Sunday Morning in the French Quarter

via the French Quarter Journal Blog

here's the link

https://www.frenchquarterjournal.com/hunkering-down

Oh, Florida

Okeechobee County Commissioner Bryant Culpepper at emergency meeting says you can kill coronavirus by holding a blow dryer up to your nose after he saw it on “reliable source” OANN, warns “there’s a lot of baloney out there on social media” #BecauseFlorida

Pope Francis on the Future

So beautiful from Pope Francis:

“Tonight before falling asleep
think about when we will return to the street.

When we hug again,
when all the shopping together will seem like a party.

Let's think about when the coffees will return to the bar, the small talk, the photos close to each other.

We think about when it will be all a memory but normality will seem an unexpected and beautiful gift.

We will love everything that has so far seemed futile to us.
Every second will be precious.

Swims at the sea, the sun until late, sunsets, toasts, laughter.

We will go back to laughing together.

Strength and courage.

Quiet in New Orleans

See drone video of iconic New Orleans streets, landmarks abandoned during coronavirus pandemic.  Click below

https://www.nolaweekend.com/see-drone-video-of-iconic-new-orleans-streets-landmarks-abandoned-during-coronavirus-pandemic/

WASH YOUR HANDS!!

Covidiot

This Sums it Up

This Cannot Go On

Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth

From Facebook

Jon Kardon
11 hrs
WARNING: I'm furious and I'm going to rant. Scroll past or read, your choice.

Trumpers - You just killed my father, my grandma, my aunt, my brother. Not figuratively, literally. You and your president fiddled while Rome burns and now our families, our neighbors and our friends are dying.

You chose to elect one of the world's most horrible humans, known for decades for his pathological lies and narcism, racism and xenophobia, and put him in charge of this country's safety. It's not bad enough that he has taken, with your vocal support, sweeping measures to threaten our future, starting with pulling the US out of the Paris Agreements and the Iran Nuclear deals. You then allowed Trump to disband the National Security Council Pandemic Team that had been assembled so that we have the ability to quickly respond to a pandemic threat.

Even without the Pandemic Team in place you could have still responded to the threat and saved this country. We had the benefit of weeks of visibility of what was happening in China, Singapore and Italy, but no, you supported the usual gaslighting response that this was all a big Democratic hoax designed to take down Trump. And so we have lost months of valuable time to 1) put his country on lock down to flatten the curve 2) prepare ourselves for the pending medical emergency by ramping up production and distribution of protective gear for our doctors, nurses and medical teams, ramping up production and distribution of respirators, essential test kits and emergency treatment and quarantine facilities.

So here we are. Instead of facing a curve like Singapore's, our curve is mimicking Italy's. Italy had 475 COVID-19 deaths yesterday. We are realistically facing over a million COVID deaths in this country now with an almost certain overrunning of our ability to treat the coming cases due to lack of everything - test kits, beds, respirators, equipment to protect the doctors, nurses and medical teams.

Meanwhile, more than half of this country is unemployed with no end in sight. Many experts are saying we not only are staring down a major recession, but just as likely a depression of which we haven't seen the likes of since 1929. So much for managing the country for the good of the stock market and your billionaire friends.

So, this one is on you, you willfully ignorant (the root word is IGNORE) and evil spirited masses of human crap. We will all now fight to survive the plague you wrought on this nation and world. We'll do our best to take care of and support our families and communities. We'll watch our musician friends as they entertain us in our virtual world and we'll contribute to their virtual tip jars. But, we will never forget what you did to all of us with your election of and support for the most dangerous, evil and ill-equipped president in our history. This one is on you.

A New Start?

 “Since the lockdown: Venice's canals have become crystal clear. Italy coasts have dolphins coming nearer and nearer. Japan now has deer roaming free in the streets, and Thailand: the same with monkeys. China has record breaking pollution cuts. The Earth has already began showing signs of amazing things that are happening from the absence of human pollution. What if- and hear me out..- what if the entire human population used this as an opportunity to restart society on a greener, more environment conscious foot. What we're seeing in the span of a couple of days is amazing. A pipe dream.” -Gina Mayer

Advice from the Future

When the Italian media began reporting on the increased community spread of the novel coronavirus across the country, Olmo Parenti, like many Italian citizens, didn’t take the threat of the pandemic too seriously. “My friends and I were almost mocking the few people who believed the issue was serious from the get-go,” Parenti, a young filmmaker, told me.


Just days later, Parenti felt like he was living in a different version of reality—a dystopian one. The number of positive cases had spiked dramatically. The entire country had shut down. The economy took a nosedive. Hospitals, overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients, were being forced to make impossible utilitarian decisions: Which critical patients would receive lifesaving artificial ventilation, while the others would effectively be left to die?


Parenti and his friends were disturbed by the fact that they had severely underestimated the situation, a perspective that perhaps contributed to the spread of the virus. “We read in the news that the U.S., England, Germany, and France were all taking the COVID-19 progression just as lightly as we had,” Parenti said. “We decided we had to redeem ourselves in some way.”


Together with other members of his filmmaking collective, Parenti put out a call for citizens across the country to film themselves in quarantine. “We asked them to talk in first person to the camera,” he said, “and give themselves advice based on their own past behavior.”


The resulting film, 10 Days, features messages from dozens of terrified Italians. The videos play as if warnings from the future. Like Parenti, many of the people who submitted quarantine videos chide themselves for not having taken precautionary measures, such as self-isolation and social distancing, as early as they could have.


“This isn’t all bullshit like you thought,” says one young man.


Another woman, who is seen wearing a face mask, admits that she used to make fun of people wearing masks. “The worst-case scenario? That’s exactly what will happen,” she adds.


As though to underscore the importance of quarantine compliance across age groups, a teenager in the video reveals an eye-opening fact: “There are currently kids our age who are intubated and in intensive care.”


Many experts believe that the United States is just 10 days behind the level of severity of the pandemic in Italy. We are at a crucial inflection point, according to the surgeon general, Dr. Jerome Adams, and the time to prepare for what’s coming is now.


“This has been a humbling experience,” Parenti said. “But the cool thing about mistakes is that you can learn from other people’s—so learn from ours and don’t underestimate this.”


By Sunday, 24,747 cases had been diagnosed in Italy, up from 21,157 on Saturday—a record-breaking single-day increase. The country also reported 368 new fatalities, bringing the death toll to 1,809 nationwide.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

Author: Emily Buder 
Here is the link to this article/video:  https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/608113/italy-coronavirus/?utm_source=facebook&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_term=2020-03-16T20%3A39%3A14&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_medium=social