Boston students, parents, teachers anticipate six weeks at home due to coronavirus
Bostonians seek sunshine in the time of coronavirus
Soon we will all be living like vampires.
"Local governments take the lead, collaborate, and improvise to manage crisis" by Stephanie Ebbert Globe Staff, March 14, 2020
NATICK — A national emergency with rapidly changing circumstances and stuttering leadership out of D.C. has thrust local government officials to the front lines of life-and-death decision-making.
Then we are all in trouble!
At this time of year, they would typically be dealing with issues like coyote breeding and the imminent spread of ticks, said Michael J. Hickey Jr., chairman of the Natick Board of Selectmen. Now, they’re ushering in Natick’s new normal: Schools shut down on Friday, for a week, at least. The senior center closed, as did the Recreation and Parks Department.
Along the way, they are brainstorming modern solutions to nagging problems. Concerns were spreading nationally about how poor students who rely on school lunches would be affected by school closures. In Natick, officials announced they would provide grab-and-go breakfast and lunch (at the back doors of Natick High School, from 8 to 11 a.m. each day next week.) How to pay for it? That’s a problem for another day.
On Friday, Natick’s library started offering a lux treatment, care of coronavirus: curbside delivery to your car.
Residents can order materials online, then wait in one of six assigned parking spaces outside Morse Institute Library for them to be brought out by an employee. Library director Jason Homer said the idea had been proposed previously as a way of reducing parking congestion. After mulling it Thursday morning with two employee proponents, he returned from a noon coronavirus town meeting with immediate action: “We’re doing it tomorrow.”
“It was a good kick in the pants," Homer said.
Okay, I'm going to stop and comment here. My alarms starting going off when I read how the locals are going to use this to brainstorm solutions to other problems -- and we all know who is going to get their asses kicked, fellow citizen.
The coronavirus crisis has required an unsettling amount of improvisation — upending the norms of local governance even for those who direct it.
The emergency meeting Natick officials held Thursday night was convened without the public advertising notice that is required, and because of the obvious irony that came with calling a public meeting to discourage public gatherings, they urged the public to stay away, and instead watch a livestream on the town’s government channel.
So officials and authority will be even more insulated and out-of-touch from the public, and irony is something that is supposed to be amusing. This is not.
Local officials always bear the brunt of their neighbors’ complaints about the issues closest to home, but the stakes felt unusually high this time, the pace of decision-making particularly urgent.
That's when you want the poor officials to hit the brake!
“In moments like this, whenever we have had a community crisis, local is what it’s all about — the local response, the local care, the relationships, that’s what gets stuff done and makes people feel cared for,”said School Superintendent Dr. Anna Nolin. “That said, it’s been a really rough and sometimes lonely week because people don’t understand the direction that we’re moving in and we’re moving so fast.”
Oh, the poor, beset upon public authorities who simply mean so well and care so much about us!!
Yes, “we have to take care of each other as a community” -- unless they happen to be Palestinian.
--more--"
Then there is this piece of codswallop in the left-hand column:
"The week that the coronavirus changed everything; In a few short days, the pandemic has altered nearly every aspect of our lives" by Yvonne Abraham Globe Columnist, March 13, 2020
This is that moment, the one we will look back on, when everything changed.
The news, to which many of us will be glued, is likely to be very bad. Even the rosiest predictions anticipate that, at its peak, several million Americans will contract Covid-19 and that many thousands will succumb to the virus. We will try to console anxious children, who now confront an existential threat even more immediate than climate change, and to ignore the collapse of the stock market.
It's going to be more than thousands; more like millions.
When it’s over, doors will open again. Restaurants will buzz to life. Kids will whine on Monday mornings once more. Familiar roars will rise at the Garden and on Boylston Street.
Oh, we will back to the OLD NORMAL then?
For certain, we’ll be changed by our losses. Perhaps we’ll be more grateful for all we took for granted.
For the growing and expanding state of tyranny and total surveillance.
Anyway, it will be lovely to see each other again.....
If you survive, that is.
--more--"
She goes on to mention that fool Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz who made light of the outbreak, touching every microphone and audio recorder as he left a press conference, as a joke. By Wednesday night, Gobert had tested positive, and an embarrassed and apologetic Gobert apologized.
To use a basketball analogy, give that guy an Oscar for the flop!
At the top of the page is the sectional lead.
All a big joke anyway:
"On social media, teens find dark (and sometimes silly) humor amid coronavirus news" by Matt Berg Globe Correspondent, March 13, 2020
Scroll through social media right now and amid the dire warnings and political finger-pointing, there’s quite a bit to laugh about.
Do I look like I'm laughing these days, readers?
If anything, the sarcasm has become even more acerbic.
Bleak jokes about cheap flights thanks to coronavirus. Memes about paying tens of thousands of dollars to attend college online. TikToks of groovy dance routines in the middle of hospitals rooms — everyone wearing surgical masks, of course.
As governments around the world warn citizens to take precautions to avoid the coronavirus, young people are using social media platforms to channel their energy into something a little less serious: creating content that finds the humor — silly or grim as it may be — in the midst of the pandemic.
The idea that humor can be used as a tension reliever in trying times isn’t anything new. Even when things are bleak, we’re almost always in the mood for a good joke, be it in the middle of war, political upheaval, and, yes, even a pandemic, and obviously, it’s not just teens and young people looking for a chuckle. Late night shows and comedians are trying to keep it light as well.
There is one event you can not joke about, ever, and what the hell did happen down there anyway?
“Humor is used a lot during wartime for one reason: [It] has a lot of power to bring people together,” said Catherine Caldwell-Harris, an assistant professor of psychology and a faculty member at Boston University since 1991. “When you tell a joke, it releases tension … and along with the tension release, it brings people in a little group together. You’re all sharing a laugh.”
Baker will have to ban humor then.
As colleges across the state and around the country announced closures this week, meme pages tailored for individual colleges have seen an influx in virus-related jokes. Tyler Taintor, an admin for a University of Massachusetts Amherst-related meme page with nearly 5,000 members, believes the jokes can contribute to the conversation in a positive way.
“I think especially with our generation, we can use this as a healthy coping mechanism,” said Taintor, a senior at the university. “It doesn't really affect us at the end of the day, but we recognize the severity of it,” and unlike other types of tragedies, the very nature of the coronavirus may also lend itself to humor. People often find bodily interactions, such as contact with others, humorous. Pair this with images of medical bodysuits and face masks, and there may be a sort of slapstick humor that comedians (online and off) can draw material from.
Young fool.
“Humor is always going to be pushing the envelope, and we’ve got to kind of give it some leeway for that,” Caldwell-Harris said. “I actually think it’s a neat phenomenon where people are pulling together and having a national conversation about something that’s actually important. Maybe there can be more conversations, you know, income inequality or other things, and young people can get more political. It can be a stepping stone to that.”
OMG!!
This "crisis" is hopefully going to be used to BRAINWASH the KIDS and ADVANCE a POLITICAL AGENDA!!
As for getting involved in politics, they have seen what has happened so why would they?
--more--"
The Globe cited a coronavirus-themed video by Haden Pelletier, a sophomore at Northeastern University, before she left town.
Related:
"Some of the few entertainment entities that remained open and fully functioning were shutting down like much of the rest of the world on Friday, a day after institutions from Broadway to Disneyland closed their doors, TV shows including “The Price Is Right” halted production, and movie release dates strategically scheduled years in advance were pushed back indefinitely. Hollywood on Friday continued to halt shoots of most films and television series to help control the spread of the virus....."
They must have been happy about Weinstein's conviction and sentence, huh?
Behar to stay home, skips “The View”
More theme parks shutter
Movie theaters limit audience size
Also see: The Giant Pause Has Begun
Now to front page:
"Little coronavirus testing in Mass. so far as cases hit 138; Governor Charlie Baker says state is moving to speed up testing" by Andrew Ryan, John Hilliard and Tonya Alanez Globe Staff, March 14, 2020
Criticized for withholding public health data, Governor Charlie Baker on Saturday disclosed the state only tested only 475 people for coronavirus, a figure that raised questions about efforts to contain the outbreak in Massachusetts as public health experts warned the shortage of data would obscure the full extent of the burgeoning pandemic.
The scant number of tests underscored how far behind Massachusetts and the entire country are in trying to contain an illness that has spread rapidly. Until 10 days ago, Massachusetts had reported just three cases; now that figure is up to 138, state officials said Saturday.
Much of the blame by public health experts has been focused on the Trump administration’s slow and chaotic response, which included significant missteps that have severely limited testing, but the state has offered differing accounts on the number of tests for Covid-19, the disease that has set off a global crisis.....
It's the lack of testing that has “kept us essentially blind to the state of this epidemic within our own state.”
--more--"
Related: This Is a Test
They are failing while we are “all in complete and total shock.”
"Travel ban expanded; coronavirus cases in Massachusetts increase" by Globe staff and wire reports, March 14, 2020
In Spain, the government ordered residents to stay home, with exceptions for work, grocery shopping, and medical visits. France shut down all “non-indispensable” businesses, including restaurants and movie theaters, and in Massachusetts Saturday, Baker sought to project calm during a State House press conference, he also acknowledged that the state had tested just 475 residents to date — and indicated the federal government deserved much blame.
He's passing the buck and pointing fingers at Trump!
Early Saturday evening, the State Police announced that the body of a 59-year-old Worcester man who had died on an Emirates flight from Dubai to Boston on Friday would be tested for the virus out of an abundance of caution. Officials said the man had been sick with gastrointestinal problems for several days prior to his death but did not have any preexisting medical conditions. The flight manifest appears to indicate 322 passengers and 18 crew members were aboard the plane, a Boeing 777, according to State Police.
The news came amid a growing list of shutdowns and restrictions on normal life across the region.
At a rare weekend meeting of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, officials temporarily closed the state’s three casinos.
Along with the relentless bad news, there were also new efforts to help those hit by the economic dislocation.
The news — from Washington and from across New England — came as local families were scrambling to figure out what to do with their children during a wave of school shutdowns, in some cases announced with little notice.
At the Harp on Saturday, more than 100 partiers dressed in Celtics jerseys and felt leprechaun hats sipped on green aluminum bottles of Bud Light. The bar was half-empty, but drinkers crowded close by the bar to be heard over the collective din.
“For the first few minutes, we were like, ‘Let’s keep our distance. Let’s not touch people,’ ” said Marco Espinoza, a reveler from Raleigh, N.C., in a green motorcycle jacket, said. “But after a few beers we were hugging people and getting too close.”
Baker is going to have to shut down the bars as well as the pot shops!
--more--"
Nice hat!
(flip to below fold)
"Amid dire predictions of virus spread, hospitals prepare to be inundated; ‘We are nowhere near ready,’ says public health expert" by Liz Kowalczyk and Priyanka Dayal McCluskey Globe Staff, March 14, 2020
Massachusetts’s biggest hospitals are preparing for a potential crush of coronavirus patients amid predictions that rapid spread of the disease could overwhelm the health care system.
Researchers have been racing to develop models that predict the possible impact on US hospitals, and some of those forecasts are alarming — especially if intensifying efforts to contain the virus aren’t successful.
Nearly 2 million may die in their models.
Hospitals are also closely monitoring potential problems, such as shortages of face masks and other protective gear for health care workers, and some are limiting who can enter patients’ rooms as a way to preserve equipment.
Protecting workers is crucial — if large numbers of doctors and nurses fall ill or need to be quarantined, hospitals won’t be able to keep up with the demand from patients.
Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said the disease might play out differently in the United States than it has elsewhere. This country has a strong primary care system that might enable more people to recover at home, and it has a younger, healthier population than Italy, for example.
Actually, we have one of the worst systems considering the amount of money spent, and some even argue they keep you sick on purpo$e so don't do what we do.
In Boston, Tufts Medical Center this week decided to cancel non-urgent appointments and procedures to make room for patients who most urgently need care, and as a precaution to reduce spread of the contagious coronavirus.
The virus is now going to be used to ration health care.
When patients with respiratory symptoms show up in the emergency department, they are quickly separated from other patients and, ideally, taken to a private exam room, said Dr. Shira Doron, hospital epidemiologist.....
It's far from an ideal world, though.
--more--"
Related: 100 years ago, another epidemic terrorized the city
Boston’s reaction to a dangerous virus hasn’t changed much in a century as they give you a narrative of the Spanish flu in the city where it began (which, in retrospect, makes one wonder who loosed it? Stuff like that goes back to Lord Jeffrey Amherst and the smallpox infected blankets).
"Spain announces a lockdown, France shuts down the nightlife" by Joseph Wilson and Geir Moulson Associated Press, March 14, 2020
BARCELONA — Spain locked down its 46 million citizens Saturday and France ordered the closing of just about everything the rest of the world loves about it — the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the cafes, restaurants, and cinema — as governments took increasingly desperate measures to put more space between people and contain the coronavirus.
In a lockdown similar to the one already imposed in Italy, people will be allowed to leave their homes only to buy food and medicine, commute to work, go to hospitals and banks, or take trips related to the care of the young and the elderly. All schools and universities were closed, along with restaurants, bars, hotels, and other nonessential retail businesses.
France pressed ahead with plans for nationwide municipal elections on Sunday but ordered special measures to keep people at a safe distance and to sanitize surfaces. Voters were advised to bring their own pen to sign the voting register.
You gotta cancel those.
China, where the scourge first appeared late last year, continued to relax its drastic restrictions, illustrating the way the center of gravity in the crisis has shifted westward toward Europe. The virus has infected more than 150,000 people worldwide and killed over 5,600.
That's up 500 from yesterday's count, and it feels like they are just throwing numbers out there now for something that allegedly most are recovering from -- if you believe the pre$$ reports I'm reading.
Meanwhile.....
--more--"
What's odd is the opposing, full-page ad for Sandals on page A3.
Related: China health workers’ stories reflect unpredictability of illness
The New York Times says China is obfuscating and lying:
"As China cracks down on coronavirus coverage, journalists fight back" by Javier C. Hernández New York Times, March 14, 2020
When Jacob Wang saw reports circulating online recently suggesting that life was getting better in Wuhan, China, the center of the coronavirus outbreak, he was irate.
Wang, a journalist for a state-run newspaper in China, knew that Wuhan was still in crisis — he had traveled there to chronicle the failures of the government firsthand. He took to social media to set the record straight, writing a damning post last month about sick patients struggling to get medical care amid a dysfunctional bureaucracy.
That's the health care $y$tem I recognize!
“People were left to die, and I am very angry about that,” Wang said in an interview. “I’m a journalist, but I’m also an ordinary human being.”
The Chinese government, eager to claim victory in what China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has described as a “people’s war” against the virus, is leading a sweeping campaign to purge the public sphere of dissent, censoring news reports, harassing citizen journalists, and shutting down news sites.
Oh, so they are acting like the U.S. government and the tech platforms.
Chinese journalists, buoyed by an outpouring of support from the public and widespread calls for free speech, are fighting back in a rare challenge to the ruling Communist Party.
Oh, the mockingbirds are such heroes!
They are publishing hard-hitting exposés describing government cover-ups and failures in the health care system. They are circulating passionate calls for press freedom. They are using social media to draw attention to injustice and abuse, circumventing an onslaught of propaganda orders.....
That's why I'm here, although I do wish the Times would do that. Instead we get lies and fake news!
--more--"
Related: ‘NYT’ practices journalistic apartheid in reporting on coronavirus in Israel and Palestine
Also see:
He has 17,700 bottles of hand sanitizer and nowhere to sell them
He's a hoarding price-gouger that now can not give them away.
Trump's coronavirus test seems to surprise officials
Or at least Annie Karni and Maggie Haberman of the New York Times.
White House ups precautions after Trump tested for virus
Trump supporters turn to him for information amid coronavirus
The New York Times deplores such a thing and is hoping he contracts it:
"Mar-a-Lago: from presidential party palace to virus petri dish" by Peter Baker and Katie Rogers New York Times, March 14, 2020
WASHINGTON — The lights were low and the disco balls spinning as a cake with a fiery sparkler shooting flames into the air was brought out to a robust rendition of “Happy Birthday,” joined by President Trump. The birthday celebrant, Kimberly Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr., then pumped her fist in the air and called out, “Four more years!”
It was a lavish, festive, carefree Saturday evening at Mar-a-Lago a week ago in what in hindsight now seems like a last hurrah for the end of one era and the beginning of another. In the days since then, the presidential estate in Florida has become something of a coronavirus hot zone.
So far, neither the president nor his family has reported feeling sick or is known to have isolated themselves. After days of resisting, Trump disclosed on Saturday that he had been tested overnight and was awaiting the results, without explaining why his staff had released a misleading midnight statement from the White House physician still insisting that there was no need for such a test since he had exhibited no symptoms, but either way, the Mar-a-Lago petri dish has become a kind of metaphor for the perils of group gatherings in the age of coronavirus, demonstrating how quickly and silently the virus can spread. No one is necessarily safe from encountering it, not senators or diplomats or even the most powerful person on the planet seemingly secure in a veritable fortress surrounded by Secret Service agents.
It was at this point that I became absolutely sickened by the rank rot that is spewed from the New York Times, folks. BUT EITHER WAY(!!), I'm tired of looking for kernels of corn in the turd that is the New York Times.
Some of last weekend’s guests worried it may be a sign of the times and the last party of its sort for a while at Mar-a-Lago. “I hope not,” Representative Matt Gaetz, Repubican of Florida, wrote in a text message. “Humans interacting with one another are typically happier and more productive in my experience.”
Gaetz’s experience is a cautionary tale. At least four others at Mar-a-Lago that weekend have since tested positive, including three who accompanied President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil for a dinner with Trump before Guilfoyle’s birthday party that Saturday night: Fabio Wajngarten, his press secretary, Nestor Forster, his top diplomat in Washington, and Nelsinho Trad, a senator. A fourth member of the Brazilian delegation, Karina Kufa, a lawyer, also tested positive but she had not been at Mar-a-Lago. Another unidentified person at Mar-a-Lago the next day for a fund-raising brunch with the president has also tested positive.
Why unidentified?
Since the start of Trump’s presidency, supporters and hangers-on have gravitated to Mar-a-Lago, paying up to $200,000 for membership in the club — and for proximity to the president. Trump frequently holds court on the patio at dinnertime, shaking hands with members and waving them over to his table.
Despite the coronavirus, the president has not changed his practice of greeting guests at the club, according to a member. Trump believes his willingness to shake hands and connect with supporters helped propel him into office and the club’s unwritten rule is that those who love him or trade on connections with him can come into contact with him.
This rule was on display last weekend in the club’s ballroom, when the president hosted both Bolsonaro for dinner and the extended Trump family for Guilfoyle’s birthday, the two events overlapping to some extent. As Trump escorted Bolsonaro into the club, a reporter asked if newly reported coronavirus cases in the Washington area made him worry that it was getting closer to the White House.
Stopped reading print there.
Web version added this:
Among the guests on hand was a who’s who of Trump’s world, according to pictures and video posted on social media, including Vice President Mike Pence, the president’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the Fox News host Tucker Carlson, and Bernard Kerik, the former New York police commissioner recently pardoned by Trump for tax fraud and false statements.
Tucker was on a mission, and Kerik was in charge on September 11, 2001.
In addition to Donald Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle, there were other family members present, including Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, Eric Trump and his wife, Lara Trump, and Tiffany Trump. Melania Trump did not make the trip to Florida.
As it happens, Carlson was concerned that the president was not taking the coronavirus seriously enough and talked with him about it during the evening, according to a person informed about the conversation. Two days later, on his Fox show, Carlson warned viewers: “People you trust, people you probably voted for, have spent weeks minimizing what is clearly a very serious problem,” but the mood otherwise that Saturday night was light. Guilfoyle, wearing a thigh-hugging gold sequin dress and set to turn 50 two days later, was toasted by one member of the Trump family after another amid purple and pink lighting suffusing the room.
“You work so hard for the president,” Ivanka Trump told her. “It’s been amazing to get to know you,” Kushner added. Graham told her that “you represent everything Bernie Sanders hates” and promised to get her a tax cut. With a DJ playing music, the guests danced a conga line and enjoyed the evening.
Her part of the hei$t.
Mar-a-Lago was still open for business on Friday, but Lori Elsbree, the host of a 700-person “celebrity doggie fashion show” and fund-raiser scheduled for Saturday with Lara Trump as honorary chairwoman, said the event had been postponed.
--more--"
Better run out and stock up on wine because page A10 brings with it a full-page ad from Total Wines telling me it's the last day to save 15% off.
Then you can celebrate this:
Congratulations! You got into college without even applying
The bad news is the school has closed.
N.H. legislators pass bills targeting teacher sex assaults
Good thing the schools are closed.
The obituaries took up pages A13 to A20, and I would expect them to have their own section soon.
Maybe more of us should live in public housing
Ummmmm, MAYBE NOT!
There’s plenty of toilet paper
Then why are people hoarding it?
Don’t let Trump poison the air
Another president, another mishandled pandemic
The problem is bigger than Trump, it's an American failure.
Even children who are not vulnerable to coronavirus can contribute to societal spread
Apparently, the Courtney Humphries article regarding the coronavirus and building air flow has been scrubbed.
No sense even looking at the Sports Section today.
In other "news":
"Rocket attack injures troops in Iraq, potentially deepening US-Iran tensions" by Missy Ryan, Louisa Loveluck and Mustafa Salim Washington Post, March 14, 2020
Rockets hit a base housing US troops in Iraq on Saturday, wounding three American and two Iraqi troops in an incident likely to intensify tensions between the United States and Iran.
A US official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to address the issue publicly, said the three injured troops were American. It was not immediately clear how severely they were wounded.
A media account affiliated with the Iraqi prime minister said that the ‘‘blatant attack’’ had struck Iraqi air defense units, and warned the perpetrators and those who may have enabled them.
Looking like another false flag.
The attack followed a rocket barrage on Taji that killed two American troops and a British service member on Wednesday. In response, the US military launched a series of strikes Friday. The US retaliation prompted protest from the Iraqi government, which called it a ‘‘violation of national sovereignty.’’ Iraqi officials said the attack killed five members of local security forces.
The government on Saturday repeated its appeal against unilateral US military action targeting actors in Iraq.
Iraqi politicians have made public calls for the departure of foreign forces following the Trump administration’s decision in January to launch a strike outside the Baghdad airport killing Qasem Soleimani, a senior Iranian military figure known for his ties to militia groups across the Middle East, and a senior Iraqi militia leader.
That's where my printed paper left it. The assassination of Soleimani (an impeachable war crime) happened back in January, and it's been a waiting game every since, but with Trump now needing a war to save his presidency.....
That incident, and a ballistic missile attack that Iran launched on US forces in Iraq in response, marked a peak in already heightened tensions between Washington and Tehran. The Trump administration has identified Iran as the primary US adversary in the Middle East, imposing sanctions on the country’s economy and taking steps to highlight its support of armed proxies in the region.
Over the last year, the Pentagon has placed new military assets in the Middle East in response to a perceived increase in the threat from Iran. About 5,000 US forces are in Iraq, helping the country hunt down remnants of the Islamic State. Despite the calls for the departure of American forces in the wake of Soleimani’s death, Pentagon leaders have said they hope to find a way for them to stay.
An official in the Iraqi prime minister’s office said ‘‘the only solution for the US is to implement the parliament decision and leave’’ because militias were likely to attack again, triggering additional American responses.....
--more--"
Related:
Afghan government postpones prisoner release, endangers deal
I am shocked and stunned by such developments (now please excuse me while I remove tongue from cheek) and check the death toll.
Also see: Dairy farmers try to find new ways to ask America ‘Got Milk?’
More Bull from the New York Times, and the farmers “lose money milking cows,” so you will have to start drinking almond milk, and the water and bee issue won't be a problem with half the planet killed off.
Cheers!
LATE NIGHT UPDATE:
Things are moving very fast now:
Baker announces major restrictions amid coronavirus spread
He has ordered all schools closed for three weeks, is banning gatherings over 25 people (meaning retail stores will need to shut down), and closing down restaurants and bars (that didn't take long) during a rare Sunday evening news conference, but he stressed that grocery stores and pharmacies will remain open (we are now Italy), and let's face it, by mid-week the restrictions will be statewide.
Mass. reports 26 new coronavirus cases, bringing state total to 164
Baker denied widespread rumors that he is planning a broad, statewide quarantine or order for residents to shelter in place, but you know what they say about rumors: they are simply unconfirmed facts.
The Globe then tells you what you need to know about the emergency measures in Massachusetts and how to feed your family during the outbreak.
Walsh declares public health emergency in Boston, announces restrictions on bars and restaurants
Closing time is now 11 p.m., and any establishments found in violation will immediately be shut down for 30 days.
All because of this:
South Boston bars and restaurants closed Sunday as photo of line outside bar draws ire amid coronavirus outbreak
Bo$ton will soon be looking like Hoboken.
Meanwhile, the president of Mass General says we should be at war and he’s worried about the shortage of personal protective equipment needed to keep doctors and nurses safe.
CDC recommends no gatherings of 50 or more for 8 weeks
I'm told 368 died overnight in Italy, and it's obvious that this is being used and becoming a system of mass repression of the population under a public health guise -- calling into question its very existence and veracity.
Government official: Coronavirus vaccine trial starts Monday
That was awfully damn fast, and whatever is in that tube can not be trusted.
How to social distance: What experts say is safe — and not safe — during the coronavirus outbreak
Get away from me!
Marriott Long Wharf employee tests positive for coronavirus
CEO of Waltham biotech says he has coronavirus
So we are being told as they fulfill their role.
And while you were not looking:
In emergency move, Fed cuts main rate to near zero
The Federal Reserve will boost its bond holdings by $700 billion to cushion the US economy from the coronavirus outbreak, and that comes on top of the $1.5 trillion -- with a T -- they injected late last week.
Look who is first in bailout line again:
Airlines say that without aid, their survival may be at risk
What did you do with the $15 billion after 9/11?
(Answer: the CEOs stuffed it in their pockets).
Coronavirus screenings jam US airports
One flyer says it is ‘atrocious,’ but what is atrocious is being told only yesterday that as thousands of Americans flee from Europe and other centers of the coronavirus outbreak, many travelers are reporting no health screenings upon departure and few impediments at US airports beyond a welcome home greeting. Amazing how the ma$$ media narrative can change so quickly, 'eh?
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
I didn't bother leaving the house to go get a Globe seeing as we soon will no longer be able to leave our houses so I might as well get used to not purcha$ing or reading a Bo$ton Globe (you gotta love the Pfizer ad above it all!). $ort of a $ilver lining to this hyped-up crisis.
Northeastern student tests positive for coronavirus
I wonder if it was little Miss Haden Pelletier from up above as Bo$ton has been changed forever (sorry, Yvonne!), and will you young people please start taking it seriously as public health officials have begged Americans, with growing urgency, to stay at home unless absolutely necessary as such cavalier behavior has vexed public health officials across the country!
Stocks plummet again Monday despite Fed rate cut, as more of the US economy shuts down
That's despite them throwing trillions of dollars at it with more to come.
Then I came across this:
"Uncharted Troubled Economic Waters" by Stephen Lendman, March 16, 2020
There’s much more to fear about crashing markets on 401(k) retirement plans, protracted economic recession, perhaps a looming depression, than a global COVID-19 pandemic that doesn’t exist.
Public health reality distorted by fear-mongering is radically changing how most people are going about their daily lives.
In the US, there are only around 3,700 confirmed COVID-19 cases, around 65 deaths in 12 US states.
These are far short of numbers warranting panic at a time when calm, good personal hygiene practices (important always for good health), and governance serving everyone equitably is needed.
The latter is sorely lacking, just cause for public angst, anger, and motivation for positive change, not panic.
Ahead of its scheduled March 17 meeting, the Fed cut interest rates by 1% to near-zero at a time when large-scale fiscal, not monetary, policy is needed.
In a weekend update, Shadowstats economist John Williams noted Fed panic at a time when “market, economic, social, and political turmoil are just beginning” because of years of unprecedented excess.
COVID-19 is the pin that popped grossly inflated markets from over a decade of overly accommodative Fed policy for investors and profit-making at the expense sound economic policy.
Williams noted that Fed “loss of systemic control (was) brought to a head by the coronavirus crisis, exacerbated by collapsing oil prices.”
The latest data from China’s bellwether economy are a shot across the bow for what’s likely coming ahead globally.
Its year-to-date retail sales crashed an unprecedented 20.5% in modern times, far exceeding a projected 4% drop.
Industrial production collapsed 13.5%, its first ever reported decline.
Fixed asset investment plunged nearly 25%, another first ever drop. Property investment is down over 16% year-to-date, unemployment at a reported 6.2%, a record high in modern-day China.
Much more pain is likely ahead before recovery and a return to growth occurs — what’s happening in China already spreading worldwide.
Commenting on the latest data, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) said the nation’s economy “suffer(ed) (a) dramatic collapse in January (and) February, (a) warning to (the) rest of the world” about economic hard times ahead.
Williams believes the US already is in recession that’s “deepening.” He expects downside revisions to earlier economic data, including GDP, retail sales, and other major indexes.
February producer prices “plunged at its steepest monthly pace in five years.”
Unemployment will likely rise significantly as companies begin laying off workers in light of growing economic weakness.
Real unemployment currently is 21.1% — based on how it was calculated pre-1990, including millions of discouraged workers considered nonpersons in the US today and not counted.
Williams: It’s “increasingly obvious that the Federal Reserve has lost control of the US banking and financial system.”
“A great financial crisis and recession are unfolding.”
COVID-19 “exacerbated an already deepening recession, based on significant anecdotal evidence.”
It’ll show up to some extent in Q I data, much more dramatically in Q II and beyond most likely.
Despite US equities sharply off their February highs, they remain greatly overvalued and vulnerable to further valuation declines, monetary policy unable to reverse what’s going on when substantial fiscal stimulus is needed.
Williams and other economists believe economic and financial disruptions are in their early stages, much more to come.
The message of the markets is that the chickens are coming home to roost after over a decade of monetary excess. It was just a matter of time.
At the same time, fiscal stimulus putting money in people’s pockets for spending to create economic growth has been and continues to be lacking — because of bipartisan indifference to public health and welfare.
Focus in Washington is on markets, investors, corporate profits, and transferring wealth from ordinary people to business and high-net worth individuals while protracted main street depression conditions go unaddressed.
Since the neoliberal 90s, poverty, unemployment, underemployment, homelessness, food insecurity, hunger, overall deprivation, and human suffering have been growth industries.
Countless trillions of dollars are spent on militarism, endless imperial wars, the Pentagon’s global empire of bases, and corporate handouts to Wall Street and other business favorites.
At the same time, popular needs increasingly go begging, social justice on the chopping block for elimination.
The world’s richest country USA was thirdworldized to benefit privileged interests exclusively at the expense of beneficial social change — control maintained by police state harshness.
Monetary policy by Wall Street’s owned and controlled Fed produced earlier systemic crises, perhaps economic collapse ahead after decades of unprecedented mismanagement and excess.
The late Bob Chapman, founder and editor of the International Forecaster, predicted an eventual economic train wreck, only its timing, depth and duration unknown, saying:
“Untenable political and financial decisions put US and European economies on a collision course with disaster.”
“Bailouts and market manipulation delay(ed) the inevitable.” A tipping point approaches. Unprecedented debt accumulated is “unrepayable.”
“How can anyone have confidence in a broken system? Unsustainable is the operative word.”
Republicans and undemocratic Dems serve monied interests exclusively at the expense of world peace, equity, justice, and times like now when vital federal aid to public health and welfare are needed.
In December 1963, weeks after JFK’s state-sponsored assassination, Malcolm X delivered what’s called his chickens coming home address, saying:
Chattel and now wage “enslavement of millions of Black people in…White America” brings the nation closer to its “hour of judgment, (its) downfall as a respected nation,” adding:
“(E)ven those Americans who are blinded by childlike patriotism can see that it is only a matter of time before White America too will be utterly destroyed by her own sins, and all traces of her former glory will be removed from this planet forever (because it) refuses to study, reflect…learn from history” and change its destructive policies.
Malcolm warned that sooner or later chickens would come home to roost.
While only hindsight will explain what’s unknown at the present time, excesses can’t go on forever and won’t.
--MORE--"
Some are thinking that they needed a "deflated" market and are using this "crisis" to get it down to where they feel comfortable and then pull all this away. I'm not so sure.
Here are your up-to-the-minute updates on the pre$$-driven panic as the Great Cull has begun.
Also see:
Plague bombs
Kushner helped set it off.
Is the Global Pandemic a Product of the Elite’s Malthusian Agenda and U.S. Biowarfare?
The short answer is YES!
Meanwhile, way down the page was this:
Biden and Sanders agree on Trump’s coronavirus failings, clash sharply on their own policies in Democratic debate
I forgot all about it, and what does it really matter anyway? Who gives a damn about politics anymore? Slaves to money and their corporate masters, each and every one of them.
The Globe's scorecard:
"It will be forever known as the coronavirus debate. That’s if anyone remembers this debate. Less than two weeks ago, the idea of a one-on-one moment between Senator Bernie Sanders and former vice president Joe Biden was interesting, but in the two weeks since, the nation has been consumed with the coronavirus, which has massively disrupted American life. Also, since Super Tuesday, Biden has grown his lead, becoming the near presumptive Democratic nominee. This debate was no longer must-see TV. There was news: Biden committed to picking a woman as a running mate, but if someone missed it, they could catch it in a headline the next day. Biden just needed to do no harm and coast for two hours, hoping no one paid attention on his way to being the Democratic nominee for president. So if no one watched the debate, it is good for Biden. If people did watch but were bored by the debate, that is good for Biden. Even if Sanders somehow “won” the debate but not in a game-changing way, then it was good for Biden. With that mind, it would have been hard for Biden not to have a good night, and in the end, he did have a good night. Biden, meanwhile, looked presidential. He used the Ebola epidemic to show he acted in a similar situation and has relevant experience. He showed he had a plan. Sanders, as expected, took the coronavirus moment and used it to argue that his Medicare for All plan is needed now. Biden came ready and responded by pointing out that Italy, now a center of the pandemic, has a single-payer system. Sanders didn’t meet the moment. Instead, he delivered the same lines that he did in his first debate, so many months ago. To be clear, this could have been a great debate for Sanders. He could have talked directly to workers in the travel, restaurant, and other industries that are hardest hit, workers who may be about to lose their jobs. He could have spoken directly to seniors who are the most vulnerable to coronavirus. He could have spoken to parents trying to calm their children — and their own nerves, but, instead, he debated the issue on a policy, not a personal level. He never really explained his argument that this epidemic exposes vulnerabilities in the health care system. As it happens, it’s the Sanders campaign that is on life support and it is up to him on how he wants to end this....."
Yeah, the "next round of states votes on Tuesday and he is expected to lose all of them badly."
That's tomorrow, and they are actually going to hold a vote amidst this?
Beyond that, I'm sick of the elitists insults of the Globe's political guru, a 20-something puke I say on TV.
Now the Globe is saying grandparents won’t listen to their kids’ coronavirus lectures, that they are lying about going to the grocery store and pretending they weren’t playing bridge as the original helicopter parents won’t be grounded. They are now "Boomer Teenagers or Disobedient Parents or Senior Delinquents, and one thing is clear: many are proving ungovernable."
The article was written by one of the worst Globe writers there is (imho), and during this crisis she has brought you such things as the mask is on and don't happy, be worry (be afraid of your own children, folks).
