Coronavirus News (281)

Hear people out (literally)  people felt more connected to others after a phone call than those who chatted via email. 

Research: Type Less, Talk More adding video to an “old-fashioned” phone call may not further increase our sense of connection to another person  ........  Being able to see another person, in short, did not make people feel any more connected than if they simply talked with them. A sense of connection does not seem to come from being able see another person but rather from hearing another person’s voice. .......... a person’s voice is really the signal that creates understanding and connection. ..........  Text-based interactions are sometimes simpler and more efficient and enable recipients to respond at their leisure.  If you’re sending a simple message, a quick update, or an attachment, then emails and texts are the way to go. ......... take a little more time to talk to others than you might be inclined to. You—and those you talk to—are likely to feel better as a result. 

The economy may never be the same 

A Combative Trump and a Deliberate Biden Spar From Afar at Town Halls With less than three weeks left in the campaign, there was no sign that either candidate was diverging from the political tracks they laid down months ago. ...........  President Trump spoke positively about an extremist conspiracy-theory group, expressed skepticism about mask-wearing, rebuked his own F.B.I. director and attacked the legitimacy of the 2020 election in a televised town hall forum on Thursday, veering far away from a focused campaign appeal. Instead, he further stoked the country’s political rifts as his Democratic opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr., pushed a deliberate message anchored in concerns over public health and promises to restore political norms. ........... On the central issue of the election, the coronavirus pandemic, the two candidates appeared to inhabit not just different television sets but different universes. .........  Trump repeatedly declined to disavow QAnon, a pro-Trump internet community that has been described by law enforcement as a potential domestic terrorism threat ...........  Trump improvising freely, admitting no fault in his own record and hurling various forms of provocation. .......... and briefly appeared to promise Ms. Guthrie that he would “let you know who I owe” money to ......... and at one point he delivered a kind of miniature filibuster by listing various properties he owns .......... “On the masks, you have two stories,” Mr. Trump said, claiming falsely that most people who wear masks contract the virus. ........  When Ms. Guthrie pointed out that the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, had said there was no sign of such widespread voter misconduct, the president shot back, “Then he’s not doing a very good job.” ...... The president has continued to predict that the virus will soon disappear, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. 

‘Long Covid’ Could Be A Cyclical Disease That Moves Around Body Systems, Report Finds  The review found people to be suffering from a wide-range of symptoms, including those affecting mental health and fatigue, the brain, breathing, the cardiovascular system, the skin and the liver. The researchers say there may be four different syndromes that could be responsible for the symptoms: post-intensive-care syndrome, post-viral fatigue syndrome, long-term Covid symptoms and damage to the lungs and heart. Testimony from patients show ongoing Covid-19 to be a “cyclical disease,” with symptoms moving around the body and fluctuating in severity over time. An emphasis on acute Covid-19 symptoms, particularly respiratory issues, has led to difficulties in patients receiving treatment or recognition for “long Covid”, the researchers say. ................  for some people, Covid-19 infection is a long term illness 

McConnell Won’t Support $1.8 Trillion White House Stimulus Bill—Even If Pelosi And Trump Make A Deal  

Coronavirus News (280)

Pandemic favors these companies 

Trump would go higher than $1.8 trillion on coronavirus stimulus deal 

He Won’t Concede, but He’ll Pack His Bags All evidence suggests that the president would run from the responsibility of overseeing the violent fracture of America. .........  The presidency is a burden, he said, and Trump is “incredibly lazy” and unsuited to physically and cognitively demanding work. ..........  Not only has Trump not resigned—he has signaled that he’s willing to plunge America into chaos in an effort to remain in the White House. ..........   we should remember that Trump had a vision of the presidency that began with extreme laziness, and that the end of his presidency could go roughly the same way. .......... Trump asked Kasich to be his running mate and, in the event of a Trump victory, to be “in charge of domestic and foreign policy.” What, Kasich’s team asked, would Trump be in charge of? The answer, delivered seriously: “Making America great again.” This is not the offer of a man fanatically devoted to the collection of power. It is the offer of a man too lazy to reach for the remote. ....... Trump thought that the presidency is like many large organizations: capable of running itself, with the president a public figurehead, no more necessary to the United States’ daily operation than the guy who plays Ronald McDonald is to the McDonald’s corporation. The deep state—a permanent bureaucracy that runs things in its own interests, irrespective of who is president—was not his villain. It was his fantasy. ...........  the ridiculous absentee governing, especially in Trump’s first year. It turns out you can refuse to make hard decisions, and that is exactly what Trump did ......... an executive branch swiss-cheesed with vacant positions, run in practice by appointees with wildly diverse levels of competence who botch things while preserving the president’s ability to watch copious amounts of cable news. ......   The president who sleeps away a year in office does not awake to find his ship on course for safe harbor. He finds it run aground and ripped apart, leaking its contents all over the country like the Exxon Valdez. The second was impeachment, the Russia investigation, and other accusations of criminality against Trump and his associates. Being much poorer than he claimed to be, then hiring cut-rate criminals to run his affairs, made honorable departure from office ahead of schedule—and without permanent taint—impossible.  .........  staying in office is the surest way to evade investigation, prosecution, and conviction. .........   just as there was an indolent way into the presidency, there is an indolent way out ......... As for the prospect of civil war: Trump is a coward, and all evidence suggests that he would run from the responsibility ....... A civil war sounds like a lot of work. ........... The easiest path is also the most lucrative. Get on Marine One, protesting all the way, and spend the rest of your days fleecing the 40 percent of Americans who still think you are the Messiah, and who will watch you on cable news, spend their money on whatever hypoallergenic pillow you endorse, and come to see you whenever you visit their town. .............  That seems to be what Trump is preparing now: insurance against a loss, so he can skate past criminal charges and live out the playboy post-presidency he has longed for since taking office.

Medieval Europeans didn’t understand how the plague spread. Their response wasn’t so different from ours now.  When the new disease first arrived, little was clear beyond the fact that it killed with terrifying speed. Near-certain death trailed the first symptoms by four days or less. The doctors were helpless. This city was soon overwhelmed with corpses. Workers in church yards dug pits down to the water table, layering bodies and dirt, more bodies and dirt. ........... Seven centuries later, the plague in Europe stands as an example of a pandemic at its worst — .............. in both cases, the first instinct was to close borders to try to keep the disease at bay. When that didn’t work, officials called for strict rules — but only some people paid attention. All the while, there was a proliferation of conspiracy theories. Many tried to blame the disease on outsiders or minorities — in medieval Europe, often Jews. ............. “Much has changed since the 1340s ... but not human nature.” ............. daring dinner parties in which a host would gather 10 friends, with plans to reconvene again the next night. At the next dinner, Stefani said, sometimes “two or three were missing.” ........... many faced their last moments cut off from everybody else ...........  People, after the onset of symptoms, were a mortal danger to those around them. So in some cases, family members abandoned sick loved ones, even children. Their deaths were noticed only when neighbors smelled the rotting corpses. ...........  In 1348, she said, the city was in its own state of near-lockdown. The inns were closed. .......... People were panicked. It was unclear how the disease spread — but there was no doubt that proximity to others was a risk. Animals — oxen, dogs, pigs — were dying, as well. .............  They prayed and disavowed sin. They obsessed about the air and used scents and fires to ward off perceived deadly vapors. They were mostly guessing; scientists wouldn’t know what actually caused the plague — how the bacteria was spread by rats and fleas — until 500 years later. ..................  At a time when people were trying to avoid the disease with trial-and-error strategies, only one thing seemed to work: If the plague arrived in your city, drop everything, flee the crowds and take refuge in the countryside. ...............  All through the coronavirus pandemic, there have been accounts of people taking their own countryside flights to safety — New Yorkers decamping to the Hamptons, British urbanites seeking out holiday cottages. ..................  But Cerrina Feroni said his ex-wife had already heard all of his stories many times over, and he had likewise heard all of hers. So instead, during pandemic lockdown in Fiesole, they watched Netflix.