How is Coronavirus affecting you?

Because there has to be a silver lining in the horizon, getting rid of us humans one sunny day, for the rest of Flora and Fauna.

 

We're stupid because we deep down *want* to be. Because it's less effort, and less of a challenge to our precious center-of-the-universe self-images, than the alternative.

 

This is my ‘before’ photo from early March. I plan to do an ‘after’ sequel to show how much this response has aged me. Spoiler alert: it isn’t pretty, hahah!

 

And that's the funny part. For the german "non-hip" majority, Berlin is a hellhole, not worth to visit or live there. And Hamburg. Baaah...
But to be fair, the Berlin U-Bahn is a "young" and really good U-Bahn.

Socialism heaven

 

Meanwhile, my area is now officially at its peak of active cases, with largest number since the first local cases were reported in March, with nearly half of all local cases reported in just the past 30 days. COME ON GANG LETS HANG AROUND IN BARS WITH NO MASKS ON THAT'LL REALLY OWN 'EM.

 

Speaking of "stupid because we deep down *want* to be".

 

The psychology and sociology of how we respond to disasters is fascinating. There’s a lot of academic work out there, but I don’t think you can go past Camus’ La Peste/ The Plague.

 

I recall living in London in the late 1960's and again a decade later.....coming home from a day out and about I would blow black mucus from my nose and a white handkerchief across my brow would bring up coal black residue on the cloth. Was there last year and the air was so much better....no more black crud.

 

And I wouldn't wonder, if the old term "Tbc sanitarium" would reappear in the next weeks in media.

If healtcare systems are collapsing, they would surely be forced to build classic additional capacities. Like the bunkhouses in the woods for tuberculosis sufferers, for example. Old-fashioned climatic health resort.

What would you do as Plan B??

Remember, how tuberculosis went through the roof before 1900 in the dirty, smoggy industrial areas.

 

^
These days, we call them ‘low acuity alternate care facilities for surge management’. I have a few under my command right now, though they aren’t as Dickensian as they would be if the hospitals truly exceeded capacity.

 

Intensive care cases actually increased to 769. 46% on respiration.

 

Yesterday the evangelic Church here demanded unlimited numbers of people attending funerals. They did not refine, if they mean dead or alive. Cynical.

 

You agree with my theory, then? The human race is being culled

There are too many of us for the planet to sustain, we are destroying the environment, eating things we shouldn't be eating and going into places we should be going into

This planet is a living thing, humanity is the virus and Covid is the anti-body trying to kill us; or at least apply survival of the fittest to reduce numbers to a sustainable level

 

That theory makes a lot of sense when you consider what tends to happen to any type of animal when its numbers run amok. Back in the '90s, we were overrun with raccoons around here -- the population exploded due to a combination of factors, and they were everywhere. And then suddenly they weren't. A wave of rabies flared up among them, it burned thru the population like a wildfire, and then they were gone. They weren't all wiped out, of course, but you didn't see them anymore to the extent that you did - and you still don't.

Then, the squirrels. The same thing happened -- explosive population, wave of disease, mass deaths, population drop. They've rebounded since, but it's not like it was ten or fifteen years ago.

Right now, it's the porcupines. You see them everywhere. Soon, you won't. Nature has a way of keeping things in balance.

The big difference, of course, is that animals don't bring any of this on themselves. They're just doing what animals do, taking advantage of circumstances until the circumstances change. But humans are different. We're sapient. We have the ability to understand the future consequences of our course of action -- and yet we're so overloaded with ridiculous hubris we insist "it can't happen to US." We're so obsessed with our bigger-and-better growth-uber-alles more-more-more way of life that we can't see that it's pushing us right off the edge of a cliff.

 

This should be required reading for everyone:

https://www.project-syndicate.org/c...defeat-covid19-by-william-a-haseltine-2020-10

 

Intensive care cases actually increased to 853. 46% on respiration.

I think, the cold, wet weather makes many people sneezing and coughing, actually. German morons, keep your head an neck warm!

 

Your State is more in the news than you might imagine, because of an interesting Senate race and strong feeling s about Susan Collins, and because of your IMHO sensible 'ranked choice' voting system.

 

I remember a few years ago there was a Royal Geographical Society organised expedition of schoolboys in their late teens from several of our more exclusive schools. They went to the Norwegian Arctic and one of the organisers was mauled quite badly by a Polar Bear, which was shot. The widespread assumption was that the bear was 'out of control' or had 'run amok' but another way of looking at this is that the humans involved assumed automatically that, by virtue of being human, they had the 'right' to go anywhere they wished and intrude on any natural habitat. This is a dangerous assumption closely related to the idea of limitless 'growth' (when in fact resources are finite) but also related to the ideas behind colonial expansion, in which indigenous peoples were (still are in some places) considered to be closer to 'nature' and so their land rights were unimportant.

This is not entirely off-topic because of the relationship between exploration of animals by humans and the evolution of viruses such as Covid-19.

 

A lot of the pollution, including Diesel pollution, is less visible but if anything more potent.
The two main problems with London are its delusions of grandeur (and I speak as a Londoner here) and its population increase beyond levels that are sustainable either politically or ecologically. This is not because of 'immigration' (as the Brexiteers claim) but internal migration from the rest of the country. The infrastructure is stretched to breaking point and although there is more wealth there are also greater levels of poverty than there were in the 90s, coupled with a serious housing crisis.

There is nothing good about the Covid situation. However something will have been salvaged from the wreckage if there is a shift away from London towards the regions and nations of the UK in the aftermath of all this. That would be fairer, and better for the quality of life for all, including Londoners.

 

Ranked choice was a direct response to two consecutive elections where a governor was elected with less than 50 percent of the vote -- in the first instance, with less than 38 percent of the total vote -- due to an independent candidate splitting the majority. It seems like a pretty good way of coming up with a more representative system without forcing alternative candidates off the ballot.

I interviewed Ms. Collins on many occasions back in the '90s, all the way back to when she ran for Governor herself, and all I'll say without stepping over the Politics line is that she hasn't changed a bit. Interpret that as you will.