It's pathetic that Americans and US leaders can't be responsible enough to get this under control. Instead we let it keep going, and won't be able to reopen for a long time.

Anything we do today is far less effective because we haven't tamped the overall infection numbers down. In two months we'll be saying the same thing because we won't have done much still.

The a-holes are ruining things for everyone. They're why the numbers are still high, and why any reopening turns into an infection frenzy.

As a whole, yes, that is what happened in the U.S. But if you examine it more closely, the virus is under control in the areas of the country that were part of the first wave (except California), just like in Europe.

It is ironic is that a couple dozen leaders of individual countries could coordinate a response to the virus outbreak much better than a bunch of regional leaders in the same country.

Watched this the other day. Just an update for NYC via Bill.

• Video Link



Can just fast forward topics.

Phase 4 discussion around 7:40 mark.

The closing of the border with Canada for non-essential travel is expected to extend indefinitely. Besides the obvious loss of tourism dollars in Niagara Falls (on both sides) there are also huge losses in local retail sales that are impacted, almost 1/3 of airport customers here were Canadian, a significant percentage of sporting event ticket holders are Canadian, and there are a large number of properties owned by people in respective countries (beach cottages in Canada owned by US families for decades, cabins and ski cottages in US owned by Canadians) that are now inaccessible to their owners. Families with members on both sides remain separated between the countries. Realtors are reporting that Canadians are selling off their US properties, and leaving their belongings in storage since they cannot enter the US to even examine them. The Toronto Blue Jays aren't allowed to play in Canada this season, and may end up playing to an empty stadium in Buffalo. The open border between the countries that was enjoyed for over 100 years may be lost for decades, if it ever returns at all.

The open border was lost after 9-11, unfortunately. But the border will reopen, with normal procedures, within a few months.

Also, while this harms both countries, it obviously harms Canada more, as a greater share of visitors to Canada are American than vice-versa. But I understand their reluctance to reopen given that the U.S. is pretty much the shame of the planet when it comes to the pandemic.

But it's in the interest of both countries to open the border as soon as U.S. infection spread is brought under control.

Lost for decades?????

What are you talking about?

No he did not.

Ford hated wars and led a peace ship. He had nothing to do with Nazis. Not surprised revisionist history alternative facts are coming from you.

^ Yeah, I guess Joseph Stalin and his legions of Commies full of hatred are much much closer to the Nazis than Henry Ford who only developed some assembly lines in his time.

I can't even see what would be related between these concepts. The Commies and the Nazis are a crime against humanity, while Ford is only way way outdated, widely replaced by machines already. The latter never murdered anybody on purpose anyway. He only tried his best given the tech of his time, which is actually honorable.
Some people are just delusional, brainwashed and paranoid, like they would see crazy plots anywhere. As if the Jews, the Martians or whatever would try to kill us all. Lol, that's called "complotisme" over here, and the Nationalists and the Communists are always those willingly buying it, precisely.

Back to the topic, here in France, face masks will be compulsory indoors as of tomorrow. By indoors, I mean in every place open to anybody, whether private or public. It means that you'll have to wear a face mask whenever you'd get in a bakery, a grocery store or a museum for instance.
Restaurants and cafés will enjoy a special rule. You'll be allowed to take your mask off to have your meal or cup of coffee, that's quite obvious.
Don't even think about stuff like nightclubs. They are too prone to spread the virus and will be closed until further notice. That means to October at the very least. I guess the government will help them to not go bankrupt. They've been trying their best to protect any business from bankruptcy, at the cost of worsening state indebtedness.

The problem over here is the latest data available to statisticians, virologists and epidemiologists shows that we are now under the threat of a 2nd outbreak.
I think it will be under control, because everyone has learnt a lot from the 1st one, and no one wants to go back to a total national quarantine.
At worst, some particular spots in the country might go locked down again, but certainly not the entire country.

Canada is in no hurry to re-open the border with the US. Basically, Canada is putting up a "wall" to keep out undesirable Americans. Even when opened, which may not happen this year, there will likely be stricter rules on entering and leaving Canada than there were before COVID, and definitely than before 9/11.

Canada was basically the backyard and playground for Buffalonians, with the most popular beaches, beach towns, summer resorts, amusement parks, etc., and Buffalo was the big shopping mall, ski country, and "the city" and sports teams for nearby Canadians. It is as if Cincinnati was suddenly divided from Kentucky with a closed border.

A White House spokesman literally said the other day: “I’m not sure why you would want to go to Canada when we live in the greatest country on the face of the planet, that’s Donald Trump’s mentality on it” he also said “Donald Trump has made [the U.S.] both feared, respected and loved across the globe like it never has been before.”

There's a number of Canadian Snow birds in my 55+ mobile home co-op in Tucson, one is next door to me. In the Spring, they were given an ultimatum: come back or lose your insurance, and they had 10 days to do it. Imagine all those snow birds in FL that had to return, and? There were no flights to Canada. My neighbor had t fly to Buffalo then bus it to Toronto. I sure hope they'll be able to return this late Fall, as I'd miss them.

Just some metrics (good stuff to bookmark for NJ/NY citizens)


For NJ: New Jersey COVID-19 Dashboard

1) https://www.nj.gov/health/cd/topics/...ashboard.shtml


For NY: COVID-19 Regional Metrics Dashboard

2) https://forward.ny.gov/covid-19-regi...rics-dashboard

Same in my neighborhood near Tucson . . . but no one seems to be selling (as they might if they expected difficulty returning to their second homes):

https://www.gvnews.com/news/housing-...1f395763c.html

I suspect one factor may be the phenomenon we've seen of people fleeing crowded northern cities. Even though the state of AZ has a serious problem (much of its own making) with COVID, the suburban single-family lifestyle allows people to largely isolate themselves from what's going on generally if they try. Before I left, I found I could go to supermarkets an hour or so before they closed and they'd be largely empty. And other than that, I hardly ever had to leave home, though I could walk around my neighborhood and use my own property often without encountering another human.

Incidentally, for those unfamiliar with it, this part of southern AZ may be almost uniquely related to our two companion nations in North America. There are lots of Canadian part-year residents in most areas but Mexico is only 40 miles away (from me, maybe 60 from IMBY). Before the drug wars got ugly and COVID came along, many locals went to Mexico regularly to dine and shop. Many still do for doctor/dental visits and to purchase medications for way below US prices. And, of course, there are many Mexican citizens living in and around Tucson (legally and not), many of whom have relatives still in Mexico. And finally, lots of Mexicans from Sonora used to shop in Tucson area stores (you saw plenty of Sonora plates in Walmart's lots) though I'm not sure if this can still happen right now.

Yeah, good luck with that. The country with the most welcoming immigration laws on the planet is now gonna pull a Dotard and wall off 90% of the continent and permanently destroy its economy.

Canada receives a shitload of American tourists and business travelers, and it would be suicide to permanently block road access.

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/dail...90221c-eng.htm

This idiot and his cancerous rhetoric is gone in six months, and everyone knows it.

I don't think people are "fleeing crowded northern cities"; they have nothing to do and nowhere to go, so the took refuge in isolated, wooded areas during the nicer months, especially if they have second homes. This same phenomenon is happening basically nationwide. It's a wealth/lifestyle thing, not really a density thing.

My parents live a super-suburban area north of Detroit, and half their neighborhood is gone for the summer. Not because they're scared of their one-acre lots, but because it's summer, there's no school, everyone is working remote, and there's nowhere else to go, given that no one wants to go anywhere indoors. But no one in Metro Detroit is living in wall-to-wall tenements.

And of course the cottage and weekend home sales agent are claiming everyone is permanently moving to the forest. Not just in NY and CA but even in MI:

https://www.freep.com/story/money/bu...te/5368040002/

LOL! Talk about revisionist history!

Ford was, at minimum, a Nazi sympathizer. He actually led the pro-German America First organization (sound familiar?), was a virulent anti-Semite and worked tirelessly to prevent the U.S. from entering WW2. He also accrued vast riches via Germany during the Nazi era and worked with the Vichy govt. and against the French resistance.

The U.S. Army called Ford HQ an "Arsenal of Nazism":

"Up until Pearl Harbor, Dearborn made huge revenues by producing war matériel for the Reich and that the man it selected to run its German subsidiary was an enthusiastic backer of Hitler. German Ford served as an “arsenal of Nazism” with the consent of headquarters in Dearborn, says a US Army report prepared in 1945."

https://www.thenation.com/article/ar...rd-and-fuhrer/

Everyone forgets, with the Greatest Generation mythology, that the U.S. had to be dragged kicking and screaming into WW2, and that Nazism was actually quite popular in the U.S. pre-Pearl Harbor.

[QUOTE=Crawford;8985995]I don't think people are "fleeing crowded northern cities"; they have nothing to do and nowhere to go, so the took refuge in isolated, wooded areas during the nicer months, especially if they have second homes. This same phenomenon is happening basically nationwide. It's a wealth/lifestyle thing, not really a density thing.



Don't know about folks fleeing "crowded northern cities" in general, but it seems to be a thing in the NYC market.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/17/r...al-estate.html

Reading David Talbot's biography of Allen Dulles, it appears as though there existed plans and schemes that would have preserved Hitler's rule over some contained and surrounded rump-Germany well into the war.

Had such a thing been implemented, you have to wonder what the narrative of the "postwar order" might have sounded like. The whole conflict probably wouldn't have come to be viewed as the foundational element that we see it as.

There was literally a 20,000 person rally held by the German American Bund at Madison Square Garden in February of 1939 (during which at least one Jewish protester was arrested and fined, and more beaten up outside). There were also related Nazi family/youth camps across the US. And this was explicit Nazi with full on swastikas stuff, not just sympathizers.

Henry Ford's most overt anti-Semitic publications predated this by 15 years or so and he later recanted some of it, but it seems clear he was at least sympathetic to the goals of Nazism, if not the actual war part. And uh, those publications were pretty overt, to say the least.

The Greatest Generation were not calling the shots about US foreign policy in 1940. My grandparents, for example, were still teenagers. That generation was merely cannon fodder.

Looks like Lightfoot will be shutting indoor bars down for now. Good news.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/coron...cjm-story.html