Re: North Dakota

1

Up to 184 today, says WaPo (still 7-day average).

Given the Dakotas are so similar politically, it's interesting that somehow North far outpaces South in testing. They're testing over 1% of their population daily, and are ranked fourth in the nation for testing saturation, with a 16% positivity rate. South, by contrast, is testing about a quarter as much per population, ranked 40th of all the states and DC, positivity rate 59%.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 1:42 PM
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Parts of South Dakota are culturally Iowan.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 1:48 PM
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In what sense? Not enough admixture of Nordic competence?


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 1:50 PM
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North and South Dakota don't seem particularly different on the CovidActNow metrics. They've got posiivity at 19.8 and 22.2% respectively, and daily new cases at 168 vs 156 per 100K.

I think South Dakota is the last state with no partial mask orders or anything whatsoever.


Posted by: heebie | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 1:54 PM
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2 was just a random slur.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 1:58 PM
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They have very similar case rates, yes, so I don't think North Dakota's better testing has been enough. But the Washington Post isn't the only data source where I've seen North Dakota having higher testing rates per population and lower positivity.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 1:58 PM
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Almost 1/3rd of my high school class now lives in South Dakota.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 2:00 PM
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1: North Dakota is closer to Manitoba? Oh, wait there's a big outbreak there too.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 2:01 PM
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"We didn't cross the border. The border crossed US."


Posted by: Heebie | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 2:02 PM
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No. The South Dakota/Nebraska border has been stationary.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 2:03 PM
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Like a stationary bike, that still racks up miles.


Posted by: heebie | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 2:32 PM
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With that level of growth there only about 3 weeks away from herd immunity, at this point roll into it.


Posted by: Asteele | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 3:40 PM
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I just looked up my county's daily case rate. 132/100K. Thanksgiving is going to blow.


Posted by: Cala | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 4:04 PM
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13: holy moly, that's insane.


Posted by: Heebie | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 4:22 PM
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I'm picking up food and there's so many people inside eating.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 4:28 PM
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Cascade County Montana, home to some 81,000 people, had 440 new cases today.

The seven day moving average is obviously much lower, since they only have 2778 pending cases. But I think they can beat North Dakota.

Will be already be ahead when our Creationist Journalist-Assaulting Zillionaire governor-elect takes the helm? Or is he going to have to win this thing on his own?


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 5:39 PM
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\\ Today's DACA ruling is a fine how-do-you-do for our would-be dictator. District judge from EDNY invalidated Chad Wolf's suspension of DACA, finding that Wolf wasn't, and still isn't, Action Secretary of Homeland Security. Also certified a class of everyone involved with DACA. Given that there hasn't been a filibuster on executive nominations for the entire Trump Administration, there's really no excuse at all for the failure to have Senate confirmed people in every single position. In a footnote, the judge says that Trump's intentional practice on this is more or less exactly what the Framers wanted to prevent. I suppose McConnell can try to ram a confirmation through during the lame duck, and Wolf can re-suspend DACA. It'll just be theater though, as surely one of the first acts of whoever Biden puts in the position will be to rescind the suspension. |>


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 6:20 PM
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"We didn't cross the border. The border crossed US."

You foreigners might have missed that HG is referring to the 1818 Convention Respecting Fisheries, Boundary and the Restoration of Slaves between the United States and Great Britain which, inter alia, moved the border quite a bit in areas that are now Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana. Our side was represented by Albert Gallatin, who should have a hip hop musical about his career, not least because he won Fargo, among other places, for us in this deal.

Not that good a deal for US 'owned' enslaved persons who'd been in British lands, or on British ships, at the end of the War of 1812.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 6:35 PM
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Given that there hasn't been a filibuster on executive nominations for the entire Trump Administration, there's really no excuse at all for the failure to have Senate confirmed people in every single position.

I assumed the reason was because nobody wanted it on record that they voted for such a shit.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 6:38 PM
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18: I was rather surprised at the part about enslaved people because I had just read about how in the earlier Jay Treaty they made no concessions along those lines. On further research, it looks like they'd had a dispute about whether the 1812 treaty had applied to anyone enslaved, the 1818 follow-up referred the dispute to a neutral third party who ended up being Tsar Alexander I, and in the end the UK paid a $1.2m settlement in lieu of handing anyone over.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 7:00 PM
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Some people buy a giant door-stop biography of Alexander Hamilton and write a ground-breaking musical. I just put it on the shelf unread and leave it there for over a decade.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 7:04 PM
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There's an also unread "The War of Two" book about Hamilton and Burr right next to it.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 7:13 PM
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21: It's a good book. You should read it sometime.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 7:26 PM
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It's really long.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 7:27 PM
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I agree that Gallatin should get a musical too, as should John Quincy Adams. That whole era is super-interesting but gets very little attention in popular culture.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 7:28 PM
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I think John Quincy Adams was about to have a moment, but Katy Perry did the boobs shooting whipped cream thing first and I took all the oxygen.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 7:32 PM
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At least the Missouri governor is being proactive:

We remain optimistic as doctors and scientists continue to make progress on a COVID-19 vaccine. While one is not available yet, my administration and @HealthyLivingMo have been planning for its arrival.

Fuckers. Every last one of them.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 7:34 PM
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Arizona appears to be all done. Final margin 10, 377. A person I followed had it calculated at 12.1K when there were a few hundred thousand still out. so they did pretty well, but not alot of margin for error. nevada seems pretty much done as well. 33K and 2.4% as well. Did not grow as much as I had thought. E-day registrations in Clark (last counted) were more like 50-50 than heavily Biden.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 7:41 PM
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I spent about a week crossing North Dakota by bicycle in 1983, part of a cross country trip. Farmers were very chatty. They didn't get many bicycles on Route 5 in those days. In fact, not many strangers in any kind of vehicle.

The highlight was seeing time go backwards. A chatty farmer was doing something or other to a house close to the road. He explained that he was preparing the house to be demolished, so he could plant more wheat starting in the Fall. It was a crappy house, had been empty since his grandfather (who had grown up in the house) died, and there was more value in the wheat to grown on the patch covered by the house. Also modern farm equipment isn't designed to detour around houses. I thought of explaining to him that in the real America, we tear up thousands of acres of cropland to build more houses and parking lots every day, never the opposite, but I held my tongue.

Faux pas with a different chatty farmer: After he explained a lot of stuff about wheat to me, I said something like, I'll think of your farm whenever I have toast for breakfast. He gave me a look I usually got only from professors when I had nodded off in class , and said, no, it's durum wheat, think of it when you have spaghetti for dinner.


Posted by: unimaginative | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 7:45 PM
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We just had pasta with meatballs from carry out. I'm thinking I'll make my own meatballs next weekend. I do better.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 7:51 PM
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I laughed.


Posted by: Heebie | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 7:53 PM
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31 to 29. Sorry Mobes.


Posted by: Heebie | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 7:54 PM
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Speaking of abandoned houses and fields, there was a house outside of town that was a ruin and prior called it "The House of Crying Babies." I forget why or how it was haunted, but it probably should have been torn down because it wasn't safe and because kids kept going there to see if you really heard babies cry.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 7:58 PM
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Prior s/b people.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 7:58 PM
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It's going to be interesting to see what changes happen to long-standing assumptions about the power of the government to police public health. Texas seems to be rolling back local powers. I wonder if they'd do this in the face of a tuberculosis outbreak?

The ruling means that restaurants in the border city of 680,000, which now has more people hospitalized with Covid-19 than most states -- 1,091 as of Saturday -- may serve food indoors and outdoors, and gyms, barbershops and nail salons, which have been closed, may reopen.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/11/14/world/covid19-coronavirus-updates/a-texas-court-reverses-el-pasos-coronavirus-restrictions-and-such-legal-challenges-are-expected-elsewhere


Posted by: md 20/400 | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 8:41 PM
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States rightsers go both ways. They are not only against federal government, they are against municipal government as well. I'm not sure why they thing that the state level is the only truly legitimate source of governance, but I think its because state governments are the most efficient to corrupt.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 9:12 PM
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36: I think LGM has this one nailed - nobody believes in states' rights, it's all contingent. If the same people were in red cities within blue states they be talking about the tyranny of the state capital and the sovereign right of a city to govern its own local affairs.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 9:32 PM
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nobody believes in states' rights, it's all contingent.

Yes. Turn the kaleidoscope again and it's counties and their sherrifs that are supreme sovereigns.


Posted by: md 20/400 | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 9:46 PM
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Minivet: to your question why ND is doing (marginally) better than SD, maybe it just comes down to Burgum (ND Gov) > Noem (SD Gov)? I mean, Noem is one amazingly *Deplorable* human being. I mean .... what utter shite in a single package! Burgum, IIRC, was actually *crying* at one point asking people to *please* mask up. So he's ..... better (?) than Noem, maybe?

We've all read that leadership modeling good behaviour, is important? Maybe this is an example.


Posted by: CHETAN R MURTHY | Link to this comment | 11-14-20 10:36 PM
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36: it's not a states rights thing, but I find the people who will put up with all sorts of restrictions on their freedom to do what they want with their property when they come from a homeowners association but reject the idea of government restriction baffle me. You don't see these people so much in New England, partly I think because our towns have functioning participatory government. This sometimes seems less true when you are talking about the state-level.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 12:44 AM
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18: One if my ancestors was the secretary to the commission that worked out the land boundary following the treaty of Ghent. In 1818 he served a term in Congress, so I don't think he was involved in 1818, because he was in Congress for one term.

It's interesting to me that he went on after that to serve multiple, though not all consecutive terms, in the NH House and Senate. Was that considered a step up?

I'd love to learn more about the Commission's work.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 12:58 AM
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Austria appears to be now leading the world in COVID incidence. Woo! Schools, including daycare, shutting down as part of serious lockdown starting Tuesday-- when we've already had the infanta home for a week and a half with a cough. Sigh.


Posted by: X. Trapnel | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 2:13 AM
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Free COVID PCR test negative, 19 hour turnaround. Score one for efficient local government, although it also helps that the federally supported research lab running 75k tests per day is six blocks from where they were collecting samples.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 4:03 AM
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I got one, and I think it was closer to 30 hours. Free to me b/c covered by occupational health, but private. So, yay for efficient government.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 4:42 AM
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Our positive rate passed 6% yesterday for the first time since I think May. And of course the bars and restaurants are still open for indoor dining

It's amazing (not really) that with everything we've learned since February we're still botching this so badly.


Posted by: AcademicLurker | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 6:25 AM
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My wife got a Covid test in the Ohio State Fairgrounds last Saturday and got her result within 24 hours. Negative, as she was sure it would be - she had what she recognized as her usual sinus infection, but her doctor insisted she get tested.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 6:29 AM
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47

I suppose the butter-John Glenn is gone.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 7:27 AM
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Every year they make new different butter sculptures, except this year, because the Ohio State Fair was cancelled.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 7:59 AM
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I find the people who will put up with all sorts of restrictions on their freedom to do what they want with their property when they come from a homeowners association

HOAs are political action committees of like-minded owners like them, so once again, it gives them power to act in lockstep, principle be damned.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 8:04 AM
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Maybe some of you haven't seen this horrifying twitter thread from an ER Nurse in South Dakota.

https://twitter.com/JodiDoering/status/1327771329555292162


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 8:30 AM
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they make new different butter sculptures, except this year

So that's why Joe Biden kept talking about building back butter.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 8:45 AM
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Frankly, those are the least tragic victims of COVID.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 8:46 AM
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50: I did see that. I do not understand how it is possible to be dying from a viral illness and deny that you have it - though I suppose that people with substance use disorders do this a lot.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 9:05 AM
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Christine Maggiore.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 9:10 AM
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51: Stanley! Hope all is well.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 9:11 AM
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Except, you know, everything that obviously isn't.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 9:14 AM
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50: I saw that a while ago. I also think I know the father of one of the people she is replying to, but the name isn't rare enough to be certain.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 9:29 AM
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50 is insane. Holy moly.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 10:07 AM
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Looking at the stats, the first covid death in my home county was 9/24. It's now up to 8, which is .1% of the county.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 10:07 AM
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I think if you are dying of a virus that you deny having because you think it doesn't exist, you should have the decency to deny it by saying "Inconceivable" in your best Wallace Shawn voice.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 10:09 AM
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The treatment Trump got did seem nearly magical, and he did say that everyone would get it. In terms of conman induced delusions, this is more understandable than most of them. Certainly the evidence is stronger than that of any sort of "war" on Christmas.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 10:17 AM
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What's horrifying about 50 is that their gurneys aren't rolled out to the hospital parking lot, where they are left to die.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 10:18 AM
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Who, Soumitra Chaterjee died. He was the star of "World of Apu" and many other Satyajit Ray films. He was pretty dreamy as a young man, so maybe this is a tough NMM.

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Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 10:21 AM
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That was supposed to be a "Whoa".


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 10:26 AM
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Aw hell


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 10:35 AM
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66
I do not understand how it is possible to be dying from a viral illness and deny that you have it

These "people" know very well that the virus is real. They also know that the decent health care workers around them are compelled by both morality/decency and law to care for them. So they can engage in their addictive behaviour, safe in the knowledge that they'll be treated just the same. Their covidiocy is purely performative, is what I'm saying. Imagine that they were told that on the third outburst denying the facts about covid and the pandemic, they'd be kicked to the curb. They'd (a) STFU, and (b) have lawyers filing suit to defend their rights.

That poor woman, having to care for such moral black holes. She's a saint: I couldn't do it. I'd wanna stuff a fucking wad of paper tissue in the mouth of each patient each time they acted up. I guess their families could top up my pay with a few hundred extra an hour to make up for the torment.


Posted by: CHETAN R MURTHY | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 12:23 PM
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I suspect the rural South Dakota people talked about here have drank the Flavor Aid and do believe it isn't not real.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 12:26 PM
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me too.


Posted by: Heebie | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 1:05 PM
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67: Was that double negative intentional?


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 1:10 PM
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Somebody is going to die and have a relative shoot a doctor because if they couldn't die of Covid, the doctor did it.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 1:12 PM
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- not


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 1:13 PM
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or + not


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 1:21 PM
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I wish we had one of those language where a double negative intensifies the negative, rather than negates it.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 1:41 PM
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Probably can't deny them treatment, but can be brutally honest with them even if they claim not to believe it. "There's a good chance you're going to die so I hope you said goodbye to your family. Even if you make it you'll probably have severe disabilities for at least several months. You might have long term risk for a heart attack or stroke and be left dependent on nursing care. If you vote Republican there's a good chance you'll never be able to get health insurance again until you're old enough for Medicare."


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 2:19 PM
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66 sounds right to me: they know it's real, but are committed to the performative belief that it's not real.


Posted by: Just Plain Jane | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 2:26 PM
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66 does not sound right to me. It sounds like a textbook case of cognitive dissonance.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 4:25 PM
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Yes. I don't think that makes them innocent victims or anything, since they have clearly gone out of their way to nurture this sense of denial, but I don't think it's an act.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 4:32 PM
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A genuinely good thread about how broken the right wing media ecosystem is: https://mobile.twitter.com/mattsheffield/status/1324908316548493313


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 5:14 PM
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78 is indeed very good; thanks, NickS.

I'm just heartsick over the pandemic right now. Nothing new, just feeling it all acutely all over again.


Posted by: Witt | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 7:05 PM
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Also, co-sign 77.


Posted by: Witt | Link to this comment | 11-15-20 7:05 PM
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I was wondering whether Trump might refuse to serve out the lame-duck period, just abandon the presidency, and...he kind of has?


Posted by: Alex | Link to this comment | 11-16-20 4:36 AM
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Moderna vaccine interim analysis 94.5% effective (90 placebo and 5 treatment cases, p<0.0001); 11 severe cases in placebo group, 0 in treatment group. No major side effects in treatment group, most commonly fatigue and muscle soreness. Completing safety study window within next two weeks, applying for EUA first week December, plan to distribute 20 million doses in December, 500 million in 2021. Can be shipped and stored up to 6 months at -20C instead of -80 needed for Pfizer vaccine.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 11-16-20 5:17 AM
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82: I heard that the Pfizer one might be able to be stored at -20. They weren't taking any chances when they said minus 80, so as it rolls out they might be able to relax it.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 11-16-20 5:29 AM
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Yeah I wonder how much of those claims is just different criteria for analyzing their stability data. Moderna is, shall we say, less conservative about their claims than some other companies. Obviously given the timelines the -80 vs -20 storage data are not based on storing samples at two different conditions and comparing efficacy in patients. It's chemical stability data and possibly animal results from differentially stored material.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 11-16-20 6:25 AM
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You need to be careful with animal testing because raccoons are liars.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11-16-20 6:40 AM
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The last bit is what raccoon logicians say to evil robots to make their circuits explode.


Posted by: One of Many | Link to this comment | 11-16-20 6:59 AM
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Time for a check-in thread? last was 11/5.

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Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 11-16-20 7:43 AM
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Rude of Moderna to make a news splash knowing how often their name can't be distinguished from Modema.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 11-16-20 9:13 AM
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Can be shipped and stored up to 6 months at -20C

Something something Funky Cold Moderna


Posted by: One of Many | Link to this comment | 11-16-20 9:35 AM
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won't you be my vaccine if you know what i mean


Posted by: Tom Scudder | Link to this comment | 11-16-20 10:15 AM
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Raccoons are no more liars than regular people. They just get a bad rep on account of that silly "three raccoons stacked in a trench coat" routine.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 11-16-20 8:55 PM
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Whenever I see this post title in the sidebar it makes me think of the Lyle Lovett song "North Dakota"

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Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 11-16-20 9:55 PM
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