So, how are all those New York stay-at-homes getting infected?
Governor Cuomo of New York has announced the following, and asks some questions I’d like answered:
With everything we’ve done – closed schools, closed businesses, everybody shelter at home, all the precautions about where a mask, where gloves, etc. – you still had 600 new cases that walked in the door yesterday,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. “Where are those new cases still coming from, because we’ve done everything we have to close down? How are you still generating 600 new cases every day?”
In trying to answer why patients keep being brought in and what their backgrounds are, a stunning finding jumped out. That shocking detail: Of all the places patients come from, like nursing homes and so on, most – 66% – were said to be social distancing at home…
“Eighty four percent were at home, literally. Were they working? No. They were retired or they were unemployed,” Cuomo said.
When you take away the percentages of those not working or retired you are left with just 17%, including essential workers in close contact with the public…
He said the finding shows the importance of following basic precautions.
That last sentence is a complete puzzlement. The finding shows no such thing. The finding shows our utter puzzlement about what’s actually going on here – or at least, what’s going on in New York City, whose metro area has half the US cases.
These statistics aren’t about cases as a whole in NY, either; they’re about hospitalized cases. They probably were skewed towards older patients, but still, how are these people getting infected if they really are staying home?
I don’t have an answer. Unless these people are using buses or the subway and hiding that fact, that means the mechanism for infection isn’t the public transit system, as so often thought. Are they seeing friends who do use those services? Family? Is it the grocery stores? Or, as some have suggested, is it something about apartment living: walking the halls, riding the elevators, picking up their mail in the lobby, or even the air circulation system?
I find these remote causes somewhat hard to believe, but they’re possible. Any better ideas out there, folks?
[NOTE: About half of these patients are either black or Hispanic. But that doesn’t really say all that much, because those two populations added together represent slightly more than half of all New Yorkers anyway.]
“So, how…?
The answer is simple(!): Cuomo’s merely telling another “tall tale” (either intentionally or because he was told this nonsense and is just passing it along without giving it too much thought—which would actually, now that you mention it, make him the PERFECT replacement for Joe Biden, or running mate, if he can come up with another x chromosome quickly enough, well maybe on Canal St….)
Meanwhile, back in another land where fantasy reigns (albeit, sober, “expert” fantasy)—the land of large mosquitos, curiously colorful movie directors, and utterly disingenuous politicians, along with perfectly annoying, autistic, media-savvy wunderkind (among others)….
https://nypost.com/2020/05/07/sweden-sees-higher-death-rate-than-us-after-refusing-lockdowns/
Ah those weaselly weasels….
https://www.newsweek.com/sweden-coronavirus-deaths-children-lockdown-1502548?utm_source=MSN&utm_medium=Feed&utm_campaign=Partnerships
Key graf:
‘Tegnell, who has been leading the country’s COVID-19 response and previously defended the nation’s decision not to impose a lockdown, this week admitted he was “not convinced” the unconventional anti-lockdown strategy was the best option to take.’
This guy and Cuomo should get together and have a chat. Invite de Blasio and make it a threesome.
I saw a report on those statistics today, too. Importantly, a huge percentage of the people surveyed did not answer whether they had used public transportation. Like you said, we also do not know whether the newly infected people were literally quarantining or whether they were still running basic errands and letting other people into their homes.
Advice to BS-Meister Andrew:
Shelter in a hermetically sealed chamber.
Continue to sling schlock via walkie-talkie.
Considering how suspect NYS’s COVID reporting/recording practices are, I’m sure a lot of the people labelled as positive aren’t really positive.
Probably not enough to account for all of the numbers but a lot. Cuomo and his stooges are really that corrupt and morally bankrupt.
“Any better ideas out there, folks?”
I used the searchy machine to look up the most densely populated cities in the U.S. I got…
Union City, N.J.: 54,138 persons/sq. mile
West New York, N.J.: 52,815 persons/sq. mile
Hoboken, N.J.: 42,484 persons/sq. mile
New York, N.Y.: 28,211 persons/sq. mile
Passaic, N.J.: 22,424 persons/sq. mile
There’s your explanation. The number of unavoidable interactions with other humans skyrockets in dense living situations. It’s like that STD thing. It’s not just your interaction with Person X but with all the people that Person X interacted with.
Mike
The infection is being spread through the A/C systems of the apartments.
Remember Legionella? It was spread through the hotel A/C systems.
Solution is to install UVC (ultraviolet C) systems in the ductwork to destroy the virus that is being carried in the air flow.
UVC is dangerous to humans as well, so it must be installed so that humans are not directly exposed to the radiance.
They caught it from younger relations in their households who are still working.
Edward, would AC systems in apartments be shared with other apartments?
On the other hand, halls and elevators and lobbies with mail boxes would be areas where everyone goes. If an infected person doesn’t wear a mask, the virus could linger. And I second the suggestion that someone in the household may have had a mild or even asymptomatic infection.
I hate to even go there, but if a virus were present and spreading within densely populated apartments that could explain such a vast difference between cases in NYC and similar surrounding areas and the rest of America in general, where high-population centers tend to be sprawls with a lot of single-family residences.
If you were being inundated with virus from the apartment HVAC the whole time you’re “staying home and staying safe” it would make the viral load you might encounter at, say, a Home Depot in San Diego look trivial.
It is simplicity itself. Multiple people living in apartments or house with only one bathroom.
I hope to goodness that somebody is working on this — doing contact tracing, checking out whether these people really were social distancing, and all that. Cuomo makes it sound like the numbers are just lying there and nobody’s following up.
It seems to me that the trouble with the apartment building HVAC theory is that, if it were true, NYC would be having many, many more new cases than this. EVERYBODY lives in an apartment building there. Nobody could avoid the virus.
Lets just run a model. Then we will know. And after we know we can redesign/rebuild all the housing in the country. If it saves one life.
The first question is: How many of these people had someone else living in with them?
Among those who don’t have someone else there, how do they get their groceries & other necessities?…delivery, or going out to get them?
And yes, the HVAC issue is an important one. As a side note on this, there is some evidence (from China) that the air coming from an HVAC outlets (in a restaurant, for example) can cause infection over a greater distance than the 6 feet usually quoted. I suspect that this effect could be reduced by ensuring more even air flow so there aren’t some outlets blasting out air while others are doing almost nothing. May be a consulting & installation opportunity for somebody there.
“The finding shows no such thing. ” – Neo
Indeed.
The comments have covered all the answers that seem to be a total mystery to the Governor.
Which is about what you expect from a guy who saw no problem coming from sending infected patients into nursing homes by government order.
When it comes to retrospective health related behaviors, people are notoriously unreliable self-reporters.
L
I
e
Lie. Like so many Dems, so often. They’re not really staying at home without contact with others who stay home – they’re going out on “essential” errands, like “I feel like going out, therefore I need to go out”. Needs are essential.
The HVAC and elevators are likely also issues — others in their apartment are going out, and the air is not well disinfected.
It’s definitely possible to transmit this virus through airborn fecal matter.
Have a problem with the u-traps in your apartment or your neighbor has problem —> you all have a problem.
Plumbing codes exist for reasons. However, weird modifications get made. Also in winter the weather is dryer and there is a good chance that the water in (say) bathroom floor drain u-trap evaporates and there is no gas lock.
See Telford Gardens case in Hong Kong during SARS when 20+ people in an apartment complex died due to this. During current Covid-19 there were a series of infections in another area of Hong Kong (Tsing Yi) caused by same issue.
There was even another case in Hong Kong of people on a high floor (~35th IIRC) getting infected because air exiting sewage pipe air vent (can’t have vacuum lock or the stuff won’t flow) on top of the building was blown over the roof and then aerodynamic effects pushed it down other side of building where it entered windows.
So apartment living without good plumbing and regular inspections + public being notified to keep adding water to floor u-traps every week is a recipe for trouble.
Additionally, it is a truth universally KNOWN but not acknowledged that different ethnic groups can have very different approaches to personal hygiene, future orientation, and swarming behaviour. We are not allowed to discuss such things, so Gnon will have His due.
Similarly there may well be genetic differences in susceptibility to infection as well as case outcomes. This will take a long time to tease out though and we peasantry will not be informed because it might make us think bad thoughts.
Ok. I don’t know the precise mechanism. But to put the question differently, why are stay at home people like the retired – despite social distancing measures – still contracting Covid19? The governor had no answer.
Another possible answer is that the viral strain in the NYC area produces more viral particles and therefore is more easily infectious.
This is the finding of a senior Chinese scientist that was reported in the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong, about two weeks ago.
As I recall, it was a extremely detailed, fine grained look at virus samples, followed by in vitro cell testing to test infectiousness. On the first part, one strain affected Italy and New York. Another came the the western US and apparently the Pacific region.
The first strain was found to produce viral particles at 270 times the rate of the other one. This, therefore poses a likely answer.
However, precisely by what mechanism of transmission does it work? Aerosol? Living longer on surfaces? What? Remains to be determined.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3080771/coronavirus-mutations-affect-deadliness-strains-chinese-study
Thanks, Zaphod. Good heavens.
I know, Neo…what the heckubah is up with that last statement by Cuomo? He said the exact opposite of what the latest data suggests. In fact, I had just been wondering in the past 2 days–where ARE all these new infections coming from? A woman I known for many years from Facebook has an 88 year old aunt in New York who is now infected. The aunt has been scrupulously locked up along with her husband; the only contact with the outside world has been a visit every week or two by their adult daughter. The daughter goes shopping with mask and gloves and then drops the food off outside their door. These are responsible, careful, paranoid people.
“The daughter goes shopping with mask and gloves and then drops the food off outside their door.”
The most likely vector is that the virus was on some food containers and they failed to wipe down with disinfectant wipes a food container(s).
I trust nothing from NYS where every death is from COVID19. But why not, more bucks from the feds for your incompetence. Time to jettison NY CN MA NJ CA OR WA. Let them go their own way. Better than a hot CW2. They forfeit all military bases.
GB,
We order lunch take out 3 times a week from our favorite sandwich shops. Never bleached the container. Guess we’re lucky to be alive. 😉
The sooner you realize you have already been infected with COVID19 the sooner you will sleep peacefully. 74 and still breathing the atmosphere and pissing water, and I will never wear a #%&* mask, so shoot me gloveless.
Supermarkets / food sources are the most likely culprit
whether you go, or have it delivered…
[and reusable bags dont help that situation either]
Oregon public health officials have traced a nasty outbreak of norovirus infections in a group of soccer players to an unlikely source: a reusable grocery bag contaminated with what some experts are calling “the perfect pathogens.”
most people do NOT wash their bags at all…
A full 97 percent of those interviewed never washed or bleached their reusable bags
and
https://www.neha.org/node/60021
Assessment of the Potential for Cross Contamination of Food Products by Reusable Shopping Bags 2013
https://publichealth.llu.edu/about/blog/dr-ryan-sinclair-reusable-shopping-bag-study
let me point out that enteric bacteria dont have many ways to get out…
their are others but their odds are not as good as markets
so i dont think i will mention them…
There’s HVAC in NYC apartments? That’s funny! Old school a/c’s still hang out the window, dripping on pedestrians below, of even the fanciest buildings. Many buildings are still heated with old steam heat radiators— because they still work. Functional stove vents? what an idea!
A bit more on the survey in the NY Post:
https://nypost.com/2020/05/06/new-york-coronavirus-survey-reveals-shocking-stats/
Esther beat me to it, but yes, a lot of NYC apartments do not have HVAC systems. In fact it would be very easy to figure out HVAC systems were the culprit, just by finding out whether most of these “at home” patients disproportionately lived in such buildings. But my guess is that these people were just not especially careful. They went food shopping, or had other interactions with people, and didn’t take precautions like hand-washing. It’s also likely that even if they were careful, they have kids who were not careful, went out with friends, and came back home and infected the household.
It’s all just as well, as NYC is probably a lot closer to herd immunity then the rest of the country. All the sheltering in place did nothing but kill the economy.
The actual number of infections is about 20 or 30 times greater than the number of people testing positive. This is a virus that is infectious, but with the same range of lethality as flu. With so many “typhoid marys” shedding viruses, the ability to escape virus contact in a dense city is low.
The amount of virus that “attacks” is important. A low dose means that your immune system may be able to fight it off. A high dose can overwhelm your system before your defenders can mobilize. In New York, the number of high dose contacts has to be huge.
This is the problem for those in rest homes. Their care givers, who need close contact, come in infected, but without symptoms. They deliver a high dose of virus unknowingly, … Facilities that try to do the right thing by limiting contact, can’t know who delivers a lethal dose of wuhan 19. Taking everyone’s temps is only security theater. “Doing” something, but not preventing infection.
Masks are another example of theater. While they help, clearly reduce the ability of the virus to travel, they do not provide total security, merely an illusion of security. At least they show we are trying to do something, and it is something. Also, if they reduce viral load it may reduce the severity of an infection.
The problem is that with a virus with the ability to infect without symptoms, it is impossible to provide perfect protection. So in a dense urban setting, there will be illness and death. This is nothing new. The universe is “trying” to kill you. It will succeed. Be not afraid. Don’t do anything stupid.
You remember back when Trump suggested he ought to ban travel from NY to other states and got shouted down?
He was right.
https://libertyunyielding.com/2020/05/07/travel-from-new-york-city-seeded-wave-of-u-s-outbreaks/
I caught a glimpse of some interesting charts before the paywall blocked everything. Anybody here actually paying to read the Times?
“It’s the subways, Jake.”
Among other things.
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/whats-going-on-with-new-york/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=most-popular&utm_term=fourth
Ouch. (Great history lesson before the punchline).
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/coronavirus-response-war-between-experience-credentials/#slide-1
Hanson’s musings at the beginning reminded me of the “news report” that was popular a couple of weeks ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVs5AyjzwRM&feature=youtu.be
The main suspect here is air circulation system. For all airborn infections modern housing in high-rise buildings is infectionist’s nightmare.
parker,
As the 88 yr old aunt did in fact get infected. some vector must be responsible. Likelihood is not certainty but given the precautions taken…
BTW, I have yet to put on a mask and @ 71, sleep just fine. If already infected, I’m asymptomatic. And when the big guy upstairs decides that it’s my time, I’m good with that. However, in this regard my philosophy is simple; When out at sea in a little boat and a big storm looms on the horizon, pray to God and… row toward shore.
Sergey… NYC apartments do not share air… so for ALL the people that seem to refuse to let this go… its not like Russia with stalins central heating for many buildings… each apartment has its own air from outside… even in the big tall buildings… they may have a central unit that transfers cold to each apt, but not sharing air…
its shopping for food, food deliveries, and exchange of money in the store (short term transfer from surface to surface)… and that is increased with the reuse of bags rather than clean sterile ones… ie. they have it at home, the bag is almost never washed. they take it fold it and all that, then come to the store.. unfold it… they walk around… put stuff in… they go to the register… in some cases a person is there who touched 10 bags in the past 15 minutes, now takes that bag in hand and helps pack things… the cash is exchanged and change given from the same bin in which the other people have put dollars and stuff into to pay their tabs.
i even put up studies that you also get norovirus, ecoli… enteral species (from shit)… people are not all that clean… and resuing shopping bags amplifies the worst of them
MOST nyc apartments have STEAM heat… ie. a steam boiler provides heat through radiators… and most get air conditioning through using a window unit..
in the big buildings they have holes in the walls where you can take the shell of the window unit off and slide it in… many of those have electric heat…
fire code does not permit linking up the apartments with common air…
ie. a fire in one location can kill many people if they are linked that way
they do share common hallways to elevators and lobbies… garbage areas, and some buildings have washing machines tenants can use (with quarters)… most do not (not like they used to)…
Many learned responses here. I was in DUMBO–which is a real thing–Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass–last summer. Looking around at the various apartment buildings, it occurred to me that a contractor who puts in window a/c units has to be certified that he won’t drop it twenty floors, and it will stay up there, too. Given that this is NYC, that’s probably not a concern of the PTB.
I wonder about self-reporting. During my annual cardiac exam, I am tempted to exaggerate a touch about my physical activities.
If I were reporting for C19, I’d be tempted to give all the “correct” answers. After all, what does it matter? I’m already sick, right?
As far as shared air in large apartment buildings (hallways, elevators, lobbies), I suppose that is where transmission can take place. It’s been up to the apartment buildings themselves to try and police this. The building I live in downtown in my city has had no issues with the virus so far, which is in part due to them shutting down all communal areas (gym, meeting spaces) and instituting mask wearing for all residents and staff while in the building back in February. Also, it helps that over half the tenants in the building are asian and have been wearing masks since mid-January.
” a contractor who puts in window a/c units has to be certified that he won’t drop it twenty floors, and it will stay up there, too. Given that this is NYC, that’s probably not a concern of the PTB.”
no contractor.. people put them in themselves and do NOT even have cones or stuff outside… we just do it… however, recently, landlords insurance required braces, and so they supplied them… i had to pull out each unit, and install a brace (or get a handyman to do it, which i never use – i do better work and my landlord loves me for it), then put the machines back…
no… we just pop them in ourselves… 😛
I can’t stand Cuomo. He is so condescending. Watching his news conference today. He feigns sympathy for those suffering under the lockdown but drags out his incessant argument that we can’t have cases surge and more people dying. Damn it man, people are dying from the lockdown too! Do those lives have no value to you? And then he says that New Yorkers have to understand that they must remain disciplined to stop the new cases/deaths and maybe after May 15th he will have an idea when we can come out. Dude – we know more people will die no matter what. Many experts say we need to get on with the process of controlled spread if we want the crisis to end. He is just prolonging it. What I can’t figure out is why this seasoned politician sees no personal political downside to continuing this policy. I think he’s just frozen, scared that having more deaths from COVID on his watch is worse than seeing his state go down the economic toilet. Oh yeah. He also made reference to other countries that relaxed their shutdowns and saw huge spikes in cases, causing them to reverse course. Is anyone aware of a country that went backwards after opening up?
Artfldgr,
A buddy of mine who retired from the NYPD two years ago nearly got hit by one of those A/C units falling in his rookie year. Closest he ever came to dying on the job. Missed him by about 18 inches.
no… we just pop them in ourselves…
Yes, I do it myself too, but the A/C units usually have a light box that you put in first, which is easy to handle. Once that is secure (screwed into the window), you slide the heavy unit into the box. The problems come when idiots don’t screw the box into the window and just rely on gravity with the frame resting against the pulled-down window. Someone decides he wants some fresh air, lifts up the window and down goes the entire A/C unit.
Gothamite:
Regarding Cuomo, my guess is that at least initially he got a lot of praise for his little briefings. For a while anyway, people were saying he should replace Biden. So he may still think the more he talks about all of this the more good it does him politically, even though that may not be the case. At any rate, I also think he just adores the spotlight, period. Still another motivator is fear. I think he hasn’t a clue why NY was so hard hit and he hasn’t a clue what to do about it, and to the left the lockdown is the only way, so he keeps it up.
You’all probably saw those engineers who looked at aerosols generated by talking and coughing and sneezing with laser light. It was astonishing to see those droplets swirling like a gas many feet in front and all around the subject. A sneeze expelled the aerosol about 15 feet.
We need to understand that we are all shedding molecules of all varieties constantly from our skin and lungs and clothes and feces and urine. Everything has a vapor pressure even tungsten and steel. I.e. the rate of evaporation of a liquid or sublimation from a solid equals the rate of deposition at a given temperature.
This virus is a solid. If there is enough kinetic energy in it owing to heat, it is going to sublime. This means it is going to become a gas. It’s probably all over the world’s troposphere right now in very minute teeny teeny quantities. One could probably find a few viral particles, called virions , in a cubic meter cold air over the South Pole. This doesn’t mean we can get infected sitting in a yacht going to Hawaii. We can’t because of the so called dose-effect. Our bodies need a little whallop to get infected with most micro-organisms…we need more than one or a few bugs to get sick. (Except for TB). Check out dose effect on google.
So, these thousands of New Yorkers who are doing everything right, sitting alone at home, who nevertheless get infected are just what you would expect because mail is being handled, packages opened, food unwrapped, hallways and elevators are being used, breezes are being wafted into faces from moving vehicles, thousands of tiny mistakes being made because we are not mindful of the world of molecules and atoms. Once in awhile we might catch on when we smell a whiff of weed wafting from a car driving just in front of us, or smell a nice perfume on someone at the Opera.
Still another motivator is fear. I think he hasn’t a clue why NY was so hard hit and he hasn’t a clue what to do about it,
But I thought he was all sciency and everything! Seriously, the NYC area numbers are so far down that the likely current scenario is herd immunity, or approaching that. It took me 5 minutes to plug those numbers into the standard SIR epidemiology model to find that it suggests 50-75 percent are now immune. That model may be wrong or simplistic, but it probably gives a pretty good rough idea of what’s going on. Cuomo isn’t interested in science, or merely fearful, he’s interested in power.
Neo: Yes, fear is a big part of the explanation. It’s just that previously I saw him as a pragmatic, retail type of politician. “Man of the people”. He fixes his own muscle cars. Etc. And now he seems transformed into a weird combination of pompous dictator and clueless naif. Do none of these Democrat governors have advisors who can give them the balanced perspective they need?
I think it’s pretty obvious many people are not staying home even if they say they are. That’s the best explanation. And all it takes is one person to infect dozens. So a large family could all stay home with one going out once a week. That one goes out, get’s the virus and comes back to infect the entire family.
Population densities higher than about 2,000 persons per square mile are catastrophically unhealthy for human bodies and minds, and people should be about as willing to live in such circumstances as they are to live in a landfill or Superfund site.
This is the latest example.
My wife and I were discussing this yesterday, and we both agreed that we’d be willing to live in New York City for a year if you paid us an absolute minimum of $1 million for that year, and all our living expenses (mortgage or rent, food, utilities) were sufficiently paid for (that is, they didn’t come out of the $1 million) so as to provide us housing and lifestyle equal to our current one.
But for $999,999.00, we wouldn’t do it, and when that year was over, we’d get the hell out of there to some more-humane kind of place.
I realize tastes vary, and I mean no offense to our hostess or anyone else who has found things to like there. And to be sure, if all the world were paved over, someday a crack would form in the pavement, and from that crack there would spring a dandelion or a daisy. Were I forced or bribed to live there, I would find a way to cope. And I’d lower the $1 million a fair bit if I had substantial family connections in the area. And my own preferred locale is not where I live today: I’m in the suburbs of Atlanta, near my parents, although I would prefer somewhere around Charlotte, Winston Salem, Raleigh, or Roanoke…if I could teleport to work, and to visit family and friends.
At any rate, I think the megalopolis model is a 19th-century, or at best an early-20th-century, model of human society: I think it has outlived its benefits while its costs have remained steady or increased. Hopefully it dissolves gradually, rather than collapsing rapidly.
A sociological, not raacist, observation: Neo says 50+% of New Yawkers are black or latino. It is well-established by now that blacks are more vulnerable to COVID illness. It is also likely that most blacks and latinos do not work on Wall St. and so do not enjoy fat incomes. They are inevitably crammed together in apt bldgs.They elected DeBlasio. They do not live on Staten Island.
As Vonnegut wrote, So it goes.
Not only is Don Surber on target. He is hilarious:
https://donsurber.blogspot.com/2020/05/killing-middle-class.html#more
Cicero:
Two facts.
Plenty of black and Hispanic people live on Staten Island, although certainly not as high a percentage as in various other boroughs. Black people and Hispanic people make up 29% of Staten Island’s population.
What’s more (and I wrote a post on this quite a while back), Staten Island has a fairly – and perhaps surprisingly – high rate of diagnosed COVID cases compared to other boroughs. Right now, Staten Island’s COVID rate is second only to the Bronx. And more than double that of Manhattan. See chart here.
Because there are no vents over the stoves in most of NYC, if anyone actually cooks the smell fills the hallways. So, if cooking smells can waft down the hallways, why not covid-19?
I live ‘Down Under’ and an American citizen. The country I now live has done exceptionally well with this pandemic. The Prime Minister has encouraged going outside, take a walk and stay in you bubble/neighbourhood. My acupuncturist told me a story about his father being a child during the 1918 flu and his father was a firm believer in fresh air and he open their homes windows. Everyone on their block had a family member who died from the flu, except his family.
There are many examples of fresh air being beneficial to health.
https://medium.com/@ra.hobday/coronavirus-and-the-sun-a-lesson-from-the-1918-influenza-pandemic-509151dc8065
Montage:
Yes the root cause of these problems is the “family.”
https://pjmedia.com/columns/paula-bolyard/2020/05/07/heres-the-lefts-end-game-feminist-theorist-wants-to-use-covid-19-to-abolish-the-family-n388685
The state knows better than you how to raise your grandchild. Don’t fret or cower in place, it will all work out for the best, trust them.
Fractal Rabbit.. i nearly got killed by a falling Korean.. he was fixing the awning on the third floor, i walked under.. he slipped, slid off, bounced on the 2nd, hit the first, and then landed right in front of me close enough for me to feel the air whoosh by….
lucky dude…
Dodger: That puts a new spin on the Rooftop Korean Meme; when the ammo runs out they can just jump on you from a height.
Well, being a New Yorker myself but not a resident of the city, I feel badly for the people there, the ones that can’t escape for economic reasons. My particular take on the city is that it has a foul odor. I’ve ridden the subway system plenty of times, plus the commuter railroad from the suburbs up north. Once you get underground there is standing water that stinks. From what I know COVID loves the cool darkness. There are fans that exchange “fresh” air from above through the tubes. I believe that COVID has found a home there and is being spread through the ventilators to the poor people above ground. I think it is time for a massive fumigation program.
This “quarantine” is an elaborate charade that will do precisely Nothing to prevent the transmission of any virus.
That’s why.
Viruses get around. Always.
Look, you have seen the elaborate precautions surgeons have to take to preserve a SEMI-sterile field in an operating room: scrubbing for several minutes up to the elbows, double gloves, not touching anything after, holding their hands up, wearing masks that fit Tightly all around, everyone around them following the same protocols — THAT’s what it takes, and even then, there are so many hospital-acquired infections, even with Purell in every doorway, etc.
How is it that nearly everyone forgets this, and thinks that these half-baked procedures could be effective, even a little bit? And not just because rebels let their mask slip below their nose. A minor point when viruses can be passed along on anything that’s touched and handled, whether it’s a grapefruit from a grocery store or a package from the behemoth Amazon.
Not to mention that we’re all being funneled through an extremely limited number of establishments: essentially just the drugstore or grocery store here in NYC: how’s that working out?
This “quarantine” is a medical joke. Politically, it’s deadly serious, and it has revealed that our commitment to freedom is almost extinct. The Powers That Be most definitely Will do this again, now that they know we are, in the main, a population of sheep, and that nearly everyone believes Pravda and Izvestiya.
I took a cab ride with a Cambodian driver the other day. He’s been in America 32 years. Barely surviving with the epidemic of cowardice and fear in NYC. I asked him about the Khmer Rouge, and he exclaimed, “My parents! they were told by the Communists they had to go to the country — for just ONE WEEK for reeducation — and the Khmer Rouge killed them all! All! WHY don’t Americans see what this is? Why do they believe the Democrats?!?”
He’s a Rush Limbaugh fan and a passionate Republican, and he’s scared to death at what he sees happening with the national house arrest. Can’t believe Americans are so blind to the peril we’re in: the real peril.
Cuomo has been doing everything he can (Mayor Warren Wilhelm as well) to inflate the stats for New York. The most evil thing he has done is to Order the nursing homes to take in Wu Flu-infected elderly patients — over the passionate protests and pleas from those nursing homes’ directors — so they can infect and kill as many old folks as possible.
It’s deliberate, because he has doubled down on this wicked course even though we’ve known for months the extreme elderly are terribly vulnerable to this cold virus. He has even had the utter gall to blame the nursing homes for their death toll and deny his executive order decreeing the same.
Hospitals are under great $$ pressure from having most of their business curtailed — also by Cuomo. But they get $39,000 for any “covid” death, if the patient was on a ventilator, and $13,000 for “covid” deaths not on a ventilator. That’s another sign this whole thing is rotten: some doctors have bravely come out to say that patients who should Not be put on ventilators are fast-tracked right to them, bypassing the nasal cannula, CPAP, and BiPAP steps, which is terribly damaging. But it makes sense if you realize the whole point is to inflate the totals to justify illegal martial law/house arrest we’re under.
Cuomo and De Blasio have also leaned on the hospitals and coroners to record every possible death as “caused” by Covid 19: see Project Veritas’s undercover video of these funeral home directors.
https://www.projectveritas.com/news/breaking-funeral-directors-in-covid-19-epicenter-doubt-legitimacy-of-deaths/
Once you grasp that this entire deadly charade is a test run for Socialism 101, everything crazy they’re doing is frighteningly logical — for them.
Beverly, I agree. In the late 90s I knew a fellow who immigrated here from the Ukraine. I learned from him that there is a community of Ukrainian immigrants in NYC. He told me that many began to question the choice of America as a destination. They saw the telltale signs of authoritarian oppression. It scared the hell out of them. That was 20 years ago! They were the proverbial canaries in the coal mine. We filed to heed the warning.
I’m intrigued by the HVAC and population density. I also wonder about Vitamin D3 levels ( https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200507121353.htm )
People with darker skin do not make as much Vit D3 from sunshine and probably most aren’t taking supplements. Something to add to the mixture