Using violent force to 'remove' peaceful protestors so our so-called 'president' can have a gods-be-damned photo op at a church is just another demonstration that Trump is the wrong person to have ever been elected in the first place, and furthermore is fueling the fire of the protests, as well as the root cause behind the protests: racism in America, leading to the unnecessary death of an elderly black man with a heart condition. Even the pastor of that church in D.C. was outraged by what Trump did, and rightly so. Donald Trump needs to resign, plain and simple. Likewise for the so-called 'top Republicans' who had the gall to defend his going to that church, and the unwarranted attack on the peaceful protestors there.

I am ashamed to be an American today, and outraged, and this motherfucking Trump creature is the reason why.

So I'm reading through headlines from various sources and I see this:

..and immediately I think "That's clickbait if I ever saw it, and it's egregiously self-serving sensationalistic, lets find the real statistics", for which I find this news story with this graphic
..which of course tells the real tale: Only 210 deaths per million citizens.

Thanks, media, for leading people in the U.S. to believe things are orders of magnitude worse than they actually are, all so you make more money.

Thank You for your service.

That is all.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/health/coronavirus-infections.html
What do they expect us to do, hmm? Live in a spacesuit with a rebreather, cradle-to-grave?
Or are they just trying to keep us in a constant state of panic?
These days will pass. Believe it.

For fuck's sake people.. I know I've spun my own theories about how the Chinese government could have leveraged the species-jumping of this coronavirus to their advantage on the world stage, but for fuck's sake I don't have any proof of that, it's all an intellectual exercise, but the Trump Adminstration is taking trying to shift the focus away from themselves way too far now, and into the territory of inciting a war with China. I sure as hell don't have proof of anything, and even if they have intelligence operatives deeply embedded within the Chinese government, good fucking luck trying to get proof of what they're saying past Chinese borders! Actual incontrovertible proof of a planned effort at what is the very definition of biological warfare would be the Most Top Secret of Secrets that any government would have; people are killed over secrets like this!

So I got exactly one piece of advice for the current administration, and more to the point, our own Intelligence services and our Military commanders: You'd better be gods-be-damned 110% SURE of your intel before you go making real accusations of the Chinas' government that they engineered this entire pandemic, because you may start World War 3 over it.

I really wish /. will let us post AND moderate the same discussion. It's OK not to post and moderate in the same message thread though.

If you're an actual citizen of a Western country and not either a Chinese foreign national or a paid agent of the Chinese government, whitewashing and astroturfing for them on the Internet, then why do you defend the Chinese government and it's actions in the world? Explain yourselves!

Panic.

Yep. The actual virus is just a side-show compared to the real epidemic that's killing us: abject panic.
For the vast majority of people, you either get them drunk, or you subject them to high levels of emotional stress (either real or self-induced), and you find out what they're really like. And we're supposed to be evolved, sentient, civilized beings? LOL.

Come back in, oh, say, ten thousand years, and if humans are still around, then try telling me they're evolved, sentient, and civilized, because most sure as hell aren't right now.

MEMO TO AVERAGE PEOPLE: Stop panicking. You're making things a literal order of magnitude (if not TWO) worse than it has to be.
Stop hoarding, too, while you're at it.

All I'd like to point out is that the gods-be-damned media is quoting just numbers but not putting it into context.
Italy has a population of around 60 million.
The U.S. has a population of around 350 million.
Therefore: multiply the U.S. coronavirus deaths by about 0.17 to get a comparable figure.

18860*0.17=3207 (rounded up).
The U.S. has per capita one fifth the number of deaths as Italy.

The whole point of this is: STOP PANICKING, IT'S NOT AS BAD AS THE GODS-BE-DAMNED MEDIA WANTS YOU TO BELEIVE.
They want ratings, and as always sensationalistic crap gets ratings. Do the math before deciding to panic.

Spread the logic and reason to your neighbors and co-workers, to your 'social media' (if you're still silly enough to be on social media that is); paint it on the sides of your car if you like. Get people to stop panicking!

Also: STOP HOARDING.

Thanks for reading.

'Satan and a virus will not stop us', they say.
Anyone want to start a betting pool on how many of them ultimately get sick and die?
All for their superstitious belief in magical beings. 'Call it Evolution in Action', indeed.
Sadly, many more will die because of their stupidity.

o Stop hoarding things, and encourage others to stop hoarding
o Keep calm and carry on. The pandemic won't last forever, and panicking just makes it worse.
o If you don't like the content on Slashdot, then send an email to the editors, don't post your complaints in discussion threads -- or just don't come to Slashdot anymore. Otherwise you're making it worse for everyone else.
o Keep you and your families safe and healthy and find a reason to laugh every day.

"And every day there will be multiplications," he continued. "You look at your toilet paper and you think I'm going to run out of toilet paper, but you have another roll where that one was and you don't know how did that even take place."
Can you believe, in the year 2020, in the United States, that there are members of our species that actually believes nonsense like this? Literal Magical Thinking? Worst of all: this son-of-a-bitch is leading them all to their deaths as he encourages them to congregate in his damned church, so they can all spread the virus to each other.
"We are not stopping anything," he said. "I've got news for you, this church will never close. The only time the church will close is when the Rapture is taking place.
This is why I think organized religion, in all it's forms, is bad, is holding back our species from evolving, encouraging superstition, discouraging rational thought, demonizing science and the search for real truth and real facts, replacing it with Cults Of Personality (because that's what modern religion is) and delusional thoughts.

Got mod points? Mod me up against the pro-Trump morons. Thanks. :-)

o All of this virus bullshit is temporary.
o When it's all done, everything will go back to normal.
o They'll create a vaccine for it and it'll become no more ominous than the flu or anything else we have vaccines against.
o SO FUCKING STOP HOARDING SHIT AND CALM THE FUCK DOWN ALREADY.
mmkay?
You're welcome.

We are just about the richest country on the planet, and we have just about the most plentiful supplies of just about everything you could imagine; THERE IS NO NEED TO BE HOARDING EVERYTHING! The world is not ending! It's not the Apocalypse! Everything is going to be just fine!
A year from now everything is likely to be back to normal and you'll all be too busy with your lives to even think about what we went through in early 2020, and having a garage full of toilet paper and hand sanitizer will seem incredibly ridiculous to you.
Just buy what you need and NO MORE THAN THAT. There's plenty being produced but you're all over-stressing the supply chain which can't keep up because you're over-buying everything. PLEASE JUST STOP DOING THAT, YOU'RE JUST MAKING A TEMPORARILY BAD SITUATION THAT MUCH WORSE FOR YOURSELVES AND EVERYONE ELSE.