Eight people in Gresik regency, East Java, were ordered by local authorities to dig graves for those who have died of COVID-19 as punishment for not wearing face masks in public.

Cerme district head, Suyono, said that he punished residents who did not wear face masks by making them dig graves at a public cemetery in Ngabetan village.

“There are only three available gravediggers at the moment, so I thought I might as well put these people to work with them,” said Suyono as quoted by tribunnews.com on Wednesday, adding that local authorities made sure the health protocol violators did not participate in the burials.

Van Morrison thinks social distancing is a hoax.

Fuck Him

These things matter. I have written before about why the misuse of the word medieval – something which Trump himself indulges in! – is bad, but it bears repeating. Our society is responsible for its own problems. Early medieval people didn’t have access to a bunch of “correct” Science and then choose to start ignoring it. (I will never ever understand what it is these people think the Romans had going for them, honestly.) We are doing that now. If you offered medieval people a bunch of, say, workable medicine and explained why it works, they would probably thank you and immediately begin administering it free of charge to anyone who needed it. The people who are currently either a) denying people healthcare because of financial barriers, or b) ignoring the science behind a pandemic because it impinges on their “freedom” are thoroughly modern Americans.

...

Medieval Europeans were absolutely committed to communal welfare, but even if they were not, they didn’t even have a conception of the personal rights that could be infringed upon that would encourage them to endanger their community because the concept was not yet invented. In fact, it is arguable that without the Enlightenment conception of the rights of man your weird uncle would never even have got the idea that he had a right to endanger his life and those of others in order to go to Buffalo Wild Wings without a mask. Americans are doing this right now because the conditions of American society have allowed for it and because of the enduring legacy of Enlightenment thought.

First day of school in Paulding County, GA.

It's like they looked at their recent summer camp outbreak and said "Hold My Beer!"

A lot of people are about to learn a hard lesson.

Universal Masking to Prevent SARS-CoV-2 Transmission.

Time to kill that dangerous bit of folklore that says it only protects people from the wearer - and not only because it gives people the excuse to say "I ain't sick so I don't need no mask!".

Went to the hardware store, the grocery store and the booze store. For the first time, everybody was wearing a mask. In fact, all of the stores required them.

Only took three and a half months.

​One in three patients who recover from coronavirus could be harmed for life, with long-term damage to their lungs, as well as chronic fatigue and psychological disturbances, research suggests.

Experts said there was growing evidence that the virus could cause persistent or even permanent trauma, including impairment to the brain and an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

NHS guidance seen by The Telegraph suggests that around 30 per cent of patients who recover from Covid-19 may be left with damaged and scarred lung tissue, if it follows patterns of similar diseases.

Pass.

The mantra about the mask is "It doesn't protect you from other people, it protects them from you!" Mask wearing is supposed to be altruistic rather than preventative.

People take this to mean they don't need to wear a mask if they don't feel sick. Yet you can have C19 and not know it for days, or you might never know it. So, people won't be wearing masks when they need them because they don't know they need them.

So, the mantra should be: masks stop transmission.

Don't make mask wearing conditional on the health of the wearer. Don't make it altruistic. Just require it.

Since the start of June, 14 states and Puerto Rico have recorded their highest-ever seven-day average of new coronavirus cases since the pandemic began, according to data tracked by The Washington Post: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Kentucky, New Mexico, North Carolina, Mississippi, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.

Re-open!