We haven't won anything yet
The monster is still out there
Don't let your guard down
Apr 1, 2021
COVID-19 Update
World
USA
Vaccination Scorecard
The fourth wave is here
Coronavirus infections are on the rise yet again, all across the U.S.
The big picture: America may be at the beginning of a fourth wave in the pandemic. It will almost certainly be far less deadly than the previous three, but this persistent failure to contain the virus has real consequences, and will only make it harder to put COVID-19 behind us.
By the numbers:
New Cases: 648,495 (⬆︎ .50%)
New Deaths: 12,302 (⬆︎ .44%)
USA
New Cases: 68,756 (⬆︎ .22%)
New Deaths: 1,115 (⬆︎ .20%)
Vaccination Scorecard
Total Vaccinations: 97.6 million (⬆︎ 1.67%)
Total Eligible Population: 36.5%
Total Population: 29.4%
One year ago:
And here it comes again:
The fourth wave is here
Coronavirus infections are on the rise yet again, all across the U.S.
The big picture: America may be at the beginning of a fourth wave in the pandemic. It will almost certainly be far less deadly than the previous three, but this persistent failure to contain the virus has real consequences, and will only make it harder to put COVID-19 behind us.
By the numbers:
- On average, roughly 63,000 Americans per day were diagnosed with coronavirus infections over the past week. That’s a 17% increase from the week before, and echoes the rising caseloads of the pandemic’s second wave last summer.
- Average daily caseloads increased over the past week in 25 states. The biggest spikes were in Michigan and New York.
- Even as vaccinations continue to climb, new cases only declined in five states, mainly in the Southeast.
What we’re watching:
- Because so many seniors have been vaccinated — 73% have gotten at least one dose — this fourth wave is likely to be a lot less deadly than the previous ones.
- Many states have also prioritized vaccinating people with underlying health conditions, which will also help constrain the increase in severe illness and death.
- More coronavirus is always a bad outcome, and this fourth wave is a foreseeable, preventable failure that risks dragging out the pandemic and leaving more people at risk in the process.
- Millions of younger Americans with high-risk medical conditions haven’t yet been vaccinated, and therefore are still susceptible to serious illness and death as the virus spreads more aggressively.
- Hospitalizations are still rising — they’re just not likely to increase as dramatically as they have before.
- Greater spread also fosters the growth of new variants. The variants driving this outbreak are more contagious than the original strain; future variants will likely be less susceptible to our existing vaccines.
- Failing to control the virus now means it’ll be hanging around and flaring up longer into the future.
- The vaccines work, and will spare us a lot of the death and suffering of previous surges.
- But four waves of infection in one year represents a clear failure to control the virus through any other means, and that will continue to hurt us.
Mar 31, 2021
Today's Tweet
The continuing - and oh so gripping - saga of dog trouble at the White House. It might have something to do with the fours years of coke and adderall residue in the carpets.
One of Biden's dogs pooped on the floor, per pool
— Kathryn Watson (@kathrynw5) March 31, 2021
"Champ and Major were spotted in the hallway outside the Palm Room doors in front of the Diplomatic Room. There was dog poo on the floor. It’s unclear which dog was responsible for it"
COVID-19 Update
World
USA
Vaccination Scorecard
Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine safe and effective in children as young as 12, say companies
New Cases: 549,972 (⬆︎ .44%)
New Deaths: 10,920 (⬆︎ .39%)
USA
New Cases: 62,459 (⬆︎ .20%)
New Deaths: 873 (⬆︎ .16%)
Vaccination Scorecard
Total Vaccinations: 96 million (⬆︎ 1.05%)
Total Eligible Population: 35.9%
Total Population: 28.9%
Two good news thingies today:
- One of the current vaccines is OK for kids 12-15
- The trials are well underway for younger kids too.
WaPo: (pay wall)
The Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine was safe and effective in adolescents as young as 12, the drug companies announced in a joint news release Wednesday. Data from a trial of the vaccine in nearly 2,300 people between the ages of 12 and 15 will be submitted to the Food and Drug Administration in the coming weeks, with the hope that vaccinations could begin before the next school year.
The vaccine was 100 percent effective at preventing symptomatic illness within the trial and triggered immune responses that were even more robust than those seen in young adults, said the U.S. firm Pfizer and the German company BioNTech.
The data is the beginning of what many families, eager for normalcy to return, have been waiting to see. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is currently authorized by the FDA for emergency use for people 16 and older. If regulators extend the authorization to younger age groups, Pfizer chief executive Albert Bourla said, vaccinations could begin before the next school year.
- and -
Coronavirus vaccines are coming for kids — but studies have to be finished first
More than almost anything, Katelyn Evans yearns to be in a play again — onstage, in front of an audience. When the coronavirus pandemic put the world on pause a year ago, she was a high school sophomore three weeks out from opening night of the musical comedy “Once Upon a Mattress.” The show never went on.
Evans, now 17, feels lucky, overall. No friends or relatives have become seriously ill, and she’s attending school in person in Cincinnati. But she’s keeping a mental tally of the performances that could have been.
“Most people my age are aware we’re not the number one priority for getting the vaccine. … There are people in higher-risk groups than teenagers,” Evans said. Still, she said, “it is a tough age for this to happen. These are once-in-a-lifetime things.”
To help speed the journey back to live theater performances, Evans rolled up her sleeve in October and became one of the youngest volunteers, at that point, in a trial to test an experimental coronavirus vaccine in teens. On Wednesday, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German biotech partner BioNTech announced their vaccine was safe and effective in adolescents as young as 12 — the same vaccine Evans received. Vaccinations could begin before the next school year for younger teens, pending a regulatory green light, Pfizer chief executive Albert Bourla said.
The vaccine was 100 percent effective at preventing symptomatic illness within the trial and triggered immune responses that were even more robust than those seen in young adults, said the U.S. firm Pfizer and the German company BioNTech.
The data is the beginning of what many families, eager for normalcy to return, have been waiting to see. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is currently authorized by the FDA for emergency use for people 16 and older. If regulators extend the authorization to younger age groups, Pfizer chief executive Albert Bourla said, vaccinations could begin before the next school year.
- and -
Coronavirus vaccines are coming for kids — but studies have to be finished first
More than almost anything, Katelyn Evans yearns to be in a play again — onstage, in front of an audience. When the coronavirus pandemic put the world on pause a year ago, she was a high school sophomore three weeks out from opening night of the musical comedy “Once Upon a Mattress.” The show never went on.
Evans, now 17, feels lucky, overall. No friends or relatives have become seriously ill, and she’s attending school in person in Cincinnati. But she’s keeping a mental tally of the performances that could have been.
“Most people my age are aware we’re not the number one priority for getting the vaccine. … There are people in higher-risk groups than teenagers,” Evans said. Still, she said, “it is a tough age for this to happen. These are once-in-a-lifetime things.”
To help speed the journey back to live theater performances, Evans rolled up her sleeve in October and became one of the youngest volunteers, at that point, in a trial to test an experimental coronavirus vaccine in teens. On Wednesday, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German biotech partner BioNTech announced their vaccine was safe and effective in adolescents as young as 12 — the same vaccine Evans received. Vaccinations could begin before the next school year for younger teens, pending a regulatory green light, Pfizer chief executive Albert Bourla said.
He Might Be A Psycho
We have no idea how bad it could've gotten.
Or how bad it might get.
We're still trying to get our arms around what happened. And since it's still happening, we're miles away from the kind of understanding we're going to need if we're going to have any real chance of squaring it all up.
Mar 30, 2021
Natural Defenses
When threatened, reindeer will form a "cyclone", which makes it harder for a predator to target an individual animal.
Thank God I'm An Atheist
If religion was actually perceived as helpful, it'd be goin' strong.
And it's not like some powerful new sloganeering campaign will fix what's wrong with it.
The percentage of Americans who have membership in a house of worship has dropped below 50 percent for the first time in eight decades, according to a report released by Gallup on Monday.
U.S. church membership has steadily been declining for the past two decades. Before 2000, church membership had generally stayed around 70 percent from when Gallup began measuring it in the 1930s.
In 2020, membership reached an all-time low of 47 percent.
“The decline in church membership is primarily a function of the increasing number of Americans who express no religious preference,” Gallup notes in its report. “Over the past two decades, the percentage of Americans who do not identify with any religion has grown from 8% in 1998-2000 to 13% in 2008-2010 and 21% over the past three years.”
A small portion of the drop in membership is due to a decline in Americans who said they have formal church membership. From 1998 to 2000, 73 percent of religious Americans said they belonged to a church. That number has since dropped to an average of 60 percent of religious Americans.
Church membership is also strongly linked to age, Gallup notes. Among people born before 1946, 66 percent belong to a church with the share of people dropping as the generations progress. 58 percent of baby boomers, 50 percent of Generation X and 36 percent of Millennials report belong to a church.
However, regardless of generation, the share of U.S. adults who do not have a religious affiliation or belong to a church has continued to grow. The trend was also observed across all subgroups including men, women, Hispanics, political parties and region of the U.S.
"The U.S. remains a religious nation, with more than seven in 10 affiliating with some type of organized religion," the Gallup report reads. "However, far fewer, now less than half, have a formal membership with a specific house of worship. While it is possible that part of the decline seen in 2020 was temporary and related to the coronavirus pandemic, continued decline in future decades seems inevitable, given the much lower levels of religiosity and church membership among younger versus older generations of adults."
U.S. church membership has steadily been declining for the past two decades. Before 2000, church membership had generally stayed around 70 percent from when Gallup began measuring it in the 1930s.
In 2020, membership reached an all-time low of 47 percent.
“The decline in church membership is primarily a function of the increasing number of Americans who express no religious preference,” Gallup notes in its report. “Over the past two decades, the percentage of Americans who do not identify with any religion has grown from 8% in 1998-2000 to 13% in 2008-2010 and 21% over the past three years.”
A small portion of the drop in membership is due to a decline in Americans who said they have formal church membership. From 1998 to 2000, 73 percent of religious Americans said they belonged to a church. That number has since dropped to an average of 60 percent of religious Americans.
Church membership is also strongly linked to age, Gallup notes. Among people born before 1946, 66 percent belong to a church with the share of people dropping as the generations progress. 58 percent of baby boomers, 50 percent of Generation X and 36 percent of Millennials report belong to a church.
However, regardless of generation, the share of U.S. adults who do not have a religious affiliation or belong to a church has continued to grow. The trend was also observed across all subgroups including men, women, Hispanics, political parties and region of the U.S.
"The U.S. remains a religious nation, with more than seven in 10 affiliating with some type of organized religion," the Gallup report reads. "However, far fewer, now less than half, have a formal membership with a specific house of worship. While it is possible that part of the decline seen in 2020 was temporary and related to the coronavirus pandemic, continued decline in future decades seems inevitable, given the much lower levels of religiosity and church membership among younger versus older generations of adults."
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