdown

Two weeks to flatten the curve has turned into two months of oppressive lockdown policies which are themselves killing Americans.

Americans, more or less, entered into an unspoken contract with government — and each other — in the middle of March in a pledge to stay home, avoid others and close up shop to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

We’re a little more than a week away from the start of June, and some people are still being forced to stay in their homes because of a government decree, or because they feel obligated to do so by pressure from peers, or because of the fear being pushed on them by a media which has exacerbated the crisis.

Governments told us that stay-at-home orders were necessary to stop the spread of the disease and to buy the country’s health care industry precious time to prepare for a sea of patients that, in some areas, never came.

Americans did their part, but stalwart governments refuse to lessen or do away with draconian lockdown measures.

And the mental health toll that these lockdowns are having on some Americans is starting to reveal itself.

In the San Francisco Bay area, it appears suicides and suicide attempts are increasing at an alarming rate.

In fact, the trauma department chief at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, which is located just north and east of the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, told KGO-TV this week that during the lockdown, doctors at the facility have seen seen more deaths by suicide than from the coronavirus.

The mental health crisis is so severe that Dr. Mike deBoisblanc says it’s time to end the area’s lockdown.

“Personally I think it’s time,” deBoisblanc told KGO-TV. “I think, originally, this [the shelter-in-place order] was put in place to flatten the curve and to make sure hospitals have the resources to take care of COVID patients. We have the current resources to do that and our other community health is suffering.”

“We’ve never seen numbers like this, in such a short period of time,” the doctor added. “I mean we’ve seen a year’s worth of suicide attempts in the last four weeks.”

A trauma nurse with 33 years of service at the facility echoed his comments.

“What I have seen recently, I have never seen before,” Kacey Hansen said. “I have never seen so much intentional injury.”

The answer, at least from deBoisblanc’s employer, is increased mental health awareness and resources.

The administrators at the John Muir Medical Center added a nice disclaimer in response to the statements of their staff members that the facility remains “supportive of the Shelter-in-Place order.”

Out of an apparent abundance of caution, the facility wants us to know that deBoisblanc and Hansen are only speaking for themselves.

But the pair of health care workers can only speak to what they are seeing, and that is that lockdown orders — at least in the area that these professionals serve — are doing more harm than good.

Yet Politico touted the Bay Area’s response to the crisis before March had even ended in a story titled: “Bend it like the Bay Area. Doctors see flatter curve after 2 weeks of social isolation.”

“Six Bay Area counties were first in the country to adopt aggressive tactics with an enforceable March 16 order requiring residents to stay at home. Gov. Gavin Newsom quickly followed with a statewide order three days later restricting the state’s 40 million residents from all but essential activities,” Politico reported on March 30.

“After 14 days — the outermost period at which symptoms are believed to emerge post-infection — doctors at area hospitals are now reporting fewer cases than they expected to see at this point, and officials credit the lockdown with stemming the tide of patients they feared would flood into emergency rooms.”

But as we enter Memorial Day weekend, the Bay Area curve, like the curve in the rest of the country, has been bent — and yet the world remains a closed place for so many people seeking help as they suffer with mental illness.

Officials in Contra Costa County, where the John Muir Medical Center is located, say the answer is to let struggling people know that the crisis phone lines are open, and that in-person, masked and sterile mental health visits are also an option.

Neither of those choices seem particularly inviting, but those are the options available.

Fox News medical expert Doctor Marc Siegel spoke about the efficacy of lockdowns Wednesday on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

“Lockdowns don’t work if there is already a lot of virus in the area, in the community, in the state, the country,” Siegel told the program.

“Suicide, drug abuse, alcoholism,” Siegel added, “there are going to be more deaths of despair than from the virus itself.”

With the weeks having turned into months, and the quarantine body count escalating, it’s time to listen to other voices in the room about our best options going forward.

In fact, 600 doctors signed a letter this week urging President Donald Trump to do what he can to end the shutdowns.

“The millions of casualties of a continued shutdown will be hiding in plain sight, but they will be called alcoholism, homelessness, suicide, heart attack, stroke, or kidney failure. In youths it will be called financial instability, unemployment, despair, drug addiction, unplanned pregnancies, poverty, and abuse,” the letter said.

“Because the harm is diffuse, there are those who hold that it does not exist. We, the undersigned, know otherwise,” the doctors concluded, according to Fox News.

Of course, the letter was not widely covered by the same national media which is pushing fear onto already overburdened Americans, and some governors exercising strict control over the movements of citizens have done little in the way of signaling there is any end in sight to the shutdowns.

For reasons based either in fear, overzealousness or politics, the lockdowns must apparently go on. The answer for those in crisis is to pick up the phone as the world collapses around them.

As the administrators at Walnut Creek’s John Muir Medical Center reminded us, “We are all in this together!”

https://www.westernjournal.com...tent=libertyalliance

quote:

...to buy the country’s health care industry precious time to prepare for a sea of patients that, in a vast majority of some areas, never came.

FIFY

https://shopruger.com/Ruger-Fa...k/productinfo/15080/

Oh, damn.
Ruger compliance ready face masks.

I m about to hurl.
But I am not gonnna sell my old 10-.22 and Mini-14 to make my point with Ruger.
Unless such action would change the course of human history.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

quote:

Originally posted by Excam_Man:
uses it on the GLOVES!

I do the same thing except I use liquid 70% isopropyl alcohol.

Your tale doesn’t describe what the woman did with the stuff she got from the teller, but sanitizing the gloves could be intended to prevent whatever the gloves might have been contaminated with from then being transferred to the steering wheel or other surfaces. Whether that might be necessary or effective could be a matter of debate, but it’s certainly a possible motive for what she did. She might also intend to reuse the gloves (they are in very short supply these days), and the principle is no different than sanitizing touch surfaces in the home or elsewhere.

I wouldn't recommend that. The glove integrity will be seriously compromised. I'm not a Covid expert, but 30 years of dentistry has taught me a thing or two about gloves and masks.

quote:

Originally posted by MNSIG:
I wouldn't recommend that.

I appreciate the advice and I thought of that, but the gloves I use are heavy nitrile and for my purposes such as being reminded to not stick my fingers in my mouth or eyes, they don’t require much integrity. For anything critical I use them once. If they rip when putting them on, they get replaced then. If they were compromised in use (which I’ve never had happen), I’d do what people who don’t wear gloves at all would do.

And I wouldn’t reuse them if I were working in a level 4 biosafety facility.

Watch them classify those suicides as COVID related deaths to exploit their agenda.

So.....a few weeks and everyone is climbing walls...drinking....shooting up and checking out?
Maybe the herd thinning of the weak minded isn't such a bad thing?