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government
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2020-05-06
Coronavirus: When Should Freedom Stay Home?
A detailed account of the history of the pandemic. -
2020-05-06
Greenville, SC Chicken processing plant demonstrates failures of US infrastructure
Two screenshots telling a story about the House of Raeford chicken processing plant less than a mile from my home and a larger story about the failure of the US infrastructure at this time. About 2 weeks ago we began to hear rumors that the meat supply was likely to be affected by the pandemic, workers were becoming sick in huge numbers and the processing plants were closing down. At the same time many of them were currently overloaded with products that they could not sell to restaurants and schools. 10 days ago the processing plant down the road held a huge sale on their overstock meat. Several thousand people lined up in their cars for miles down the road. They hung out in the parking lots of other businesses and moved in and out of them while waiting in the line. Very few people were masked ; none of the plant employees were masked. A few days after the sale President Trump declared meat packing plants essential for the economy and required them to stay open tho he provided no funds for PPE for workers nor any real guidelines on how to keep them safe. 7 days after the huge sale at the House of Raeford plant they reported positive cases amongst their workers. They refuse to say how many people are infected out of privacy concerns. At every step of the way the people involved should have been able to trust the government to keep us safe and we have not been able to. We should have been able to trust in our food supply or at least in the information we received about it so we didn't feel the need to panic buy food. The workers should have been protected from the start and definitely after they were ordered to work. We should be able to know what information to trust to make informed decisions regarding our lives and the lives of our fellow citizens. The US government is spectacularly failing to provide the least feeling of stability at this time. -
2020-03-29
Pandemic Monopoly
HUM 402 The image depicts the creation of Pandemic Monopoly by a Hobart resident. The homemade board game uses toilet paper as currency, referring to the toilet paper shortage seen across Tasmanian supermarkets. The board game presents players with the opportunity to 'own' key Hobart locations. However, instead of mortgage, houses and hotels, the game allows players to buy hospitals and clinics to place on the properties. Centrelink, the Australian governments social security service, features heavily on the board game, indicating the rise in unemployment due to the pandemic. Whilst being used for comical purposes, the game also critiques the Tasmanian governments early handling of Covid-19 crisis via a chance card, which states "You have a fever, dry cough and Pneumonia to boot but despite having all of the symptoms, you haven't knowingly come into contact with a known carried so they won't test you for Covid-19. The Royal Hobart Hospital sends you home. Get out of iso [isolation] free." This refers to the Tasmanian government in early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic refusing to test individuals who had not been in contact with a known case, or had not left the country. -
2020-05-03
Fears for after the lockdown
I have become very fearful for what the future holds for a number of reasons. We are in a time of many uncertainties and truly do not know what the future holds. There are many implications about how society will be after all this is over. The first reason why I am fearful is if this is the new status quo. What I mean by that is, when there is a new virus that comes around, are we going to have to stop everything that we are doing and stay at home. Can we endure that multiple times as a country, because with just this our economy has skyrocketed downward and millions are without work. I am scared of a society that closes down everything and puts millions of people into hardship due to unemployment just because a new disease has arisen. What if this were to become a seasonal thing. Another thing I am very weary of is just how powerful the government has become in people’s day to day lives. I am hoping that after all this is over that the government’s power will retract to how it was, but I am not too sure it will. In my view of things, people in positions of power either try their best to keep the power that they already have or try to expand it. This is fearful because I do not want to live in a society where the government has major control on most civil liberties. Another reason I am fearful is the fact that people would be so willing to give up their freedoms as individuals for a false sense of security. People are so willing these days to just not question what is going on and just believe whatever they see in the news. It has gotten to the point where I feel like I can not speak my mind on certain things without being shut down instantly. I have been having long talks about this idea of trading our civil liberties for false sense of security. I keep saying “false” sense of security because in the real world you can never be truly safe. Security is not a fundamental human right so why would we be so willing to give up the rights that we are entitled to. I hope people will consider things like this in order to come out of this situation stronger. -
2020-04-03
New Market Square, Wichita, Kansas
Looking across the usually busy New Market Square during the first week of Kansas's "shelter-in-place" order issued on March 30, 2020, which closed all non-essential businesses in the state. *Aaron Peterka, Northeastern University -
2020-04-24
On the Job
This is a picture of me at work at the Rotllies Pizza and Pasta. I work mostly as a pizza cook and sometimes I dabble at working as a line cook. We have taken many extra precautions at work to help stop the spread. Everyone has a mask and gloves on. If you have never worked an oven with a facemask on let me tell you it is hot. We are working hard to keep the doors open and the support from our local community has been amazing. While we have been fortunate other businesses have fared far worse. There has been many businesses that cannot keep the doors open. Others have tried to open back up with the help of the government loans. These are strange times and we got to stick together. -
2020-04-30
A text message to my Minister about my anger at the US government
A text message to the Minister of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship I attend describing my anger at the government for encouraging fear rather than alleviating it and for leaving the sick and the poor with no good choices. -
2020-04-27
Maria V.
Russia 2020. Our government decided that it’s better not to have “Emergency situation” and official quarantine. Russian citizens instead have “self-isolation”.In this case we all need to stay home, BUT no money were added to our accounts, no food provided from government or any kind of support at all. Instead, they decided that citizens without job, money and support need to pay fines every time they are on the street. What a great idea! And just before COVID-19 Russian Ruble felt dramatically because our government decided to have even more oil then before...Thanks again. Now we have: millions of poor people trying to survive, billioners get more money than before, government has more money from fines, but none spent on citizens, all small business shut down and have no chance to recover. In this situation any other country would help their own citizens. But Russia as a very generous country sent help to China,USA,Italy and other countries. Don’t worry, we don’t have sufficient quantity of doctors and medical resources, medicine in Russia will survive somehow. So would people. And everything after this pandemia...not going to change. Our country forgot about us. -
2020-03-27
The Religious Right’s Hostility to Science Is Crippling Our Coronavirus Response
This article talks about Trump's towards the corona virus pandemic and how the denial of science and critical thinking amongst religious ultraconservatives is affecting the American repsonse to the covid 19 outbreak. The article talks about how religious ultraconservative people in America are in denial of the facts about the pandemic because they have a religious response towards the virus which in result causes a lack of concern amongst those groups of people. -
2020-04-01
AusGov COVID-19 Message
HUM402 This is a text from the Australian Government sent to my personal device spreading awareness of the importance of adhering to government regulations and protecting others during the COVID-19 pandemic. -
2020-03-20
Rent Strike
Thousands of residential renters plan to stop paying their landlords from April 2020 in a nationwide strike as government negotiations stall. -
2020-03-31
Tribal Leaders Worried about Being Left Out of Conversation in Washington, D.C. on COVID-funding
"Even before the COVID-19 public health crisis began to grip the globe, Indian Country faced significant challenges from underfunding in health care, education, broadband and internet access, economic development, housing, human services and more." As a result, tribal leaders held a March 20 teleconference to discuss their next move. #IndigenousStories -
2020-03-29
Diary Entry
The ”lay off” Day 7 Whatsthisday, the 307th of Archpril The clocks changed tonight. I only know because I happened to be awake when they switched. An odd experience. One minute it’s 01:59 and the next 03:00. Yesterday was Earth Hour I’d missed that too, but Magdalena remembered and we spent a sleepy hour reading by candle and lamplight before heading to bed at 21:15. It’s a sort of tradition now. I missed both of these events because the available bandwidth to process news is simply overwhelmed with Covid-19. For a microscopic virus, it’s footprint in the macro world has become gargantuan, undeniable. Even for those for whom denial had become a way of life. I went to bed too early and now I can't sleep, so I’m browsing The Guardian and eating Clementines. We used to call them Mandarin oranges when I was a kid, but in Sweden, they call them Clementines for some reason. The US news is just apocalyptic. That’s a word I use far too much, but it really is the only one that fits now. Multiple, simultaneously accelerating sites of infection, the death rate approaching a thousand a day and the federal response remains jerky, incoherent, contradictory. At every news conference, Trump is like a bear in a trap, enraged, striking out blindly, snout spraying foam and blood with every snarl. He seems to sense a looming future that involves piano-wire and a sturdy lampost on some broad american boulevard. The lunacy is incomparable, without precedent in my lifetime. We are watching the Suez-cide of an empire in real time. In Sweden, things remain comparatively calm, but the undercurrent of concern is electric. We all feel it. We all know the exponential curve is on the way for us too. Our own local "Empire", the EU, is under tremendous strain as well, but here at least the causes remain pedestrian and institutional: the predictable outcome of a deliberately weak central authority rather then some bloated Nero. When this is over, we need to take a closer look at that. The house is cold – I’ve turned off the electric heating as spring pushes the temperatures higher, but it’s 0 degrees out there – so I creep down to start a fire. This is a delicate business at 03:30 in the morning or 02:30, whatever. The point is, it’s the middle of the night, and starting a fire tends to be a noisy obtrusive business, what with the roaring blaze, cast iron stove and so forth. I manage to get it just right, a minimum of metallic pings and ticks, the air flow turned down low to throttle brighter flames but not the coals. Satisfactory. I get back to writing. We’ve been in voluntary lockdown for about 2 weeks now. The first week was just a conventional work from home and then the layoff came. That was week 2. Today/Tonight/This morning, we are heading into week 3. That doesn’t mean we don’t do anything and I’d planned a series of activities with a minimum of social interaction for Saturday. Two things actually, a trip to hand stuff in to the 2nd hand place (Vinden which literally translates as Attic) and the open air recycling center. The fruits of a week with too much time on my hands. To that we've added a trip to ICA Maxi for a final round of supplies buying. The handoff at Vinden was perfect. There were some other people dropping stuff off, but we waited in the car for them to finish and then dumped our stuff. Eight bags of assorted clothes, utensils and older electronic odds and ends. Social interactions? Zero. Then we headed to Maxi. It’s dawning on me that this isn’t ideal. I’ve had misgivings about heading into an enormous shopping center in the middle of a global pandemic. Shopping should really be done only during off peak times and Saturday morning is about as on peak as you can get. This is feeling more and more like an avoidable error. I clutch my hand sanitizer and pull on my gloves. However, when we finally pull into the parking garage I’m encouraged. There are very few cars. We don’t need that much stuff, so instead of a trolley we get one of those rolling baskets and head in. There are plenty of people about, but Maxi (as the name suggests) is very large. It has acres of floor space and I can immediately see that people are distributed for maximal social distancing. There is a weird synchronicity to their movements, as if everyone is generating a repelling magnetic field, they slide past each other with meters of clearance. Even when people are speaking to each other or staff, they seem to be standing on either side of a 2 meter gorge. We pinball our way to the cat food (these goddam cats will be the death of us), traversing a wide arc through pet toys and obscure cleaning products, it’s a very lightly trafficked part of the store and we meet no one. Then down into fruit and vegetables to pick up oranges, clementines, apples and bananas. I read somewhere you can freeze fresh fruit and I want to try it. Magdalena has more practical goals in mind and selects the ingredients for a salad. In the fruit and veg section we actually bump into our handyman, Lars. Not literally of course. He has a heart condition and we don't want to kill him, so we stand either side of the gorge and shout pleasantries. Then onto dairy for milk (reason number two, after cat food, we are here at all) and two big plugs of cheese. Then I decide I want to get a loaf of freshly baked bread, but it’s a dilemma. No packaging. If I touch the bread with my gloves, anything on the gloves will transfer and then I’ll shove that material into my stupid fat face when we get home. I opt to remove the gloves, sanitize, pop the bread into the bags provided, then put the gloves back on. A month ago this aberrant, peculiar behavior would have attracted stares. Today, not the merest ripple of interest. The world has moved on. We head to the check outs. They are well manned and we immediately find one with a single shopper finishing up. I realize then we should have self-scanned all this crap. Now the checkout person is going to touch all our stuff, breath on it and so forth. While they contaminate everything I’m blipping my card. The blipping is great because you just hover the card over the reader. Nothing actually touches anything. You still have to punch in the code on the keypad (I shudder at this even though I’m wearing gloves) but the whole business is so much superior to the epidemiological nightmare of handing physical cash back and forth. Uuurgh. Cash. Filthy lucre. What a mad unsanitary idea cash is. Or more correctly in Sweden, was. Another big plus in Sweden’s fight against the spread of the virus. Cash is no longer king. It’s not even a local warlord and all its Statues were pulled down years ago. We head out to the car, sanitize, and home. Social interactions? Two. -
2020-03-23
Sacrificing grandma for the stock market
The U.S. government was planning on opening the country again and having daily life go back to normal sooner than health experts recommended. People were angry that the government was willing to allow at-risk people (the elderly) to die rather than have the economy crash -
2020-04-06
"The World Should Unite"
In 2020, when the Chinese New Year is approaching, a virus broke out in Wuhan that people have never seen before. After the New Year, the entire China began to fight against the outbreak. I feel deeply that in the early stage of the outbreak, there were countless young doctors in China who voluntarily signed up and applied to go to the place where the epidemic was most severe-Wuhan, the hero of the Chinese people, Grandpa Zhong Nanshan, arrived in Wuhan as soon as possible, which made us feel the most united It was during the epidemic that the Chinese people were able to obey the government's command to close the city, close the countryside, and close the community. The people stayed at home and did not go out, so that the epidemic did not spread so quickly. The virus is also under control Here I want to thank the medical staff who traveled to Wuhan. You risked your life to protect me. You did not choose to back down and avoid, but chose to fight against the virus. You came forward. Many young doctors did not tell themselves Parents are afraid of them. Many attending doctors change their hair from black to white within a month. During this epidemic, many doctors unfortunately contracted the virus during the treatment and did not return to their hometown and died. The epidemic is on the front line. Here, I want to pay tribute to all the medical staff, to the dead medical staff, you have worked hard. I would also like to thank those who contributed to the epidemic, the staff of the Wuhan "Vulcan Mountain" Hospital and the "Raytheon Mountain" Hospital, you worked hard, you built the hospital in just ten days, it was shocked The speed of the world is the result of your work day and night, and you have worked hard. In this epidemic, I feel the unity of the Chinese people. Most people, following the government ’s decision, stay at home and do not go out. Songs written by singers to cheer for Wuhan, and painters painted for Wuhan, writers, many people use their own ways to cheer for China and cheer for medical staff. This makes us very moved. There are many entrepreneurs and workers. Both students and teachers donated money for the epidemic, and many large manufacturing companies began to produce masks and disinfectants. Chinese people are cheering for Wuhan in their own way, cheering for medical staff I would also like to thank other countries that helped China during the epidemic. When the epidemic broke out, many countries assisted China by donating, donating, sending medical teams to China, and refueling China in various ways, although there are Some complained to China, but people from all over the world also cheered for China. Many of our teachers even chose to stand with the Chinese people and stay in China even when the epidemic was serious. People from all countries said that they helped and cheered on China With a "thank you" China's epidemic situation is much better now. China will also try its best to help other countries. Only when we unite will the world be perfect. -
2020-04-05
April 6th - April 12th
The week of April 6th, 2020 – April 12th, 2020 marked over 21 days of quarantine for myself. Here in Conway, South Carolina, it feels as though life has taken a hit, but not to the extension that you see in places such as California or New York. Whether it is people have been lucky here or just not enough testing to actually confirm the correct number is anybody’s guess. You can still go into a store such as Wal-Mart and find an overwhelming amount of people at any given time. Even though Governor McMaster has put on a stay at home order for all nonessential workers, it just doesn’t feel like daily life has slowed down for many. For myself, the only positive that has come from all of this are the low gas prices, as low as $1.19 in some places! One of the biggest issues that I have seen is the mental aspect of the country. The panic, the worry, the fear. Granted it is unprecedented times, but instead of calm and trying to find positive in this, all over the TV and media is negativity. In my hometown of Adams, Massachusetts, this virus is destroying them, but yet when I talk to family members, the lack of action is mind – blowing to me. My mother works for a dentist office who continues to stay open, even after her boss recently came back from a cruise. Is it ignorance or greed? I have struggled with those two topics of this whole situation. It is clear now that the measures taken at the beginning of the outbreak were not enough. Now the government handing out money to people to try and keep them afloat is their way of trying to curb public opinion. What better way to prevent an outcry of the public than to give them free money to keep their opinions to themselves? For me in this situation, the real fear in this, is my mind. As someone who has struggled the majority of my life with addiction and alcoholism, it is a crippling time in the sober community. On April 15th, it will mark my one year anniversary of being sober. These last few weeks seem to have tested me more than ever. With the social gatherings limit, that means all of the meetings I was attending every week are no longer an option. Being laid off and not being able to go anywhere, you have restless legs and a restless mind. This past week I have done hours of yard work and home maintenance just to keep my mind busy and hopefully exhaust me to the point where I just go to sleep. I am one of the lucky ones, I guess. In the last ten days, I have had to watch three friends in sobriety, go back out, and lose their lives to the disease. I know the longer that this pandemic goes on, the more friends I will have to say goodbye to and you just pray that you stay afloat. There has been good in this though, there are pop up groups that have created online meetings where you can facetime in and get to have meetings with people from all over the world. I’m not sure what this next week holds in store, but just like everyday I pray we see the light at the end of the tunnel. P.S. I miss sports desperately (this was supposed to be the Master’s tournament this weekend!). -
2020-01-22
President Trump’s Statements about the Corona Virus
Excerpts of President Trumps speeches about the handling of the Corona Virus -
2020-03-30
HM Government Press Release relating to COVID-19 Misinformation
This is an official press release from HM governmnet detailing their efforts to combat misinformation and "fake news" related to COVID-19. This effort is being headed up by experts from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. *Nicholas Bowers, Bowling Green State University, HIST 4800 -
2020-04-09
The Week of Baking
This week I have done nothing but school work and bake. I have had so many reciepes that I have wanted to try for so long, and I finally have the time. They have all come out pretty good, except my sister burnt one batch of peanut butter cookies. This week the Stimulus package is supposed to be distributed, so we will see how long that takes. We also found out this week that there has been a federal addition to unemployment, which will help a lot of Americans keep their homes and vehicle payments on track. This is honestly turning into quite the financial disaster, especially if the government does not make good on their promise. -
2020-01-01
COVID-19 in HK
This is a information aggregation site in Hong Kong put together by volunteers to visualize and summarize information that are buried deeply inside government press releases -
2020-03-31
Advice re walking
Victorian State Government advice about walking -
2020-03-31
New park rules appeared today
We are going for a walk every day for exercise, noting as the days go by new signs and information about social distancing. These signs were not there yesterday, and the teenagers playing basketball at the hoop and the kids playing on the playground have now disappeared. Just groups of two, or families with a few more, walking slightly furtively past one another. And many more bicyclists whizzing past on the shared paths — have already seen a bingle or two. -
2020-03-22
How the Government Botched the Coronavirus Response (LegalEagle’s Real Law Review)
A trial lawyer breaks down the timeline and provides an overview of the Trump administration's actions leading up to the Covid-19 pandemic and their response to it. -
2020-03-28
#Yomequedoencasa website
Peruvian website promoting the public health campaign. Peruvians can see if they qualify for the government subsidy of S/ 380 (approximately $111.50) http://yomequedoencasa.midis.gob.pe/ -
2020-03-16
Governmental Coronavirus Postcard Mailer
I received this mailer on March 24, 2020. It outlines "President Trump's Coronoavirus Guidelines for America,' dated March 16, 2020. Includes various tips such as "Avoid eating or drinking at bars and restaurants--USE PICKUP OR DELIVERY OPTIONS," and "DO NOT VISIT nursing homes or retirement or long-term care facilities unless to provide critical assistance." Also recommends following state and local authorities' directions and visiting the coronavirus.gov website. "It is critical that you do your part to slow the spread of the coronavirus." -
2020-03-16
Back side of CORONAVIRUS.GOV postcard
This is the reverse/back side of postcard put out by the US government giving recommendations on what to do if you are ill, high risk groups to avoid, and to practice good hygiene during the Coronavirus pandemic. -
2020-03-16
Front of CORONAVIRUS.GOV postcard
This postcard came in the mail, sent out by US government, gives recommendations on what to do if you are sick, not to visit high risk persons and to practice good hygiene with the Coronavirus Pandemic. -
03/20/2020
Stalls at the French Market Closed
Stalls in New Orleans' French Market, typically buzzing with vendors and shoppers, are closed after the local government discourages large gatherings to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus. -
03/20/2020
French Market Empty on a Friday Afternoon
The French Market, usually teeming with tourists on a beautiful spring day, is empty after the local government discourages large gatherings to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus. -
2020-03-15
Machines that read CoVid-19 tests are still waiting for FDA approval, despite use in other countries
Government struggles to respond