[News] Coronavirus

A place to discuss the now-global coronavirus outbreak.

Prederick wrote:
Prederick wrote:
Bfgp wrote:

The good part about Australia is that we just don't have widespread resistance to the concept of vaccination.

Uh, actually, I've been reading The Daily Wire and listening to FOX News, and you're all under the control of a brutal, totalitarian government.

Encountered this again today, and it's just.... just mind-boggling. Do Australians understand the absolutely deranged way U.S. conservatives talk about them right now?

Now?

There's been deranged talk since we introduced gun control in 1996.

Prederick wrote:
Prederick wrote:
Bfgp wrote:

The good part about Australia is that we just don't have widespread resistance to the concept of vaccination.

Uh, actually, I've been reading The Daily Wire and listening to FOX News, and you're all under the control of a brutal, totalitarian government.

Encountered this again today, and it's just.... just mind-boggling. Do Australians understand the absolutely deranged way U.S. conservatives talk about them right now?

Know about, yes. Understand, no.

Prederick wrote:

Encountered this again today, and it's just.... just mind-boggling. Do Australians understand the absolutely deranged way U.S. conservatives talk about them right now?

I wonder if conservatives picked Australia on some level because it’s on the other side of the world and therefore it’s less likely that those in the Fox bubble will have met someone from Australia. Making it easier to make sh*t up and harder to disprove.

Nah… not like that stops them from making up anything as it is. Carry on.

Keep in mind a lot of USAnians plan on moving to Canada to escape “Socialism” in the US.

mudbunny wrote:

Keep in mind a lot of USAnians plan on moving to Canada to escape “Socialism” in the US.

I'm gonna move to Canada for more Socialism, please and thank you.

Roo wrote:

Here's the Greek word for "I work": δουλεύω (thoo leh voh where the "th" is pronounced like "there")

The second letter is omicron. The last letter is omega. No, I don't know why.

I think ω is an upgrade over w when making cat-face emojis UωU

AUs_TBirD wrote:

Apparently Omikron has a Nomad Soul, since it's already popping up in various places in Europe and Asia.

I see what you did there

o.O
Ummmmmmmmmmmmm

Greg Abbott
@GregAbbott_TX
Biden banned travel from South Africa because of the new Covid variant.

Immigrants have recently been apprehended crossing our border illegally from South Africa.

Biden is doing nothing to stop immigrants from South Africa entering illegally.

Pure politics and hypocrisy.

Happily he's being eviscerated in the replies and QTs

My favourite, "this MFer still living on Pangaea"

Abbott's a college and law school graduate.

His tweet says far more about how dumb he assumes his political supporters are than his knowledge of geography.

There's a whole lot of Ivy League educated Republican politicians out there saying sh*t they know is 1000% wrong purely because their base will eat it up.

OG_slinger wrote:

... Ivy League educated Republican politicians ...

Not necessarily that impressive. Take Yale alum Bush 43 for example.

croaker wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:

... Ivy League educated Republican politicians ...

Not necessarily that impressive. Take Yale alum Bush 43 for example.

Depends on who Greg Abbott's dad is...

MrDeVil909 wrote:

o.O
Ummmmmmmmmmmmm

Greg Abbott
@GregAbbott_TX
Biden banned travel from South Africa because of the new Covid variant.

Immigrants have recently been apprehended crossing our border illegally from South Africa.

Biden is doing nothing to stop immigrants from South Africa entering illegally.

Pure politics and hypocrisy.

Happily he's being eviscerated in the replies and QTs

My favourite, "this MFer still living on Pangaea"

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/xunaNZH_d.webp?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium)

Agathos wrote:
Roo wrote:

Here's the Greek word for "I work": δουλεύω (thoo leh voh where the "th" is pronounced like "there")

The second letter is omicron. The last letter is omega. No, I don't know why.

I think ω is an upgrade over w when making cat-face emojis UωU

I see ω, I think angular velocity.

I wouldn't be surprised if he's combining two data points to make a terrible Mexico border argument.

There probably has been people of South African nationality crossing via Mexico. Take that data point with recent news and make a silly tweet.

The Economist covered the Mexico border and immigration within the last month on a podcast. There's been an increase in recorded cases but they were also finding it was including more and more people from further places. I can't remember the specific term they used but it's usually from the countries just south of Mexico. Whereas recently they were even finding Russians crossing via Mexico.

But yes Greg Abbott is an ass hat.

Concave wrote:

I see ω, I think angular velocity.

ω looks like a butt. The angular velocity thing is about how head-turning a butt it is.

finger -> ω

jowner wrote:

There probably has been people of South African nationality crossing via Mexico. Take that data point with recent news and make a silly tweet.

You're probably right regards his pandering to the base. Truth doesn't matter in republican propaganda.

But I was poking around out of curiosity and someone has done the research.

https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2021...

6 South Africans were arrested crossing the border in FY 2020 which is honestly more than I'd have expected.

According to border apprehension numbers provided by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, a total of 62 South African nationals were arrested while crossing the southwest border between 2007 and 2020, making up 0.0009% of the 6,823,315 border apprehensions over that time period.

Apparently a good number of Africans do attempt to cross the border, but mostly from the DRC and Angola. The Angola part was a bit surprising but I wasn't aware of the economic conditions there until now.

OG_slinger wrote:

There's a whole lot of Ivy League educated Republican politicians out there saying sh*t they know is 1000% wrong purely because their base will eat it up.

I'd post a picture of Ted Cruz's face here, but I wouldn't want to violate the CoC.

Prederick wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:

There's a whole lot of Ivy League educated Republican politicians out there saying sh*t they know is 1000% wrong purely because their base will eat it up.

I'd post a picture of Ted Cruz's face here, but I wouldn't want to violate the CoC.

Too early to vomit into my coffee.

That's okay, just mentioning "Ted Cruz" and "CoC" in the same sentence gets the meaning across.

Stengah wrote:
AUs_TBirD wrote:

Apparently Omikron has a Nomad Soul, since it's already popping up in various places in Europe and Asia.

2 confirmed cases in Munich, 1 case in Frankfurt, 13 on returning flights from South Africa to Amsterdam (out of 61 that tested positive out of 600 tested), Denmark....

South Africa is just were it was first identified. It's pretty likely that it didn't originate there so seeing it in other places already is expected.

Netherland's health agency just announced they found Omicron in old tests. It was circulating there at least a week before South Africa reported it.

What's the rub on it, do we know? Is it more transmissible or is it just "different" so far? So we don't know how effective the vaccines are...

OG_slinger wrote:
Stengah wrote:
AUs_TBirD wrote:

Apparently Omikron has a Nomad Soul, since it's already popping up in various places in Europe and Asia.

2 confirmed cases in Munich, 1 case in Frankfurt, 13 on returning flights from South Africa to Amsterdam (out of 61 that tested positive out of 600 tested), Denmark....

South Africa is just were it was first identified. It's pretty likely that it didn't originate there so seeing it in other places already is expected.

Netherland's health agency just announced they found Omicron in old tests. It was circulating there at least a week before South Africa reported it.

Supported by the latest Pod Save America podcast as well as Trevor Noah's last show. Seems unreasonable for Biden to ban travel exclusively from southern African countries when it's already everywhere.

Well, public transport in Sydney is back to pre-pandemic levels of patronage so it seems; barely had room to stand on the metro/train on the commute in. Bonus: man spotted with a mask on...around his neck. Do people think a mask is a fashion statement??

fangblackbone wrote:

What's the rub on it, do we know? Is it more transmissible or is it just "different" so far? So we don't know how effective the vaccines are...

We don't know anything. Check back in a week or two.

Agathos wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:

What's the rub on it, do we know? Is it more transmissible or is it just "different" so far? So we don't know how effective the vaccines are...

We don't know anything. Check back in a week or two.

Early signs are still on the more positive side. Anecdotal reports from South Africa are that folks aren't getting super sick and tiredness seems prevalent with less of a cough.

Based on the absolute little we do know it appears that this version is highly transmissible but less sickening, as if all its mutation were to be more transmissible. This could possibly be a way out of this entire pandemic. If this virus is more infectious than Delta and overtakes Delta, it could phase out Delta and be the endemic version.

If that happens, which would be a best case scenario, but also a fairly reasonable scenario, then the "law" would hold true that viruses mutate themselves less lethal. Course we saw this sort of thing with Beta or some other variant and it didn't manage to beat out other variants.

So, yeah, we won't really know for a couple weeks.

JLS wrote:

Seems unreasonable for Biden to ban travel exclusively from southern African countries when it's already everywhere.

The two American political parties may disagree on almost everything, but there’s one tenet they’ll always share: China is scary but Africa is terrifying.

This omicron fear is just racism.

From CNN -

US considers mandatory testing for all travelers coming into the country

So people in the country don't have to be tested and they don't have to get vaccinated at all anyway but we will force people coming in to get tested! That is some of the finest "American logic" I have seen.

farley3k wrote:

From CNN -

US considers mandatory testing for all travelers coming into the country

So people in the country don't have to be tested and they don't have to get vaccinated at all anyway but we will force people coming in to get tested! That is some of the finest "American logic" I have seen.

FreeDumb!

farley3k wrote:

From CNN -

US considers mandatory testing for all travelers coming into the country

So people in the country don't have to be tested and they don't have to get vaccinated at all anyway but we will force people coming in to get tested! That is some of the finest "American logic" I have seen.

The administration's been trying to force people to get vaccinated - see the mandatory vaccination for government employees - but there's only so much they can do with the red state governors opposed to them, and there's already plenty of fights in the courts.

Entering the country is strictly on the federal government, though, especially by air, so the governors can complain all they want but they don't have any authority to actually do anything about it.