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Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
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30 Oct, 5 tweets, 1 min read
Incredible footage of everyone in Paris spreading Covid-19 to every last remaining corner and remote province of France.
No matter what rules they impose, the public can't understand, or won't understand, the underlying rationale for the rule: The virus spreads from person to person, and the closer the proximity among people, the greater the risk.
I genuinely don't understand this. I don't find the concept hard to understand at all. It makes perfect sense to me, intuitively. Yet obviously, many people find this extremely hard to understand. What's the obstacle? How are public authorities failing to communicate this?
How can this be explained better? Or is it that people do understand this perfectly, but for some reason don't think it's important? If so, why not?
@ElizabethPisani, what's your view about this? Why is it so hard to get people to understand this?

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More from @ClaireBerlinski

Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
28 Oct
When consumed by anxiety, I tend to clean compulsively. Since this is such a harmless compulsion, I've never tried to control the impulse. What harm does it do, after all?

But at times like this, I do tend to give myself repetitive stress injuries.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, "Reflections on Democracy in America."

(I used La Croix Spray Salle de Bain, and Monoprix nettoyant ménager multi-surfaces--with an H. Koenig Nettoyeur-vapeur NV700 for the accents.)
I call this one, "Meditations upon a pandemic--and the fragility of our human condition." I did it with the Bestron aspirateur balai 2en1 600w in rouge--and a dash of Carolin Nettoyant pour parquets vitrifiés et stratifiés:
Read 4 tweets
Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
27 Oct
I wept when Obama was elected. I hadn't voted for him. I thought him a dilettante. I didn't vote for McCain, either; for all I admired him, I was appalled that he put Palin on the ticket.

But when Obama was elected, I cried.
We had come so far, I thought. We had finally put the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow behind us. We were now--at long last--a country that lived up to its initial promise, and judged men by the content of their character, not the color or their skin.
I was in Turkey when the results were announced, and my friends saw me weeping. They teased me for being sentimental. But they were moved, too. For the same reasons.

I don't consider Obama's presidency a great success, by the standards we used to use.
Read 8 tweets
Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
27 Oct
Y a-t-il des preuves que les demi-mesures comme les couvre-feux peuvent fonctionner alors que le virus est aussi répandu qu'il l'est actuellement en France? Pour autant que je vois, le couvre-feu ne fait rien pour freiner la charge. #confinement2
Les gens se rassemblent pour des brunchs arrosés, à la place.

Ma forte intuition est que la seule chose qui marchera - à la fois pour arrêter la transmission et pour sauver l'économie - est un autre confinement total, probablement pendant trois semaines.
Les demi-mesures ne feront que prolonger l'agonie; ils ne sauveront ni des vies ni des entreprises.

Je sens que le gouvernement se fout des demi-mesures parce qu'il ne peut pas se résoudre à affronter la réalité.
Read 8 tweets
Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
27 Oct
Is there any evidence that half-measures like curfews work when the virus is as widespread as it now is in France? As far as I can see, the curfew is doing nothing to hold down the caseload--people are just gathering for boozy brunches, instead.
My strong intuition is that the only thing that will work--both to stop transmission and save the economy--is another total confinement, probably for three weeks. The half-measures will only prolong the agony; they'll save neither lives nor businesses.
I sense that the government is fucking around with half-measures because it can't bring itself to confront reality. Among the things it can't confront is that the French public just can't, for some reason, understand the point of these rules:
Read 6 tweets
Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
26 Oct
That's a dystopian desecration of the flag. We're *not* a police state. We used to be quite proud of that.
And to be clear: I like cops more than most people do. I've interviewed them around the world, and I always find their point of view interesting and sympathetic. During the Gilets Jaunes riots here, I brought cookies to the local police station because I felt so bad for the cops:
(They at first thought I was insane. No one in France does that. But when I assured them I was absolutely sincere, they were touched.) We need cops. As long as human nature is what it is--which will be a very long time--we will always need cops.
Read 4 tweets
Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
20 Oct
Yesterday, @BronwenDickey, was a beautiful, melancholy autumn day. I went to the Jardin des Plantes to find your brother's bench. For friends of @csdickey, it's a bit (but not very) hard to find, so let me explain exactly where it is.
I didn't know where the Vivarium was. (I was confused; I thought it must be the hothouse.) In fact, the Vivarium is *inside* the ménagerie, opposite the flamingos.

Also, the benches aren't numbered .... so I spent several hours wandering around the park ... which was lovely--
--as you can see. The garden is gorgeous this time of year. It's gorgeous every time of year, but in October, especially with a bit of help from climate change, they're extraordinarily lovely: a bit like Monet at Argenteuil. Or Renoir's chrysanthemums. Or a Caillebotte painting.
Read 22 tweets

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