All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[numberthirty]

...

If Russia, China, and India can share their vaccine supply with the rest of the world, surely the richest and most powerful nation in the history of mankind can spare a few doses too?

...

If there was ever a time to say "You know what? You can take that contract and shove it. We'll see you in court..."?

This would probably be it.

[mogwen]

It's amazing how some people seem to be okay with reprehensible behaviour when it suits them. tbh, that's just disgusting. Not to mention this will lead to more deaths worldwide and maybe the apparition of new variants, more potent, more deadly that will find their way to the US. It's one of those moments where we should play together, not one against the others.
I'm really saddened by what I've seen those last days. Some people her are not that different from the Trumpists they decry. America first means America alone, remember?

[Gray Lensman]

If there was ever a time to say "You know what? You can take that contract and shove it. We'll see you in court..."?

This would probably be it.

Not really.

1 - by the time the case winds through the courts, the contracts would probably be ended anyways.

2 - conservative media would be pounding "Biden wants to protect China before Americans!" non-stop for months, maybe even into the 2022 election.

3 - however, it looks like they can blame Trump for the contracts as they stand now.

So, they can hand a PR bonanza to the opposition in exchange for.....well, nothing at all when you think about it, or they could do literally anything else and come out ahead. Remember most of the judges that would be taking the case would be Trump appointees (since I expect Pharma to forum shop if it comes to that), not to mention appeals. breaking those contracts (unless more details change what I see atm) sounds like a lose/lose proposition.

[PwrdOn]

Not really.

1 - by the time the case winds through the courts, the contracts would probably be ended anyways.

2 - conservative media would be pounding "Biden wants to protect China before Americans!" non-stop for months, maybe even into the 2022 election.

3 - however, it looks like they can blame Trump for the contracts as they stand now.

So, they can hand a PR bonanza to the opposition in exchange for.....well, nothing at all when you think about it, or they could do literally anything else and come out ahead. Remember most of the judges that would be taking the case would be Trump appointees (since I expect Pharma to forum shop if it comes to that), not to mention appeals. breaking those contracts (unless more details change what I see atm) sounds like a lose/lose proposition.

Funny how the Democrats always face intractable obstacles whenever it comes to doing anything remotely positive, but when it comes to bombing Syria, putting kids back in cages, or rebuilding the goddamn border wall, there is never much of a problem.

[CSTowle]

So if you get sensitive for being called out as America-Firsters you just find a way to blame Trump and move on? Again, nobody's the villain of their own story.

[Gray Lensman]

So if you get sensitive for being called out as America-Firsters you just find a way to blame Trump and move on? Again, nobody's the villain of their own story.

More like don't expend effort in a battle you can't win. The biggest part as far as I can see it is the court case will probably outlast the contract itself. An injunction upholding the contract for the duration of the court battle (not an uncommon occurrence) means the only real outcome of the case would be a practical loss. Even a technical win doesn't look like it would happen in time to change things.

If you know how to overcome that legal hurdle then by all means enlighten us.

[numberthirty]

More like don't expend effort in a battle you can't win. The biggest part as far as I can see it is the court case will probably outlast the contract itself. An injunction upholding the contract for the duration of the court battle (not an uncommon occurrence) means the only real outcome of the case would be a practical loss. Even a technical win doesn't look like it would happen in time to change things.

If you know how to overcome that legal hurdle then by all means enlighten us.

"A Battle You Can't Win..." is practically everything worthwhile that has ever been accomplished before it was actually accomplished.

If you don't even have the spine to attempt this sort of thing?

Probably should be asking if you should be running a show to start with.

[Tami]

Sweden’s Pandemic Experiment

On a gloomy afternoon in March, 2020, Angelica Jularbo, a nurse, was in her office at a high school in Stockholm, when one of her students came in complaining of a headache. Jularbo, a mother of four, projects the mixture of sternness and warmth that one expects from a nurse. In the previous month, COVID-19 had begun sweeping across Europe, but Swedish schools remained open. As Jularbo bent to take the student’s temperature, the student coughed and then said, “Oh, maybe I should tell you, my partner has been diagnosed with corona.” Jularbo ordered the student to go home immediately. “Don’t go back to class to get your bag,” she said. “We’ll have someone bring it to you.”

Four days later, Jularbo woke with a fever and a splitting headache. “I understand why people who are really sick, or people who are in excruciating pain, say, ‘I just want to die,’ ” she told me. She was so tired that she couldn’t leave her room for several days. One morning, she made tea and sat on the couch, determined to see her children off to school; she woke up to the sounds of them coming home, tea cool on the table. After nine days, the last two symptom-free, she went back to work. But a week later the headache and fever returned. She locked herself in her office to avoid exposing anyone. “I was so, so scared that I had made someone else in the office sick,” she told me.

Jularbo’s illness came at a pivotal time for Sweden. While lockdowns, curfews, and travel bans were being rolled out across the rest of the world, Swedish restaurants, stores, bars, museums, day cares, and elementary schools all remained open. People were encouraged to work from home and to reduce travel, but both were optional. Masks were not recommended and remained rare. Households could mix; until the end of March, even parties of up to five hundred people were allowed. The man behind Sweden’s coronavirus response is Anders Tegnell, the country’s head epidemiologist. Tegnell worked in Zaire during the 1995 Ebola epidemic, and then served as an expert on infectious diseases for the European Union before being hired by the Swedish public-health agency, in 2013.

The Swedish constitution gives government agencies extraordinary independence, so Tegnell and the public-health agency have led much of the coronavirus response, and, constitutionally, the government has little power to impose restrictions. Tegnell, who is sixty-four and tall, with round glasses, has often said that lockdowns are not supported by science and that the evidence for mask-wearing is “weak.” His stance is a startling departure from the scientific consensus, but he maintains that if other countries were led by experts rather than politicians, more nations would have policies like Sweden’s. The world has been left gawking. American liberals were shocked that the country of Greta Thunberg could seem so scientifically backward. Right-wing activists in Minnesota held up signs during anti-lockdown protests reading “Be Like Sweden.” Within the country, Tegnell has become an icon of Swedish exceptionalism, believed to be excessively reasonable, levelheaded, and rational. Supporters praised him for not giving in to political panic. Wearing a mask in Sweden was sometimes seen as a signifier of being anti-science.

Twana, and some others in Sweden, feel let down by how their government has managed the pandemic. Alexandra Rönnholm, a fifty-four-year-old government employee, lost her husband in January. She wrote to me to say that Tegnell and his colleagues “have acted too late and too little which has led to over 12000 people premature death including my husband. He would have lived without Corona!” Nanaz Fassih, a fifty-two-year-old pediatric nurse, was skeptical of the Swedish response from the beginning; she tried to wear a mask to work in hospitals and clinics, but was told that this was not allowed. (Today, masks are more commonly used in Swedish hospitals.) On December 25th, she lost her eighty-three-year-old father to COVID-19. She had often heard the Prime Minister speaking in support of the health ministry’s policies. “He said the strategy is going well,” she told me. “How can he say it is good?” Twana wishes that the government had instituted stricter protections. “That’s a politician’s work, to take information and protect the people in society,” she said. Instead, she said, “Anders Tegnell, he was Prime Minister.” She added, “I still believe in the government. I do. But I’m very, very sad about how they dealt with the issues with the pandemic.”

[CaptainEurope]

It's amazing how some people seem to be okay with reprehensible behaviour when it suits them. tbh, that's just disgusting. Not to mention this will lead to more deaths worldwide and maybe the apparition of new variants, more potent, more deadly that will find their way to the US. It's one of those moments where we should play together, not one against the others.
I'm really saddened by what I've seen those last days. Some people her are not that different from the Trumpists they decry. America first means America alone, remember?

It's a weird feeling but I kind of have ... faith? in the American President that he will renegotiate these contracts to make sure no vaccine gets wasted.

I mean, the manufacturers would have no interest in remaining shackled, right?

[Tendrin]

So, the Alabama secretary of state bit.

https://twitter.com/chris_notcapn/st...36245493739521

[Gray Lensman]

It's a weird feeling but I kind of have ... faith? in the American President that he will renegotiate these contracts to make sure no vaccine gets wasted.

I mean, the manufacturers would have no interest in remaining shackled, right?

The manufacturers wanted those provisions for the liability shield. An emergency can be used to waive liability, but only for the U.S. Waiving liability elsewhere requires negotiating with each country (or maybe the EU as a whole) in turn, and given the accelerated production, companies are likely skittish (to put it mildly) of any liability they could face.

[worstblogever]

So, the Alabama secretary of state bit.

https://twitter.com/chris_notcapn/st...36245493739521

I guess you can say, Merrill was taken down a peg today.

[Tendrin]

I guess you can say, Merrill was taken down a peg today.

I approve greatly. Enjoy the inevitable profile where you get to use that.

[worstblogever]

I approve greatly. Enjoy the inevitable profile where you get to use that.

It will be quite be an update to these fun facts:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/202...ll-2020-Update

[Malvolio]

We all should have seen this coming. These guys are all such cowards, it was only a matter of time before one of them offered up a few names in exchange for a lesser sentence.