The treasury department sent $1.4 billion worth of stimulus payments to dead people. The direct payments, which were approved as part of the $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill, were sent to more than 1 million Americans who had already died, the Government Accountability Office said in a new report. - guardian

Meanwhile, the Texas governor who said the economy is more important than life and death is getting his wish with lots of dead Texans and record numbers of new cases as the Coronavirus unsurprisingly keeps doing what it does when proper measures are not taken to stop it.

Like a wet dream for "Freedom", ain't it 'Murica?

States' rights in a nutshell.

I don't remember where exactly I heard it, but the best spin to the covid-pandemic in the US was:

"Yes, we are having more infections, but the infected are younger hence the death rate is down!"

The UK right wing rags are doing crap like "Lowest Friday increase in deaths since...", it's some real Animal Farm shit.

Right wing rags doing Animal Farm shit is a hilarious oxymoron.

What is it about selectively reporting almost exclusively favourable sounding out of context statistics to support a political agenda, despite the reality being quite opposite, which is not Animal Farm shit?

Florida is the new Italy (current prediction if things don't change of 30,000 new cases / day by October). If it wasn't already going for Biden it is now.

https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america/florida

Florida is the new Italy — Baden

Correction. It's already significantly worse than Italy ever was. Italy peaked at 6,000 deaths new cases per day. Florida had 9,000 new cases yesterday with just one-third of Italy's population.

Heavy animal farm shit.

Correction. It's already significantly worse than Italy ever was. Italy peaked at 6,000 deaths new cases per day. Florida had 9,000 new cases yesterday with just one-third of Italy's population. — Baden

Talking of animal farm statistics, is that you comparing new cases in one place with deaths in another?

It's a curse. A plague. Like the Black Death. The sooner we realize this the sooner it can be rid off. Thoroughly earned mind you. Still, easily rid of. If only we would think as the early philosophers did, that maybe what we're told is not wrong perhaps but incomplete.

Typo. Figures are both for new cases. Fixed. Cheers for pointing that out.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/

Small point: reported cases. Total cases for China 89,000? About the same as Sweden and Egypt?

"UK Coronavirus Death Toll Increases by 36 in one of the lowest rises during lockdown"

Just keeps going and going...

What is it about selectively reporting almost exclusively favourable sounding out of context statistics to support a political agenda, despite the reality being quite opposite, which is not Animal Farm shit? — fdrake

The oxymoron was right wing doing Animal Farm. It's like Marxists privatizing industry, pacifists rearming, etc...

Well, at least it is fortunate for the UK that you aren't in the situation of the US where the containment failed.

The oxymoron was right wing doing Animal Farm. It's like Marxists privatizing industry, pacifists rearming, etc... — ssu

Except it's not a figure of speech for rhetorical effect, UK Covid statistics are being reported in tabloids in exactly that way and for a clear political agenda. It's not like Bolshevik Russia, or left wing politics in general, has a monopoly on weaponising statistics for a political agenda.

I think the stats still resemble reality and are roughly in line with statistics from other European countries. Sure, they may put a positive twist, but I'm not sure they actively forge the statistics. Those do tell that the UK has the pandemic less in control than most EU countries.

Yet it's not so different as it is with the situation in the US.

but I'm not sure they actively forge the statistics — ssu

I don't think they forge them either. You don't need to forge anything to get true statistics that can spin to what you like. The overall number of cases in the UK is going down in general, BUT since easing the lockdown there's obviously been an uptick in the growth of new cases since the lockdowns were eased. When it was the apocalypse the same newspapers alternatively underplayed it or mined coronavirus for doomy clickbait while presenting it as a force of nature, now it's not the apocalypse everything is fine.

Super Saturday, our Independence Day, 4th July, the British economy gets back to normal. Johnson is urging us all to go out and spend, get drunk and be merry.

While Leicester locked down again the other day. Bradford, Barnsley, Doncaster and other towns are showing increases and may follow next.

Meanwhile big surges in many states in the US, I heard a report of over 50,000 newly identified cases in the last 24hrs.

James O Brian provided an interesting insight into the government's (in UK) strategy for the coronavirus crisis. Essentially it is to create confusion so that when things go wrong it will become difficult to pin the blame on them. For example we have had a 14 day quarantine policy for anyone coming into the country for the last few weeks. But there is no guidance and no one knows what to do, so people just come in and go about their business, they are not stopped, or checked. If though they then die, or infect other people, it is their fault, because they didn't quarantine. The government is blameless.

Likewise on super Saturday, the day after tomorrow, if lots of people go to pubs, get drunk and spread the virus, it will be their fault, because they didn't use their common sense. Again the government is blameless.

A poll for the Robert Peston show yesterday has shown that twice as many people think the breakdown in the lockdown is the fault of the people, as those who blame the government.

The in depth analysis is that since the early eighties the governance and direction of the country has been leaning towards less and less social support, national provision and more and more privatisation, individual responsibility in all areas of life. The idea being that the government increasingly absolves itself of responsibility, which is increasingly left to the individual and the market. So now that we have a health crisis, the responsibility is laid at the door of the individual (in the land of the free), the government only coveys the advice of the experts, but is itself blameless. Free to take the credit for any successes and blame any failures on others.

The upshot of this is that the privelidged classes are freed to do whatever they want, while their puppet government is untouchable. This naturally includes a free reign for more untrammelled capitalism and exploitation, with the increases in the social and wealth divide.

An exciting potential new treatment option for Covid: https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/02/health/hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus-detroit-study/index.html

at least until you actually read the study anyway

least until you actually read the study anyway — Enai De A Lukal

The anti-hydoxychloroquine group reminds me of anti-vaxers.

Absolutely delicious irony, thanks for the laugh. Not much self-awareness on this one, I see.

Also, you should probably actually read the study.

Also, you should probably actually read the study. — Enai De A Lukal

I did. It's an encouraging study.

:lol:

So encouraging you consider it on par with standard vaccines, I guess. I certainly hope you have a responsible person helping you with your own medications, with an attitude like this.

The anti-hydoxychloroquine group reminds me of anti-vaxers. — Hanover

Just out of curiosity: once "they" come up with a Vaccine with maybe a 25% protection, but not really sure of the long term side affects other than defying death, are you going to be at the front of the line?

And, AND those who do not get in line for a year? Are they going to be labeled "anti vaxer"?
The very idea of flagging people who chose not to be at the front of the line is absurd but absurdity is overriding common sense as of late.

My Indian said tagging people who have had the virus and is 'immune' is really close to dividing our society even further. I asked what makes him think that way and I got an eye roll from him when I had to be reminded of the Jewish tattooing of numbers.

I'm actually grateful that this next generation of leaders have not forgotten the past. :sparkle: