Jul 9, 2021
Today's Tweet
The grift that never ends.
Car Rant Vol 23, Trump Truths: Vanky, Lawsuits & Social Media. pic.twitter.com/hrVhMYQmXv
— NoelCaslerComedy (@CaslerNoel) July 9, 2021
A Reminder
Zachary Taylor (November 24, 1784 – July 9, 1850) was an American military leader who served as the 12th president of the United States from 1849 until his death in 1850. Taylor previously was a career officer in the United States Army, rose to the rank of major general and became a national hero as a result of his victories in the Mexican–American War. As a result, he won election to the White House despite his vague political beliefs. His top priority as president was preserving the Union. He died sixteen months into his term, having made no progress on the most divisive issue in Congress, slavery.
As president, Taylor kept his distance from Congress and his cabinet, even though partisan tensions threatened to divide the Union. Debate over the status of slavery in the Mexican Cession dominated the political agenda and led to threats of secession from Southerners. Despite being a Southerner and a slaveholder himself, Taylor did not push for the expansion of slavery, and sought sectional harmony above all other concerns. To avoid the issue of slavery, he urged settlers in New Mexico and California to bypass the territorial stage and draft constitutions for statehood, setting the stage for the Compromise of 1850. Taylor died suddenly of a stomach disease on July 9, 1850, with his administration having accomplished little aside from the ratification of the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty. Fillmore served the remainder of his term. Historians and scholars have ranked Taylor in the bottom quartile of U.S. presidents, owing in part to his short term of office (16 months), though he has been described as "more a forgettable president than a failed one".
COVID-19 Update
World
USA
Pfizer suggests booster shots will be needed this year, but government officials say science will dictate the timing
An unusually public spat has broken out between the makers of one of the coronavirus vaccines and federal health officials over whether booster shots will soon be needed.
Pfizer and the German firm BioNTech announced Thursday they plan to seek approval for a booster shot within weeks, predicting that people would require a vaccine boost six to 12 months after being fully immunized. Hours later, the Department of Health and Human Services issued an emphatic rebuke, saying “Americans who have been fully vaccinated do not need a booster shot at this time.”
The statement did not mention Pfizer by name, but said “a science-based, rigorous process” headed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health would determine when or whether boosters were necessary. The decision, the statement said, will be only partly informed by data from drug companies.
Pfizer’s chief executive has for months predicted that boosters could be likely within six to 12 months, seeming to offer certainty on a question that has captured public interest even as public health officials and academic scientists said it wasn’t clear yet when a booster would be needed. All the pharmaceutical companies involved in making coronavirus vaccines are working on formulating and testing booster shots to prepare for the possibility.
But on Thursday, Pfizer released a statement indicating the time was near. Pfizer said its vaccine’s effectiveness had eroded, citing two lines of evidence that outside scientists have yet to see in detail. That includes an Israeli government analysis showing that as the delta variant of the virus became dominant, vaccine efficacy dropped. The study has not yet been published and its conclusions have been questioned by some outside scientists. Pfizer also cited its continuing follow-up of people who were vaccinated last summer.
“While protection against severe disease remained high across the full 6 months, the observed decline in efficacy against symptomatic disease over time and the continued emergence of variants are key factors driving our belief that a booster dose will likely be necessary to maintain highest levels of protection,” Pfizer said in a statement.
Pfizer said it would submit data to regulators within weeks showing that a booster at six months — a third shot of its original vaccine — caused antibody levels to shoot up five to 10 times higher than the original two-dose regimen. Moderna announced similar data in May.
Pfizer also announced it would begin testing a booster shot specifically programmed to combat the delta variant in August.
Scientists applauded the statement from HHS saying boosters were not imminent. While many researchers anticipate a booster may be needed and say it is essential to prepare the shots to be ready to be deployed, it is far from clear when they will be needed.
“My opinion right now, however, is that current vaccination seems to be largely ‘holding,’” said E. John Wherry, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. “But the companies seem to suggest that their continued follow up of their trial patients shows concerning levels of waning of immunity. Not much of these data from the companies are publicly available yet. I agree that we need as much independent data and assessment as possible on this topic.”
Some experts think boosters could be needed as soon as this fall, but others think it could be years. Many predict that people will continue to be protected against serious cases of illness, even as immunity wanes. Some foresee scenarios in which people in particular high-risk groups may need to be boosted sooner.
“No one is saying we’ll never need a booster, but to say we need it now and give the public the impression the vaccines are failing and something needs to be done as a matter of urgency. … The time isn’t now,” said John P. Moore, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medicine. “The decisions that are going to be made will be made by federal agencies.”
Pfizer announced in May that it projected global sales of its coronavirus vaccine to reach $26 billion in 2021. The company has also been frank that its current pricing — in the United States, $19.50 a shot — is temporary. On an earnings call in February, Frank A. D’Amelio, Pfizer’s executive vice president of global supply, noted that a more typical price for a vaccination was $150 or $175 per dose.
“Now, let’s go beyond a pandemic-pricing environment, the environment we’re currently in. Obviously, we’re going to get more on price,” D’Amelio said. “So clearly, there’s a significant opportunity for those margins to improve once we get beyond the pandemic environment that we’re in.”
You had the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine. Should you try to get a booster dose of Pfizer or Moderna?
The J&J vaccine is robustly protective, and new data suggest it defends against the delta variant as well
Two weeks ago, virologist Angela Rasmussen received a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine to boost her immune system, which was already primed by a Johnson & Johnson shot.
No U.S. health agency has recommended this vaccine combo. And Rasmussen, a research scientist at the University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization in Canada, remains confident in data that show one J&J dose will prevent her from getting hospitalized with covid-19, the illness caused by the virus.
But she was concerned about a rare post-vaccination breakthrough infection — though not because she worried it would make her sick. Instead, if she were exposed and her immune system did not roundly defeat the infection, she feared any surviving pathogens may have the opportunity to evolve into more resistant strains. The emergence of the delta variant, a version of the coronavirus that more easily spreads from person to person, troubled Rasmussen. The Pfizer shot, she said, could reinforce her protection against that variant or help stop her from spreading it.
- snip -
The average J&J recipient has neither her expertise nor her access. Many U.S. vaccine and infectious-disease specialists who spoke with The Washington Post cautioned against attempts to find boosters unless supporting data or an official recommendation emerge. Members of the public vaccinated with J&J, they argued, should not independently seek out extra doses...
New Cases: 481,114 (⬆︎ .26%)
New Deaths: 8,849 (⬆︎ .22%)
USA
New Cases: 19,347 (⬆︎ .06%)
New Deaths: 261 (⬆︎ .04%)
Yesterday, July 8th, 2021
8,849 people were killed by COVID-19
and 99.2 % of them were not vaccinated
183.2 million vaccinated
Including more than 158.3 million people who have been fully vaccinated in the United States.
In the last week, an average of 599.1k doses per day were administered,
a 45% decrease over the week before.
And away we go - company CYA vs official public health policy, plus Press Poodling - the perfect storm that makes for some very exciting political drama. I'm sure ad sales will be robust.
WaPo:
Pfizer suggests booster shots will be needed this year, but government officials say science will dictate the timing
An unusually public spat has broken out between the makers of one of the coronavirus vaccines and federal health officials over whether booster shots will soon be needed.
Pfizer and the German firm BioNTech announced Thursday they plan to seek approval for a booster shot within weeks, predicting that people would require a vaccine boost six to 12 months after being fully immunized. Hours later, the Department of Health and Human Services issued an emphatic rebuke, saying “Americans who have been fully vaccinated do not need a booster shot at this time.”
The statement did not mention Pfizer by name, but said “a science-based, rigorous process” headed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health would determine when or whether boosters were necessary. The decision, the statement said, will be only partly informed by data from drug companies.
Pfizer’s chief executive has for months predicted that boosters could be likely within six to 12 months, seeming to offer certainty on a question that has captured public interest even as public health officials and academic scientists said it wasn’t clear yet when a booster would be needed. All the pharmaceutical companies involved in making coronavirus vaccines are working on formulating and testing booster shots to prepare for the possibility.
But on Thursday, Pfizer released a statement indicating the time was near. Pfizer said its vaccine’s effectiveness had eroded, citing two lines of evidence that outside scientists have yet to see in detail. That includes an Israeli government analysis showing that as the delta variant of the virus became dominant, vaccine efficacy dropped. The study has not yet been published and its conclusions have been questioned by some outside scientists. Pfizer also cited its continuing follow-up of people who were vaccinated last summer.
“While protection against severe disease remained high across the full 6 months, the observed decline in efficacy against symptomatic disease over time and the continued emergence of variants are key factors driving our belief that a booster dose will likely be necessary to maintain highest levels of protection,” Pfizer said in a statement.
Pfizer said it would submit data to regulators within weeks showing that a booster at six months — a third shot of its original vaccine — caused antibody levels to shoot up five to 10 times higher than the original two-dose regimen. Moderna announced similar data in May.
Pfizer also announced it would begin testing a booster shot specifically programmed to combat the delta variant in August.
Scientists applauded the statement from HHS saying boosters were not imminent. While many researchers anticipate a booster may be needed and say it is essential to prepare the shots to be ready to be deployed, it is far from clear when they will be needed.
“My opinion right now, however, is that current vaccination seems to be largely ‘holding,’” said E. John Wherry, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. “But the companies seem to suggest that their continued follow up of their trial patients shows concerning levels of waning of immunity. Not much of these data from the companies are publicly available yet. I agree that we need as much independent data and assessment as possible on this topic.”
Some experts think boosters could be needed as soon as this fall, but others think it could be years. Many predict that people will continue to be protected against serious cases of illness, even as immunity wanes. Some foresee scenarios in which people in particular high-risk groups may need to be boosted sooner.
“No one is saying we’ll never need a booster, but to say we need it now and give the public the impression the vaccines are failing and something needs to be done as a matter of urgency. … The time isn’t now,” said John P. Moore, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medicine. “The decisions that are going to be made will be made by federal agencies.”
Pfizer announced in May that it projected global sales of its coronavirus vaccine to reach $26 billion in 2021. The company has also been frank that its current pricing — in the United States, $19.50 a shot — is temporary. On an earnings call in February, Frank A. D’Amelio, Pfizer’s executive vice president of global supply, noted that a more typical price for a vaccination was $150 or $175 per dose.
“Now, let’s go beyond a pandemic-pricing environment, the environment we’re currently in. Obviously, we’re going to get more on price,” D’Amelio said. “So clearly, there’s a significant opportunity for those margins to improve once we get beyond the pandemic environment that we’re in.”
And also too - I think I ran this not long ago. Here it is again.
The J&J vaccine is robustly protective, and new data suggest it defends against the delta variant as well
Two weeks ago, virologist Angela Rasmussen received a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine to boost her immune system, which was already primed by a Johnson & Johnson shot.
No U.S. health agency has recommended this vaccine combo. And Rasmussen, a research scientist at the University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization in Canada, remains confident in data that show one J&J dose will prevent her from getting hospitalized with covid-19, the illness caused by the virus.
But she was concerned about a rare post-vaccination breakthrough infection — though not because she worried it would make her sick. Instead, if she were exposed and her immune system did not roundly defeat the infection, she feared any surviving pathogens may have the opportunity to evolve into more resistant strains. The emergence of the delta variant, a version of the coronavirus that more easily spreads from person to person, troubled Rasmussen. The Pfizer shot, she said, could reinforce her protection against that variant or help stop her from spreading it.
- snip -
The average J&J recipient has neither her expertise nor her access. Many U.S. vaccine and infectious-disease specialists who spoke with The Washington Post cautioned against attempts to find boosters unless supporting data or an official recommendation emerge. Members of the public vaccinated with J&J, they argued, should not independently seek out extra doses...
Keep your guard up, but if you're vaxxed, you can relax and be groovy - for now.
Jul 8, 2021
The Dichotomy Of It All
Speaking of contradictions - like 45* just can't leave it alone.
Donald Trump Just Can’t Quit Zuckerberg and Dorsey
Really, he can’t.
That might be one way of trying to grok the stunt of a lawsuit that the former president filed yesterday against Facebook and Twitter, as well as Google’s YouTube, for kicking him to the curb in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
With zero appetite for becoming handmaidens to sedition by allowing Donald Trump to continue abusing the rules of their powerful platforms, they finally made the decision to dump him — Twitter permanently, YouTube indefinitely and Facebook for two years.
Since then, Mr. Trump has been casting around for a replacement: First via a lame blog that sputtered out and then by dribbling out rumors that he was building his own social network. As that has turned out to be complicated, his latest scheme — and it is a scheme, all right — is to file a class-action lawsuit with himself as lead plaintiff, alleging that the companies have violated his First Amendment rights.
As if.
It’s clear that Mr. Trump’s ability to communicate the way he likes — loud, unfettered — has been hindered by his exile, even if his most pernicious lies about election fraud have managed to crawl, like misinformation slime mold, into a large part of the body politic. And part of me thinks he actually had gotten addicted, like a lot of us, to erupting at any time, day or night, with whatever message popped into his manic mind.
But the lawsuit is most obviously a feint aimed at fund-raising — texts asking for donations went out as soon as Mr. Trump’s news conference started — and to up the grievance knob on his base of supporters, who have come to believe that social media platforms are our new public squares.
Unfortunately for Mr. Trump’s legal case, they are not. Only public squares are public squares. Like it or not, private companies can do whatever they want when it comes to making rules and tossing off incorrigible miscreants.
Like, of course, Mr. Trump, who appears to have a comprehension issue when it comes to reading our Constitution. “Congress shall make no law,” the First Amendment says, “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” Congress, not Facebook. Congress, not Twitter. Congress, not YouTube.
In fact, a government forcing these platforms to host people they don’t want to host is a violation of their First Amendment rights. But not according to Mr. Trump, whose most inane allegation in the lawsuits is aimed at Facebook: He argues that its “status thus rises beyond that of a private company to that of a state actor.”
They are state actors as much as Mar-a-Lago is one, which would mean under this legal analysis that I have a right to join even if Mr. Trump does not want me there to enjoy Six Star Seafood Night Wednesday evenings on the patio. But to that I say: Give me “two-pound lobsters, freshly grilled fish and meat items, salads and a dessert bar, accompanied by a saxophonist under the stars” or give me death (by indigestion)!
Naturally, most legal scholars reacting to the case noted that similar efforts to make tech giants into governmental entities had failed miserably and concluded that it is a frivolous attempt at garnering attention.
Still, it’s not necessarily a stupid thing to use Big Tech as a punching bag, which is not a new trick for Mr. Trump and many others in politics. Florida’s governor and a potential 2024 presidential candidate, Ron DeSantis, signed the equally performative Stop Social Media Censorship Act in May, which sought to bar certain social media sites from banning political candidates. It has been blocked by a federal judge on several grounds.
Both legal outbursts are trying to tap into the idea that we simply cannot live without tech and have a right to be on social media sites because of the ubiquity of tech in work, politics, entertainment, communications and commerce. It has certainly felt truer than ever during the Covid-19 pandemic, when digital services became a necessity for almost everyone.
But feelings aren’t facts. And what is at issue is really the concentration of power that both Republicans and Democrats have allowed to happen in the tech industry. Their longtime inaction has left consumers, including Mr. Trump, very few alternatives across a range of areas.
A better route of attack for him and others bellyaching about their being made irrelevant by our digital overlords is to perhaps pass the wide range of bipartisan legislation slowly coalescing in Congress to deal with a wide range of issues such as monopoly power and the lack of resources for regulators who have to monitor powerful corporations.
Of course, ever the shortcut taker and consistently shoddy at execution, Mr. Trump has chosen to create a time-wasting circus when it comes to reining in tech power, which has long been his modus operandi. He did it when it came to investigating the potential dangers of TikTok’s Chinese ownership, he did it when it came to needed upgrades to the cloud capabilities of the Defense Department, he did when it came to putting cyberdefenses in place, and he did it when it came to needed reforms of Section 230, which gives tech digital platforms broad immunity from legal action, as well as the ability to moderate content and punish bad actors.
Here’s what’s actually going on: Mr. Trump has behaved badly for years and now is paying a price he is trying to avoid, as always.
BTW - don't be quick to dismiss this whole thing. There are still some very bad actors operating more or less in the shadows who (IMO) want very much to use this nonsense for a little leverage in their project to condition us to accept plutocracy.
He desperately needs to get back on Twitter and Facebook and YouTube, and so what does he do? He gets shitty and picks a fight with them.
It's easy enough to think he's just going to use it as a fund-raising angle, but I think he might actually believe he has the stroke to bull his way in and bend them to his will.
He's like "You gotta take me back, baby - please, baby - please, baby, please - and fuck you if you don't - I hope you die horribly in a fiery train wreck - but please, you gotta take me back, baby. Please."
It's just so fuckin' creepy.
 |
NYT: (pay wall)
Donald Trump Just Can’t Quit Zuckerberg and Dorsey
Really, he can’t.
That might be one way of trying to grok the stunt of a lawsuit that the former president filed yesterday against Facebook and Twitter, as well as Google’s YouTube, for kicking him to the curb in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
With zero appetite for becoming handmaidens to sedition by allowing Donald Trump to continue abusing the rules of their powerful platforms, they finally made the decision to dump him — Twitter permanently, YouTube indefinitely and Facebook for two years.
Since then, Mr. Trump has been casting around for a replacement: First via a lame blog that sputtered out and then by dribbling out rumors that he was building his own social network. As that has turned out to be complicated, his latest scheme — and it is a scheme, all right — is to file a class-action lawsuit with himself as lead plaintiff, alleging that the companies have violated his First Amendment rights.
As if.
It’s clear that Mr. Trump’s ability to communicate the way he likes — loud, unfettered — has been hindered by his exile, even if his most pernicious lies about election fraud have managed to crawl, like misinformation slime mold, into a large part of the body politic. And part of me thinks he actually had gotten addicted, like a lot of us, to erupting at any time, day or night, with whatever message popped into his manic mind.
But the lawsuit is most obviously a feint aimed at fund-raising — texts asking for donations went out as soon as Mr. Trump’s news conference started — and to up the grievance knob on his base of supporters, who have come to believe that social media platforms are our new public squares.
Unfortunately for Mr. Trump’s legal case, they are not. Only public squares are public squares. Like it or not, private companies can do whatever they want when it comes to making rules and tossing off incorrigible miscreants.
Like, of course, Mr. Trump, who appears to have a comprehension issue when it comes to reading our Constitution. “Congress shall make no law,” the First Amendment says, “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” Congress, not Facebook. Congress, not Twitter. Congress, not YouTube.
In fact, a government forcing these platforms to host people they don’t want to host is a violation of their First Amendment rights. But not according to Mr. Trump, whose most inane allegation in the lawsuits is aimed at Facebook: He argues that its “status thus rises beyond that of a private company to that of a state actor.”
They are state actors as much as Mar-a-Lago is one, which would mean under this legal analysis that I have a right to join even if Mr. Trump does not want me there to enjoy Six Star Seafood Night Wednesday evenings on the patio. But to that I say: Give me “two-pound lobsters, freshly grilled fish and meat items, salads and a dessert bar, accompanied by a saxophonist under the stars” or give me death (by indigestion)!
Naturally, most legal scholars reacting to the case noted that similar efforts to make tech giants into governmental entities had failed miserably and concluded that it is a frivolous attempt at garnering attention.
Still, it’s not necessarily a stupid thing to use Big Tech as a punching bag, which is not a new trick for Mr. Trump and many others in politics. Florida’s governor and a potential 2024 presidential candidate, Ron DeSantis, signed the equally performative Stop Social Media Censorship Act in May, which sought to bar certain social media sites from banning political candidates. It has been blocked by a federal judge on several grounds.
Both legal outbursts are trying to tap into the idea that we simply cannot live without tech and have a right to be on social media sites because of the ubiquity of tech in work, politics, entertainment, communications and commerce. It has certainly felt truer than ever during the Covid-19 pandemic, when digital services became a necessity for almost everyone.
But feelings aren’t facts. And what is at issue is really the concentration of power that both Republicans and Democrats have allowed to happen in the tech industry. Their longtime inaction has left consumers, including Mr. Trump, very few alternatives across a range of areas.
A better route of attack for him and others bellyaching about their being made irrelevant by our digital overlords is to perhaps pass the wide range of bipartisan legislation slowly coalescing in Congress to deal with a wide range of issues such as monopoly power and the lack of resources for regulators who have to monitor powerful corporations.
Of course, ever the shortcut taker and consistently shoddy at execution, Mr. Trump has chosen to create a time-wasting circus when it comes to reining in tech power, which has long been his modus operandi. He did it when it came to investigating the potential dangers of TikTok’s Chinese ownership, he did it when it came to needed upgrades to the cloud capabilities of the Defense Department, he did when it came to putting cyberdefenses in place, and he did it when it came to needed reforms of Section 230, which gives tech digital platforms broad immunity from legal action, as well as the ability to moderate content and punish bad actors.
Here’s what’s actually going on: Mr. Trump has behaved badly for years and now is paying a price he is trying to avoid, as always.
BTW - don't be quick to dismiss this whole thing. There are still some very bad actors operating more or less in the shadows who (IMO) want very much to use this nonsense for a little leverage in their project to condition us to accept plutocracy.
ie: Business is Government.
You heard it here first.
You heard it here first.
COVID-19 Update
World
USA
WHO sounds the alarm as global deaths top 4 million, delta spreads to 100 countries
World Health Organization officials issued stern warnings Wednesday to nations planning to relax coronavirus restrictions as global deaths from the virus topped 4 million and the more virulent delta variant was spotted in more than 100 countries, including those with high vaccination rates.
Speaking at a briefing, the officials cautioned that more contagious variants were “currently winning the race against vaccines” as most of the world’s population has yet to be immunized.
Even the delta variant, which was first identified in India and is now tearing through unvaccinated populations around the globe, “is itself mutating and will continue to do so,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead at the WHO’s Health Emergencies Program.
“There are more than two dozen countries that have epidemic curves that are almost vertical right now,” she said. “We’re not in a good place.”
At the same time, “some countries with high vaccination coverage are … relaxing as though the pandemic is already over,” said WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “The world is at a perilous point in this pandemic … far too many countries in every region in the world are seeing sharp spikes in cases and hospitalization.”
His remarks came as several nations, particularly in Europe, were set to fully reopen or had already lifted some virus curbs, even as the delta variant was gaining ground.
In Spain, authorities in some regions reimposed restrictions on nightlife this week amid a surge in infections among younger people who have not yet been vaccinated. A French minister on Thursday advised residents to refrain from travel to Spain and Portugal, where the delta variant is prevalent.
In England, where at least 95 percent of new cases are caused by the delta variant, Johnson announced plans to relax nearly all covid-related restrictions later this month. The move to reopen could lead to a daily case rate of 100,000 this summer, Britain’s health secretary said earlier this week. But officials there say that widespread vaccinations will help keep hospitalizations and deaths down.
“It’s been good to see the drop off in hospitalizations and deaths in many countries that are achieving high vaccination levels,” Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies program, said at the briefing.
He also pointed to a 33 percent increase last week in new cases in the 55 countries that make up the WHO’s European region.
“I think that it’s also a moment for extreme caution for countries right now,” he said. “So the idea that everyone is protected and it’s Kumbaya and everything goes back to normal — I think that is a very dangerous assumption anywhere in the world. And it’s still a dangerous assumption in the European environment.”
According to the WHO and data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, the pandemic’s official global death toll surpassed 4 million Wednesday, a figure Tedros said was probably an underestimate.
More than 605,000 of those deaths were recorded in the United States. But in recent months, less developed nations such as Brazil and India have contributed to a growing share of coronavirus deaths, as outbreaks in both countries ran rampant through unvaccinated populations.
Covid-19 has killed approximately 530,000 people in Brazil while in India at least 404,000 fatalities have been blamed on the virus — figures experts believe are vast undercounts.
Here are some significant developments:
New Cases: 457,179 (⬆︎ .25%)
New Deaths: 8,435 (⬆︎ .21%)
USA
New Cases: 16,812 (⬆︎ .05%)
New Deaths: 251 (⬆︎ .04%)
Yesterday, July 7, 2021
8,435 people were killed by COVID-19
---
99.2 % of them were un-Vaccinated
182.9 million vaccinated
Including more than 157.9 million people who have been fully vaccinated in the United States.
In the last week, an average of 732.8k doses per day were administered,
a 31% decrease over the week before.
“We should think about the Delta variant as the 2020 version of Covid-19 on steroids,” Andy Slavitt, a former senior adviser to Joe Biden’s Covid Response Team, told CNN on Wednesday. “It’s twice as infectious. Fortunately, unlike 2020, we actually have a tool that stops the Delta variant in its tracks: It’s called vaccine.”
For fully vaccinated people, the variant “presents very little threat to you, very unlikely that you’re gonna get sick,” he explained.
Under the heading of "Holy fuck - I thought I told you idiots - don't let your guard down"
WHO sounds the alarm as global deaths top 4 million, delta spreads to 100 countries
World Health Organization officials issued stern warnings Wednesday to nations planning to relax coronavirus restrictions as global deaths from the virus topped 4 million and the more virulent delta variant was spotted in more than 100 countries, including those with high vaccination rates.
Speaking at a briefing, the officials cautioned that more contagious variants were “currently winning the race against vaccines” as most of the world’s population has yet to be immunized.
Even the delta variant, which was first identified in India and is now tearing through unvaccinated populations around the globe, “is itself mutating and will continue to do so,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead at the WHO’s Health Emergencies Program.
“There are more than two dozen countries that have epidemic curves that are almost vertical right now,” she said. “We’re not in a good place.”
At the same time, “some countries with high vaccination coverage are … relaxing as though the pandemic is already over,” said WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “The world is at a perilous point in this pandemic … far too many countries in every region in the world are seeing sharp spikes in cases and hospitalization.”
His remarks came as several nations, particularly in Europe, were set to fully reopen or had already lifted some virus curbs, even as the delta variant was gaining ground.
In Spain, authorities in some regions reimposed restrictions on nightlife this week amid a surge in infections among younger people who have not yet been vaccinated. A French minister on Thursday advised residents to refrain from travel to Spain and Portugal, where the delta variant is prevalent.
In England, where at least 95 percent of new cases are caused by the delta variant, Johnson announced plans to relax nearly all covid-related restrictions later this month. The move to reopen could lead to a daily case rate of 100,000 this summer, Britain’s health secretary said earlier this week. But officials there say that widespread vaccinations will help keep hospitalizations and deaths down.
“It’s been good to see the drop off in hospitalizations and deaths in many countries that are achieving high vaccination levels,” Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies program, said at the briefing.
He also pointed to a 33 percent increase last week in new cases in the 55 countries that make up the WHO’s European region.
“I think that it’s also a moment for extreme caution for countries right now,” he said. “So the idea that everyone is protected and it’s Kumbaya and everything goes back to normal — I think that is a very dangerous assumption anywhere in the world. And it’s still a dangerous assumption in the European environment.”
According to the WHO and data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, the pandemic’s official global death toll surpassed 4 million Wednesday, a figure Tedros said was probably an underestimate.
More than 605,000 of those deaths were recorded in the United States. But in recent months, less developed nations such as Brazil and India have contributed to a growing share of coronavirus deaths, as outbreaks in both countries ran rampant through unvaccinated populations.
Covid-19 has killed approximately 530,000 people in Brazil while in India at least 404,000 fatalities have been blamed on the virus — figures experts believe are vast undercounts.
Here are some significant developments:
- Japan will impose a state of emergency in Tokyo on Monday that would tighten coronavirus restrictions for the duration of the Olympic Games and decide whether to allow local spectators to attend the events.
- Health authorities in Australia’s New South Wales on Thursday reported the state’s largest daily increase in local coronavirus cases this year. The delta variant has driven a surge of cases in the state capital, Sydney, which remains under lockdown until July 16.
- The delta variant is now dominant in the United States, according to new estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Over the two weeks ending July 3, more than 51 percent of new cases were linked to the variant, the agency said.
- England’s coronavirus infections have quadrupled since early June, according to a new study by Imperial College London, as the delta coronavirus variant gains ground among mostly unvaccinated populations. Despite the surge, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to lift nearly all covid-related restrictions later this month.
Our History
Now we call it "paradox" because we like to think it's been mostly resolved, but when 30% of our population still believes in (or is sympathetic to) the notion of separation by class or by "race", then it has to be obvious that we haven't resolved much of anything - we've only changed the phrasing.
Remember your Ayn Rand: Contradiction exists, but it cannot prevail.
From right here in my own backyard - Monticello.org:
Unlike countless enslaved women, Sally Hemings was able to negotiate with her owner. In Paris, where she was free, the 16-year-old agreed to return to enslavement at Monticello in exchange for “extraordinary privileges” for herself and freedom for her unborn children. Over the next 32 years Hemings raised four children—Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston—and prepared them for their eventual emancipation. She did not negotiate for, or ever receive, legal freedom in Virginia.
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This is a painful and complicated American story. Thomas Jefferson was one of our most important founding fathers, and also a lifelong slave owner who held Sally Hemings and their children in bondage. Sally Hemings should be known today, not just as Jefferson’s concubine, but as an enslaved woman who – at the age of 16 – negotiated with one of the most powerful men in the nation to improve her own condition and achieve freedom for her children.
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This is a painful and complicated American story. Thomas Jefferson was one of our most important founding fathers, and also a lifelong slave owner who held Sally Hemings and their children in bondage. Sally Hemings should be known today, not just as Jefferson’s concubine, but as an enslaved woman who – at the age of 16 – negotiated with one of the most powerful men in the nation to improve her own condition and achieve freedom for her children.
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| The Sage of Monticello & Shannon LaNier Jefferson's 6th Great Grandson |
Jul 7, 2021
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