All things political. Coronavirus Edition. (18 Viewers)

[Maxp]

I fear we are really going to be in a bad place due to the obvious cuts to the federal agencies that deal with infectious disease, but also the negative effect the Affordable Care act has had on non urban hospitals. Our front line defenses are ineffectual and our ability to treat the populous is probably at an all time low. Factor in the cost of healthcare and I can see our system crashing. What do you think about the politics of this virus?

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

I could be wrong buy didn't this start in Wuhan, China? Hence why people have called it the Wuhan virus?

Sure, and that's perfectly reasonable. I'm not following the branding of this, but this is the first time I've heard it called the Wuhan virus, I've only heard it called Covid-19. So, if the motivation behind calling it the Wuhan virus instead of Covid-19 is to make it seem foreign, scary or anything else other than just a descriptive name, then it's suspect. I don't know these people, so I don't really care enough to spend much energy on it.

 

[Joe Okc]

I don't necessarily consider it racist. I don't know the motivation of those who decided to start calling it the Wuhan virus instead of what had been commonly referred to as Covid-19, you'd have to ask them.

Well, when you tell a bar full of drunks that your Corona Beer doesn't contain any chinese virus'es... It Just doesn't have the same ring as if you used Covid-19 instead.

Who was it that said Politically correct was dead?

 

[SystemShock]

Panic is the last thing we need to do

Please make the stock market understand this. I'm running low on Pepto-Bismol.

 

[Taurus]

No, I get that reference, but that’s a very negative reference for Trump, yet the WH put it out. That, I don’t get.

They're *forking stupid*. It's been on flagrant display for three years.
Stupid and mean. It ought to be Trump's official motto.

 

[The moose]

That’s interesting.. i lived in Austin for a year, and I’m wondering exactly what types of businesses there are ‘make or break’ due to SXSW.. most of the restaurants near where SXSW takes place seem to be packed year-round.. Uber drivers make a killing every weekend, and seem to do well during the week as well.. The entertainment venues i knew of dont seem to have any trouble drawing crowds all throughout the year.. i wonder what specific businesses will possibly go under due to the cancellation of SXSW.

Well I would guess that is normally the best ten days of the year of their year.

I don't know what you do but if you took your best ten days and made then a goose egg it would kill your bottom line and yes a weaker business it would kill more than the bottom line.

 

[GMRfellowtraveller]

It may be just me, but I don't see it as anything different from calling a meatball and Italian meatball, a standoff a Mexican standoff, jerk chicken Jamaican jerk chicken, or the aforementioned wax job a Brazilian. It's just where it originated.

Do you consider the branding Ebola branding to be such a case of branding to make people become more suspicious of the Congo, or as the tweet suggests, even racist?
How about West Nile fever?
Zika virus?
Norovirus?

I’m kinda neutral on ‘wuhan’ - using it doesn’t HAVE to imply racism; but it’s not a helpful or accurate phrase since the family of the virus is much more important than what we think is the origin

But
I’m sure you know that not all racism is n words and white hoods
There’s a whole spectrum of interrelated ideas
A few years ago we had the ‘Africanized bees’ scare - not hard to see the exoticizing or othering involved in those scare language
None of the examples you offer carry negative connotations like disease or plague

 

[SystemShock]

I’m kinda neutral on ‘wuhan’ - using it doesn’t HAVE to imply racism; but it’s not a helpful or accurate phrase since the family of the virus is much more important than what we think is the origin

But
I’m sure you know that not all racism is n words and white hoods
There’s a whole spectrum of interrelated ideas
A few years ago we had the ‘Africanized bees’ scare - not hard to see the exoticizing or othering involved in those scare language,
None of the examples you offer carry negative connotations like disease or plague

Africanized bees are called Africanized bees because they are the result of cross breeding between European honey bees and African honey bees, and their main defined characteristic is that they display the more aggressive behavior of the African bees.

As for the examples I mentioned, I don't know what you mean by "carrying negative connotations", they all are diseases after all, and as far as I know, any disease name carries a negative connotation, but they all are virus-caused diseases, named after the places that were their respective ground zero...

 

[GMRfellowtraveller]

Africanized bees are called Africanized bees because they are the result of cross breeding between European honey bees and African honey bees, and their main defined characteristic is that they display the more aggressive behavior of the African bees.

As for the examples I mentioned, I don't know what you mean by "carrying negative connotations", they all are diseases after all, and as far as I know, any disease name carries a negative connotation, but they all are virus-caused diseases, named after the places that were their respective ground zero...

I meant meatball and jerk chicken et al

 

[dtc]

Please make the stock market understand this. I'm running low on Pepto-Bismol.

The pricing of the market hasn't been justifiable to anyone who isn't gambling for years.

 

[The moose]

The pricing of the market hasn't been justifiable to anyone who isn't gambling for years.

Yep. It sure is the long game. It is bouncing up a bit right now.

Could just be a dead cat bounce we will see later.

 

[zztop]

do we have a facepalm emoji?

 

[insidejob]

do we have a facepalm emoji?

God, she really needs some reading lessons. She's really struggling with the teleprompter. Not to mention, I haven't seen anyone blaming him for the virus, just the lack of preparedness/response to it.

 

[EmBeeFiveOhFour]

I know you lefties are going to call it corrupt when it happens, but there is simply no better way to fight the effects of the coronavirus than to give enormous emergency tax breaks to hotel and golf course owners. And maybe condo developers, we do want our people to be quarantined in beautiful luxury after all.

 

[EmBeeFiveOhFour]

I'm not going to link to a Carlson Tucker article, but he has something up on the Fox News site now which attempts to "both sides" the terrible federal response by saying (1) teh leftists are calling the name of the virus racist!!!!!!! and (2) the Republicans you elected and trust are lying to you and deliberately attempting to minimize the coming epidemic by telling you it's just the cold or flu and their lying is dangerous and will literally kill people.

 

[Saintamaniac]

I'm not going to link to a Carlson Tucker article, but he has something up on the Fox News site now which attempts to "both sides" the terrible federal response by saying (1) teh leftists are calling the name of the virus racist!!!!!!! and (2) the Republicans you elected and trust are lying to you and deliberately attempting to minimize the coming epidemic by telling you it's just the cold or flu and their lying is dangerous and will literally kill people. And these things are the same, to me.

Wait, what? Are you asking a question here or making a statement? The people who are saying the name of the virus is racist are [insert appropriate curse word] stupid. The people who believe the lies that Republicans are telling them about the virus are [insert appropriate curse word] stupid. Stupid people calling a virus name racist is not the same as elected officials purposely lying about a serious biological threat to the populace.

 

[EmBeeFiveOhFour]

Wait, what? Are you asking a question here or making a statement? The people who are saying the name of the virus is racist are [insert appropriate curse word] stupid. The people who believe the lies that Republicans are telling them about the virus are [insert appropriate curse word] stupid. Stupid people calling a virus name racist is not the same as elected officials purposely lying about a serious biological threat to the populace.

Sorry, I should have used the sarcasm font for my last sentence so I'll just delete it. People arguing about however a virus is branded is not equal to intentionally underplaying the impacts of an epidemic and failing to prevent deaths.

 

[SystemShock]

God, she really needs some reading lessons. She's really struggling with the teleprompter. Not to mention, I haven't seen anyone blaming him for the virus, just the lack of preparedness/response to it.

That was Obama's fault, remember?

 

[MT15]

He just repeated that very vague lie again, as I heard him saying that the testing is “perfect” and that anyone who wants a test can have one. Meanwhile our infectious disease doc is fighting with our state health dept because he has a patient in our hospital who he thinks has Covid and they won’t allow him to be tested.

Trump should pay a political price for his lies.