COVID-19 Accelerating Across the US

[exploited]

[Philly]

Agreed. I think the rising popularity of conspiracy theories in America is an outcome of the cognitive dissonance that people feel as it becomes undeniable how f**k our society is. Americans are raised on a steady diet of patriotic chauvinism, hubris, and confident pride. The recognition that our country and its institutions are not only not the envy of the world, but shitty and dysfunctional (and jaw-droppingly unacceptable by the standards of any other wealthy western democracy) is hard to swallow. That’s why people start telling themselves these stories that allow them to believe that what they’re seeing with their own two eyes isn’t real.

The most deranged conspiracies may be on the far right, but the extent to which many Democrats sincerely believed in fantastical escalating theories about the extent of what happened with Russiagate show that that fevered conspiracy theories are increasingly just becoming a broad feature of our political system. In any case, its function is to provide a narrative that allows Americans to believe that what’s happening isn’t an organic product of our system and our institutions. That’s why, as Trump’s presidency unfolded as an increasingly horrific failure, Republicans told themselves that he was being covertly undermined and betrayed by a conspiracy between Hollywood pedophiles and the deep state. But it’s also why Democrats kept telling themselves that our electoral system and political institutions never could have lead to Trump’s election in the first place and it all must have been the work of a sinister foreign government.

Recognizing that our society is very decayed for reasons other than dumb culture war horseshit and that our institutions suck organically is the only way I can see this trend reversing, but that’s a hard sell to a lot of people.

[Kane]

More importantly the change that's necessary can't come in this environment. Downward spiral.

[Philly]

[John Galt]

the "UK variant" has been known for months and is even more contagious than baseline covid. this could help explain what has happened in california. uk just has rigorous genetic testing, better than any other country, which is why it's recognized as a very big issue over there, but its probably a big issue in many countries

[Kane]

Hold up...it's been known for months and this wasn't released to the public?

[John Galt]

it was first detected in september, but it wasn't many cases, and so it was hard to tell if it was more contagious. the above shows how now most all new infections in the UK are this variant

there are several variants, it's a virus, it changes a lot. this one is out competing other versions because it is more contagious. generally super deadly and super contagious viruses are not very competitive, so this might have hit a sweet spot

[John Galt]

it's finally reached the Antarctic. 36 cases

[Spider]

Ridiculous for Antarctica to getinfected. With the low number of people coming and going down there there's just no reason why proper testing and quarantine couldn't be done.

[Spider]

Lol. Sometimes you've gotta hand it to Pelosi.