zenpundit.com

[ by Charles Cameron — establishing the proper connections between words and realities — things, places, persons, emotions, actions — has long been a preoccupation for poets, philosophers and the curious more generally ]
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From a New Yorker piece, titled Seattle’s Leaders Let Scientists Take the Lead. New York’s Did Not
By Charles Duhigg
The initial coronavirus outbreaks on the East and West Coasts emerged at roughly the same time. But the danger was communicated very differently. —

— here’s the relevant context:

The first diagnosis of the coronavirus in the United States occurred in mid-January, in a Seattle suburb not far from the hospital where Dr. Francis Riedo, an infectious-disease specialist, works. When he heard the patient’s details—a thirty-five-year-old man had walked into an urgent-care clinic with a cough and a slight fever, and told doctors that he’d just returned from Wuhan, China—Riedo said to himself, “It’s begun.”

For more than a week, Riedo had been e-mailing with a group of colleagues who included Seattle’s top doctor for public health and Washington State’s senior health officer, as well as hundreds of epidemiologists from around the country; many of them, like Riedo, had trained at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in Atlanta, in a program known as the Epidemic Intelligence Service. Alumni of the E.I.S. are considered America’s shock troops in combatting disease outbreaks. The program has more than three thousand graduates, and many now work in state and local governments across the country. “It’s kind of like a secret society, but for saving people,” Riedo told me.

And here’s the key —

Upon learning of the first domestic diagnosis, he told his staff—from emergency-room nurses to receptionists—that, from then on, everything they said was just as important as what they did. One of the E.I.S.’s core principles is that a pandemic is a communications emergency as much as a medical crisis.

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D’oh — coronavirus is a communicable disease..

On second thoughts.. that’s the point, isn’t it? We call diseases “communicable” because they spread in a manner that’s analogous with the spread of ideas — or fears, for that matter — through human communications networks.

[ by Charles Cameron — featuring a woman whose wings were clearly visible forty years ago, and her gentleman’s firebrand of a hairdo ]
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The story’s a neat one — see the rainbow?

— Man Tracks Down People He Photographed in the Street 40 Years Ago to Recreate Their Pictures.

from My Modern Met, 2016.

The human race is wondrous in its diversity.

[ by Charles Cameron — I’d be honored if JSB was battling LvB on the streets of Sacramento — but no, this is Beirut, Lord love ’em. Via PBS ]
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From the streets of Beirut, right about now:

and:

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Those are the semi-finalists. We’ll let you know when the Cup Final Winner is announced.

[ by Charles Cameron — donations solicited, camels’ urine tippled, Afghan Sikhs attacked ]
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Not sure about this one:

Jackson Daily News, Television in the coronavirus age

Joel Osteen. Prosperity gospel mogul Joel Osteen promises his audience that the Coronavirus will end if he gets donations of $5 million in the next 24 hours. Guest Creflo Dollar tells Osteen, “I wish I’d have thought of that!” A gullible third-world nation goes bankrupt giving it a try.

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Pretty sure about this one:

man promotes using camel urine as a cure for coronavirus and other respiratory diseases according to Islamic medicine from r/facepalm

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And then there’s this — tragedy in the making!

The Last Sikhs and Hindus in Afghanistan Plead for U.S. Help

The last community of Sikhs and Hindus in Afghanistan is seeking asylum in the U.S. after suffering an attack by Islamic State extremists, posing a test of the Trump administration’s pledge to protect and support religious minorities world-wide.

The Islamic State attack targeting a Sikh temple in Kabul last month killed 25 people, while dozens of others were taken hostage in a six-hour siege ending in a gun battle with Afghanistan’s commandos, the elite army unit that works closely with U.S. Special Forces.

[ by Charles Cameron — first, a taste of bach — then a superb paragraph from a friend on the east coast, describing the variant accounts of the coronavirus given by sources inside and outside the mainstream, and more ]
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Ah, for sheer pleasure while you read the rest:

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Our various explanations of the coronavirus:
From that friend on the east coast:

Concerning the coronavirus, the opinions of the experts I’ve read run the gamut: The coronavirus is exactly as the CDC and WHO have been telling us, is a genetically engineered bioweapon, is related to the 5G rollout, is the last precursor for a totalitarian world government, and is more deadly than we’ve been told or is less deadly than we’ve been told. It originated from horseshoe bats in Yunnan province, originated in a Wuhan biolab, originated in a wet market, or originated at Fort Detrick. Covid-19 is not one disease but a number of them incorrectly lumped together because they have similar symptoms which explains why there are such mixed success rates with various treatments. Viruses, including the coronavirus, are exosomes, which are secreted by exocytosis in most living cells, where their role is to render harmless toxic substances in the body. These exosomes/viruses are the result and not the cause of illness. Therefore, there is no proof that Covid-19 per se is contagious. Alternatively, it is highly contagious. And all of this doesn’t even touch upon the variety of expert opinions concerning how nation states should best handle this situation.

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And a head-grabbing headline:

I’ve run into many of these in my own explorations, and navigated them as best I can. One particular headline caught my attention by bringing the coronavirus, which presently preoccupies me, and terrorism, which I was similarly preoccupied with some time back:

That’s a pretty stunning headline about now — adding extreme human malice into the coronavirus mix. Let’s see where else hatred leads Tim Wilson — here are some of the other targets he’d discussed with an FBI informant / friend:

he was considering sites ranging from a nuclear plant and Islamic centers in Missouri to the Walmart headquarters or a synagogue in Arkansas

Oh — and:

at one point last year Wilson talked to an undercover FBI agent in graphic terms of an idea for shooting up a predominantly black elementary school

Islamic centers and a synagogue, a nuclear plant or Walmart HQ, or a prewdominantly black, get this, elementary school — quite a range of choices to point his hatred at — and then he choses a hospital.

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Variations everywhere!