"His hope, Baker said, is that people follow the “culture of wearing masks.”
He said that, in of all places, Salem, Massachusetts.
"Charlie Baker glad Trump is recovering but chides him, too" by Matt Stout and Travis Andersen Globe Staff, October 6, 2020
Governor Charlie Baker on Tuesday said he was glad President Trump and Melania Trump appeared to be on the mend following their COVID-19 diagnoses, but the Republican governor rapped the commander-in-chief for ignoring the advice of health professionals.
"I’m glad the president and first lady seem to be recovering from their episode of COVID,” Baker said during a press briefing in Salem, where the governor and other officials touted a grant program for improving streets and sidewalks to support outdoor dining and recreation amid the pandemic.
Baker added: “I think it’s incredibly irresponsible for the president or any other public official to ignore the advice of the public health . . . community."
Time to toss him the harbor, and we are so f**ked in this state if other authorities do not rise to counter his evil.
It is called the “Great Barrington Declaration” by Harvard University professor Dr. Martin Kulldorff, Oxford University epidemiologist Dr. Sunetra Gupta, and Stanford University physician and epidemiologist Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, and the Globe ignored nearly 3,200 medical and public health scientists, nearly 4,800 medical practitioners, and over 73,100 others, of course.
How irresponsible of them and Baker!
Trump returned to the White House on Monday night after leaving Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, telling a country where more than 210,000 people have died from COVID-19, “don’t be afraid of it.” The message immediately alarmed infectious disease experts and came as the virus spread even further through the top levels of government, infecting White House aides and prompting top military leaders to go into quarantine.
I don't know if that is even him living in that house, and thank God the virus only has a death rate of 0.001 percent or some such number for most.
Trump also compared the virus to the flu in social media posts Tuesday, prompting Facebook to remove the post and Twitter to add a warning because it violated the platform’s rules for “spreading misleading and potentially harmful information.”
When the President of the United States can be censored (and his campaign spied upon) for speaking truth, none of us are safe.
Baker said Tuesday that he thinks everyone in public life, including Trump, must “carry the message” that safeguards, such as face coverings, are important.
“His own CDC says you should wear a mask,” Baker said. “There are 200,000 people who died from this thing, and many others who didn’t die because they were saved by the health care system. It is a brutal, vicious disease for those it negatively impacts, and it is horribly contagious to begin with. Those are the facts.”
His CDC has also said the exact opposite, and Baker ignores the science saying the masks are not only useless but harmful along with the dwindling death rate of the "horribly contagious disease" as he reads directly from the WEF script!
It's f**king weird. I live in the midst of unholy evil and threat, and yet I feel strangely exhilarated. No longer afraid. Full of hope and love for life. I can't explain it. I dread the future, yet I do not no matter what may come. Humanity WILL ENDURE for all tyrannies self-destruct and devour themselves with an assistance from the karmic hand of Our Lord.
I may not see you in this life, but I will see you in the next one!
In Massachusetts, the number of COVID-19 cases has continued to climb, prompting some epidemiologists to urge caution even as Baker moves the state deeper into its reopening plan.
There is no context there, and I do think reopening is trap to declare more hot spots until the entire state is tested with their flawed and faulty tests that don't detect COVID-19.
The number of hospitalized coronavirus patients is steadily increasing across Massachusetts, rising 41 percent since late August, the Globe has reported, and while the seven-day average of positive tests per total tests administered was at 1.1 percent on Monday, a different metric — daily positive tests per people tested — had reached 5.4 percent.
I'm sorry, those are the same lies we were told back in March to flatten the curve and save our health $y$tem.
Fool us once, shame on you, fool us twice, shame on us nor will we be fooled by a deliberate release of a deadly and far more fatal bioweapon they have held in their back pocket.
They can release, but we will instinctively know where it came from.
Baker said a spike in cases was long expected during the fall, and voiced confidence in the state’s testing program, suggesting that by one metric it was the best in the country. He said Massachusetts is among 10 states testing at or above the “federally recommended per capita test guidelines," and that Massachusetts is “No. 1 among those 10.”
They ran enough propaganda over the summer in their pre-programming agenda-pushing anyway.
A Baker spokesman later said the administration tracks the metric by calculating the 14-day average of total tests per 100,000 people, and compares it to other state data from COVIDTracking.com. Johns Hopkins University, which uses the same data, ranked Massachusetts fourth in a state-by-state comparison of testing totals on Tuesday.
“We are testing aggressively because we want to identify cases,” Baker said.
This f**ker IS goddamn evil.
Speaking in Salem, an epicenter of Halloween celebration in the state and country, Baker recommended an “outdoors” celebration on Halloween night, with residents putting candy on their front porches and wearing masks and gloves if they pass out candy face-to-face, but Baker said he’s resistant to order a widespread cancellation of activities, fearing it could prompt people to opt for even riskier celebrations if organized trick-or-treating is barred in all Massachusetts communities.
“The reason we’re not canceling Halloween is because that would have turned into thousands of indoor Halloween parties,” Baker said, adding that he prefers to leave it to local communities to manage what they feel is best.
I hate to say this, but he doesn't want to cancel because it is a Pagan holiday that ostensibly was to protect the harvest from evil spirits but has been warped to celebrate evil while LITERALLY dressing it up in costume -- including hiding behind masks -- and LITERALLY coating it in sugar to entice children.
I don't want to overdo it, and I have such found memories of getting my pumpkin pail filled with goodies from the neighborhood that it brings a tear to my eye reminiscing about it. Americans are such good people, but we are under a demonic boot right now and the entire world is upside down.
Baker also said it would be virtually impossible to turn people away from cities like Salem, which city officials say typically draws 500,000 visitors during October.
The governor praised officials for posting signage requiring masks and creating a “mask ambassador” program that Mayor Kim Driscoll said has helped her city achieve 95 percent compliance with mask orders. His hope, Baker said, is that people follow the “culture of wearing masks” the city has cultivated.
“There’s no question: There will be people in Salem in October. It’s like the swallows going home to Capistrano or wherever it is they go. It’s just going to happen,” Baker said.....
Maybe, but the least we can do is dump your f**king a$$!
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"To trick-or-treat or not? Cities and towns across Mass. grapple with the Halloween question" by Emily Sweeney and Breanne Kovatch Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent, October 7, 2020
Halloween will be unusually weird this year.
Across the state, costume parties, parades, haunted houses, and other October festivities have been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, and parents are scrambling to figure out how to celebrate the holiday safely. Meanwhile, cities and towns are wrestling with a scary proposition: whether to call off treat-or-treating entirely.
On Monday the town of Leicester announced that trick-or-treating would not be happening this year.
“Due to COVID-19, trick or treating in the Town of Leicester has been cancelled,” officials wrote on Facebook. “We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.”
The town joined a handful of other municipalities — including Worcester and Springfield — that are prohibiting trick-or-treating in an effort to prevent further spread of the virus.
Chicopee Mayor John L. Vieau has been urging residents to find other ways to celebrate Halloween.
“Trick-or-treating door-to-door is just not safe,” Vieau said in a statement posted on the city’s website. “There is too much potential for community spread. Participation in traditional Halloween activities should be avoided. I feel our residents can come up with some pretty creative options that would be both safe and fun.”
On the other hand, if you want to spill out onto the street for a massive, city-sacking $ocial ju$tu$ protest, feel free.
These guys are like Dean Wormer in Animal House. NO MORE FUN OF ANY KIND!
The town of Brookline is also discouraging trick-or-treating, and will not be approving any street closures or block parties this year.
“Door to door trick-or-treating is contradictory to the efforts we’ve all made throughout this pandemic, so I want to encourage everyone to consider safer alternatives,” Brookline Public Health Commissioner Swannie Jett said in a statement. “We have done tremendous work as a community to keep our overall COVID-19 risk low to this point, and we want to ensure we’re doing everything we can by taking reasonable precautions while still celebrating Halloween.”
No sense buying any candy to pass out this year, and besides, the next paragraph makes me lose my appetite.
Governor Charlie Baker said the state would not be canceling Halloween, but people need to avoid large gatherings and continue to adhere to social distancing guidelines and other public health protocols.
“The reason we’re not canceling Halloween is because that would have turned into thousands of indoor Halloween parties, which would have been a heck of a lot worse for public safety and for the spread of the virus than outdoor, organized, and supervised trick-or-treating," Baker said at a press conference Tuesday in Salem.
Salem has canceled most of its Haunted Happenings celebration and has implemented strict safety and social distancing measures to avoid large crowds that flocked to the North Shore city last weekend.
Baker said trick-or-treaters should only go out in small groups and everyone must wear masks. People who want to give out candy should also wear masks and gloves and limit their contact with trick-or-treaters by laying out little bags of candy or individually wrapped ones on a cookie sheet, he said.
Then throw the sheet in his face!
What a jerk!
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health also advises that people carry hand sanitizer and use it often “especially after coming into contact with frequently touched surfaces and before eating candy.”
They "authorities" are scarier than any spirit, ghost, or witch!
The department offered several safety tips on Wednesday for anyone celebrating Halloween.
Instead of traditional trick-or-treating, people should leave treats outside on a platter for trick-or-treaters to take, along with hand sanitizer, health officials said. People can also decorate their yards in a way that allows people to enjoy from a car or on a socially distanced walk.
Rather than meet in person, health officials suggest holding virtual costume contests and pumpkin carving events.
Why even f**king bother then?
Crowded indoor costume parties should be avoided. People should also not go to indoor haunted houses or haunted houses where people may be crowded together and screaming, as well as going on hayrides or tractor rides with people not in their households.
In Northampton, local officials are recommending that residents position a table between themselves and trick-or-treaters and use duct tape to mark 6-foot lines in front of their homes to ensure youngsters are keeping safe distance from each other.
Then tape your home shut to stay safe from anthrax, remember that?
These f**kers are insufferable!
Worcester officials are asking residents not to do traditional door-to-door trick-or-treating and instead find a more viable and safe option due to the city’s high-risk status for COVID-19.
Worcester officials plan on sharing ideas on how to celebrate the holiday over the next few weeks, he said, to help “make sure we’re maintaining the safety that I know we all want for young people.”
Nothing more important to do, huh, you f**king commissars!
In Quincy, trick-or-treating is running the same as it has in the past, according to Christopher Walker, the mayor’s chief of staff.
“Quincy does not regulate trick-or-treating and never has, so we’re not canceling Halloween,” Walker said in a telephone interview Wednesday, adding that Quincy has never had time restrictions for trick-or-treating as other communities typically do.
Residents are encouraged to make decisions they’re comfortable with, Walker said, and to make their own calls, “and if they’re not comfortable going door-to-door, that’s fine too,” he said.
Once again, a RAY of LIGHT from ABOVE!
While Wellesley isn’t making any plans to cancel trick-or-treating this year, town officials are trying to remind residents to actively follow CDC and state Health Department guidelines for whichever they choose.
“We feel like trick-or-treating is really a family or parent decision, not really a town government one, so we are reminding parents to remain aware of the gatherings order and mask order, as well as making sure their children are wearing both a COVID-19 mask along with their costume mask,” said Stephanie Hawkinson, communications and project manager for the Town of Wellesley.
Awwww, what are you doing to the kids?!
Not only are they suffocating the joyful spirit of the event, they are LITERALLY SUFFOCATING the KIDS!
HOW EVIL!
Hawkinson said the town is also trying to offer alternatives, such as a Halloween version of their summer movie series, where a movie is played on a 40-foot screen, and mapping out a Halloween house decorating contest so families can go and visit the spooky haunts.
I can't watch the scary Halloween movies anymore, but I do like sit-com Halloweens.
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The Globe tells you how to have a safer Halloween and trick-or-treat, pandemic-style, because we shouldn’t strip kids of normalcy.
If you get sick from the candy, don't go to the hospital:
"Coronavirus cluster at Attleboro hospital on heels of outbreak at Brigham and Women’s illustrates continuing challenges" by Kay Lazar Globe Staff, October 6, 2020
Officials at Sturdy Memorial Hospital in Attleboro say a cluster of COVID-19 cases there has expanded to at least four patients and 10 employees in the past week, while Brigham and Women’s Hospital now counts at least 52 patients and employees linked to its September outbreak, illustrating the continuing challenges of containing an aggressive virus as infections rise statewide.
Crock of $hit script, but avoid the hospitals at all costs anyway.
On Sept. 29, Sturdy closed its Balfour surgical wing, where the cluster is believed to have originated, to new patients, and has prohibited visitors to the entire hospital until further notice. So far, all patients and employees who have tested positive are linked to the Balfour wing, said Dr. Brian Patel, the hospital’s chief of emergency services.
Better avoid B&W hospitals.
“We have tested several hundred employees to be on the safe side and are trying to do everything we can to contain further transmission,” Patel said. “It’s still not clear to our infection control people who are investigating [the source of the outbreak] to try to determine the exact cause.”
They would never lie, of cour$e.
The Sturdy outbreak follows September clusters at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Plymouth, New England Baptist Hospital, and at Brigham and Women’s, which in a posting on its website Monday said that 39 employees and 13 patients have tested positive. The hospital said there has not been a new patient infection related to the cluster since Sept. 30, but that testing is ongoing.
“We expect that as we continue to test, we will continue to identify a handful of positive employees,” the posting said. “To this point, the overall prevalence rate of our non-cluster community is less than 0.1 percent, a fraction of the city and state rates.”
Oh, their rate on the front lines is even more minuscule than the general infection rate, and did I ever catch of whiff of BS!
The rising rate of positive cases across the state in recent weeks is likely fueling hospital clusters, said Dr. Shira Doron, an infectious disease physician and hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center. Tufts contended with a cluster of its own during the spring surge.
“As soon as the state’s stay-at-home order was enacted [in the spring] our employee infections dropped dramatically, while we were still seeing a rise in patient caseloads,” Doron said. “What I think we are seeing now is the manifestation of rising community transmission because hospital employees are members of the community and they are becoming infected in the community.”
They just said the transmission rate in hospitals was incredibly low!
Recent hospital cluster investigations have indicated that inconsistent use of personal protective equipment by staff, and lack of physical distancing while staff eat in cramped break rooms unmasked, partially contributed to the outbreaks.
Oh, the heroes irresponsibly put themselves at risk like Trump, okay.
Hospital leaders across Massachusetts have said they are searching for larger break rooms for employees, converting unused conference rooms and offices, and stepping up reminders about masks and protective gear. Doron said another common problem has been the hospital culture of working while sick, especially per diem workers who don’t get paid if they are out, “and for doctors, there is no redundancy in the system,” Doron said. “There is nobody to ask to bail you out when you are sick. That hasn’t been solved, and that has to be solved in this pandemic."
Then why did the health indu$try lay off tens of thousands of workers during the plannedemic?
Now in the eighth month of the pandemic, staying vigilant can be exhausting. Patel said he e-mails infection control updates and walks around his hospital in Attleboro several times weekly with reminders to workers.
“We appreciate all the hard work they’re putting into this,” Patel said. “This is a marathon, and it’s something we have to continue to keep on top of.”
It's a marathon due to be completed in 2025!
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They will keep testing you at home:
"Brigham, Broad Institute team to test 10,000 people in at-home coronavirus study called TestBoston" by Travis Andersen and Emily Sweeney Globe Staff, October 6, 2020
Brigham and Women’s Hospital is teaming up with the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard to launch a large-scale research study that will facilitate at-home COVID-19 testing for 10,000 people in the region.
Called TestBoston, the initiative will test people for the coronavirus and for antibodies against the disease, the organizations said in a statement Tuesday. It will provide information on the prevalence of the virus in the area and could offer an early warning sign of a surge of new cases in the fall and winter.
TTOAL BS!
The flawed and fault false positive testing procedures will produce information of any past virus, including the common cold, and will designate 90% or more as positive when they are non-infectious.
This is massive scam, and you can see the diabolical interest involved with an assist from the pre$$.
The study will involve a representative group of 10,000 Brigham patients consistent with the demographics in Greater Boston.
Over the course of six months, study participants will get monthly at-home kits for viral and antibody testing. They’ll also complete routine surveys and can seek additional testing if they develop symptoms, officials said.
It is the KITS that will INFECT THEM!
Ongoing study results could reveal warning signs about how COVID-19 cases are changing in the Boston area. It will also help clinicians learn more about whether contracting the virus protects someone from future reinfection, according to the statement.
Of course you have immunity going forward, and it exposes their oft-cited experts as damnable liars!
TestBoston will be led by Dr. Ann Woolley and Dr. Lisa Cosimi, infectious disease physicians at Brigham and Women’s, and Dr. Deborah Hung, a codirector of the Infectious Disease and Microbiome Program of the Broad Institute and an infectious disease and critical care physician at the Brigham.
“With ongoing limits on testing availability, we still face serious challenges to our understanding of how many people in Massachusetts have been infected and to our ability to detect new outbreaks, which is made all the more challenging because we know that asymptomatic people can transmit this virus to others,” Woolley said in the statement.
Out of deference to their gender, (expletives deleted).
In that vein, Lawrence Mayor Daniel Rivera on Tuesday unveiled a new mobile health unit for coronavirus testing and warned residents to remain vigilant about wearing masks and avoiding large gatherings.
“We’re here because we’re still having problems with COVID in our community,” Rivera said at a press conference. “Because people are still having parties in their homes and celebrations without wearing masks and social distancing. We have to stop that. People are still traveling outside of the city, outside of the country, and not quarantining when they come home and not getting tested when they come home, or ignoring the test results and still going to work."
All these tin-pot local tyrants like him are f**king criminals.
As of Monday, 143 people had died from COVID-19 in Lawrence. Nearly 5,000 residents have tested positive for coronavirus, Rivera said.
Can you do the math there?
A 2% death rate!
Seal it off and nuke the place!
The new $255,000 mobile health unit will be run by Lawrence General Hospital and offer free COVID-19 testing throughout the city.
They are not free, taxpayers had to pay for them, and AVOID the tests at all costs!
“Because we know the more people that we get tested, the more people get help, the better it is for the community at large,” Rivera said. “So, if you see the mobile health unit rolling through your neighborhood, follow it, go get tested. It is easy and it’s free.”
What a DEMON SPAWN is HE, huh?
You can take your guilt-trip communism and stick it, mayor!
This is the third testing vehicle used to screen for COVID-19 in Lawrence, city officials said.
Deborah Wilson, president and chief executive of Lawrence General Hospital, said the testing unit is “a very important part of stopping the spread of COVID-19.”
“It was only a short six months ago where 70 percent of the beds at Lawrence General Hospital were being used to take care of very, very sick patients afflicted with the COVID-19 virus," she said. "We’ve seen the swift and serious impact of this virus, and we need to do everything we can to stop it.”
--more--"
What's the protocol?
"As Mass. COVID-19 metrics rise, state officials avoid defining how bad is too bad" by Dasia Moore Globe Staff, October 6, 2020
The numbers are clear: COVID-19 hospitalizations, daily case counts, and the percentage of people testing positive are all higher in Massachusetts now than they were a month ago. Less clear is what will happen next.
We all know what is coming: second lockdown after the election, and a much harsher one this time.
Even with statistics that track the pandemic’s spread on the rise, the state continues to move forward with reopening plans, and public health officials have not clearly explained what would signal the beginning of an unmanageable new wave of COVID-19, but Massachusetts is already failing to meet the standards it has set for other states when determining whether they are low risk, and some medical and public health officials say they are concerned that current metrics will only worsen as reopening continues, cold weather and flu season approach, and public patience for prevention wanes.
Do you know how sick I am of their Chicken Little $hit?
On Tuesday, the Department of Public Health reported 21 new hospitalizations and 454 new cases, marking the 14th consecutive day that reported cases have exceeded 300. Though daily counts have fluctuated, on average, cases are rising steadily.
Across the whole state?
The state’s seven-day average for new cases per 100,000 residents on Oct. 4 was 8.20, meaning Massachusetts does not meet the criteria it uses to set interstate travel restrictions. Other states must have both a rate of positive tests below 5 percent and daily cases per 100,000 residents below 6, both averaged across seven days, for travelers from those states to visit Massachusetts without quarantining or testing negative.
We get all these numbers thrown at us, and then other articles say the state has not been transparent at all about the statistics.
Massachusetts last met the second standard on Sept. 24, and the state appears dangerously close to falling behind on test positivity. DPH reported that the percentage of tested individuals who were positive for COVID-19 on Oct. 4 was 4.4 percent — nearly five times a low of 0.9 percent from just over a month ago.
Of course, the alleged virus contains a 99.99% survival rate.
Case tallies and positive test rate metrics have in the past two weeks reached their highest levels since at least June, when the state was still on the descent from April’s harrowing peaks. Over the summer, the metrics had mostly stabilized, making current increases an anomaly that several experts called concerning.
They were just jerking your chain and torturing you over summer.
Governor Baker’s multiphase reopening plan, released in May, allowed for the possibility that the state would pause or revert to an earlier lockdown phase if necessary, but officials have avoided outlining specific thresholds that would prompt such a reversal.
On Tuesday, Baker attributed the upward trends to increased testing and the onset of autumn. “We expected and anticipated that there would be an increase in the fall," he said in Salem. Baker also reaffirmed the state’s goal of keeping the rate of positive tests below 5 percent — the only concrete statistic tied to reopening so far disclosed publicly, but Baker clarified that he meant for that standard to apply to a different measure of the state’s two positivity metrics — one that includes tests repeated, sometimes again and again, on the same people.
Find a positive, test them again and again?
That will keep the RATE UP and SKEW the STATISTICS, won't it?
“When you get to a point where fully a third of your population has been tested at least once, and you’ve done 4½ million tests overall, which means a whole bunch of people have been tested more than once . . . those people absolutely belong in the denominator,” Baker said.
What is he babbling?
Public health experts have disagreed, saying a positivity rate that measures individual people, not tests, better reflects the reality of community spread, and with Massachusetts regularly performing as many as 70,000 tests per day — the vast majority of which are repeat tests on people required to be tested again and again for things like work or college — the state would not reach 5 percent positivity until as many as 3,500 new cases were being reported daily. Such a figure would have been staggering even in April.
This is the same guy who said it was irresponsible not to listen to the experts, right?
Don't get me wrong, they shouldn't be listened to, but the point is his hypocrisy.
This is not the first time that concerns over rising pandemic indicators have increased pressure on the governor to say how much COVID-19 is too much COVID-19. In August, a number of prominent doctors and epidemiologists called for Baker to roll back his reopening plan — then at the start of Phase 3 — following a moderate increase in case numbers and positivity rates.
At that time, Baker avoided returning to an earlier phase but did impose new restrictions on crowd gathering size in the days that followed. The uptick then did not translate into an overwhelming surge of cases or hospitalizations, and spikes leveled out in a matter of weeks, but experts said early August’s relatively short-lived spike does not ease their concerns about current metrics.
“This really is quite a different time for a couple of reasons," said Dr. David Rosman, president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, who was a vocal proponent of reversing reopening in August. “We’re seeing more than a doubling of what already had us concerned back then.” Case counts in the first week of August remained just below 300 on average. Average test positivity, which the state still measured based on tested individuals rather than total tests, barely exceeded 2 percent.
Rosman also cited cooler weather, which will draw more people into higher-risk indoor settings, and flu season, which increases burdens on hospitals, but Rosman is no longer an advocate for reversing reopening plans.
“I appreciate the way the governor has been very data-driven in the way that he has approached this . . . so ultimately, those decisions are up to the governor," he said.
No one challenges that guy. He must head of the coven.
Others called on Baker to roll back some potentially hazardous reopening decisions. Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, urged the governor to consider restricting some indoor venues in light of current trends and in anticipation of wintertime increases. “What we’re seeing across the country is as people have let their foot off the brakes, then cases have started climbing," he said.
These guys would have us on the edge of our seats while gripping them forever.
F**k that!
Experts noted that the concerning trends do not necessarily mean the state should return to the all-encompassing shutdown measures it issued in the spring.
“It’s a blunt [instrument] because we can’t really say everything is shut down for two weeks,” said Dr. Natalia Linos, executive director of the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University. Relying on broad shutdowns ignores that even under the strictest orders, some people still have to go to work, a fact Linos said means lockdowns “exacerbate existing inequalities” for Black and brown communities disproportionately home to essential workers.
Rather than an economy-wide shutdown, Linos recommended a more targeted approach that weighed the risks of various settings. In such a calculation, reopening schools might take precedence over indoor dining or bars, she said.
“We definitely should not move forward [with reopening]. I’m not sure we need to move backwards yet," said Dr. David Hamer, an infectious disease expert at Boston University and a physician at Boston Medical Center. “If the next week shows a similar [positivity rate], we need to be concerned."
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Too cold to go to the beach now:
"Two suspected coronavirus deaths over three-day period on Nantucket; health panel approves emergency order" by Travis Andersen Globe Staff, October 6, 2020
With two suspected coronavirus deaths on Nantucket in recent days, the island’s Board of Health on Tuesday approved an emergency order that bars indoor and outdoor gatherings of more than 10 people.
The board voted 4-0 for the measure, which takes effect Wednesday at noon.
“This is a global pandemic,” said Melissa Murphy, a board member who also serves on the town select board. Nantucket remains a high-risk community for COVID-19 transmission, which Murphy attributed to “social gatherings and unsafe practices.”
The move comes after officials over the weekend reported a second suspected COVID-19 death in a three-day period.
In a statement, local officials said an individual diagnosed with COVID-19 died Sunday after being transferred to “a higher level of care.” The statement didn’t indicate the victim’s age or gender.
Or anything else for that matter, like co-morbities.
Another person who tested positive for the virus died Friday, officials said.
That doesn't mean they died of COVID, and anyone who dies now is counted as COVID in this SCAM!
Some residents spoke out against the move at the health board meeting, which was held remotely.
Maggie Stewart, founder of the Nantucket event production company Stewart & Co., said “there are a number of events” scheduled for this coming weekend that would violate the order. She said clients and vendors have “jumped through many, many hoops to ensure things are as safe as possible," including some who have required that their guests be tested before events.
While members of the health board expressed sympathy, they defended the order as necessary to protect public health. Roberto Santamaria, the town’s health and human services director, said more than 60 percent of the island’s positive cases have been reported since Sept. 6.
Time to SUE!
The emergency order also requires that residents and visitors wear face coverings in any place open to the public; that businesses post signs on their front entrances advising customers that they must wear masks inside; that workers on job sites wear face coverings; and that people in any vehicle with a commercial plate or business logo carrying four adults or more wear masks during the trip.
Nantucket has had issues with the virus before. In late July, town officials voted that establishments must close at midnight, with an 11:30 p.m. last call for alcohol. The order did not apply to restaurants that don’t serve alcohol.
The decision was made after many island visitors were seen leaving restaurants inebriated after closing, often without masks or in close proximity.
“It’s mostly at night that we’re seeing the problems,” Roberto Santamaria, the town’s health and human services director, said at the time.
According to the state’s most recent weekly public health report, Nantucket as of Sept. 30 remained in the high-risk category for coronavirus transmission, with 18.9 cases per 100,000 people in the previous two weeks. Communities that have more than eight cases per 100,000 are designated high risk.
Eight cases per 100,00 people is high risk?
We are all being hoodwinked!
Nantucket Cottage Hospital, the island’s lone hospital, reported that as of Monday evening it had recorded 149 positive tests since mid-March. Gary Shaw, president and CEO of the hospital, said in a statement Friday there had been 38 new cases on the island in the past week, with a seven-day positive test rate of 6.5 percent.
“To underscore the seriousness of this situation, I will share with you that one of our inpatients who tested positive for COVID-19 was transferred by Medflight helicopter to a higher level of care due to the severity of the illness this person was experiencing,” Shaw said. “This is the third COVID-positive patient who has needed to be transferred by Medflight in the past week.”
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The photo reminds me of all the mask trash I have seen littering the streets of my town!
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
"Massachusetts could face a $5 billion budget hole; Baker administration takes tax hikes off the table for now" by Matt Stout Globe Staff, October 7, 2020
With the prospects for a federal stimulus package in flux, Massachusetts’ financial picture is likely to crumble in the months ahead, state officials and outside economists warned Wednesday, projecting that tax revenues this year could dive anywhere from nearly $3 billion to $5 billion below expectations amid the pandemic.
The sobering estimates, detailed in an hourslong economic hearing at the State House, raised the potential that painful budget cuts may be unavoidable as the state struggles under the economic constraints brought on by the novel coronavirus.
Those constraints were brought on by the tyrannical and evil governor, not the mythical COVID virus.
Michael J. Heffernan, the state budget chief for Governor Charlie Baker, told reporters after the hearing that he doesn’t envision having to raise taxes to close any holes in the state’s still-outstanding budget plan. Baker, a Republican, has long opposed broad-based tax hikes, and more recently, opposed a House-passed proposal to raise the gas tax, but he’s signed tax and fee increases into law since taking office in 2015.
The obese mob$ter is like a pig at the trough (with all due apologies to pigs) and is one of Ma$$achu$etts' untouchables, and if Baker thinks he wins us back over by holding the line on taxes he is deluded. No one cares about low taxes when they aren't working, and will be looking for someone's hide to take it out of.
Along with raising taxes to pull more revenue into its coffers, the state could also lean on a $3.5 billion savings account, known as the Rainy Day Fund, or slash spending in certain areas, but three months into the fiscal year, state leaders have yet to craft an annualized budget, instead relying on a series of temporary measures, including a $16.5 billion spending plan that’s slated to expire at month’s end. Legislative leaders have not said whether they’ll propose and pass a complete budget by then.
They are “certainly going to take a balanced approach,” and they won't be touching the Rainy Day Fund lest the bankers get angry.
A dark picture awaits them whenever they do, officials and economists said.
Bottom line, they "don't have any money."
The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a business-backed watchdog, is expecting a drop in revenue of $3.9 billion compared to initial estimates, according to its president, Eileen McAnneny. Others projected a more positive picture, though they included little good news for this year. Tufts University’s Center for State Policy Analysis, for example, estimated revenues to drop $1.6 billion.
State tax receipts are currently running slightly ahead of last year’s pace one-quarter into the fiscal year, and the fiscal year that ended in June saw a relatively smaller shortfall of $693 million, but several of those testifying Wednesday warned the surprising positive returns will likely not continue, particularly as various forms of federal aid and taxable unemployment insurance dry up.
“Most of this improvement is temporary,” McAnneny said.
Shaping these various pressures is what economists described as an “unprecedented” amount of uncertainty, particularly with the scope and scale of COVID-19′s continued spread.
Michael Goodman, a University of Massachusetts Dartmouth economist, warned that should coronavirus infections spike enough to force Baker to pull back on reopening, Massachusetts could again slide back toward the “brutal” economic experience of the spring and summer, when the state had the highest unemployment rate in the country.
Advocates have also warned about a potential coming wave of evictions, further complicating people’s individual economic prospects, and economists say the state’s employment picture could take years to stabilize to pre-COVID levels.
The World Bank document says the Great Re$et will be completed by March 31, 2025.
“There’s a budgetary crisis happening,” said Marie-Frances Rivera, president of the left-leaning Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center.
To plug any holes, the state can turn to its $3.5 billion Rainy Day Fund, but how the state draws down from the reserves can also impact its ratings with bond agencies, which help shape the state’s ability to borrow money at a lower cost.
That's why they won't touch it.
State Treasurer Deborah B. Goldberg said during Wednesday’s hearing that rating agencies want to see states pair the use of savings with other measures, such as spending cuts, and that state officials should avoid using the account to cover “operational expenses that can’t be replicated” should the fund dry up.
“Clearly, we’re in a rainy day,” said Goldberg, a Brookline Democrat, “however, we do not know how long that rainy day is going to last.”
Actually, we joo.
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As they talk cuts:
"Dutch robotics company opens new US HQ in Canton, following pledge of $1.8M in state aid; Prodrive Technologies plans eventually to employ at least 150 people in the facility" by Jon Chesto Globe Staff, October 8, 2020
They LITERALLY do not plan on having any of us around by 2025, folks!
Makes it hard to take these criminals, 'er, $cienti$ts, seriously:
"Harvard epidemiologist warns of possible tough coronavirus winter ahead" by Martin Finucane Globe Staff, October 7, 2020
A Harvard epidemiologist is warning that if the United States doesn’t get the coronavirus under control now, it is headed for a “perfect and terrible storm.”
Dr. Michael Mina, an epidemiology professor and a core member of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said “massive increases” in infections are possible.
“Winter is coming,” Mina said in a series of tweets. “If we do not get this virus under control now, we are in for a perfect and terrible storm.”
“We are not taking the expected seasonality of this SEASONAL virus seriously!” he continued. The tweets included a chart from a study that suggested coronaviruses tend to thrive in the winter months.
Mina said he worried that people had drawn an incorrect lesson from the fact that SARS-CoV-2 — the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 — continued to rage through the summer: that the virus is not the kind that will strengthen in coming months.
To think that, he said, would be a “grave mistake and misinterpretation.”
“Mistaking ongoing transmission in the summer for a ‘less seasonal virus’ is not smart. All evidence points in the other direction,” Mina wrote.
“We could have been much more ready now,” he said, “but instead we are just giving the virus a major headstart at the very time when it has its guard down.”
Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist who is a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said he agreed with Mina.
“We have to prepare … for transmission to accelerate,” he said in a telephone interview. “That’s what happens every year with the four other coronaviruses.”
The other four coronaviruses?
WTF?!!!?
He said steps should be taken now to ensure adequate hospital capacity, personal protective equipment, diagnostic testing, and contact tracing in the months ahead.
This is a goddamn repeat of the March lies, dammit!
The outlook in Massachusetts is more promising, another public health official said.
Dr. Ashish Jha, who until last month headed the Harvard Global Health Institute, said Wednesday that he is concerned the state is “going in the wrong direction,” but he doesn’t expect to see numbers in the fall and winter like those of the spring.
“We would really have to screw things up very, very badly, and that’s not going to happen. The governor’s not going to let that happen,” said Jha, who is now the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.
Oh, I feel so safe and reassured now.
I'll remember that when he mandates the vaccine during the coming sons wave.
Jha cautioned, though, that the increasing prevalence of the virus makes it difficult to safely reopen schools and other public facilities. He said the coming months will likely bring many smaller, targeted local closures but nothing like the statewide shutdown of the spring.
“I think that the lesson from March and April is that the earlier you act, the less draconian you have to be and the more lives you can save. … I have never seen any locality, any area, that’s been upset because they acted too quickly,” he said.
If it were up to these guys we would stay lockdown forever.
On Wednesday, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health reported 21 new hospitalizations and 509 new cases, marking the 15th consecutive day reported cases in the state have exceeded 300.
Case tallies and positive test rate metrics have in the past two weeks reached their highest levels since at least June, when the state was still on the descent from April’s harrowing peaks.
On Tuesday, Governor Charlie Baker attributed the upward trends to increased testing and the onset of autumn.
When Trump said that he was pilloried by the pre$$.
“We expected and anticipated that there would be an increase in the fall,” he said.
In a media briefing Wednesday, Dr. Roger Shapiro, an associate professor of immunology and infectious diseases at Harvard’s Chan School, noted a worrisome trend in recent national data.
“A lot of people talk about the COVID outbreak as a wave that’s going across the country, and you’ve probably heard many people say, well, we’re still in the first wave. I think a better way of thinking about it is a wave that went into a pool," Shapiro said, “and in that pool, it’s sloshing around, and ... wherever it hasn’t been yet, it’s going to go, because it’s just like sloshing around in a wading pool, and that’s what the country essentially is doing," he said.
Something is sloshing around all right, and it smells like sewage.
"So the places where it hasn’t been, it will go. To places where it has already been, it can go back because we don’t have anything close to the herd immunity” needed for the pandemic to subside, he added.
LIAR!
We have it already and they are not telling us.
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The advertisement or whatever at the end of the piece was for the faulty and flawed COVID model assumptions that have delivered this tyranny, and the Globe experts keep repeating themselves:
"As rate of positive coronavirus tests increases in Massachusetts, some experts urge caution" by Dasia Moore Globe Staff, September 28, 2020
As COVID-19 outbreaks ravaged much of the country over the summer, Massachusetts was largely spared, but one week into fall, epidemiologists see signs that the virus is once again on the rise here, with some warning that the state should at least press pause on plans to further loosen restrictions.
We have about three weeks left.
After that, all hell breaks loose.
Statistics that track the spread of the coronavirus have shown a concerning trend in recent weeks, experts said: The 554 new cases identified on Sept. 23 were the most on a single day since May; daily new case totals surpassed 500 for three days in a row for the first time in many months; more patients are hospitalized now than at any point since mid-August, but another metric included in the state’s daily data report tracking the pandemic is even more revealing, epidemiologists said. The percentage of individuals whose tests for COVID-19 come back positive has surpassed 3 percent in recent days, more than tripling from a low of 0.9 percent a month ago.
“I have to say that I’m getting concerned about Massachusetts in a way that I have not been . . . in months,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.
The apparent uptick comes as the state continues its efforts to ease social distancing restrictions placed on residents and business owners in the spring. Several metrics give cause for concern, Jha said, but it’s the test positivity rate that he called “a yellow light . . . a cautionary light.” Infectious disease experts have said that number is particularly valuable in assessing the presence of the virus in a community, but tricky to track since it can be calculated multiple ways with vastly different results. It is one of six key indicators that the state has said it uses to guide its decision-making.
This whole f**king scam based on flawed tests that turn up false positives for non-infectious people!
The state calculates positivity rate in two ways, and in its closely watched daily COVID-19 data dashboard highlights a measure that simply divides the number of positive tests by the number of total tests administered on that day. That measure has held steady at roughly 1 percent for weeks, but a relatively recent surge in the repeated testing of asymptomatic people, such as students on college campuses, has drastically increased the overall number of negative tests each day. Removing these repeated tests from the equation shows the positivity rate has climbed since late August, reaching 3.4 percent in recent days.
They are trying to argue that the increased testing is lower the infection rate.
SIGH!
Experts said the latter calculation better reflects the scope of the pandemic in Massachusetts today.
“Both [metrics are] somewhat informative, but the individuals one is more indicative of what’s happening now, probably,” said Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiology professor at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and a member of Baker’s COVID-19 commission.
Probably?
The most precise measure of the pandemic would be the exact percentage of people in a community who are infected with COVID-19 at any given time, but because testing everyone in the state daily is not possible, public health experts use positivity rates to approximate community-wide infection rates based on the testing data that are available.
Not yet anyway.
Lipsitch explained that both methods the state uses to calculate positivity rate are mathematically sound, but including thousands of repeated negative tests of the same people can make the rate less responsive to changes in infection levels.
“From a disease transmission perspective, from a risk perspective, this calculation that they’re leading with [on the COVID-19 dashboard] is likely a substantial underestimate," said Samuel Scarpino, a Northeastern University epidemiologist. “If you have 10,000 tests a day coming from the colleges and universities who all have a very low percent positivity, then it’s very easy to end up with a biased positivity for the state."
It never ends with these criminal liars!
How positivity rates are calculated and publicized can impact decision-making by government officials as well as ordinary people, Scarpino said, especially as COVID-related restrictions continue to ease.
That makes them CRIMINALS because they hold authority!
In addition to the state’s move to loosen indoor dining guidelines, Massachusetts was also recently exempted from Maine travel restrictions. In a statement last week saying that Massachusetts residents would no longer have to test negative for COVID-19 before visiting Maine or quarantine upon arrival, Maine Governor Janet Mills congratulated Massachusetts on its progress mitigating the spread of the virus.
“If it’s essentially the case that those numbers the state is pointing out are giving the public a false sense of security and also potentially contributing to an increasingly relaxed set of measures around COVID . . . that’s an issue that needs to be addressed by the state," Scarpino said.
So does the mask but they are all in favor of that!
In a statement, the state did not directly address questions about why it chooses to highlight the lower positivity rate, and whether the uptick in the rate that does not include thousands of repeated tests is cause for concern.
“The Command Center closely monitors state and community level COVID-19 data, including for the Commonwealth’s highest risk municipalities, and continues to look for trends across multiple weeks of data to ensure a snapshot is in fact a trend," said Tory Mazzola, a spokesperson for the state’s COVID-19 command center, in an e-mail.
A subsequent message seeking elaboration was not returned.
In separate interviews Monday, Scarpino and Jha were adamant that rising positivity is a sign that the state must proceed with caution, particularly with indoor dining, where they said the governor should at least pause, if not reverse, reopening.
“If I were advising the governor, I’d be pushing really hard against reopening things further," said Jha, who until recently was the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute.
He noted that while Massachusetts’ overall positivity rate was still low compared to other states, the steady climb was worrying. “The issue is that it is rising. The higher the percent positive, the more cases you are missing out there.”
??????
“A reasonable argument would be that we should give it a couple of weeks and see how things go, but if they continue to tick up, then you’ve got to act," he said. “My general approach on this virus has been that it punishes you if you fall behind.”
I wish someone would punish him for the spew coming out his mouth.
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Related:
Mass. reports 367 new confirmed coronavirus cases, 11 new deaths
"The worldwide death toll from the coronavirus has eclipsed 1 million, nine months into a crisis that has devastated the global economy, tested world leaders' resolve, pitted science against politics and forced multitudes to change the way they live, learn and work. “It’s not just a number. It’s human beings. It’s people we love,” said Dr. Howard Markel, a professor of medical history at the University of Michigan who has advised government officials on containing pandemics and lost his 84-year-old mother to COVID-19 in February. “It’s our brothers, our sisters. It’s people we know,” he added. The bleak milestone, recorded on Monday in the U.S. by Johns Hopkins University, is greater than the population of Jerusalem or Austin, Texas. It is 2 1/2 times the sea of humanity that was at Woodstock in 1969. It is more than four times the number killed by the 2004 earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean. Even then, the figure is almost certainly a vast undercount because of inadequate or inconsistent testing and reporting and suspected concealment by some countries. Nearly 5,000 deaths are reported each day on average. Parts of Europe are getting hit by new outbreaks, and experts fear a second wave in the U.S., which accounts for about 205,000 deaths, or 1 out of 5 worldwide. That is far more than any other country, despite America’s wealth and medical resources....."
It's not anyone I know, and that is the case with most people in the world.
WTF is going on here?
"The number of hospitalized coronavirus patients is steadily increasing across Massachusetts as health care leaders dig in for what they suspect will be a long winter of illness and unease. Community transmission appears to be growing across a number of Massachusetts communities as cool weather approaches. Jackie Somerville, senior vice president and chief nursing officer for Southcoast Hospitals Group, worries that too many residents are letting their guard down after months of reminders to wear masks and socially distance. The weariness comes as schools are reopening and the weather is cooling. With more activities moved inside, the risk of infection increases. “We are definitely seeing COVID fatigue in all the communities," she said. “The good news is we haven’t seen our numbers dramatically climb upward, but there’s the worry that we have ongoing community spread and that could be a harbinger of additional cases,” said Dr. Adam Weston, an infectious disease physician. The Massachusetts Medical Society said in a recent statement that health care organizations took advantage of a COVID lull during the summer to stockpile personal protective equipment and prepare for “every scenario” the wily virus may present. “We are confident that this tireless work will put hospitals in the best possible position to move swiftly when presented with a surge of COVID patients,” the association said in a statement, "while still being able to safely maintain non-COVID services.”
The drill continues, and Governor Charlie Baker said that the state was using a targeted approach that would not allow communities still hit hard by the virus to loosen restrictions and told reporters that although “we have proven we can contain this virus and we have proven we can reopen our economy, but people need to stay vigilant,” but some say he is still rushing reopening.
To hell with him.
