Applause!!
FDA panel endorses Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine
But J&J told Congress this week that it expects to provide 20 million doses by the end of March and 100 million by summer.
The vaccine tracker I looked at says the US has administered 68.3 Million doses so far with only 691K fully vaccinated. With J&J now here, the rate of vaccination can accelerate. Twenty million more by the end of March! Applause!
Update: Shoot. Endorsed is not approved. 🙁
I read survey results in Florida: ~25% of adults who have not been vaccinated say they either may not of for sure will not get any vaccination for covid-19. I expect that number may drop a bit as time passes and no bad side effects are common…. especially conversion to brain-eating zombies.
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If the survey is accurate, then there will likely be a low background rate of infection for a long time. If the people refusing the vaccine are young, it will just mean the chance of an unpleasant illness, but if they are older than ~50-55, some level of covid deaths will continue.
Yes. At the same time, if those who fall ill all had the opportunity to be vaccinated, sympathy will drop.
And another example of government efficiency:
It was set up during the Obama administration in response to the H1N1 pandemic.
lucia,
None of the vaccines have been approved, IIRC, only given Emergency Use Authorizations. J&J now has an EUA for its vaccine and shots could start being administered this week.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/j-j-covid-19-vaccine-authorized-for-use-in-u-s-11614467922
Lucia, Moderna vaccine side effects…update. I had the second shot yesterday at 5:30 PM. Side effects started by 9:00 PM. If I were still working, I would have gone to work today but would not have been fully operational. As it is, today is hot tea, a cozy blanket and classical music.
Lucia, p.s. I forgot to mention above…. I have found conflicting reports about whether my drug of choice, Acetaminophen, interferes with building immunity. So it’s cold turkey for me… no drugs.
Russel,
What were the side effects?
I get my second dose of Pfizer vaccine tomorrow mid day.
SteveF, same as the first. Chills, headache, body aches, malaise… about the same intensity too.
Russell: “I have found conflicting reports about whether my drug of choice, Acetaminophen, interferes with building immunity.”
I hope it doesn’t! That’s what we took after the 2nd shot, based on this from the CDC:
I *assumed* that the above advice was based on information from the trial, and used acetaminophen instead of my usual Aleve (naproxen). Obviously I can’t attest as to whether it has impaired my immunity, and even if I could, that would be merely anecdotal.
Russel,
I had no systemic side effects with the first dose of Pfizer vaccine… just a sore arm for ~36 hours.
HaroldW, Thanks. I had seen that but couldn’t find any backup data. I see lots of opinions on the interweb but no data. It’s not so bad without the drugs. My wife called me a big baby.
SteveF, yes sore arm here too. My wife called me a big baby.
Jim’s brother reports pretty bad arm pain with 2nd shot of pfiser.
HaroldW (Comment #199451) quoting the CDC: “It is not recommended you take these medicines before vaccination for the purpose of trying to prevent side effects, because it is not known how these medications may impact how well the vaccine works.”
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Huh? So how come they are recommended shortly after vaccination? The only thing I can think of is that they are saying that analgesics might screw up the vaccine, so don’t take them unless you need them.
Sounds like a precautionary principle recommendation to me. There should be plenty of incidental knowledge available to decide whether analgesics are likely to interfere with vaccination.
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Given the side effects generally appear some time after vaccination, I’m not sure why anyone would be encouraged to premedicate for them, which would perhaps be part of a better message.
Lucia, This may be of interest….The Physics of Karate https://daily.jstor.org/the-physics-of-karate/
Mike M,
My “reading between the lines”, of why the CDC says it’s ok to take acetominophen &c after the 2nd shot but advises against taking them before the shot, is that among the trial group, many subjects took pain relieving medicine after the shot, and did not experience a noticeably different infection rate. But few took medication prior to the shot, so they’re unwilling to state that it does not interfere with immune response.
All speculative on my part, I haven’t read the reports. But it’s consistent with the cautious nature of other comments, that they don’t want to say anything which doesn’t have direct and strong evidence. (E.g., they haven’t said that the vaccinated are less likely to spread the virus, although that seems obvious.)
My wife had two days of moderately bad side effects after the 2nd Pfizer shot, those were “wouldn’t go to work” type of level. They disappeared on the 3rd day. Chills, fatigue, body aches. No side effects after 1st shot.
Tom Scharf,
“My wife had two days of moderately bad side effects after the 2nd Pfizer shot, those were “wouldn’t go to work†type of level.”
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Just got my second Pfizer shot less than 1 hour ago. We’ll see what happens. I did note that I am growing hair on my face…. wait, no, I do that all the time.
Had a second shot a few weeks ago. For me it was no worse than the first. A slightly sore arm at the injection site for a few days.
Looks like it is beat up on Texas day. I guess I would care more if the “experts” ever recommended loosening rules, ever. Ever. Now more likely this may very well be an intentional distraction by the governor to deflect attention off of the energy debacle down there. Look, squirrel!
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Example: Expert ‘mortified and disgusted’ by Texas reopening plan; it ‘will kill Texans,’ says top Democrat
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/expert-mortified-and-disgusted-by-texas-reopening-plan-it-will-kill-texans-says-top-democrat-11614786950
HaroldW (Comment #199533),
Thanks. That makes sense. At least within the bounds of how CDC seems to do things.
The one thing that makes me not completely confident that the US is approaching herd immunity is what’s happening in the Czech Republic (Czechia). Confirmed cases are currently 11.7% of the population, but the new case counts and deaths are rising and may exceed the previous peaks. The active case count is already above the previous peak.
I noticed that in a story about the Brazilian strain, they report that the reinfection rate is 25-60% higher. But they don’t report the absolute value of the reinfection rate. I suspect that’s because it’s still less than 1%. But being able to report a double digit increase is way scarier. Fearporn.
DeWitt,
The fall in cases says that under the conditions that exist at this time the country is, on average, past the HIT. I don’t want to sound too much like a badly scratched old vinyl record, but there is no single HIT, there is range that depends on population density, behavior, demographics, living conditions (how many people in a household) and the overall susceptibility of the population (enough vitamin D?). The rate of overall infections which passes the HIT in South Dakota may be quite different from the corresponding rate in Massachusetts, Texas, or California. I do believe that in many places, draconian restrictions have reduced the total number of infections needed to pass the HIT, but that relaxing those restrictions could well cause a resurgence in cases. Illinois strikes me as the best example of where there could be a resurgence in cases and deaths.
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The Texas reopening “will kill Texans,’ says a top Democrat. But that is not even a relevant observation, even if it were true. The real questions are: how many might die, and how much economic benefit will come from a return to more normal behaviors.
Here is a pretty cool animation of hospitalization rate by state over time:
https://healthy-skeptic.com/2021/03/03/the-seasonal-geographic-pattern-part-1/
It sure looks like there is something seasonal going on, probably in combination with “herd immunity threshold” which, as SteveF describes, is neither a single number nor a constant.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #199546): “The one thing that makes me not completely confident that the US is approaching herd immunity is what’s happening in the Czech Republic (Czechia). Confirmed cases are currently 11.7% of the population, but the new case counts and deaths are rising and may exceed the previous peaks.”
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In addition to the issues that SteveF raises, another factor is when the cases happened. The Dakotas peaked with cumulative cases at 8-9% of population, but the latest NY peak was at 6%. But it might well be that the 6% in NY actually represents a larger fraction of the population having been infected. The reason being that NY had a lot of cases early, when no more than 10% of infections were being detected while the Dakotas had most of their cases in the fall, with a much lower ratio of infections to cases.
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The Czech Republic has had almost all of their cases since the fall, so they might have a very low ratio of infections to cases. It is strange that they have had three “waves”, one peaking in late October, one in early January, and one in the future. Possibly in different parts of the country?
Mike M,
The weather in the Czech Republic is cold from fall through spring, so people have been indoors pretty much the whole time. Yet we do see oscillation in cases (and deaths). Yes, it could be the virus finding its way to new populations, but if I had to guess, I would say the biggest factor is personal behavior. The prevalence of illnesses and deaths is a time lagged feedback on personal behavior. If the rate of illness and death is low, then people are less cautious (more inclined to return toward normal behaviors), which leads to a rise in cases and deaths….. and upon news of those, people becoming again more cautious. The delay between infection and death (about a month?) is long enough to cause a positive feedback loop on behavior and oscillation in rates of illness and death; the 2 month apparent period of oscillation is consistent with the month-long feedback lag.
Mike M.,
I don’t think NY is done. The new case rate dropped to about 45% of the January peak but hasn’t continued to decline. FL, CA and TX have declined more from their most recent peak and appear to be continuing to decline.
The Czech Republic is about the size of Mississippi or Louisiana but with a considerably larger population. The Wikipedia animation of new case rates looks like the current increase is happening in the same areas as before.
SpaceX SN10 manages the crazy belly flop soft touch landing! Then explodes after sitting on the ground for few minutes. Never a dull moment.
Tom Scharf,
“Experts” have commented that it was a harder than planned landing which caused significant structural damage (the rocket looked like the Leaning Tower of Pisa) and a liquid methane leak…. with a subsequent explosion. They still seem a way away from getting this right. The experiments look expensive.
Anyone know why, when Biden asks if there are any questions after a White House briefing, he gets the equivalent of “cut to commercial”? Is there a valid reason for this or did his own staff just silence the President?
DaveJR,
They know he has dementia. I doubt he will be in office for more than 2 years….. and even that will require keeping him out of situations which make his dementia obvious.
Moderna second shot side effects update….. This is the third morning after and things are still not great. Not stay in bed under the covers bad, but not pleasant.
Illinois has expanded co-morbidities that allow you to get the the vaccine: Smoking. Unfortunately, my county hasn’t expanded. Now I will take up (light) smoking and see if I can get one in Grundy, Kendal, Kankakee or DeKalb.
Lucia,
“Now I will take up (light) smoking and see if I can get one in Grundy, Kendal, Kankakee or DeKalb.”
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Is that a joke?
Russell Klier,
Up to now (23 hours) my only side effect for the second dose of Pfizer has been a sore shoulder (deltoid).
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Seems the range of side effects is huge. One of my wife’s friends was miserable for two days after her second Pfizer vaccination.
Joke? Sort of.
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Well… I took a puff once back when I was 5yo or so. I’m sure I could take a puff again….
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Seriously, I am rather amazed this is on the list of co-morbidities because anyone can take up “smoking” at any time. The amount of smoking is not defined. Unlike lying about working in a school, it looks like you could take a puff on your way into the pharmacy, get a vaccine and then quit immediately after getting the vaccine.
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Am I considering taking up light smoking? Yep. One puff just before entering the pharmacy. Maybe I can were a t-shirt with the Lucky Strikes rilled into the sleeve cuff! 🙂
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Of course, I would then quit immediately. But honestly, it won’t make me meet the rules in my county. So my lack of ethics may not result in any actual breaking of the spirit of the rules. ( Sad face 🙁 )
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Worse *former* smokers also have priority. Does that puff when I was 5 yo count? (It shouldn’t. Just checking the rules.)
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The Walgreen’s site updated their eligibility form!
Lucia,
There seems little published literature of increased risk of covid-19 and smoking. All I have found says that smokers probably have a risk of severe illness that is about twice that of non-smokers…. but with caveats…. age, frequency of smoking, duration of tobacco use, etc do not seem to have been controlled.
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There probably is some additional risk…. but smoking does that with a host of diseases, so I am not really sure of the moral rational for prioritizing smokers. In any case, if the increase in risk is actually a factor of 2, that is about the same as being 10 years older. Why not be at least a little rational: eg non-smokers over age 65 and smokers over age 55? Hard to see any justification for a 23 YO smoker getting priority over a 60+ YO non-smoker. The nanny party that controls Illinois enacts a lot of very dumb policies.
So far I’ve heard about prioritizing: smokers, criminals in prison, illegal aliens and members of congress…. Next I suggest adding fallen angels and lawyers.
It’s going to be dang hard to get people to *self police* the rules when they prioritize smoking. I can sympathize with old age, diabetese, front line workers. But I’m supposed to wait behind the line for smokers? Even if it is a co-morbidity, come on!
It is a question of agency. Smokers choose to be smokers, in spite of well documented, large health risks. Nobody controls how old they are.
My county (900K people) has stated that everyone registered on their site who is 65+ has either had their first shot or has an appt. This is probably going to only result in 60% to 70% of seniors being vaccinated. I think the people refusing are crazy, but have a right to be crazy.
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FL just opened up comorbidities but doesn’t define the list. It requires a standardized note from a doctor who uses their judgment. Suffice it to say that I doubt anyone will validate the note at the vaccine site. “Scared to death of covid” might as well be a legitimate reason.
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My impression with the increased supply (2.5M+ shots a day now) is that the floodgates are about to open on eligibility and most people will desperately want vaccinated will have it in the 2 months.
What’s wrong with Baltimore schools? Everything. Literally.
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City student passes 3 classes in four years, ranks near top half of class with 0.13 GPA
https://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/city-student-passes-3-classes-in-four-years-ranks-near-top-half-of-class-with-013-gpa
“Tiffany France thought her son would receive his diploma this coming June. But after four years of high school, France just learned, her 17-year-old must start over. He’s been moved back to ninth grade.”
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This is an amazingly depressing story. There are no functioning parts of this equation. Students, schools, parents, policy. All designed and acting to allow and almost encourage failure. It’s pretty clear that nobody cares about anything and have all just given up. There is no way this should be allowed to happen.
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You have to read it to realize how deep this problem is. I do note that the (single) parent is never challenged as to where they were during this episode. The parent apparently believes she has no responsibility to oversee her child here, and that is a huge cultural difference. Not allowing this to even be questioned is part of the media’s problem, but I doubt anyone can put their child in this type of situation and get a good outcome.
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It’s disturbing.
Cuomo apologizes and refuses to resign. Case closed.
Baltimore High School above: “Of the 434 students enrolled in 2019, two tested proficient in math and two in English. Yet, 48 percent, nearly half the students, manage to graduate in four years.”
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The school is also already under investigation for grade changing.
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Baltimore City is the fifth most funded of America’s 100 largest school districts, according to the US Census. Baltimore City Schools spent $15,793 per student in 2020.
It took SpaceX a while to (mostly) perfect the booster landing on the Falcon as well.
How Not to Land an Orbital Rocket Booster
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ
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Also see the 7:20 mark here for rather impressive dual booster landing. They also recover the main booster later.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf4qRY3h_eo
WSJ book review:
All well and good until the author proposes that throwing money at the disadvantaged families (rather than the schools, which he admits doesn’t work) would fix the problem. That’s been tried and it clearly made the problem worse.
The Biden administration is in the process of doing it all again by providing what amounts to Universal Basic Income and scrapping the Clinton workfare policy.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/democrats-stealth-plan-to-enact-universal-basic-income-11614727507?mod=opinion_major_pos5
The tuition at a small private school near me (<400 students, 145 acre campus) varies from $18,000 per year (kindergarden) to $30,000 ($30,000) grade 12. The actual average cost is about 15% lower when financial aid is taken into account, so maybe $15,000 to $25,500 is the true range, and a little over $20,000 average expenditure. The teacher:student ratio is 1:8, versus Baltimore ~1:15.
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The school clams 100% graduation rate and 100% college admission, with most students graduating with multiple AP courses for college credit.
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I am guessing that an increase of 35% in expenditures per student in Baltimore would not duplicate the private school performance.
DeWitt,
Yeah. It’s as if he thinks having money is what creates habits and culture or even home environment.
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Sure, lack of money can aggravate home and habits. Fixing poverty will improve things in some cases. But quite a bit of causation goes the other way around. Parents who don’t attend to their kids will often still not attend to their kids after they have money. Parents who don’t value education will still not value education after you put money in their pocket and so on.
Tom Scharf,
Peanuts. According to the book review linked above:
Admittedly, that’s a higher percentage testing proficient than the Baltimore High School, but that’s also over the whole district.
Tom wrote: “Baltimore City is the fifth most funded of America’s 100 largest school districts”
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Money is a sideshow. Attitude is the main event. The humblest school could outperform that effort, and no doubt has done so, many times in the past. Students willing to learn, teachers enthused to teach, and parents invested in their children’s future are the key to a successful school.
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The current system has increasingly allowed disruptive students to set the curriculum and destroy the learning environment, hurting a lot more children than it helps. As usual, the road to hell was paved with the good intentions of those blind to human behavior as it exists in the real world.
DaveJR,
Arrgh. White Privilege, racism. Where’s my safe space? My life has been ruined. [/sarc]
Completely true, of course. Money, btw, is mainly a function of how much control the public employees unions and particularly the teachers unions (remember when they claimed they were actually professional organizations not unions), have over the local and state government.
SteveF (Comment #199595): “It is a question of agency. Smokers choose to be smokers, in spite of well documented, large health risks. Nobody controls how old they are.”
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Exactly right.
In general, I don’t like discriminating against smokers. But prioritizing them? That is nuts. The government continues to discredit itself.
MikeM,
“The government continues to discredit itself.”
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Certainly true in the eyes of those who think adult people are responsible for the choices they make, and should live with the consequences. But that is most certainly not the view of those now holding power in Washington DC, nor the view of many (most?) of their political supporters. As usual, it comes down to supporting equality or equity. It is very clear to me that many who supported equal rights and equal opportunity have been disappointed in the results, because differences in outcome have not narrowed as much as they hoped. So now they have adopted an “outcomes must be equal” stance, bo matter how crazy that is when educational outcomes are rationally considered… as in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Camden, and a host of other places. What most galls is the utter refusal to address the root of the problem: it is not racism, but a destructive culture which does not value nor insist upon personal responsibility, education, and factual knowledge.
Education has gone through lots of blame cycles over the past 60 years. Forced busing, funding, etc. Minority groups used to blame things on not having direct control (i.e. whites were in charge). Now we have Detroit, Baltimore and others where everything from teachers, principals, school boards, city councils, and mayors are all under direct control and things have realistically only gotten worse. Now the blame is through the mystical means of systemic racism. This might as well be Star Wars “The Force†at this point as it somehow stops people from even attending school and keeps GPA’s under 0.4 for over half a school.
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And these schools are actually corrupt at this point. From Atlanta’s cheating scandal to this story of gross incompetence. The problems in these places are so severe and ironically are the dictionary definition of a systemic problem that it will take a generation to fix.
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Move the he** out of Baltimore. I’d rather live in a Rio shantytown.
In my day you got kicked out of school for non-performance. People who literally made no effort would just be removed from the school system. This placed a known minimum level of performance that people knew they had to meet. When it is acceptable to make no effort than you end up with situations like this. You are doing kids no favors by allowing this, every parent knows this.
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Kids can have rough patches and some kids have learning disabilities so one doesn’t need to make discipline zero tolerance, but allowing pervasive non-performance should not be acceptable to society. The community cannot possibly want this, can they?
Just when you think it can’t possibly get any more absurd.
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Dr. Seuss Books Deemed Offensive Will Be Delisted From eBay
E-commerce giant says it ‘is currently sweeping our marketplace to remove these items’
https://www.wsj.com/articles/dr-seuss-books-deemed-offensive-will-be-delisted-from-ebay-11614884201
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“EBay is currently sweeping our marketplace to remove these items,†a spokeswoman for the company said in an email. New copies of the six books were no longer for sale online at major retailers such as Barnes & Noble on Thursday afternoon, which put eBay among the most prominent platforms for the books to be sold.
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Don’t panic though, Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf†is still allowed for sale.
Tom Scharf,
“The community cannot possibly want this, can they?”
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A good question. I think most of “the community” just doesn’t care about education. That may be because they think personal success is not due mostly to personal effort and knowledge, and instead blame systemic racism for bad outcomes. Under the control of the local politicians these communities have elected, I can see no route to educational progress. The first step in resolving any problem is accepting the actual cause for the problem. That is not happening…. and has never happened during my adult lifetime.
Moderna vaccine second shot side effects- final report: This is the fourth morning after and I am up and running (95%). Second shot side effects were the same as the first. This time the body aches were the worst thing…. The first time the chills and malaise were the worst. My wife still thinks I am a big baby. Out.
Russel,
That’s what wives are for. 🙂
Glad your feeling better.
Final report Pfizer side effects:
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First dose: Sore shoulder for 36 hours.
Second dose: Sore shoulder for 36 hours.
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Side effects from vaccines obviously vary a lot. I was very sick for ~18 hours with my last flu shot.
“Florida will distribute coronavirus vaccines according to age going forward, and not prioritize people in occupations that have not already gotten access to shots, Gov. Ron DeSantis”
““If you look at COVID and the statistics nationally, 95.7% of all COVID-related mortality is age 50 or above. That was why we did seniors first. That is why we will lower the age but we are still going to be focusing on those people who are 50 up because that’s the best way to save the most lives,†he said.”
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More “Neanderthal” thinking! Unfortunately 60+ is next, not 55+, ha ha. Florida also has a bunch of federal sites which set their own rules to make it rather messy. A federal walk up site opened up yesterday at a dog race track and had no line at the end of the day.
Cuomo truly got caught with his hand in the cookie jar with his aides rewriting a report on nursing hone deaths way back in June. Nowhere to hide on this one anymore. Both the WSJ/NYT reported this yesterday.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/cuomo-advisers-altered-report-on-covid-19-nursing-home-deaths-11614910855
“New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s top advisers successfully pushed state health officials to strip a public report of data showing that more nursing-home residents had died of Covid-19 than the administration had acknowledged, according to people with knowledge of the report’s production.”
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That there was a coverup for political purposes is no longer in question. It might very well be perfectly legal what he did here, but quite unseemly. I think the “Cuomo the covid hero” narrative is now officially dead. The grandiose moral posturing by the elite media is of course absent.
Ton Scharf,
The strangest thing is: he has apologized for unwanted advances (and worse) on women half his age, but never apologized for killing thousands. I guess ‘me too’ is now more important than life itself.
SteveF,
I suspect that Cuomo’s attorney has told him to absolutely never admit he might have been wrong or apologize for the nursing home deaths. To do so would be to admit guilt to manslaughter at least. A prosecutor would love to get that sort of public confession. Chauvin isn’t going to apologize for Floyd’s death either for the same reason.
In Newsweek of all places, is ‘wokeness’ a religion, and if so, is it a Title VII violation if an employer fires an employee because of a ‘wokeness’ violation?
mark bofill,
If wokeness is a religion, then I think belief in a coming climate apocalypse would qualify as well.
I read somewhere that human nature seems to favor belief in something powerful outside yourself. If you aren’t a believer in a classical organized religion like Christianity or Islam, then that hole will be filled by something else, whether it’s UFO’s or wokeness.
I was visiting a relative’s house and they had the ABC news on (muted). ABC gave a lot of air time to Cuomo’s scandals… when ABC covers a Democrat’s scandals, they are likely toast.
DeWitt,
There may be something to that.
More convincing evidence of the B117 variant’s spread. It is accelerating even during the overall decline. See the graph here.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/03/06/us/coronavirus-variant-sequencing.html
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The race is on against the vaccine, but it seems the early prediction that this variant would become a dominant strain is on target. The mRNA vaccines are effective against B117.
Tom Scharf,
I really do hope Pfizer and Moderna are preparing modified versions of the m-RMA vaccines which match the more infective variants. The beauty of the m-RNA technology is how quickly a new vaccine can be produced; let’s hope that beauty is taken advantage of…. and the FDA doesn’t screw it up.
FDA says Covid vaccines that target new variants won’t need large clinical trials to win approval
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/22/covid-vaccine-fda-says-shots-that-target-new-variants-wont-need-large-clinical-trials-to-win-approval.html
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“The Food and Drug Administration said Monday that modified Covid-19 vaccines against new, emerging variants may be authorized without the need for lengthy clinical trials.”
“The company would need to submit new data that shows the modified vaccine produces a similar immune response and is safe, similar to the process for annual flu vaccines.”
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Not clear what this means in actual time. I’d expect a minimum of 3 months from when they start testing. Moderna already sent a modified version to the NIH for some kind of testing. They are also looking at a 3rd shot booster.
Tom Scharf,
Here is the crazy part: They make a vaccine which is 99.999% identical, with a few nucleotides changed, and they have to prove safety… yet again? The FDA and its backward rules needs to be done away with.
SteveF,
A live virus influenza vaccine needs a small trial, 300 people, to see if it’s sufficiently attenuated. Other types don’t even need that. For seasonal tri- and quadrivalent influenza vaccines, the FDA approval process takes a little over a month and is done before the end of July. There is a special pandemic influenza review process that takes about a week. That still wasn’t soon enough for the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. The bulk of the vaccine wasn’t available until after the peak of infections in September-November 2009. I don’t think that was all the FDA’s fault, though. It takes a long time to manufacture, formulate and distribute vaccine.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4947948/
And in the Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt news of the day, there’s this:
The headline should actually read Some U.S. Scientists…. Also, we really don’t know the long-range effectiveness of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines after two shots. And then there’s this assertion (with no evidence):
And he knows this how? The answer, of course, is he doesn’t. It’s a guess. An informed guess, but still a guess. Have you noticed that almost all guesses like this are negative? I have. Also, no mention of T-cell reactivity which seems to me to be as or more important than a high antibody titer. Unfortunately, this article is not open for comment.
DeWitt,
“and he knows this how? The answer, of course, is he doesn’t. It’s a guess. An informed guess, but still a guess. Have you noticed that almost all guesses like this are negative? ”
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A bit like the recommendations of most technical consultants: many more consulting hours are usually recommended!
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Public health officials, especially those now getting public attention they never got in the past, are the very LAST people to rationally evaluate the current level of risk. They benefit personally and professionally from a continuing ‘raging pandemic’.
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It is almost over, no matter what ‘experts’ may say about it. Hence the shock and horror about states starting to open and relax covid restrictions. Really, it is almost over.
If the large scale vaccine tests were all injected by clowns standing on their heads then that would be the “best†regimen at this point. Diverging from the original test has risk, but it’s not like there isn’t some way to estimate or manage that risk. It takes a while of reading this medical speak before you start to understand what they are saying, especially when they say something doesn’t work, they are saying it hasn’t met the formal clinical testing thresholds.
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The “more antibodies needed for the variants†is from lab experiments. It’s not entirely clear how this maps to real humans.
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210305/New-COVID-19-variants-can-evade-antibodies-that-work-against-original-form-of-the-virus.aspx
“With few exceptions, whether such antibodies were produced in response to vaccination or natural infection, or were purified antibodies intended for use as drugs, the researchers found more antibody is needed to neutralize the new variants.â€
“The B.1.1.7 (U.K.) variant could be neutralized with similar levels of antibodies as were needed to neutralize the original virus. But the other two variants required from 3.5 to 10 times as much antibody for neutralization.â€
“”We don’t exactly know what the consequences of these new variants are going to be yet,” said Diamond, also a professor of molecular microbiology and of pathology & immunology. “Antibodies are not the only measure of protection; other elements of the immune system may be able to compensate for increased resistance to antibodies.”
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As I recall the levels produced by the mRNA vaccines are enough.
The WP dumps a major article on Cuomo, talked to 20 staffers. Not pretty. The dogpile is definitely on. I’m almost starting to feel sorry for him now that the hivemind has turned on him. The Eye of Sauron is upon him.
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N.Y. Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s behavior created ‘hostile, toxic’ workplace culture for decades, former aides say
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cuomo-toxic-workplace/2021/03/06/7f7c5b9c-7dd3-11eb-b3d1-9e5aa3d5220c_story.html
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The NYT runs an article on the diverging paths of DeSantis and Cuomo
DeSantis Is Ascendant and Cuomo Is Faltering
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/06/us/politics/desantis-cuomo-political-future.html
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What’s happening here? Real journalism breaking out? Do I have to turn in my media bashing membership card? Probably not as the NYT seems perplexed as to what could possibly explain this phenomenon, could it be just the low standards of Republicans and the high standards of Democrats? Ha ha.
Uhmmm… the data look like DeSantis governed effectively and Cuomo did not.
It’s all well and good to give Cuomo some leeway for getting hit by the first wave. But he made huge mistakes and it’s pretty darn clear his method of keeping his reputation after making those is lying to cover up all the unnecessary deaths. Later lockdowns of churches and synagogues may be overreactions sprung from guilt, but overreaction after mistakes is not “effective governing”!
Lucia,
“…but a higher rate of cases over all, and it leads the country in the number of cases of the more contagious and deadlier U.K. variant of the virus.”
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As usual the NYT is either deceptive or dishonest. There was a huge number of cases in the early part of the pandemic not confirmed by screening tests. Since NY had a much larger initial surge, many more unconfirmed cases happened in NY than Florida. To suggest Florida has had more cases is simple dishonesty. WRT the more contagious strain: if the vaccines remain effective, then who cares? The NYT is bending over backwards to dis DeSantis… and he doesn’t deserve it. Cuomo is little more than a lying sack of dog excrement, and should be driven from office. He has killed thousands, driven thousands of small businesses under, and taken a year of education away from children for no good reason. He has already done enough damage and should be gone.
The Chauvin trial gets more complicated. The same Minnesota appeals court that ruled in 2020 that third degree murder charges could be brought against a different police office (named Noor) in a single person homicide has again ruled the same way: they instructed Chauvin’s trial judge to reinstate the 3rd degree charge. The earlier Noor case has been appealed to the Minnesota SC, which has multiple times ruled the opposite way, as a plain reading of the Minnesota statute requires. So unless the SC reverses its earlier readings, the 3rd degree charge will ultimately be thrown out. If the jury in the Chauvin case convicts on 3rd degree but not on 2nd degree murder, then Chauvin could suddenly be facing prison time for only 2nd degree manslaughter…. and less than 55 months in prison. I can only imagine the riots which would follow.
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Which may be why the Biden administration is preparing a ‘civil rights’ case against Chauvin…. where he faces unlimited sentences… including life in prison or even the death penalty.
On the subject of media, I know I have a tendency to be too literal, including grammatically, but anyone else find this headline amusing?
“Biden rides a Keep It Simple, Stupid strategy to early success”
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/07/biden-simple-stupid-stategy-474037
Knocking FL for variants is a bit ridiculous, that isn’t something that can reasonably be controlled. They don’t help their case by linking to “FloridaMorons” where the media mercilessly attacked DeSantis for opening the beaches, which is now seen as low risk among most outdoor activities.
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NY is #2 in deaths per capita at 246, Florida is #26 at 146.
“The data is fairly inconclusive. When adjusted for population, Florida has a lower rate of deaths than New York”.
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That’s a very charitable assessment for NY to say the least. One can make the argument that everyone is a loser in covid policy, but it’s not really be made that way. But it’s a process, at least they aren’t slamming FL for being way worse than glorious NY without stating any evidence.
I’m here to help.
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I know keeping track of all the latest linguistic faux paus is difficult, and one slipup can cost you your career, so just a heads up. Dare not verbalize the ‘p’ word. I won’t say it here for fear of retaliation, but it rhymes with “blantation”.
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https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/31018861/creighton-players-video-coach-greg-mcdermott-words-hurt-us
Tom,
I’m guessing “reservation” is also not allowed.
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That was a very poor word choice especially since so many basketball players are black and college Athletes are not paid despite their sport generating a lot of revenue. So it’s actually possible to argue that the school treats the athletes as property to some extent. (Perhaps valuable property like a winning race horse, but still property. Oh. Owners feed race horses– just like the feed athletes. 🙂 )
Still. I’m guessing it was just a bad word choice.
A long read on all the charging options for Chauvin, it’s legally complex.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/03/the-george-floyd-murder-trial-a-charging-nightmare/
The NCAA goes to pretty extreme efforts to prevent anyone on it’s athletic blantation from being paid, even if it is from private sources more than willing to do so, and even as some schools reap huge rewards from those athletic efforts. I think it’s a real scandal, and the amount of hypocrisy in academia watching this happen right under their noses is stunning. This is one area under their direct control, and it’s one of the worst abuses of “minority labor”.
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I have contradicting views on this to some extent, I think these athletes should be paid their market value, but also believe this will somewhat ruin college sports as it is. Colleges were selling athlete’s jerseys with the people’s names on it and keeping all the money! How is that justifiable? So they “fixed” it by just selling their numbers, ha ha.
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I get that they are receiving some compensation with their scholarship, but prohibiting athletes from their own commercial endorsements while schools rake in millions on shoe contracts is not justifiable. There is plenty of room between no compensation and wild free for all open market.
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For some athletes this is their peak earning potential of their lives, they either get injured or can’t make the professional league. It’s just unfair.
Tom Scharf
Well… the problem is that college sports is a business that wants the illusion of not being a business for the students and fans. Of course admitting the students are employees interferes with the fantasy of “student athlete”. The problem is even if you don’t pay them, it’s still a fantasy.
I can’t remember precise details, but I think read some student athlete in business was blocked from most internships in his field. Specifically ones associated with “sales”. The assumption was that “sales” is trading on his athlete status. Perhaps, to some extent, someone be more likely to buy “product X” from the star athlete on the football team. Maybe a local software developer company would pick him because they think his background really will help him get the foot in the door to sell their “business solutions” to small businesses often owned by football fans. But internships in a relevant program were required and he couldn’t take any associated with “sales”! That’s just nuts.
Yes. And the rules were so draconian that some kids who had “influencer” type channels before they joined teams were supposed to give them up! The schools “fiction” again is that those kids only got eyeballs because they were on the team! Of course some would get eyeballs because they were on a school team. But turning that into money was not automatic, and really, there is no reason a woman gymnast shouldn’t be able to hawk her favorite eye makeup, outfits, brass, hair care or all sorts of other things that like to use popular fit young women to promote sales to other young women.
“Russell Klier (Comment #199653)
March 5th, 2021 at 8:09 am
Moderna vaccine second shot side effects- final report: This is the fourth morning after and I am up and running (95%). Second shot side effects were the same as the first. This time the body aches were the worst thing…. The first time the chills and malaise were the worst.”
I had my first Moderna shot on Tuesday, the only effect was a couple of days of sore shoulder. Fingers crossed for second shot at the end of the month.
lucia,
The fantasy that college athletes in football and basketball at least are students first and athletes second can’t last. The Olympics gave up on the whole amateur thing quite some time ago. Athletic scholarships are, in fact, compensation for performance. But it’s not enough, especially if the athlete suffers a career ending injury.
My wife got her second Moderna vaccine injection Monday. Somewhat sore arms the only reaction.
Also, didn’t we have a discussion not that long ago on antibodies vs the rest of the immune system? I seem to remember the antibodies only position lost badly. And yet we get idiotic statements that the immunity conferred by infection only lasts three months because most of the circulating antibodies are gone by then. If that were really the case, then there would have been lots of reinfections documented by now, especially by the new strains, and cases everywhere would be going up, not mostly down.
Lucia: “Well… the problem is that college sports is a business that wants the illusion of not being a business for the students and fans. Of course admitting the students are employees interferes with the fantasy of “student athleteâ€.
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I will admit that big time college football players are not anything near normal students. On the other hand, the vast majority of college football players are being paid well to play — they get “free” education and food and medical expenses all probably worth $50,000 — $70,000 per year.
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The problem with paying players is that a few players will make a ton and most will make nothing or peanuts. For instance, Joe Burrow at LSU could have easily made several million dollars his last year, but many very good players would have been lucky to make $10,000 or $50,000 per year such as offensive linemen and very good receivers like Justin Jefferson or Jamar Chase. All sorts of conflicts of interest arise and questions of why a coach would play or sit down various players, which in some situations could cost players money. Hard to imagine having a real team when one very good player is making a ton and another very good player is making nothing.
And it is not like Burrow got nothing from his college experience. He was greatly coached up by both OSU and LSU — it was not like he started out as a generational talent.
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Also, the rich will get richer. Players at Alabama and OSU with very good teams and big fan bases will even, more than at the present time, be attracted to teams whose fanbases can earn them the most money. Teams like BYU and Oregon state would have no chance. Even worse, MAC teams would absolutely be crushed.
The college football playoff system, which on the surface looked more logical, has not helped college football because, so far, practically speaking only about 6 teams have a chance to get into the playoff. (partly caused by players realizing that there chances of getting into a playoff are much greater than those teams.)
In the past getting into a prestigious bowl game (Such as Rose bowl) was a big honor. Now it is nothing unless the Rose Bowl is hosting a playoff game.
A lot of you have closely looked at the efficacy of vaccines. To this point I have not because I have worked out 7 days a week for more than the last 5 years and my health markers are all very good — not very worried about getting very sick from the virus. However, I am thinking that if I took the virus, I may avoid spreading it.
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On the other hand, on the surface I don’t like the way that the mRNA vaccines work — they continually produce spikes for the rest of your life, which is different from the way that traditional vaccines work.
I saw this on another website and would appreciate any insights that others would have.
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“In summary these new mRNA vaccines work by instructing your cells to make the spike protein (that coats the SARS-COV2 virus) which then triggers your body to create spike protein antibodies (SPA). These SPAs are supposed to help neutralize the wild virus if it infects the person but they also act as a ticking time bomb and cause a number of problems after a certain period of time:
-They ‘trojan horse’ the mRNA into your cells creating a positive feedback loop with no off button re: the cell’s creation of the spike protein (mRNA tells your cell to make spike proteins, those spike proteins then trigger creation of SPAs, the SPAs help get more free floating mRNA into your cells)”
The poster got this from an anti-vaxxer website, ( https://vaxxter.com/covid-vaccines-part-2 ) but I am still concerned that continuously producing the spike could be harmful. Am wondering what people more knowledgeable than me think. Simply trying to do a risk benefit analysis on my part.
lucia,
On the front page of the local paper today was this headline:
Ballroom becomes mass vaccination clinic in SW Va.
Needless to say, I immediately thought of you.
JD Ohio,
Just because they charge that much for tuition, room and board doesn’t mean it’s actually worth that much. One in five college football players don’t graduate and it’s not at all clear that many of those that do have a degree that will benefit much from it.
“Just because they charge that much for tuition, room and board doesn’t mean it’s actually worth that much. One in five college football players don’t graduate and it’s not at all clear that many of those that do have a degree that will benefit much from it.”
However, you want to look at it, it is worth something substantial. Moreover, if you look at playing for the big time teams, like Alabama, OSU & Clemson, having played for them is a huge advantage in terms of getting your foot in the door for any number of jobs. Having lived in Columbus for a long time, I definitely know that former OSU players, even the comparatively unknown ones, have a substantial leg up on run of the mill students.
JD Ohio,
My understanding (I’m not an expert) is that mRNA vaccines instruct cells to produce only spikes similar/identical to covid. The immune system then responds to this and produces antibodies for these foreign spikes. This production of spikes forced by the vaccine lasts about 72 hours or so and they are all gone after the immune system disposes of them.
JD Ohio,
An argument that there will be vast income inequality in college sports is not an argument for the current system being just.
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Apply the NCAA model to other professions to see how ludicrous it really is. Suppose a lawyer had a private company willing to pay them $500K/year to do some top notch lawyering, but then the trial lawyers association stepped in and said this is * illegal * as they pay all lawyers a set $25K/year regardless of their ability.
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Now on top of this the trial lawyers association gets paid hundreds of millions of dollars a year for all legal fees that they have a legal business monopoly over. They reap enormous profits, but declare themselves virtuous as they support some really nice causes.
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On top of on top of this they subsequently debar the lawyer for taking any additional payments and throw the company who wanted to pay for better performance in jail for simply trying to compensate a really good lawyer.
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This all sounds perfectly OK? I think not. One can argue that college sports is an exception to the standard business model, but one needs to make that argument somehow. The NFL has a minimum salary for all players and all kinds of rules and allowances for paying people their market value. It’s all rather messy with salary caps and negotiations and trades, but it works.
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It’s one thing to provide a system that trades a worthwhile education for athletic performance that generates revenue and to spread the wealth around in a socialist manner, but it’s another thing entirely to legally forbid players from being compensated by willing 3rd parties. Athlete’s lives have been ruined for accepting rather minimal compensation. The whole enterprise is an embarrassment in my view at this point, and I love college football.
JD Ohio,
Tom is right, the m-RNA vaccines are absorbed by a relatively few cells (mostly in the area where they were injected – your deltoid muscle). These cells then begin producing virus ‘spike protein’, and “present” the foreign protein on their surfaces, and your immune system responds, by generating an immune response. It is my understanding that the relatively few cells which generate spike protein are killed and eliminated in the process….. just like cells that are actually infected with virus would be. The big difference compared to an actual infection is that the is no replication process….. the m-RNA activity is once and done and limited to the relatively tiny population of cells which take up m-RNA.
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I suppose the sore shoulder most people experience for a couple of days is the result of muscle cell death in the region of the injection.
The basics on mRNA vaccines:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvPg6PMI-q0
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There is no doubt that mRNA is new technology and Team Science probably underplays any potential unknown risks this tech may have, but on the other hand we have 10’s of millions of test subjects now.
Tom Scharf: “An argument that there will be vast income inequality in college sports is not an argument for the current system being just.
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Apply the NCAA model to other professions to see how ludicrous it really is. Suppose a lawyer had a private company willing to pay them $500K/year to do some top notch lawyering, but then the trial lawyers association stepped in and said this is * illegal * as they pay all lawyers a set $25K/year regardless of their ability.”
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Although there could be income inequality that is not my argument or concern. (Basically, there are no areas where I worry about income inequality when it is market based) My argument is that TEAM play is grossly undercut by vast differences that are not reflected in the skills of the players. Ultimately, crummy college football will lead to fewer teams and fewer players getting scholarships. A great offensive lineman will make much less than a reasonably good QB, which would lead to natural resentment. Much more difficult for the coach to coach when very important players will have different agendas. Players in the NFL are paid what they are worth.
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Also, my argument is that the vast no. of college players benefit by not getting paid a [paltry] salary and are much better getting a free education.
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I would also add that college football is not a profession. About 97% of the players only play for 4 years and that 97% could never make enough money to support a family by playing college football. The 97% of the players who will only play 4 years are in no way comparable to trial lawyers or even teachers.
SteveF: ” It is my understanding that the relatively few cells which generate spike protein are killed and eliminated in the process….. just like cells that are actually infected with virus would be. ”
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My interpretation of the above article [quoted below] is exactly the opposite. It seems to say that there is a never ending loop, which is what concerns me. I am not really concerned about a one-time limited reaction.
“They ‘trojan horse’ the mRNA into your cells creating a positive feedback loop with no off button re: the cell’s creation of the spike protein (mRNA tells your cell to make spike proteins, those spike proteins then trigger creation of SPAs, the SPAs help get more free floating mRNA into your cells)”
JD flipping burgers at McDonalds is also not a profession. It’s a job. Many people hold that job for a short time. But people get paid for jobs even if they aren’t professions.
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Lucia: “JD flipping burgers at McDonalds is also not a profession. It’s a job. Many people hold that job for a short time. But people get paid for jobs even if they aren’t professions.”
I used to eat breakfast at McDonalds nearly every day. There were adults who worked there for about 5 years and my guess is they are still working there. The point is that they are working to support themselves and some work for a good chunk of time. Some may do the same work but come in and out of the job force at times. 97% of college football players are working at something that is time limited to 4 [or 5] years — Not the same as McDonalds. Also, many waitresses work for a long time at one restaurant or simply as a waitress.
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Why not pay very good high school football or basketball players?
I know we will never agree on this. I just think overall not paying the very top players benefits the vast majority of players and think that it should be continued. I would suppose that some people would prefer to have only 20-30 teams [It is impossible for me to imagine that MAC teams could survive, for example, in a pay type system] and just cut loose those that could play for another 60 teams in the current system.
Two interesting factoids from the Moderna data (released by the FDA in December):
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1) Protection against clinical illness reached >90% at 14 days after a single dose… though it should be noted these subjects were not “high risk” individuals with comorbidities.
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2) The frequency of adverse reactions… both soreness in the injection site and systemic reactions (headache, body ache, fever, etc) were consistently less frequent (about 30% to 35% lower) among people who had previous infection with covid-19 than among people who had not. BUT oddly, the very few instances of adverse reactions severe enough to cause withdrawal from the trial before receiving the second dose were many times more common among people who had previously been infected with covid-19.
JD Ohio,
“My interpretation of the above article [quoted below] is exactly the opposite. It seems to say that there is a never ending loop, which is what concerns me. I am not really concerned about a one-time limited reaction.”
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You are mistaken, that is not at all how it works. m-RNA is destroyed as a protein is formed. The m-RNA in all your body’s cells is constantly being destroyed, and if more protein is needed, replenished by transcription from DNA…. the vaccines have no DNA, so new viral m-RNA is not produced. It is once-and-done.
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For what it is worth: Every young healthy adult person I know (not child) who has had the illness says they wouldn’t want to get it again. I don’t know how old you are, but if over 40, I suggest you consider getting the vaccine when it is available.
SteveF “For what it is worth: Every young healthy adult person I know (not child) who has had the illness says they wouldn’t want to get it again. I don’t know how old you are, but if over 40, I suggest you consider getting the vaccine when it is available.”
I know a 70-year old woman at my gym who got it and was only moderately sick. Same with about 4 or 5 other members of her family. I am way past 40 but substantially younger than my nominal age because of my workouts. I would say I am functionally 55 or 58 and not afraid of the virus. Could be wrong, but we all have to make judgment calls. That being said if I was comfortable that a loop was not being created, I would take the vaccine.
SteveF “You are mistaken, that is not at all how it works. m-RNA is destroyed as a protein is formed. The m-RNA in all your body’s cells is constantly being destroyed, and if more protein is needed, replenished by transcription from DNA…. the vaccines have no DNA, so new viral m-RNA is not produced. It is once-and-done.”
That is what Tom’s Youtube video says, which is good news from my perspective.
Thanks to both you and Tom.
JD,
I’ve read similar descriptions of how mRNA works to Steve’s. My understanding is the cold temperature storage is used because mRNA is unstable. It has to get into a cell before it falls apart. It pretty much does it’s job and then it’s gone. (That’s likely why they give you two shots too. If it hung around forever, it seems to me you wouldn’t need two shots.)
JDOhio,
Well, ok. Why not? The only reason I can think why not is the school doesn’t have the budget and the sport doesn’t generate revenue for the school. If the sport did generate a lot of revenue, I’d say it’s fine to split money raised with the team members.
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Also, the school paying them isn’t really the point. I think good high school players aren’t prohibited from starting their own instagram pages, getting sponsors and so on. College students are. If high school students are prohibited from profiting on their own images and likeness, that’s wrong. They should be allowed to develop any entrepreneurial skills they might be able to develop. And if a private person wants to give them money, that should be allowed.
Do we know if it’s T cells that kill the mRNA infected cells? If so, that should mean that there is a T cell response as well as antibodies and B cells. IMO, there seems to be a lot of misinformation coming from the ‘experts’.
I’m not advocating the removal of the scholarship system. My preference is it to be retained with the addition of directly paying some players at profitable schools and allowing for private payments.
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Obviously high profile schools don’t want to see their best players hawking the local strip bar so it would need to be regulated a bit. As for this making the teams even more uneven, perhaps, but it might have the opposite effect as the teams are already way uneven without a payment system. With 3rd party sponsorship then lower level schools with rather enthusiastic boosters can upgrade their program directly, just like SMU did (ha ha).
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There is something to be said for the sanctity of the sport as it currently is, and the “innocence” of amateur athletic competition. College sports has a good thing going and player payments might ruin it in important ways.
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I don’t think free agency in the NFL did much for the sport of professional football as now players change teams so often that the teams lose their identity. It’s one city’s uniforms playing another city’s uniforms. But if you expect me to complain about Tom Brady going to the Tampa … I won’t. The uneven payrolls in professional baseball make it rather hard to consistently compete with the Yankees.
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Free agency was a benefit to the players, not the sport. In the same way I think it is players who are getting screwed in college sports and this overrides my sentimental feelings about college football. So I support players getting paid, but will watch the sport either way.
The CDC emerges from their ultra-conservative shell for the vaccinated.
“People who are fully vaccinated against the new coronavirus can gather privately in small groups without masks or physical distancing, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, relaxing safety guidelines for inoculated individuals under some circumstances.”
“The CDC said people who are fully vaccinated against the virus can visit with unvaccinated members of a single household without wearing masks or maintaining social distancing as long as those people are at low risk for severe cases of Covid-19. Vaccinated individuals don’t need to quarantine or receive a Covid-19 test after being exposed to the virus if they don’t have any symptoms, the CDC said.”
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It’s still conservative, but at least they resisted the impulse to go stupid conservative to the point where they would be ignored. These recommendations were delayed which I think signaled a lot of infighting over them.
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https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated-guidance.html
Tom Scharf,
“It’s still conservative, but at least they resisted the impulse to go stupid conservative to the point where they would be ignored.”
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In reality, they are largely ignored already in most places, and that will only become more common. I am now fully vaccinated; I’ll wear a mask where it is required to enter a building, but never if it is not. Really, with near zero risk of symptomatic illness for me and very low risk of transmission as well (studies already indicate ~80% reduction in transmission among those who are vaccinated but still contract asymptomatic covid-19), masks make zero sense. The greater the fraction of truly at-risk people who are vaccinated, the less sense the CDC guidelines make.
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In the states where they still have not prioritized people truly at risk of death, yes, continued mask wearing may saves some elderly lives… but that is only because those states’ vaccination priorities are foolish. A 26 YO grocery checkout clerk needs the vaccination more than a 69 YO shopping in the same store? The foolishness is so profound that it is almost shocking. A 36 YO working on a trash collection truck is higher priority than a 64 YO grandmother? Idiots run these states.
They made no recommendations on travel, I guess that fight didn’t get resolved. You know some people there are in CYA mode, but at least there are some people there who apparently are trying. Setting it up so vaccinated people have greater recommended “rights” might be helpful to motivating more people to get vaccinated. We probably don’t need the Vaccine Stasi checking papers at the entrance to restaurants and such though.
Tom Scharf,
“….Vaccine Stasi checking papers at the entrance to restaurants and such though.”
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When I got my second dose, I was instructed to be careful to not lose my official, signed and dated, yellow CDC vaccination card…… ‘just in case you need it in the future to prove you were vaccinated’. Ominous, but not surprising with the Biden administration in office and both Houses of Congress controlled by Democrats. I have no doubt that there is a frighteningly common ‘show me your papers!’ Stazi-like mindset among those in charge in Washington DC right now.
Re SteveF (Comment #199798)
SteveF I’m glad to hear you and others here are doing at least some of the things CDC recommends .
CDC just released recommendations today for vaccinated people in non-healthcare settings.
Key Points
This is the first set of public health recommendations for fully vaccinated people… For the purposes of this guidance, people are considered fully vaccinated for COVID-19 ≥2 weeks after they have received the second dose in a 2-dose series (Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna), or ≥2 weeks after they have received a single-dose vaccine (Johnson and Johnson [J&J]/Janssen ).â€
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Fully vaccinated people can:
1.Visit with other fully vaccinated people indoors without wearing masks or physical distancing.
2.Visit with unvaccinated people from a single household who are at low risk for severe COVID-19 disease indoors without wearing masks or physical distancing.
3.Refrain from quarantine and testing following a known exposure if asymptomatic.
For now, fully vaccinated people should continue to:
1.Take precautions in public like wearing a well-fitted mask and physical distancing.
2.Wear masks, practice physical distancing, and adhere to other prevention measures when visiting with unvaccinated people who are at increased risk for severe COVID-19 disease or who have an unvaccinated household member who is at increased risk for severe COVID-19 disease.
3.Wear masks, maintain physical distance, and practice other prevention measures when visiting with unvaccinated people from multiple households.
4.Avoid medium- and large-sized in-person gatherings.
5.Get tested if experiencing COVID-19 symptoms.
6.Follow guidance issued by individual employers.
7.Follow CDC and health department travel requirements and recommendations.
For more info see https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated-guidance.html
OK_Max,
Yes, I saw the recommendations. They are silly, and quite disconnected from reality. They are mainly bureaucratic CYA, and not informed by any rational risk analysis as far as I can tell. The recommendations sound like they were written by a committee that could barely reach a consensus on anything. Most people who are already vaccinated will ignore those silly recommendations, as will I…. just as I, and most people in Florida, have been ignoring their recommendations all along.
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I expect the individual states will take the lead opening things up (Texas, Alabama, the Dakotas, Connecticut, and of course Florida). Count on others making announcements soon. It is all over except the shouting by the CDC and the MSM. Reality on the ground will outrun the hysteria pretty quickly.
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Have you been vaccinated? I hope so.
NYT: “The number of unaccompanied migrant children detained along the southern border has tripled in the last two weeks to more than 3,250, filling facilities akin to jails as the Biden administration struggles to find room for them in shelters, according to documents obtained by The New York Times.
More than 1,360 of the children have been detained beyond the 72 hours permitted by law before a child must be transferred to a shelter, according to one of the documents, dated March 8. The figures highlight the growing pressure on President Biden to address the increased number of people trying to cross the border in the belief that he will be more welcoming to them than former President Donald J. Trump was.”
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That sure sounds suspiciously like “kids in cages” to me. I guess the linguistic stylists worked overtime today. A kinder, gentler cage made from 100% empathy no doubt. At least we have people who give great performances about caring in charge now, it makes all the difference.
I’m going on vacation on Thursday and am flying to Oklahoma. I haven’t been able to get vaccinated but am not worried about covid19. It’s a small risk compared to my other risks such as a heart attack. I did buy some N95 masks though but I am not going to wear them while there. There are going to be some large social gatherings and I’m assuming there will be no masks there either and that’s fine with me. It does look like the epidemic in Oklahoma is dying out rapidly. My brother reports his hospitals are way down in ICU covid patients. However, ICU’s are still full due to people who didn’t come in for treatment when they got ill (too scared) and are now on death’s door. A lot of fine wine will be consumed.
David Young,
I don’t know your age, but if over 65, there is significant risk of severe illness if you contract the virus (difficult to say exactly, but likely over 5%), so I hope you minimize your risk of exposure as much as possible. N95 masks, if properly fitted, almost certainly reduce risk significantly. Before vaccination, I tried to evaluate risk by considering the number of people with whom I would be in contact, the duration, whether or not that exposure would be indoors or outdoors, and most of all the ‘density’ of contact… with a crowded bar being about the worst possible place to visit for all those things.
There was one twitter thread showing how “Biden’s cages” were actually pretty good. Better than they had growing up. They didn’t realize the pictures were from 2019.
This may be just a definitional thing, but I’m confused…
There have been many news articles about the CDC reporting a drop of over one year in US life expectancy, due to the pandemic. Certainly many lives have been cut short, and no statistical analysis can reduce the loss, but my understanding of “life expectancy” is the number of years that a newborn is expected to live. As newborns have been affected little-to-none from the pandemic, I don’t understand why life expectancy is lower. [If the CDC claimed that life expectancy for someone born in, say, 1950 was reduced, then that would make sense.]
Is there some other definition, say a weighted average of age-at-death, which makes more sense to have been reduced by a year?
I couldn’t find the report at the CDC website, and what I did find there (from 2018) described “life expectancy at birth”, which is what I thought it meant (see above).
[Edit add: I found the report on which the news articles apparently were based, which states, “In the first half of 2020, life expectancy at birth for the total U.S. population was 77.8 years, declining by 1.0 year from 78.8 in 2019”. I’m still confused…do they expect the pandemic to continue and affect 2021 babies? ]
HaroldW,
Sure the life expectancy is from birth. There are also life expectancies for different starting ages. But I don’t know any way of calculating life expectancy other than using the median age at death for the members of a particular population group.
https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy-how-is-it-calculated-and-how-should-it-be-interpreted
Speaking of bars, we just learned our neighbor’s boyfriend died from covid. He was a saxophone player in a band and continued playing through the pandemic. 64 years old without significant comorbidities. He ended up transmitting it to our neighbor who had minor symptoms. Playing a wind instrument in a band in a bar is not ideal to say the least. Stay disciplined where you can. Hopefully most people can be vaccinated in the next several months.
Biden is telling federal sites in Florida to prioritize teachers over seniors. Vaccinating 25 year old teachers over 65 year old’s is ridiculous, but we knew this was always going to be political. State sites are still seniors first among a list of other stuff now. Florida state sites are 60+ as of next week.
They’re probably referring to something like quality-adjusted life-years.
HaroldW (Comment #199840): “[Edit add: I found the report on which the news articles apparently were based, which states, “In the first half of 2020, life expectancy at birth for the total U.S. population was 77.8 years, declining by 1.0 year from 78.8 in 2019â€. I’m still confused…do they expect the pandemic to continue and affect 2021 babies?”
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They are assuming that the deaths in the coming year will be identical to last year. Then again in 2022, 2023, 2024 …
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The calculation is totally bogus. The actual shortening of life expectancy from the epidemic is something like 5 days. I suspect that might be generous due to ignoring the fact that most of the people who died had shorter life expectancy than average for their age.
Mike M.,
If there was indeed a drop in life expectancy, I doubt much of it was from the pandemic for the reasons you cite. But I believe there are still a lot of people overdosing on opioids and there’s a possible continuing increase in the suicide rate in the 10-24 age group. Deaths in that age group would have a much larger effect on life expectancy than COVID-19 deaths in the 80+ cohort.
The Atlantic with a long article on how to save our “Democracy”.
How to Put Out Democracy’s Dumpster Fire
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/04/the-internet-doesnt-have-to-be-awful/618079/
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There is definitely a dumpster fire here, ha ha.
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“Other countries are already focusing their regulatory efforts on engineering and design. France has discussed appointing an algorithm auditor, who would oversee the effects of (Facebook, Twiiter) platform engineering on the French public.”
“The EU doesn’t want to create a 1984-style “Ministry of Truth,†VÄ›ra Jourová has said, but it cannot ignore the existence of “organized structures aimed at sowing mistrust, undermining democratic stability.†Action must be taken against “inauthentic use†and “automated exploitation†if they harm “civic discourse,—
“Maybe it’s time to let independent researchers test the impact of algorithms, share the results, and—with the public’s participation—decide which ones are most useful.
This project should engage anyone who cares about the health of our democracy.”
“Of course, moderated public-service social media can’t be created for free. It needs funding, just like the BBC. Zuckerman suggests raising the money through a tax on online advertising that collects lots of user data—perhaps a 2 percent levy to start:”
“One possible solution to the anonymity problem…”.
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I definitely recommend you not read this gigantic pile of dog turds unless you want more insight into how disconnected the elite media have become. This is * exactly * a proposition for The Ministry of Truth and the punishment of wrong think by unaccountable alleged experts. Benevolent experts will choose who is allowed to speak and what they can say. Humorously these are the same people who say they are saving us from authoritarianism as they construct their own explicit regime of the very same.
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Why don’t we trust the elite media? Because they write stuff like this.
Tom Scharf,
I believe you have found a new oxymoron: benevolent experts.
Tom Scharf,
“Vaccinating 25 year old teachers over 65 year old’s is ridiculous”
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Yup, it is as stupid as an old man suffering dementia.
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It is good that DeSantis opened it to 60 and over next week…. When the age cut-off reaches 50 and over, virtually everyone likely to die from the virus will have had an opportunity to receive a vaccine. I noted that Florida’s 7 day rolling average of reported deaths dropped over the past several days and now stands at 108 deaths per day. Should that trend continue for a week or two, Florida’s death rate per million will be about half of California’s…… without the crazy lock-downs.
It took FL’s death toll approx. forever to start reflecting its case count declines, it was getting pretty mysterious. About a 5 to 6 week lag depending on how you eyeball it. It’s pretty noisy data.
Looking back I think the covid hospitalization trend is probably the best metric to use for real time analysis but it is not done the same everywhere.
Follow-up on the “life expectancy” topic…
I read the CDC’s report. They have a model wherein at age 0, there is a probability q0 of dying before age 1; at age 1, there is a probability q1 of dying before age 1; and so on in 5-year age groups. (See table I-1 here.)
Based on the death rate Jan-June 2020, the conditional probabilities for the upper age groups especially would have increased. (And I wouldn’t be surprised if the death rate will be even higher for July-Dec 2020 or Jan-Dec 2020, whichever they use for the next update.)
The methodology would seem to provide accurate estimates of life expectancy (at any age) for the prior period. And would be a reasonable baseline for (remaining) life expectancy, *assuming little change in overall circumstances*. That clearly is not true at the moment!
Best comparison I could find for Table I-1 cited in comment above is Table 1 of United States Life Tables for 2018. I compared the column “Ix”, the number of people (out of 100K) surviving to age x. For ages 25 and up, Ix was smaller in 2020 than in 2018, with only minor changes (<1%) until age 50, and generally increasing with age, as one would expect.
Oddly, the (remaining) life expectancy for ages 80 & up was slightly higher in 2020 than in 2018.
Thanks SteveF, The way I look at it is as follows.
My chances of having a heart attack are between 1% and 2% per year depending on which risk calculator you use.
There are about 600 cases of Covid per day in Oklahoma, population about 4 million. Assuming each case is contageous for perhaps 14 days that means 0.21% are contageous on average. If I come into contact with 6 non-vaccinated people, the chances one of them is contageous is about 1.2%. Probably chances of transmission are only moderate, maybe 20%, if I am in contact with someone who is contageous. So, its a small risk.
David Young,
Are you the self-same dpy6629? You write in very similar ways and about similar things.
Here’s a stupid question regarding David Youngs above calculations. My daughter came home on Wednesday before Thanksgiving and stayed with us through Sunday. Unbeknownst to us she was Covid positive so we interacted with her as normal. She really wanted to learn how to cook a traditional thanksgiving dinner so I spent an entire day in the kitchen with her looking over her shoulder telling her what to do but not doing it (her mom would’ve fulfilled this role but she has problems with hard boiled eggs).
We spent the evenings hanging out on the couch watching horror/sci fi movies. One of her roommates (she’s got three) moved back to Cal and had to be tested so all of the other girls also had to be tested at CU boulder when they got back. She tested positive on Tuesday and negative on Thursday when she took the last roommate to her appointment. Anyways ( wow, too long) how infectious should she have been when we’re hanging out shoulder to shoulder. Also, her senior in high school brother who assuredly shared some “beverages†with her over the weekend had to get tested before he could go back to school. He was negative.
Shouldn’t this have been a worse case spreader event?
Tom Scharf,
“It took FL’s death toll approx. forever to start reflecting its case count declines, it was getting pretty mysterious. About a 5 to 6 week lag depending on how you eyeball it.”
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There is clearly a longer delay between reported cases and deaths than seemed evident early in the pandemic. Part of that is just that people are likely getting diagnosed earlier, so the time between diagnosis and death seems longer, even if the time between contracting the virus and death has not changed much. Part of it may be that different people are catching the virus when a surge is on the upswing to the peak (younger people who are less likely to die) than when in is in decline (older people more likely to die). It is also possible that more effective (less damaging?) hostital treatment has extended the time between diagnosis and death.
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In Florida, a big part of it is just the delay between date of covid related death and reporting that same death. I think that reporting alone adds on the order of 10 days to the apparent time between diagnosis and death.
Jerry,
Somewhere in the last thread I related two similar instances where spread should certainly have happened, but didn’t. Of 8 potential victims in two different households (one 35 to 40 YO carrier in each family), only three ever tested positive: one asymptomatic (6 YO), one very mild (9 YO), and one with unpleasant symptoms (22 YO). It seems that there is a significant fraction of people who are either asymptomatic or naturally resistant enough to not ever test positive.
Which may be part of why many places that have not come anywhere near 70% infected appear now well past the herd immunity threshold. (60% to 70% infected were some early estimates of the herd immunity threshold)
I think there is a lot of variability in how any one person sheds virus, and when they catch it and when you are close to them matters. Some “experts” say that 10% of the people are responsible for 80% of the spread, although their data to support that seems rather sketchy. There is probably also variability in how susceptible a person is to catching the virus. Peak transmission occurs 2 days before and after symptoms show up and virus shedding is almost entirely gone within 7 days of symptom onset for most people.
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Given all that, the statistics I have seen show only about a 24% chance your spouse will catch it, and 17% chance another family member get it will once it is introduced into the house. Sometimes the whole house will get sick and other times nobody will. Ventilation, genetics, bad luck? Who knows.
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The flu is highly contagious yet everyone has typically had the experience of only one family member getting sick and everyone else staying healthy by just keeping their distance from the sick person.
Yes SteveF I comment elsewhere as dpy6629 which is my WordPress user ID.
Jerry, I think its probably true that a lot of asymptotic individuals are not really contagious, i.e., have a low viral load. There has been a snipe hunt on for over a year to document asymptotic spread and its mostly come up empty according to what I’ve read. That’s particularly true for young people. Covid19 is mostly a risk for people over 70 who are already in poor health.
On an earlier thread, I linked an article on the flu that said that the secondary attack rate of the flu is inexplicably low, meaning that a lot of people are not susceptible for some reason that remains a mystery. So a lot of people are in close contact with infected people and escape unscathed. It is one of the many areas where viral epidemiology is deeply ignorant. The obvious consequence is that those who say “follow the science” are probably lying to you.
We’ve had lots of out of town guests over the last year and noone wore masks around the house. Only out in public did we mask up.
I don’t remember if I mentioned this here, but I did some calculations for 2020 and found that across all age groups you were 8 times more likely to die of something other than covid19 over the course of the year.
“‘just in case you need it in the future to prove you were vaccinated’. Ominous..”
Doesnt seem too unreasonable to me. Israel is doing it. I suspect quite a few countries (including mine, NZ) are likely to be requiring proof of vaccine, in some not-easily-forged manner, to get quarantine-free access. Quite a lot of discussion here about how this would be achieved with a long look at what Israel is doing. At moment, returning NZers need a negative test to even get on a plane and yet planes from certain countries are arriving with a lot of infected passengers. Ok, it could be just that country is rather germy, but I also wonder if it is possible to just purchase a negative test.
“Jerry, I think its probably true that a lot of asymptotic individuals are not really contagious, i.e., have a low viral load. There has been a snipe hunt on for over a year to document asymptotic spread and its mostly come up empty according to what I’ve read.â€
I forgot to mention all four of the ladies living in the house at CU Boulder tested positive. They all got “sick†roughly at the same time so either they had a super spreader show up one day or more likely one of them got sick and spread it to the other three. I put sick in quotes because two of them had no idea they had the virus, my daughter had a messed up smelling response for a few weeks (after Thanksgiving) and the fourth one had minor symptoms.
This is more about me trying to figure out my relative risk in society when I had her in my arms and kissing her and when she should have been most infective. Makes me even less worried about Lois the 80 year old grocery check out woman at my grocery store.
Phil, You point out a problem with all these passport schemes and that is cheating. I know in the US, we can’t even test illegal aliens crossing out border because it might point to a problem with our open borders policy. There is no way average Americans are going to go for mandatory testing policies. I know a few places in the US have them but it won’t happen in most places. There will be court challenges if it becomes more widespread.
Phil Scadden,
“Doesnt seem too unreasonable to me.”
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Depends a lot on what it is used for. If NZ wants some kind of proof for entry, that is fine; probably not practical long term, but as an initial over-reaction to a pandemic? Sure. I wonder, will NZ also set a long list of proof of other vaccinations one must have to enter NZ?
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But if I have to ‘show my papers’ to enter a restaurant, or fly from Miami to Chicago, that is not fine. Until now, the ‘cost’ (financial, personal, educational) of protecting those at significant personal risk has been mostly shifted to the large majority of people who actually have little or no personal risk from covid-19. With widespread availability of effective vaccines, who should bear the ‘cost’ of not spreading coronavirus should not even be a public policy question…. those who don’t want to get the vaccine accept the associated risk of serious illness and death. Full stop. No need for government to be involved at all.
Phil, does NZ require photo ID to vote? Just trying to calibrate what’s considered reasonable and what’s considered not reasonable.
Vaccination proof is reasonable if you are like NZ, one of the very few places in the world with a vulnerable population and without widespread community transmission. Hopefully NZ can hold on until they get mass vaccinated. Allowing one of the more transmissible variants to get loose in NZ is not a good situation.
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It gets less reasonable in other places, but it depends. Even in the US I think it is reasonable to require vaccination before you visit a place like an old folks home or perhaps a hospital.
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Then there are places like restaurants where the risk is primarily born by the unvaccinated unto themselves. So that is a different story.
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I still see almost no sign of a public vaccination messaging campaign in the US. With the 65+ vaccination rate stopping at around 60% or so I think this is not a great sign. It’s unclear exactly what can be done to increase the uptake, but they should try something. As with everything covid, there is little sign anyone is thinking ahead.
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If the $1400 stimulus payments were contingent on vaccination I bet we would see a higher uptake. Passing out $100 bills at the vaccination site would also be quite helpful. I have a feeling this is somehow illegal though, and if this set a precedent of payment for citizen behavior we would start seeing all kinds of malfeasance for proper behavior payments from the usual suspects.
Ahem … this how academia is now testing whether somebody is a racist, from the NYT:
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“The dog whistle messages tested by Lake Research included:
Taking a second look at illegal immigration from places overrun with drugs and criminal gangs, is just common sense. And so is fully funding the police, so our communities are not threatened by people who refuse to follow our laws.
And
We need to make sure we take care of our own people first, especially the people who politicians have cast aside for too long to cater to whatever special interest groups yell the loudest or riot in the street.
The receptivity of Hispanics to such messages led Haney-López to conclude that “those Latinos most likely to vote Republican do so for racial reasons.â€
What matters most, Haney-López continued, “is susceptibility to Republican ‘dog whistle’ racial frames that trumpet the threat from illegal aliens, rapists, rioters and terrorists.â€
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The reality here is most people know how to answer “correctly” to any obvious racial framing to a pollster question, so the academics who just know their outgroup is driven by racial animus have to resort to increasingly clever ways to root out such immorality in their outgroup. It’s so clever that they never use race in the question to discern racism. In this case the only reason Hispanics would vote Republican is because they are immoral.
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Now one could simply ask Hispanics why they vote they way they do and take them at their word, but that would be just silly.
Tom,
Doubtless they are too oppressed to have enough agency to realize why they vote the way they vote. Once they are liberated they will understand…
Don’t you have to be a racist to know when a particular framing is a ‘dog whistle’? After all, in the real world isn’t a dog whistle something only dogs can hear? I bet with not much effort one could find statements you could label as progressive ‘dog whistles’ too. The front pages of the NYT, WaPo and probably the WSJ are likely full of them.
And in other news, the current Peronist regime in Argentina is about to send the Argentine economy further down the tubes. But that’s a given.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/argentina-tries-to-tax-and-spend-its-way-out-of-an-economic-crisis-11615291201
Tom Scharf,
“I still see almost no sign of a public vaccination messaging campaign in the US. With the 65+ vaccination rate stopping at around 60% or so I think this is not a great sign.”
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I agree, this is going to cost a lot of lives. Government agencies should be constantly beating the drum: ‘get vaccinated, save yourself’, but they are not. IMO, a big mistake, with very bad consequences for minorities, who seem less willing than average to be vaccinated.
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Today may wife (64.98 YO) got her first dose, as did one of my Brazilian business associates (76 YO). The vaccine he got in Brazil was the Chinese vaccine, licensed for local production in Brazil. Efficacy data for the vaccine is limited, but it is surely better than nothing.
DeWitt,
I have business dealings with a company in Argentina. The current situation is a nightmare.
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With inflation running rampant, and the Argentine government willing to change the currency rules at any time, it is very difficult to have a normal business transaction…. I mean, you could agree on a price, get a binding purchase order, and make delivery, but the government could simply prohibit payment at any time…. so the supplier runs a terrible risk. Not to mention the added risk of the customer simply refusing to pay when their Argentine currency falls in dollar terms so much they don’t have the funds available to convert to dollars.
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Even normal backstops like a bank letter of credit are no guarantee… the government can block those as well. Only pre-payment before shipment works… and is (shockingly enough) usually refused by the Argentine company.
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Argentina is screwed; stupid government leads to bad economic outcomes. Watch what happens with the demented Biden Administration.
The people at the NYT and academia would never turn that clever psychoanalysis back on themselves, their stated virtue can be taken on its word alone. They don’t have outgroups they are prejudiced against, well, no outgroups they aren’t justifiably prejudiced against.
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See the big lecture on it being OK to be intolerant against the (perceived) intolerant. All you have to do is make some measure of the principled positions of your opponents as having disparate outcomes and then declare those positions as secretly based on “hate”. No further discussion on the subject needed.
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This rationalization is really aimed at the ingroup, a veneer to justify the open prejudice against one’s ideological opponents while retaining one’s own virtue. The outgroup just looks at this type of psycho babble and says “what are you talking about?”. As in the above example the issues of immigration and police are short circuited to simple racism with the wave of a credentialed magic wand. It’s a warning to the ingroup to stay on the … blantation … oops … bleservation lest you be ostracized. This is obviously psychologically effective or it wouldn’t be used so often. It’s universal across cultures and history, although the conformity police on the left is getting rather rigid lately.
Steve F
“he vaccine he got in Brazil was the Chinese vaccine, licensed for local production in Brazil. Efficacy data for the vaccine is limited, but it is surely better than nothing.”
Don’t you mean “the vaccine that originated in China?”
But seriously, we may get an indication of how effective it is soon from UAE. They started administering it in December and last I heard, had exceeded 20% vaccination rate in January. Should be much higher by now, but they’ve been using other vaccines as well. Probably too early to tell.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/united-arab-emirates/
“does NZ require photo ID to vote”
You need one of drivers licence, passport or RealMe identities to be able to enrol to vote. Once enrolledYou get sent a voting bar code card every election which you use at booth. You can vote without, just by giving name and address. The system is very manual, no machines. Cross your name off register, issue you papers, vote etc. Dead easy to vote fraudulently, but hard to do it in a way that will get your vote actually counted and not facing a court charge. You would have to claim to be someone who you knew for sure was not voting. Detected case of fraud are extremely low.
Local body elections are done by mail mostly with STV system.
SteveF I wonder, will NZ also set a long list of proof of other vaccinations one must have to enter NZ?
Lots of people asking the same question here. I suspect the vaccination passport will be temporary measure till general population is vaccinated but we will see. Many see it as a way to give oxygen to struggling tourist business.
While vaccine supply is limited, I can see that Israel “Green Pass” approach has its advantages, but I suspect too nanny-state for US.
Kind of hard to figure out yesterday’s CDC recommendation that unvaccinated people can now visit old folks homes in light of telling people the fully vaccinated still shouldn’t travel earlier this week. Seems rather inconsistent.
A couple brutal takedowns of elite private schools. Somehow I think they will survive the onslaught.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/04/private-schools-are-indefensible/618078/
“If these schools really care about equity, all they need to do is get a chain and a padlock and close up shop.”
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Bari Weiss: The Miseducation of America’s Elites
Affluent parents, terrified of running afoul of the new orthodoxy in their children’s private schools, organize in secret.
https://www.city-journal.org/the-miseducation-of-americas-elites
Am in the air en route to Oklahoma. SeaTac airport was very busy, as busy as before the pandemic. Everyone had a mask but mostly ignoring the 6 foot distancing thing. All seats on the airplane are full. I hate myN95 mask. It is hot and dogs up the glasses and reduces air flow when you are walking fast.
My sense is people are fed up with public health officials passing off their wild ass guesses as science.
Yeah, I don’t recommend wearing an N95 while engaging in physical exertion, they’re hot and stuffy at the best of times.
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You can buy N95s with one way valves which allow you to inhale through a filter and exhale through a port. Solves many of the problems with the standard masks. These are popular with a lot of the health workers I see https://envomask.com/
Tom Scharf,
So now we know for sure, equity means dragging everyone down to the same level a la Harrison Bergeron.
DaveJR,
Valved masks aren’t allowed some places. They protect the wearer but not everyone around them.
John M,
The numbers from the UAE aren’t all that encouraging in spite of them having one of the highest vaccinations per capita in the world. Active cases bottomed out in early February and are now increasing. OTOH, they don’t list any serious,critical cases at worldometers.info, but I’m not sure if that actually means anything.
Brazil really looks bad. Yesterday they had the largest number of new cases and new deaths and those numbers are still trending up.
DeWitt,
Re Brazil: The Brazilians are, shall we say, usually less constrained in their personal behavior than people in the States. That, with a more contagious strain is causing lots of deaths. But I note that Brazil remains far lower per million population than the States or many European countries. Hard to say where their death total will end up, They have a younger population, but it is difficult for them to protect the elderly, and their vaccine effort is poor.
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I am going there in 3 weeks.
What a horrible, dishonest, divisive person Joe Biden is.
Maybe I should clarify that I am listening to his address.
I’m still waiting for all the unity to break out. When does that happen?
The Democrats will not permit unity when they are out of power.
The Democrats will not permit unity when they are in power, as long as there is any opposition.
So there are two ways that we might achieve some sort of unity. I sure hope the Democrat Party disassembles itself before it is too late.
Mike M,
He has dementia. It is his handlers setting up the text on the teleprompter. He is not going to remember what he said in a few days. Heck, he may not remember it now. The only unity Democrats are looking for is they get to enact all their crazy policies and nobody complains. Of course, it doesn’t work that way.
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I do think the push to enact a series of ‘progressive’ laws ASAP is a recognition that opposition will grow as people become more aware of what is being passed, and that control of the House is very likely to change hands in 22 months. Of course, undoing all the bad laws they pass will be impossible until at least January 2025. There is no doubt that progressives want to increase voter dependency on Federal handouts until it is almost impossible to reduce them… it is like a political ratchet strap. Same thing with letting in millions more illegal residents…. they know that at some point they will be able ‘solve’ the problem of illegal immigrants by giving them all citizenship. It is all about power with the left.
I just read the transcript (didn’t watch the address). Here and other places.
I didn’t think it was an awful speech.
Shrug.
I’ve heard (and not verified) that the ‘American Rescue Plan’ is chock full of goodies progressives want with a bloated price tag. OK, I can believe that. Biden tries to imply that Trump did nothing about the pandemic, OK, pretty much what I’d expect him to do. All seems pretty plain vanilla politics as usual to me.
mark bofill,
Aside from giving no credit to Trump, who certainly deserves some, the speech was mainly a plea to continue the foolish policies of Democrat governors, and to not return to anything like normal behaviors…. a plea for a painful, government mandated, forever “new normal”. It is bullshit, nothing more. People don’t need the Biden administration dictating their personal behaviors.
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As the number of vaccinated rises, the deaths will continue to fall rapidly. Unfortunately, some of those who refuse the vaccine will continue to die….. nobody’s fault but their own. Biden will use that as an excuse to force everyone into eternal lock-down hell. IMO, it is all crazy, and as demented as Biden is. When the vaccine is available to anyone who wants it, government pandemic policies should completely end. Full stop.
The stimulus significantly increases subsidies for Obamacare over the next two years. These increases effect the 50K to 100K income ranges and will “save” those on the exchanges $100’s of dollars a month. This is a backdoor to single payer. It will be difficult to reverse these in two years.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/10/upshot/stimulus-obamacare-lower-costs.html
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Nobody covered what was actually in this bill very well, the WP headlined it will “end poverty” ha ha. $1.9T is not interesting, but Cuomo kissing somebody at a wedding and the British royalty is wall to wall coverage.
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Cuomo looks like he is toast at this point, but I also find it curious that covering up nursing home deaths is seen as a misdemeanor and unproven harassment claims (many of which are pretty tame and rather old) are a 1st degree felony. Society can make up the rules it wants to live under, but I just find it strange.
mark bofill: “I’ve heard (and not verified) that the ‘American Rescue Plan’ is chock full of goodies progressives want with a bloated price tag.”
On last night’s news I heard a Republican comment that the bill was 8% for Covid. I haven’t verifietd, but I recall seeing an analysis of spending that put 90% in 2022 and later (hence not for Covid relief).
YMMV, but the fact that they tried to use the bill to increase the minimum wage, strongly suggests a pork-filled bill.
Btw, about $500 billion from previous bills has not been spent yet
Biden’s covid messaging is insane. People are going to go back to normal soon and no government insanity will stop that. Covid is just the latest crisis that offers an opportunity to increase the power of the administrative state and other elite institutions. Glen Greenwald has an excellent series of posts the last few days on this especially its manifestation in the corporate media. The elite media is now coming after independent outlets like Substack. That’s where Greenwald, Berri Weiss, Andrew Sullivan, and Matt Taibbi have ended up after being canceled by the corporate media. They are all moderates or far left of center. That doesn’t matter to the Twitter mob.
Tom Scharf,
” $1.9T is not interesting, but Cuomo kissing somebody at a wedding and the British royalty is wall to wall coverage.”
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You forgot the critical public policy issue of Cuomo groping under a staffer’s blouse. Who cares about all those dead nursing home residents? Like Cuomo said, “They are dead, who cares where they died?”
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The thing I find most amazing is not that Cuomo is a dishonest scumbag (that has been obvious to anyone paying the slightest attention to his escapades over the past years), and not that he has been covering up his own incompetence for nearly a year. The amazing thing is that he got away with harassing young women for so long. When his staff was moving employees around to keep them away from Cuomo, you would think that someone would blow the whistle… but nope, a serial sexual harasser (or maybe worse!) was never turned in. So much for the sincerity of democrats’ support for ‘Me too’.
David Young,
” They are all moderates or far left of center. That doesn’t matter to the Twitter mob.”
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The left, like most all totalitarians, ends up eating its own.
SSDD. Antifa protesters attack federal building the day fencing was removed for about the 100th time, chanting “f*** the United States”.
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/rioters-set-fire-to-federal-courthouse-in-portland-one-day-after-fencing-removed/
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In other news the WP reports the Justice Dept. aims to build big conspiracy case vs. Oath Keepers for Capitol riot. Prosecutors will have to show an agreement to commit an illegal act.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/oattkeepers-capitol-riots-conspiracy/2021/03/11/03c26114-8291-11eb-9ca6-54e187ee4939_story.html
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Those were the guys who hold the constitution sacred and were waving American flags, the irony is quite high. None of these people are saints, and I very much doubt either group represents any real danger to anything. However the double standard in the elite media is not being missed by anybody on the right. 9 weeks after the Capital riot, still no word on how Sicknick died.
mark bofill (Comment #199978): “I just read the transcript …
I didn’t think it was an awful speech.”
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Thanks for the link. Here is why I thought it awful.
Right off the bat, a veiled but still obvious slap at Trump. From a guy who says he is all about unity.
Scaremongering, especially since the dead were mostly people already in the closing act of their lives.
It was not the virus that did all that damage. It was misguided policy choices. And then Mr. Unity attacks those who dare to disagree with the misguided choices:
And then he goes for a vicious, divisive lie designed to denigrate Trump and his supportors:
But I guess you jave to give him credit for chutzpah:
He then dismisses out of hand the concerns of Trump and Trump voters:
Then he again claims that a lie is the truth:
Then paragraph after paragraph taking credit for all the good stuff that Trump did re the pandemic.
Biden is a lying, nasty, divisive man.
Steve,
I don’t disagree, but I think most speeches (not all) generally amount to bullshit.
Harold and others,
I agree with the general sentiment that the two trillion we just burned on this bill seems excessive relative to the benefits.
Mike,
I think you’re reading an interpretation into that speech that, while you may be able to make a good case is justified, isn’t obvious from the plain language.
He doesn’t say a word here about Trump or Trump supporters. You can say that you believe that’s what he meant, and maybe you can make that case. Still – reading the speech, that’s not what he said there.
I might add, I think Trump supporters have nothing in particular to do with people attacking Asian Americans. If somebody wants to make that argument, they need to make it, but I sure don’t see it.
[Edit: I think I recall Thomas Fuller making the argument here once, that calling COVID-19 ‘the Chinese Virus’ was going to lead to violence or hate crimes against Asian Americans. Personally, I’d like some evidence that Trump’s use of the term ‘Chinese virus’ had a direct causal relationship on Asian people getting attacked. I’m not holding my breath though.]
Here is an NPR article on anti-Asian attacks being higher than normal. I see nothing in the article that even vaguely insinuates Trump supporters are involved. I grant that this is most likely because the report is on incidents in California, which is as hard to sell as being ‘Maga Country’ as Chicago is.
Here the New York Times does try to connect a surge in violence against Asians to Trump, but once again. It’s New York [City]. Ah, New York, that hotbed of Trumpism.. It’s hard to take seriously, and I don’t think the idea is getting much traction.
Now – were it happening noticeably in Kentucky or Alabama, there’d be a story there.
mark bofill (Comment #199994): “I think you’re reading an interpretation into that speech that, while you may be able to make a good case is justified, isn’t obvious from the plain language.”
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Absolutely. Biden must have hired Obama’s old speechwriters. Sound reasonable while being divisive as H!!. Act like there is only one sane side of an issue so that anyone who disagrees is being perverse.
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Trump supporters are not attacking Asian American’s. Biden wants us to believe that they are. And that it is Trump’s fault.
Mike M,
” Biden must have hired Obama’s old speechwriters.”
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No doubt about it. There is no consideration of any substantive compromise on any issue, only “we will forgive you if you adopt our policies”. I thought Obama was the most divisive president of my lifetime…. and by far. The Biden administration seems sure to be much worse than Obama (maybe not Biden himself… he is in lala land after all). It is all “No compromise…. our way or the highway.” It will be straight party line votes on every issue, with a constant threat of doing away with the filibuster so they are not limited to reconciliation bills. Evil and stupid is the only description I can come up with.
I get that the claim is somewhat rhetorical / [only] meant to highlight the similarities between Obama’s infamous “post-partisan” notions of unity and Biden’s, but in point of fact AFAICT the speechwriters aren’t the same.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_Director_of_Speechwriting
In other news, Florida’s 7-day trailing average of reported coid-19 deaths dropped below 100 for the first time since November. Based on the state’s reporting method, I expect Florida will drop to between 60 and 70 deaths per day within a couple of weeks. The problem now in Florida is those who refuse the vaccine…. apparently over 20% of seniors. Everyone over 65 has been offered the vaccines. Next week the minimum age drops to 60 in Florida, and I expect to 55 a few weeks later.
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On a per-million basis, saintly California (yes, true saints like Newsom are often very crazy) remains about 25% above Florida in daily deaths. Those endless lock-downs, not to mention no in-person schooling for a year, sure have save a lot of lives… not!
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OTOH, evil Florida has offered in-person public schooling to every child since September; I keep expecting an expose on the body count, but nothing so far!
I’m no fun. On a lighter note, ya’ll be good obedient citizens and Joe will allow you some limited freedoms on the 4’th! Heh.
mark bofill,
” Biden must have hired Obama’s old speechwriters. ”
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No, only the leftist hive mind is the same. Numb skulls, who wouldn’t know the truth if it jumped up and bit them in the behind, are completely interchangeable.
mark,
It is becoming very difficult for the Bee to lampoon these folks….. they are so far removed from reality, and adopt such crazy policy positions, that one is hard pressed to generate a parody that doesn’t overlap their actual positions too much.
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Which is (of course) why a satirical site like the Bee is getting ‘fact-checked’ by the woke crazies in the MSM. The absurd satire becomes so close to reality that it is actually hard to distinguish.
Steve,
I completely agree.
Well the epidemic of hate crimes against Asians is invisible in the media if it exists at all. This is clearly some twisted attempt to cast blame on to those who called it the Chinese virus for something that is at worst a minor problem. All the while ignoring the fact that murders were up 30% in 2020, a vastly worse problem. In short Biden brings up something that can only divide us over an issue that could be just part of the general increase in crime caused by Democrats and their elite allies inventing an epidemic of racist police violence. It’s an ideological big lie that is killing thousands of mostly innocent people.
I did see a couple places try to tie the Asian hate crimes to Trump supporters. It was a complete hand wave, and as they say “without evidenceâ€. The increase here is self reported crimes to some Asian ACLU type of organization. They just started keeping statistics for the last year so it’s quite unclear how there can be a big surge reported.
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/the-media-serves-consumers-poorly/
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It might be a complete mirage, but we shall see. I do expect that people attacking Asians are likely to fit the typically profile of random assaults, that being mostly Asian on Asian (most assaults are same race on same race) and for the rest well … ummm … the typical profile. See the DOJ website for statistics.
https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/ucr.asp?table_in=2&selYrs=2019&rdoGroups=1&rdoData=r
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I think the bulk of progressives likely don’t know about violent crime statistics, just talking about them usually invokes accusations of racism.
Well, as Biden said “we choose truth over facts.”
Lucia interesting…..[vaccine side effects] ” but whole-body reactions, such as fatigue, headache, chills, fever, and muscle or joint pains, were more frequently reported by those who had recovered from COVID-19.”
Antibody Responses in Seropositive Persons after a Single Dose of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccine
https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMc2101667
also rhttps://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/why-vaccine-side-effects-might-be-more-common-people-whove-already-had-covid-19
Not to forget:
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“If people want to really blow up one figure here or one word there, I would argue that they’re missing the forest for the trees. There’s a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right.†– AOC
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Hmm, yes. Missing the forest for the trees. Clearly, the trees need running through a Briffa, Jones, and Mann data mining operation, with the addition of a few tricks, so the true shape of the forest can be discerned.
Russel Klier,
Which I take as evidence that people who have recovered from a confirmed COVID-19 infection and have circulating antibodies (seropositive) don’t need to be vaccinated, at least not yet.
DeWitt…. yes, And I am taking it to mean I had antibodies when I took the first shot (probably). I had immediate ( after 8 hours) systemic side effects.
Actual sentence from The Atlantic, not satire:
“And what can California leaders do to get environmental review out of the way of saving the environment?â€
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/signature-environmental-law-hurts-housing/618264/
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What? Environmental review is really about rent seeking and can be used by anyone? What a terrible situation. Only the virtuous should be allowed to use such power.
Tom,
My first reaction was “another case of unintended consequences of apparently well-intentioned law”. But it seems less that, and more a case of unintended consequences of expansive judicial interpretation. From the article you cited:
This implies that the CA legislature has allowed this interpretation for 50 years, so the responsibility for keeping this Pandora’s box of lawfare open, lies with them.
Russel, DeWiit,
In fact the frequency of reported systemic reactions was higher among people who got the Moderna vaccine if they had no precious exposure (disclosed in the FDA summary of the Moderna phase III trial). The difference was ~30% more instances of reported systemic reactions among those with no previous exposure to covid-19.
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Oddly enough, in the very few instances were systemic side effects were bad enough to cause withdrawal from the study prior to the second dose, it was mainly among people who DID have earlier exposure to covid-19. Only frequency of severe systemic side effects was increased by previous exposure…. milder and much more common systemic side effects were not increased by previous exposure…. just the opposite.
The Covid tracking site I had been using to monitor hospitalizations stopped reporting a week ago. Looking at CDC numbers it looks like hospitalizations are at a minimum level not seen since early April 2020, but I’m not sure.
SteveF Could you post a link to the data you are quoting?
Russell,
Page 36 of this document:
https://www.fda.gov/media/144585/download
By the end of the 15th century, 35
Environmental law has been used by CA elites to stop “greedy corporate developers” for decades now. There was very little pretense left that it had anything to do with the environment, it was simply legal roadblocks to increase costs and time to the point that developers would mostly not even attempt to build anything in certain areas. They can just keep filing suits on threatened snails and so forth.
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My take on the article is that great umbrage is being taken that the wrong people are now misusing the law. Greedy corporate developers were trying to build the exact same things the new virtuous people are who want to decrease housing costs. This exposes the façade of environmentalism being used as cover for the more mundane NIMBY’ism that even the self declared virtuous have in spades once they sniff a multifamily dwelling (aka crack house) going up within 5 miles of their neighborhood.
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Symbolic virtue is much more important than actual virtue, so the expectation here is nothing will really change. It’s the same as people pointing out “vaccine nationalism” where the US is hogging up all the vaccines. People will idealistically point out the unfairness of this but will be the first person in line locally when the time comes for their own vaccine.
Russell,
pages 35 and 36.
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I am guessing Boschbnv is a bot
SteveF,
Yeah… I got back from St. Louis and wasn’t sure so I approved that. I’m waiting to see if more bot-like stuff shows up.
Florida’s 7 day trailing average of reported deaths has fallen from its January peak of 178 to 86, and the decline now looks quite steep. Cases remain near 4,500 per day, and falling only slowly. Since about 20-25% of those over 65 are refusing the vaccines (so far), I would not be surprised to see deaths level off between 20 and 40 per day….. unfortunate.
Israel vaccinated 86% of their over 65 population, so that is probably the top end of what anyone can expect. I saw lots of old people still in line at my grocery store so the FL numbers should continue to go up, but I very much doubt we will hit 80%.
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I finally figured out how they are assessing demand. They monitor how long appointments take to sell out. FL’s “softening demand†is that appointments now take an hour to sell out in some places versus 10 minutes. What that means to the ultimate vaccination rate is unknown.
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FL opened up 60+ today. FL population:
65+ = 4.7M
60-65 = 1.4M
55-60 = 1.4M
WSJ: South Africa’s Drop in Covid-19 Cases Adds to Questions About Waves of Infections
Surprising decline after surge shows scientists still have much to learn about how the coronavirus moves through society
https://www.wsj.com/articles/south-africas-drop-in-covid-19-cases-adds-to-questions-about-waves-of-infections-11615734003
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“The cause of this steep decline in cases remains somewhat of a mystery. As in other countries that have at some point experienced surprising drops in Covid-19 cases—such as India, Pakistan and some parts of Brazil—epidemiologists and virologists are piecing together different explanations for why the outbreak in South Africa isn’t following patterns set elsewhere.”
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“Anybody who professes certainty [about why infections started dropping] is lying,†said Harry Moultrie, a senior medical epidemiologist at South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases, or NICD. “There is so much uncertainty in all of this.â€
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This has always been the red flag for me that they don’t have a handle on transmission. The failure to be able to predict things is an indication that science doesn’t understand something very well, and they are constantly overstating their knowledge in my view.
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There are confounders, public behavior can’t always be predicted if it is changing and modeling exponential processes can have huge errors with minor model problems.
Tom Scharf,
Once Florida offers vaccinations to everyone over 45, it will be all over but the shouting…. virtually all covid-19 deaths after that point will be the fault of the dead themselves….. people who refused the vaccines. We are probably not more than 3 months from that point…. maybe sooner. I sure wish there were a active advertising campaign to try to convince more people over 55 to get the vaccinations.
Two people were charged with “assault with a deadly weapon” on Officer Sicknick for spraying him with chemical spray. Notably they aren’t being charged with homicide. Cause of death remains unknown. Not sure when pepper spray became a deadly weapon, my guess is that won’t hold up.
There is some interesting psychology going on. Many retirement home staff refusing the vaccine who have watched lots of people die. My neighbor who watched her boyfriend die says she doesn’t want it, or is hesitant. I think this indicates some very deep seated emotional barriers in place that will be hard to overcome. The fear of the unknown from a vaccine trumps the known fear of covid. That’s not a quantifiable equation this early unfortunately, and people will rely on their gut instinct.
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The media isn’t particularly helpful. Today:
Germany, France and Italy Join Others in Pausing Use of AstraZeneca’s Vaccine Due To Blood Clotting Issues
Leading public health agencies say millions of people have received the vaccine without blood clotting issues, and experts have not found a causal link.
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This is what has to happen, vaccinations need to stop while this kind of stuff is investigated, but the FUD is real and reinforces people’s fear of unknown unknowns.
Over the weekend Miami Beach police lobbed canisters of pepper spray into a crowd of spring breakers who they described as “unruly” and “not wearing masks”. Which is odd on two counts: 1) if use of pepper spray is “assault with a deadly weapon”, then the police seem a bit out of line. But of course, pepper spray is clearly not a deadly weapon. 2) Florida Governor DeSantis has prohibited all fines in the State for failure to wear a mask…. so I suspect there will be some negative consequences for trying to enforce a mask rule where the governor has prohibited enforcement.
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Miami is, no surprise, run by Democrats. The state legislature and state courts are controlled by Republicans. DeSantis and the legislature may figure it is time to pass a law prohibiting all local mask rules in the state.
For those who said that vaccines wouldn’t be anywhere near as effective ‘in the wild’ as in the trials:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-vaccine-from-pfizer-biontech-was-97-effective-at-preventing-illness-in-israel-11615479851?mod=djemHL_t
The WP says Capital police officers are intentionally exposed to pepper spray during training, so I think assault with a deadly weapon is an opening bid for a future plea bargain.
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WP: 2 charged with assaulting U.S. Capitol Police officer who died * after * riot
“Federal authorities have arrested and charged two men with assaulting U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian D. Sicknick with an unknown chemical spray during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot but have not determined whether the exposure caused his death.â€
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They are slowly changing the narrative. Note how the media is acting like it is unknowable whether pepper spray can be fatal, there are no expert opinions, no prior statistics, no simple web searches by a journalist on how common this is, nothing. Sergeant Schultz appears when it is convenient for them. I suppose they are holding out hope that the perpetrators were using some secret Russian Death Spray.
SteveF,
Isn’t ‘unruly spring breakers’ redundant?
Nobody outside on a sunny day needs to wear a mask. I suspect the lifetime of virus in aerosols would be measured in microseconds. Maybe if you were giving CPR, but in that case, you wouldn’t be wearing a mask.
Tom Scharf,
The international convention on chemical weapons specifically excludes pepper spray as a “lethal weapon”. The prosecution is on very thin ice with the “deadly weapon” charge. But even though the the defendants should not be convicted, that doesn’t mean they won’t be, since any jury trial will be held in Washington DC…. where there is no love for Trump supporters.
At least they are openly admitting they don’t understand now. There just isn’t a policy signal in the covid outbreak.
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Unraveling the mystery of Europe’s uneven covid surges
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2021/coronavirus-waves-europe/
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“Despite more than a year of study, experts are not sure how to explain why countries in the same region saw such drastically divergent outbreaks at different times. But they have developed theories — sometimes only to see them turned on their heads.”
“In hindsight, it appears that neither Germany’s strict measures nor Sweden’s laissez faire restrictions protected them from an eventual onslaught. But why were the spared, in relative terms, in the spring? “The real issue is that we don’t seem to know,†said Van Smeden.”
“At the time, there seemed to be links to policy decisions.”
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This has basically been my perception. Experts got some early data, made some rather bold predictions only to see them blow up in their face when the future showed up, the true test of science. Between staying away from people and getting vaccinated is a great wasteland of uncertainty.
Speaking of uncertainty, I wonder if you followed the news about the claimed demise of the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO).
On the other hand…
But we’ve been told that it’s all just “basic physics”…If you don’t believe climate models’ predictions, you’re a science denier.
Turns out the FL state legislature has already (March 9) reported out of committee (passing 12-6) a bill that restricts all local emergency ordinances in Florida to 42 days maximum. DeSantis says he supports the bill, so it is likely to pass. Democrats in Florida are apoplectic….. no more endless local ’emergency’ ordinances.
Regarding McConnell’s promise of a 100 car pileup if filibuster is nuked, I was reading this to try to get a sense of what powers remain to the minority without filibuster. I thought it was interesting. It looks to me like McConnell’s threat is not an idle one. In particular, the power to propose non-germane amendments, which themselves can be further amended, and to waste time by debating all of these amendments, could be effectively used to grind proceedings to a virtual halt. There are other tricks.
mark bofill,
My guess is that the Democrats in the Senate will not try to get rid of the filibuster, in part because it could lead to very bad consequences when Republicans next hold complete power in Washington (remember, it was that way in 2017 and 2018), and in part because three (gigantic) reconciliation bills per year allows a boatload of their priorities to be passed with 50 votes plus Harris. I think we can count on just about 100% of the taxes cut by Republicans to be re-instated (all to go into effect next year), along with a host of new taxes targeted at C-corps and high income individuals. Likely: 1) expansion of the Social security/Medicare taxes to non-earned income, 2) taxation of unrealized capital gains under certain circumstances, 3) elimination of capital gains rates for “high income” individuals, 4) increases in maximum tax rates and elimination of deductions for “high income” individuals, 5) confiscatory inheritance tax rates, 6) C-corps taxes rising to at least 28%. But don’t worry, the fraud of low “carried interest” tax rates for fund managers will never be eliminated…. too many campaign contributions at risk.
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The objective is being able to pay for all the legislative priorities progressives have talked about for decades. My guess is that when it is all over, total tax take in the USA will be very close to northern Europe: approaching 40% of GDP. Add to that continued deficit spending, and total government expenditures will likely approach 50% of GDP…. among the highest in the world. The long term effects will be inflation, reduced economic growth, and permanent higher unemployment.
Manchin might as well retire if he goes back on his promise on the filibuster. He is wobbling, now he say he wants to make it hard, whatever that means. I don’t fundamentally oppose using the filibuster for only things the minority feels very strongly on, but the number of party line votes recently is getting rather tiresome. Using the filibuster to totally shutdown all legislation is overkill. We definitely don’t want whiplash changes to law every time power in DC changes. The Senate has been useful as a low pass filter to that, and absolutely forcing the two sides to negotiate is a good thing.
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Elimination of the filibuster will result in ideological overreach which will likely make change in power come faster. At this point we can’t even accuse the left of tax and spend anymore, it’s just spend, ha ha.
What they really are having a fetish on is a wealth tax. Not clear if that is constitutional. This would start low and then get notched up year after year. One thing we can be certain of is that there are plenty of powerful wealthy individuals from both sides that can virtue signal with the best of them but will do everything they can to kill that. We know populism is getting “dangerous” to the elite’s “democracy” when that starts looking realistic.
Depends on the agenda.
Which of these would be OK in your book to pass?
1) HR-1 For the People Act
2) A Green New Deal
3) Citizenship for illegals already in the country without securing us from further large scale illegal immigrant influx
4) Huge tax hikes, possibly including a wealth tax
Personally I’d prefer my critters to filibuster all of it.
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[Edit: 15$/hr minimum wage? I could live with it. It’s not a good idea, but it possibly wouldn’t hurt as badly as some of the other lunacies…]
Those are filibuster type legislation, and many of these would struggle to get all 50 Democrats on board. Anything that is huge cost or huge impact (aka weighty new spending/taxes or large social changes) should require 60 votes. Exactly what is inside that line is of course a gray area.
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It can potentially get out of control with mass obstruction against the perceived enemy on ideological grounds. The US government has worked fine with the filibuster in place, and removing it would be a big mistake. But the minority should use it voluntarily in a sparing way. The filibuster shouldn’t be removed now because it hasn’t been abused, there are just partisans at the moment who want an activist agenda (aka the MSM). The minority needs to be a bit careful to not give them an excuse to remove it.
Fair enough, thanks Tom.
The WP basically had to retract yet another “bombshell†article, the one where Trump said to “find the fraudâ€. Turns out the source was an anonymous person who wasn’t even on the call and the quotes were all second hand. As my fellow media basher in chief Glenn Greenwald points out, this was then picked up by and “independently confirmed†by other sources who were fed the same wrong data by the same anonymous source. Funny how these retractions always point in the same partisan direction.
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/how-do-big-media-outlets-so-often
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He has a few recent really funny rants about some petty Twitter stuff. Glenn gets pretty upset when journalists at major media outlets who take no real risk declare themselves to be victims of harassment because somebody said something mean on Twitter or Substack. Glenn knows what actual journalist risk is, and isn’t afraid to point that out repeatedly.
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“That is precisely why they are so furious. They cannot stand the fact that journalists can break major stories and find an audience while maintaining an independent voice, critically questioning rather than obediently reciting the orthodoxies that bind them and, most of all, without playing their infantile in-group games and submitting to their hive-mind decrees.”
Tom Scharf,
“Manchin might as well retire if he goes back on his promise on the filibuster.”
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Manchin probably already knows his political career is over; I am pretty sure he is un-electable because he voted against both Kavanaugh and Barrett, and voted to convict Trump (twice!). I am betting he will threaten to eliminate the filibuster to pressure Republicans not to use it, but probably not actually do it, if only because he recognizes the damage to effective government that would cause. There will be another time, maybe soon, when Republicans have control of House, Senate, and Presidency. If the Democrats eliminate the filibuster, Federal laws (taxation, immigration, spending, and more) will undergo rapid and extreme change with each change of power in Washington. Only idiots would want that… and Manchin is no idiot. IMO, he is mistaken in his policy views, but no idiot.
Manchin voted yes for Kavanaugh, the only Democrat. That was a political survival move.
Tom Scharf,
I stand corrected, he did vote to confirm Kavanaugh. But not Barrett… an arguably more qualified judge… and voted to convict Trump on totally horse-shit charges…twice. He has multiple other votes in the Senate which are the exact opposite of what his constituents want.
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I think he is un-electable in W. Va. Really, he is a moderate Democrat in an extremely conservative Republican state.
He has almost no chance for re-election.
Flew cross-country yesterday. 6+ hour flight, plus time in both airports, is the longest I’ve ever had a mask on…annoying, especially as I pose relatively low risk to other passengers (and am at relatively low risk), being vaccinated plus 1 month. On the plus(?) side, it provides an incentive to snack, allowing one to lower the mask for a few minutes.
HarroldW,
I’m on the second leg of a trip to California…. 5 hours with a mask so far, and 4 to go. Like you I am at near zero risk and pose near zero risk to others…. It is an unnecessary PITA.
Just follow the science. One year in and they can’t commit to a single thing about when precautions can be loosened. This is pathetic. They are rather certain about when restrictions need to be put in place somehow.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/when-will-it-be-over-3-key-numbers-scientists-are-n1261198
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“But the true number of infections in the U.S. can be difficult to pin down, because many people who were sick never got tested. As a result, the epidemiologists whom NBC News spoke to overwhelmingly preferred to focus on vaccination numbers.”
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“Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, advised caution about using the term “herd immunity” during a congressional hearing Wednesday.
“We really, really need to be careful about this elusive terminology,” Fauci said. “We should focus on getting as many people vaccinated as quickly as we possibly can,” he said, rather than concentrating on an “arbitrary percentage.”
Ultimately, no single measure will determine when life can get back to “normal.”
“I don’t think there’s a metric that is going to say, ‘Oh, it’s over,'” said Justin Lessler, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, referring to the pandemic”
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Yes, science says to just ignore the infected numbers because they are uncertain. We can’t even use the known tested infection numbers at ~10%? What a joke. This really is just propaganda to keep restrictions in place as long as possible. Biden just made up the July 4th date, the hive mind narrative is ultra-conservative which is why we can’t trust science to make political tradeoffs.
The real madness is that the Biden administration claims there will be vaccines available for every person in the USA by June 1. Since not every person will want the vaccine, that means every person who wants a vaccine will have received one by well before June 1. On what planet does universal availability of an effective vaccine not equal the end of mandated restrictions? I can’t begin to wrap my head around such nonsense.
Hilarious. WSJ: “Many employers were quick to declare their support for racial equity and for Asian-Americans in particular.”
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I guess this means a lot of Asian Americans are going to be fired from their high paying jobs, ha ha. The inscrutable messaging never fails to amaze me.
Didn’t take long for the border situation to deteriorate.
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Glad we have a humane policy again! / SARC.
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The new policy and results are not humane, but ‘Orange Man Bad’ remains the ultimate decision criteria apparently.
Florida is lowering vaccination age to 50 as of Monday. It’s a bit messy with county, Publix, CVS, Walgreens, Sams, Walmart, and federal sites all doing their own signups, along with random pop up sites (a really weird phenomenon). They just lowered it to 60 this week. DeSantis says “relatively modest” demand for the vaccine.
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I went through a few sites yesterday and most were all sold out, but a couple had appointments.
Astra-Zeneca / Blood clotting. It’s almost impossible to find in the media which is just a bunch of back and forth assertions, but the expected background blood clotting issues for the millions in the population that got the vaccine was 1.4, and 7 cases had been reported. These numbers are so low that it probably isn’t enough to make any conclusion, but it is also pretty clear that even if this number was representative that the number of lives saved by the vaccine greatly exceed the ones potentially lost by blood clotting by several orders of a magnitude.
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Europe already has enough problems that they don’t need manufactured vaccine scares.
Tom Scharf
My sentiment exactly. I am getting my first injection this afternoon.
Dilbert is on point today.
Caller (on Zoom): “I’d feel more comfortable if you wore a mask for this call.”
Dilbert: “I’m working at home. I can’t possibly give you a virus over a video call.”
Caller: “Show me a study that proves that or else stop denying science.”
P-E Harvey,
“I am getting my first injection this afternoon.”
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Good.
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Standard request: please report if you start to change to purple or green, or if you have a sudden urge to eat human brains.
Tom Scharf,
“Europe already has enough problems that they don’t need manufactured vaccine scares.”
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Yup. Despite unsustainable lockdowns, several countries are in a new surge in cases and deaths, and the EC’s vaccine distribution efforts are shameful. The UK moved Heaven and Earth to contract lots of vaccine, now the EC thinks it unfair the UK is “hogging” the vaccine. Brussels is an impediment to good government, nothing more.
Tom Scharf
I just had my first jab of Astra-Seneca vaccine. The second one is due in July. The only problem was having to wait half an hour outside at around -3C.
P-E Harvey,
“Astra-Seneca vaccine”
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There is the problem…. made by a joint venture Astra and the Seneca Native American tribe. ;-0
SteveF
I just blushed a bit all by myself. Side-effect from the vaccine?