Monday, April 06, 2020

These Things That Pass for Knowledge....


The Governor of Georgia says he just learned that asymptomatic people could be carriers and transmitters of the coronavirus.

I learned in biology in high school (i.e., 50 years ago) that contagion is most dangerous among people with no symptoms, because that is when they are contagious.  This is the problem we face every year with respiratory illnesses like colds and flus:  people bring it to the work place, school, church, stores, movie theaters, etc., and spread it before they are too sick to go to those places, and before they know they are sick and contagious.  This is the most fundamental idea of contagion, and if it was not yet proven with coronavirus, simple knowledge of hygiene says it should have been assumed.

And yet....

“So it’s unfortunate that the media continues to hang on a five-second sound bite in over an hour-long press conference,” Duncan complained in response. “Governor Kemp worked so hard on this. I would say he’s working harder than anybody in the state of Georgia. He understands the information.”

What did the Governor know, and when did he know it?  Because five seconds is plenty long enough to prove you're a gibbering ignorant jackass.  Then again, it seems abundantly clear our governments are dominated by gibbering ignorant jackasses.

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