Bad News Thread

dad4 said:
Given the current ruling, how do you permit church services while prohibiting live theater and poetry readings?

It seems unarguably a content restriction. One is a 60 minute reading and commentary on Alan Ginsberg. The other is a 60 minute reading and commentary from the Bible. It isn't even clear that you could tell the difference if you have the sound turned off.

I expect this will return to bite the court in the butt within months.
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a. free v charge a fee. Like I said, I free poetry reading is harder. The thrust of the New Jersey lawsuit is that NJ is discriminating in favor of religion against theatres. The decisions handed down so far make a distinction because a theater is a commercial enterprise.
b. SCOTUS didn't say you have to open indoor worship. It just said you can't treat it worse. If indoor dining is open but a theatre is not, that's probably an issue. If the same percentage limitations apply I bet you they'd say that's o.k. (indoor dining is closed so theatre can be closed....indoor dining at 25% so theatres at 25%)
c. there's a hierarchy of speech: political speech > free performance and opinion speech > commercial speech like books and films >commercial speech like advertising. SCOTUS just wanted religion treated in the top tier.

If anything I don't think it bites the court....if anything I think they'll be happy to extend similar restrictions as other businesses: so churches and political protests must be >= theatres, pole dancers and sports venues >= grocery stores, box chains and personal services.
 
Grace T. said:
a. free v charge a fee. Like I said, I free poetry reading is harder. The thrust of the New Jersey lawsuit is that NJ is discriminating in favor of religion against theatres. The decisions handed down so far make a distinction because a theater is a commercial enterprise.
b. SCOTUS didn't say you have to open indoor worship. It just said you can't treat it worse. If indoor dining is open but a theatre is not, that's probably an issue. If the same percentage limitations apply I bet you they'd say that's o.k. (indoor dining is closed so theatre can be closed....indoor dining at 25% so theatres at 25%)
c. there's a hierarchy of speech: political speech > free performance and opinion speech > commercial speech like books and films >commercial speech like advertising. SCOTUS just wanted religion treated in the top tier.

If anything I don't think it bites the court....if anything I think they'll be happy to extend similar restrictions as other businesses: so churches and political protests must be >= theatres, pole dancers and sports venues >= grocery stores, box chains and personal services.
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B- if you can't treat sermons worse than grocers, then there is no way to ban indoor services. If you did, then you have to ban grocery stores. That causes problems.

a- to he link to commerce is odd. Free religious services are kind of a new invention. Not that long ago you had to rent your pew: religion was a type of commerce. Seems weird that the court would draw the line at paid versus unpaid speech. It puts some religious speech on one side and some on the other.

Does that mean my church loses some of its free speech protections when I decide to rent pews or make tithe mandatory? After all, if I rent pews then it is no longer free.

I hope the outcome is for states to tighten rules on non religious venues. My bet is they just open the churches and feign impotence when church contagion makes cases rise.
 
dad4 said:
Near the peak nationally or for CA?

The CA case count is nowhere near the 6-10% that has preceded other states' count declines. I thought we are in for it for another few weeks.
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Nationally. The one thing you’ll notice about the steep increases as we’ve seen in the Midwest, upper Midwest is that they tend to drop quickly as well. We can hope.
 
dad4 said:
B- if you can't treat sermons worse than grocers, then there is no way to ban indoor services. If you did, then you have to ban grocery stores. That causes problems.
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The problem wasn't that the grocers were open and the religious services were closed. The problem is the religious places of worship were closed but dining and a lot of other places like tattoo parlors, construction and bike shops were open and classified as essential...SCOTUS implied the remedy might be a capacity limitation. SCOTUS already ruled on closing places of worship in the summer. It would seem a European style, short emergency lockdown (where everything is closed except really essential businesses like markets and pharmacies) is o.k. What rankled was the dining, tattoo parlors and nail salons, construction, bike shops or in California movie production.
 
Grace T. said:
The problem wasn't that the grocers were open and the religious services were closed. The problem is the religious places of worship were closed but dining and a lot of other places like tattoo parlors, construction and bike shops were open and classified as essential...SCOTUS implied the remedy might be a capacity limitation. SCOTUS already ruled on closing places of worship in the summer. It would seem a European style, short emergency lockdown (where everything is closed except really essential businesses like markets and pharmacies) is o.k. What rankled was the dining, tattoo parlors and nail salons, construction, bike shops or in California movie production.
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The CA link specifically mentioned grocers, as did you. Drop grocers, and it has a chance of being reasonable. If you keep the link to grocers, the ruling means you have to let churches spread covid at will.

Capacity limit would be fine, but no church can run with even a 20 person capacity limit. Tattoo parlors will be just fine with a 4 person limit. You still end up with churches closed and tattoo parlors open.
 
dad4 said:
The CA link specifically mentioned grocers, as did you. Drop grocers, and it has a chance of being reasonable. If you keep the link to grocers, the ruling means you have to let churches spread covid at will.

Capacity limit would be fine, but no church can run with even a 20 person capacity limit. Tattoo parlors will be just fine with a 4 person limit. You still end up with churches closed and tattoo parlors open.
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SCOTUS suggested a % limit based on the capacity of the building.
 
dad4 said:
B- if you can't treat sermons worse than grocers, then there is no way to ban indoor services. If you did, then you have to ban grocery stores. That causes problems.

a- to he link to commerce is odd. Free religious services are kind of a new invention. Not that long ago you had to rent your pew: religion was a type of commerce. Seems weird that the court would draw the line at paid versus unpaid speech. It puts some religious speech on one side and some on the other.

Does that mean my church loses some of its free speech protections when I decide to rent pews or make tithe mandatory? After all, if I rent pews then it is no longer free.

I hope the outcome is for states to tighten rules on non religious venues. My bet is they just open the churches and feign impotence when church contagion makes cases rise.
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Not a SCOTUS position... but commerce wasn’t a factor in the speech decision regarding strip club closures and that is certainly not a free venue.
 
Desert Hound said:
View attachment 9655
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There’s a lot of this where’s the flu on the Twitter verse (particularly given flu immunization last I checked was down from normal). There’s really a basic answer: covid is more contagious than flu so while masks may help against flu they probably help less against covid particularly if the conditions exist for it to be aersolized. Similarly while distancing and isolating a sick resident of your home may help with flu it will help less with covid.
 
Grace T. said:
There’s a lot of this where’s the flu on the Twitter verse (particularly given flu immunization last I checked was down from normal). There’s really a basic answer: covid is more contagious than flu so while masks may help against flu they probably help less against covid particularly if the conditions exist for it to be aersolized. Similarly while distancing and isolating a sick resident of your home may help with flu it will help less with covid.
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Both the CDC and articles you have posted on masks are quite clear that masks reduce the rate of outgoing droplets and aerosols. For example, your most recent real article showed reductions in the 70 to 95 percent range.

You can therefore stop saying things like "they probably help less...". This opinion is both dangerous and wholly unsupported by the data.

Just one more example of Grace making misleading statements that discourage others from taking sensible precautions.
 
dad4 said:
Both the CDC and articles you have posted on masks are quite clear that masks reduce the rate of outgoing droplets and aerosols. For example, your most recent real article showed reductions in the 70 to 95 percent range.

You can therefore stop saying things like "they probably help less...". This opinion is both dangerous and wholly unsupported by the data.

Just one more example of Grace making misleading statements that discourage others from taking sensible precautions.
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I must have some serious comprehension issues this morning, (not that far fetched,) but I thought what she was saying was fairly rational? If flu is less contagious, then yea- transmission is less likely and mitigation efforts, (ie: masks,) are more likely to help. With COVID, transmission is easier which means mitigation efforts aren't as successful- doesn't mean the efforts totally fail, just don't work as well. Again, I could be totally misinterpreting.
 
Glitterhater said:
I must have some serious comprehension issues this morning, (not that far fetched,) but I thought what she was saying was fairly rational? If flu is less contagious, then yea- transmission is less likely and mitigation efforts, (ie: masks,) are more likely to help. With COVID, transmission is easier which means mitigation efforts aren't as successful- doesn't mean the efforts totally fail, just don't work as well. Again, I could be totally misinterpreting.
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If there were not a steady drip of mildly negative comments on the CDC recommendations, maybe.

Even then, there is no reason to believe that contagiousness correlates one way or the other with mask effectiveness. Maybe a more contagious virus is harder for masks to stop, because a 10% exposure is still enough. Maybe a more contagious virus is more vulnerable to masks, because so many more people are at a moderately dangerous distance from the spreader. I don't know, and I would be surprised if more than one person here knew.

I just see it as a counterproductive post.
 
dad4 said:
If there were not a steady drip of mildly negative comments on the CDC recommendations, maybe.

Even then, there is no reason to believe that contagiousness correlates one way or the other with mask effectiveness. Maybe a more contagious virus is harder for masks to stop, because a 10% exposure is still enough. Maybe a more contagious virus is more vulnerable to masks, because so many more people are at a moderately dangerous distance from the spreader. I don't know, and I would be surprised if more than one person here knew.

I just see it as a counterproductive post.
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not counterproductive just questioning. It’spretty clear covid is more contagiousthan the flu and there is evidence it’s more aersolized than the flu. I don’t think people should stop wearing masks when in doors. I just think the authorities shouldn’t oversell them (undermines trust and discouraged social distancing if people think masks are better than vaccines). That said, our public health experts are all idiots which is why they probably have their jobs instead of being notable cancer specialists,top notch surgeons or even dr oz.
 
Grace T. said:
not counterproductive just questioning. It’spretty clear covid is more contagiousthan the flu and there is evidence it’s more aersolized than the flu. I don’t think people should stop wearing masks when in doors. I just think the authorities shouldn’t oversell them (undermines trust and discouraged social distancing if people think masks are better than vaccines). That said, our public health experts are all idiots which is why they probably have their jobs instead of being notable cancer specialists,top notch surgeons or even dr oz.
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That's exactly what I mean by counterproductive.

They actually studied this stuff. You did not. Yet you have the hubris to say you know it better than they do. Which you do not.

Take that class in biological dynamical systems. Then you'll have a better sense for what does and does not count as a significant change to transmission/Rt.
 
dad4 said:
That's exactly what I mean by counterproductive.

They actually studied this stuff. You did not. Yet you have the hubris to say you know it better than they do. Which you do not.

Take that class in biological dynamical systems. Then you'll have a better sense for what does and does not count as a significant change to transmission/Rt.
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they are the bottom of the barrel out of medical school (just below pediatrician and above coroner) or couldn’t get into medical school so went into health policy. Just like it takes a certain type of nut job to be an attorney, it takes a particularly deficient personality set to get into their job (seriously have never seen such scorn out of my aap friend).
 
Grace T. said:
There’s a lot of this where’s the flu on the Twitter verse (particularly given flu immunization last I checked was down from normal). There’s really a basic answer: covid is more contagious than flu so while masks may help against flu they probably help less against covid particularly if the conditions exist for it to be aersolized. Similarly while distancing and isolating a sick resident of your home may help with flu it will help less with covid.
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Another possibility is that asymptomatic flu cases are common but not tested for. Thus presenting the appearance that COVID is more contagious.
 
Kicker4Life said:
And back to round and round we go.....
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theres Totally a psychology thing at work here. Not intended as a criticism of him (it’s just the way he’s wired) but he has a need for the security of experts and control (and perhaps the certainty of science and mathematics) and so reacts to any nuanced criticism of them by lashing out or any deviation in the data with skepticism. My operating principle is to question everything and trust no one (perhaps due to early childhood disappointments probably stemming from my inability to count on peers and parents) so it makes for a toxic relationship and a particular source of resentment.
 
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