{"id":73871,"date":"2020-04-15T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-15T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=73871"},"modified":"2020-04-15T07:01:09","modified_gmt":"2020-04-15T12:01:09","slug":"blue-fragility-part-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=73871","title":{"rendered":"Blue Fragility, Part III"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SCENE: Mitch BERG is out at Menards picking up some shop towels for making face masks out of. While looking around a corner, he runs smack-dab into Avery LIBRELLE<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

LIBRELLE: Merg!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 \u00a0Ah, sssssss….sssshure is nice to see you.\u00a0 How are you doing, Avery?\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 \u00a0You conservatives sure did yuk it up over the Trump Virus spreading through blue cities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 No, nobody “yukked it up”.\u00a0 But there certainly seems to be a correlation between pandemics and blue cities, which tend to be very mass-transit dependent, and have populations even denser than some of their mayors, like DiBlasio.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Hah!\u00a0 Well, red states shall get their comeuppance!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

BERG: Perhaps.\u00a0 \u00a0Epidemics follow biological rules, not political ones.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Pffft.\u00a0 \u00a0Look at South Dakota.\u00a0 \u00a0Governor Noem\u00a0refuses\u00a0<\/em>to order South Dakotans to stay at home!\u00a0 And now the virus is out of control!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 South Dakota’s case rate is very heavily skewed because of a big outbreak at a pork processor in Sioux Falls, which has skewed the state’s cases per million waaay up; as of April 14, South Dakota had 1,142 cases per million<\/a>; Minnesota has 307.\u00a0 \u00a0But that’s very skewed – South Dakota doesn’t have a million people, so an outbreak causes a disproportionate jump in per capita numbers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 \u00a0Not issuing draconian stay at home orders kills!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 \u00a0Enh.\u00a0 South Dakota’s death rate per million is 7, which is half Minnesota’s rate.\u00a0 Both of those will change, especially if the cases in Sioux Falls manage to overwhelm the region’s healthcare system…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE: …which is\u00a0will\u00a0<\/em>!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 …which it’s not<\/a>.\u00a0 And God willing it won’t.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Oh, you and your God and thoughts and prayers.\u00a0 Science!\u00a0 \u00a0It shows governors need to put their foot down!\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 North Dakota, which has about the same population and population density as South Dakota and has taken a similar set of approaches to the epidemic,\u00a0 but which has no outbreak like the Smithfield plant, has statistically similar cases and deaths per million as Minnesota with Governor Walz’s much more draconian approach.\u00a0 And yes, the outbreaks have been going on about the same length of time in all three states.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 MERG!\u00a0 \u00a0If Governor Noem hadn’t been a stupid red-state governor and issued a stay at home order, the Smithfield outbreak wouldn’t have happened!<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 So what kinds of businesses are exempt and “essential” under the MInnesota shelter in place order?<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Essential stuff like grocery stores, liquor stores, Democratic political action groups, medical stuff…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 \u00a0What do they do at that Smithfield plant?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 \u00a0I don’t know.\u00a0 It’s South Dakota.\u00a0 I have no idea.\u00a0 Aren’t they Amish?\u00a0 I’m gonna guess Amish furniture.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

BERG: It’s a pork processing plant.\u00a0 Where exactly do you think the food that the grocery stores sell, comes from?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

LIBRELLE:\u00a0 Amazon!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

BERG:\u00a0 Yeah, food processing plants are pretty much open everywhere…<\/p>\n

( But LIBRELLE has skipped away, pushing\u00a0 a cart full of plastic bags to use as make-shift head coverings).\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

And SCENE.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCENE: Mitch BERG is out at Menards picking up some shop towels for making face masks out of. While looking around a corner, he runs smack-dab into Avery LIBRELLE LIBRELLE: Merg! BERG:\u00a0 \u00a0Ah, sssssss….sssshure is nice to see you.\u00a0 How are you doing, Avery?\u00a0 LIBRELLE:\u00a0 \u00a0You conservatives sure did yuk it up over the Trump […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[418,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blue-fragility","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73871"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73872,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73871\/revisions\/73872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}