COVID-19 - social and political fallout (6)

Trump, the life-long con man, has performed one great
deed for the country. He has inadvertently exposed the
putrid hearts, minds and souls of GOPers. Their Covid
and post-election actions and statements have been
recorded on video, audio and in tweets for the whole
world to see for generations to come. To GOPers,
Americans are merely interchangeable cogs in the
country's economic engine ~ our deaths don't matter
and our votes are disposable.

We seem to have two threads with the same title - "COVID-19 - social and political fallout (6)". I assume this thread should be (7), not (6).

Aren't these the meat packers that Trump declared 'essential' and shielded from liability? Betting pool was least of their misdeeds. McConnell wants to shield more from liability. Which isn't to say nuisance suits shouldn't be discouraged, but bad actors should be fully liable for harm to their employees.

Tyson fires 7 at Iowa pork plant after COVID betting inquiry
RYAN J. FOLEY | Dec 17, 2020

..The lawsuits allege plant managers pressured employees to keep working, even through sickness, and that the company waited too long to shut down the plant to stem the outbreak.

Managers told workers they had a responsibility to stay on the job to ensure that Americans didn’t go hungry, even while they started avoiding the plant floor themselves because they were afraid of contracting the virus...

https://apnews.com/article/iowa-lawsuits-coronavirus-pandemic-lakes-meat-process...

#3--the corporate liability shield is a pretty vicious thing to want. They are basically condemning some people to die while allowing those that cause it to walk away scot free.

>3 margd: And a part of the story that was largely passed over is that these plants were shipping much of the product to China; not really an essential service for this country.

These prominent conservatives who are telling people to go through the holidays like normal---teasing people into indulging in bad behavior in a time of pandemic. This is as much a part of the mixed messaging we've been getting all along---not just from Trump himself but a lot of christian figures and pundits who support him and they are asking you to be soft and not make the harder but right decision. Most all of us get that this is asking people to sacrifice something that's very important to them but in the long run those who don't sacrifice are gambling with the health and well being of those very close to them and if you're one of those you should ask yourself if it's worth it to put at risk family members or close friends.

This is my public service announcement for today.

COVID squelches Newfoundland Christmas tradition of mummers... :)

Mummers,* nice mummers, get lost: A parody from Sean Panting (2:22)
CBC NL - Newfoundland and Labrador•Dec 17, 2020

Here's Sean Panting with a topical tune for a Christmas in the time of COVID-19 ... apologies to Simani. Video made by the CBC's Katie Rowe and Mark Cumby. Read more about Sean's inspiration here: https://www.cbc.ca/1.5845038

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLBonlJj6qc

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummering

Not Amazon: Canadian website takes on the online giant
Leyland Cecco | Fri 18 Dec 2020

Ali Haberstroh’s directory lists nearly 4,000 independent businesses in Toronto, Halifax, Calgary and Vancouver

With shops in Toronto deemed ‘non-essential’ and closed to the public, many have feared that companies like Amazon will prove devastating for struggling small businesses...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/18/not-amazon-canada-independent-busi...

Keep on talking: gay imam engages Africans in pandemic (Reuters)

When the pandemic hit, pioneering South African imam Muhsin Hendricks refashioned his gender and Islam workshops with virtual training and socially-distanced meet-ups...

One of the first imams to come out as gay, Hendricks is a pioneer, known continent-wide for pursuing dialogue with fellow Muslim leaders about a topic many don't want to discuss...

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/as-presidency-comes-to-a-close-laura-ingraham-tells-...
As Presidency Comes to a Close, Laura Ingraham Tells Trump ‘Thank You’: ‘We Were Fortunate’ to Have a President Like Him

As usual, Laura is dead wrong. The Trump era has not
been good for America because of the Covid-19 year
which is ending his era. And, the Trump era crap is not
going to be a plus for the GOP going forward because it
is most likely going to increase the political interest/
activities of people who are members of the rising
demographic wave which is moving up the voting-age
brackets.

MN Republican State Senator Dead -- Covid-19

Jerry Relph, of St. Cloud died a month after testing positive for COVID-19 following a Republican caucus meeting Nov. 5 at the statehouse. He was a Marine Corps veteran who served in Vietnam, an attorney, small businessman, and senator in the Minnesota Senate. He was elected to the Minnesota State Senate in 2016, serving St. Cloud, Waite Park, and communities in Benton, Sherburne, and Stearns counties.

Democratic Farmer-Labor Party members called for the resignation of Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka after the Nisswa Republican, Relph and state Sen. David Senjem (R-Rochester) all tested positive for the virus but did not notify Capitol staff or DFL members of the outbreak.

"(Republican caucus members) engaged in high-risk behaviors," said DFL Senate Leader Susan Kent. "(Gazelka) misled Minnesotans about their actions and they have made excuses instead of being accountable."

Republicans held a large dinner party Nov. 5 with more than 100 attendees at an arena event center.

Relph had voted along with all 35 Republicans and one Democratic state senator in July to suspend the peacetime emergency declared by Democratic Gov. Tim Walz to handle the pandemic.

Sadly, Relph was a victim of his political beliefs whose death could have been prevented by adhering to factual scientific guidelines.

So many of the same republicans who called it a hoax or denied or played down how dangerous Covid was are the first ones lining up for the vaccine--even getting it before many health care workers:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/anger-republican-lawmakers-played-down-152356887.html

I liked seeing Rubio in the Coast Guard hat. I was in the Coast Guard. Marco Rubio wasn't--still he's the one wearing the fucking hat. That's pretty fucking lame IMO. Then we have pro-hydroxychloroquine Lindsey Graham and Michael 'coronavirus czar' Pence. All these three turds have been to superspreader event after superspreader event and never ever challenging Trump at all on masks or social distancing or any of his stupid lies about the virus and here they all are cutting in front of the line.

What that though should tell those who have believed their lies until now--that this virus and pandemic are real and when you get the chance you should get the vaccine too. They were only just playing you all this time to further their political ambitions is all. No big deal right?

'Subpoenas are necessary': House watchdog details extensive meddling with CDC Covid-19 reports
DAN DIAMOND | 12/21/2020

...Trump appointees attempted to “alter or block” at least 13 scientific reports on the coronavirus as outbreaks surged across the spring and summer, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), the chair of the House select subcommittee on coronavirus, wrote on Monday in a letter* (to HHS Secretary Alex Azar and CDC Director Robert Redfield) that was shared with POLITICO.

...Clyburn issued subpoenas to Azar and Redfield, ordering them by Dec. 30 to produce "full and unredacted" documents that Clyburn said his panel has sought for months.

The panel’s probe into administration’s coronavirus response began in mid-September, shortly after a POLITICO story revealed how appointees meddled with the famed Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, which are authored by career scientists and are typically free of political interference.

...then-science adviser Paul Alexander, the department's top spokesperson Michael Caputo and other health department officials — worked to subvert the CDC's MMWR reports...reports on the use of masks, the spread of Covid-19 in children, the virus' transmission during an April 7 primary election in Milwaukee and other reports that were seen as politically sensitive.

...The MMWR on hydroxychloroquine (the malaria drug favored by President Donald Trump as a coronavirus treatment despite little evidence of its effectiveness), which reviewed how doctors prescribed the drug, was originally scheduled to be published on June 30 but was not published until Sept. 4.

...Trump appointees in the meantime further strategized on how to minimize the CDC’s findings – including Alexander’s plans to publicly dismiss the agency’s hydroxychloroquine report. ...

..Bill Hall, the top career civil servant in the HHS press shop, on June 5 warned Alexander, Caputo and other officials that they should not interfere with the MMWRs, comparing the CDC's flagship reports to a "peer-reviewed journal" akin to the Journal of the American Medical Association.

...But the subcommittee's documents reveal that political appointees instead kept trying to edit a series of internal and external reports.arranged an interview between a senior official and NPR about the health department's data changes without his permission.

...After POLITICO obtained emails of Alexander pressuring infectious-disease expert Anthony Fauci to not speak publicly about the risks of Covid-19 to children, Alexander protested to colleagues that he wanted to go public with his complaints about Fauci.

"They have no clue what they are saying and I welcome the chance to inform them," Alexander wrote on Sept. 9. HHS announced that Alexander, who is a part-time professor at a Canadian university**, would exit the department a week later.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/21/house-watchdog-cdc-covid-reports-449517

* Clyburn letter--https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1341118092152324103/photo/1

** margd-- McMaster U is a solid institution. I'll be curious to see where Alexander ends up.

The Vatican Says It's 'Acceptable' for Catholics to Get Virus Vaccines That Are Based on Research Into Abortion Cell Lines (TIME)

The Vatican on Monday declared that it is “morally acceptable” for Roman Catholics to receive COVID-19 vaccines based on research that used cells derived from aborted fetuses, guidance that came after some churchmen in the United States argued that such products were immoral...

>14 John5918:

I found that declaration very interesting. What kind of theological knots were tied and untied do you suppose? And how many cardinals squirmed on their thrones?

One of those internal Vatican scenes I imagine would one day make a fascinating two act play. "The Agony and the Ecstasy II."

Just Think

Only 55,000 cases of human Coronavirus genomes have been performed of the 18 million known. Consider that a virus mutates ever so slightly each time it invades a different person, but those ever so slight mutations are additive. So, when the UK identifies a new strain (to known science, anyway) it means that that strain has already infected thousands and has spread around the globe by the time it's detected -- if it's ever detected and identified as a new strain.

There's no way to prevent the initial infection by a new strain because there's no way to preemptively prevent mutation. Our only tool is to reduce the chances of its spread by reducing the interactions among the host population -- us. If the latest strain is, as it's been characterized, distinguished by its greater infectiousness, then the models projecting cases, hospitalizations, and deaths will probably undergo an even more somber and morbid situation for mid-January and after than they do now.

Consider, also, that our current vaccines just beginning to be used, are all developed from the spike protein of the original Wuhan and "early" variants of Coronavirus. We must face the possibility that the mutation that may have produced increased infectiousness could have significantly altered spike protein that renders it less susceptible to the current drugs we're depending on to protect us.

We may be walking around in a world where we're putting on armor to protect us from slings and arrows to wander a battlefield alive now with bullets and missiles. Not a happy scenario for our futures.

I'll take the brighter view, that the scientists are far smarter than I could imagine and that their mRNA vaccines are more robust than that bleak characterization above, and are built to defend against some very basic spike proteins less likely to undergo major mutation that are common to ALL known forms of Coronavirus associated with humans. Or nearly so.

A Covid is a Covid is a Covid is our best hope and bet.

>15 Limelite: Not unprecedented. There's some kidney med long ago approved that was developed on a cell line from a long-ago abortion. Also, other vaccines have been approved if there was no alternative untarnished by association with abortion.

Though you're right I suspect that there are cardinals especially today who are unacquainted with process of discerning perfect from good...

I think if I'd been aborted, I would choose over incineration, living on in a cell line--especially stem cells saving someone's life or health--and having people call me "blessed". A thought exercise. I give blood and have offered stem cells and organs. I'm certainly grateful to Henrietta Lacks, though she, like fetuses, enslaved gyn patients, and prisoners of war, was tapped without permission. Did you know that we still rely on info from Nazi MDs, i.e., hypothermia from subjecting Russian POWs to ice baths--to death?

>16 Limelite: Looking good that UK strain is susceptible to convalescent serum (#101 in SARS-CoV-2 thread). We may not always be so lucky--smart does matter! :)

My understanding is that we evolved with pathogens like leprosy that take a long time to spread and to kill--important in a small hunter-gatherer group, where a fast-moving, lethal pathogen quickly goes extinct once it has obliterated its small host population.

The agriculture etc. that allowed our numbers to grow also brought us into contact with others species and their pathogens. Usually they become less lethal and more infectious over time. Any defenses we throw up merely favors certain mutations over others. Knock on wood, COVID's spike protein is broad and essential enough target that the virus should not be able to escape our current vaccines.

Biggest threat, sounds like, is that UK strain could infect so many of us that we will crash hospital capacities before we attain herd immunity?

>17 margd: I wasn't entirely serious, but appreciate and admire your comment. Still interested to have been the proverbial fly, though. and >18 margd: Agreed. There should be federal combat pay for the frontline healthcare workers who are fighting the war on Covid-19 that Trump is the C-in-C of, no?

>15 Limelite:, >17 margd:

As margd says, it's not unprecedented. While it may look like arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, I think it's a case of cooler heads thinking through Catholic theology in a way that values life (ie the life of those who will benefit from vaccines) rather than bolstering the "culture wars" in the USA. It appears to have been some US bishops who argued that these vaccines couldn't be used, and the Vatican has now corrected them. No doubt right wing Catholic media in the USA will now have a field day criticising the pope.

'Sex for sanitary pads': how Kenya's lockdown led to a rise in teenage pregnancy (Guardian)

Girls who got free sanitary products at school were pushed to desperate measures in what is being called a shadow pandemic...

“It is a shadow pandemic... Out of school, the girls had much free, unsupervised hours where the allure of sex for pads was irresistible. The government used to give sanitary pads to girls while in school but failed to extend the services to their homes when schools closed, leaving the girls at the mercy of ‘friends with benefits’. Sometimes sex was in exchange for as little as the 15 Kenyan shillings (10p) required to pay for a daily shower in a public bathroom. Many would go for days without taking a bath and could do anything to appease someone who promised them such small luxuries... A few girls were lured into child pornography"...

Question for the World in Remainder of Post-Trump Decade

Has the legacy of Trump's time in the WH been assured? If so, it isn't positive. We read today's headlines that only confirm the many headlines of the past four years that Trump was never a president, only a megalomaniac whose address was 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Now we learn that the man wants an airport named after him. For what? His contributions to air passenger safety? His investment in American infrastructure that modernized such facilities as Kennedy Int'l.? His promotion of public transportation fuel conversion from petro-based to alternative sources? As it turns out (and everyone could guess), none of the above. Just the same old, same old -- you must pander to my malignantly narcissistic ego.

If we're going to name an airport for Trump, we can only do so after we honor Idi Amin, Rafael Trujillo, and Pol Pot first. Once the precedent is set for immortalizing cruel tyrants, then it's his turn. I don't know the actual statistics, but I believe Trump is responsible for more deaths of his own citizens out of cruel policy and in the shortest time than any of the above named. As for openly asking his own citizens to murder their fellow Americans, rather than depending on secret cadres, trained troops, and rebel armies, he has to be the first in any recorded democracy to do just that.

He has done more than any criminal politician to affect the psyche of the world's leaders toward acceptable brutality against one's own people than any democratically elected leader ever. He has vaunted violent hate as a desirable action when performed on his behalf. He has made cruelty normal and murderous gangs patriotic. Worse he has made vileness a rewarded aspiration, as long as its devoted to his promotion.

So, I ask, will the world, once Trump has been given the hook off its stage, continue to operate like cruel disregard and petulant vengeance are acceptable political tools of governance? Or will those aspects of human behavior be returned to the sewer of human nastiness whence they came and where they should be forever exiled, since they obviously can't be eradicated?

And about that airport honorific. . .let him be satisfied with a viral disease agent being named after him. Let novel Coronavirus forever more be immortalized as the Trump virus.

>22 Limelite: Can you imagine a Trump Library? His "legacy" immortalized?

Michigan mayor draws criticism with Facebook posts suggesting rebellion: report
Justine Coleman | 12/28/20

... (Bedroom community of ~2,000 outside state capital Lansing) Potterville Mayor Bruce Kring’s controversial posts obtained by Lansing-based station WLNS include one that says, “When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.” The station reported that a viewer flagged the posts.

Another, posted alongside an angry emoji, said, “Either we TAKE power back or we will never be free again. No more asking nicely. Our founding fathers warned us. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”

A third post captioned “Whitmers next lockdown!!!” showed a picture of a stockade. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), who was the target of a kidnapping plot earlier this year, has been repeatedly criticized by Republicans over her coronavirus prevention measures...

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/531899-michigan-mayor-draws-cr...

Coronavirus: 'No liquor in teapots', South Africa's restaurants warned (BBC)

South Africa's police minister has warned restaurants not to hide alcohol in teapots to try and get around a fresh ban on the sale of liquor...

Reminds me of living in Sudan during the period when alcohol was banned under a version of Islamic shari'a. There was a particular restaurant in the Khartoum 2 area where beer could be obtained in a teapot.

>25 John5918: Rumor has it the same tactic once flourished in various North American Chinatowns after-hours. Rumor has it it still does in some.

Congressman-elect Luke Letlow who was to represent the La-5 congressional district dies of Covid 11 days after testing positive. For all the hoaxers like that stupid Q-anon happy congresswoman-elect Marjorie Greene from Georgia that it isn't for real here is their answer. Letlow a republican was 41 years old--married and with two young sons which should also tell the freedumb loving mask haters something too---though I doubt that very many will pay the slightest attention to anything that doesn't fit into the narrow parameters of their blockheaded thought patterns. It would be some joke if a democrat won that open seat now though wouldn't it? Letlow now because just one of some 330,000 Americans who have tragically lost their lives to this virus that so many fools choose to ignore.

An Ontario friend (following Ont lockdown rules, of course, inviting only a single relative to join them for Christmas) quipped:

Who would have thought that one day we’d be smoking weed at a family gathering and
that the illegal part of this would be the family gathering...
only in Canada 🇨🇦

(margd: And hopefully, only for a short while longer! Happy New Year!)

#28--the one person that came to our house for thanksgiving and christmas is my daughter who lives about an hour away. We're willing to take a chance with her but she's also very careful. About three weeks ago she had a positive contact when her (positive and idiotic) landlord came banging on the door for her rent (instead of letting her drop it off in his box) and she took a covid test right away and was negative. When she comes down she's also wearing a mask all the time and she keeps space from the rest of us.

GOP Congresswoman-Elect Rushed To the Hospital Due To COVID-19

Miami Congresswoman-elect María Elvira Salazar will be unable to attend a Sunday ceremony in Washington to swear in members of the new Congress after learning she has COVID-19. The Miami representative was admitted to Doctors Hospital with a heart arrhythmia, and tested positive for Covid-19. Following treatment and stabilization, she was released to 14 days quarantine in her home.

No further medical information was released. No information if the congresswoman knew she was positive before her hospital admission.

US pharmacist who tried to ruin Covid vaccine doses is a conspiracy theorist, police say (Guardian)

Officers say Steven Brandenburg told investigators he intentionally tried to spoil the doses because he believed the vaccine could change DNA...

Doctors are our frontline against Covid. Now they lead the fight against its deniers, too (Guardian)

With misinformation rife, it is exhausted NHS staff giving the public first-hand facts – and many are paying a personal price...

In the face of overwhelming Covid-19 cases inundating county hospitals, a few days ago LA ambulance crews were told not to resuscitate arrests in order to get them to hospital. Today those same frontline responders have been told to perform field triage on patients and not transport those deemed likely to have a low chance of survival.

Heart attacks, brain aneurysms, severe strokes, pulmonary embolisms, burns, poisonings, GSWs, MVAs, other trauma, and of course respiratory failures will be screened, to name but a few presenting conditions on scene.

For the selfish pleasure of a few, many more must die.

Tyson tries to hide behind Trump executive order in wrongful death case. The death occurred two days before the EO.

https://www.eater.com/2021/1/5/22215092/federal-judge-rules-tyson-waterloo-iowa-...

British army recruits rise as Covid seems to act as 'rallying cry' (Guardian)

The British army says it is on track to meet its annual recruitment target for only the second time in eight years amid tentative signs that the pandemic crisis has acted as a “rallying cry to serve”...

Applications often rise during periods of economic weakness, and the army offers a secure career at a time when many other employment opportunities have been curtailed. Another reason cited was the obvious need to help out around the UK in establishing Covid testing and vaccination sites... Five thousand troops and other members of the armed forces are currently deployed in locations around the UK in what the MoD described earlier this week as “the biggest homeland operation in peacetime”...

The 432-year-old manual on social distancing (BBC)

In this spookily prescient booklet, people are advised to keep six feet apart, avoid shaking hands and only send one person per household out to do the shopping...

Initially, the measures were extremely unpopular, and the public wanted to lynch him...

WASHINGTON (AP) — US jobless (weekly, initial) claims jump to 965,000 as layoffs remain high with economy in grip of virus.

- Zeke Miller (AP) @ZekeJMiller8:50 AM · Jan 14, 2021

Imams across UK to reassure worshippers about Covid vaccines (Guardian)

Sermons at Friday prayers will focus on issue in order to ease concerns of Muslim Britons about Covid jabs...

Former South Sudan Refugee Acclaimed for Saving COVID-19 Patients in South Africa (Voice of America)

A former refugee from Sudan’s civil war who survived torture and homelessness to become a doctor is winning acclaim for saving the lives of COVID-19 patients in South Africa. Dr. Emmanuel Malish Taban was recently named one of the 100 most influential Africans of 2020 by London-based New African magazine. The U.S. embassy in Juba, South Sudan, congratulated Taban on its Facebook page for the continental recognition and his work treating COVID-19 patients at his South African clinic...

Duplicate post

You heard about the scramble to administer 6 last vaccine doses in a snowstorm in Oregon. Seattle had 1,650 doses Thursday that needed arms when a freezer broke.

The mobilization went on through the night and out onto the sidewalk. Medical staff were heartened to be doing this beyond caring for Covid patients.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mad-scramble-ensues-vaccinate-hundreds-afte...

India v England: Moeen Ali 'wouldn't wish Covid-19 on anyone' (BBC)

England all-rounder Moeen Ali says he "wouldn't wish on anyone" his positive coronavirus diagnosis and two weeks of isolation...

Moeen, a devout Muslim, says he will have the coronavirus vaccine when it is available to him. There have been concerns that a spread of disinformation might discourage some members of the UK's south Asian community from being vaccinated. "I'd take it and urge others to do it," Moeen said. "Having spoken to people who know quite a bit about it, I'd take it and get my family and others to take it. It's like any vaccine - there's a lot of conspiracy theories out there but it's just medicine evolving. In our community, people are sometimes not sure whether to take something - a bit cautious. But for things to get back to normal it's important that we do it"...

Cricket, incidentally, for those unlucky souls who've never heard of Moeen Ali.

Rhino poaching in South Africa falls during Covid-19 lockdown (BBC)

South Africa has reported a decline in the number of rhinos killed by poachers, which officials say is partly the result of Covid-19 lockdowns. Last year, 394 rhinos were killed for their horns in the country, a fall of 33% from the 594 recorded in 2019, the environment ministry said. Lockdowns had restricted the movements of would-be poachers and rhino horn smugglers, it added...

>42 John5918: This could be seen as progress, however, I find it hard to believe if a person could commit the crime of poaching he would obey a law to stay in his home. I would hopefully rather consider that efforts to protect these animals are working and the timing with the pandemic is coincidental.

>43 mamzel: Gather it's not that the poachers are staying home so much as that everyone else is, which makes the poachers stick out like a sore thumb.

The Economic Impacts of COVID-19 Pandemic in South (Sudd Institute)

Summary

This policy brief studies the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Sudan. The findings are educative. First, the health effects of the pandemic in the country have been surprisingly less pronounced than expected, marked by very low morbidity and fatality rates. Second, despite this positive health news, the pandemic has had negative effects on the economy, starting with dramatic declines in domestic production and revenue collection, followed by a very volatile rising cost of living. These economic consequences are far-reaching, severely weakening, for example, human capital formation, especially in education, as the lockdown has deprived some 2 million schoolage children of learning opportunities. Finally, economic recovery from COVID-19 will require a coordinated strategy that fosters broadened synergies in response to sectorspecific COVID-19 ramifications1. Interventions that prioritize smaller firms and women enterprises should be in order.

Kamran Abbasi. 2021. Covid-19: Social murder, they wrote—elected, unaccountable, and unrepentant. BMJ 2021;372:n314 (Published 04 February 2021) doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n314 https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n314

What went wrong in the global governance of covid-19?
After two million deaths, we must have redress for mishandling the pandemic

...At the very least, covid-19 might be classified as “social murder,” as recently explained by two professors of criminology. The philosopher Friedrich Engels coined the phrase when describing the political and social power held by the ruling elite over the working classes in 19th century England. His argument was that the conditions created by privileged classes inevitably led to premature and “unnatural” death among the poorest classes. In The Road to Wigan Pier, George Orwell echoed these themes in describing the life and living conditions of working class people in England’s industrial north. Today, “social murder” may describe the lack of political attention to social determinants and inequities that exacerbate the pandemic. Michael Marmot argues that as we emerge from covid-19 we must build back fairer...

International accountability
...From the United States to India, from the United Kingdom to Brazil, people feel vulnerable and betrayed by the failure of their leaders...

Hollow excuses...

Getting redress
...The law remains one form of redress, and indeed some legal avenues, including criminal negligence and misconduct in public office, are being explored,1819 although proving any such claims will be difficult and drawn out...

That leaves three options. The first is to push for a public inquiry, as The BMJ and others argued for in the summer of 2020—a rapid, forward looking review rather than an exercise in apportioning blame that will identify lessons and save lives. The second is to vote out elected leaders and governments that avoid accountability and remain unrepentant. The US showed that a political reckoning is possible, and perhaps a legal one can follow, although research suggests that mishandling a pandemic may not lose votes. The third is for mechanisms of global governance, such as the International Criminal Court, to be broadened to cover state failings in pandemics...

...avenues for redress seem blocked. What’s left in these circumstances is for citizens to lobby their political representatives for a rapid public inquiry; for professionals in law, science, medicine, and the media, as well as holders of public office, to put their duty to the public above their loyalty to politicians and to speak out, to dissent lawfully, to be active in their calls for justice, especially for disadvantaged groups.

...The “social murder” of populations is more than a relic of a bygone age. It is very real today, exposed and magnified by covid-19. It cannot be ignored or spun away. Politicians must be held to account by legal and electoral means, indeed by any national and international constitutional means necessary. State failures that led us to two million deaths are “actions” and “inactions” that should shame us all.

Sitting on billions, Catholic dioceses amassed taxpayer aid
REESE DUNKLIN and MICHAEL REZENDES | 2/4/2021

...As the pandemic began to unfold, scores of Catholic dioceses across the U.S. received aid through the Paycheck Protection Program while sitting on well over $10 billion in cash, short-term investments or other available funds, an Associated Press investigation has found. And despite the broad economic downturn, these assets have grown in many dioceses.

Yet even with that financial safety net, the 112 dioceses that shared their financial statements, along with the churches and schools they oversee, collected at least $1.5 billion in taxpayer-backed aid. A majority of these dioceses reported enough money on hand to cover at least six months of operating expenses, even without any new income.

The financial resources of several dioceses rivaled or exceeded those available to publicly traded companies like Shake Shack and Ruth’s Chris Steak House, whose early participation in the program triggered outrage. Federal officials responded by emphasizing the money was intended for those who lacked the cushion that cash and other liquidity provide. Many corporations returned the funds.

Overall, the nation’s nearly 200 dioceses, where bishops and cardinals govern, and other Catholic institutions received at least $3 billion. That makes the Roman Catholic Church perhaps the biggest beneficiary of the paycheck program, according to AP’s analysis of data the U.S. Small Business Administration released following a public-records lawsuit by news organizations...

...By using a special exemption that the church lobbied to include in the paycheck program, Catholic entities amassed at least $3 billion — roughly the same as the combined total of recipients from the other faiths that rounded out the top five, AP found. Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist and Jewish faith-based recipients also totaled at least $3 billion. Catholics account for about a fifth of the U.S. religious population while members of Protestant and Jewish denominations are nearly half, according to the Pew Research Center...

...A QUESTION OF NEED

In other federal small business loan programs, government help is treated as a last resort.

Applicants must show they couldn’t get credit elsewhere. And those with enough available funds must pay more of their own way to reduce taxpayer subsidies.

Congress didn’t include these tests in the Paycheck Protection Program. To speed approvals, lenders weren’t required to do their usual screening and instead relied on applicants’ self-certifications of need.

The looser standards helped create a run on the first $349 billion in paycheck funding. Small business owners complained that they were shut out, yet dozens of companies healthy enough to be traded on stock exchanges scored quick approval.

...Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's...Treasury Department said it would audit loans exceeding $2 million, although federal officials have not said whether they would hold religious organizations and other nonprofits to the same standard of need as businesses.

...According to the (Boston) archdiocese’s website, its central ministries office received about $3 million, while its parishes and schools collected about $32 million more.

The archdiocese — along with its parishes, schools and cemeteries — had roughly $200 million in available funds in June 2019, according to its audited financial report. When that fiscal year ended several months into the pandemic, available funds had increased to roughly $233 million.

Nevertheless, spokesman Terrence Donilon cited “ongoing economic pressure” in saying the archdiocese will seek forgiveness for last year’s loans and will apply for additional, new funds during the current round.

Beyond its growing available funds, the archdiocese and its affiliates benefit from other sources of funding. The archdiocese’s “Inspiring Hope” campaign, announced in January, has raised at least $150 million.

And one of its supporting charities — the Catholic Schools Foundation, where Cardinal Sean O’Malley is board chairman — counted more than $33 million in cash and other funds that could be “used for general operations” as of the beginning of the 2020 fiscal year, according to its financial statement.

Despite these resources, the archdiocese closed a half-dozen schools in May and June, often citing revenue losses due to the pandemic. Paycheck protection data show four of those schools collectively were approved for more than $700,000...

https://apnews.com/article/catholic-church-get-aid-investigation-39a404f55c82fea...

>47 margd:
Not an especially good look for an organization that states in it's Compendium of Social Doctrine"

"The action of the State and of other public authorities must be consistent with the principle of subsidiarity and create situations favourable to the free exercise of economic activity. It must also be inspired by the principle of solidarity and establish limits for the autonomy of the parties in order to defend those who are weaker.733 Solidarity without subsidiarity, in fact, can easily degenerate into a “Welfare State”, while subsidiarity without solidarity runs the risk of encouraging forms of self-centred localism. In order to respect both of these fundamental principles, the State's intervention in the economic environment must be neither invasive nor absent, but commensurate with society's real needs. "

By "free exercise of economic activity" they must mean "snatch and grab". Not sure how taking money out of my pocket to add to the Church's wealth is "commensurate with society's real needs" but ours is not to reason why ours is but to shut up and work.

>48 mikevail: Hopefully those writing THIS law will write in the tests for small business that establish need. (McConnell's Senate wrote last PPP?) NOT squeezing little guy other than stating an income ceiling. I can see helping a bitty church that has to close for a while, but not large entities with large cash cushions.

How to heal the 'mass trauma' of Covid-19 (BBC)

You are living amid the first global mass trauma event for several decades. It's arguably the first of its kind since World War Two, and likely the first of such severity in your lifetime... Trauma is a far subtler concept than many of us realise... What trauma is about is events and their effect on the mind. But what separates it from something merely stressful is how we relate to these events on a deep level of belief. After the pandemic ends, the effects of the mass trauma it has inflicted will linger across societies for years. How might we understand this mental fallout? And what does the science of trauma suggest that we should – and shouldn't – do in order to heal?...

So moving... Amanda Gorman performing her art at the #SuperBowl. Thank you.

1:33 ( https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1358771318448132097 )
From NFL

- Eric Feigl-Ding @DrEricDing | 8:35 AM · Feb 8, 2021

Ron Wright--Republican House member representing the Texas-6 Congressional district becomes the first standing member of congress to die from Covid.

SD Wants 'Freedom to Infect' USA

Conservative news site, Daily Wire has the story.

Legislation introduced in the South Dakota House of Representatives seeks to give the state’s attorney general the authority to review executive orders from President Joe Biden and potentially nullify any order deemed unconstitutional.

Could set up intense Constitutional battle between US government (Pres. Biden) and SD over power of EOs in determining national policy in handling public health issues and far more.

The bill specifies that Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg could exempt South Dakota from any law or order “that restricts a person’s rights or that is determined … to be unconstitutional” if the law or order relates to the following:

A pandemic or other public health emergency
The regulation of natural resources
The regulation of the agricultural industry
The regulation of land use
The regulation of the financial sector through the imposition of environmental, social, or governance standards, or
The regulation of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms

Why be a state in the USA if there's no desire to act in a united fashion on six major fronts of public interest that extend beyond SD's state lines?

Facebook to Axe Vaccine Lies Posts

Disinformation and anti-vaxxer propaganda, in general, posts by individual users will no longer be allowed to sully Facebook, which already prevents paid ad false advertising about vaccines.

Today, following consultations with leading health organizations, including the World Health Organization (WHO), we are expanding the list of false claims we will remove to include additional debunked claims about the coronavirus and vaccines. This includes claims such as:

COVID-19 is man-made or manufactured
Vaccines are not effective at preventing the disease they are meant to protect against
It’s safer to get the disease than to get the vaccine
Vaccines are toxic, dangerous or cause autism

The full list of claims is available here.

We will begin enforcing this policy immediately, with a particular focus on Pages, groups and accounts that violate these rules, and we’ll continue to expand our enforcement over the coming weeks. Groups, Pages and accounts on Facebook and Instagram that repeatedly share these debunked claims may be removed altogether.

How Our Brutal Science System Almost Cost Us A Pioneer Of mRNA Vaccines
Dr. David Scales | February 12, 2021

...I witnessed some of the early scientific heartbreaks that came before the historic vaccine victories. And I found myself simply awestruck by the scientists I knew who persevered in spite of our system of scientific research.

The system helped lead to progress, but it also demoralized a junior researcher to the point that anyone of less grit and determination would have just given up long before the groundwork for today’s vaccines was laid.

...The coronavirus vaccine has demonstrated that we need good science - and good scientists - now more than ever. And we need to make sure that they stay in science, one way or another.

Academic science failed (Katalin) Karikó. But when she contacted me in 2015, I saw she had moved to the private sector, a common path for researchers when a university stops offering support. I was glad to see she had landed on her feet. And now, I watch in awe, like the rest of the world, as the technology she helped developed leads to one of the most spectacular victories in the history of science - a vaccine for a deadly pandemic developed in less than one year...

https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2021/02/12/brutal-science-system-mrna-pioneer

Mardi Gras 2021 is “NOT CANCELLED, JUST DIFFERENT.”

That being said, the January and February parades have been officially canceled. Bourbon St. doomed to remain clean.

#53---the same Ravnsborg who did a hit and run on a man in September---left him along the side of the road to die--saying later the next day he thought he'd hit a deer? That's the guy who gets to decide the constitutionality of national policy?

>57 lriley:

Mais oui!

MAGA lives on in FL. SO glad new Administration is working on national vaccine plan!

Ted Bridis (U FL) @tbridis | 9:54 AM · Feb 17, 2021
Unforced error? Famously combative with media, @GovRonDeSantis today says
public criticisms about vaccine distribution in parts of Florida could divert vaccines
to areas where there are no political criticisms of his efforts

00:26 ( https://twitter.com/tbridis/status/1362052772946968580 )

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More COVID vaccine coming to Manatee. Only residents of these two zip codes can get it
Ryan Callihan and Jessica De Leon | February 16, 2021

...Not all county residents will be eligible for the shots. Instead, they are reserved solely for residents of the 34202 and 34211 zip codes, which cover most of the Manatee County portion of Lakewood Ranch and other wealthier neighborhoods in East Manatee not as hard hit by coronavirus infections as other parts of the county... (Residents in 34202 and 34211 who have contracted the coronavirus make up about 8 percent of the county’s 30,557 confirmed coronavirus infections.)

...The two zip codes make up part of (Manatee County Commissioner Vanessa Baugh's) District 5...According to Baugh, the process began late last week when DeSantis called Rex Jensen, president and CEO of Schroeder-Manatee Ranch, the developer of the master-planned Lakewood Ranch community. Baugh said DeSantis sought to establish a vaccine site in the area and she began working with Jensen to finalize the details.

...News of the site came as a shock to Baugh’s fellow commissioners. At least three said they were unaware of the process and shocked to hear that the site will cater exclusively to those living in parts of Baugh’s district...

https://www.bradenton.com/news/coronavirus/article249278430.html

#59--it helps to have money and it helps if the governor is your buddy.

Dominic Raab calls for ceasefires to enable Covid vaccinations (Guardian)

UK foreign secretary tells UN there is a moral duty to protect people in conflict zones...

For Muslims wary of the Covid vaccine: there's every religious reason not to be (Guardian)

Suspicion of authority and worries about what is halal must be balanced by the fact that protecting others is an obligation...

:0

Covid-19 cuts U.S. life expectancy by a year in first half of 2020, biggest drop since WWII
Adela Suliman and The Associated Press | Feb. 18, 2021

Life expectancy in the United States fell by an entire year in the first half of 2020 as Covid-19 swept through the country, health data published Thursday found, a decline not seen since World War II.

Racial minorities suffered the biggest impact from January through June 2020, with Black Americans losing nearly three years and Hispanics losing nearly two years, according to preliminary estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"This is a huge decline," said Robert Anderson, who oversees the data for the CDC. "You have to go back to World War II, the 1940s, to find a decline like this."...

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/covid-19-cuts-u-s-life-expectancy-year-firs...

Paul Stallard et al. 2021. Post-traumatic growth during the COVID-19 pandemic in carers of children in Portugal and the UK: cross-sectional online survey. Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2021. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bjpsych-open/article/posttraumatic-growt...

Abstract
Background

Although the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health have attracted interest, little attention has focused on its positive effects and possible post-traumatic growth.
Aims

To assess anxiety, well-being and post-traumatic growth in carers of children aged 6–16 years in Portugal and the UK.
Method

A cross-sectional online survey of volunteers conducted at the peak of the first wave of COVID-19 during lockdown (1 May to 27 June 2020).
Results

A total of 385 caregivers (Portuguese, n = 185; UK, n = 200), predominantly mothers (n = 341, 88.6%), completed the survey. The majority were working exclusively from home (n = 271, 70.4%), almost half reported a reduction in income (n = 174, 45.2%), most children were home taught (n = 358, 93%), and 75 (19.5%) identified a family member with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 infection. In total, 341 caregivers (88.6%) identified positives arising from COVID-19, most commonly related to the post-traumatic growth domains of improved relationships, a greater appreciation of life, discovering and embracing new possibilities, and positive spiritual change. A comparison of those who did (n = 341) and did not (n = 34) report any positives found a significant difference in well-being scores (t373 = 2.24, P = 0.025) but not in anxiety scores (t373 = 0.75, P = 0.45).
Conclusions

Despite experiencing considerable adversity, examples of post-traumatic growth during the lockdown were common. Although the voluntary online nature of our survey is a limitation, our findings suggest that further research exploring post-traumatic growth following pandemics is warranted.

Vaccine diplomacy: west falling behind in race for influence (Guardian)

While the UK and US strive for herd immunity, Russia and China are leveraging their Covid jabs...

Trump Is Guilty of Pandemicide
History will show the former U.S. president was staggeringly negligent during the pandemic’s deadly third wave.
Laurie Garrett | February 18, 2021

...I level the charge of pandemicide against Trump for his failure to say or do anything to halt the soaring burden of infection and death across the United States from Election Day to his departure from office.

...in his absence from pandemic duty—his duty to protect the American people—172,000 Americans died, nearly doubling the mortality toll since Election Day.

Republicans have, of course, decided that Trump cannot be impeached now that he is a private citizen. As a matter of formality, then, my call is moot. But let history record that no sitting U.S. president—since April 30, 1789, when George Washington took the first oath on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City—has willfully allowed such preventable carnage to unfold on the American people.

Let history record that Donald Trump is guilty of the crime of pandemicide.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/02/18/trump-is-guilty-of-pandemicide/

#66---the only time the pandemic mattered to Donald Trump was when he got sick himself and anyone who read about it knows that he was absolutely panicked when that happened. They went to measures beyond what they would for anyone else then to save his sorry ass and after that and out of the hospital how cocky he was about it. Like it was nothing for the rest of us to worry about.

Maybe he gives a shit about direct family members but other than that he doesn't care about people at all. Sure he wants people to vote for him---he wants to bathe in applause feeding his crowds on their resentments but he gave up giving a shit about covid or how many people were dying from it pretty much from day 1---he stokes a crowd to invade the Capitol building and afterwards it's fine to him and other republicans to prosecute these same people---his people who believed in him---to the fullest extent of the law but he's to be untouchable. It really is despicable.

This shit is his life story. He betrays everyone including his own and always gets away with it.

With our US license plates, we had a taste of this Oct 2020 when we were permitted into Canada for "essential business". Two weeks quarantine (with support of family), after which we did our business, winterized the home, visited the dump. Cdn friends, after expressing surprise at us being in Canada, warned us to park so car wouldn't be keyed. In ferry line, driver behind us disembarked several times to closely scrutinize our license plates (reporting us? passive aggression?). We may have been surveilled by a local's private plane when working outside on our 3 acres. DH golfed with friend in his "league"--careful to stay at a distance, using golf cart solo, asking owner's permission, golfed with friend in his "league". Still he didn't join them afterwards for beers in cart barn. I understand fear, but sure hope xenophobic attitudes don't persist beyond pandemic.

Have to admit, though, that the area we visited is now categorized as a green zone...

Positive Coronavirus Test? Canadians Worry Their Neighbors Will Find Out
Catherine Porter | Feb. 21, 2021Updated Feb. 22, 2021, 12:16 a.m. ET

The fear of public shaming is becoming so prevalent in some Canadian provinces that doctors worry it is driving virus cases underground.

...Canadians might be known internationally as nice, apologetic and fair-minded. But, a year after the pandemic arrived, some Canadians worry it has exposed a very different national persona: judgmental, suspicious and vengeful. Covid-shaming has become fervent in parts of the country, with locals calling for the heads of not just politicians and doctors breaking the rules but their own family members and neighbors.

“It’s not getting Covid — it’s breaking the rules that worries us,” said Randy Boyagoda, a novelist and English professor at the University of Toronto, noting that a Canadian foundational motto is “peace, order and good government.”

“What’s the key point? It’s order,” he said. “For order to be sustained, we have to follow the rules. Canadians are a distinctly rule-focused and rule-following people.”

Complaint lines — or so-called “snitch lines” — set up across Canada have been flooded with tips about people suspected of breaking quarantine rules, businesses flouting public health restrictions and outsiders, arriving with unfamiliar license plates, potentially bringing the disease with them...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/21/world/canada/coronavirus-public-shaming.html

From the Guardian. Queen Elizabeth II has had her vaccination and has publicly urged people to get the jabs and "to think about other people rather than themselves" - which of course is one of the main reasons it is imperative for people to be vaccinated.

Federal judge in Texas rules eviction moratorium is unconstitutional
The pandemic-related emergency measure was aimed at halting evictions of people whose livelihoods were upended by Covid-19.
Dareh Gregorian | Feb. 26, 2021

...In a 21-page ruling, (Trump appointee) Judge John Campbell Barker said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's eviction moratorium is unprecedented and overbroad, and while individual states have the power to put such restrictions in place, the federal government does not.

"The federal government cannot say that it has ever before invoked its power over interstate commerce to impose a residential eviction moratorium...It did not do so during the deadly Spanish Flu pandemic. Nor did it invoke such a power during the exigencies of the Great Depression. The federal government has not claimed such a power at any point during our Nation’s history until last year...Although the Covid-19 pandemic persists, so does the Constitution"... ("Here, the regulated activity is not the production or use of a commodity that is traded in an interstate market. Rather, the challenged order regulates property rights in buildings — specifically, whether an owner may regain possession of property from an inhabitant...Real estate is inherently local.")

The scope of the order is unclear. Barker wrote that given "defendants’ representations to the court, it is 'anticipated that (defendants) would respect the declaratory judgment.'”

...The moratorium was first enacted as part of the first coronavirus stimulus bill, the Cares Act, signed by then-President Donald Trump last March. It expired in July of last year and was followed by the order from the CDC in September, which was set to expire at the end of January but was extended through March by President Joe Biden's CDC director, Rochelle P. Walensky.

...It's unclear if the DOJ will appeal the ruling. The CDC order is set to expire on March 31.

Biden earlier this month extended a foreclosure moratorium and mortgage forbearance through the end of June in an effort to blunt the economic impact of the pandemic.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/federal-judge-texas-rules-evictio...

Attacks on Asian-Americans in New York Stoke Fear, Anxiety and Anger
Alexandra E. Petri and Daniel E. Slotnik | Feb. 26, 2021

Hate crimes involving Asian-American victims soared in New York City last year. Officials are grappling with the problem even as new incidents occur...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/26/nyregion/asian-hate-crimes-attacks-ny.html

COVID-19 and the Political Transition in South Sudan (Sudd Institute)

Publication Summary

- The implementation of the R-ARCSS {Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan} is stalled, as the parties have had difficulty gathering sufficient momentum to push the Agreement forward.
- The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has had serious negative impacts on the ability of the parties to implement the Agreement.
- The crush {sic} of oil prices in the global market, South Sudan’s lack of credit worthiness internationally, US Treasury’s warnings, corruption, and South Sudan’s weak fiscal and monetary policies, all make it difficult for the country to access external resources to cushion budget shortfalls.
- While the economic downturn as a result of the pandemic has dried up the public coffers, a combination of distrust among the parties and lack of political will is the most important factor hampering the implementation of the R-ARCSS.
- To turn things around, leadership of the parties to the Agreement must renew their commitment to the Agreement and show by actions their willingness to move the country forward, possibly attracting external budgetary supports.
- The international community needs to push the parties to live by their commitments and also contribute necessary financial and material resources to enable the parties to overcome the economic consequences of COVID-19.
- Significant donor reengagement will require evidence of significantly higher political will for peace in South Sudan. - The formation of state government is extremely critical to combating the pandemic and to restoring peace at the grassroots, which will help protect people from the virus and reduce cattle raiding and communal violence. Recent developments toward this issue are commendable.
- Provisions aimed at returning to democracy and good governance such as election and constitutional making processes should be expedited and started early so as to build confidence in this transition. The parties to the
Agreement blame current deficits in democracy and governance on COVID-19.
- Should the parties fail to implement governance protocols fully, the potential for national elections to be conducted will have been thwarted, risking a return to an all-out war.

>71 margd:

Laurence Tribe tribelaw | 12:20 PM · Feb 28, 2021:
This federal district court order on the CDC eviction moratorium is legally indefensible and should certainly be reversed on appeal.

Justice Dept. to appeal judge’s order on eviction moratorium
MICHAEL BALSAMO | Feb 28, 2021

...In a statement, Brian Boynton, the acting assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s civil division, said prosecutors respectfully disagreed with the judge’s ruling and noted it only applied to parties in the case, not broadly to others.

“The CDC’s eviction moratorium, which Congress extended last December, protects many renters who cannot make their monthly payments due to job loss or health care expenses,” he said. “By preventing people from becoming homeless or having to move into more-crowded housing, the moratorium helps to slow the spread of COVID-19.”..

https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-donald-trump-pandemics-coronavirus-pandemic...

CDC Warns Against State Rollbacks of Isolation Safeguards

Declining cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are flat-lining. New cases have plateaued after weeks of precipitous drops at 70,000 per week.

Two weeks ago, the CDC predicted that the new variants could cause future alarming spikes as the more contagious Coronavirus variants begin to become dominant over the previous original strain that dominated 2020. While states are loosening restrictions in preventative public behavior by lifting guidelines on restaurants and moving to open schools in communities, the B.1.1.7 virus shows signs of changing the course of data trends sooner rather than later.

B.1.1.7 strain could account for a majority of COVID cases in the U.S. in March. In a “what if” scenario, the modeling shows total COVID cases surging again in late April, and reaching a peak of more than 200,000 cases a day if no one gets vaccinated.

Today's first shipments of the J&J single jab vaccine is a good news-bad news scenario. Yes, now thre are three vaccines which means more people immunized faster. And it is a single dose, no special treatment drug, both good news characteristics.

However, the new product offers human nature a temptation. People will naturally prefer the efficiency of the single jab vaccine and decide to wait out getting vaccinated until they can shop around for where they can get the J&J formula. Slowing the average 1.7 million doses in arms per day statistic that we've seen the past two weeks can mean only one thing. The new variant, more infectious, and probably more virulent as well, will produce more cases faster in the remaining unprotected population. Promoting premature attempts to return to "normal" will exacerbate the negative outcomes.

This month and April will be the ultimate test of America's willingness to practice aggressive public health measures in its own defense. We can double mask and double down on those measures, or we can throw in the towel and surrender to Covid-19 in all its variant forms while the promise of three highly effective vaccines become, by our own hands, a Trojan Horse.

Millions couldn’t afford diapers before the pandemic. Now, diaper banks can’t keep up.
Hannah Denham | March 1, 2021
Without federal aid, diaper banks struggle to keep up with skyrocketing need and fewer donations

...Historically, most diaper bank clients live below the poverty line, a federal threshold capped at $26,500 a year for a family of four. One in 3 U.S. families could not afford diapers even before the coronavirus outbreak. But once the pandemic set in, and millions of Americans lost their jobs, the nation descended into a recession that disproportionately affected women and low-wage earners, leaving many to contend with eviction, debt and food insecurity. The initial round of federal stimulus kept 17 million people out of poverty, but millions remain vulnerable while waiting for additional relief.

...Diaper need is an often-overlooked measure of Americans’ economic reversals, said Joanne Samuel Goldblum, chief executive and founder of the National Diaper Bank Network. There are so many people “who do not have enough money to meet their basic needs, and what we’ve found is that diaper need is a window into poverty.”

...“We have girls not going to school because they don’t have the supplies to stay in school while they’re menstruating, and we have people with babies who don’t have what they need to stay clean and dry,” Veronica Claybrone, executive director of the Metropolitan Detroit Diaper Bank said.

...No federal aid or welfare program covers diapers — not WIC, SNAP or cash assistance. States can distribute Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds for that purpose, but that’s a fixed pot of money that legislators decide how to distribute....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/03/01/diaper-banks-pandemic-poverty...

COVID-related research may benefit vaccine work on flu, HIV--and malaria(!)

Self-amplifying RNA-based platform circumvents Plasmodium protein, allowing body to produce T-cells and completely immunize against malaria. Not yet tested on humans. Oxford U may conduct Phase 1 (challenge?) trials. Applying for patent. Novartis and NIH funded. Glaxo Smith Kline (and Yale U?) will be able to produce.

First vaccine to fully immunize against malaria builds on pandemic-driven RNA tech
Monisha Ravisetti | February 25, 2021.
https://academictimes.com/first-vaccine-to-fully-immunize-against-malaria-builds...

Yee-Haw! TX Leads the Way

Gov. Greg Abbott Rrescinds Statewide Mask Mandate and Capacity Limits on Businesses

Why this is stupid and dangerous.

Over 230 cases of new coronavirus variants confirmed in Japan
KYODO NEWSS | Mar 4, 2021

Over 230 cases of highly infectious variant strains of the novel coronavirus have been confirmed in 19 of the 47 prefectures in Japan, government data showed Thursday, with health experts warning of a potential "fourth wave" of infections should they continue to spread across the country.

The government is monitoring three mutant strains of the coronavirus originating from Britain, South Africa and Brazil. Following the first confirmed case of the new variants in Japan on Dec. 25, 234 have been reported as of Thursday, including those detected at airport quarantine.

...Some officials involved with preparations for the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics have also said allowing overseas spectators for this summer's games would be difficult due to how widespread the new variants are in some regions of the world...

https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2021/03/0c72184555a1-over-230-cases-of-new-co...

The long history of anti-Asian hate in America, explained
Anti-Asian racism is nothing new in America. The pandemic, and Trump, just made it worse.
Li Zhouli@vox.com | Mar 5, 2021

...notable patterns: Women were more likely than men to say they were targeted, several assaults involved children, and harassment was more likely to occur at retail stores and pharmacies since people have been limiting their activities during the pandemic...

https://www.vox.com/identities/2020/4/21/21221007/anti-asian-racism-coronavirus-...

#79--Trump's racism towards Asian's and his frequent references to Covid being the Chinese flu has helped feed all this. The complicity of conservatives to protect the extremist right and their tendencies to racism with bland excuses gives them the cover they need to continue their racist attacks.

From Pfizer to Moderna: who's making billions from Covid-19 vaccines? (Guardian)

The companies in line for the biggest gains – and the shareholders who have already made fortunes...

John Magufuli: Questions raised over missing Tanzania leader (BBC)

Opposition leader Tundu Lissu has told the BBC that according to his sources the president is being treated in hospital for coronavirus in Kenya. The BBC has not been able to verify this report independently. Mr Magufuli has faced criticism for his handling of Covid-19, with his government refusing to buy vaccines. The East African nation has not published its coronavirus cases since May.

Its 61-year-old president has called for prayers and herbal-infused steam therapy to counter the virus. Earlier this month, at a funeral for a top presidential aide, Mr Magufuli said Tanzania had defeated Covid-19 last year and would win again this year. The aide died hours after the vice-president of the country's semi-autonomous islands of Zanzibar, who was being treated for Covid-19.

Mr Lissu says he was told that President Magufuli had been flown to Kenya for treatment at Nairobi Hospital on Monday night. According to the opposition leader, the president has suffered a cardiac arrest and is in a critical condition. There has been no official response from the government, which has warned against publishing unverified information about the Tanzanian leader, who was last seen at an official event in Dar es Salaam on 27 February. Nairobi Hospital also said it could not comment...

Magafuli is a prominent COVID-denier, despite the recent high profile deaths mentioned in the article.

One year on: How the pandemic has affected refugees, asylum seekers, and migration (The New Humanitarian)

the impacts of the pandemic on these populations – from border closures, slumping economies, the overlapping of crises, increasing xenophobia, and the use of the virus as an excuse to restrict access to asylum – have been “far more pernicious”, Crawley said. “It's the poverty and inequality that kills people, not the virus.”

Now, the highly unequal initial rollout of vaccines around the world has advocates and experts concerned that – barring some exceptions, like Jordan, where refugees are already being vaccinated – refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants will largely be an ought as countries push to inoculate their citizens first...

The COVID-19 Pandemic and the $16 Trillion Virus
David M. Cutler and Lawrence H. Summers. 2021. The COVID-19 Pandemic and the $16 Trillion Virus. JAMA. 2020 Oct 20; 324(15): 1495–1496. doi: 10.1001/jama.2020.19759 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7604733/

...The estimated cumulative financial costs of the COVID-19 pandemic related to the lost output and health reduction is shown in Table 1. The total cost is estimated at more than $16 trillion, or roughly 90% of annual GDP of the United States. For a family of 4, the estimated loss would be nearly $200,000. About half of this amount is the lost income from the COVID-19-induced recession; the remainder is the economic impact of shorter and less healthy life.

Output losses of this magnitude are immense. The lost output in the Great Recession was only one-quarter as large. The economic loss is more than twice the total monetary outlay for all the wars the US has fought since 9/11, including those in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. (6).6 By another metric, this cost is roughly the estimate of damages (such as from decreased agricultural productivity and more frequent severe weather events) from 50 years of climate change.

...Congress is currently discussing whether to provide economic support to mitigate the economic damage caused by COVID with legislation following up on the CARES Act. The highest return investments that should be included in such legislation is increased testing and contact tracing. A minimum of 5% of any COVID economic relief intervention should be devoted to such health measures.

More generally, the immense financial loss from COVID-19 suggests a fundamental rethinking of government’s role in pandemic preparation. Currently the U.S. prioritizes spending on acute treatment, with far less spending on public health services and infrastructure. As the nation works to recover from COVID-19, investments that are made in testing, contact tracing, and isolation should be established on a permanent basis, not to be dismantled when the concerns about COVID-19 begin to recede.

Not talking about Texas's epic power failure any more, are we...

Were Hundreds of COVID-Positive Immigrants ‘Recklessly Released’ in Texas?
We inquired with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's press office about the social media post in question, but did not receive a response.
Jordan Liles | 10 March 2021

Claim
In early 2021, the Biden administration was "recklessly releasing" hundreds of migrants who tested positive for COVID-19 into Texas communities.

Rating
Unproven

...The Associated Press reported that Abbott was unable to provide evidence that “illegal immigrants” were a significant factor in the current spread of the virus. AP published that “the focus by Abbott and other Republicans on migrant families has drawn criticism about invoking a long history in the U.S. of wrongly suggesting migrants spread diseases.”

Abbott’s tweet came one day after he announced a mask mandate had been lifted in Texas. He also said that all businesses could fully reopen...

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/immigrants-covid-texas-abbott/

Why Older People Managed to Stay Happier Through the Pandemic
New surveys over the last year show that the ability to cope improves with age.
Benedict Carey | March 12, 2021

...older people...moods remained elevated, on average, compared with those in younger generations...despite the fact that both groups reported the same stress levels.

“Younger people were doing far worse emotionally than older people were,” Dr. (Laura Carstensen, a psychologist at Stanford University’s Center on Longevity) said. “This was April, the most anxiety-producing month, it was novel, cases went from nothing to 60,000, there was lots of attention and fear surrounding all this — and yet we see the same pattern as in other studies, with older people reporting less distress.”

In a similar study, psychologists at the University of British Columbia exhaustively surveyed some 800 adults of all ages in the first couple of months of the pandemic — and found the same thing.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has led to an outbreak of ageism, in which public discourse has portrayed older adults as a homogeneous, vulnerable group,” the authors conclude. “Our investigation of the daily life amid the outbreak suggests the opposite: Older age was associated with less concern about the threat of Covid-19, better emotional well-being, and more daily positive events.”

...One of the few investigations to find no age-related differences in well-being, posted last year, was focused on 226 young and older adults living in the Bronx. In this, New York’s most underserved borough, older people often live with their children and grandchildren, helping with meals, school pickup, babysitting, in effect acting as co-parents. No “age bump” in emotional well-being for them, the researchers found, in part, they concluded, because “the sample was somewhat ‘more stressed’ than average levels nationwide.”...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/12/health/covid-pandemic-happiness-age.html

When my family in Sudan caught Covid, the sheer injustice of fate sank in (Guardian) by Nesrine Malik

Seeing loved ones turned away from hospitals while UK politicians wasted resources, I felt a sort of moral vertigo...

Worthwhile read:

How the West Lost COVID How did so many rich countries get it so wrong? How did others get it so right?
David Wallace-Wells | Mar. 15, 2021

...For decades, the richest nations of the world had told themselves a story in which wealth and medical superiority offered, if not total immunity from disease, then certainly a guarantee against pandemics, regarded as a premodern residue of the underdeveloped world. That arrogance has made the coronavirus not just a staggering but an ironic plague. Invulnerability was a myth, of course, but what the pandemic revealed was much worse than just average levels of susceptibility and weakness. It was these countries that suffered most, died most, flailed most. Gave up most easily, too, acquiescing to so much more disease that they might have been fighting a different virus entirely. For nearly the entire year, the COVID epicenter was not in China, where the pathogen originated, or in corners of South Asia or sub-Saharan Africa, where limited state capacity and medical infrastructure seemed, at the outset, especially concerning, but either in Europe or the United States — places that were rated just one year ago the best prepared in the world to combat infectious disease.

...In Europe, North America, and South America: nearly universal failure. In sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia: high caseloads and low death rates, owing largely to the age structure of populations. In East Asia, South-East Asia and Oceania: inarguable success...

...nearly every western nation chose to play wait-and-see ...

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/03/how-the-west-lost-covid-19.html

Trump tells Republican supporters to get vaccinated (BBC)

Former US President Donald Trump has urged his Republican supporters to be vaccinated against Covid-19, saying he would recommend it. In a TV interview, he said the vaccine was "safe" and "something that works". Mr Trump's conservative fan base has been one of the main groups resistant to the vaccine programme... He and his wife, Melania, were vaccinated at the White House in secret in January...

"I would recommend it," Mr Trump said during an interview on Fox News Primetime on Tuesday. "I would recommend it to a lot of people that don't want to get it and a lot of those people voted for me, frankly." He added: "It's a great vaccine, it's a safe vaccine and it's something that works"...

The U.S. Has A Long-Standing History Of Vilifying Minority Groups During Times Of Crisis
Alex Samuels | Mar. 10, 2021

...one reason why we’re seeing discrimination and other racist acts against Asians: America once again fears China’s dominance. Ultimately, blaming China for the pandemic didn’t help Trump win reelection in 2020, but unfavorable views of China are at a record high among Americans. And there are signs that Americans, especially Republicans, blame China for the spread of the coronavirus. A November Economist/YouGov poll found, for instance, that 64 percent of all registered voters and 86 percent of Republicans said it was definitely or probably true that China was responsible for the pandemic.

(Asians--bubonic plague, SARS, COVID-19; gays--HIV; Africans--Ebola, Zika)

...Naming pathogens by their geographic origin — for example, the Zika virus was first identified in the Zika forest in Uganda, and Ebola was named after a river in the Democratic Republic of Congo, near where the virus was first identified — can also help create a scapegoat for a disease.

...if people uphold a specific worldview by delegitimizing another group, the framing of diseases will always be political — no matter how apolitical we think diseases are. That’s because racism itself is a disease, and as Roger Keil, a political scientist at York University, told me, “It seems to spread sometimes like a virus.” Keil compared it to watching a video online: “For every video that links the disease to Chinese people, there will be 10 or 1,000 people watching, so it’s normalized,” he said. “It’s terrible, but that’s how racism spreads.”

When asked how we can stop racializing diseases going forward, (Rana Hogarth, a professor of history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) told me it starts with holding those in power accountable: “Simply stating that racially motivated attacks are wrong is a good start!” She said it’s also important for leaders to be honest with the public about what’s known about a virus versus what’s unknown, and to urge people not to speculate and make broad generalizations about groups early in a pandemic. “I think when people have just a little bit of information, not the whole picture,” she said, “it becomes easy to fill in the gaps with claims that may be fueled by ignorance, stereotypes and xenophobia.”

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/covid-19-has-led-to-an-uptick-in-anti-asian...

Republican attorneys general threaten key element of the $1.9 trillion stimulus
Tony Romm and Jeff Stein | March 16, 2021

Twenty-one Republican state attorneys general on Tuesday threatened to take action against the Biden administration over its new $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus law, decrying it for imposing “unprecedented and unconstitutional” limits on their states’ ability to lower taxes.

...The attorneys general take issue with a $350 billion pot of money set aside under the stimulus, known as the American Rescue Plan, to help cash-strapped cities, counties and states pay for the costs of the pandemic. Congressional lawmakers opted to restrict states from tapping these federal dollars to finance local tax cuts...

...The attorneys general from Arizona, Georgia, West Virginia and 18 other states called on the Biden administration to make it clear that they can proceed with some of their plans to cut taxes, including those that predate the stimulus, in a seven-page missive sent to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday. Otherwise, they said, the relief law “would represent the greatest invasion of state sovereignty by Congress in the history of our Republic” — and they threatened to take “appropriate additional action” in response...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/03/16/republicans-threat-stimulus/

Shot Chasers: How Officials in Trump’s Lame-Duck White House Scrambled to Score COVID-19 Vaccinations
Katherine Eba | March 15, 2021

In December and January, a long-planned effort to vaccinate essential federal workers was thrown into turmoil, breeding suspicion, infighting, and “shameless” attempts to crash the list...

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/03/how-officials-in-trumps-white-house-scra...

>82 John5918: John Magufuli: Tanzania's president dies aged 61 after Covid rumours (BBC)

Tanzania's President John Magufuli has died aged 61, the country's vice-president has announced. He died on Wednesday from heart complications at a hospital in Dar es Salaam, Samia Suluhu Hassan said in an address on state television. Mr Magufuli had not been seen in public for more than two weeks, and rumours had been circulating about his health. Opposition politicians said last week that he had contracted Covid-19, but this has not been confirmed. Mr Magufuli was one of Africa's most prominent coronavirus sceptics, and called for prayers and herbal-infused steam therapy to counter the virus...

He is replaced as president by Tanzania's and East Africa's first female president, Samia Suluhu Hassan.

Samia Suluhu: The VP set to become Tanzania’s first female President (Nairobi News)

Some ways to help: UN's World Food Program + your own local & regional food banks.

‘I Have No Money for Food’: Among the Young, Hunger Is Rising
Liz Alderman | March 16, 2021. Updated March 18, 2021

...As the pandemic begins its second year, humanitarian organizations in Europe are warning of an alarming rise in food insecurity among young people, after a steady stream of campus closings, job cuts and layoffs in their families. A growing share are facing hunger and mounting financial and psychological strain, deepening disparities for the most vulnerable populations.

The reliance on food aid in Europe is surging as hundreds of millions of people around the world confront an intensifying crisis over how to meet their basic dietary needs. As the global economy struggles to rebound from the worst recession since World War II, hunger is on the rise.

In the United States, nearly one in eight households doesn’t have enough to eat. People in already food-starved countries face a greater crisis, with food insecurity in the developing world expected to nearly double to 265 million people, according to the United Nations World Food Program.

In France, Europe’s second-largest economy, half of young adults now have limited or uncertain access to food...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/business/hunger-food-insecurity-europe.html

Well-deserved recognition of Turkish-German couple who developed Pfizer BioNTech vaccine.
Next: Hungarian-born mRNA researcher Katalin Kariko (USA) and
Professor Zhang Yongzhen (China) who shared sequence of the virus.

BioNTech vaccine inventors receive Germany's Knight Commander's Cross
Insa Wrede and Uwe Hessler | 19.03.2021

Hardly a year ago, Özlem Türeci and Ugur Sahin were still largely unknown names in the world of Big Pharma. Having founded their small biotech firm with the name BioNTech only in 2008, the work of the married couple focused primarily on cancer research.

But due to the devastating coronavirus pandemic and BioNTech's project named "Lightspeed" launched in mid-January 2020, erstwhile the husband and wife team have become much feted around the world for developing the first vaccine against COVID-19 — the disease caused by an infection with the virus. Their shot, produced with US partner Pfizer, has proven more than 90% effective in creating immunity against the original virus, and reportedly also against its British and South African variants.

Therefore, one can rightly say BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin and his chief medical officer, Özlem Türeci, are saving the lives of millions of people around the world.

Germany's highest honors
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier presented the Knight Commander's Cross of the Federal Order of Merit to both...

https://www.dw.com/en/biontech-vaccine-inventors-receive-germanys-knight-command...

But, drags on economy--costs of climate change disasters, pandemic, wars & refugees?

17 Reasons to Let the Economic Optimism Begin
A reporter who has tracked decades of gloomy trends sees things lining up for roaring growth.
Neil Irwin | March 13, 2021. Updated March 17, 2021

1. The ketchup might be ready to flow
2. 2020s battery technology looks kind of like 1990s microprocessors
3. Emerging innovations can combine in unexpected ways
4. The pandemic has taught us how to work remotely
5. Even Robert Gordon is (a little) more optimistic!
6. Crises spur innovation
7. Tight labor markets spur innovation, too
8. There’s only one China
9. There’s only one Mexico
10. The offshoring revolution is mostly played out
11. Baby boomers can’t work forever
12. The millennials are entering their prime
13. Everybody likes it hot
14. Joe Biden wants to let it rip
15. Jay Powell wants to let it rip
16. Republicans are getting away from austerity politics
17. The post-pandemic era could start with a bang

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/13/upshot/economy-optimism-boom.html

Fingers crossed for Japan and for athletes, but good news for TV audience is that summer Olympics appear to be ON!

Spectators From Overseas Are Barred From Tokyo Olympics
Motoko Rich and Ben Dooley | March 20, 2021

The move, announced Saturday, is a significant concession to the realities of the pandemic, even as organizers remain determined to hold the Games this summer.

...Thomas Bach, the president of the I.O.C., has encouraged national organizing committees to secure vaccines for athletes, and he announced this month that China had offered to provide vaccinations for participants who required one ahead of the Games.

But not all local spectators will have the chance to be inoculated before the Olympics open on July 23. In Japan, where the vaccine rollout has been relatively slow, the population will not be close to fully vaccinated by the time the Games start...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/20/world/asia/tokyo-olympics-spectators.html

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/fauci-warns-another-covid-surge-is-very-possible-if-...
Fauci Warns Another Covid Surge Is Very Possible If Mask Wearing, Social Distancing Stops: ‘Plateauing at 50,000 Cases a Day Is Not a Good Place to Be’

It is strange that GOPers are all in for space science, but they have very little regard for good old planet Earth science of any kind. After all, this is the planet we all call home!

There were 3,800 anti-Asian racist incidents, mostly against women, in past year
“There is an intersectional dynamic going on that others may perceive both Asians and women and Asian women as easier targets,” one professor said.
Kimmy Yam | March 16, 2021

...The research* released by reporting forum Stop AAPI Hate on Tuesday revealed nearly 3,800 incidents were reported over the course of roughly a year during the pandemic. It’s a significantly higher number than last year's count of about 2,600 hate incidents nationwide over the span of five months. Women made up a far higher share of the reports, at 68 percent, compared to men, who made up 29 percent of respondents. The nonprofit does not report incidents to police...

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/there-were-3-800-anti-asian-racist-in...

---------------------------------------------------------------

* STOP AAPI HATE NATIONAL REPORT 3/19/20 – 2/28/21
Russell Jeung Ph.D., Aggie Yellow Horse, Ph.D., Tara Popovic, and Richard Lim
11 p
https://secureservercdn.net/104.238.69.231/a1w.90d.myftpupload.com/wp-content/up...

Krispy Kreme is finding ways to be sweet as the U.S. continues to scale COVID-19 vaccinations. To show our support for those who choose to get vaccinated, starting Monday, 3/22, anyone who shows their COVID-19 Vaccination Record Card will receive a free Original Glazed® doughnut. https://www.krispykreme.com/promos/vaccineoffer

U.S. COVID response could have avoided hundreds of thousands of deaths: research
Howard Schneider | March 25, 2021

The United States squandered both money and lives in its response to the coronavirus pandemic, and it could have avoided nearly 400,000 deaths with a more effective health strategy and trimmed federal spending by hundreds of billions of dollars while still supporting those who needed it.

That is the conclusion of a group of research papers released at a Brookings Institution conference this week, offering an early and broad start to what will likely be an intense effort in coming years to assess the response to the worst pandemic in a century.

...Andrew Atkeson, economics professor at University of California, Los Angeles...

...University of California, Berkeley economics professor Christine Romer...

...Minneapolis Federal Reserve researchers Krista Ruffini and Abigail Wozniak...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-economy/u-s-covid-resp...

Covid vaccine: Social media urged to remove 'disinfo dozen' (BBC)

Facebook, Twitter and Google have been urged by a US lawmaker to ban a dozen people who it is claimed are spreading the vast majority of disinformation about Covid vaccinations... The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) analysed more than 812,000 Facebook and Twitter vaccine-related posts and found that 65% of anti-vaccine posts came from what it called the "disinformation dozen"...Three of the 12 have been removed from at least one platform but none have been removed from all... Twelve state attorney generals have also written to Mr Zuckerberg and Mr Dorsey asking them to remove "a small group of individuals who use your platforms to downplay the dangers of Covid-19 and spread misinformation about the safety of vaccines"...

Uhuru locks down Nairobi, four other counties over virus surge (Business Daily Africa)

President Uhuru Kenyatta has on Friday afternoon banned movement into and out of Nairobi, Kajiado, Machakos, Kiambu, and Nakuru in a fresh bid to curb a spike in coronavirus infections. The head of State while directing the cessation of movement in to and out of the five counties effective Saturday described them as “disease-infected areas” that are accounting for over 70 per cent of the new infections and deaths. The stiff measures come in the wake of a spike in Covid-19 infections as daily positivity rates average 20 per cent from an average of 3.1 per cent in January as the country faces a third wave of the pandemic...

We live within the five counties, so we are free to travel within that zone, but not out of it to the rest of the country. Within the zone the curfew is now 8 pm to 4 am, all public gatherings (including religious ones) are banned, bars are closed. The rest of the country has slightly less stringent measures still in place.

B117? Here in Michigan, 652,569 Michiganders have had COVID so some acquired immunity, 31% of residents have received at least one dose of vaccine, AND finally warming up some:

"As B.1.1.7 works its way across the US to become the dominant strain, the leading edge is Michigan, and the early signs there of increase in cases (100%) and hospitalizations (53%) in the past 2 weeks is concerning
Image ( https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1374187165932871680/photo/1 )
- Eric Topol (Scripps physician-scientist) @EricTopol | 10:32 PM · Mar 22, 2021"

Until vaxx became available, we followed all the masking & social distancing strategies (though son who lives with us deals with public at work), took our vitamins (esp D and Zn), and kept a supply of stuff in the medicine cabinet "just in case", e.g., zn lozenges (sore throat), famotidine (many clinical trials ongoing/planned), baby aspirin. I even have a bottle of catalase ... ( https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/could-a-common-antioxidant-enzyme-help... )

Lenny Henry tells black Britons: get Covid jab to avoid being left behind (Guardian)

Sir Lenny Henry has warned black Britons they could be left behind if they refuse the coronavirus jab in an open letter signed by leading black figures in the UK. The letter urges black adults in the UK to make informed decisions about the vaccine and to protect themselves and the people they care for by getting vaccinated...

Opinion: The GOP is facing a sickness deeper than the coronavirus
Michael Gerson | March 29, 2021

...A recent study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Medical University of South Carolina — analyzing every day of data between March 15, 2020, and Dec. 12, 2020 — calculated the chances of getting covid-19 or dying from covid-19 in every state (and D.C.). After adjusting for factors such a population density, ethnic composition, poverty and age, a clear picture emerged. Democrat-led states were hardest hit early on, as you’d expect given the places where the disease took hold in the United States. But then the balance shifted. By June 3, Republican states had higher case diagnoses. By July 4, higher death rates. By Aug. 5, the relative risk of dying from covid-19 was 1.8 times higher in GOP-led states.

...How is this performance by many Republican governors not discrediting, even disqualifying? Does it not concern people in GOP-led states that, at a key moment in the crisis, they were nearly twice as likely to die of covid than their counterparts in Democrat-led states? Why does it not generate more outrage that many Republican governors are continuing these policies even as infections spread and virus mutations accumulate?

Realistically, this is because the economic benefits of covid irresponsibility are immediate and obvious to everyone. And even twice a very small risk is still a very small risk. But this reasoning requires us to abandon our social solidarity with the elderly and vulnerable, who bear a disproportionate cost in (South Dakota Gov. Kristi L.) Noem’s vision of liberty. And I fear it indicates a wide streak of social Darwinian callousness in the American right.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-gop-is-facing-a-sickness-deeper-than...

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As Cases Spread Across U.S. Last Year, Pattern Emerged Suggesting Link Between Governors' Party Affiliation and COVID-19 Case and Death Numbers (News Release)
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health | March 10, 2021

#106–my mom died on Christmas Eve 2017. She was 95 and had spent pretty much the last year of her life in an assisted living home. My older brother (he’s very conservative) and I would visit her pretty much every day there—myself in the morning, my brother at night and my youngest sister and a brother-in-law were over there a lot too. I sure am glad we didn’t have a pandemic to deal with back in 2017 because as you say abandonment is a terrible thing.

A thing though that particularly makes me irate with the likes of DeSantis and Noem is their ‘I know better’ holier than thou bullshit. They’ve both IMO turned their respective states into launching pads for super spreading events like the spring break shit going on right now. Young people will take their viruses back to their schools, back to their parents, back to their grandparents and other vulnerable people. This excuse that their age group is not vulnerable completely misses the point that others they run into afterwards will be. Is a good time worth the death of a uncle or your grandmother? Apparently a lot of people think it is. We’re getting lessons from these governors in irresponsibility. Money matters more to them than lives. Norm and DeSantis are shitbirds.

Eric Feigl-Ding @DrEricDing | 10:14 PM · Mar 30, 2021:
DISGUSTED beyond words. A 65 year old Asian lady brutally kicked and beaten in broad daylight in Manhattan.
Worse—3 bystanders did nothing!! Even more worse—the security guard closed the door to ignore it!!
She is still hospitalized with fractured pelvis.

0:26 ( https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1377081941988610058 )
From NYPD NEWS

--------------------------------------------------

Brutal Attack on Filipino Woman Sparks Outrage: ‘Everybody Is on Edge’
Nicole Hong, Juliana Kim, Ali Watkins and Ashley Southall | March 30, 2021. Updated March 31, 2021

...Early Wednesday, after an image of the man taken from security footage spread widely on social media and on posters in Manhattan, the police charged Brandon Elliot, 38, with felony assault as a hate crime. Mr. Elliot was released from prison in 2019 and was on lifetime parole after he was convicted of fatally stabbing his mother in 2002, the police said...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/30/nyregion/asian-attack-nyc.html

Dr Robert Redfield, former director of CDC, dissed by his peers:

Dr. Angela Rasmussen (virologist, Georgetown) @angie_rasmussen | 2:59 PM · Mar 30, 2021:
https://twitter.com/angie_rasmussen/status/1376972405453676544

Redfield did nothing as Trump undercut his agency & irrevocably harmed public health. 500K+ died for his cowardice.
Rather than be accountable for his negligence, he endorses (w/ zero evidence) lab leak theory "as a virologist".
That's viral bullshit. It deserves viral scorn.

Quote Tweet
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists @BulletinAtomic · 18h
After telling CNN that he believes the coronavirus responsible for COVID-19 originated in a lab in China, former CDC director Robert Redfield found himself a target of viral scorn with comments coming from the public as well as virologists.

Image ( https://twitter.com/BulletinAtomic/status/1376965960758927363/photo/1 )
Image ( https://twitter.com/BulletinAtomic/status/1376965960758927363/photo/2 )
https://bit.ly/2NVABdQ *

* Did former CDC director offer a ham sandwich theory of COVID-19? Maybe. Maybe not.
Thomas Gaulkin | March 26, 2021
https://thebulletin.org/2021/03/did-former-cdc-director-offer-a-ham-sandwich-the...

Peter Navarro: "Fauci is father of the actual virus". :D

nikki mccann ramírez @NikkiMcR | 7:46 PM · Mar 30, 2021:
Peter Navarro calls COVID-19 the "Fauci Virus" calling Fauci "the father of" the virus and
accusing him of allowing China and the People's Liberation Army to "genetically engineer" COVID-19.
0:50 ( https://twitter.com/NikkiMcR/status/1377044643133730818 )
Host Rachel Campos-Duffy lets it slide.

The Strange New Doctrine of the Republican Party
The GOP’s version of freedom puts greater priority on right-wing cultural folkways than on rights of property and ownership.
David Frum | April 2021

...the sudden eruption of conservative outrage about the prospect of “vaccine passports”: the idea that businesses might demand proof of COVID-19 vaccination from potential customers. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has vowed to ban the practice in his state, if he can, and his rejection has been passionately echoed by other right-of-center commentators and politicians.

...The Miami Heat NBA franchise announced that beginning April 1, special sections of American Airlines Arena will be open only to fully vaccinated attendees. Social-distancing rules will be relaxed in these sections. DeSantis is not stopping that. And if DeSantis will not force the Heat to drop its rules, how much less likely is he to battle mighty Disney if it decides that a vaccination policy will speed the recovery of its business?

But the point is not to win the fight, or even really to fight the fight. The point is to announce the fight, and to keep raging about it, even if you do not in fact fight it very hard...

To appease..., Republican politicians must be willing to sacrifice everything, including what used to be the party’s foundational principles. To protect the gun, or to avoid contradicting the delusions of anti-vaccine paranoiacs, property rights must give way, freedom to operate a business must yield. The QAnon-curious Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene expressed the new mentality when she took to Facebook to denounce vaccine passports as “corporate communism.” It sounded crazy. But if you understand that she interprets communism to mean “any interference in the right of people like me to do whatever we want, regardless of the rights of others”—then, yeah, the property rights of corporations will indeed look to her like a force of communism.

A sizable minority of Americans want to use airplanes belonging to others, theme parks belonging to others, sports stadiums belonging to others—without concession to the health of others or the property rights of owners. With guns, with COVID-19, with tech, the new post-Trump message from the post-Trump GOP is: Private property is socialism; state expropriation is freedom. It’s a strange doctrine for a party supposedly committed to liberty and the Constitution, but here we are.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/sudden-conservative-outrage-ov...

Sachin Tendulkar: India cricket legend in hospital with Covid-19 (BBC)

Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar, who tested positive for Covid-19 last week, has been admitted to hospital. Tendulkar tweeted on Friday that he decided to go to a hospital in Mumbai "as a matter of abundant precaution under medical advice". The former captain, who is loved by millions, added that he was hoping to be back home in a few days...

Covid: England adds Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kenya and Philippines to travel 'red list' (Guardian)

The Philippines, Pakistan, Kenya, and Bangladesh are to be added to England’s “red list” of countries from which almost all travel is banned, ministers have announced... British and Irish nationals and residents can return from red-list countries, but they must pay to enter compulsory hotel quarantine...

It's not clear to me why this article refers only to England. Do Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have different rules on COVID-19?

The women fighting South Africa's 'infodemic'

In South Africa, a small group of volunteers is waging an online battle against Covid-19 and vaccine misinformation. Much of it comes from abroad...

The vaccine misinformation battle raging in France

France is one of the most vaccine-sceptical countries in the world - fertile ground for hard-line anti-vaccine activists spreading online misinformation...

Both from BBC

This is the legacy of Britain's year of Covid: power unchecked, scrutiny sidelined (Guardian)

What a strange moment of ambivalence this is. The vaccination programme seems to have so far worked its expected wonders, the lifting of key restrictions looms, and a fragile sense of optimism has been boosted by balmy weather. But there is a slowly rising unease about something that may yet cut across that increasingly upbeat mood: the fact that this is a dangerous moment for both our democracy, and the relationship between the state and society. Everywhere you look, there are high-ranking Conservatives blithely evading scrutiny, and the government is thereby slipping free of meaningful constraints...

Corruption claims spark new concerns about aid to South Sudan (The New Humanitarian)

At a glance: COVID-19 corruption charges

- Officials accused of charging for COVID-19 tests that were supposed to be free
- Government allegedly suspended hand sanitiser imports and allowed a small local company to be sole producer, leading to a shortage.
- Officials accused of charging for certificates showing negative results that were required for ground and air travel.
- Aid workers reported receiving threats from the government for pushing back on staffing requests; one doctor from a foreign aid group was told to leave the country.
- Millions of dollars went to renovate a coronavirus hospital, but it still stands empty because it was reportedly unsuitable as an infectious disease facility...

As Virus Spread, Reports of Trump Administration’s Private Briefings Fueled Sell-Off
A hedge fund consultant’s summary of private presentations by White House economic advisers fanned investor worries.
Kate Kelly and Mark Mazzetti | Oct. 14, 2020

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/14/us/politics/stock-market-coronavirus-trump.ht...

Kenya, UK eye peace after travel ban fight (Business Daily)

Kenya and the United Kingdom are set for reconciliatory talks after a spat over Covid-19 risk levels triggered a tit-for-tat travel blockade from each of them. The two countries Wednesday announced that that a joint committee would be formed to review the travel restrictions which threatened bilateral trade, economic and security relations...

After a too-long Lent, cardinal gives ideas for an extended Easter season (Crux)

After what feels like “a truly trying Lent of 400-plus days” because of the coronavirus pandemic, Christians need to “envisage and embrace” a season of Easter faith and hope that goes beyond the traditional 50 days, said Cardinal Michael Czerny. However, the cardinal wrote in the Vatican newspaper, “there must be no nostalgia for a blithe return to our pre-COVID existence with a sigh of relief that our long Lent is finally over”...

The US media is touting Israel's Covid recovery. But occupied Palestinians are left out (Guardian)

Instead of vaccinating Palestinians, Benjamin Netanyahu tried to send thousands of doses around the world as rewards to countries that moved their embassies to Jerusalem...

South African artists struggle with Covid theatre closures (BBC)

South Africa's once-thriving cultural scene is under threat because coronavirus restrictions have made it difficult to stage public events but some artists have found new ways to show off their creativity...

‘Jab’: A British Term for a Covid-19 Shot, but Born in the U.S.A.
The newly imported name for a vaccination actually originated on this side of the Atlantic
Ben Zimmer | April 8, 2021

https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1380913896882544641/photo/1
https://www.wsj.com/articles/jab-a-british-term-for-a-covid-19-shot-but-born-in-...

The exchange project uniting young Americans during the pandemic (BBC)

A project to bring together young Americans of different backgrounds hopes to become first nationwide domestic exchange programme in the US - but the pandemic has thrown up some major obstacles...

"It was evident to me travelling around the country that a lot of kids are growing up around kids that are exactly like them, going off to extraordinarily similar futures," he says. "And kids, almost on an instinctive level, sense that." The experience moved him a little over a year ago to establish the American Exchange Project with the goal of offering high school students the opportunity to interact with their peers - people ascribing to worldviews different from their own - in other parts of the country. He hopes it will become America's first nationwide domestic exchange initiative...

What the curious case of COVID prevention cards says about South Sudan’s health crisis (The New Humanitarian)

At the height of the pandemic last April, I saw Facebook posts from friends and relatives in South Sudan showing top-level government officials wearing clip-on tags dubbed “virus removal cards”. The cards were said to contain chemicals that could prevent COVID-19. President Salva Kiir; his deputy, Riek Machar; Defence Minister Angelina Teny; and other ministers were all spotted wearing the cards. I wasn’t entirely surprised that a clever entrepreneur was out to make money from the pandemic. In Juba, the cards were selling for between $20 and $30. Elsewhere, similar cards were being sold in Japan, Lebanon, and the Philippines. Manufacturers claimed that the cards’ main ingredient – chlorine dioxide – could kill bacteria and viruses. It is usually used to disinfect water and sterilise medical equipment. It did not take long before South Sudanese netizens started poking fun at the virus removal cards on social media. Many wondered how the highest office in the land – the Office of the President – could have fallen for the scam...

America’s boom has begun. Can it last?
High-frequency economic data suggest it’s full steam ahead
April 10, 2021

THE LATEST monthly employment report, published on April 2nd, painted an impressive picture: over the previous month America created more than 900,000 jobs. That figure, the strongest since August, reflects the state of the economy in the first half of March, when the surveys took place. But a look at “high-frequency” economic data for more recent weeks, on everything from daily restaurant diners to Google-search behaviour, suggests that, since then, the recovery has if anything accelerated further. America’s post-lockdown boom has begun.

A rapid bounce-back would be welcome, because the world’s largest economy remains a long way off its pre-pandemic peak, and the damage has been severe. Even after the latest jobs numbers, over 8m fewer people are in work than before the pandemic. The job losses are concentrated among low-income groups (though it is no longer the case that women are more affected than men). One-third of small businesses remain closed. Poverty is higher than it was before...

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/04/10/americas-boom-has-begun-can-i...

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The biggest ‘inflation scare’ in 40 years is coming — what stock-market investors need to know
William Watts April 8. Updated April 10, 2021

It’s unclear whether inflation will see a lasting comeback, but a booming, stimulus-fed economy rebounding from the COVID-19 pandemic seems all but certain to send some near-term inflationary shock waves through financial markets in coming months.

...Up for debate is just how long-lasting any inflationary bout is likely to be — and exactly how the Fed will respond...

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-biggest-inflation-scare-in-40-years-is-com...

Covid-19 vaccines could unlock treatments for 5 other deadly diseases
Soon, scientists could have a vaccine for cancer. But really.

CANCER
...Van Karlyle Morris is a gastrointestinal oncologist at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Together with a colleague, he is leading a clinical trial to test mRNA vaccines as “personalized therapies for patients who have been treated for cancer, with the goal of further reducing the risk of the cancer coming back”...

Tumors that are surgically removed from people with cancer are being tested to find a profile of the most common genetic mutations responsible for cancer. What makes an mRNA vaccine especially useful for this, Morris says, is that the mutations are unique and specific to each individual — even among those who have the same kind of cancer. Because mRNA vaccines can be targeted, each vaccine could be personalized to the needs of an individual.

...A separate team of researchers at Scripps University in California have developed a preliminary vaccine that shows promise for preventing infection with the HIV virus using the same technology ...to stimulate the immune system to produce “rare but powerful” antibodies called “broadly neutralizing antibodies.” These antibodies could attach to the spike protein the HIV virus uses to enter cells and neutralize them.

HIV
In a press statement released in the wake of a Phase 1 trial to test this vaccine, William Schief, an immunologist at Scripps Research said that in order to get the immune system to produce these antibodies, “you have to trigger the right b-cells.”

The odds of doing that were literally one in a million, Schief said.

“In this trial, the targeted cells were only about one in a million of all naïve B cells. To get the right antibody response, we first need to prime the right B cells. The data from this trial affirms the ability of the vaccine immunogen to do this.”

UNIVERSAL FLU
...With mRNA technology, scientists could create a vaccine that inoculates against Types A and B in one shot. Some scientists believe that not only could we vaccinate against more than one flu strain using the same jab, but we might also be able to develop a flu vaccine with longer-lasting protection — one that we’d only need every five years.

ZIKA
...Moderna to start work on an mRNA vaccine for Zika. They’ve just completed Phase I trials and are moving on to Phase II.

COVID VARIANTS
...“One exciting aspect of this technology is that the components of the mRNA vaccine can be readily re-engineered and ‘recoded’ by those who manufacture them in such a way that keeps up with viruses as they change and mutate,” Morris says.

https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/mrna-vaccine-for-cancer

#126–that’s interesting. I expect to win the first round with this myeloma battle but it’s one of those that always returns so having a vaccine available that would delay the return would certainly be welcome from me and millions and millions of others.

>127 lriley: Brave new world, looks like! Some of these are already in clinical trials!

I read somewhere else that researchers are also eyeing an MS vaccine that can treat as well as prevent the disease!

#128–most of the best things that have happened in this country come from when the government and the mass population are together on common goals. Unfortunately it doesn’t usually happen unless there’s a crisis or a lot of strife but FDR’s new deal or LBJ’s great society are examples of that. Over 560,000 Americans are dead because of covid. If we can find ways that those deaths won’t be in vain that’s at least some solace for all the agony of the last year +.

Ramadan traditions in Sudan fade away amid economic, COVID-19 pressures (Global Times)

Despite a long-time observance of Ramadan traditions as a social legacy, the Sudanese people this year have to abandon some of them in the throes of economic pressures, COVID-19 precautions and social transformations. In the capital Khartoum, the streets are almost empty of collective iftar, the evening meal marking the end of daily fast during the holy month of Ramadan...

Sad. Many of my fondest memories of Sudan revolve around the hospitality of the Ramadan iftar. You couldn't walk down the street without complete strangers inviting you to join them for the delicious meal.

BidenBucks Is Beeple Is Bitcoin In a system rigged by the rich, outsiders have to make their own volatility.
Scott Galloway | April 12, 2021

...In the 2008 financial crisis, we did stimulus, but stocks were allowed to fall. We basically said, “All right, we’re going into a massive recession, but what we need to do is make sure it’s not a depression.” Now, with COVID, that’s not enough. We decided that not only is a depression not tolerable but recessions aren’t tolerable. We threw trillions at the problem — so much stimulus that the markets went up.

...That brings us to COVID and the bailouts. The government pumping trillions of new dollars into the economy.
The shareholder class played the pandemic like a Stradivarius in order to expand its wealth. These people have weaponized our elected representatives. From what I’m told, the average billionaire talks to a senator once a month. They influence policy. One of the more insidious methods of mass entrenchment is complexity. The more complex the tax code gets, the more there’s a transfer from the poor to the rich because you need expensive people to navigate it.

...I believe that the trillions in bailouts from both the Trump and Biden administrations will ultimately be judged in history as a crime against the middle class in America and future generations. Something like a third of that money has gone to people. The rest has gone to corporations and governments. We have fetishized corporations. We have decided that we should be more humane and empathetic and loving toward corporations and more Darwinistic and harsh with individuals.

In theory, bailouts are an effort to prevent a financial crisis. But what this bailout has done, what it’s meant to have done, is protect and entrench an existing wealthy class.

For example, the Paycheck Protection Program is nothing but a crime against the young. Some of the wealthiest people in America are small-business owners. Giving them nearly a trillion dollars is mostly a direct subsidy to rich people to keep them rich...

...What would a healthy capitalist response to COVID have looked like?
...The full-throated capitalist response is not happening here in the United States because the people who control the government have just not endured that much pain...The dirty secret of the pandemic is that during one of the worst crises in history — as measured by death and velocity of death — you have the people who essentially control the government living their best lives. They die at a lower rate, they get sick at a lower rate, and COVID-19 for the shareholder class has meant more time on Netflix and more time with family — and their wealth has exploded.

NFTs...

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/04/unified-monetary-theory-beeple-biden.htm...

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What is an NFT? The trendy blockchain technology explained
Leslie Gornstein | March 26, 2021

...a rising type of technology called a non-fungible token, or NFT. Think of an NFT as a unique proof of ownership over something you can't usually hold in your hand — a piece of digital art, a digital coupon, maybe a video clip. Like the digital art itself, you can't really hold an NFT in your hand, either — it's a one-of-a-kind piece of code, stored and protected on a shared public exchange...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nft-nonfungible-token-blockchain-explained/

Stupid ass Covid denier Ted Nugent with the covid and crawling around his bedroom and thinking he might be dying. He’s quarantining now but says he’s not going to take the vaccine. Stupid is as stupid does.

>132 lriley: Another of Michigan's dubious contributions, he is...
Science-denying anti-vaxxer.
_____________________________________________

Sounds like mask-burning is also becoming a thing among the knuckle-draggers... I saw a well dressed woman at Costco the other day wearing a "Jesus is my salvation" mask (which is fine) well below her nose (which is not). Felt sorry for the cashier...

Resist Programming @RzstProgramming | 12:54 PM · Apr 19, 2021:
The agenda for the conference had a mask burning scheduled for 9:30 PM.
Image ( https://twitter.com/RzstProgramming/status/1384188617468248065/photo/1 )

Fake cards, fake vaccines...

Pfizer Identifies Fake Covid-19 Shots Abroad as Criminals Exploit Vaccine Demand
Jared S. Hopkins and José de Córdoba | April 21, 2021 8:00 am ET

Pfizer Inc. PFE 0.26% says it has identified in Mexico and Poland the first confirmed instances of counterfeit versions of the Covid-19 vaccine it developed with BioNTech SE, BNTX 4.48% the latest attempt by criminals trying to exploit the world-wide vaccination campaign.

Vials seized by authorities in separate investigations were tested by the company and confirmed to contain bogus vaccine. The vials recovered in Mexico also had fraudulent labeling, while a substance inside vials in Poland was likely an anti-wrinkle treatment, Pfizer said.

About 80 people at a clinic in Mexico received a fake vaccine going for about $1,000 a dose, though they don’t appear to have been physically harmed. The vials, found in beach-style beer coolers, had different lot numbers than those sent to the state, and a wrong expiration date, said Dr. Manuel de la O, the health secretary of Nuevo León state...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pfizer-identifies-fake-covid-19-shots-abroad-as-cri...

B.1.1.7 transmissibility

Apoorva Mandavilli (NYT) @apoorva_nyc
Household study in Denmark suggests B.1.1.7 is 1.5 to 1.7x more contagious --
consistent with other estimates, but always good to have confirmation

PotomacProgressive johnnybilo · 21h
And, here's the good news: "The attack rate was 38% in households with a primary case infected with B.1.1.7 and 27% in households with a primary case infected with other lineages." In other words, 3 our of 4 didn't get it in the home of a patient before, now 2 out of 3 don't.

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Frederik Plesner Lyngse et al. 2021. Increased Transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 Lineage B.1.1.7 by Age and Viral Load: Evidence from Danish Households. MedRxiv (April 19, 2021) doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.04.16.21255459 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.16.21255459v1

This article is a preprint and has not been certified by peer review

______________________________________________

Jennifer Kirby, MD-PhD @gu_girl | 9:03 AM · Apr 21, 2021
Actually spit out my morning coffee over this one.
Rolling on the floor laughing
This American GenXer is happy our emotional support Canadians are getting vaccinated.
Can’t happen fast enough! We need you all!

Quote Tweet
Brittlestar @brittlestar · 15h
GEN X IS A LITTLE EXCITED ABOUT GETTING THE VACCINE
1:00 ( https://twitter.com/brittlestar/status/1384634855577763848 )

E.U. Set to Let Vaccinated U.S. Tourists Visit This Summer
Matina Stevis-Gridneff | April 25, 2021

BRUSSELS — American tourists who have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 will be able to visit the European Union over the summer, the head of the bloc’s executive body said in an interview with The New York Times on Sunday, more than a year after shutting down nonessential travel from most countries to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

The fast pace of vaccination in the United States, and advanced talks between authorities there and the European Union over how to make vaccine certificates acceptable as proof of immunity for visitors, will enable the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, to recommend a switch in policy that could see trans-Atlantic leisure travel restored.

“The Americans, as far as I can see, use European Medicines Agency-approved vaccines,” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said Sunday in an interview with The Times in Brussels. “This will enable free movement and the travel to the European Union.

“Because one thing is clear: All 27 member states will accept, unconditionally, all those who are vaccinated with vaccines that are approved by E.M.A.,” she added. The agency, the bloc’s drugs regulator, has approved all three vaccines being used in the United States, namely the Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson shots...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/25/world/europe/american-travel-to-europe.html

USA Plague Polling -- Not Even Half Way to Herd Immunity

Sure, everybody knows that the meaning of poll results depend on what questions are asked and how they're phrased. Well, here's a new Hill-HarrisX poll and here's the results. Parse your own interpretation of meaniing, I guess.

Twenty-two percent of registered voters in the April 16-19 survey said they are either somewhat or very unlikely to take the COVID-19 vaccine.

By contrast, 43 percent said they are either somewhat or very likely to get the vaccine and 34 percent said they have already been vaccinated.

Those who have already been vaccinated include 40 percent of white voters, 22 percent of Black voters and 17 percent of Hispanic voters.

Overall, 64 percent of Hispanic voters and 54 percent of Black voters said they are at least somewhat likely to take the vaccine, while 37 percent of white voters said the same.
(SNIP)
. . .close to a quarter of voters say they are unlikely to take the vaccine when it becomes available to them. This is a staggering figure, and we’re seeing higher hesitancy among voters in rural areas, those residing in the South and Midwest of the United States, lower income and lower educated cohorts, women, middle aged groups 35-64, and Republicans," Dritan Nesho, chief pollster and CEO of HarrisX, told Hill.TV.

. . . early vaccination push has been less successful among minorities than it has been for whites in the U.S. by a factor of two to one.
(SNIP)
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over 30 percent of U.S. adults are now fully vaccinated.

Experts estimate that between 70 percent and 85 percent of the population needs to be vaccinated to reach herd immunity.

It's the science, stupid.

#137–there really is a point where things like employment should be made conditional upon vaccination. Being able to fly anywhere conditional upon vaccination. Being able to enter a federal building for any business or to make any claims—renewing your driver’s license conditional upon vaccination.

For those who don’t like it no one wants to deal with your obtuseness or stubbornness in the face of scientific facts. No one wants to get a case of covid just because you’ve decided to ignore the almost 600,000 Americans who have died during this pandemic. Nobody wants you to make them sick too just because you think you know better.

>138 lriley:

Frankly I'm glad the non-mask compliant Repubs have taken up wearing a yellow star. Marks them out as the stupidest among us. I just wish they would make their Proud Patch of Puerilety an elephant's ass, aka Trump's grinning mug.

#139–cons like to talk about freedom all the time—as if in this case they have the right to pass along a virus that might kill or seriously others. If nothing else and if there was even the slightest question in your head about the dangers of covid and I can’t see how any normal self respecting person would not have them—a healthy mind would not put others in harms way over his or her feelings about something.

So many of these people want their freedom without any personal responsibility or consequence.

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/tucker-carlson-urges-audience-to-call-the-police-imm...
Tucker Carlson Urges Audience to ‘Call the Police Immediately’ if They See Kids Wearing Masks Outdoors

Learning that TC's four adult children decided to disregard his advice to forgo a college education, gives me hope for the future. His own children understand that his poor advice doesn't square with life in 2020's America.

Republican Governor of West Virginia Jim Justice offering $100 to every West Virginian that gets a vaccination. Just because you’re republican doesn’t mean you have to be stupid about this. It’s not that hard.

>141 Molly3028:

If anybody does call the police for such a spurious and malicious reason one hopes they will be arrested and charged with wasting police time.

Tim Manning @timmy315 | 9:09 AM · Apr 26, 2021:
https://twitter.com/timmy315/status/1386668885064228865

Hi Twitter, I’m Tim Manning, the White House COVID-19 Supply Coordinator. There’s been a lot of confusion around the use of the Defense Production Act as it relates to the global supply chain for COVID-19 treatment. Let me try and break this down simply as possible:

To set the stage, the world has embarked on an unprecedented and historic vaccine production effort. In an average year, the world producers around 4 billion vaccines for things like flu and the measles 2/8

This year the world is working to make near 14 billion COVID19 vaccines in addition to those other 4 billion. This is hard work and it’s encouraging to see the progress the world is making. But making vaccine requires specialized materials, and there’s just not enough of them

To make vaccine here in the US we have used the DPA to ensure we have access to all needed supplies with many US companies. DPA in these cases just means U.S. companies must prioritize their government contracts ahead of other orders, it doesn’t mean an export ban

DPA doesn’t even mean a “de facto” ban. Companies are able to export. In fact, companies that supply our vaccine manufacturing export their product all across the world. We are just one “client” of the raw material companies.

It also doesn’t create the shortages – there is just more global manufacturing happening everywhere than the suppliers can support.

Now here’s what we did yesterday: we diverted our pending orders of vaccine filters to India’s vaccine manufacturing effort. This will help India make more vaccine. And it’s only one effort among many to help the their COVID19 response (e.g. therapeutics, PPE, and oxygen). 7/8

A big part of my job is understanding the complexities of our global supply chain. I monitor this every day. There are challenges of course, but our response will always work to find ways to address them. We’ll continue to stand ready to help with the COVID-19 response. 8/8

>142 lriley: That is an admirable move by Justice; but it’s not actually $100. It’s a $100 Savings Bond. Those cost/are worth $50 and will mature at 30 years.

Global faith leaders call for drug firms to vaccinate world against Covid (Guardian)

Faith leaders are calling on states and pharmaceutical companies to produce and distribute enough vaccines to immunise the entire global population against Covid-19, saying there is a “moral obligation” to reach everyone. Almost 150 religious leaders from around the world – including Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury, Thabo Makgoba, the Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, and Cardinal Peter Turkson of the Roman Catholic church – are urging an end to vaccine nationalism. The Dalai Lama is also supporting the campaign...

#145–I would say smart more than admirable but it’s also very good for West Virginian’s. Not just the bond but it will help with health care savings for the state in the near and far future.

The 'Stomp Reflex': When governments abuse emergency powers (BBC)

History shows that during times of crisis, politicians tend to reach for more power. It's happening again now... and democratic citizens should be wary of the dangers...

A total of 32 countries have used militaries or military ordances to enforce rules, which has not been without casualties... Others have drawn on technology to grow government oversight. To monitor rule-breakers, 22 countries have used surveillance drones. Facial recognition programmes have been expanded, internet censorship has occurred in 28 countries, and internet shutdowns in 13. At least 120 contact-tracing apps are in use across 71 states, and 60 other digital contact-tracing measures have been used across 38 countries...

When an enemy is at the gates or a disease in the streets, some extraordinary measures are necessary. Lockdowns, for example, have saved millions of lives. But some measures may be built on a fundamentally flawed vision of what to fear during an emergency. If left unchecked, these emergency powers are prone to abuse, and what started as an exception can frequently become the norm.

This is not an argument against swift, dramatic and often beneficial actions such as lockdowns and travel restrictions. But these can be implemented in an open and democratic fashion. Indeed, most publics have expressed strong majority support for lockdown measures, and indeed one recent study shows that nearly 50% of the reductions in transmission came from behavioural change before government imposed lockdowns were introduced. Instead, there is an argument that by stomping down through greater surveillance, strenghtened security forces and expanded powers, governments risk making disasters worse...

How blackouts, fires, and a pandemic are driving shortages of pipette tips — and hobbling science
Kate Sheridan | April 28, 2021

...a series of ill-timed breaks along the pipette tip supply chain — spurred by blackouts, fires, and pandemic-related demand — have created a global shortage that is threatening nearly every corner of the scientific world.

The pipette tip shortage is already endangering programs across the country that screen newborn babies for potentially deadly conditions, like the inability to digest sugars in breast milk. It is threatening universities’ experiments on stem cell genetics. And it is forcing biotech companies working to develop new drugs to consider prioritizing certain experiments over others.

...The sudden explosion of Covid-19 tests last year — each of which relies on pipette tips — certainly played a role...

The devastating statewide blackouts in Texas, which killed more than 100 people, also broke a critical link in the complex pipette supply chain...ExxonMobil...made polypropylene resin, the raw material for pipette tips.

But supply chains have been stressed since last summer...

...“What we’re seeing is really anything in the plastics-related side of the business — polypropylene, specifically — is either on backorder, or in high demand,” said PRA Health Sciences’ Neat.

The demand is so high that the price of some scarce supplies has gone up, according to Tiffany Harmon, a procurement administrator at PRA Health Sciences’ bioanalytics lab in Kansas.

The company is now paying 300% more for gloves through its usual supplier. And PRA’s pipette tip orders now have an extra fee tacked on. One pipette tip manufacturer, which announced a new 4.75% surcharge last month, told its customers that the move was necessary because the price of the raw plastic materials had almost doubled.

https://www.statnews.com/2021/04/28/pipette-tips-shortage/

Burned out by the pandemic, 3 in 10 health-care workers consider leaving the profession
After a year of trauma, doctors, nurses and other health workers are struggling to cope
William Wan | April 22, 2021

...According to a Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll,* roughly 3 in 10 health-care workers have weighed leaving their profession. More than half are burned out. And about 6 in 10 say stress from the pandemic has harmed their mental health...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/04/22/health-workers-covid-quit/
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* Frontline Health Care Workers Survey
KFF and Washington Post | March 2021
33 p
https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/washington-post-kff-frontline-health-care...

Mask On or Off? Life Is Getting Back to Normal, and We’re Rusty.
Matt Richtel | April 29, 2021

...Dr. Susan Huang, of the University of California, Irvine, Medical School, explained the conflicted psychology as a function of rapidly changing risk, and the difference in tolerance individuals have for risk. At present, she said, most places have a foundation of people vaccinated but are not near the 80 percent that marks herd immunity — with no children inoculated.

“We’re between the darkness and the light,” Dr. Huang said. She likened the psychology around masks and other behavior to the different approaches people take to changing their wardrobes at the end of winter: People who are more risk averse continue to wear winter clothes on 50 degree days, where bigger risk takers opt for shorts.

“Eventually,” she said, “everyone will be wearing shorts.”...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/29/health/masks-cdc-rules.html

Post Kentucky Derby COVID Surge Coming?

Most of the people attending yesterdays' first leg of the Triple Crown horse race, attended without masks, including at least one prominent NFL player. While attendance this year was 50,000 as compared to the usual 150,000, no one can call the crowd of fans a "small outdoor gathering" by any stretch of the definition.

Adding to the known fact of masklessness is the unknown factor of how many attendees had been fully vaccinated at least two weeks prior to the event? "As of 6 a.m. EDT May 1, a total of 103,422,555 Americans had been fully vaccinated, or 31.2 percent of the country's population, according to the CDC's data." From that statistic we can only assume more than 2/3 of the people at Churchill Downs yesterday were not immunized.

In sum, a perfect storm of viral particles for tens of thousands to become infected with after being in an environment of no social distancing, no masks, and no vaccines for hours. And then they left for home, many taking public transportation to get there or to get part of the way there.

After conducting a full year's racing season under stringent precautions, the racing industry failed miserably on its biggest race day of this season. What is in the offing for the upcoming two legs of the Triple Crown -- the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes? The logical conclusion is fewer fans in attendance; they'll be down with COVID-19. Some, probably out.