SpankyMcFarland

So how big an effect does population density have? The UK (esp. England) and the Netherlands should have huge numbers then. BTW our population lies mainly in a band beside the US border. There are very few people up north.

Another alarming complication of COVID-19: strokes in young people:

Bill Gates pointed out today that the country with the deepest connections to WHO is the US, via such organizations as CDC. Trump is a divider, not a uniter, and that’s the wrong sort of person to have in charge of the US during a global crisis. He can’t bring his own nation together, let alone the world.

Answer: no.

But such fine distinctions are a long way from MacKay's French, right? We're not talking anything like perfect fluency here. He seems to have made very little effort to improve despite decades in federal government. That's a more general strike against him.

OK, as a nearly dead white guy, I'm not exactly an authority on such matters but I would like to suggest that 'African Americans' or 'blacks' are preferable terms rather than some of the older ones.

We know his weapons? I missed that. How did he get them? There was some speculation about that interaction with the RCMP officer. I have never killed an animal with a gun but several of my close relatives are hunters and we have guns in the house. For reasons I can't really explain, I'm particularly squeamish about other people killing large predators like bears although some of my friends have done that in NL.

No, that sounds much worse. Alarming, actually. My in-laws are resilient. They wanted to sort it out discreetly and they did. Now it's in the past.

All humans are a little bit tribal; that's how we got here. Same way we are little envious, disloyal, dishonest, lustful etc. (speaking for myself anyway). Those selfish genes are calling the shots. Let's face it - our collective hom sap history is a nasty litany of genocide and whatever killing off other hominids is called if we want to go further back. Canadians are moving in the right direction. Let's give ourselves some credit.

They’re all viral detection tests with PCR? There have been concerns about false negatives with them given problems with sampling etc. The bigger problem is antibody testing. We need that to determine how many people have been exposed and may be immune for some time thereafter. So far, given the rush to market, these tests appear to have highly varied sensitivity and specificity: https://www.evaluate.com/vantage/articles/analysis/spotlight/covid-19-antibody-tests-face-very-specific-problem

A dark day for the West but some Greeks did survive in Constantinople after its fall. They even had a patriarch. Elsewhere, conversion rather than extermination seems to have been the order of the day; most Turks are not of Central Asian descent. Greeks are quick to point out the cities they founded in Asia Minor.

Examining the conduct of one’s ancestors is an entirely appropriate exercise as long as one puts their behaviour in the context of the time. Wallowing is optional.

Ideally, before opening up we would have widely available tests for the virus and a reliable antibody test as well. At the very least, all high-risk people like those in care homes (and their carers) need intensive, repeated testing. At some point we’re going to be asked to take our chances with physical distancing etc. It’s going to be a rough ride.

Heads of government should be ultra-cautious about publicly discussing controversial new treatments during a pandemic. Once the name has left the leader’s lips, it doesn’t matter what qualifying language accompanied it. You can’t brainstorm in front of the nation and expect nobody to get the wrong idea.

We were fortunate to land both TPP-11 and the new NAFTA despite the belligerent noises made by Uzmuccaman stateside. It’s easy to pull out of trade deals, much harder to put them together. If the US had signed TPP, it could have gone on to coordinate with the EU and be in a much stronger position to lead the world in laying down red lines with China.

That people examine the conduct of their ancestors is to their credit. Let’s hope we can progress as a species and say that certain actions, once considered justified, are no longer acceptable.

In the Turkish/Ottoman example, I’m covering hundreds of years, and the same with the British occupation of Ireland. The descendants of the victims still remember what happened and it is not trivial.

The explicit stuff was minor - name-calling between teenagers. We had a chat and sorted it out ourselves.

Are Canadians racist? Not particularly. I believe every human being is tribal. There’s racism on my street but we cope with it, learn from it and move on.

The victims remember, though. Talk to Serbs, Kurds, Greeks, Armenians. That’s true of many empires. It’s not a mere detail of history for them. Same with the British Empire too.

We’re going to come out of lockdown. The supporters for an immediate transition should at least acknowledge the potential risks to older people who live with younger working relatives. Let’s be honest here - physical separation in a household is rarely perfect. I see even Singapore is struggling with a second wave now: https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-singapore-lost-control-second-wave-2020-4#after-it-recorded-its-first-case-on-january-23-which-came-after-a-man-from-wuhan-traveled-to-singapore-the-country-reacted-quickly-and-aggressively-2 This seems to be coming from migrant worker dormitories. Any vulnerability will be found by the virus. There will be costs and benefits to opening up.

Car crash numbers are fairly static - far too high, given what we know about them already. They don’t threaten to overwhelm our hospitals and they don’t injure hospital staff.

Well, Holy God, that strange orange man is at it again. I think I’ll give the disinfectant injections a skip for now, thanks.

In the future, we’ll look back in wonder at that death toll. I’m more nervous driving on the highway than flying.

I heard a Scandinavian on BBC radio making a crucial semantic distinction in our English language; physical distancing should not mean social distancing. We must endeavour to stay close to each other while we are separated.