Culture and society – Page 11 – An Echo That's Reversing

Coronavirus – Mon 16 Mar 2020 – the day of the DJIA drop, sites that aggregate case counts

The markets tanked. DJIA dropped almost 13% by end of day. S&P 500 down almost 12%.

Trump told state governors to basically fend for themselves. “Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment–try getting it yourselves.”

The night before our company’s 2 week wfh policy and the whole country shutting down

Airports filled with lines of people waiting to re-enter. Arbitrary shut down of flights to/from “Europe” (which countries?) that was declared by That Guy on Thursday night causes an influx of travelers that overwhelmed processing lines and any plan (hint: there was none) for medical mediation.

Notes on COVID-19, during the President’s address and prior

Most taken from Twitter “friends”:

WHO declared it a pandemic today. (NPR link, I cannot find a WHO link.)
South Korea performing 10,000 tests a day. US performed 8 today.
“Misstatements” during the address, which was scripted, yet had to be corrected within 10 min:
- Ban all travel from Europe, s/b ban on foreign nationals and not trade or citizens. Most of Europe has equal or fewer cases than the US.
- Health insurers waive copay for treatment, s/b only for testing (insurers quick as fuck corrected that).
- Promises payroll tax relief, relief for sick workers, and waivers for small businesses, s/b Congress is reviewing those measures.
Just yesterday, president said “It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”
Gen. Michael Hayden: “I’m scared”.
Dow futures dropped 3+% during his 11 min speech and up to ~5% an hour after.
NBA suspends season. Rudy Gobert mocked COVID-19 on Monday by exaggeratedly touching every reporters’ microphone and is now the single cause of the shut down.
2 weeks ago: Italy had 322 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, 1 week ago: 2,502, Today: 10,149.

Where are we at

I’m losing track. It started with the inquiry.

We just had an impeachment in the House (Wed 18 Dec 2019, mark this day). This outcome was written before the vote came; Democrats had the majority and had voted on impeachment three times prior. Those previous attempts were certain to fail–and are now held up as Democratic bias–but relatively inconsequential otherwise. Let’s face it: if the Republicans didn’t have an excuse for the accusation of bias they’d create it anyway. This time, the impeachment, stuck and it stuck with such gravity because of those who came forward.

Witness, 24 Sep 2019

Two women take down Trump.

Pic I took at the ATL airport picking up our bag from our Philadelphia trip, just as Pelosi’s speech was happening. So lucky to have witnessed history by accident.

C-SPAN’s archive of the announcement:

Greta Thunberg being more Greta than ever. Previous day.

Video of The Greta in action: