COVID-19 Update

World

New Cases:   728,084 (⬆︎ .88%)

New Deaths:    15,121 (⬆︎ .84%)  🏆 New Record! 🎉

USA

New Cases:   234,550 (⬆︎ 1.17%)

New Deaths:      3,880 (⬆︎ 1.12%) 🏆 New Record! 🎉

I mentioned the other day that President Stoopid managed not to have anything to do with developing or producing the vaccines, and then decided (as usual) to stand in front of it and try to take credit for it.

And when his minions were sent out to answer questions about delays and the fact that vaccines are not being well-distributed or administered, they moved the goal posts - ie: "Gee whiz, we didn't mean we'd have 20 million people actually vaccinated by year's end. You must've misunderstood. We meant 20 million doses would be shipped - it's up to the states to set it all up for people to get jabbed in the arm..."

Yeah, except 20 million doses have not been shipped, and Americans are not being vaccinated in the numbers - nor at the pace necessary for a positive outcome.

The NYT graphics editor tries to put a happy face on it, but to date, only about 400,000 people per day are getting the first round of shots, which means we'll have the requisite 75% of Americans vaccinated just in time for the Mid-Term Elections in 2022.

TWENTY-TWENTY-FUCKING-TWO

We need to get that number up around 3 - 5 million per day to have any chance of getting out from under this thing, and even then, we're looking at June 2021 before we're even close to Herd Immunity levels.

Obviously, it's reasonable to expect the pace will pick up, but when the White House staff is down to skeleton crew levels, and the ones who're still there have no particular skills or the authority to do much, the effect is that they're basically dragging their feet.

Throw in the "president" saying it's not his job - he did his part - it's all up to the states now - and we'll be slipping further and further behind every day as we count down to January 20th.

My take: Republicans are holding out to the absolute bitter end. They're determined to let this play out in a Shock Doctrine kinda way, trying to make their point that the federal government is worthless by ham-stringing that government at every turn.

God how I hate me some

fuckin' Republicans