And we’re back. From vacation, that is. I have vacation hours I needed to use up, so even though there’s nowhere to go and nothing to do, I took a week off. Spent it playing Stardew Valley, Tropico 6, and watching TV.
I watched The Wire, a bunch of Legends of Kora, some twee little cooking show on Netflix called Crazy Delicious, The Babysitters’ Club (which was clearly for kids but still endearing as shit), a few of the new Unsolved Mysteries (wasn’t impressed, and why wouldn’t they get Patrick Warburton to do Robert Stack’s old job? he’s perfect for it), and some other stuff.
The closest we got to going anywhere was taking our doggo to the dog park (outdoors, windy, sunny, socially distanced, probably about as safe as you can ask anything to be these days) and to a big park for playing and walking (way more people at the park, we wore our masks while we were there).
Mostly we stayed up way too late and slept in way too long for ten days, and I looked at social media and the news as little as humanly possible because good lord, that junk is toxic AF these days.
🚨 Gavin Newsom, governor of California, announced today, “NEW: #COVID19 cases continue to spread at alarming rates. CA is now closing indoor operations STATEWIDE for: Restaurants, Wineries, Movie theaters, family entertainment, Zoos, museums, Cardrooms. Bars must close ALL operations.” I expect this is the first domino falling and we’ll see more states slamming things closed soon. I’m actually surprised it took this long to happen. I figured we’d see shutdowns again shortly after the 4th of July. Here’s some more about that.
🚨 Also, public schools in LA and San Diego (so far) will be online-only this fall.
(🙄 And because of the previous two items, “#RecallGavin2020” was trending on Twitter for awhile. I’m not linking to it; fuck those selfish pricks.)
⚠️ There’s now 59 hand sanitizers being recalled because they’re poisonous. Check the list here.
🦠 COVID-19 is airborne, FYI. If you’ve been paying any attention, you probably already knew that, but WHO and other scientists have been bickering over terminology for awhile, and WHO finally got onboard with the program. By airborne, they mean COVID-19 can hang out in the air and be infectious under certain circumstances for a lot longer than they thought it could. What’s that mean for you? Nobody knows, not really. If you have to go out, try not to stay indoors at places for very long if you can manage it, I guess, and be damn sure you’ve got a mask on.
🍊 A photo of Trump dicknosing the first time he wore a mask out in public is making the rounds on social media, and it’s probably not a real photo?
💉 Some scientists want to roll out convalescent plasma treatments for COVID-19 for people who haven’t been infected yet, but drug companies won’t get onboard. We’re already using convalescent plasma in hospitals on people who are infected with COVID-19. These guys want to use it as a preventative, and it seems like it could work that way. But they can’t get any drug companies to bite on the idea.
🍊 Trump is mad that Dr. Anthony Fauci won’t fall in line and spread the same lies and BS the rest of the administration is spreading about COVID-19, so they’re trying to undermine Fauci and make him look bad.
🍊 Trump did a sort of press thing today and repeated his claim that if we weren’t testing for COVID-19 we wouldn’t have so many cases and guys, he’s said this several times now, and I’m pretty sure he actually thinks tests cause COVID-19.
😷 Here’s a few notes on how and when to wear a mask. Also, a guide to cloth masks (with tips on other kinds of masks).
Okay, that’s enough for one day. Here, go check out WindowSwap. People all over the world are sharing videos of the views outside their windows, and you can check them out. It’s pretty cool.
Notes & Thoughts 