DCPetterson Profile picture
Mar 14 7 tweets 2 min read
Media is scare-hyping the fact that China is experiencing a spike in COVID cases.

See, China is finally getting the Omicron surge.

China (with three times the US population) has had 117,00 COVID cases since late 2019 (to our 81,000,000) and 4600 deaths (to our 994,000).

1/6
China now has 7000 active cases, up from 1500 in mid-February. That's a big jump--Omicron is highly contagious. The US had 29 million active cases at the Omicron peak, up from 10 million before the Omicron surge. Not nearly as large a percentage, but ENORMOUS numbers.

2/6
China now has about 700 new reported cases/day and no reported deaths since May of 2020.

The US now has 30,000 new cases/day and about 1000 daily deaths--which at least is significantly down from the Omicron peak of 820,000 new cases and 2700 deaths per day.

3/6
It's true that we can't entirely trust the reporting from China. It's also true that China has very strictly enforced mask orders, shutdowns, travel bans, and vaccines, which we have not. It's further true that there are several red US states whose reporting we cannot trust.

4/6
My point is that a significant Omicron surge in China will not be anything like what the Omicron surge was in the US--and during that spike here, most states pretended the pandemic was over and we should ignore it. We survived it. So will China.

5/6
The upshot is, don't let the media hype about a COVID surge in China scare you too much. There are some truly dangerous things going on in the world you should be paying attention to instead.

Like Republicans.

6/6
Data for the US in the above thread was taken from here:
worldometers.info/coronavirus/co…

Data for China came from here:
worldometers.info/coronavirus/co…

Other sources with world numbers will be similar.

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More from @dcpetterson

Mar 14
In the 21st Century, we find it hard to understand the feudal system that controlled the world before 1800.

You need to know.

The kings literally owned their countries. They ceded portions to the nobles, who then ran fiefdoms and paid taxes to the kings for the privilege.

1/8
The nobles collected taxes from the farmers and tradesmen by hiring tax collectors, who bid against each other for the opportunity. Contracts went to the bidder who promised to rake in the highest take. They shook down the People, took a cut, and gave the rest to the nobles.

2/8
The nobles then paid what they owed to the king.

This is why "taxes" and "tax collectors" are so hated, even today. There is a cultural memory of this feudal protection racket, where the collectors would hire armed thugs to shake down tradesmen and steal what they could.

3/8
Read 8 tweets
Mar 13
There was a unit of time used by the ancient Etruscans called the saeculum. It is the period from when an important event happens, until the last person who remembers it dies.

It's similar to the concept of "living memory."

We are nearing the end of the WW2 saeculum.

1/6
Fascism could not again take hold until the people who clearly remember its horrors are no longer with us. That explains why Trump and Putin are world players today.

See the importance of the saeculum?

We need to bring this unit of time back into common thought.

2/6
In WW2, Americans sacrificed food, fuel, consumer goods, even their lives to help a war effort thousands of miles away. Today, we whine over the price of gas. We've forgotten what sacrifice is.

This is the importance of forgetting the importance of things.

3/6
Read 7 tweets
Mar 11
This headline is an outright lie.

Inflation did NOT rise 7.9% in February. Prices in the month of Feb rose 0.8%. What cost $100.00 on Jan 31 cost $100.80 on Feb 28.

The 7.9% is year-over-year. What cost $100.00 in Feb 2021 cost $107.90 in Feb 2022.
.
cnbc.com/2022/03/10/cpi…
This same article says "inflation-adjusted earnings fell 2.6%" from last year. This means (and it's in the article) earnings ROSE 5.1%. They got "inflation-adjusted earnings" by subtracting 5.1% from 7.9%.

We could also say wage-adjusted inflation was only a meager 2.6%.
(Yeah, I know, 7.9 - 5.1 is 2.8, not 2.6. There are rounding errors involved.)

The point is, do you want to make things look worse than they are? If so, this article shows how to do it.
Read 4 tweets
Mar 1
When a sensible party loses an election, they reassesses their positions, their approaches, their rhetoric, and they retool, trying to understand why The People didn't like their approach.

Republicans do the opposite. They double-down on exactly the things voters rejected.

1/7
Instead of trying to expand their appeal, instead of changing their policies to address what more Americans want, Republicans increasingly narrow their focus--to further enrage their shrinking base, to create more desperation and rage, and to ever-more isolate themselves.

2/7
We see this same approach in other places. Vlad Putin, for instance; rather than alter the nature of his rule to make it more attractive and to build international allies, he increases his criminality, brutality, and iron-handed authoritarianism.

3/7
Read 8 tweets
Feb 28
Putin miscalculated.

He thought Trump would remain president, would weaken NATO and the EU, and would prevent the US from responding to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Putin thought he could divide NATO and prevent a unified response.

1/8
Putin thought the UN, the EU, and other international organizations would not respond as one, and would not agree to imposing ever-mounting and crippling sanctions, not only on Russia, but on Putin personally, and all his billionaire friends.

2/8
Putin never imaged the Ukrainian people would be backed--politically, economically, and militarily--by the whole would, and would be able to put up such a strong and unyielding resistance. The invasion is not going as Putin had planned with Trump in the White House.

3/8
Read 8 tweets
Feb 25
Pundidiots and cynics have been conditioned by four years of Trumpian lies, and decades of Republican bullshit into believing all politicians lie.

President Biden told us Russia was about to invade Ukraine, and they didn't believe him.

Learn something, okay?

1/5
It's time to pull your heads out of whatever orifice you've shoved them, and realize not all Administrations are the same. Republicans lie. It's what they do. It's what they've always done. And you're buying their message, which is that =everyone= lies.

2/5
That is the basic message the fascists are using to destroy YOUR faith in American democracy. Back to Reagan: "The nine most frightening words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help'."

Fascists WANT you to give up on American governance.

3/5
Read 5 tweets

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