Rice said he came down with relatively mild symptoms of the virus on June 7 and that his son suffered from “a high fever and really bad cough.”
I wouldn’t want to wish harm to someone, but having that level of indifference to others’ health really ought to carry more of a karmic hit.
A quick back-and-forth slapping at least.
I’m honestly not. I’m just so overwhelmed by gestures wildly all this, and I had intended to take a late spring/early summer vacation but what’s the point during lockdown? So I’m past due for vacation and the real world has been throwing shit at us as fast as possible for so long now - so my work lately has sucked. It’s almost like burnout work. But it’s not burnout because of the work, but because of everything else.
I’d be willing to take a paycut (I believe our execs have already done that), and acknowledge that I’m performing subpar. I’ll tell you that after the meetings yesterday I took a depression nap. But I’m not faking any timecards or falsely claiming that I took vacation that I didn’t. That’s just wrong.
I should not care.
There are two things that should matter when judging a medicine.
Is it safe?
Is it effective?
For treatable aliments, the considerations should be "Is it safer, is it more effective. And then there are the complicated questions of how cost changes the effectiveness of a treatment…
Apparently, Choroquine is neither safe nor effective. Had Trump not promoted it, this would be disappointing, but understandable. Moving on to other drugs in the pipeline…
But because Trump (a man with no medical expertise) promoted it, Republicans have some sort of stake in things going smoothly and Democrats have some sort of stake in things going wrong.
That’s really not how drug discovery is supposed to work.
Insurers have paid Gibson Diagnostic Labs as much as $2,315 for individual coronavirus tests. In a couple of cases, the price rose as high as $6,946 when the lab said it mistakenly charged patients three times the base rate.
The company has no special or different technology from, say, major diagnostic labs that charge $100. It is one of a small number of medical labs, hospitals and emergency rooms taking advantage of the way Congress has designed compensation for coronavirus tests and treatment.
Why? Because it can.
Isn’t that the same drug proposed to reduce the chance of lesbianism and/or gender nonconformity when there’s a chance of congenital adrenal hyperplasia?
I don’t know - is it?
It’s a corticosteroid. I’ve been wondering if such drugs might help reduce the awful lung inflammation the body causes in response to the coronavirus. There’s another one that’s used to treat asthma, budesonide. I use that elsewhere to help with my Crohn’s. There are a bunch of steroids that could be tested.
Dexamethasone only saves 1 out of 8 on ventilators and 1 out of 25 on oxygen, but that’s a good start. Perhaps combinations of steroids (and antivirals) might do even better.
I don’t know what, if anything, came of the proposals, but remembered the name:
this?
Since Some Republicans Still Refuse to Wear Masks in Congress, Now Nancy Pelosi Is Requiring It
New guidelines issued Tuesday by the attending physician of Congress, Brian Monahan, now require a mask for anyone meeting “in a limited enclosed space, such as a committee hearing room, for greater than 15 minutes.” Pelosi, in turn, directed committee chairs to require masks at committee meetings starting Wednesday and authorized the sergeant-at-arms to enforce the rule by barring entry to those refusing to cover their faces. Members who refuse to wear a mask will also be given the option of participating in hearings remotely. Under the new guidance, members are still encouraged but not required to wear masks on the House floor and in most other areas of the Capitol.
But, of course…
Journal of the Corona Year
6/17
Today we received word when the office would re-open. Our manager sent an email to what remained of his Marketing Department. All four of us. It will happen sometime after July 4th. Whenever New York City reaches Phase II. I feel like he mentioned early August during a phone call.
And I was just getting used to working from home.
Extra space has been rented in the building. People will be spread out. There will be dividers between people.
That’s fine. I’m not really worried about the office itself. I’m worried about the commute to and from the office without a vaccine. I don’t mind standing shoulder-to-shoulder with other commuters, but not if it kills me.
I knew one other person felt this way, and maybe we all did.
I replied-all to his email, in a cheerful tone, and asked if we could still have the option to work from home since everything was all set-up.
There was a long two-hour wait for a reply. That’s not unusual for him. I think he spends all day surfing incoming email. Sometimes he never replies. Perhaps my request was filtering up through the corporate power structure to the head office. We’ll never know.
Finally, he replied to us all writing:
“We definitely want everyone to be as comfortable as possible so we can certainly discuss continued remote work.”
So, speaking-up was my good deed for the day.
After work I went to the vigil. After about 20 minutes Sam appeared from behind the rainbow peace banner. He came back. With a big smile on his face he said “god help this country if Joe Biden gets elected.” Why? “Because he will be obedient to the Pope.”
And from there he went onto healthcare, corporations advocating laws, prison reform and Social Security. By then I gave up trying to figure out what his point was. I don’t think he knew. He used up all his “A” material on Sunday. Now he was just stringing words together, with a smirk on his face, hoping something would get a negative reaction.
He reminded me of a kid on a playground who hangs around a group of friends, pestering them because he enjoys their negative reaction.
After 10 minutes I found him annoying. He kept going for about an hour. Is this what is meant by “owning the libs?”
He wasn’t wearing his Make America Great Again hat. Tonight it was a Giants hat. His t-shirt featured a graphic of Charles Bronson in Death Wish III. I know it was Death Wish III because he was holding his friend “Wildey.”
A theme Sam returned to frequently tonight was that he had many “liberal friends” who would secretly confide with him that they were just as bigoted as he is. Sure. Whatever.
Before he left he promised not to return for two weeks. I wonder if he can stay away that long? We might be his only friends.
What an annoying, sad man.
Named “Lefty” and “Righty”, by any chance? (Or, I suppose, “Notso Lefty” on the second one… And I’m picturing socks for some reason…)
Darn it, I thought I had my inner snark on a slightly tighter leash…
Only neck-deep? Maybe his head is deep in something else.
He is a sad, sad man, who shouldn’t be imposing his foul opinions on anyone, much less the US government.