Society's ChildS


Yellow Vest

Two hair salon owners in California defy stay-at-home orders, both reopen to pay bills

salon owner reopen
Hair salons and barbershops across the state have been closed since March under the state's stay-at-home order.

After more than a month without income, two business owners in Auburn have decided to defy that order and reopen their doors to customers anyway.

For Clip Cage owner Breann Curtis, it was either defy the state's stay-at-home order or face collections. "I have to do what I have to do. I'm fighting to provide for my children and myself and my family right now," explained Curtis.

After losing thousands of dollars, Curtis told FOX40 that it was time to take a chance and reopen. "It's been very hard. I'm pregnant. I have children at home," said Curtis.

Comment: A salon owner in Dallas, Texas has reopened despite a county order that says her business is "non-essential." She said she has missed a mortgage payment and has 19 employees who are out of work.


Bizarro Earth

The geopolitical operation of the 'global elite' should be named 'a crime against humanity'

Man with cart
© AFP
What do we want to call the geopolitical operation of the "global elite" with its real "depopulation agenda" currently taking place before our very eyes?

The consequences of this gigantic, frightening swindle are being experienced by everyone personally at the moment. Both the young and the old are deprived of their freedom and driven into despair, hopelessness and ultimately death. Is this geopolitical operation a "crime against humanity" as outlined under Nuremberg (1945/46 Trials)? I hereby publicly denounce the "main actors" and institutions who know what they are doing ("J'accuse...!")

Comment: You can call it what you will; the results will be the same. Globalization is a mechanism to threaten every bit of the essence we know as 'being human'.


Bad Guys

New York required nursing homes to admit 'medically stable' coronavirus patients. The results were deadly

andrew cuomo
© Matthew Cavanaugh/Getty Images
On March 25, New York's Health Department issued a mandate that state nursing homes could not refuse COVID-19-positive patients who were "medically stable," meaning facilities that housed the most vulnerable populations were forced to introduce the virus into their midst.

A nursing home in Queens received two coronavirus patients who had been discharged from a hospital (but were still contagious and in need of care) - along with a box containing body bags, The New York Post reported. An executive at the facility told the Post it had been free of the coronavirus prior to accepting those two patients. The executive also said that along with the two patients arrived a shipment of personal protective equipment and the body bags.

"My colleague noticed that one of the boxes was extremely heavy. Curious as to what could possibly be making that particular box so much heavier than the rest, he opened it," the executive told the Post. "The first two coronavirus patients were accompanied by five body bags."

Bad Guys

Global military expenditure sees largest annual increase in a decade

World military expenditure
World military expenditure, by region, 1988–2019
Total global military expenditure rose to $1917 billion in 2019, according to new data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The total for 2019 represents an increase of 3.6 per cent from 2018 and the largest annual growth in spending since 2010. The five largest spenders in 2019, which accounted for 62 per cent of expenditure, were the United States, China, India, Russia and Saudi Arabia. This is the first time that two Asian states have featured among the top three military spenders. The comprehensive annual update of the SIPRI Military Expenditure Database is accessible from today at www.sipri.org.

Global military spending in 2019 represented 2.2 per cent of the global gross domestic product (GDP), which equates to approximately $249 per person. 'Global military expenditure was 7.2 per cent higher in 2019 than it was in 2010, showing a trend that military spending growth has accelerated in recent years,' says Dr Nan Tian, SIPRI Researcher. 'This is the highest level of spending since the 2008 global financial crisis and probably represents a peak in expenditure.'

Bug

'We scatter like cockroaches': US troops describe Pentagon's anti-coronavirus measures

US troops and coronavirus
© REUTERS/LINDSEY WASSON
About 4,000 of the nation's 1.4 million active duty troops have come down with COVID-19, with testing of personnel, plus the entire National Guard and reserve forces expected to take months to complete.

Pentagon Joint Chiefs vice chairman Gen. John Hyten believes that the pre-coronavirus
"We have to figure out how to operate and fight through a world where coronavirus exists. If we just wait for what, you know, everybody hopes is gonna happen, which is"2019 normal will never exist again" for the military, and that means the US's fighting forces will have to prepare to fight in a coronavirus world. the disease goes away, and it doesn't, and we haven't planned for the - for the other case, we're in a bad situation," Hyten said, speaking to CBS News.
The senior officer admitted that despite twice daily briefings of the Pentagon's crisis management team, the military "still don't fully understand the virus...We had so many assumptions of what a virus would do, what a pandemic flu would do. And then when you actually see what coronavirus does, what COVID-19 does, it's completely different," he complained.

Comment: What dramatic measures for a nothing-burger virus. See:


Beaker

Antibody testing proves we've been had!

Gov Cuomo
There is simply no other way to state this.

Nearly everything we've been told about models, rates of infection, deaths, and recoveries was inaccurate.

I'm not here to argue that it was malfeasance or ignorance — both are unacceptable. But the one thing that Governor Andrew Cuomo's stunning announcement made clear on Thursday is that there are some pretty shocking — and what should be — reassuring truths.

Cuomo announced that antibody testing in New York state, which only began four days previous, was already demonstrating that at minimum 13.9% of New Yorkers, had COVID-19 late stage antibodies.

The implication of this is a shockwave to the system.

Bad Guys

If UK brings new round of austerity for Covid-19, it'll spark civil unrest that will see cities burn

london
© Reuters / Simon DawsonPedestrian walk along the Southbank in view of skyscrapers in the financial district in London, Britain
George Osborne, the former Tory chancellor and architect of the post-2008 austerity regime, this week advocated a new round of swingeing cuts to state spending once the pandemic is over. But the poor won't stand for it this time.

Many of us are now looking out to the future - and when I say that I mean the next few weeks and months. I'll be honest: I'm not hopeful. In fact, I am full of fear.

The UK government's Covid-19 financial package will not last for as long as it will be needed. So far, the furlough scheme, in which the Government will support businesses in keeping their workforces going at 80 percent of their wages, is only in place for three months. We are already a month into that scheme, and it is pretty obvious that there will be thousands of businesses that will never open again.

Chart Bar

The Data Are In: A Nationwide Lockdown Was Never Necessary

lockdown chart
Updated 21/4/20
According to a study discussed today in the Wall Street Journal (behind a paywall), the nationwide lockdown was never necessary. The vast majority of states should have followed Sweden's example:
We ran a simple one-variable correlation of deaths per million and days to shutdown, which ranged from minus-10 days (some states shut down before any sign of Covid-19) to 35 days for South Dakota, one of seven states with limited or no shutdown. The correlation coefficient was 5.5% — so low that the engineers I used to employ would have summarized it as "no correlation" and moved on to find the real cause of the problem. . . .
Sweden is fighting coronavirus with common-sense guidelines that are much less economically destructive than the lockdowns in most U.S. states. Since people over 65 account for about 80% of Covid-19 deaths, Sweden asked only seniors to shelter in place rather than shutting down the rest of the country; and since Sweden had no pediatric deaths, it didn't shut down elementary and middle schools. Sweden's containment measures are less onerous than America's, so it can keep them in place longer to prevent Covid-19 from recurring. Sweden did not shut down stores, restaurants and most businesses, but did shut down the Volvo automotive plant, which has since reopened, while the Tesla plant in Fremont, Calif., was shuttered by police and remains closed.
How did the Swedes do? They suffered 80 deaths per million 21 days after crossing the 1 per million threshold level. With 10 million people, Sweden's death rate ‒ without a shutdown and massive unemployment ‒ is lower than that of the seven hardest-hit U.S. states — Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Louisiana, Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey and New York — all of which, except Louisiana, shut down in three days or less. Despite stories about high death rates, Sweden's is in the middle of the pack in Europe, comparable to France; better than Italy, Spain and the U.K.; and worse than Finland, Denmark and Norway. Older people in care homes accounted for half of Sweden's deaths.
History will record the one-size-fits-all economy-destroying COVID-19 lockdown of 2020 as one of the most colossal public policy blunders in the history of the world.

Comment: And a follow-up post from the same writer:
In response to my last post (The Data Are in: A Nationwide Lockdown Was Never Necessary) Bob O'H got red in the face, stamped his feet, and apparently insisted that a nationwide lockdown was necessary. Was it? Here is an analysis performed by a friend:

To put US COVID19 cases into perspective, it helps to separate the terrible outbreak in the five-state region of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts from the other 45 states. (Stats as of April 25.)

Total Population
NY-NJ-CT-RI-MA - 39.8 million
Rest of US - 288 million

COVID Cases - Total (per million people)
NY-NJ-CT-RI-MA - 490,675 (12,312)
Rest of US - 496,657 (1,722)

COVID Deaths - Total (per million people)
NY-NJ-CT-RI-MA - 33,262 (835)
Rest of US - 22,153 (77)
See also:


Bizarro Earth

Chinese children must wear 'one-metre hats' to keep social distancing in class as they return to school

china children one meter hat
The idea of 'one-metre hat' was suggested by the Yangzheng Primary School in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province of eastern China. The school welcomed its students in year 1 to 3 returning to the campus on April 26
Chinese students have been asked to wear 'one-metre hats' to keep social distancing in class on their first day back to school after three-month coronavirus lockdown.

A video has captured the children wearing the home-made hats with extended sticks on both sides to remain safe distance with their classmates at a school in China.

It comes as pupils across China have gone back to school after spending more than three months at home as the country continues to ease travel restrictions.

The idea of 'one-metre hat' was suggested by the Yangzheng Primary School in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province of eastern China. The school welcomed its students in year 1 to 3 returning to the campus on April 26


Oil Well

Oil prices crash 24% as storage capacity fears mount

oil tankers
© Hamad I Mohammed
Oil prices look to be facing yet another harrowing Monday, with the price of WTI sliding by more than 20 percent in early morning trading.

Global oil storage is inching closer and closer to reaching its capacity, and worse, the problem is being exacerbated as more local governments across the world extending COVID-19 lockdown recommendations, weighing on crude demand.

According to Goldman Sachs, global oil storage could be completely full within the next three weeks, and another dramatic crash could follow.

Comment: